Restaurant Review: Emma's Country Kitchen
EMMA'S COUNTRY KITCHEN
810 St. Clair Avenue West ~ emmascountrykitchen.com Instagram: @emmacountrykitc ~ Twitter: @emmacountrykitc Co-Diner: Tim Golem
Delicious breakfast! You want that in your life. Emma's specializes in breakfast seven days a week and will make sure that you leave their restaurant satisfied and happy. You might have seen them on season 4 of You Gotta Eat Here! or noticed that blogTO named them the #1 Best All-Day Breakfast in town. They're open from 8am to 3pm every day of the week - don't expect to find any sort of dinner menu here - it's breakfast and brunch comfort food all day, every day! When visiting on the weekend you can typically expect to be met with a bit of a wait to get in. They tend to move things along pretty quickly, but obviously the later that you arrive, the longer that the wait will likely be. I stopped in on a holiday Monday and the place was bumpin'. You'll usually find them open on statutory holidays when lots of other spots opt to remain closed. The restaurant is fairly unassuming from the street, with their brown signage. On the inside you'll find that the room is quite spacious, with a few tables up in the front and quite a lot more in the back. They underwent a renovation a few years ago which has really helped to maximize their space. The decor is minimal and the ambiance is warm, buzzing and welcoming. After a reasonable wait, we were seated at a table in the back section and were promptly served by the friendly wait staff. Emma's wants you to enjoy fresh comfort food and that includes; bakery items that are made fresh in-house daily, using only local meats that they cure and smoke themselves, and freshly fried donuts. The menu is filled with the delicious classics that you crave and each one is done really well. As a tea drinker, I asked for Tea ($3.00) and chose English Breakfast since I enjoy black tea in the morning.
Their tea is provided by Tea Squared, a company from Canada. I prepare my black tea with milk and sugar and enjoyed a perfectly warm and pleasant cup. Can't go wrong with that! I also noted that Emma's offers some pretty awesome brunch cocktails, and the Emma's Caesar especially caught my eye. On another day when I'm feeling more "fun" I will certainly give it a try! There are lots of items on the menu; from their rotating (and usually seasonally appropriate) pancake flavours, to a daily quiche, to the classically southern biscuits and gravy. They've even got avocado toast for the millennials. However, their most renowned item has to be the Emma's Benny ($16.00), a must-try.
Warm and fluffy buttermilk biscuit topped with house cured peameal bacon, soft poached eggs and smothered in mousseline sauce. Served with a side of red skin potatoes.
The food arrived fairly quickly and I eagerly sliced into my perfectly poached eggs. Emma's signature buttermilk biscuit is impossibly buttery and absorbs the surrounding egg yolk and mousseline mélange decadently well. The peameal bacon is truly something special, utilizing Toronto's famous meat so well. Hormone and antibiotic free, their meats come from the best butcher in town; Sanagan's Meat Locker. Their peameal is salty and tender, a delicious protein base. What's the difference between mousseline and hollandaise sauce? It's a richer version of the classic that uses whipped cream. As if hollandaise could get any better. This benedict is like a hug of happiness for your stomach. The potatoes were fine, a little bit plain. I could have used a bit more crisp on them, but they tasted good with salt and ketchup. Emma's is pretty well-known for serving up some of the best donuts in town. Chances are that after eating a big, filling breakfast that you might not think that you have any room left for a donut. So take your donut to-go! You don't want to miss out! Their flavours change all the time (Instagram is a reliable source to find out what they've got in the case each day) and on my visit they had one of their best ones; Maple Bacon ($3.25).
A lot of people are doing a maple bacon donut. It's a pretty trendy flavour. But it's my opinion that Emma's is doing the best version of it that I have ever tried. The way that they handle the bacon on this donut is by far the best. It's ultra abundant and crumbly, capturing the salty and sweet combo expertly well. If your a fan of the maple bacon donut, this is the beginning and end of it right here! Emma's Country Kitchen is a perfect little breakfast (not so) secret. They bring country flavours right into the city and serve up what you dream of for a classically delicious breakfast. You want this!