That's Kosher

Free Times Cafe is a restaurant near College and Spadina known for its Jewish Sunday brunches. It also serves Goldin's Montreal Smoked Meat, which bested Caplansky in a smoked meat challenge a few weeks back. Since I had a good but not stellar sandwich at Caplansky's, I decided to try the competitor.

I ordered the sandwich combo ($11.95) and a glass of fresh lemonade ($4.95). The drink was rather pricey for essentially water and lots of ice. The split pea and vegetable soup was not a good combination. Instead of a dense and filling pea soup, it was watery broth with vegetables, and a layer of peas at the bottom. The deli sandwich, however, was outstanding. Rich fatty meat that fell apart when you bite into it, mildly striated with fat, and soft and moist. This was a deserving winner. The only negative is that, like Caplansky's, the "spicy" house-made mustard is not very spicy at all.

Since the volume at Free Times was smaller than Caplansky's, the service was also excellent: attentive but not intrusive.