Three's No Charm

They say things come in three, good or bad. So following my bad experience at Southern Accent, my next two restaurant visits were also duds. My Sheppard lunch try-outs continued at Canton Kitchen in a plaza at Pharmacy Rd. Perhaps I had simply chosen a bad dish. But it was hard when there were more than 100 items on the menu. I picked the Beef and Egg Fried Noodle ($8.50). The presentation of this main and the complimentary soup was completely unappetizing. I've had chicken feet at dim sum, but to see a bloated version bobbing in broth was rather off-putting. The noodles were covered with a gloopy mess of egg and beef. It's hard to do Chinese wrong, but this place came close.

A few days later, I stopped for dinner at a new Italian-American eatery at Bloor and Lansdowne called Sugo. It was loud and cheerful, exuding a bit of a Jersey Shore vibe especially from the waitstaff and kitchen crew. I asked for the rigatoni ($9) and a side of meatballs ($7).  The side-dish was actually only 1 meatball, though it was fist-sized and sufficient for most people. The pasta was slathered in rosé sauce, so hot that you might burn your tongue. It was filling, but not much better than a can of sauce and some dried pasta from your supermarket. As it is not any cheaper than the superior Enoteca Sociale, Sugo won't replace Enoteca as my go-to pasta place.