Pinky's Ca Phe

This September my family finally tackled a trip on my mom’s bucket list: the Toronto Film Festival.

It was a wonderful week full of delicious food and fun movies. Every day went like this: eat, watch movie, eat, repeat. Really, what more could you want? It was my dream.

We quickly fell in love with the festival, the city, and the food. But especially the food.

Our favorite meal was at Pinky’s Ca Phe, a dimly lit, kitschy little restaurant located in a house off Queen Street. It doesn’t look like much but trust me – this was the best meal we had. We began with Tiger Milk Ceviche, with chunks of fresh fish in coconut milk, lime, and herbs, and crispy taro chips to scoop it all up. "Shovel" might be more accurate; I ran my fingers around the empty bowl, trying to lap up the last drops.

Sliced jalapeños, hot red chili, and creamy coconut milk to cut the heat. Perfection!

Next came the Mango Papaya Salad with charred squid. Sweet, sour, and fresh, the tangles of crunchy papaya and meaty yet delicate squid were right en pointe.

Such color! Red chili, green onions, yellow papaya, and purple squid.

The Grilled Meat Platter was the main dish, with lemongrass chicken, pork jowl, and beef short ribs. We wrapped the succulent meat in crisp lettuce leaves, and stuffed it with julienned carrots, a sweet spicy sauce, and cilantro. The meat was savory and juicy while the herbs and vegetables kept it fresh. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

We each got a FOCO loco - which tastes as fun as it sounds - to wash it all down. The bartender inverts a can of passion fruit juice in a glass filled with alcohol and ice. It was sort of like a refreshing riff on Coronaritas, that beachy Mexican-American drink.

Foco Loco, indeed!

We finished the meal with the tres leches cake, a spicy-sweet batter topped with cool whipped cream. Our waitress compared it to a McCain’s Deep ’n Delicious cake, which is a beloved Canadian grocery store treat. Tres leches is supposed to be creamy (after all, the name means "milk") but it was just a wee too wet for my taste. But, I barely cared; the savory dishes were so good!

The addictive combination of spicy, salty, sweet, and meat, made Pinky's Ca Phe the place I want to revisit again and again and again.