Toronto Restaurants by Stephanie Dickison

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The Spotlight - Devilled Eggs

Ever notice how certain food items crop up all of a sudden?

It starts out innocently enough, with a scattering across seemingly dissimilar menus, but then overnight, scads of cheese tea, fuwa fuwa (Japanese soufflé pancakes), and other menu items suddenly require your attention.

The Spotlight is a regular feature highlighting a dish or ingredient that’s taking over the city.

This week: the perfect holiday nosh, Devilled Eggs.

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You wouldn’t know it unless you took a deep dive into Toronto restaurant menus, but there’s an extensive array of devilled eggs available across our fair city. in unexpected places too: alongside authentic Texas barbecue, Filipino fare, and Korean shareables, to start.

This celebratory dish is an ideal snack anytime, but especially now during the holiday season. It’s also a cheap eat, ranging from just $2 to $7 a plate.

Lake Inez

1471 Gerrard St. E.

Head to one of the city’s best restos for Chef Jay Moore’s Asian-inspired gluten-free dish ($7 for 2 halves) boasting smoked chicken skin, house-fermented lemon kosho (long-fermented lemon and shishito pepper) and togarashi.  

p.s. Vegetarians can get in on the action with fried burdock served in place of the poultry crackling.  

The Gabardine

372 Bay St.  

The Bay St. resto, established in January 2011, was one of the first to put devilled eggs on the menu back in the day.

Traditional stuffed eggs ($6/4) - paprika, mayonnaise, sour cream, mustard, and hot sauce – are available during both lunch and dinner service.

Her Father’s Cider + Kitchen

119 Harbord St.

The canapés ($5) at Harbord Village’s cider destination get a unique twist, thanks to pumpkin, cranberry sriracha, and horseradish. They’re also vegetarian and gluten-free. 

Wallflower

1665 Dundas St. W.

Devilled eggs are just $2 at this bar/restaurant combo on Dundas West.

70 Ossington Ave.

Kimchi Devilled Eggs ($5 for 3 halves) have been on the menu since Té opened in summer of 2016. Redressed with kimchi paste, sesame and yolk mash, and topped with finely chopped bacon, the classic appetizer gets a modern upgrade. 

The Comrade

758 Queen St. E. 

Paired with their Thyme Potato Chips ($7), Shisito Peppers ($9) and Jamon Serrano ($12), you’ve got a veritable picnic dinner waiting to happen with these lil’ beauts ($7).

Lamesa Filipino Kitchen

669 Queen St. W.

 Though not a separate dish, Devilled Egg Paksiw are part of the Kamayan "Hand-To-Mouth" set menu ($40 pp), available Sunday evenings at Queen West’s popular Filipino eatery.

Beach Hill Smokehouse

172 South Main St.

The new BBQ eatery in The Beach features a most unique side - Devilled Egg Potato Salad (reg $4/lg $7).

Pitmaster/Co-Owner Terrance Hill created the Potato Salad because “both Southern Potato Salad and Devilled Eggs are staples in Southern Cuisine, so I merged the two together.

Normally you would boil the eggs, separate the yolks from the whites and mix in spices, mayo, mustard, pickle relish, etc... and pipe that into the egg white halves.  

We kinda do the same process except we dice the eggs whites into the potato mix and spices, then we create the filling separately. We fold that into the potato salad and add a little bit of Tex/Mex appeal with some fresh cilantro. It’s really good.” 

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Note: menu items, ingredients and prices subject to change.