When I was young, I bemoaned not being a beauty. It seemed the gorgeous girls had it so easy. Everything came their way, no sweat. But it turns out that while I was breaking sweat to make a life, some of the beauties I knew weren’t having it so good.
Not long ago, I ran into one of them. Two marriages down, she can still get any guy who gazes upon her, and she still jets, bejewelled, to global party places. But who needs it? I’d rather have my stable family life.
Which puts me in mind of Nick Liu. As chef of Niagara Street Café in 2008, he was the beauty. No matter what new act of culinary daring Liu attempted, we were putty in his hands. His fusion veered more towards the French than to his Markham Chinese heritage. After Niagara Street Café closed in early 2012, Liu put out the word that he was soon to open a restaurant called GwaiLo, Cantonese slang for “foreign devil.”
But two things happened. First, chef seems to have realized it’s not such a great idea to bite the hand that feeds, so he changed the name to DaiLo. And second, he got stuck in pop-up land. That’s where star chefs go to make twice the money with half the headaches. Liu did pop-ups in places like (the former) Senses — moribund restos that needed rent money. He popped around town for almost three years, getting a barrel of blog attention — being that beauty.
And now — finally — DaiLo is open, in the College Street space where Grace once lived. Why, you wonder, have I hemorrhaged so much ink on history and left so little space for the food?
Because that’s all this food deserves.
They’re calling it Asian with a French accent but I’m calling it confused and uncommitted. Does the world need Chinese food that re-invents the wheel mediocrely? Big Mac bao is steamed bun with hamburger meat and a pickle inside (!) and house-made processed cheese sauce outside. Yuck. Crispy octopus is deep-fried overcooked octopus with overcooked red braised pork saved (almost) by coriander and sweet spices. OK wontons come drowning in too much dark brown house XO sauce. Black bean chili Brussels sprouts are all right, but they’ve been browned so dark that their membership in the vegetable kingdom is unsure. As for Singapore curry cauliflower, think Singapore noodle spicing (commercial curry powder) gone thick and goopy. Not fun.
The smoked trout and the Peking duck tacos are both charming and properly done. But hey, in a town full of tacos, hardly special. For dessert, the coconut lime leaf rice cake (so-called) is dry and the advertised flavours are MIA
And yet DaiLo is super-cool and quite mobbed. Well, the beauties never had to do much either.
503 College St. / $80 Dinner for two
Ambience: Elegant yet bustling turn-of-the-century Chinese bistro
Signature Dish: Whole fried trout served with a trio of sauces: green curry mayo, caramel-soy glaze and nam jin