Pick 6ix
is Drake’s latest hospitality venture in collaboration with Montreal’s Chef
Antonio Park. Having lived in South America, Canada, and Japan and coming from
a Korean background, you can see Chef Park’s multi-cultural influences on the
restaurant’s menu. In a single dinner I sampled dishes from all the countries!
He seems
proficient in creating recipes from each of the geographies as the three
stand-out dishes, for me, varied from Korea, Argentina, and Japan. The best was
the 8-hour braised kalbi style short rib ($38), which I’d expect from Chef
Park’s background. The slightly sweet soy marinade is bang on in terms of
flavours and thickened to form a glaze on the meaty rib. It was moist and
tender, but you could still taste the beef.
Pick
6ix’s beef empanadas ($18) reminds me of a meatier Jamaican patty in an
empanada shell. The filling is lightly flavoured with Argentinian spices and
goes especially well with the chimichurri sauce, which adds a tangy herby bite.
The
spicy salmon maki ($12) was simple but delicious: the rice thinly layered and
brimming with salmon with a significant dollop of spicy kewpie on top. So
flavourful that you wouldn’t need the house-made low-sodium soy sauce.
Although
the soft-shell crab maki ($18) was still good, I would have thought there would
be greater interest with so many ingredients - avocado, tobiko, mizuna (a
Japanese mustard green), and pickled radish. In reality, all I could taste were
the leafy greens until the soft-shell crab kicked in, at the end.
The fried
rice ($26) combines the Chinese staple where the chicken and shrimp is
presented almost teppanyaki style, layered on top. Everything arrives in a hot
stone bowl with a fried egg and sauce drizzled over top, a nod to bibimbap. It
was decent and a good option if you just want a main meal.
We
didn’t know what to expect with the choripan
asiatico ($18) but all the dishes elements – sausage, guacamole, kimchi,
mustard slaw, salsa creola and crispy
shallots – sounded enticing. Look out traditional American hot dog, the choripan asiatico is an extreme version
of one. Through all the crunchy textures the spicy sausage heat shone through,
the heat further amplified by the gochujang
spiked ketchup accompanying the fries. It is a rather heavy sandwich, so
this is best for sharing.
The pork
gyozas ($16) were fine but seemingly plain compared to the other dishes. While
the meat filling was tasty enough, it could have incorporated an unusual
element (perhaps kimchi) to give it more interest. Moreover, they’d be even
better if they were pan fried (instead of deep fried) as I love the contrast
between the chewy dough and crispy crust, a small nit-picky personal
preference.
Although
beef carpaccio ($19) is known for being thinly sliced beef, it would help if
the kitchen overlaid the slices for this dish as with the dwarf peaches,
olives, puffed quinoa, crispy wild rice, carrots, and plum emulsion the beef
became lost; all I could taste was crispy rice with sauce. Overall, aside from
this one miss, the other dishes were as I expected: good interpretations that
were satisfying but not out-of-this-world.
Similarly,
the décor was swanky, as anticipated, in a cool retro way. While the
furnishings look great, the tables aren’t exactly designed for dining – the
large booth style ones along the sides makes sharing plates difficult and the
small ones in the centre have so little room that sharing would be impossible.
Oh well, maybe none of that matters… after all, the city loves Drake.
How To Find Them
Location: Toronto, Canada
Address: 33 Yonge Street
Address: 33 Yonge Street
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____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System
- Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
- 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
- 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
- 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
- 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
- 10 - absolute perfection!
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