A couple of weeks ago I received an invite to a media preview of Toben’s Kochman’s Toben Food By Design Pop-Up Restaurant. To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect, or for that matter who Chef Toben Kochman was, but after asking my good friend, Google, I found out that Chef Toben isn’t a new comer to the Toronto dining scene.
He trained at the Cordon Bleu School of Culinary Arts in Paris where he kicked ass and was awarded Le Grande Diplome for excellence in all aspects of the program. After his training he came back to Toronto and worked alongside one of Toronto’s most famous chefs, Susur Lee, at Susur Restaurant for over three years.
Chef Toben Kochman
The broad spectrum of food available in Toronto and the tastes he discovered on his travels were the inspiration behind the ‘Twisted’ series of pop-up dinners. He wants to serve culturally diverse food, and stay true to the flavours, but still twisting up the dishes to reflect who he is.
The current series of his pop-up restaurant will be running for only 5 short nights. If you miss this one, don’t fret, Chef Toben mentioned to me that there will be more happening throughout the year. It may or may not be at 2nd Floor Events, but it will be happening.
For the media preview we were served some signature cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, which was followed up by a very international ranging 4 course tasting menu.
The nature of a popup means that the ‘restaurant’ will disappear at any time but if you want to go before this series ends, you can purchase tickets for the 12th or 13 of August here.
So without further ado, here are the dishes that we were treated to followed by a few extra pictures I took.
Cucumber Thai basil martini
This was quite delicious. The cucumber and basil combination was very refreshing. Give me a few of these on a patio and I’ll be a very happy camper.
Bourbon ginger lemongrass iced tea
While I preferred the first cocktail, my wife enjoyed this one. Don’t get me wrong, it was good, but since I’m writing this and not her, you’ll have to take my word for it.
Wild mushroom risotto cake with lemon garlic aioli and chive
I had to have more than one of these. The first one was so hot that I burnt my tongue. For the second one I patiently waited for it to cool down. Although the outer shell was nice and crispy, I didn’t get much mushroom flavour.
Jerk seared ahi tuna, charred corn and compressed watermelon salad with crispy plaintain
The tuna was perfectly cooked for this one as you can see in the picture. Being West Indian, I’m accustomed to punch-in-the-face flavours when it comes to jerk seasoning, but this one was very mild, which was a good thing for this fish.
‘Tastes’ of heirloom tomato – Lemongrass tomato water, mango kim chi, pickled cucumber, radish, cashew & scallion pancake
I’m not much of a tomato fan and this salad was just that, a salad. I did enjoy the mango kim chi though, it gave a nice sweetness to the dish.
Lime leaf sesame fried chicken, lobster mash, khao soy curry and a bacon-apple-heirloom beet slaw
Fried chicken, lobster and a smooth Thai curry sauce, what’s not to love in this dish. The chicken was moist and had a nice light batter. The mashed potatoes held little pieces of lobster, that were perfectly cooked, and the sauce brought everything together. My only complaint with this dish was that there wasn’t enough chicken.
Korean braised beef short rib, bibimbap dumpling, sweet & sour braised cabbage, fried egg and scallion mint chimichurri
Chef Toben saved the best for last. I’m a carnivore, and while I liked the chicken, I really liked this shortrib. Yes, it was salty, but I tend to like dishes that lean towards that flavour profile (I hope my doctor isn’t reading this, she already gives me shit about my weight). That beef was very tender and the little fat on the meat seemed to have soaked up the braising liquid. Yeah, I could go for this right now.
Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of the dessert course, actually I did but it wasn’t blog worthy.
All in all this was a very nice meal. There were some hits and some misses, but cooking in a pop-up setting and it being their first night, I really can’t fault Chef Toben’s team. Good service, good food!
** Disclaimer: I received a media invite for this event and while my food and drink were complimentary, all opinions expressed are my own.
