When former Stargate writer/Exec Producer Rob Cooper told me he was coming to town for a few days, I knew it could mean only one thing: Four Crawl!  The last time visited, we were joined by fellow Stargate alum Ivon Bartok and Alex Levine for a tour of some of Toronto’s best pizza spots –

November 3, 2023: Pizza Crawl!

Hard to believe we only sampled four pizzas that night, but I was feeling ambitious this time around as our culinary target shifted from pizza to fried chicken sandwiches!   I did some research and made selected our destinations figuring we would start west and work our way east through six different stops sampling six different fried chicken sandwiches (half a sandwich at each stop).

Our first stop was Dave’s Hot Chicken.  They offer a variety of heat levels including Hot, Extra Heat, and Reaper (which requires the signing of a waiver).  Although tempted by the latter, I was mindful that we’d be sharing so we split two Hots.

Pretty damn delicious and, looking back, probably the spiciest of the sandwiches we had on this crawl.

Our second stop was Chen Chen’s Nashville Hot Chicken, a place I’d heard a lot about but never tried.  Well, I was to rectify that on this night.  Here, we were given a choice between the regular Nashville Hot and their signature Szechuan Nashville Hot and opted to go with the latter.

Alas, poor lighting yielded a terrible photo so I had grab one off the net and, truly, this one was as delicious as pictured – crispy, sweet and slightly spicy.

Our third stop was one of my personal favorites, Tokyo Hot Fried Chicken.  In addition to the standard Nashville Hot, they also offer an award-winning Tokyo Style sandwich that is one of the city’s best.

It includes sesame soy spicy mayo and wasabi mayo, green onions, ginger slaw, and pickles.  Fantastic.

I mentioned they also do a Nashville Ice – basically a Nashville Hot Fried Chicken sandwich served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream – but there were no takers.  Presumably it was too early for dessert.  For what it’s worth, I had it on yet another food tour back in 2021, and it was delicious –

June 3, 2021: The Food Tour!

Our third stop was PG Clucks.  Both Ivon and I had taken out from this place in the past and enjoyed it but, on this night, we were looking forward to eating them straight from the shop.  No sit-down area alas, just a tiny bench in front of the take-out window.

Ivon asked them to cut the sandwiches in half but they refused on the grounds that it would be too messy (even though the other places managed just fine).  Armed with a plastic knife, we defied expectations and managed to cut the sandwiches without much mess, muss, or fuss.

We went with the jalapeño-Honey and, much like the preceding sandwiches on this tour, was pretty damn tasty.

Couldn’t resist snapping a shot of the Star Wars-themed burlesque show running next door.  I’m not a big Star Wars fan.  Rob on the other hand…

I was prepared for a trip to Kensington Market where we would hit stops 5 and 6 on this food crawl only to learn that both Ivon and Rob were tapped out.  They couldn’t eat another chicken sandwich – but could go for some dessert.  Alex was equally disappointed in Rob and Ivon’s no-can-do attitudes so we compromised and headed to Ossington for ice cream at Bang Bang Ice Cream and Bakery.  But first…

We stop in at a spot I’ve been meaning to try – Ghost Chicken.

Rob and Ivon sat by while Alex and I tried what would be our fifth and final half chicken sandwich of the night.  We went with the Sweet and Sour.  The lettuce and tomatoes gave it a nice freshness, but I was missing the promised zing of the tamarind oregano spice, pickled onions, and jalapeño crema.

Our final stop: Bang Bang Ice Cream & Bakery – that always has a line-up, regardless of the time or the weather.

In keeping with the half sandwich theme of the night, I did the ube ice cream and peanut butter cookie sandwich.  Phenomenal.

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So, how did the sandwiches stack up against each other?  Well, although it was close, the consensus favorite was Chen Chen’s followed by Tokyo Hot.  There was disagreement on the #3 and #4 spots as Rob and I leaned PG Clucks while Ivon and Alex slightly preferred Dave’s Hot.  Again, it was very close.  Alex and I put Ghost Chicken at #5.  A solid sandwich but not in the same class as the others.

A good time was had by all and Rob informed us that he would be coming back in March for a follow-up food crawl.  Next time, we’ll be sampling Toronto’s best smashburgers!