Black Camel: Consistently Fantastic!

Black Camel is a little café hidden away across the street from Rosedale station. So it’s not on Bay St., but it’s only a 10 minute camel ride, or, 7 minute subway ride for those that are hump averse or prefer the better way. And it’s well worth it. They have a very limited menu of five sandwiches and a few sides. My favourite is the brisket (I know what you’re thinking, but that cut comes from a cow, not a camel). The pulled pork (also not camel) comes a very close second. I haven’t tried the others, but the pulled chicken and veggie have each gotten rave reviews from my colleagues.

Mistakenly, many people try to compare this little café’s sandwiches to BBQ brisket/pulled pork sandwiches. Sure, you can compare them to Lou Dawg’s, Phil’s or many of Toronto’s mediocre BBQ smoke houses. But such a comparison would be both dead wrong with culinary standards and unfair to the comparison candidates. Why? Simply put, Black Camel does not own any BBQs or smokers. You see, a place like Phil’s smokes its brisket in a smoker for several hours. The meat becomes tender over this time and inherits the aroma and flavour of the smoke. Conversely, Black Camel braises its brisket over several hours in an oven. Believe me when I tell you that consistency is far easier to achieve in an oven than a smoker. The reward of true smoked meat, however, is greater. Unfortunately for Toronto, there are very few, if any, truly great BBQ joints (caveat: I have yet to try Stockyards).

So, off to the sandwich we go. The meat is piled heavily onto a soft-in-the-middle, yet slightly-crunchy-on-the-outside bun. The meat is just as tender as it is flavourful. The brisket is shredded, which allows it to maintain a nice meaty feel, yet almost melt away as you chew through it. The BBQ sauce is homemade from all natural ingredients and just the right amount is applied. And the fontina cheese adds just enough tang to bring everything together. A perfect sandwich? YES! Well, sort of yes. If I had to give it a ranking, I’d give it 4.62 camel humps out of 5 (isn’t that how many humps Alice the Camel had??). The sandwich gets 0.3 humps deducted for the bun being slightly soggy in some areas after a 10 minutes of transportation and 0.08 humps deducted for having some oil in the wrapper (as is evident in the picture… I honestly don’t know what this is, as the sandwich itself is not oily whatsoever). Oh wait, maybe it’s not oil, rather camel drool? Either way, it’s a deduction. If the sandwich was eaten fresh at the café, it would have gotten 4.92 out of 5.

One day, I’ll make a list of the best sandwiches. I don’t know what it will look like yet, but I do know one thing for sure – this delicious brisket will be somewhere at the top. And for $7 + tax (extra $0.90 for the cheese), it’s a wicked deal. http://www.blackcamel.ca/