In retrospect, ordering a giant vegetable sandwich for my lunch date wasn’t my smartest move.
Rick Silver — better known to his more than 36,000 Instagram followers as @dicks.world — was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in January. Chemotherapy has left him unable to eat many of the foods that built his following as one of Toronto’s most enthusiastic restaurant reviewers.
Still, the 63-year-old wanted to check out the two-week-old Italian sandwich shop La Baciata in midtown, where the thin, crispy bread is fermented and baked in-house. It’s the sister restaurant of downtown bakery Dacasto Pasticceria, and its oversized sandwiches are meant to be shared between two people — or stretched into two meals.
My Ortolana sandwich is overflowing with fresh arugula, sautéed peppers, mushrooms salted just right, basil pesto and creamy burrata spread all over the bread. It’s a proper veggie sandwich, not an afterthought composed of toppings meant to accompany meat.
It’s not that Silver is allergic. Since being diagnosed with leukemia in January, chemotherapy has weakened his immune system. He avoids raw vegetables because of E. coli concerns, deli meats because of listeria risks, raw seafood and soft cheeses.
“When the server asks if anyone has a food allergy, now I’m the guy that says ‘yes,’” he quipped. “I’m more of a burger than a salad guy, but boy do I miss a salad. Nothing like biting into a sub sandwich with tomatoes, lettuce, mortadella, ham, onions.”
Silver wears a mask while filming our lunches being made. The staff play along, angling the sandwiches toward his phone camera. He had already tried the house-made meatball sandwich a week earlier after it was delivered to his hospital bed by his son, but he wanted to come back for a proper assessment. His appetite comes and goes with treatment, but today he can eat, giving a thumbs-up to the veal sandwich before suggesting we stop at a nearby doughnut shop.
Silver’s online adventures began during the pandemic, when he started posting about just about everything. He pivoted to food after an impromptu review of Black Camel’s brisket sandwich in June 2021. Since then, he’s built an audience by focusing on small, casual spots around the city, occasionally doing sponsored posts or accepting invitations from restaurant owners. By day, he runs OPIO, an app that helps businesses manage online customer reviews, as well as N49, a site that aggregates business ratings.
Even with his new food restrictions, Silver hasn’t stopped reviewing. Patio season allows him to avoid indoor dining. During hospital stays, he posts reviews of takeout — and occasionally hospital meals. Restaurant owners who follow him have sent boxes of pastries to share with his caregivers.
“There’s every food imaginable on a 10-block strip, and you can try a new culture every day,” he said.
At 63, Silver’s review videos are charmingly unpolished. The camera work is sometimes shaky or blurry. The lighting is determined by nature or a restaurant’s unforgiving overhead fixtures. His narration lacks the monotone “get ready with me” cadence common on TikTok. Instead, his voice carries a rich, comforting Yiddish melody, like an uncle putting his arm around your shoulder to tell you everything is going to be OK.
“I think it’s a bit of the ‘listen to Uncle Dick.’ I tell it like it is. I have no desire to bulls—t my way through a review. I think a Joey or a big chain restaurant is a fair target, but I’m hesitant to hurt a small business just because I had one bad experience.”
Everything changed at the end of last year when Silver was passing kidney stones and was admitted to hospital in early January with an enlarged spleen.
“They immediately started treatment that night,” he said. “I was on chemo and I’ve been doing that ever since. I’m in remission now and that kept things at bay, but I can’t produce white blood cells, the chemo kind of knocks that out.”
Another side effect of treatment is mucositis, an inflammation of the mucous membranes in the mouth and gastrointestinal tract.
“For a foodie to be painful to eat is obviously a dilemma,” he said. “But I make the best of it. I’m eating these big sandwiches to fatten myself up between the mucositis.”
After losing 20 pounds, Silver decided he couldn’t hide his diagnosis from his audience any longer. He began sharing monthly updates about his treatment and, from his hospital room, continued reviewing takeout.
Takeout potato soup from United Bakers Dairy Restaurant is one of his comfort foods, even if he thinks the potato chunks could be smaller. Sunnybrook Hospital’s meat loaf, meanwhile, was deemed questionable, prompting the hospital’s social media account to reply: “Care level: world-class. Tasty food? Maybe not, but definitely nutritionally on point.”
After another so-so review of Sunnybrook’s pancakes — “They do their best, they have to do thousands of meals and they have to be healthy,” Silver said in defence of hospital food — Susie’s Rise and Dine on College Street delivered 10 orders of pancakes for him to share with hospital staff. Select Bakery sent almond cookies and baklava. Scarborough’s La Bastille Patisserie delivered croissants and danishes.
“They’re showing love to the team who fix me up all the time,” he said.
“The support, the optimism from restaurants, fans, that has given me such strength,” he says. “It’s humbling.”
He’s a busy man and is looking forward to his daughter’s outdoor wedding that weekend.
I joke that he still has years before he can rest, but Silver bluntly says this could be his last summer. After a pause, the conversation returns to food.
“There’s still a million things I haven’t tried. I’ve never had Ethiopian food or Moroccan food,” he said. “There’s just so many dishes and food stones left unturned for me that will make this an exciting summer.”
