Now That's a Wrap!

The Chinese Dragon Boat festival is here again! As a family tradition, we're making glutinous rice.

The tedious preparation that took my grandma two days. We're making both the salty and sweet kind. The day before, my grandma had to boil the red beans in sugar water to make red bean paste, soak the rice, mushrooms and conpoy in water, boil the mung beans, marinade the pork and prepare the wrapping leaves. The next day, we had to boil the chestnuts, lotus seeds, and separate the whites from the yolks for the salted duck eggs.

Et voilà, the end product! Now I will take you through the steps as how to make this.

First, arrange four leaves so it overlaps each other. Then spread the rice in the middle.

Add the premixed mung beans, lotus seeds and shiitake mushrooms. Spread it on top of the rice.

Add a strip of pork belly and the sliced egg yolks on top.

Then the chestnuts. Then cover the ingredients with the mung bean mixture and finally the rice.

Wrap it as such.

Tie it with cotton strings.

Me giving it a try. 

It's harder than it looks. You have to wrap it really tight so the ingredients don't fall out.

Tada! Then you put it in a pot, boil it for 3 hours submerged in water. Then it's ready to eat!

* I will show you the end product once it's done cooking.

A Cornucopia of Escapades

Lately, I've been occupied with a writing project, so this poor blog has been quite neglected. I will try my best to update it though. 

This post is a compilation of adventures I've been on near Toronto, but not enough material for a full blown entry. 

One Hour bubble teashop near College and Spadina. I think this is a major hangout spot near the area, with an interesting mixture of customers. The shop is largely composed of Asians and the Kensington Market folks. Its minimalist design unique in the class of bubble teashops. This is definitely not your mainstream bubble tea place which of course is appealing to the many hipsters in the area.

Hibiscus crushed ice bubble tea with tapioca and clear jelly. I mean, you don't get drinks like these in normal teashops, and it definitely doesn't get any more 'exotic' than this. ;)

Random photos from a Chinese New Year gathering at home. Apples carved with lucky sayings in Chinese.

A Chinese delicacy. I'm not an expert in Chinese food, but I'll try my best to describe this. It has shiitake mushrooms, sea cucumber, chicken broth, fish stomach, a while chicken and eggs. People usually eat variations of this dish in all kinds of big celebrations like marriage receptions, big milestones like the 60th birthday etc.

Stir fry mixed veggies. It has celery, corn, BBQ pork, carrot etc. So much yummy goodness in one dish!

Steamed chicken. Apparently, the yellower the chicken, the better it tastes. Well at least that's what my grandma told me.

Stir fry vermicelli with celery, veggies, and dried shrimp. Another traditional Chinese New Year dish.

Don't panic! The black hair-like object is not hair. It's another Chinese delicacy apparently. It is a type of rare wild seaweed. This dish contains shiitake mushrooms, dried oysters, abalone, the seaweed and Chinese cabbage at the boom (which you can't see in this photo). This is one of the 'must haves' for Chinese New Year celebrations. It has a special meaning behind the dish. The seaweed rhymes with wealth and prosperity while dried oysters rhyme with 'all good things'.

The same stir fry as before with nuts cashews. It's very simple to make, just dice up all the veggies you want in the dish, stir fry with soy sauce and add cashew afterwards. Mix well and voila!

No worries, the black stuff is a type of Asian mushrooms. Mmm.. more stir fry veggies. What can I say? I have a healthy family. :P

Something I made. Cheese tortellini, with cherry tomatoes, shiitake mushroom and asparagus in Alfredo sauce topped with Camembert cheese I believe. I still prefer my Italian cuisine.

The maple syrup festival at Brontë Creek in Burlington. These are maple taffy. They pour the maple syrup into the ice wedges, leave it in for a while, pop it out, and cool it some more on the ice blocks and voila!

A bit too sweet for my taste though.

Victorian lady teaching us how to make maple syrup.

Oh look! He's drilling a whole for the spile! (Sorry, I had to. It's a Hunger Games reference for those interested.)

Boiling the maple syrup. 

Cherry picking near Niagara Falls! The tractor pulling us into the cherry field/forest.

The Cheltenham Badlands in Mississauga. 

BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Toronto

The only Asians in this whole place. The greetings person at the door was super nice to us.

Such unparalleled stunning architecture.

And again.

And again.

Thanks for reading. :)

P.S. If you like my title, you're awesome. :)

Fishing for Amazing Sandwiches

On a night where my fellow residence mates and I didn't really feel like eating cafeteria food, one of them suggested to give The Fish Store a try. It was afterwards that I found out this place is rated the best sandwich shop in Toronto by blogTo! 

 The shop had a large bulletin board with raved reviews from news papers, different social domains, yelp, urbanspoon etc.

Their clam chowder. My friend really enjoyed it, saying it is creamy, rich with the sweetness of seafood etc. I also ordered a bowl of clam chowder and compared it to what I had in Seattle. My expectations of a clam chowder skyrocketed after my trip to Seattle last summer, and unrightfully so for a non-coastal city like Toronto. But I found that the chowder was more like mashed potatoes made into a soup with a few pieces of shrimp. There were no clams in my chowder except this small piece of shrimp in the picture above! Total opposite of Seattle. Yeah, it's safe to say Seattle changed my view on seafood forever.

(Read about my Seattle food adventures in a series of posts named "Sleepless in Seattle" here, here, here, here and here).

One of the most popular sandwiches from the shop. The grouper sandwich. This sandwich really earned the name for best sandwich shop in Toronto. The ingredients revolve around one very simple but crucial characteristic; freshness! The fish are delivered to the shop daily, sandwiches are made on the spot, and the bread comes from a local bakery delivering daily.

The basis of their sandwiches is their bread and fresh fish. The bread is crunchy on the outside, but cotton-candy soft and warm on the inside. It just makes you feel so cozy while eating it. Like I said, the fish is very fresh and succulent, which is necessary for a great sandwich. But what made this sandwich different from the rest is the yellow (what I would call it) fairy dust sprinkled on top of the sandwich. I couldn't quite put my fingers around the taste, but it kind of tastes like lemony honey mustard plus some secret ingredient. Whatever it is, it gives the sandwich dimensions and elevates it to the level of awesomeness.

My res mates' sandwich (their daily special) also sprinkled with that yellow fairy dust! I didn't try it though.

Overall Review:
Food: 9.5/10
The sandwich was exquisite, but the clam chowder just didn't do it for me personally.

Ambiance: 6.5/10
It was a cozy little shop, but a bit too cozy. There were two tables with two chairs and people had to leave (take out) because there weren't enough seats for them to dine-in. The sandwiches would be cold by the time they got home.

Price: 8.75/10
I think each sandwich is around 5-6$ but I needed the clam chowder also to make me full (sandwich + clam chowder around $10).

Service: 9/10
The owners were so nice and patient while we were deciding what to get. They're just all smiles. :) The food did take a bit of time to come, but I'm not complaining since they make it from scratch when you order.

Final Verdict: 9/10
I would definitely go back and try their other famous sandwich, the smoked salmon. I don't know what they put in the yellow powder, but they've got me hooked!

Address:
657 College St
Toronto, ON M6G 1B7
(416) 533-2822

Hours:

Mon-Sat 11 am - 9 pm (I believe they don't have the hours on their website, so here you go :) 

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A Classy Dinner Date

So my bestie and I decided to give Annona (in Park Hyatt Hotel) a try because I pass by this restaurant all the time and it always looked so fancy when I was staring in from the outside!

Bestie: pose with the bread! pose with the breadd!

This actually tasted pretty good. The homemade cracker/biscuit type thing at the back with sesame, poppy seeds and a light scent of olive oil/garnish. It tastes just like how it sounds; kinda salty, crispy and very grainy lol.

The cool bred with cheese bits and other unidentified garnish inside. The bread is very soft and fluffy (always a good sign) and the crust is crispy. The cheese and bread worked really well with the olive oil. One of the better bread I've had. And I just really like restaurants that cut up the bread for you since I always find it so clumsy to do it myself.

 Coq au vin - chicken drumstick braised in red wine. The chicken is cooked perfectly; tender and juicy fused with the perfect amount red wine (seasoned really well). The chicken taste is in perfect harmony with the acidity and sweetness of the wine.

Halibut barley risotto. If you're a big fan of creamy food, this is the dish for you! I like how they replaced rice with barley to make this risotto since it adds more dimensions to the dish. With rice, a risotto is often has this soft, gooey texture, but with barley, it retained the silky texture without the gooeyness. Since barley is quite chewy, it makes it a fun dish to eat. I really liked this since it has chunks of melted cheese mixed into the barley. Though I must say, I'm not a big fan of the halibut nor the olive oil they drizzled on the side. It upsets the balance of the dish and makes it way too heavy and filling to finish.

This is my entrée, ribeye with mushroom gratin (the grey thing in the middle) and onion rings. Okay, so starting with the ribeye. You can really tell how skilled the chef is by ordering a piece of steak. I asked for medium-rare, but the steak was totally rare (I see strands of white tendons when I cut through it). I feel that I'm starting to lose hope in restaurants in the GTA since I haven't had a satisfying/cooked well steak for a long time. Sigh. The red wine jus was so nicely flavoured, but it was not enough to rescue a ruined piece of steak. R.I.P. steak...

Moving on to the mushroom gratin (originated from France) is kind of like the French sister of lasagna. The gratin is made of many thin layers of potatoes with mushroom, cream and cheese fillings separate the potato layers. It's the first time I've had a mushroom gratin and I really liked it! Similar to eating lasagna, but it feels more hearty and satisfying. The red wine jus worked super well with the gratin also! Again, the red wine's acidity and sweetness brought a balance to what would've been a very creamy/heavy dish.

I didn't eat the onion rings so I cannot tell you how it tastes. Overall, I feel that the chef put a lot of effort in this dish, since you have to use such different techniques to cook the three components of the dish. I also liked the idea of using the same sauce for all three seemingly unrelated items to tie to dish together. Too bad the idea wasn't executed well. Sigh.

Our mini desserts.

Just mango gelato, granulated sugar and fruits. Nothing too special, though I do feel that the mango is a tad too sour.

S'more tart. Again, the idea sounds appealing but sadly the taste wasn't. You can tell if a tart is well made but cutting into it. A good tart crust is very easy to cut through (even with just a fork), but a store-bought/grocery store tart, it'll take a hammer and a very sharp knife. And this tart is definitely the most grocery-like dessert I've eaten. Ever.

Pear bread pudding. This is the least store-bought dessert on the plate. This actually tastes decent, but I don't know what else to say.

Chocolate lava cake and caramel ice cream.

It did what it was supposed to I guess. But it tastes like those lava cake mix you can buy from any grocery store.

Overall Review:
Food: 6.75/10
My friend and I got more and more disappointed with every course. The appetizers started out great, but the desserts (the part we were looking forward to the most) was a huge flop. I was expecting more for the price I'm paying and from a restaurant in the hotel.

Ambiance: 5.5/10
It definitely looked better on the outside. The dim light and the tainted glass windows definitely beautified the restaurant. Usually hotel restaurants have such nice décor and definitely very fancy schmancy. This one doesn't look like that and is definitely not going for the minimalist look. Not impressed at all.

Price: 4/10
Store bought desserts for $35/person? Not worth it at all, since the ambiance wasn't there, the skill of the chef wasn't there, the food is not great quality. So what exactly are we paying for? We're paying for the fact that it's a Park Hyatt restaurant.

Service: 9/10
The service was the only thing up to par I feel. There was a coat room, and the servers actually help us take our coats off. Before dinner started, they would place the cloth napkin on our laps, and after eating our bread, they would use that silver scraper thing to scrape the bread crumbs from the table. (If anyone knows the name of that silver thing, please tell me!)

Final Verdict: 6/10
I don't think I'm going to visit this restaurant ever again. I don't understand why they have such high reviews on yelp.ca

Address:
Park Hyatt Hotel
4 Avenue Rd
Toronto, ON M5R 2E8
(416) 324-1567




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