The smell that makes your mouth water..

Well.. not exactly the best smelling snack on Earth. Behold, the most notorious snack in Chinese cuisine, the stinky tofu. You can smell this from a mile away if they made it properly. It smells literally like the combination of garbage (specifically compost) and excrement, I'm not exaggerating (yeah yeah, ew I know). Rumour has it that the way Ancient Chinese found the tofu has rotten in their kitchen, and since the village people were very poor, they just fried the tofu and ate it. I overheard this guy while waiting for the tofu that people used to submerge the tofu in leftovers hence creating the reeking smell. Of course, they no longer do this. 

The texture is like any other fried tofu, but despite the nasty smell, the tofu actually tastes better (and it doesn't taste like how it smells). You could either dip it in a sweet sauce (the black one) or the chilli sauce. For some reason, the nasty smell actually enhances the flavours of the tofu. This dish is not for everyone, I just happen to like it. For those brave souls out there, definitely give this a try! This is an experience you'll remember for sure!

Krazy for Koreans Pt. 5

My friend and I decided to go eat some spicy Korean food on the hottest day in Toronto yet (~40°C) haha. That should show you our dedication to Korean cuisine :P She has eaten at all the restaurants in the Christie Koreatown, and she convinced me to give it another try, so we went to a restaurant called Seoul Restaurant. 

This is my friend's Dak Bokkeum (Spicy Chicken Stew). It was my first time trying this dish and I absolutely loved it! For those who don't know, it contains diced chicken, eggs, green onions, soy bean sprouts and sliced black fungus. The broth is similar to that of Kam Ja Tang, but more savoury. If you've never had this, DEFINITELY try it (especially if you like Kam Ja Tang), you won't be disappointed! 

This is also the first time I've tried the Korean Kimchi Seafood Pancake (kimchi-haemul jeon). It has kimchi (of course), octopus, shrimp, small oysters, onion, and green onions. It also comes with a dip that contains soy sauce, white vinegar, chopped green onion, chilli pepper flakes and sesame oil. I'm usually not a pancake person, additionally I highly detest onions in general, but this dish makes even the green onions bearable (that says a lot). The sauce really brings the flavours out of the pancake. Definitely try this too! 

It was too hot for me to order a hot dish, so I ordered a Korean cold noodles (Naengmyeon) made with buckwheat. On top, there's an egg, sliced beef, cucumber and kimchi radish. I absolutely cannot stand weather this hot, but eating this cooled me down like a nice cold shower. I believe the restaurant only serves this during summer. The buckwheat noodles were heavenly. Spaghetti, vermicelli, pho cannot compare. It's sooo silky, like the texture of silky tofu. This is my new favourite Naengmyeon. This is better than eating ice cream during summer, since it has the same effect, but you will not feel sick from eating too much. No matter how much you eat, you'll still feel good because it's so healthy! You could also drink the broth since it's mostly vinegar. Love love LOVE this! It instantly revived me from the awful heat! 

Overall Review: 

Food: 9.5/10

No complaint except the level of spiciness is kinda off from what I'm used to. The "mild" here is actually more like the "spicy" in all the other restaurants. That may throw people off a little bit, but no complaint on the food! 

Ambience: 7/10

Well, for the price we paid, we didn't expect it to look like an Italian bistro. The place just looks like a food court, but everything is clean, so I'm satisfied. :) 

Service: 9.5/10

I was pleasantly surprised that the server speak authentic English. No communication problems unlike many other Korean places. My friend got takeout, and that came a tad bit late. But the service was quite great for Asian cuisine. 

Price: 10/10

Paid ~$20-$25 for all the stuff above. That's less than $15 per person, tips included. We also couldn't finish everything on the table. Yeah, it was great. 

Final Verdict: 9/10

Definitely recommend this place! Unless you live in North York, I highly doubt you can get such great tasting Korean food for such a low price in the GTA. If you live around Bathurst and Bloor, definitely go try it! Especially for summer! 

Address: 

621 Bloor St W
Toronto, ON M6G 1K8

(416) 532-9669

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Food makes the world go round

We decided to fine some comfort in food after finishing a difficult stats exam and we decided to eat some Mexican food. We went on the Internet and found El Trompo (The Spin in English) inside Kensington Market. 

This drink is called "Jamaica" I believe. However, it tastes more Chinese than Jamaican lols. The colour, taste and smell reminds me of the Chinese hawthorn drink. For those who don't know, it kinda tastes like cranberry juice mixed with iced tea. All in all, still a very refreshing summer drink. 

My friend ordered a Mexican Iced Tea. Again, it tastes more Chinese than Mexican ironically lols. It also tastes kinda like the drink I ordered, but a bit more sour.

My friend's zucchini quesadilla. It actually tastes as plain as the picture looks. I really don't know what else to say about this, and it costs her $6 I believe.

Melted cheese with sausage and tortillas. I've been craving for melted cheese the past couple of weeks, and I was elated to see this on the menu. I was hungry, I was ready to eat, and my expectation exceeded its taste (I so wished it was the other way around). Sigh. The cheese doesn't have that cheesy taste, it's kinda more like white elastic with washed out sausages. The tortillas were warm, so that was good, but even when it was warm, it is too firm for tortillas. 

Overall Review: 

Food: 7/10

The food does not taste bad, it just doesn't taste good. The meal wasn't memorable at all because the food feels washed out and lack the richness and "colour" in Mexican food. 

Ambience: 6/10

The tiny patio is good for summer, but a bit too squishy. The chairs and table are sticky, I felt gross since I was wearing shorts and short sleeve. 

Service: 8/10

The food came at a relatively fast time. However, it took a while for the server to notice we needed help. I didn't expect such a tiny place to let you pay with debit and credit, and they did, so that's a plus! However, I'm pretty sure when I was paying, the boss was talking about me with the chef in Mexican lols. 

Price: 6/10

I expect way more for the price. Although it's pretty cheap, ~$10-$15, but I definitely didn't get my money's worth quality wise. 

Final Verdict: 6.75/10

I don't think I'm gonna go back to the place. I don't understand why the restaurant has such a high rating on Yelp. 

Address:

277 Augusta Ave
Toronto, ON M5T 2M1

(416) 260-0097

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What would Dionysus eat?

The above video was taken in Asian Legend. As many of you may know, Asian Legend specializes in traditional Northern Chinese cuisine (mostly very spicy food). However, what I want to blog about this time is their dessert. It is a crispy apple deep fried with honey. I swear the sticky stuff is not honey but molasses. It sticks together because of the heat of the deep fried dough/apple therefore they need to cool it down so everything wouldn't be stuck together. They also have this with bananas instead of apples. I think the banana one would taste better since when placed in water, the thick layer of fried dough became quite soggy in comparison to the hardness and texture of apples. Since dough and bananas have a more similar texture, it would work better together.

Address:

4452 Sheppard Ave. E.
Scarborough

(416) 298 8081

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Eat like royalties

Crown Prince Fine Dining. In a previous blog, I mentioned another restaurant belonging to the same chain as this one. However, this one is way better overall in my opinion. It is decorated with chandeliers all over the ceiling and the overall ambiance gives this antique feel to it.

Deep fried tofu and baby bean sprout leaves wrapped in rice noodles. I liked this dish, the three components' flavours wrapped nicely together. The texture was also great; it goes from tender and silky to crunchy and rough and back. The only downside to the dish is that the tofu is too fried. It totally lost the fresh bean curd taste; without the name, I would not have known that it was tofu. I think they put the tofu into too much flour and fried it for too long leaving a hint of greasy taste that does not go with the dish. I've had better tofu in tofu rice noodles somewhere else. Since tofu is the star of the dish, this takes a lot of points away for me.

Seafood dumpling in seafood broth. This was the specialty of Crown Prince and probably the most expensive thing on the tea menu. ~$6

The puff on the top is eaten like croutons. The puff is very flaky and a bit greasy eaten on its own. I can actually taste the butter in my mouth. When it is placed in the soup dumpling, the flavours go very well together. When eaten alone, the puff tastes oily and salty, but in the broth, it tastes sweet. I'm not sure how they managed that, but it was excellent. It almost seem like the chef designed and made the puff just for the soup.

Shark fins (Chinese delicacy). I did not expect to see this in my soup. Now it makes sense why this thing was the most expensive on the tea menu.

Fresh scallops and other goodies wrapped inside the dumpling.

Angus beef wrapped in enoki mushrooms and cucumbers braised in teriyaki sauce. Let me just say this is a Japanese dish and it's not Chinese. However, they've done this better than many Japanese restaurants and definitely all the Japanese buffets. It's hard to make beef tender and well done, but this chain of restaurant continues to do that and impresses me every time. I really don't have any bad things to say about this dish.

BBQ pork bun. I usually don't order this because when I was young, my family orders this every time we go drink tea, which is every weekend lol. I kinda got sick of it at a young age. However, I remember a while ago, a person told me he really wanted BBQ pork bun after a long period without Chinese food, but since he doesn't go drink tea as often as me, I said I'll recommend him a place. I know it's been a while, but a promise is a promise. Behold the best BBQ pork bun I've tasted thus far. :)

Overall Review:
Food: 9.5/10
Most of the food here is very well done, but 0.5 was taken off of the unhealthiness. Some of the dishes are too oily and fried for my taste. :P

Ambience: 10/10
By far the best I've seen of Chinese restaurants. And by "best" I don't just mean Toronto, but also in Asia (except for one that is kinda like a resort surrounded by a lake). Maybe I'm just a sucker for Victorian interior design, but I love this place!

Service: 9/10
Again, everyone (servers) is in formal attire which goes perfectly with the ambience. The only complaint I have is that the food came out a bit slow and many waitresses had the look that they didn't want to be there on their faces. This is not their fault, but emotional management is an important sector of the service industry.

Price: 9.5/10
Some may say it's too expensive for Chinese food, and that is probably the biggest complaint about this kind of restaurants. However, the quality of the food is top notch and the quantity is also very good for the price. Compared to Italian fine dining, the price is very inexpensive. This mean was ~$25-30 mostly because of the seafood dumpling.

Final Verdict: 9.5/10
If you're in Scarborough, definitely give this place or Casa Imperial a try. If you're in Markham, definitely give Casa Victoria a try. If you're in the downtown area, give Crown Princess a try. If you want great Chinese food and don't like how loud the restaurants usually are, I highly recommend these places.

Update: these restaurants now belong to two different companies, but their style, quality and food is very similar. If you go during dinner time, the price is around 3-4 times more expensive (they serve different food).

Address:
3600 Victoria Park Ave
Toronto, ON M2H 3B2

(416) 490-8893

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Does your food sing to you?

I was around the area studying for my stats midterm, afterwards, I found this place on yelp and decided to give it a try. I am not familiar with North York at all, however, this place is pretty easy to find. 

I got the mango lychee mousse cake with a raspberry and almond macarons. The mousse cake is soft and moist. I was pleasantly surprised by how moist the sponge cake at the bottom was. However, I can get this quality of mousse cake at T&T (minus the moist sponge cake). I was underwhelmed considering I paid $5 for the piece of cake while I can get an 16" for mango mousse cake for less than $25 at T&T. The macarons were okay. The texture of it is great, however, I find the filling (especially the raspberry one) quite artificial tasting. Raspberries are supposed to be light and refreshing, but the filling was heavy, strong and overpowering.

People always get macarons and macaroons mixed up, but in fact, they're two different types of pastries. The above are macarons. The picture below is a macaroon.

Macaroons are always covered in coconut and or almond. They are often eaten like Oreo cookies (dipped in milk). Macaron is the simplified version of macaroons made with flour often filled with buttercream or ganache and macarons are often eaten alone.

I totally forgot the name of this cake. It tastes like a regular cheese cake with chocolate sponge cake at the bottom, but I'm pretty sure this is not what it is since I rarely buy chocolate desserts. This is again, more moist than the other cheesecakes. However, I was not impressed.

Guava mousse cake. Despite its rough appearance, this is actually quite smooth and it melts in your mouth. This is new and it gives you a punch of flavour once it was in your mouth. This is actually the first time I've seen/had a guava mousses cake. It is quite unusual to use a fruit like guava to make dessert, but the flavours translated well into the cake. I just might pay $5 for a cake like this again. 

Overal Review:

Food: 8/10

Despite the fact that L'Opera didn't offer me anything phenomenal, the cakes were actually good (just missing that magic ingredient). The guava mousse cake really pulled the mark up. 

Ambience: 7/10

It has this cliché "modern" design to the shop with patio tables, chairs and wall papers that matches it. It just doesn't really look like a tiny pâtisserie to me. However, it IS pretty comfortable there, except the fact that the air condition was not on on a day that's over 30°C. 

Service: 6/10

I asked the owner for a recommendation and he just pointed me towards the menu. I expected more for the price I paid. 

Price: 4/10

The price is definitely too expensive considering the quantity and quality of food served. 

Final Verdict: 6.25/10

Not impressed. I'd rather bus to Eglington and get myself some authentic French desserts. 

Address:

5291 Yonge St
Toronto, ON M2N 5R3

(416) 733-8830

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