Eden of Asia

Night It Up!

Spent a wonderful night with my baby at the annual Asian night market. Proceeds go towards a good cause! Eat and help others, how much better can it get? Note, these are not actual shops, so you'll have to wait until next year if you want to try these. Sorry! :/

Potato tornado.

Taiwanese mini oysters omelette.

Stinky tofu. Longest line in the whole market.

Countless food, two sexy ladies, one sweaty (but awesome) night! :)

As my mom likes to say, 'Summerdelicious!'

For those who don't know, during the summer, Toronto has an annual event called "Summerlicious" where a series of 'higher end' restaurants from many different cuisines offer a 3 course prix fixe menu for public tasting. Lunch and dinner range from $15-$45. For more info, visit: http://www.toronto.ca/special_events/summerlicious/2011/index.htm 

This restaurant is perfect for those living around the campus. ;)

 Sorry, but I forgot the name of this drink, but it's just juice.

My appetizer, watermelon carpaccio with lobster mousse, cucumber gelee, preserved olives and herb dressing. This dish is quite creative since carpaccio is traditionally made with raw beef. The taste is very refreshing, perfect way to start of a summer meal. Everything on the plate worked very well together, despite my initial impression that it has too much going on. I enjoyed how they put things I thought I'd never see together and transform it into such a coherent dish. Although I must say, I would've liked more seafood flavour from the lobster mousse. It's kinda on the bland side and in addition to the texture, it's more like margarine.

Main dish: Mushroom Ravioli in Truffle Scented Broth with Braised Leeks and Pecorino Tartuffo. Quite disappointed. The skin of the ravioli is quite hard and tastes store bought. I also think they tried too hard to emphasize the truffle scent in the broth that in the end had the opposite effect. The broth is way too bland and very much in need of salt. I really don't know what else to say; I'm just deeply saddened by the quality of this dish. 

Vichyssoise (chilled potato soup) with lobster and truffle essence. This is the appetizer my friend ordered; I only had a sip so I couldn't comment much on this. But she did say that she wished the soup was warm instead.

Dessert: Lui D'or, rind washed (firm and flavourful) Jura style cheese, awarded best Canadian cheese 2011. And of course, how can I not try this? I was more of a fresh cheese type, but I must say I was converted after this meal. Lui D'or is not as tangy as Appenzeller, but it's just right. The fruits really bring out the flavour of the cheese. I can't really describe it anymore, but you have to taste it to know. 

Blueberry Tartlet with White Chocolate Crème Diplomat, Toasted Meringue and Lime Gelee. I must say the lime gelee is quite extra. But I've only had a bite of this, so can't comment much further. 

There'll be no ratings for this post since I don't believe Summerlicious accurately displays what restaurants have to offer due to inflated numbers of customers and the need for mass production. Quality just wouldn't be the same as visiting the restaurants on a regular day. But overall, I was quite pleased with this restaurant. Oh, and supposedly this is a French restaurant, but it tastes more Italian than French (not that it's a bad thing). 

Address: 

100 Cumberland St
Toronto, ON M5R 1A6

(416) 964-2222

View Larger Map

Easy as 1,2,3!

So the other day, I went to a Korean supermarket and found the large pack of frozen buckwheat noodles on the left. It also contains the soup base for Naengmyeon. Basically, these are all the ingredients I used to make the Korean cold noodle. (Some of the stuff here are extra, and not Korean, but it tastes better together in my opinion :). 

...Inside the big green package, to left are frozen buckwheat noodles and the right is one of 3 packs of soup base included. *Please don't make the same mistake as me; thaw your soup base beforehand (don't defrost the noodles though).

Just put the frozen noodles in boiling water and it'll break apart by itself. Cook at high heat for about 3 mins.

To achieve that chewy taste, use cold water to rinse your noodles until they're chilled.

While the noodles are cooking, cut up your apple and cucumber into shreds.

Boil your egg.

Put the noodles at the bottom and place the cucumber and apple shreds on top.

The soup base is more salty than sour, and this dish is supposed to be sour, so I put in some sushi vinegar. If you have apple vinegar, use that, it's even better!

Place the egg and masago caviar on top, and tada! Perfect dish for a blazing summer day! Bon appetite! :) 

I'd rather have tea with Alice in Wonderland

On a typical weekday after 3 hours of dry lecturing by our lovely prof and being so tired of the oily, disgusting food near campus, my friend and I decided to go to a place a few blocks from campus; Alice Fazzoli's. I usually prefer small bistros instead of chain restaurants (or restaurant chains?) because their food is usually more personal and overall a better quality because they don't have to produce a mass amount of food each day. However, I was looking forward to revisiting Alice Fazooli's since they have the best bread I've ever tasted! 

Both my friend and I ordered the same thing; Seafood Linguine. It has mussels, scallops, shrimps, baby spinach (I believe), and shredded green and red pepper. All the seafood, except for the shrimp tastes very fresh, for a seafood dish, freshness of the seafood really makes or breaks the dish. This dish tastes pretty good for a restaurant chain, the portion is great, neither of us were able to finish the whole thing. The linguine is just store bought quality, nothing special. 

What really disappointed me was that they no longer serve the rosemary bread that I was obsessed with there. The new replacement is just like a regular baguette. :'( 

Overal Review: 

Food: 7.6/10

Beyond disappointed about the rosemary bread. The linguine was good but...my rosemary bread... :(

Ambience: 7.5/10
It has this cliché modern design which is way too overused these days. I mean, it's not bad, but it's  blah.

Service: 7/10
Maybe because we went at such an odd time (4pm), we could never get hold of our waiter and the food took super long to come despite the fact that we were the only people there.

Price: 8/10
$17 for the seafood linguine, pretty good in my opinion.

Final Verdict: 7.5/10
Unless I'm surrounded by Swiss Chalets, Jack Astor's, or MacDonald's, I don't think I will visit Alice Fazooli's again.

Address:
294 Adelaide St W
Toronto, ON M5V 1P6

(416) 979-5413

View Larger Map

Krazy for Koreans Pt. 6

As many of you may know, Toronto has two Koreatowns (one old one new). Since my friends and I have already thoroughly explored the old Ktown at Christie Station, we decided to venture into the unknown territory that is North York. The general impression is that the Korean stores are much more scattered and is stretched across North York (roughly from Yonge and Sheppard to Yonge and Steeles). 

I had my eyes set on this restaurant before we went. My friend, who lives very close to Joons recommended me to try this place. I've also heard people rave about this place over the internet, so I was beyond excited to give it a try!

This is Joons's specialty called Dak Galbi, which is a stir-fry typically with cabbage, chicken dices, onions, scallions, ttoek (Korean rice cakes) etc. So this is how it looks like before it's cooked. When you order this, they just bring you the whole pot and cook it in front of you.

Note: they place orders by portions. There's three portions here.

The ttoek and cheese we ordered caused extra. There are three types of soup bases, the teriyaki, mild spicy (chilli paste) and the very spicy base. We chose the teriyaki because my friends cannot really take spicy food. While I was taking pictures, the waitress was laughing at me, and the all the employees gathered around our table and started speaking in Korean lol. Awkward.

Finished product. Cheese + teriyaki + chicken + Korean food may sound like quite an odd combination, but this is the best stuff ever! Not just speaking for a cheese enthusiast point of view, but my friends (whom aren't as fond of cheese as I am) thought this was great! Somehow, all the odd flavours work very well together. Everything is soaked with the teriyaki sauce, everything's just so gooey, warm and fuzzy kinda like baby food (in a good way). One complaint I have is that the sauce is wayyy too sweet. 1/2 way through, it gets sickening. It didn't look like a lot to start with, but we couldn't finish it and we were full (or sick, we couldn't tell) for hours. I think the spicy sauce would've been better.

Overall Review:
Food: 9.5/10
Heavenly, since they combined two of my favourite things that I've never thought would go together (Korean food and cheese). The only problem is that it's over-seasoned.

Ambience: 6/10
Slightly better than a cafeteria, and the tables were sticky.

Service: 6.5/10
The employees were almost overly polite; each time they approach our table, they say "excuse me." I just didn't like the boss, she was yelling at everyone and when I went to the counter to pay, she took forever to notice me and took forever to take my payment and she was sighing and yelling in Korean the whole time.

Price: 8/10
Slightly more expensive compared to other Korean restaurants. Each portion of the Dak Galbi was ~$9, so we paid ~$30 for that. Since I paid by card, they also forced me to either tip 15% or 20% with no other options. I mean the food was good, but forcing me to tip a certain amount is not cool.

Final Verdict: 7.5/10
Despite all that, it is definitely worth giving Joons a try. There aren't many places in Toronto that serves Dak Galbi. Their Naengmyeon (cold noodles) is also one of the best in Toronto (and unlike other restaurants, they only serve it during the summer). However, I would suggest going to the Joons near Bathurst Station instead if you don't live in North York. From what I've heard, the food and service is way better.

Address:
4852 Yonge St
North York, ON M2N 5N2
(416) 840-0589



View Larger Map