Bite Me

Lunch Korean BBQ Coma

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:36:00 +0000

dre @ Midland and McNicoll: My coworker Henry wanted to eat at Chako for the longest time, so we found some time, found some more people and made our way through a snowstorm to have Korean BBQ. I don't know how long this place has been opened, but they have another location in Richmond Hill. This Scarborough version sat in a new-ish looking plaza. They had high ceilings, so hopefully the ventilation was sufficient.

It came with the usual appetizers - kimchi, turnips, fried tofu and bean sprouts.

We ordered a whole assortment of meat and I was too preoccupied with cooking to take pictures. I only got one of the grill when we first started to put food on. I was worried that I didn't cook certain things long enough or cross contaminated my tongs and chopsticks, but I felt fine a couple hours later, so no food poisoning for me! :)

For lunch, the meat choices were chicken, beef, pork, ribs, squid, and fish. I still like the beef the best because it cooked the quickest. I ate a lot of fish as well. It was some sort of white fish - I'm thinking basa. The ribs were tasty, but really really fatty. The chicken was marinated well, but took forever to cook.

The meal ended up with some prescopped green tea ice cream!

The place isn't bad, and the price was decent for lunch. We conquered a lot of plates and I skipped dinner that night.

Iron Chef Morimoto's Restaurant

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:51:00 +0000

Nelson @ Chelsea Market: Chelsea Market is also the location of Food network and also the location of Iron Chef Morimoto's restaurant. The interior is really nice with a modern open design and neat tableware. My sister had already been there, and recommended a few apps to share.

Toro Tartare: Osetra Caviar, sour cream, wasabi, dashi-soy. I wasn't expecting much from this dish, but when it came out it was a truly unique presentation. A thin layer of tuna was stuck onto a wooden board in a bed of ice. The sauces were lain out on another wooden platter, which included wasabi, sour cream, seaweed sauce, avocado and rice crisps. To eat, you would take your scrapper and scrap some fish off the board and then season it with some of the sauces. Everyone would get to try a little bit and while it was a small quantity, it was still tasty and enjoyable. The flavour was rich with the wasabi providing the strongest flavour, but not overpowering the other ones. The rice crisps provided a nice crunch and stuck to the other sauces. A well put together dish that not only looked amazing, but also tasted amazing.

We tried the octopus carpaccio, with hot oil, mitsuba leaf. Overall a little sour (I suppose that's correct for a carpaccio), a little bit of slimy green onion with a thick oil taste. This was only ok.

We tried a very simple ramen soup, "iron chef" chicken noodle soup. At $14, probably the most expensive noodles soup in existence, but I have to admit it very salty, yet had a robust amount of flavour that was more complex than I expecting. The chicken was cooked well and noodles perfectly cooked. Too bad there was so little to go around.

Oyster foie gras: market oysters, foie gras, uni, teriyaki sauce. Would these (expensive) ingredients go well together? All very rich ingredients, so there is a worry that the tastes will be too overpowering, but it definitely worked. The teriyaki sauce was thankfully diluted to let the natural ingredient flavours through. The only downside to this dish is that the textures were all the same. Still a really good dish though.

My sister had the Ishi Yaki Buri Bop: yellowtail on rice cooked at your table in a hot stone bowl. When they mean cooked at your table, they really mean it, so wait until the very last picture of this post and you will see what I mean!

Kitty had the safood toban yaki, half shell lobster, king crab, mussel, clam, diver scallop, red miso-sake broth. The sheer variety of this dish was amazing with really high quality and large seafood components, especially the gigantic shrimp and scallop. The soup base tasted good and the best tasting was the crab, but unfortunately the lobster didn't taste very good. Otherwise, all the ingredients were cooked to the correct amount, which must have been difficulty with such a large variety of ingredients!

I had the surf and turf, wagyu filet and hamachi ribbons, herbed potatoes, crushed citrus & avocado (perpared tableside). The salad had a (citrus?) sauce that was squeezed out of a pipet and then the whole thing was mixed up. A bit of parsley was in the mix, but I didn't mind as the avocado and fish tasted great. The potatoes were all different coloured which made it interesting to look at. The Wagyu's rub was really strong and spicy, but was great with the tender beef. This was the most tender beef I've ever had in my life as it melted in mouth and had no tendons.

Someone else ordered, the "duck, duck, duck", foie gras croissant, roast duck, soft duck egg and red miso sauce, which all looked very neatly displayed and I couldn't resist taking a picture.

Although expensive and probably a tourist trap, I had a really good meal here and it was fun to eat a chef celebrity restaurant. There were inventive dishes with inventive presentation, but most importantly it was great tasting!

C'est What? Part 2

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:19:00 +0000

dre @ Front & Church: Lem came back into town for the week, so I suggested dinner downtown at C'est What. While we were enjoying our meal, we were half-eavesdropping on the table next to us. There sat a couple who seemed to be on their first date. It was cute... haha

We ordered the Mexican Stand-off to start - Antojitos, chicken quesadillas, and blue corn tortilla chips served with tomato cilantro salsa and sour cream. This was nothing special and pretty expensive for what it was.

Mike ate the Buffalo Burger - A half-pound of premium extra lean, minced bison, seasoned and grilled to medium on a toasted bun, served with a generous portion of yummy fries and Coffee Porter barbecue sauce. The burger was pretty juicy.

Doug got the Lamburger - A half-pound of minced Ontario spring lamb grilled to medium and topped with melted Swiss cheese on a toasted bun, served with fries and a side of tzatziki. I tried a bite. It was gamey.

I got the Tourtière - Quebecoise-style pork and potato pie seasoned with garlic and sage; served with mango chutney and a mixed greens salad. I really liked the large salad that it came with. When I cut into the meat pie, I liked how the insides didn't spill out and everywhere. It was tasty.

We got some dessert to share. They were really good! In fact, I would rate their desserts better than their main dishes. I'd come here specifically for dessert! :)

Hazelnut Brownie - A warm homemade chocolate brownie topped with vanilla ice cream, rich chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. This was sooooo yummy!

Pie Aux Pommes - An individually sized, warm homemade apple pie made with McIntosh apples and a honey crumble top. You can get a cheddar cheese topping, but that sounded gross (cheese lovers can dispute this) and we got ice cream instead.

NYC Chinatown Eats

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:39:00 +0000

Nelson @ NYC Chinatown: I have never eaten in NYC Chinatown as I think we have just as good if not better Chinese food in Toronto, but there are some unique sights and tastes to be had still. Like a Chinese street food cart selling assorted meats and fried foods, many of which are on a stick. Everything for a dollar too! I didn't feel like trying this though.

We went into a bakery to get a milk tea, but I took a few pictures of the baked goods, including traditional Chinese bakery items like egg custard tart, custard tarts with a twist such as the papaya egg custard and green tea egg custard. I didn't try these either unfortunately. In the next cabinet they had more Western style desserts, some that were cupcakes with animals on them and other appetizing sweets. Did not try these either, so what did I try?

We ended up at The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory where they had some uniquely Asian flavours. Nothing too crazy though, but Asian flavours such as red bean, black sesame, mango, Durian, green tea, almond, lychee, ginger, taro etc. But the funny thing is that these are listed as the "regular" flavours and the "exotic" flavours are the normal flavours you would see at any Western ice cream shop. Personally I went the "regular" route and had a taro ice cream, which was very creamy and tasty.

Hot Spicy Korean Soup On a Cold Day

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:49:00 +0000

dre @ Yonge & Finch: On a very cold winter's day, we thought it was appropriate to have spicy Korean tofu soup. This time, I got the dumpling soup. I got the very spicy option. It started off really spicy, but as the soup cooled down (or I got used to it), the spiciness level decreased. I really like the purple rice that it comes with!

Social Eatz

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 06:49:00 +0000

Nelson @ NYC: Back in New York yet again and I met up with Tim for lunch. He brought us to a strangely named local establishment called Social Eatz. Surprisingly they serve fusion cuisine, mixing Korean with American food. Usually not a fan of fusion cuisine since they are often pale imitators of the original Asian dish, but this place is unique in that it is truly unreservedly fusion.

I tried the Bibimbap burger, ground beef with a slow cooked egg, covered in lettuce and served with pickled carrot and cucumber. This burger looks really interesting with the egg on top and Asian ingredients spilling forth. The plentiful amount of sauce used provided a lot of taste and a bit of sourness not expected in something like a burger which made for a very novel experience. Unfortunately the quantity of sauce was too much and made the burger soggy and messy to eat. But can't go wrong with having an egg in your burger!

Kitty tried the chili kissed tilapia, light white fish brushed with Thai chili, sauteed and garnished with fresh green tomato salsa and avocado. The fish ended up being really fishy tasting and the amount of cilantro a bit too much for my liking. I find that I don't have an appreciation of cilantro, but I don't think I'll ever get over it.

Lastly we shared some Crispy Fries, straight cut local potatoes crisped golden brown. The sprinkled spice gave it a bit of a kick, but wasn't very plentiful. What made up for it was the dipping sauce, which I can't even describe what taste it was. A bit of honey mustard, a bit of some Asian ingredient, it was really unique.

Neat concept overall and most importantly executed well. Who knew Korean and American food could go so well together!

Jen's Baby Shower

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 05:44:00 +0000

dre: There are only two ways to get me to a baby or bridal shower. Firstly, you must be a really good friend of mine. Like really good. We have to be thisclose for me to sit through all that estrogen for an afternoon. The other way is if your mom is a phenomenal baker. Good thing my dear friend Jen fits both criteria.

You can see the assortment of goodies and the lemony cake that Jen's mom made for the party. I resisted getting seconds from lunch to save my stomach for these goodies. In fact, I didn't even take pictures of lunch because this was really the highlight of the meal.

Jen gave me a Ziploc bag for me to pack some goodies for Mike. Mike was sad that he wasn't invited, but in the end he lucked out... I swear I didn't eat everything in the bag before getting home!

Smoothies!

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:26:00 +0000

Nelson @ home: I love fruit and it is no less tasty when mashed together into drink form. I learned several things while trying out different combinations. Blackberries and kiwis have a lot of hard seeds that can really impact the texture of the smoothie. Bananas are almost used in all smoothie combinations. Whatever base you use, either OJ or apple juice, I find tends to overpower the taste. Maybe I used too much, but I still tasted a lot of the base liquid. Using vanilla ice cream is a great way to fatten up the drink in a tasty way. Otherwise, it's fun trying to mix and match fruits together to see what will go well together. Now I realize it's not that healthy, but better than your typical refined sugar dessert. Regardless, smoothies definitely tastes great!

Tsuki Izakaya

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:29:00 +0000

dre @ Yonge & Empress: We met up with Mike's friends, and had planned to eat at an izakaya place by Yonge and Eglinton, but sadly, it was closed. The idea of izakaya stuck in my mind, so we tried out this place in North York instead. At that location, it used to be Ehwa, next to the Asian Legend and Tea House. Later on, the staff told us that Tzuki is owned by the same people as Ehwa, but they decided to close down the Korean food restaurant as there are many in the area, and open up an izakaya place instead. Pretty smart, as this is the only one that I know of in this area.

The turnip appetizer was complimentary.

Sashimi salad surprisingly had a generous amount of salmon and tuna.

Tuna tataki - all the slices were very evenly seared. Looks so perfect! Tasted pretty good too.

California rolls - nothing super special about them.

Tako yaki - This is my favourite izakaya dish. Unfortunately, these ones were very breaded and the octopus was too chewy.

Spicy pork - I can't remember what this dish was called, but it's pork with spicy sauce.

Chicken karaage - deep fried chicken

BBQ squid - this one was popular and pretty tasty.

Yaki soba - a pretty big portion (for izakaya) of noodles.

Pork belly - I tried the pieces of pork that were not too fatty :)

All in all, a nice place to try out. I've been told that Guu is much better, but if you're in the area and craving izakaya, this is not a terrible choice.

Aunt's Retirement Dinner

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:50:00 +0000

Nelson @ Brampton: My aunt had a retirement dinner and the company was nice to have it at a Golf Club. It was "Chinese" food buffet style and had a surprising amount of variety. Western food included potato salad, cole slaw (a bit sour for me), Chinese egg noodle salad (a little strange...), Chinese vegetables mixed with sweet peppers (I think only white people can come up with this), spring rolls (deep fried American-Chinese food style), seafood egg noodles (all crispy parts were burnt so just he soft parts were edible), a chicken in a sweet tangy mango sauce (pretty good actually, although not a typical taste), beef with broccoli on top (not cooked together, but the beef was decent), beef short ribs (also a little overcooked) and some simple dessert. I really wonder if the chef is Chinese because I would guess the chef is not Chinese. Good attempt at Chinese food, but not very successful. It was only $20 so not bad I guess and I still at my fill. I wouldn't want to have a Chinese wedding there though!