LAIDOH Resturaunt - Toronto

One of the things I remember when I was growing up and visiting my grandparents in Hong Kong was what my mom called, "Hong Kong Breakfast".  This was not dim sum, but actually an interesting combination of breakfast cultures.  There would be congee, and fried noodles, but the main type of food was macaroni soup, or instant noodles served with ham and a fried egg.  This sounds very weird to most, I am sure, but for me, it brought back a flood of memories when my mom told me that you could now get this in Toronto.

The place is in the Splendid China mall across the street from the Pacific Mall.  It's a small place, but it opens early enough to have breakfast.  The place reminded me quite a bit like a Hong Kong Diner.  Mom and the "boss" had congee while dad and I had the noodles, meat and ham.  This all came with some buttered toast as well.  The service was good, since we were the only ones there bright and early, the place was clean and the food was what I expected.  The noodles are instant noodles, as they should be, and the congee was good as well.

The cost for food here was very cheap and cash only.  The food did its job at bringing back memories of Hong Kong.  For a cheap, Hong Kongs style breakfast, I will be back for sure!

Review (out of 5):

Food: * * *

Value: * * * * 

Atmosphere: * * * 

Service: * * * *
Price Range: $10 - $25

Hipot Hot Pot - Toronto

Next on the list on cultural experiences is hot pot.  Hotpot is usually a meal had over the winter, because of how the meal will also heat up your home.  The meal consists of having a big bowl of boiling broth, and you get served big platters of raw meats, and veggies.  Everyone then takes the food, and cooks it themselves in the broth, and then you can eat it, or dip it in some of the sauces they have at the table.  The more stuff you cook, the more flavour the broth becomes. I think this meal was the hardest for the "boss" due to cooking raw foods in with other foods in the broth.  For me, this was all the norm as I have had this since I was little, so I guess my stomach is able to handle whatever comes at me from this meal.

This type of meal is now becoming more and more popular in Canada with the growing population of Asians.  This is my first time having it at a restaurant.  The location was a little hard to get to with all the construction out front, but the place was clean.  There were many tables, all ranging from a few very big round tables of 10-12 to the smaller tables of 4.  We showed up late, around 7pm, and we had to wait about 10 mins.  Very popular place.  The location was bustling and noisy, as everyone in the place was having a good time.  The space to move around was a little cramped as beyond the main tables, there were a lot of smaller side tables to help hold all the raw foods (The main table has your bowls, chopsticks and the big pot of broth).  Service wise, the place was overly busy for the number of staff.  They were all running around trying to serve everyone with little luck.  Once we did get our order in, there was a decent number of broth refills when we did get low.

The food was very fresh and had a decent selection.  The main staples were beef, chicken, beef and shrimp balls, whole shrimp, a variety of veggies, oysters, lamb and I think mom ordered 4 lobsters.  Everything was very tasty and I was very full by the end of the night.  The food you order is all you can eat, so you end up paying a flat price and you get a selection from that bracket.  There are higher brackets, and that opens up more selection of meats, and seafood.  The down side is that there were still things that were extra, such as eggs, and if you wanted to start with a more spicy or flavoured broth.

Overall, this is a lot easier and cheaper than doing hotpot yourself at home.  The time it takes to slice everything, the clean-up and selection is a very good choice.  This is not for everyone, as the boss was a little more uncomfortable with the idea, but she still tried everything!  The service left something to be desired (it seems to be a common theme on the trip), and as clean as everything was, the place was cramped.  I was still go back here if I had a craving for hot pot but not go back regularly.  Sadly I do not have much to compare it with, but home cooking.

When we left, 2 hours later, there was still people waiting at the door for seats.

PS:  Quick warning, the menu is only in chinese.

Review (out of 5):

Food: * * * 1/2

Value: * * *  

Atmosphere: * * 1/2

Service: **

Price Range: $25 - $35

Osechi Japanese - Toronto

For dinner we went out for some all you can eat sushi.  This gave us a good opportunity to compare the all you can eat sushi market in Markham and Ottawa.  Dad found a good deal here and it was well recommended.  We easily found this place and when walked in, the décor was very modern.  It has nice dark colors with some brighter pink and reds and glass beads separating some of the sections of the room.  At the far back, was the sushi making area and one more private room where instead of chairs, there were cushions on the floor.  Very nice addition, albeit, I am sure sitting there can be very uncomfortable!

We menu had a good selection of things that were raw and cooked.  The boss and I ordered more of the raw fish as my parents went the route of the cooked fish.  The food came very quickly and everything was very fresh.  The sashimi had our favourite, white tuna which came in generous portions.  Everything we did order came, which is always an added bonus when coming to an all you can eat sushi place.  The price was about 22$ per person, which is about just below the cost of what it is here in Ottawa.  One of the things on the menu that was not "standard fare" when it comes to all you can eat sushi was a white arctic roll that had some smoked flakes on the top.  The flaked were on a roll that had white tuna in it, which gave the already delicious fish some smokey flavour.  For desert, they had a decent selection of asian ice creams such as, red bean, and sesame flavoured.  It was a black coloured ice cream that did not have much flavour at first, and then you get a nice aroma of sesame after.  Delicious!  

Once again on our trip, the service was not good.  The staff looked like robots, who walked around delivering food and clearing plates.  Not ONCE did I see a server smile.  When they dropped off food, or cleared off some plates, we would say "thank you" which they would with an expressionless look just say, "ok".

The décor was nice, the food was good, but the service and the gloomy expressions on their faces really dampened the experience.  I am not asking for super happy with a fake smile, but a small smile once in a while would have been appreciated.  The menu was good but pretty much standard fare, and the price was ok, but when you add on the type of service, I would not revisit this place.

Review (out of 5):

Food: * * * 1/2

Value: * * *  

Atmosphere: * * * 

Service: * 1/2

Price Range: $22 - $25

Keung's delight - Toronto

We took trip down to Toronto recently and we got the "boss" exposed to some more asian culture food than she is used to that is not "canadianized".  

The first place we went to was a small place in Markham called Keung's Delight.  This is traditionally a congee place with a mix of noodles,  rice dishes and veggies.  For those who do not know what congee is,  it is most easily describede as Asian rice porridge as the plain porridge.  After that, you can have many different varieties when you start adding different ingredients, such as chicken, beef or eggs.

We ordered a nice variety of things for our lunch.  I had a beef congee and my parents had one with some seafood in theirs.  The congee was actually really well done and had lots of flavor.  Sadly, since the boss is allergic to scallops,  this place uses dried scallops in their soup base so she ended up not having any at this place.  In addition to the congee, dad ordered a fried noodle dish, as well as a free ranged quarter chicken cooked on the bone.  The checks is cooked in almost a steamed or boiled style, so the meat was very tender.  For myself, one of my favorite things to order in a Chinese restaurant is the Asian breadstick wrapped in a rice noodle.  Lastly,  mom ordered a bowl of won tons.  These were surprisingly very large in size and with very good size shrimp within.  

The food was very good and a nice experience of a more traditional congee dining.  The location is very clean, open and with lots of light.  Plenty of parking too which for me, is a great bonus being in the middle of Markham.  The staff I found was slow and did not pay much attention to the diners.  They spent much time standing in the middle chatting which I was not very happy about.  When we asked out waitress recommendations,  they did try to help as best they could but in the end,  they were to very helpful.  Price wise,  this is where they shine.  The food is cheap.  For the quality of food,  this alone makes it worth visiting again.

Next time we are in the area and have a craving for congee,  we will be back for sure!!

Review (out of 5):

Food: * * * 

Value: * * * 1/2 

Atmosphere: * * * 

Service: * 1/2

Price Range: $12 - $20

Absinthe

After the Music and Dinning experience and tasting Chef Garland's duck there, we ventured off to his restaurant down on Wellington Street.  The location has big windows in front to let in plenty of light, while the decor inside is a very nice green colour to match the colour of absinthe.  The place was not very busy, for the later seating which is a bit of a shame, but it is the middle of the summer and the middle of the week, so many people may have been on vacation.  We all went with the table d'hote.  The waiter came back with an amuse for us, which was a very light and delightful duck tartar.  This did an excellent job at setting the tone of the meal, and really exciting the taste buds.  We got served fresh baked bread with a butter infused with a bit of citrus.  It was a very good combination.

For appetizer, we ordered at the table, the charcuterie, the tuna ans scallops, and the escargot.  The escargot in the vermouth cream was amazing.  If it was not uncouth to drink that sauce out of the plate, I would have.  I did polish off the rest of the bread trying to soak up the rest of that sauce.  The tuna and scallops was also very tasty and cooked well.  The charcuterie was what the boss had and it was presented on a wooden cutting board with all the different styles of duck and a mini loaf of bread to help eat that spread.  Every bite made the boss ohh and ahh with the flavour.  Surprisingly, her favourite thing on that plate was the Duck confit pogo.  The presentation of both the tuna tartar and the charrcuterie was excellent.

For the mids, we had ordered both between the four of us.  Sadly, this was the most disappointing course.  The salad was nothing special, and the vinaigrette did not accentuate the salad.  The soup was decent, but I found the soup to be very one dimensional.  There was not any flavour pop, but I think it acted more like a pallet cleanser.

When the mains came back, it made up for the mids big time.  The boss had the farm duck duo, while I had the steak frites with a duck poutine.  The farm duck duo had the duck cooked to perfection,  The presentation was decent, I felt was a little bit messy, but I had seen worse, but the flavour and the taste made up for it.  The duck really melted in your mouth and the seared foie gras was what the boss called, "one of the best things I've tasted in a long time".  My steak frites was an excellent cut, cooked perfectly to medium rare.  I do have to say, I never thought I would say this about fries in fine dinning, but these fries were just that good.  Mix in an excellent gravy and some duck and wow, it was very good!


The service over the meal was excellent.  The staff was very knowledgeable, introduced all the wines, and the plates while not being intrusive.  When we did ask them any questions, they were very helpful, and polite.

For this level of food, I have the say that the price is very reasonable.  Excellent job to Chef Garland and his staff.    We do hope to be back again soon.

Review (out of 5):

Food: * * * *

Value: * * * * 1/2

Atmosphere: * * * *

Service: * * * * *

Price Range: $7 - $29 (+$30 for wine parings)

Website: http://absinthecafe.sitebenefits.com/

Sushi in Albany

In one of our trips down to visit some relatives in the US, we stopped over in Albany, NY over might to break up our drive. We had a craving for sushi or Japanese, so when we got to the hotel, we looked up for ideas. One of the places that came up close to the hotel was Koto. This was a habatchi and sushi place just off the highway.  It took us a little while to find it due to my lack of trusting my GPS, but we eventually made it there.  It was late, around 8pm, but it was still pretty busy there.  There was a nice Koi pond to greet you, with a very nice Japanese atmosphere.  We got seated at the back and the service was good.  It was what I would expect anywhere, but nothing special.  Looking at the menu, and it being so late, we ended up ordering a lot of sushi.

We wanted to try out things we did not have back home, so we ended up ordering rolls like the "fool's gold", "black out roll" which involved fish like Chilean sea bass, or combinations of crab, shrimp, avocado, tuna and black tobiko.  As you can see below the presentation was very well done.  I was a little sad not to see the wooden boat, but they did make an effort on this plate to make it look extra special.  As you can also see, there was a lot of food here.  We thought we would get 6 small pieces of sushi, but when it arrived, they were HUGE rolls.  The sushi was very fresh, and the combination of the "chef's special rolls" we ordered was very well put together.  Nothing really came out that we did not like.

We did not try out their habatchi section as we did have our craving for sushi, so I cannot speak of it at all.

Overall, even with the atmosphere, the good size of the rolls and the decent quality, nothing jumped out to wow us.  Why that matters is the price.  We felt that the price was very high for what we did end up getting. I do understand that getting fresh fish in Albany may not be the easiest, it still does have an effect the overall meal when you know what you're ordering is so expensive.  If you can get a deal, discount, or coupon to go here, it can be very worth it, but for us, we did not feel the price matched the food and we will probablly not be going back.

Review (out of 5):

Food: * * * 1/2

Value: * * 1/2

Atmosphere: * * * 1/2

Service: * * * 1/2

Price Range: $8 - $25

Website: http://www.kotoalbany.com/

Breakfast in West Boylston

One of the things I look forward to when traveling to smaller towns is having local, home cooked food. We found a small place along one of the highways that was open for breakfast. When we walked in, it gave us a very warm feeling, like we were visiting a friends cottage. We were greeted right away with a loud warm greeting.  We felt right at home.  All along the walls were pictures of politicians and collection of artifacts related to them. Coffee was served right away and it was just a good old fashion coffee.

The food they served was a mix of traditional breakfast fare with some variations of home cooking. They had blueberry french toast, fluffy pancakes, well seasoned home fries, and even breakfast sandwiches on Texas toast.  The home fries was seasoned very well, and was not too salty or soggy.  The blueberry french toast light and flavourful.  My favourite of eggs and bacon was cooked just the way I like it.  There are some diners when you go to them, the cheap price is reflected on your plate.  Here, when my plate arrived, it was full, it did not look sparse, while still maintaining that cheaper price.

This place is a perfect example of where atmosphere of a warm place with the feeling of a home cooked meal can really heighten a meal. We were really glad to find a place like this. The price was also very reasonable for being in the middle of nowhere.  This place is small so there can be a wait, but we felt it was well worth it.  Bring cash, this is only what they accept here.

I know there may not be many people in this neck of the woods, but if you are, well worth the visit.

Review (out of 5):

Food: * * * *

Value: * * * * 1/2

Atmosphere: * * * * *

Service: * * * *

Price Range: $8 - $15

Website: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Country-Kettle-Cafe/207780878158