20150712 Toronto Trip: Messini & Chatime

We had brunch earlier at Pho Dau Bo. Andrew and I had a free day, so we called our cousin, JT, and met her at Vaughan Mills. We browsed through a few stores and then made our way to Chatime.


There are so many choices! I went with the usual grass jelly roasted milk tea. Andrew wanted to try something new. Hilarity ensues.

20150711 Toronto Trip: Wedding and Bubble Tea

My cousin, JS, got married back in July. It was a gorgeous wedding! The morning began with the traditional Chinese ceremonies at the bride's family home. After the Chinese ceremony, we all had a quick lunch in the garage. My aunt had decided to get it catered by one of their favourite restaurants. There was rice noodles with beef, stir-fried Singaporean curry noodle, salt and pepper shrimp, and other dishes. We all had a quick bite to eat and then drove to the chapel. Once that was finished, we took a bunch of photos outside and inside.


At that point, the cousins and I were getting a bit hungry so we thought about going somewhere for bubble tea and a snack. The two choices were either go to a place called Destiny or go to Chatime and then head back to the house. KG chose Destiny since they made savoury food.








I was floored. Look at their extensive menu! It actually didn't take too long to order. Everyone already knew what they wanted.






Among the food that we ordered, the star had to be the plate of Popcorn Chicken ($6.99).


Oh, did I forget about all the bubble tea?

~*~
Destiny
165 York Blvd,
Richmond Hill
905-889-7899

Brunch at Pacific Mall, ChaTime

On the Friday of my trip to Toronto, JT (our cousin) and I went to Pacific Mall (aka P-Mall) for lunch.  JT was really hungry so we snaked through the top floor in search of something to eat. It was a tough decision. On one hand, JT wanted noodles with soup but also something stir-fried. I wanted almost everything! There were so many options and so little stomach space. We split up and decided to meet back up at a table by Beard Papa's.


JT returned with Singaporean curry noodles. It was slightly spicy with a hint of smokiness from the wok. JT inhaled the first half and then hit a wall. I can't remember what the restaurant is called, but it's from the place on the right side of the noodle-pulling place. You know, that place.


Since we both like beef cheung fun, I got an order for us to share from Good Taste Garden, a place in the same area as Beard Papa's. We both found the noodles were underdone and the filling was lacking in both the taste and quantity. I do remember that their cheung fun was solid a few years back.


Despite knowing that shrimp wonton noodle soup would be better if we go elsewhere in the Markham area, I gave it a try. The shrimp wontons were juicy and plump, however, they didn't have that sweet freshness taste.

We were beyond full and had to bring the Singaporean noodles back home. We waddled back down through the mall and visited a few candy shops. I was hoping to find the elusive green tea KitKat that I've heard so much about. There are green tea Pocky in Ottawa but not the KitKat bars, I suspect it's because the KitKat bars are a Japanese product. Through the interwebs, I found out that they usually do carry the sweet treats in the mall.


I spy, with my little eyes... Yaaaa! There it iiiiiis!

We left P-Mall with a few goods and headed to Chatime nearby to decide what else to do with our day. At this point, our little tummies were still full but we fought on. I'm not sure if I ever talked about Chatime, but their milk tea is freaking remarkable! I'm was elated when I heard that they were expanding around the GTA. And now apparently they have one at P-Mall? What the what?


Large pearl milk tea with less ice and pudding pour moi. I actually only wanted pearls. The pudding was accidental. The convo between me and the guy, who manned the cash, went something like this:

Me: "Hi, can we get a regular taro milk tea with pearls?"
Him: "Regular milk tea with pearls."
Me: "Can we also get a large pearl milk tea, but can you put in less ice?"
Him: "Huh? Pu*indiscernible audio* less ice?"
Me: Uh... *smile and nod*
Him: "Okay. No problem."

Yeah, so I failed. "Can you put in less ice?" Gah! "Less ice" would've been fine. Lesson learned. It's actually a similar lesson to the "mo' sauce" thing. Anyway, we grabbed our drinks and sat at one of the empty tables. For a few minutes, we just stared at the drinks while cooling off in the AC. I didn't mentioned it before, but that day was hot and sunny!

The pudding was like a softer version of grass jelly. It was odd. I don't think I'd get it again. The milk tea on the other hand, I wanted to order another one after I finished it. Greed. Pure greed. But the way I saw it was that Ottawa bubble tea places pale in comparison to this amazing worldwide bubble tea giant. JT didn't enjoy her taro milk tea because they blended up taro which resulted in a grainy texture. She preferred the powdered taro version.


Here's one of the treasures that we left P-Mall with. Aw yeah!

We headed back to JT's place for the night and ended up watching stuff like Kings of Pastry on Netflix. Man, is Netflix ever addictive!

~*~

Addresses:

Brick Toast at My Sweet Tea

One of my good friends, CA, will be going on a trip to Hong Kong very soon. So on the weekend, we went out to My Sweet Tea to chat and for a little dessert. More so the chatting part... uh... yes...

Last time we tried brick toast for the first time. We had already eaten dim sum before going for bubble tea so we weren't sure if we would be able to finish one by ourselves. That's why we shared one. And I guess it was so good that we killed it in under 5 minutes. We got our own this time.


While looking on the menu, CA was trying to decide which flavour to get. I thought that the condensed milk and chocolate hazelnut would be overkill. We had both assumed they'd be together on the toast. CA said she'd either get the apple cinnamon or chocolate hazelnut (without the condensed milk). But when she ordered it, she asked for the condensed milk and chocolate hazelnut brick toast. Freudian slip, perhaps?

She was confused when it first arrived. We had a good laugh about how she thought she ordered something else. It was meant to be, I guess. CA got a hot drink to enjoy as well.

It crossed my mind to suggest that we combine our sandwiches and make a penta-decker brick toast, but that was just be too fat.


I was either going to get the plain condensed milk brick toast or the chocolate hazelnut. The thing is that I don't like ordering stuff with fresh bananas because I like to eat bananas when they start to get spotted.  Since we had the condensed milk one before, I went with the chocolate hazelnut with banana brick toast and a black milk tea with pearls to drink.

We talked about things to do and eat in Hong Kong. What to buy in Asia *cough* everything *cough* Hello Kitty *cough* and stuff like that. It made me want to go back to Hong Kong. For the goose. For the dim sum. And for the good times to be had with Aunty.

Have a fun and safe trip CA!! Make sure you take lots of photos!

Toronto Weekend July 2013: Part 1

We did a road trip to Toronto for our cousin's wedding last weekend. I'll break it up into two parts. Here's 1 of 2.

I tend to get car sick on road trips because three main reasons: empty stomach, being too warm, riding with a heavy-footed driver. Sometimes it's a combination of the three. The latter didn't apply during the trip. To prevent the first two, I made sure to have a snack before we hit the road and have a bottle of water to keep me cool during the trip.

Dim Sum at Hung Sum Restaurant; Bubble Tea at My Sweet Tea

When I first heard about Hung Sum Restaurant, I was told that their dim sum was "amazeballs." Then I kind of forgot about it until I read Peter Hum's write up on the restaurant. I'm always up for trying a new place for dim sum.

Hung Sum is a small place on Somerset (between Rochester St and Preston St). It's on the opposite side of the pho joints. When my friend, S, and I walked in, it felt like we were walking into someone's house.

Once we sat down by the window, we were given a piece of paper which listed of all their dim sum items (the link should take you to Hung Sum's facebook album, where it is posted). S put me in charge of ordering, so I choose the following:


We had some deep fried shrimp dumpling ($3.35). I thought the vinegar in the sweet sauce was a nice touch.


A plate of zhaliang (aka rice noodle roll with crispy donut - $3, youtiao cheung fan, or Chinese donut stick noodle rolls) was garnished with lightly toasted sesame seeds. There was a little bit of hoisin sauce on the other side of the plate. Look how thick the noodle was. I wish there was more sweet soy sauce to be soaked up and some sesame sauce on the side. Other than that, the small portion of zhaliang tasted fine to me. I think many dim sum-serving establishments actually make this dish, but I rarely see it on the menu/dim sum carts. You should try this carb-on-carb action if you haven't already.


The beef cheung fan (noodle roll with beef - $3) and shrimp cheung fan (noodle roll with shrimp - $3.35) was alright. The skin was pretty thick again. Okay, is it just me, or have all the restaurants in Ottawa been skimping on the beef filling? The other two noodle rolls didn't have much beef, sadly.




One of our favourite dishes of our meal was the steamer of [edited on Sept. 18th, 2013] coriander dumplings ($3) steamed green onion ginger beef dumpling ($3.10). The flavour was similar to the filling in noodle rolls with beef. I found it quite bouncy, plump, and juicy. The ginger sauce was alright.

A steamer of shrimp siu mai ($3.35). I was taken back at how small it all looked, but I think it just looks that way because Hung Sum used smaller steamers (as opposed to the medium-sized steamers) for the siu mai. I felt like the dumplings could've tasted a lot better with green onions.

After all of that food, S was still hungry and wanted to order more food. I warned her that we ate three plates of cheung fan and that we'd feel really full in about half an hour. She insisted in ordering a small plate of rice noodles with bean sprouts (bean sprout fried rice noodles - $3.35). We planned on going for some bubble tea, too. Okaaaay...

It looked good! I saw great signs: lightly charred noodles and no pool of grease at the bottom of the plate. But there wasn't much smokiness despite the char. Sad.


We walked over to My Sweet Tea afterwards and on our way, I noticed the sidewalks had the animals from the Chinese zodiac.






The rabbit was in front of a pizza place (Seasons Pizza?). That must be a sign (I luuurv pizza!). There was a dragon in front of My Sweet Tea.




S ordered the mango slush and hot milk tea for myself. When we began to enjoy our drinks, S complained that our lunch had finally hit her. She struggled to finish her drink. The hot milk tea hit the spot. It actually helped settle my stomach a bit.

[Updated on Sept. 18th, 2013]
Hung Sum Restaurant's dim sum is better than the average dim sum in Ottawa, but their dishes are on the smaller side. It's actually a good thing that the portions are smaller. You'll be able to order more variety of dishes to share. Right? Since the construction on Somerset has been completed, go give Hung Sum a try. They have a limited dinner menu as well, so you can have a bowl of rice noodle soup with something and a few dim sum items. That's right, you can get their dim sum items for dinner too!

My Sweet Tea is probably the best place to get bubble tea in Ottawa. Their drinks have been consistently tasty over the past few years!

~*~

Addresses:

Hung Sum Restaurant

870 Somerset St

Ottawa, ON

613-238-8828

My Sweet Tea

824 Somerset St

Ottawa, ON

613-695-6543

Last Meal in Shanghai

Our trip to Asia blew by so quickly. I wasn’t homesick at all. In fact, I didn’t want to go back. Not yet. I wanted to go back to Hong Kong.

But if my parents and Aunt IS could’ve chosen one last meal in Shanghai, the majority of the group would’ve wanted to have one more breakfast at the Ramada.

Dad started with a savoury congee, with some salted egg, youtiao, and pickled veggies as condiments.

Dad’s second plate had some dumplings, youtiao, bread and an omelette.

My first plate was filled was familiar breakfast choices.

Mom had some toasted croissant with an over-easy egg, and a bunch of other pastries. She put the croissant through the toaster but it got stuck, hence the burnt top.

I filled up with a bowl of wonton soup. The wonton soup wasn’t as good as the bowl I had in Nanjing, but it was comforting nonetheless.

Mom and Dad were eager to eat the steamed custard buns again. They had been dreaming about them since the first breakfast.

The filling was apparently different from the first time. Mom and Dad were disappointed, but they still enjoyed these with a slight smile.

There were salted egg yolks in the egg custard. I tried a bite but since I didn’t try any on the first morning, I had nothing to compare it to. Still, these were on a different level than the stuff we get in Ottawa and Toronto, where the filling is a fully cooked paste.

After breakfast, we grabbed our luggage and boarded the tour bus one last time. Our friends from Connecticut and America also joined us on the bus. Although they left on different flights, it made the ride to the airport much easier.

While on the long flight back home, I could’ve help but think about how much we saw and how much we experienced in the past month. I knew I was lucky to have travelled around Asia with little health issues, Mom made sure to remind me (she still does). Believe me, I know I’m lucky. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get the chance to travel overseas again, but I’ll die happy knowing that I have already done so.

These are a few of my favourite images from the trip. Some of them aren’t strong photography-wise, but I like them because of the story behind the pictures. I'll attach a link to the corresponding article which you can read under each of the images.

Breakfast in Nanjing, Visiting Suzhou

Our hotel in Nanjing was pretty sweet. It felt and looked like it was a 4 star hotel by international standards, though it was probably a 5 star hotel under China’s rating system.

The breakfast at the hotel reflected it. Though there weren’t enough tables and seats to accommodate all of the tour groups eating breakfast at the same time, the food was pretty good. But some of the better breakfast choices, like the croissants, danishes, sesame balls, and youtiao, were the first things to be emptied and ignored by the hotel staff.

For my first plate, I went with the tasty-looking round noodles, a muffin (for the road), a white breakfast sausage, hash browns with ketchup, and bacon-looking protein.

Of all the different stir-fried noodle options during the various hotel breakfasts (in Guilin and Shanghai areas), these tasted the best. The noodles weren’t over cooked and the seasoning was just right. I have to say that my standards of the stir-fried noodles at hotel breakfasts had dropped during my time Asia, but I was glad to see that this particular version rose above the others. There were shreds of sauce-drenched eggs and slices of sweet onions to keep the noodles from being so monotonous.

Aunt IS’s first plate represented the Chinese breakfast options. Fried rice, stir-fried peas, some pickled veggies, steamed potato, youtiao and custard buns. The over-easy egg and slices of bread in the background were mine.

Second round:

I had the aforementioned over-easy eggs with bread and steamed buns filled with meat. Someone had mentioned that they were good, so I gave it a try.

Third round:

As you can see, I enjoyed the meat-filled steamed buns. The filling reminded me of a meatball with a sweet Chinese glaze – but in a steamed bun. Although I liked the buns, I didn’t eat these. No, no. I packed these up and stashed them in my bag for a later time.

The youtiao plate was empty. Aunt IS was one of the last people to get them (on her first plate).  After waiting a round, I flagged a hotel staff over and asked if there would be any more youtiao coming. He glanced over at the bare greasy platter and went into the kitchen. He brought back with a mountain of youtiao that happened to be cooling off. As he walked towards the platter, I noticed that everyone was eyeing the youtiao.

Mom said these were properly made. I totally agreed when I took my first bite. Although they weren’t hot, they were light and bready – perfect for dunking in sweet coffee. I shared these warm youtiao with the table.

As I was enjoying my third round of food, I noticed that someone had a bowl of noodle soup. I didn’t see the noodle station when I scouted out all the options. That’s when I saw people in the back of the dining area, standing in front of the kitchen counter. I wandered over and saw that there was a whole condiment bar right beside the egg station. How did I not see this when I was waiting for my over-easy eggs? Tunnel vision.

By the time I was standing in front of the noodle station, my stomach was reaching the limit I had set since the whole Taiwan thing. I asked for some wonton soup instead of noodle soup. Gasp!

These tiny wontons barely had any filling. Now, I’ve realized how much meat we eat in North America but could you really call these wontons if there’s no filling? The cilantro leaf was larger than the filling of one wonton. There was something comforting about slurping the slippery wonton skins down with the MSG-seasoned broth though. The soup had a weird package taste, but it tasted good to me. Is that bad? I'd rather have a naturally flavoured soup like a bowl of shio ramen any day though.

After a very enjoyable breakfast in the hotel, we were brought to see the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge. As we sat inside the bridge’s museum, we were given a brief history lesson before we went up the sketchy elevator to the observatory deck.