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

20150710 Toronto Trip: Chinatown

Our cousin, JS, got married back in July, so our family planned a trip to Toronto for a few days and then we were going to make our way up to Algonqiun Park for another few days. While in Toronto, we'd have some free time so we wanted to enjoy it.

My personal favourite Chinese restaurant in Toronto's Chinatown is still the House of Gourmet. It has become a family favourite too. When we made the trip down to Toronto, we had a chance to dine at House of Gourmet for our first meal: lunch. I wanted to check out the murals on the side of the restaurant before going in. I wonder what the person in the yellow was talking about.

Noodles at Rice Pea

It was brought to my attention that we've only written about Rice Pea on just one other occasion. The small restaurant hidden on Carling has joined our regular restaurant rotation. Our favourite dish from this northern Chinese restaurant has to be the noodles pictured above. It's listed as 'N02' on the menu. These house made noodles are chewy and tossed in a mix of chili oil, black vinegar, roughly chopped garlic, and some dried chili. I can eat a bowl by myself. Let me correct that statement to: I have eatten a bowl by myself -- it's that good.

Recipe: Homemade Coconut Snowballs

You've probably seen these in Chinese grocery stores or, if you're lucky, in pot lucks. These glutinous rice coconut snowballs can be filled with a variety of things like toasted ground peanuts, black sesame, sesame and sugar, or coconut and sugar. I've noticed that many cultures have a version of this. It's called nom plae ai in Cambodian, for instance; in Thai, it's kha nom tom; and banh bao chi in Vietnamese.

Here's the recipe Mom wrote down many years ago. She knew exactly what everything meant. I've seen her make this a few times so I'll try my best to break it down.

Father's Day Banquet Lunch

Father's Day was a day before Grandpa's 80th birthday this year. The extended family gathered at Sea King Restaurant for a huge banquet lunch that started off with Peking duck. I didn't photograph every dish, but here are some notables:


The Peking duck wasn't sliced properly. Usually the skin is sliced and served with the pancakes. Then the duck meat is stir-fried and served with lettuce to wrap. And the third rendition is supposed to use the bones for soup. We got two versions of duck that day; the skin, with a bit of meat attached, on top of disappointing limp shrimp chips, and then a plate of the duck meat.


A family favourite, shrimp paste balls, arrived. These are the same mixture that restaurants use to make those stuffed crab claws that you get during Chinese wedding banquets. Grandpa likes these too.




Grandpa wasn't happy to see the Chinese roast chicken. In his opinion, if we got the duck, then we didn't need this. We had to remind him that it was part of the set meal and to try and enjoy it. The chicken skin was so crispy and the meat was very tender and juicy. The chicken is usually left mainly untouched, since it tastes great reheated the next day. But the chicken was finished.


This was an unfamiliar dish of young snow pea shoots with crab meat and egg whites. The family really enjoyed the dish.


The lobsters with ginger and onion were spot on for me that day.


The last two main dishes were fried rice and braised e-fu noodles. The e-fu noodles were slightly smoky and tasted even better when mixed with some of the lobster and ginger onion sauce.


The set lunch was capped off with a plate of almond cookies.


But our lunch finished with a fragrant durian layer cake from Kowloon Market (about $23/lb of durian), which my uncle picked up beforehand. Although we were in a private room, I still felt bad for anyone who was eating in the restaurant. The room reeked of durian and we overheard people talking about the smell. Most of the family loves durian. I find that I have to be in the mood for it, otherwise, the smell ruins any curiosity. I had a small slice that day and that's all I needed. After scraping off most of the icing, I got into the fluffy cake and durian, which was very creamy and custardy.

The banquet lunch was paced at a reasonable pace, especially considering that it was during their busy Sunday dim sum service. The portions were good too. There was enough for everyone to have at least one serving of every dish, except the Peking duck -- but we made the miscalculation. We still had leftovers after eating, but none of the good stuff.

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Sea King Restaurant
1558 Merivale Road
Ottawa, ON
613-228-8819

Dumpling Bowl

Not long after the Bubblicity reopened as the Dumpling Bowl, Richard went with some friends and said that the place was great. "They make their dumplings in house," he added. Sounds good.

When MO and I met up for a snack, we weaved through groups of high schoolers and sat by the entrance. I liked that their menu selection is so small. In my mind, the smaller the menu is, the more likely there's better quality control. Check out their full food menu here.

Ottawa Street Food Showcase 2015

On a cool sunny day, the crowds were genuinely excited for the street food season to begin in Ottawa. It kicked off yesterday with many vendors setting up shop at the Marion Dewar Plaza, in front of City Hall. The Street Food Showcase donated a portion of the proceeds to the Ottawa Food Bank. It was a win-win situation, really. Not only did the crowds have a chance to check out all the options, but they were supporting a great cause.

I invite you all to use the SFAOtt (aka Street Food Adventures in Ottawa) hashtag on Instagram and Twitter.



Andrew and I went there earlier than the official start time of noon to beat the crowds.

The Usual at Kim's Restaurant + Aladdin

Earlier last week, I found myself around Carling Avenue when running some errands. There are two restaurants that I like around there, Rice Pea and Kim's Restaurant.




On this adventure, I was craving the smoky stir-fried rice noodles with chicken (FN-04) at Kim's Restaurant. When I asked for the bean sprouts to be substituted with chinese greens (gai lan or choy sum), the owner told me that the dish didn't have bean sprouts. It was great news to me.

These were just as smoky as I remembered. The chef, who looks like the character on the menu, seasoned it perfectly. It was a solid dish which reminded me of House of Gourmet.


The order of deep-fried shrimp balls (A-11) came with only 3 shrimp balls instead of the usual 4. I've tried some of their other appetizers and some of their dim sum, but I always come back to these.


I was super full after lunch, but I couldn't help grabbing a few meat pies for the family. Aladdin Convenience & Bakery is located across the street of Kim's Restaurant. A quick run across the street and BOOM -- a bag of spicy meat pies.

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Lunching at Hung Sum

Andrew and I went to Hung Sum for a quick bite. We both went there with some dishes on our minds. Andrew was thinking steamed tripe and stir-fried rice noodles with beef. I was itching to order steamed beef balls and cheung fun with youtiao aka zhaliang. Once we arrived, we sat down to a free table by the window.

Kim's Restaurant Revisited

I've tried to suppress my rice noodle cravings, but a combination of being sick and the cold weather made me break. I needed something to boost my energy. I was thinking stir-fried rice noodles. The one with sauce. It has been quite a while since visiting them.

Out of all the Chinese restaurants in Ottawa that I've been to, only Kim's Restaurant makes the stir-fried rice noodles with enough smokiness. I've only experienced only one so-so rendition of the noodles here once out of the 10ish times I've eaten in. We've done takeout twice and the food didn't taste good at all. Speaking of not tasting good; Grandpa ended up trying this place with my parents sometime earlier this year. Or was it last year? The point is, he wanted to see what the hype was after I repeatedly told him that that dish was great. Let's just say that they left the restaurant unimpressed. I wasn't there, but he said that the noodles were terrible because they were black. Dad agreed and said that it was way too smoky. I got a bit defensive when I heard the news. What? Their noodles are great! How was it too black?

Determined to prove them wrong Wanting to confirm that the restaurant still made a solid plate of rice noodles with chicken, we headed out to dinner.

We pick and chose the three dish meal which included soup, rice, and dessert. There was a tepid bowl of black eyed beans, chicken feet, and pork soup to start. Other than that, we had the fish fillet with black bean sauce, shrimp with eggplant, braised beef brisket, beef with asparagus, and rice noodles with chicken (replaced the bean sprouts with choi sum).. I really enjoyed the fish fillet. I know they use a cheap fish like basa but the fact that they didn't drown it in the sauce made it better because it kept the fillets crispy. There was plenty of sauce for rice too. As for the braised beef brisket, we were all deeply disappointed in three things. Firstly, there wasn't enough flavour infused into the beef. Secondly, the dish was watery and didn't have the thicker gravy sauce. We really enjoy the New Hong Shing's version of the braised beef brisket (the one in the pot). Lastly, the daikon tasted sour so we asked the owner. She took away the dish and let us choose another dish to replace it. The beef and asparagus was the dish that we chose. It was very salty, but when eaten with plenty of rice or rice noodles, it was fine. Of course, I wasn't surprised when the rice noodles arrived with a delicate aroma of wok hei. There wasn't enough of the sauce sadly. Since there were dishes like the black bean fish fillet and the salty beef with asparagus, it all worked out.

As we're enjoying dinner, I had to ask the question: How do the noodles taste? My parents' answer: good.

Huzzah! 

To cap off the night, we were given some warm silken tofu for dessert. Apparently my parents had the silken tofu last time they dined with Grandpa. This was new to me. Mom didn't say the exact words, but essentially said that this was the best silken tofu dessert it Ottawa. The dessert was silky and fragile, and when drizzled with the simple syrup, that was lightly imbued with ginger, the warm dessert was like a warm fuzzy hug.

Seafood Banquet at O Mei

Mom had a hankering for seafood. We were in the Richmond Hill and Markham area all weekend so there were lots of options. She flip flopped between a Chinese buffet to a Chinese restaurant. I was pushing for something a bit more special, so once she settled on the latter, I did a few searches and found a candidate. We couldn't get a reservation for a decent time, so we went for the second option instead.


There were a few restaurants that served lobsters a few different ways. The place we chose, O Mei, just happened to be very close to where we were staying. O Mei's specialty breaking down a giant lobster of your choosing and cooking them into four different ways: steamed, stir-fried, deep-fried, and added into fried rice -- all with one lobster. Fancy, eh? Our family is used to the ginger and onion sauce. We actually make it at home. This was taking it to the next level. It was just what I was looking for.

We arrived a bit early for our reservation and were seated promptly to the rear corner of the store. The menus were all in Chinese. Luckily two people knew how to read it. Our server arrived and began talking really quickly in Cantonese. When we responded in Mandarin, he quickly stopped and immediately rambled on in Mandarin. When we asked questions, he replied so quickly, I started to think he was being timed. Jimmy ordered and the waiter disappeared with the menus but returned shortly after with a huge lobster.

"This is 8 and a quarter pounds", he said showing the live lobster. Upon first glance, the huge lobster looked closer to 10lbs. Mom thought it was too big as well, so we asked for a smaller one. The other lobster arrived. It looked much closer to 8lb but it was apparently 7.5lb. "We'll take it." We thought we were ready for what was to come. We didn't know exactly what or how many dishes we ordered. In hindsight, I'm not sure why we didn't just ask one of the waiters to be sure. With this uncertainty in mind, we sat in our chairs and O Mei began the ride.


A lazy susan-sized plate of steamed lobster claws with garlic and bean thread noodles arrived. It was lightly seasoned and tame compared to how we normally prepare lobster. The noodles were great with the lobster.


Next up, stir-fried lobster with Maggi. This was new to all of us and was a favourite. It was more on the sweeter side, which was a pleasant surprise. We were all so impressed with this rendition, we wished there was double the amount on the plate. Andrew took the head and picked it clean after failed attempts by Dad, Jimmy, and myself. There wasn't any of the guts aka tomalley (had to google that) though. The kitchen saved that for the last lobster dish.


The waiter came to change our plates, which were already filled with empty lobster shells before the third dish arrived. The lobster was deep-fried and topped with chopped bits chilli, onions, noodle bits and lots of fried garlic.  This was reminiscent of the salt and pepper pork chops at the New Hong Shing. Mom couldn't believe they used so much garlic in this.


And the finale: Chinese fried rice with the tomalley. Why not? At this point, we all began to slow down a bit. Andrew was hilariously just getting started. While everyone else kept trying the dishes as they arrived, he kept his own steady pace. That was the end of our 7.5lb lobster. To sum it up, the fried rice and steamed dish were alright. It was all about that Maggi seasoned lobster.

I began to sip some more tea in anticipation for the desserts. We all were.

But then this happened..

Can't Get Enough Dumplings

I just can't stay away from this beautiful restaurant. Just look at it. We've written about this at least five times dating back to 2009 (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th). I try my best to visit the Northern Dumpling Kitchen when I'm visiting Toronto and the Greater Area of Toronto (GTA). I used to try to visit House of Gourmet for my noodles but I haven't been there in over two years (!). During this trip back in May, I wanted to bring VN and have her try soup dumplings for the first time.

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!

~*~

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