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.

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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Lunch at Cafe Orient

On Tuesday, I had to go have an ultrasound done in the morning that required me to fast. After the ultrasound, I decided to go to Chinatown for some food.



That morning, the windchill made it feel like -38 degrees Celcius (-36.4F). To thaw myself out, I needed the help of a strong cup of HK milk tea.


For my lunch, I had the beef brisket, shrimp wonton rice noodle soup and a side of deep fried shrimp balls. The soup itself was quite bland. I wish they had added much more of the braising liquid into the soup. I'm glad I went with the rice noodles instead of the regular thin egg noodles.


The beef brisket pieces were super tender. Some of the strands did get in stuck in my teeth - I hate that!


These shrimp balls were a little different. Instead of having a coating of some cornstarch or whatever, these were battered and then fried. They did have green onions mixed in and were very juicy. I think the sweet sauce that accompanied the shrimp balls had some five spice powder. It added a nice depth.

For a post-fasting-ultrasound meal, I say this hit the spot.

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Ken's Birthday Dinner at Sea King

With one of our younger cousins visiting from Toronto, a few of us got together for a small birthday dinner at Sea King. I headed to the restaurant after I was finished and met up with them (Andrew, Kevin, and Ken) there.

"Alright, what does everyone want to eat?" I inquired while getting settled into my chair. It didn't matter apparently. No one was picky. "Let's try something different then."


I knew I wanted to order the shrimp-stuffed crab claws as an appetizer. It was a special occasion, so why not? Sometimes you can find deep-fried shrimp balls during dim sum. This is the king of those -- the price reflects that too; $4.50 a piece.

The shrimp-stuffed crab claws arrived piping hot with a dipping sauce of an unthickened sweet vinegar sauce. They were super plump, bouncy, and juicy. Packed with sweet shrimp covered with fried vermicelli, dinner started off on a great note.


Kevin wanted to get the black pepper steak. I was thinking of ordering a casserole pot with veggies and vermicelli on the bottom. But Andrew said he wanted to get a vegetarian dish so we went with that.

Other than the steak being over-tenderized, everyone enjoyed the black pepper steak with their bowls of rice. The vegetarian dish had a strong canned bamboo taste. I was not a fan. This was the least favourite of our table.


The last dish I ordered was the stir-fried rice noodles with shrimp and egg sauce. I've read about the dish so often in other food blogs. I was eager to give it a try.

At first, it just looked like it was a plate of shrimp and sliced Chinese vegetables in a egg sauce. But there was rice noodles hiding underneath. The sauce was quite mild. The seasoned shrimps were the saltiest note of the whole dish, while the sliced Chinese greens added a textural crunch. I'm not sure if the dish was a true representation of how it should've tasted though. Is it supposed to taste so simple?


We wrapped up Ken's birthday dinner with some complimentary dessert of red beans.

When the bill came, I just laughed when I saw the breakdown of the pricing. The most expensive part of dinner was the appetizer. Yowzas! I'd still do it over again though. It was that good.

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Noodles at Kim's Restaurant, Spinach Pies at Aladdin Bakery

Last time Andrew got to try the noodles from Kim's Restaurant, the food was very disappointing. I still had confidence in the restaurant. Before I brought Andrew to the restaurant, I wanted to try it one more time in case the quality actually went downhill.


I ordered the usual: deep fried shrimp balls (A-11) and rice noodles with chicken (FN-04), substituting the bean sprouts for Chinese greens. Both dishes were really good. It was the same great quality I've been used to. Phew!


As I was walking to the bus stop, I picked up a spinach pie and meat pie from Aladdin Bakery to try later that evening. The temptation was too great. I warmed them both up in the toaster oven and shared it with Mom and Lucy as an appetizer before dinner. We found the spinach pie really heavy and quite sour. I liked the sourness but needed a drink to give my palate a rest. I wouldn't be able to handle a whole one for a meal or something. It's too much for me. The meat pies, on the other hand, is not a problem at all.

Dim Sum Before Work

One day I started at 3pm and coincidently, Grandpa wanted to get together for lunch. Sweet!


Grandpa left the ordering to myself and Andrew. It was tempting to troll and just order one thing, laugh it off, then order more things. Very tempting.


I ordered a bunch of cheung fan because I wasn't expecting Grandpa to order stir-fried rice noodles or chow mein. I even told him that, but Grandpa's listening is suspect. He hears what he wants to hear. He ordered a plate of rice noodles with beef and chinese greens with extra sauce.




The taro dumplings were hot and crispy. The chicken feet, not pictured, was good as well -- so good that Grandpa asked for another order. I found that there was a bit too much sesame oil. Other than that, they were tender and full of flavour.


After lunch, Mom lectured me about how haw gow is a waste of money and how I should be ordering lots of shrimp siu mai instead. Yes Mom...

I definitely could've used a power nap after lunch. Since we finished with a lot of spare time, we just walked a bit before I headed to work. See? Shift work isn't all that bad.

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Dim Sum Feast on Boxes

Andrew and I picked up dim sum from Chu Shing. We had just missed the bus when we left the restaurant, so we just walked over to Lucy and Jimmy's apartment near Elgin. The sunny and cool breeze made the walk very enjoyable.

Lucy put together some boxes for a makeshift table, since they didn't have a coffee or dining table at the time. It didn't really matter to us. We unpacked the containers like it was Christmas.





Deep-fried shrimp balls with a sweet and sour sauce. There was also baked BBQ pork buns, steamed shrimp siu mai, beef tendon, lo mai gai, and ginger tripe.

Everything was still hot when we began to eat. The shrimp balls were bouncy and juicy. I really like how Chu Shing mixes in green onions. The beef tendon was very tender and full of flavour.





We had rice noodles with beef and, for dessert, two egg tarts.

Lunch was heartburning-ly delicious!

~*~

Lunch at T&T

Yesterday's grocery run plan:

• Head to Costco to buy a bunch of snacks that are on sale
• Grab stuff for hot pot at T&T
• Eat lunch at T&T
• Get home in under an hour and a half

What really happened:

• Spent not even 10 minutes in Costco; snacks were sold out
• Spent over 2 hours in T&T; lots of pointless waiting

Instead of shopping in T&T first, we were going to eat but when we went to order some dim sum, we were told that the shrimp siu mai would be ready in 20 minutes. And so we went back to our original plan: shop first; eat later.

When we were walking around, I saw a kid snacking on a hot dog on a stick. But it was topped with green onions. How intriguing!

I wandered over to the former bubble tea stall. It has since been converted into a snack stand selling drinks, ice cream, Taiwanese-style sausages, and even jianbing. Jianbing is a breakfast crepe that's eaten on the streets in China.

They were selling a variety of snacks like this Taiwan-style sausage. For only $3, you could get it dressed with a variety of things. Since we had time to kill, I bought one so that we could snack on it while we waited to eat lunch.

As I was waiting in line, I noticed that the gentleman and the older lady were training a younger lady.

When it was my turn, I asked for a spicy sausage with black pepper paste, garlic, and green onions. The lady cut down the center of the sausage to fill it with stuff. It tasted really good. It tasted sweet at first, then the heat from the black pepper paste washed over the palate, then the garlic, then more sweetness from the sausage, and then finally the cayenne pepper kicked in. The sausages reminds me of the sweet Vietnamese version of Chinese sausages that we eat with congee. Andrew and I were very impressed with how good and addictive it was.

We shopped some more, taking our sweet time snaking down the aisles. Mom checked in on the dim sum and they said it still wasn't ready yet. At this point, Andrew and I were getting impatient. We knew the shrimp siu mai wouldn't be worth the wait. I went back to the snack stand to get some milk tea (without tapioca pearls) to enjoy with our lunch.

The. Service. Was. So. Slow.

The gentleman and younger lady were making the drinks people ordered, while the older lady was making the jianbing. I turned my attention to the older lady making the crepes before I began to lose it.

She was much more efficient with her actions, whereas the trainee looked unsure of every move she made while making the drinks. It didn't look like that was any urgency from the trainee.

Once both milk teas were handed to me, I rushed back to meet Mom and Andrew. They had just started to eat. I just wanted to eat, pay for our groceries, and go home.

Discounted noodles and vegetarian spring rolls.

There were also two orders of shrimp siu mai. This is half an order. 

We've tried their dim sum items before and it was quite lacking. We were eating there for the convenience. You can tell from the photo how processed the siu mai was. It was definitely not worth the wait. The filling definitely had a lot of cornstarch or something.

The milk teas were on the weak side. I think the only place that makes a great version in Ottawa is at My Sweet Tea.

After lunch, we grabbed a few more things and then checked out.

Oh yeah, I got two boxes of Melona bars! Mom was pretty sure they were cheaper at the Superstore, but I bought them anyway because we weren't going there. Turns out the savings would've been about a dollar at the Superstore. Dammit! I could've used that dollar to buy an iced coffee or extra large fountain drink at McD's. I'm just not at that level of being "smart with my money," as Mom likes to say.

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Side story:
After having brunch at Stoneface Dolly's today (more on that later), VN and I went to buy some Melona bars at the Westboro Superstore. They were all sold out -- of course. I asked for a raincheck but the lady at the customer service desk said that she won't give us one because it wasn't in their flyer. "It is in the Superstore flyer at home! It's on a 'World Flavours' page." I told VN. "I swear, I'm not going crazy." I'm not sure why I was so determined to get the raincheck.

I got on my phone and tried to check the online flyers.

Nothing. There wasn't any "world flavours" section in either the in-store flyer or online flyers. I even checked the regular Loblaws' flyers. Again, nothing -- and yes, I did search the Ottawa flyers. I was so frustrated. "I'll send you a photo of it when I get home," I vowed.

Boom. How is it that the "World Flavours" section is totally missing from the in-store flyer and online flyer? Brutal.

I guess the lesson is to bring the flyers you have with you.

Dinner at Hung Sum

Mom, Andrew, and I were shopping around yesterday and then headed downtown with the intention of grabbing some goods from the ribfest on Sparks Street. We were driving through Chinatown and then a waft of something delicious came through the windows. We all took a deep breath and exhaled in satisfaction.

"Do you want to eat fried rice noodles instead of ribs?" Mom asked as soon as she caught her breath.

"Doesn't matter to me. Andrew?" I threw it to Andrew. Seriously, I didn't care. It was a win-win situation.

"I don't know. What's the plan? Are we going to have ribs?" Andrew asked. What he said was essentially, "the ball's in your court."

"Well if you want to have ribs now, we can still go. If not, we can always grab some ribs tomorrow for lunch." I countered. He's not winning that easily.

Andrew was silent for a minute. "Okay. Then if that's the case, let's stay here (in Chinatown) for dinner."


We parked on Rochester Street and walked down to Hung Sum. I had only been there a handful of times for lunch and was curious about their dinner service. There were two other tables being occupied; one middle-aged couple from Hong Kong, and a group of three older caucasians. It looked like they had just placed their order.

The menu was simple. One one side, there were the dim sum choices and a list of the chef's specials. The other side listed the all the larger dishes. There wasn't anything too special. I checked off what we wanted and gave the menu to the lady.

As we waited for the food to arrive, we watched the table of caucasians receive two steamers of BBQ pork buns (two in each steamer), a steamer of sticky rice (aka lo mai gai), and a plate of cheung fan. Mom scoffed, "they'll get full so fast! At least their bill will be cheap."

Andrew and I killed time by checking out their soy sauce and hot sauce. It used to be my habit to always try a Chinese restaurant's soy sauce. Their hot sauce was the same stuff as most of the other Chinese restaurants use, but Hung Sum's seemed spicier. We both really liked it.


The steamer of tripe and coriander shrimp dumplings arrived. As soon as I saw the shrimp dumplings, I knew that I had ordered the wrong thing again. I wanted to order the dumplings that I had during my first trip. Ah well, they still tasted good - especially with the hot sauce.

[Updated on Sept. 18th, 2013]
The reason why I ordered the wrong thing was because I had mistakenly written the wrong dish. The dumplings I wanted to order are the steamed green onion ginger beef dumplings.

As we devoured the two dishes, we continue to people watch. The table of caucasians got an order of deep-fried squid tentacles, siu mai, and beef balls. "Not bad, they're still hungry."


Our plate of wu gok (aka taro dumplings, taro puffs) arrived. "These are good. This takes too much effort to make. When it's hot like this, it's really good." Mom commented while nodding her head. My jaws dropped. Did she just admit that something wasn't work the effort to make from scratch?


Shortly afterwards, the steamer of shrimp siu mai (not pictured) and plate of rice noodles with beef arrived. Although there were char marks on the noodles, the noodles actually didn't taste smoky at all. How does that happen? It was a bit disappointing. Andrew and Mom enjoyed their house-made noodles.

The caucasians got a plate of eggplants stuffed with shrimp and a plate of youtiao afterwards. "Wow, they're still going. Not bad." I thought to myself.  Mom gave them credit, "they know how to eat." It was quite impressive, considering they started off with the two heavier dim sum dishes.

The amount of food that we ordered was perfect. We were all full and satisfied after the five dishes. The bill was just over $25. I'll definitely be returning to Hung Sum. Mom said she wouldn't mind returning either -- crazy, I know!

Btw, what do you think of this template? I changed it so that the photos we upload stand out.

~*~

Address:

Hung Sum
870 Somerset St W
Ottawa, ON
613-238-8828

HK-Inspired Wonton Noodle Soup

Mom and I had a craving for Hong Kong-style wonton noodle soup. I knew we wouldn't get anywhere close to their clear and simple soup, nor would we be able to replicate the bouncy and sweet shrimp wontons the master chefs make. Despite knowing this, we flexed our culinary muscles and attempted to make a decent rendition of wonton noodle soup.

After I did a quick google search of what ingredients we might need for the soup and wontons, we drove to T&T and purchased most of the ingredients. I spotted a container of dried egg noodles that were on sale.



Upon further inspection, I noticed that there were two flavours: regular egg noodles and the shrimp egg noodles. I took a look at the label and saw that it was made by a company in Hong Kong. Done. Looked legit. Apparently one of the more well-known wonton noodle soup shops in Hong Kong uses powdered shrimp eggs in their soup. These shrimp egg noodles were good enough for us.



The bundles of shrimp egg noodles were quite small.


The soup ended up turning into something like Phnom Penh noodle soup since we used pork neck bones and dried squid. I didn't take a photo of the pot. The soup looked just like this pot of Phnom Penh noodle soup though.



As for the shrimp wontons, we used regular ground pork, shrimps, green onions, ginger, oyster sauce, cornstarch, salt, sugar, and a few drops of sesame oil. That's it. Mom chopped everything together until it was a sticky mess. Once cooked, the sticky mess becomes an unbelievably bouncy ball of dim sum-like fare -- mind you, it wasn't as bouncy as these pissing beef balls (skip to 0:38). I took a bit of the filling and nuked it in the microwave to see how it tasted.


It. Was. Amazing. They really tasted like dim sum fare. Though they didn't taste like the shrimp wontons we had in Hong Kong, I was still very happy with the seasoning of this batch.




We filled the wontons quite generously.


The shrimp wonton filling tasted so good that Mom wanted to try and fry them. "They'll taste like the shrimp balls at dim sum," she said. They really did taste like them.

The first few shrimp balls she put into the oil ended up burning. The innards were uncooked so we popped them into the microwave to cook. The rest of the filling were pressed into patties to cook evenly.


Mom also fried these homemade shrimp tempura for an appetizer. She made these shrimp tempura two weeks ago and froze these. Smart.


We used five bundles of shrimp egg noodles to feed seven people (I invited my grandparents over for lunch). The wonton noodle soup still tasted amazing despite the noodles being overcooked. I can't wait to make these again!