Updated: Breakfasts at A&W

Our family has never been big fans of breakfast. Brunch or dim sum? That's another story. But when I have to open at work, I need to eat or else I'd be a sluggish zombie. I'm usually still waking up by the time I leave the house, so making breakfast is just not ideal -- whether it's the that morning or even the previous night. The sun is usually still waking up too.




And that's where A&W comes to the rescue. For a few months working at the Costco location in Merivale, I'd go to Tim Hortons for some morning coffee or tea. Some time at the end of summer, some one told me that A&W was open for breakfast. I was so excited! The last time I had breakfast at A&W was over 6 years ago in Kingston. Lucy and I loved their breakfast sandwiches made with hamburger buns. I knew what I'd order first.


Here's the breakfast sausage sandwich combo with a hamburger bun instead of an english muffin. The sweet fluffy bun provided a nice contrast to the salty sausage patties. The hash brown that was included was super hot and crisp. They were much better than the soggy thin hash browns at Timmy's.


One morning, I ran some errands before I went to work and so I was super early -- almost 2 hours early. So I tried out their classic breakfast and received a tray with my breakfast and a mug of coffee. The tray added something special. It was a nice touch. I got comfortable and enjoyed my classic breakfast while surfing the web on their free wifi.


I've since learned that their orange pekoe tea is a better option than their coffee.

Here's some bad news though. Earlier this past weekend, I planned to grab some breakfast at A&W before work but their signs were gone. I didn't walk up to the door. It looked closed so I walked across the street for some Timmy's.

There is good news! Their voicemail says that they've closed down their store temporarily from Nov. 11th to about Dec. 9th for renovations. Huzzah! I'm eagerly waiting until they're open for business again.

*Update on December 14th: I've heard that A&W has been reopened for a few days now. I can't wait to grab some breakfast soon.

~*~

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

*Updated* Covering a Marathon as an Official Photographer: My Experience

This upcoming Sunday is the GoodLife Fitness Toronto Marathon 2013. I'll be joining a wonderful team of MarathonFoto photographers to cover the event. It will be my fifth time helping out with the amazing event.



Grab a cup of coffee, or in this case -- a caffé macchiato -- and read how the upcoming weekend typically unfolds for me, an official marathon photographer for the day. There won't be any food porn. I'll write about the food later. Continue if you'd like.

Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone!

I want to try something a bit different this year. I'll try to do some live blogging as we're (Lucy, Richard, and I) putting together our Christmas eve feast. The approximate time will be noted in brackets using 24-hour clock. I'll stop once I run out of counter space and/or when our family arrives. Follow me on twitter: @teafortwo_c

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

More Photos from Asia 2010

I thought I'd share some photos that I've recently edited from my 2010 trip to Asia.


A photo of the Dream Mall. It's one of Asia's largest shopping malls. [link]




Sulfur springs and hiking in the Yangmingshan National Park. [link]








Busy streets of Danshui market and harbourfront. [link]




Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China. [link]

Do you like?

The Year (2011) in Review

Let's look back over the stuff Lucy and I have cooked, baked, eaten, and photographed. I'm well aware that people usually do these types of posts at the end of December or at the beginning of the new year. *Shrug* All of the links in this page will take you to the corresponding article written, should you choose to click on them and read more. But first, some stats that don't mean much.

Unique visits in the past year:

23,969

Unique page views:

44,348


Cookie-topped custard buns [link].

Most visits per month:

1. Jan ’12 (2,668)
2. Mar ’12 (2,432)
3. Feb ’12 (2,236)
4. Mar ’11 (2,203)
5. Dec ’11 (2,088)

Most page views per month:

1. Jan ’12 (5,012)
2. Mar ’12 (4,893)
3.  Feb ’12 (4,816)
4. Nov ’11 (3,953)
5. Dec ’11 (3,852)

Doing some mise en place for multiple Chinese snacks, like Chinese hamburgers and breaded shrimp balls [link].

Most read pages:

1. 168 Sushi Buffet (1,238 views)
2.  Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot (669)
3.  Random Tidbits: Part 7 – Sandwiches (560)
4.  Chinese New Year 2011 (463)
5. Ngong Ping, Tian Tan Buddha, Dai Pai Dong (230)

Warm homemade Ontario peach crumble with vanilla ice cream [link].

Favourite posts:

1. Tea in Asia 2011
2. Gaspé Trip 2011
3. Chinese New Year 2011
4. Cooking and Eating Marathon with the Girls
5. Ottawa’s Chicken and Ribfest 2011

An over-easy egg, toasted croissant, and tangerines [link].

Favourite eats (in no particular order):

• Daikon dumplings at Tung Yuen (in HK)
• Soy goose at Tung Yuen (in HK)
• Homemade Meat Pie
• Pizza from Libretto (in Toronto)
• Spring roll bún

Before I end the page with some of my favourite photos of food, I'd like to list some things that I'd like to improve upon over the next year:

• Capture stronger food images
• Life needs to be injected into the stuff I write
• Write sooner so that I'll remember more details
• Take notes when I can
• Take more photos of food that have less red, orange, and yellow in the frame

Favourite photos:

Wrapping pot stickers with soup [link].

Soy goose breast at the Chiuchow Garden [link].

Perogies with bacon, sautéed onions, and sour cream [link].

Daikon dumplings at Tung Yuen [link].

Lucy's creamy garlic pizza that you have to try for yourself [link].

Soup dumplings inside the CityGate Outlet food court [link].

Billy Bones' ribs from Ottawa's ribfest [link].


Golden pot stickers made from scratch [link].


Chicken pita with a lemonade at Ottawa's annual dragon boat festival [link].

Tim Tams that some relatives brought over from Australia [link].