Long Weekend @ Toronto: Libretto and Thumbs Up

The next day, I met up with Liz, Sarah and her cousin for lunch at Libretto.

I remember reading about Libretto’s goal to get certified by the Vera Pizza Neapolitana a few years ago. It looks like they’ve succeeded!

The complimentary bread with a side of olive oil, chili oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping was barely touched. We were all saving our stomachs for the pizza.

Just like the last time I went to Libretto for lunch, I chose to share the Lunch Prix Fixe with Liz. Sarah shared hers with her cousin, Nicole.

Liz and I decided to get the arugula salad (which included walnuts, pears and parmesan shavings) as our primi.

Sarah and Nicole got the brushetta. I think it was a red pepper with goat cheese and pesto brushetta.

The pizza was beautifully blistered and tasted amazing with the bright tomato sauce. The other pictures of the pizza were really blurry, so I just posted the picture of my margherita pizza from my previous visit to show the blistering. It was pretty much the same.

The marinara pizza was just as I remembered Libretto’s pizza to be. The thin and slightly chewy crust had a lot of character. The basil and thinly slices of garlic provided bursts of flavour with every other bite. Sarah and Nicole had the margherita (not pictured) and really liked it!

We ended our amazing lunch with a bit of gelato (not pictured) and then parted ways.

I met up with my uncle in Chinatown and then headed down to Lakeshore to meet up with my cousins, aunt, and grandma. We picked up some french fries for them on our way down.

My uncle had originally ordered two french fries and a poutine, but we ended up with two poutines and an order of french fries. Despite everyone saying that they weren’t hungry, the three orders of greasy fries were all inhaled before any seagulls had a chance to fly over.

The weather was really nice that weekend. We ended up chilling by the Humber River Bridge during the afternoon and then walked along Lakeshore a bit. No one wanted to cook dinner that night, so we decided to have dinner at my cousins’ go-to restaurant in Koreatown (the one along Bloor St. W).

The Thumbs-Up Korean Fast Food restaurant is their favourite. They love how quick the service is, how good the food is, and above all, how cheap everything is. I’m guessing “Um Ji” means thumbs up in Korean?

The waiter immediately brought out the banchan after my cousins placed our order. From the top; a slaw, string bean salad, glazed potato (gamja jjorim), and the obligatory kimchi.

My cousins got us two orders of the Korean dumplings (goon mandu). I prefer Chinese pot stickers to be honest.

The gamjatang (pork bone soup) tasted fine.

The haemul paejon (seafood pancake) was pretty good. We also ordered a plate of chap chae (not pictured). The restaurant must've made a new batch because the chap chae wasn't as flavourful as it usually is. There was also a small pool of seasoning liquid that the chap chae sat in.

My favourite was the yummy (braised beef bone). That's what the dish was called. Seriously. Anyway, the rice that was served with the dish was so delicious! I could eat this rice any day – and this is coming from someone who doesn’t like rice. It was so starchy and fragrant! The rice reminded me of sushi rice. Are they the same?

Everything fed 8 people and the bill came up to under $40. To be fair though, weren't very hungry to begin with. Still, the portion sizes would please any Korean. After dinner, we walked down Koreatown to help with digestion. We dropped by a Korean grocery store. I picked up some fresh dukk (rice cakes for dukkboki), and two large containers of goochujang (red pepper paste) and doenjang (miso-like bean paste). We walked a few more blocks before heading back to my cousins’ place for the night.

~*~*~

Addresses:

Pizzeria Libretto

221 Ossington Ave.

Toronto, ON

416-532-8000

Thumbs Up

615 Bloor St. W

Toronto, ON

416-536-4106

Long Weekend @ Toronto: Northern Dumpling Kitchen

I spent the last long weekend in Toronto. My uncle and I drove to Toronto to visit family and to pick up my grandma (who had spent the week there). We were supposed to meet up for dim sum somewhere, but we didn’t get into Toronto until the afternoon. No biggie. We went to one of my favourite restaurant instead.

Here are the soup dumplings at the Northern Dumpling Kitchen. I didn’t have enough self-control snap a few pictures before gorging myself. As always, the xiao long bao (XLB) were filled with soup. It was his first time eating XLB. My uncle wasn’t very impressed with them. He just said that dumplings were dumplings… ugh…

He said the same thing about the pan-fried chicken dumplings. That’s fine. I happily ate part of his share.

Yup, I ate these three as well.

Before Liz introduced me to the restaurant, I had never eaten dumplings with vinegar before. I’m forever grateful! It’s hard to eat dumplings without vinegar now.

My uncle wanted to try the beef wrap. It was generous portion to say the least. There were slices of beef, green onions, and a bit of hoisin-like sauce on the pancakes. Delish! The pancakes themselves were okay. They were greasy (just look at the pancake glisten in the second picture), but weren’t too thick. My uncle loved this! He said that usually restaurants are stingy with the beef (not the case here) or the pancakes are usually super thick and heavy.

Later that evening, we made our way to the tourist-packed Pacific Mall to join my cousins, aunt, and grandma. After a few impulse buys, we all headed back to their place for dinner. It was a typical Cambodian dinner (sour fish soup, pan-fried fish, and chicken).

For dessert, we had some dragon fruit.

My cousin cut the dragon fruit for everyone. Dragon fruit reminds me a weaker version of a kiwi. They’re not as sweet or as acidic. It was a great way to end the first day of the long weekend.

~*~

Address:

Northern Dumpling Kitchen
550 Highway 7 E
Richmond Hill, ON
905-881-3818

Roadie to Kingston: Sima Sushi and Arisu

A few days ago, Jimmy, Richard and I went to Kingston for Henry’s convocation. Since the convocation didn’t begin until the afternoon, we had lunch at Sima Sushi. This is Lucy and Jimmy's favourite sushi place in Kingston. You can read about their fondness of the restaurant here.

Each set included some salad and a bowl of miso soup. It wasn’t spectacular, but it wasn’t meant to be.

I got the sashimi and maki lunch set. It came with yellowtail, tuna, salmon, and butterfish sashimi.

And also included some California rolls. Henry ordered the 1A Sushi lunch set which replaced the sashimi with sushi rolls (not pictured).

Richard got the unagi don. The eel was a bit fishy to me, though it’s normally like that, but it tasted fine with the rice and sauce.

Jimmy got a sashimi dinner set (salmon, tuna, yellowtail, and butterfish sashimi).

Lucy and Jimmy love Sima Sushi – oh, Andrew too! They always talk about the dreamy butterfish. I didn’t think it was that great.

It does look like Sima Sushi has been consistent over the years. Take a look at their two trips here and here about two years ago. Reading the two entries written by Lucy is a breath of fresh air. I know I'm not a great writer. Anyway...

We headed back to Henry’s place to chill after the ceremonies wrapped up. The plan was to go to Grecos for some Greek food, but we weren’t able to grab a table since everyone came in to town for the convocations. Henry suggested that we go to Wooden Head’s, while I suggested that we just grab some burgers from Five Guys (which happened to be a few steps away from Grecos).

We went to Arisu in the end. I really wanted to try Smoke’s Poutinerie, but we went to have Korean instead. You can read about the last time Lucy wrote about Arisu here.

I was surprised that the restaurant wasn’t packed, but I was glad at the same time. We ordered a plate of dukkboki (rice cakes) to share. As soon as I saw the dukkboki, I had a feeling that it the sauce would be a sweet and spicy sauce. You know, it's like the really sweet sauce buffets use for general tsao chicken. Anyway, it tasted exactly like I imagined. I'm sure this wasn't what it's supposed to taste like. Where are the fish cakes and large pieces of green onions? There was a weird (thin) crispy layer on the outside of each rice cake. It was probably from all the sugar.

There was only one waiter for the restaurant. The poor guy was definitely overwhelmed. We didn’t even get the banchan until after the dukkboki.

Anyway, the waiter brought the three small side dishes. The first one was a salad of bean sprouts, cucumbers, carrots, green onions, and daikon with a bit of sesame oil and other seasonings.

This was a plate of a potato salad. Richard and I much rather prefer the sticky potatoes that is usually served.

With just one look, I knew the kimchi wouldn’t be good. I was right. It wasn't very garlicky or stinky (fermented).

Richard and I split had got a plate of chap chae to share with the table. We barely touched it. It tasted fine but nothing that great – plus, it was easier to pack the chap chae up and eat it later.

Richard ordered the kimchi jigae (kimchi soup). Jimmy got the tofu soup (not pictured). I didn’t try Jimmy’s soup, but Richard’s soup was okay. I preferred mine over his.

I got the yuk kae jang (spicy beef with vegetables in soup).

Henry ordered the gamjatang (pork bone soup). We all tried Henry’s soup and immediately wished we ordered the gamjatang instead. The soup was sweeter than mine was. The sweet taste of the pork bones and meat was so good! Oh man, my mouth is watering now. Richard ranked the soups from crappiest to the best: Jimmy’s tofu soup, his own kimchi jigae, my yuk kae jang, and then the gamjatang.

After we paid the bill and left the restaurant with full bellies. We dropped Henry back at his place and then headed back to Ottawa. I sure do miss roadies!

~*~*~

Addresses:

Sima Sushi
66 Princess St.
Kingston, ON
613-542-8040


Arisu
185 Division St.
Kingston, ON
613-531-9265

Tea in Asia 2010

All of the articles in the "Tea in Asia 2010" are linked on this page.

In my last semester of Humber College, I took an optional class that had a study abroad portion. The trip was optional of course. I had no idea if I would be able to go, but I gave it a shot anyway.

The itinerary looked like this: Toronto – Kaohsiung, Taiwan – Taipei – Beijing.

Follow me back to Asia:

• Day 1: HK Airport and Kaohsiung, Taiwan
• Day 2: Bike Tour and Cijin District
• Day 3: Cooking Class and Volunteering
• Day 4: Yangmingshan National Park and Din Tai Fung (Taipei)
• Day 5: National Palace Museum, Danshui Market, Shilin Night Market
• Day 6: Taiwanese Breakfast, Taipei 101, Ximending Shopping District
• Day 7: Arriving in Beijing
• Day 8: Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Humble Dinner
• Day 9: Great Wall of China, Jade Market
• Day 10: Lama Temple, Rickshaw Tour of the Hutongs, Peking Duck
• Day 11: Wasted Time at the Redwall Hotel
• Day 12: Goodbye Asia!

Here are some of my favourite photos from the trip: