Little Sheep Hot Pot

We've had hot pot before, but Little Sheep hot pot experiences have been a nice change. With restaurants in Toronto (Ontario), Montreal (Quebec), San Diego (California), Houston (Texas), Japan, Macao, and Taiwan, to name a few, it has proved to be a popular restaurant. They company also sells hot pot mixes to bring their soups to your home.

A few years ago, my parents first experienced the Little Sheep hot pot in Montreal. Then in 2009, Little Sheep Hot Pot came to Ottawa. I was treated to their hot pot on a night with my mom and brother, Andrew. (I remember taking pictures, but I'm not sure where they went.) Spiced with herbs and peppers, their broth is totally different from the simple hot pot dinners I've been accustomed to. Instead of using a nice light broth and relying on the ingredients in the hot pot for flavour, Little Sheep's soups have flavour before you even begin - although the soup still tastes a lot better at the end.

Well, two nights ago, we were planning to make Phnom Penh noodles for dinner, my dad suggested we have hot pot instead since he found that some watercress were on sale in a Chinese grocery store. Then when we dropped by my grandma's house, my uncle brought out a Little Sheep hot pot broth mix that he purchased at T&T. Apparently the mixes are sold at a variety of other Chinese stores.

I had wanted to have some noodles and it's a good thing, too, cause the soup was very tasty with the rice noodles - even as we were just starting the meal.

Taken with my uncle's Blackberry, here are some pictures.

A close up of the soup.

And an overall shot.

We had shrimp, slices of pork, beef balls, bok choi, watercress, tofu, tofu puffs, rice noodles, and glass noodles. We were missing two things though. Ice and a good drink to help cool us down from the heat.

We laughed every time someone choked on the spiciness of the soup, until it happend to us. The hot pot was refilled twice, which helped us finish almost everything on the table. Everyone left the table full and happy. And you know what? I think you should try Little Sheep hot pot out, even if it's at home with one of their hot pot stock mixes.

A Greek-Inspired Wrap – July 24, 2009

I briefly considered skipping over this post since it’s only a sandwich, but then I realized that simple foods like this were the driving force behind The Diet. I would have starved to death if I couldn’t eat such flavourful and healthy meals.



Start with a single chicken breast. Slice it in half so that you end up with two smaller chicken breasts with the same spread. Continue to slice it thinly until you end up with many thin strips of chicken breast. Marinate in a splash of soy sauce, splash of balsamic vinegar, a few spoonfuls of non-creamy salad dressing, salt, and pepper. Set aside.



Prepare the vegetables. Slice zucchini and eggplant lengthwise into quarter-inch thick strips. If they’re too thin, they’ll cook too quickly over the grill, and you’ll lose the tender bite. Quickly throw together another batch of the marinade above, and toss in the eggplant. Clean and slice the red pepper into quarters.



Slice cucumbers into sticks, thinly slice red onions, and bring out the condiments (zesty Italian salad dressing, red pepper hummus, feta cheese, and my special garlic mayo).



The garlic mayo was nothing more than four or five cloves of garlic, minced and stirred into a few spoonfuls of mayonnaise with a squirt of Sriracha hot sauce. It’s one of the smelliest sauces I’ve ever encountered, and it definitely leaves you with terrible breath. I don’t recommend this to be eaten around anyone else but family.



Assemble with warmed pitas and a little bit of everything. This was awesome straight off the grill, but it tasted good the next day, too! I found that the vegetables tasted flat after they cooled, so I stored them in a container with leftover marinade. The grilled vegetables soaked up the liquid, lending it a different flavour the next day.

I really enjoyed this because it filled me up without too much junk. Of course, the feta and the garlic mayo probably weren't great for The Diet, but it's all about using them in moderation for the flavour. Next time I make this, I'll cut the zucchini and eggplant thicker for a meatier bite to the sandwich/wrap. The thin slices turned mushy on the grill, and the texture turned me off a little. On the whole, this little dish was one of my favourite Diet-friendly recipes last summer!

Lucy's Toronto Vacation - 4: Homemade Okonomiyaki

Lucy's Toronto Vacation - 1
Lucy's Toronto Vacation - 2
Lucy's Toronto Vacation - 3
Lucy's Toronto Vacation - 4

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I'm going to pick it up after the last post...

After we got home, we began to get the munchies. The last thing we ate was a pretty sad (and expensive) platter of veggies and dip at the bar, while watching the men's hockey team bring home the gold in a movie-like fashion. On the menu: okonomiyaki!



We had already bought all of the ingredients for the okonomiyaki the day before. We found most of the stuff I didn't have at a small Japanese store on Queen Street West called Sanko.

Okonomiyaki batter mix.



Bonito flakes. I didn't realize it at the time, but this contains 5 individual packages of bonito flakes - which was perfect for us. On a random note, I see agedashi tofu on the package! (On another random note, we haven't blogged about the agedashi tofu we had at Totoya... hmm... going to dig around and try and find those pictures.)



Okonomiyaki sauce (which, to me, tasted like the same sauce they put on the takoyaki we ate last summer) and Japanese mayo. Do you notice the braille on the top of the bottle of okonomiyaki sauce? Cool!



The whole process is pretty simple and didn't take too long to make. Lucy and I have never made this before, but it was just a cabbage pancake. Right?

Mise en place was done:
- We took a few cabbage leaves and sliced them into ribbons (after washing them), though we should've shredded it instead of slicing em up.
- Bacon was fried and a portion of the plate of bacon was cut up



- Green onions were washed and sliced
- Cheese was cut up



Once we were finished with all of the mise en place, we mixed up the batter; batter mix, eggs, water, the sliced up cabbage, and salt were all added into a bowl.



For the first okonomiyaki, we decided to add the bacon under all of the fixings instead of mixing it into the batter, so the pancake was cooked on medium heat. And just like making breakfast pancakes, you should flip the pancake when the edges are pretty much cooked and when there's bubbles come from the middle of the batter.



After we flipped the pancake, the cheese was put on top. We then put a lid on top to make sure the cheese melted and the whole pancake cooked through.



Now onto the fun part...

We added the bacon on top of the pancake, then added the okonomiyaki, the Japanese mayo, green onions and the bonito flakes.

Tada!



Lucy and I inhaled the first pancake. I didn't really find anything that exciting about the dish, other than the dancing bonito flakes. On the other hand, Lucy definitely loved it! It was very heavy and salty because of the cheese, bacon, okonomiyaki sauce, Japanese mayo and bonito flakes. I felt the bacon was overpowering and way to heavy. The pancake would've been a lot better if the cabbage was finely shredded, as some of the ribbons weren't uniformly cooked. Most of the cabbage was nice and soft, but some of the other parts were a bit crunchy - which wasn't a bad thing, since it gave a nice texture.

Onto the next okonomiyaki pancake. We mixed the bacon into the batter this time. Here's a step by step picture guide on how we turned a cabbage and bacon pancake into an eye-pleasing okonomiyaki.







If we were to do this again, I would probably use low sodium bacon (if that was the choice of protein). You'll still get the flavour of the bacon without the sodium. Trust me, I just threw some onto a homemade pizza and it tasted fine. I'd maybe try some shrimp or some slices of fatty pork on the bottom of the pancake (like some people do it in Japan). I need to think about how to make the dish exciting for my palate... please don't hurt me okonomiyaki crazies!

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And this concludes Lucy's EPIC Toronto Vacation. I hope you all enjoyed reading about her visit to Toronto, as we did experiencing it.

Love ya sis! <3

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Lucy's Toronto Vacation 3: Dumplings Galore!

Lucy's Toronto Vacation - 1
Lucy's Toronto Vacation - 2
Lucy's Toronto Vacation - 3

Lucy's Toronto Vacation - 4

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When Christine started raving about dumplings, I thought she was crazy. Period. I love dumplings, but I’ve yet to swoon over a plate. This restaurant changed my mind with the first bite.

Christine: Cool. Thanks.

Christine’s friend picked us up and drove us to a busy Chinese strip mall, Time Square, in Richmond Hill. The restaurant, Northern Dumpling Kitchen, didn’t stand out at all, and it was only half full when we arrived. Reserving my judgement, I sat back and told the girls to order whatever they wanted me to try. I was an open mind. I was nothing. I was totally zen.



The first dish we ordered was called Shanghai rice cakes, I think. When they were delivered to our table, my first impression was that they were dduk, Korean rice cakes. Add in the wonderful aroma of a properly heated and seasoned wok, and it was heaven. The rice cakes were just the perfect amount of chewy, and the vegetables tasted fresh. I really enjoyed the light sauce and the slightly crunchy, but tender texture of wood ear mushrooms. My zen mindset started to melt away, and I started to get really excited for the dumplings.

Christine: I like the fried rice cakes, even though it's not what I'd typically like, which is a more aggressively season dish. The simplicity of the dish was such a nice change. The nappa cabbage, wood ear and shrimp in the dish added a slight sweetness, while the chewy rice cakes had a slight smoky flavour. It's not a heavy dish at all. It was a breath of fresh air.



The xiao long bao shocked me. They were like little obese dumplings! They were overfilled with soup, exactly Christine’s style. Screw zen, I was freaking pumped to eat these fat dudes! The girls warned me to be extra careful because the soup will come gushing forth at the slightest tear. When I picked one up with my chopsticks, the skin stretched and warped so much, I thought it was going to burst. I stopped to watch how Christine ate the dumplings because I didn’t want to make a total fool of myself. Nothing could have prepared me for this dumpling.

Christine: Notice how the XLB doesn't fit in the spoon? It's girth was overflowing over the sides!

With a smidgen of red vinegar and a few slivers of ginger, I took a bite. The skin was chewy and soft, but it didn’t stick to my teeth. It was definitely steamed properly. And the juice! Oh, glorious juice! There was almost two soup-spoonfuls of broth in the tiny obese dumplings!!! Ridiculous! I fell in love with the broth because it tasted like my mum’s all-night simmering broths. It tasted like comfort food without having eaten xiao long bao when I was a child.

I accidentally broke one and thought all the juice ran out, so when I bit into the deflated xiao long bao, I did not expect to choke on a gush of broth. It was a learning experience, fo’ sho’.



The pan-fried chicken dumplings were also awesome. The skin was fried crispy and browned evenly. The flavour was similar to the xiao long bao, and I attribute that to the broth. Delicious! They were excellent when they first came out, but by the end of the meal, they felt supremely heavy and overindulgent. Thankfully, the broth didn’t gel as it cooled. That would have been disgusting.

Christine: These chicken dumplings are 10x better than most pot stickers!



We asked for two orders, so we ended up with way too much food for three people. Seriously, just look at that pile of pan-fried goodness. All of that rich broth weighed us down, and we were all sleepy by the end of it.



This lovely lunch cost less than $30, which was a steal. While it may not seem like much, the dumplings and stir-fried rice cakes filled us up quickly. I think I’d skip the rice cakes and focus on the dumplings next time. It’s not that the rice cakes were bad – I just feel the dumplings would be a better investment in stomach space.

As we slowly dragged our feet back to the car, we made plans to meet up with some mutual friends to watch the gold medal men’s hockey game between Canada and the U.S.A. We settled into a small bar in Richmond Hill after fighting traffic for almost 20 minutes on the 404. If you were watching that game, you’d know how intense that game was. And Canada won in overtime (we’ve got a penchant for dramatics), defeating the Americans with a score of 3-2!!!

After the game, we walked over for bubble tea and drove home. Epic day.

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