restaurant review: canyon creek chophouse

Restaurant: Canyon Creek Chophouse
Location: 2429 Fairview Street, Burlington, Ontario
Telephone: 905-333-3339
Website: canyoncreekchophouse.com

Meal type: Dinner

Average price per person: $26-$60

What I ordered:
Premium Top Sirloin Steak (with sweet potato fries and grilled vegetables)

Ratings:











Comments:
This was my first visit to a Canyon Creek, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Since the weather was nice we chose to sit on the patio, which had a very nice outdoor grillhouse/bar decor to it. It's unfortunate that the patio doesn't sit more tables - I can see it filling up FAST on a weekend. The service was pretty standard for a place like this - friendly and fast.

I haven't had steak in a while, so I was pretty excited waiting for my dinner. I find a lot of restaurants North of the border overcook my steak, but I wasn't disappointed this time. My steak was cooked rare (the way I liked it) & was not overcooked at all. I could actually see the difference between my rare steak & my friend's medium rare steak which was a first for me. My sweet potato fries were great, although I wish they came at no extra cost and were accompanied with a good sauce. And my grilled vegetables were very tastey too.

I think the one thing that impressed me was the portion size. I'm usually leaving leftovers, but I almost completely finished my entree which means that the portion size was perfect! I will definitely be visitng Canyon Creek again. Although it's a bit pricier than the other chain restaurants around it's worth it for the higher quality steak.

Sorry - no pictures! My camera is on the fritz AGAIN, so I'm cameraless at least for the next little while.

taste of the danforth

We stopped by Taste of the Danforth on Saturday.  It was unfortunate that it rained on and off all day, but it wasn't too bad in the early afternoon, so I guess we were sorta lucky.

We nibbled on porkchops, quail (pictured), and Kourambiethes (greek cookies that are covered in powdered sugar).  So yummy!

Hope you all had a chance to check it out, or have a chance tomorrow!

beerlicious

What:
A celebration of Canada's rich brewing history, hosted by experts of the brewing craft from around the country. Featuring more than 200 brands of beer on-site, this is Canada's premier celebration of the golden beverage.

When: Thursday August 7 to Sunday August 10
Where: Historic Fort York, 100 Garrison Rd., Toronto

Beerlicious is sold out this year already! If you missed your chance to go, remember to check it out next year!

For more event details: beerfestival.ca

taste of the danforth

Just a quick reminder - Taste of the Danforth starts today! Keep your fingers crossed for decent weather!

When: Friday August 8 to Sunday August 10
Where: Danforth Avenue (Between Broadview Ave. and Jones Ave.)

For more event details check out: tasteofthedanforth.com

bubble tea

While blogging about dinner at go for tea, I was reminded that I haven't yet blogged about bubble tea. After some quick searching on wiki I've discovered that it originated in Taiwan in the 80's before making its debut in Canada. It's pretty main-stream now and can even be found in specialty cafes, many Asian restaurants, and even shopping mall food courts (think Bubble Tease). For those of you not familiar with bubble tea, it is a sweetened tea based drink most commonly with black tapioca balls in it.

I have to admit I thought it looked gross when I first saw it. And it took me a couple of times to get used to the sensation of those large tapioca balls in my mouth, but after a while I was hooked.

There are so many choices to make when it comes to bubble tea: size, black tea or green tea, milk or no milk, tapioca balls or fruit jellies, slush or cold or hot, etc. Ordering one is just as confusing as ordering a drink at Starbucks!

For those of you wondering, you can make bubble tea at home - they even sell bubble tea making kits! We tried it a couple of times, way back when, with some mixed results. Next time its attempted you'll sure to see the process and result details. But for now I'll let the professionals handle it.

My personal favorite is the traditional milk black tea with tapioca.

an ode to bacon

I love bacon. And there's nothing (absolutely nothing) that makes a camping trip oh-so-awesome quite like a breakfast with fresh bacon.

s'mores

I hope all our Canadian readers out there are had an awesome long weekend!

One of my favorite long weekend past-times is going camping! And one of my favorite things about camping is being around the campfire. And what is a must when you’re around the campfire? Making the classic camp goodies - s’mores!

For anyone who doesn’t know what a s’more is – it’s basically a piece of chocolate and toasted marshmallow sandwich between graham crackers (it's tastier than the picture alludes to). I’m not usually a marshmallow fan, but the smell and crispy shell of a toasted marshmallow makes me salivate. They're definitely not the healthiest of snack choices, but everything in moderation is okay, right?. =)

It’s usually a 2+ person operation to assemble quickly and efficiently so you can bite into it while it's still warm and gooey, and it’s super messy to eat, but they’re so good.

Nowadays they have those individually packaged s’more snacks, but they're totally not the same.

Image from: wikipedia.org

restaurant review: go for tea

Restaurant: Go For Tea
Location: 230 Commerce Valley Dr. East, Thornhill, Ontario L3T 7Y3
Telephone: 905-886-0221
Website: gofortea.ca

Meal type: Dinner

Average price per person: $11-$25

What I ordered (shared between 2 people):
- Satay Beef with Fried Udon
- Shrimp with Rice Cake in Taiwanese Sauce,
- Chicken with Basil, Ginver & Garlic
- Bubble Black Tea with tapioca

Ratings:














Comments:
I ordered the udon dish for myself. My fiance ordered the main dish combo - choice of 2 dishes for $14.99 that came with soup & rice for both of us. The result? way too much food. We ended up bringing my whole udon dish home. I'm not complaining, but next time we're definitely not going to order so much food.

I wasn't too fond of the chicken with basil dish, but then again I didn't order it for myself. I did REALLY like the shrimp with rice cake dish though. It was breaded shrimp on top of puffed rice cakes with a sweet & spicy sauce drizzled on top. It was a really different dish and I like all aspects of it. And the bubble tea was very good. Unfortunately we didn't have room for dessert though, because their dessert menu had a lot of great things to choose from. Next time we go it'll just be for dessert! They even have crushed ice with fresh mango and condensed milk (tastes so much better than it sounds) and condensed milk toast (a.k.a brick toast).

The service was sort of sketchy, but that seems to be a common trend with a lot of Chinese places I go to. The waitresses were a bit spacey, and seemed to be unconfident or not sure if they were supposed to be there to waitress. Very odd, but for sure we'll be going there again. The food is consistantly acceptable and there is a lot to choose from, and the prices are really good.

honeycomb heaven

Yes, ANOTHER bee-related post from Cinnamon Kitten (hey, I love my honey, ok?)

I've never had honeycomb before and had never even considered it something to purchase and consume. Only after reading Robbing the Bees did I think to myself, "hmmm, wouldn't it be fun to buy some honeycomb and try it?"

I didn't really go out intending to buy honeycomb, but I was in a specialty food store purchasing peppercorns and came across some honeycomb. Pure Canadian honeycomb. Which was different from the Billy Bee mix of Canadian and Argentinian honey that I'm used to. It was only $5.99 for a huge slab so I grabbed one to bring home with me.


Now the next issue was how to eat honeycomb? I figured that the best way to get the real experience was to have it pure. So I cut off a small piece and popped it into my mouth.

Some really crazy textures exploded in my mouth at the same time. There was the ooze of the honey out of the comb as I pressed my mouth closed. The waxy comb and the liquid honey intermingled. After I had deftly separated the honey from the comb and swallowed the honey, I was left with a small ball of beeswax in my mouth. I chewed on that for awhile (tasteless) and then spit it out.

I must say that the honey that came from the comb was the sweetest, most "fresh" tasting honey I've EVER had. I can't describe it any other way. It was pure, the "real thing" and it was really delicious. The wax was something I couldn't really get used to, but it wasn't really an issue if it meant I could have such yummy honey.


I've started looking into other ways to eat honeycomb besides straight from the box, and I've read some suggestions about spreading the entire comb onto toast - the heat apparently melts the wax so that you can swallow the entire thing and not end up with a wax ball in your mouth, so I may give that a try next!

felt food

I have a confession to make: I like food so much, I even like fake food.

Ever since I was a child I’ve enjoyed fake food. (I guess I should have know I would be a foodie when I grew up). Be it the plastic fake food my parents bought me to play with, or those restaurants in Hong Kong that always had the faux-food to show you what you were going to be eating - I loved it.

So I was immediately drawn to this store on the Etsy network: gobuggy.etsy.com when I came across it. Felt food? This is the first time I've ever seen anything like this and I think it's absoultely too cute. What a great idea for children’s toys! (as long as the child is old enough to know not to eat it). I especially enjoy the gyozas (dumplings) and the grilled tofu. When I finally get my own place I'm totally going to fill it with felt food.

The above picture is of gobuggy's gyoza dinner, complete with snow peas, carrots and mushrooms. Check out more inspired items at: gobuggy.etsy.com