happy birthday to me!

new york chronicles: coming up

The restaurant I mentioned earlier that we would try to hit, since our plans for Babbo fell through, is a gastropub in the West Village called The Spotted Pig. I've never been to a gastropub, so I'm hoping we can check it out!

childhood favorites

So i'm at work and snacking on Pocky. And I realize that I've been eating Pocky since I was a child. Of course, when I was a child I only ever say chocolate, strawberry and plain Pocky in the Chinese supermarkets.

Pocky, is a Japanese snack made by the Exaki Glico Company of Japan. According to wikipedia: "It was first sold in 1966, and consists of a biscuit stick coated with chocolate...The original was followed by "Almond Pocky" in 1971, with an almond coating, and "Strawberry Pocky" in 1977. Today, the product line includes such variations as milk, mouse, green tea, honey, banana and coconut flavored coatings, and themed products such as "Decorer Pocky," with colorful decorative stripes in the coating, and "Men's Pocky," a dark (bittersweet) chocolate and "mature" version...Pocky is very popular in Japan. In bars, it is sometimes served with a glass of ice water."

I still stick with the chocolate Pocky today. The other Pocky variations make me chuckle when I see them, especially the description on the Decorer Pocky which says something like "it's like a decorative cake on a stick".

Image from: glico.co.jp/en/index.htm

new york chronicles: coming up

So we made reservations for Gordon Ramsay's Maze, but unfortunlately Mario Batalli's Babbo is under construction, so we couldn't get reservations for there.

We are gonna try to eat at another restaurant, which I can't remember the name of at this moment - it's supposidely Jamie Oliver's favorite restaurant in New York city. I'm keeping my finger's crossed that we can get a table for lunch or dinner because they don't take reservations.

Another restaurant on our dining itinerary while in NY is Kyotofu (kyotofu-nyc.com). We found out about it while looking for a place to stay in NY. According to their site, they won New York Magazine's Best Cupcake in 2007. It looks really cute and their menu sounds very cool! =)

I can't wait! it's a foodie's dream!

restaurant review: keg steakhouse & bar

Restaurant: Keg Steakhouse & Bar
Location: 515 Jarvix Street, Toronto, Ontario
Telephone: 416-964-6609
Website: kegsteakhouse.com

Meal type: Dinner

Average price per person: $26-$60

What I ordered:
- Lychee Martini
- Crab, Parmesan and Spinich Dip
- Pecan Sirloin topped with goat cheese (sweet potato fries on the side)


Ratings:

Comments:
I never realized this, but it's been years since I've been to the Keg! It's definitely come a long way since I remember it.

The food was impressive - I enjoyed the appetizer and my steak. It was cooked rare, just the way I like it & the pecan shell was very differnt but gave the meat a sweetness that was very pleasing to my tastebuds. I could have done without the goat cheese and cold sweet potato fries though. And my lychee martini was to die for, although a bit steep for my pockets at approximately $10 a drink.

The service at the door was a bit snobbish & cold, but our waitresses seemed nice and pleasant. They weren't the best, but pretty decent considering we were in the lounge area.

This was my first time at the Keg Mansion. I was expecting a large restaurant, but was happy to find out it was actually in a large old mansion! It definitely felt very grand. The place seemed to be kept well and had some very upscale and modern touches, although some areas (like the booths upstairs) could have gone for a bit of a touch-up. All-in-all the atmosphere was great and definitely made probably the best Keg I've ever been to and will ever be to.

vietnamese spring rolls follow-up

So it turned out to be a good thing that we didn’t bring out feeble attempts at Vietnamese fresh spring rolls to the potluck bar-b-q, because our friend brought one’s that she had made & there were amazing! She had them so prettily rolled and they were so incredibly yummy.

I got some great ideas from her rolls that I cannot wait to try myself. She had things like fake crab meat, salmon, and avocado in her rolls. I think the next time I make them I might skip the bean sprouts and add avocado instead. It makes the rolls so rich and creamy. She also accompanied her spring rolls with a sweet chili garlic sauce, which was very refreshing & tasty.

Sauces:

We had 3 different dipping sauces with our spring rolls:

1) a mix of: fish sauce, water, lime juice, garlic, sugar, garlic chili sauce

2) a mix of: hoison sauce and crushed peanuts

3) Thai Kitchen's Spicy Thai Peanut Satay Sauce that we picked up from the grocery store’s “asian” aisle

I learned a few things from the sauce experiment:

- peanut sauce is pretty easy to make, so I’ll be trying it myself next time.

- always check the expiry date of items you buy (some items like Thai Kitchen's Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce have a very, very, very limited shelf life - honestly, what am I going to do with a jar of peanut sauce in a few days???)

- sometimes the simplest sauces are the most tasty (we enjoyed sauce#2 the best)

I think next time I'm going to stick with:

1) sweet chili garlic sauce (available in most grocery stores in the "Asian" aisle)

2) a mix of: hoison sauce and crushed peanuts

3) a peanut sauce of some kind, home-made or store bought.

new york chronicles: coming up

Although the goal is to eat cheap while in New York city, we couldn't resist but to splurge a little bit since we'll be in walking distance to so many great restaurants.

On the dining itinerary:
Dinner at Mario Batalli's restaurant Del Posto
Dinner at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant Maze

I'm so excited!

restaurant review: congee queen

Restaurant: Congee Queen
Location: 895 Lawrence Ave. East, Unit 8, North York, Ontario
Telephone: 416-916-0338
Website: congeequeen.com

Meal type: Lunch

Average price per person: $0-$10

What I ordered (shared dishes):
- Spice & Pepper Salt Squid (pictured)
- Minced Beef Congee
- General Tao Chicken Rice
- Dough Fritter Rice Noodle Roll

Ratings:










Comments:
I really enjoy going to Congee Queen. They've managed to take the usual dingy congee restaurants that are typical and updated it and taken it to the next level in dining standards. It's 1 of my parent's regular restaurants. And although I'm not a huge fan of congee myself, I still enjoy eating there. Their portions are very generous, the food is consistantly tasty, the service is fast and efficient and the atmosphere is modern and clean. I've only been to their North York location though.

My favorite dish is the spice & pepper salt squid. This time we decided to try the general tao chicken rice and it was so yummy. It came with a small mountain (shaped like a pyrmaid of course) of rice. Next time I don't think we'll order so many fried dishes as they were very filling, but I still enjoyed the food very much. And between 4 adults we still had leftovers - what a great deal!

vietnamese fresh spring rolls

So I decided it would be neat to attempt to make Vietnamese fresh spring rolls to bring to a potluck bar-b-q.

Unfortunately my fiancee didn't think our attempts were quite ready for public consumption just yet. We still had a bit to go until our spring roll rolling techniques were perfected.

They were a lot easier to make than I thought though, so I'm looking forward to making them for lunch and maybe by next year we'll be good enough to bring them for our friends to try!

I got the recipe from: allrecipes.com but added a few extra touches like bean sprouts and shredded carrots to the mix. We also picked up a peanut sauce in the local grocery store so we`d have 3 dipping sauces to choose from, but it didn`t turn out that great - i`ll post about that at a later date.

p.s. I`m so happy to have my camera fixed again!

can`t get enough of that bubble tea

Restaurant: Tea Shop 168
Location: 5661 Steeles Ave. East, T&T Supermarket Unit #12
Website: teashop168.ca

Okay, so I know I recently posted a review of this Tea Shop 168, but I hit it up again this weekend after picking up groceries from the T&T. I actually found myself driving to the farther T&T Supermarket JUST to get this bubble tea afterwards.