Asian Legends Toronto

Location: 3636 Steeles Avenue East #152, Markham, ON, (905) 947-0370

One of my favorite Taiwanese restaurants is Asian Legends.  They food they serve is consistently delicious, they have lots of appetizers to choose from as well as mains.  My favorite things to get is appetizers (as I miss Taiwanese street food dearly)...and that's we did this time. 

First up:  deep fried tofu with garlic and hot soya sauce oil ($4.95).  The tofu was perfect, crispy on the outside, tender and fresh on the inside, the minced garlic added the necessary kick.  :-)  I love fried tofu.

This dish is called "Fan Tuan" in Mandarin ($3.95).  This is one of my favorite dish to get a Asian Legends, it's the best here.  Glutinous rice filled with a crispy dough fritter and dried shredded pork floss.   This is a very common lunch item to get in Taiwan, and it's oh so tasty.  This one is wrapped in plastic because glutinous rice is very sticky.  Chewy on the outside, crunchy on the inside, and the wonderful flavour of the dried shredded pork floss inside.  I can eat these all day long.  :-)

Hot and sour soup with chicken ($4.95).  Get this if you like it with a lot of white pepper because I think they overloaded on the white pepper a bit.  It was still very good and had a great kick though. 

The best "shao long bao" (steamed soup filled juicy pork dumplings) in Toronto ($5.50 for 6).  Thin dough skin wrapper, delicious seasoned pork juices that pour out once the skin is broken, and a juicy ground pork and spices nugget inside.  Amazing dipped in some red vinegar with thin ginger spears.

This is just "Har Gow" or steamed shrimp dumplings ($6.50 for 5).  I wouldn't recommend getting thisd at Asian legends, but my coworker really loved this dish and Asian legends is the only place that would serve Har Gow at all times of the day. 

This is a treo of cold taiwanese appetizer dishes. ($5.95 to $7.95 for each selection)  My coworker wanted to try things he never had before, so I picked the following:
Top left:  Jelly fish in a bit of seseme oil.  I LOVE jellyfish.  I just love the crunchy but chewy texture and I usually only get to have it when there is a Chinese ten course banquet dinner.
To Right: Marinated duck tongue.  Odd to most western cultures, common in asian cultures, just slightly salty and in a bit of seseme oil, it's delicious!  :-) 
Bottom center:  Smoked fish.  It's marinated in a sweet sauce, and it's been cooked for so long that you can eat ALL of the parts of the fish, including the fins and bones.  I enjoyed this dish...the marinated fish is kind of like eating a candied salmon (and I love candied salmon). 

Last dish that is also one of my favorites, is rolled onion pancake with sliced beef ($5.95).  I think they wrap it in foil so that the entire pancake doesn't fall apart as easily.  But this is so tasty, and slight greasy, that I have to order this every time. 

I highly recommend this restaurant.  There are other great Taiwanese restaurants in Toronto, but this chain of restaurants (with 6 location in Toronto) is one of my favorites and easily satisfies.  :-)

Schwartz's Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen

Location: 3895 Saint-Laurent boulevard, Montréal, H2W 1X9

When in Montreal, we highly recommend that you have a Montreal smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz.  Schwartz is a famous Hebrew Delicatessen and they've been around forever.  It's one of those joints that look like a hole, but has a constant line-up of people out the door, no matter how cold, or windy or wet it is outside.  We went to this restaurant despite the 35km winds and -19 degree C weather in Montreal.  I know from now on ONLY to vacation in Montreal in the spring to fall, the winters are much too cold for me. 

As open the door to the restaurant and walk inside, you get a waft of amazing meat and spices smell.  We come here all the time.  Make sure you get your own plate, or else they charge a sharing fee of $3.  Here's what we got for dinner.  Note:  All of the plates are the same size, basically appetizer plates:

Smoked meat sandwich (medium fat) with mustard on light rye bread - $5.95
Montreal smoked meat is made from the chest of the cow, basically Brisket.  Brisket, when slow cooked, is absolutely amazing.  :-D  This is always the thing to get here, the smoked meat is steamed back to life and tender and moist.  I'm not a big fan of rye bread, but it does suit the sandwich, and mustard is always a must with a smoked meat sandwich. 

 

Nash with rye bread- $1.25

This was by far the cheapest thing on the menu.  I had always wondered what Nash was, and it turned out just to be thin pepperoni sausage.   It's not bad, I'd get it again if I need just a bit of extra food to fill up on.  We ordered them grilled, but they will give them to you cold and plain if you'd like.  It comes with 3 slices of light rye bread.

Giant Pickle - $1.75
The pickle does overtake the plate, but essential in enjoying the Montreal smoked meat.

Vinegar Coleslaw - $2.25

The coleslaw does come from a tub, but it's cold, fresh and crisp, a good compliment to the smoked brisket. 

This is definitely are must eat joints and cheap eat joints in Montreal and great on a budget.  They also have Schwartz beef and steak spice that you can take home with you for only $4 a bottle.  It's GREAT on slow cooked roasts, like our slow cooked roast beef (recipe HERE).  We use this spice quite often.  In fact, we just slow cooked a brisket with this spice and it was just heavenly!   This spice doesn't taste as good on steak though, only slow cooked roasts.  If you're not heading to Montreal anytime soon, you can actually call them and get them to ship smoked meat or spice to you.  It's pricier then eating it in the restaurant, but hey, if you can't go to Montreal....get Montreal to come to you.  :-)

Panago: Near perfect Pepperoni Pizza

Not every pizza is made equal.  Pizza Pizza has got to be one of the worst, eating their pizza is equivalent to eating a cardboard box and I'm sure the cardboard box is healthier.  Too bad Pizza Pizza is everywhere and cheap, so my company tends to feed customers that sad excuse of a pizza.  They also give me the second worst after lunch food coma (Indian food, all you can eat would be in first place).  After years of being fed that garbage, it's understandable why I told Nick that....I don't like pizza. 

But the boy likes pizza, so what can you do?  We walked by a Panago this summer and they had a large pepperoni pizza special for $9.  Nick went in and ordered it, I told him at most I'll have 1 slice.

The pepperoni pizza was pretty darn good, the crust was just the right thickness and chewiness, they did not skimp on the cheese or pepperoni, the pizza wasn't greasy, the tomato sauce had just the right tang.  I'm pretty sure I at least had 3 slices, while Nick devoured the rest of the pizza.  We went back to try fancier pizzas, but they never did compare the tasty regular pepperoni pizza.  We went back weekly till the end of the summer and sadly, the $9 promotion is over, it's $12 now....however we still get it occasionally and love it every time.

We've tried other types of pizzas from Panago, but the only pizza that is good at Panago is their pepperoni pizza.  Nick tried the Philly cheese steak pizza once and it was very very disappointing, there was almost no meat, it looked nothing like the advertising, basically cheese and cheese sauce pizza, which was so gross that he did end up throwing a lot of it out.  

All Panago pizzas comes with a free dip or shaker.  I always tend to get the chilli shaker as I like to douse my pepperoni pizza with chilli flakes.  :-)

The Black Tomato Ottawa

Location: 11 George Street, Ottawa, ON K1N 8W5, (613) 789-8123

I've been traveling to Ottawa for work for over 5 years now, and this is what I've learned:  Don't trust websites that say this is the best "Japanese food" in Ottawa, or best "Lebanese food" in Ottawa, because it's very likely that there's ONLY one sushi restaurant and ONLY one Lebanese restaurant in Ottawa.    It's sort of like telling your only sibling that they are the best sibling you've got.  That sibling just wins by default!!!    Well in all fairness, this isn't entirely true because we did see 2 sushi restaurants in Ottawa.  In any case, while researching what to eat in Ottawa, sometimes I just came to that consensus.

Throughout the years, I've always came back to my favorite haunt in Ottawa.   That would be The Black Tomato in Byward market.  It is housed in a wonderfully old building and has great atmosphere and music.  It's changed throughout the years, this time, I think it expanded into the lot next to them.  However, they always supported local farmers, their dishes were simple but delicious, and other then sometimes being very busy during dinner time, I've always enjoyed having dinner with a friend or companion whether or not it's at a perfect dimly lite table that made everyone look more attractive, on the patio, or at the bar when I was eating alone.  Best of all, the prices were reasonable, Lunch was between $10 and $17 dollars, dinner was anywhere from $12-$25.  The food always came out piping hot and fresh, the salads were crisp.  They cooked food like they cared.  Here's what we ate:

Fresh knotted buns with sesame seeds (complementary) with whipped herbed butter
The butter didn't taste like anything, but the knotted bread was hot and fresh out of the oven, fluffy and chewy. I always look forward to this starter.

WILD BOAR, BISON AND MUSHROOM STEW $16
Trillium Meadows wild boar and Maison du Gibier bison simmered in Big Dog Porter with roasted potatoes

This was absolutely delicious, while there was more wild boar then bison, this stew was exactly what I needed after a long weekend of very cold days and nights.  The stew was flavorful, the Big Dog porter definitely made the dish thicker and more flavorful, the potatoes were a tad more undercooked that I'm use to, but still delicious.  The slices of toast that came with the stew were amazing, just a little crispy on the outside, moist and fluffy on the inside, it was basically a larger version of the knotted bread starter.  What a steal at $16!  Most restaurants I've been to in Toronto/Montreal/Quebec City charge an "exotic" markup for game meats.  I will definitely get this again.

SMOKED BBQ CHICKEN SANDWICH $14
Lyons Family Farm smoked BBQ chicken served open faced with red onion & Glengary Lankaaster house-smoked gouda

Nick ordered this dish.  This smoked chicken was divine, I had no idea chicken could taste like that, it was lightly smoked and sweeter, even though I think the caramelized red onions and the BBQ sauce did help with the sweetness.  Nick thought the Gouda cheese was too mild for this sandwich, he felt the sandwich overpowered the cheese so he couldn't taste the cheese.  I thought it's a nice pairing as that means the cheese wouldn't over power the wonderful flavors of the chicken and the caramelized onions.  The salad was pretty standard, though I thought they poured too much olive oil on it.  The potatoes were the same slightly underdone that what we are use to (we're not use to crunchy potatoes), but they were still good.

 

Peanut butter Pie $5

This tasted exactly like peanut butter with whipped cream and cream cheese. It was a nice dessert, but it wasn't as mind blowing as I thought peanut butter pies could be.  Frankly I thought putting whipped peanut butter and melted lindt chocolate on to my french toast (recipe HERE)  but this pie was still tasty and a great end to a really nice lunch.

Overall, I would always come to The Black Tomato again.  They don't have an extensive menu, but what they do have they try to do well.  I definitely will go there again.  :-)

Paillard Café-Boulangerie Quebec City

Located:  1097 Rue St-Jean, Quebec City, QC G1R

Quebec City this weekend was cold.  It was -10 to -12 C, with the wind, it feels like -19 and -20.  It was absolutely freezing.  I was wearing TWO pairs of pants and I was still cold.  It's definitely not a winter vacation spot, I've learned my lesson...which is, ONLY go to Quebec City in the summer.  With that said, we were there anyways, and it was very pretty and european there.  If it wasn't as cold, we'd have a lot more fun wandering through the tiny streets and stores, beautiful old buildings and churches.  I mean, we still had fun this weekend, however, we also had to take measures to not get frostbite.  Vacations are better when you don't have to worry about body parts turning blue and possibly falling off.  :-P

However, on our journey to warm back up from being out and about in the cold, we stumbled upon a french Cafe chain in Quebec called Paillard.  They had the most amazing pasteries, and their gelato and sandwich stations looked really delicious as well.  The place was packed full of french speaking locals, which is the first sign that the place is actually good and not a tourist trap.  The prices were more then reasonable as they were larger, fresher, tastier and cheaper then Premiere Moisson in Central Station Montreal.  I didn't know there was a patisserie that would be able to beat Premiere Moisson but Paillards did.  Too bad it's in Quebec City and a good 3.5 hour train ride away.  

Here is a review of all the wonderful pastries that we were able to fill our bellies with:

 

Mille-Feuille ($3.75 ea) also known as a Napoleon.
This is the BEST mille-feuille I've ever had.  The vanilla custard cream was light, fresh and the perfect hint of sweetness.  The pastry is so light, airy and flaky it's to die for, and the raspberry jam bottom layer adds the perfect tart contrast to this perfect dessert.  We ate 2 of these in 2 days.

Almond filled flaky pastry ($1.95 ea)
Oh how I wish this were available in Toronto, even though that would mean I would be eating these from breakfast to dinner time and be twice as big.  Paillard definitely has one of the best flaky pastries I've ever had the pleasure to taste.  The ground almond center was perfect, not too sweet, hint of almonds, and just so delicious.  I purchased one for brunch, Nick had a bite, and he had to go buy one for himself, then I went back to purchase another one so I could eat it on the train.  We ate 3 of these in day.

Muffin ($1.95 ea)
This was the very last Blueberry muffin they had, Nick had to point it out as the lady at the counter thought they were all gone.  I can see why they would go so quickly.  It was delicious, filled to the brim with blueberries.  They are definitely not skimping on the ingredients here.  :-)

 

Cranberry walnut cookies ($1.95 ea)

These were almost like a large shortbread round of cookie stuffed with cranberries and nuts.  It was incredibly buttery, filling, and delicious.  Nick had to buy 3 of these for the train.  They were just as good the next day.  

I could eat at Paillard's all day.  Their breads also looks amazing, they have a Gelato, sandwich and soup station as well.  If we had room in our stomachs after stuffing ourselves full of pastries we would've tried that.  The quality is fresh, mindbogglingly amazingly delicious and place is packed full of locals.  I can't wait to go back to Quebec City in the summer to eat here again.  :-)

Grindhouse Burger Bar Toronto

Location: 365 King Street West Toronto, ON - (416) 977-3010

 

Gourmet burgers seem to be all the rage these days.  It's the ability to up sell your typical $5 burger with lots of different toppings and charge extra for everything.  Nick loves burgers, well, he makes a mean burger and mini burger.  Most burgers served any where else then "Chez Nick's" tend to disappoint and be lacking.  He recently went to M:brgr, known for their $100 burger, and he said that place was overpriced and disappointing.  About a week after his visit, the Globe and Mail newspaper published this terrible review of M:Brgr which just confirms that we will never go to that place again.

However, this review wasn't about M:Brgr, it's about Grindhouse, located at King and Peter st, it's another of many gourmet burger joint that just popped up in the same area as of late.  My good friend Karen and I had tickets to the opera at the Four Seasons Centre.  We needed a quick meal before the show and thought we would try this place out to eat and Nick came with.  The place was decent, it had a small storefront, but the restaurant was quite deep.  We were seated and the atmosphere was relaxed.  We ordered a selection of burgers....

 

Nick ordered a Signature Beef Burger ($7) with Double smoked house bacon ($1.75) and cheddar ($1.75).  The total burger was $10.50.  The bun was just a tad too small for the burger, the bacon was flavorless, and the burger patty was too small for his liking.  He would not get this again.

Karen ordered a Wild Boar burger with mixed greens, grilled onions, mushrooms and goat cheese ($12).  She really enjoyed it.  The bun was toasted on all the burgers, which was a nice touch and added a lot more barbecue flavor to the burger.  The wild boar patty was gamey, but flavorful, and definitely the largest patty from the 3 burgers we ordered.  Which is odd, burgers should all be the same size.  If I were to come ere again, I'd definitely order the wild boar burger. 

I ordered the Kangaroo burger for $14.  It was the most expensive burger on the menu, and came with sliced beats, a slice of tomato, lettuce and a fried sunny side up egg.  The meat was well seasoned, and didn't taste that gamey, I thought the wild boar tasted more gamey.  I really enjoyed the creamy texture of the egg yolk with my very lean kangaroo burger cooked to medium.  I can't really say what kangaroo tastes like, it doesn't taste like beef, or bison, or venison, it is mild red meat.  My only complaint is that because the bun was a tad on the small side, everything kept falling out of the burger and it was a huge mess.  I had to finish this burger with a knife and fork.  So considering the entire point of a burger is to eat it with your hands, this is a slight burger fail.  However, it was so tasty I'd get this again.  Or next time I should fry an egg to put on top of our own homemade burgers.

Lastly, since we were all not too hungry, we only ordered these Onion Rings with Seasoned buttermilk batter ($4), it came with their own homemade aoili.  The dipping sauce was tasteless, it was really just liquid fat.  The onion rings were quite good though, very crispy, well seasoned, the portion was small but I would get these again.

All in all, it's not a bad gourmet burger joint.  I do like the particular game meats, the prices were decent, and as long as you don't get their signature beef burger and try the weirder stuff, I think it's worth a look.

Breakfast at Raffles Cafe Las Vegas

Food at a Las Vegas conference is disappointing to downright disgusting sometimes. After 6 years of the same yearly conference, I've learned to not even bother going to eat at a conference and just spend the extra money and dine out.

Since Raffles Cafe at Mandalay Bay was close by, myself and my coworker decided to head there for breakfast.

We shared:

Custard french Toast
This was MASSIVE, it was 2 slices of light and fluffy toast that was about 8x8x2 inches with custard filling and then dipped in egg and pan fried. It was really good.  I need to make this at home.

Raffles Exotic Coconut Pancakes
This was okay, it had coconut and mango on it.


Hashbrowns:
Normal - but always a tasty side.

Aureole Restuarant Las Vegas

Executive Summary: Las Vegas, where everything thing is bigger then life....except for Aureole's Charlie Palmer Parallel tasting menu.

Cost: $85 a person for a 4 course tasting menu.

My notes:

The dishes, as with most tasting menus, were small, but this was the Parallel menu, each course was actually 2 dishes! It doesn't look big, but my friend and I were both very full by the end of the meal. While this was a nice tasting menu, I preferred the prix fixe in the Fleur De Lys restaurant also at the Mandalay Bay right next to Aureole. I wasn't really excited by any of these dishes, they weren't very unique, I didn't think these well artistic or well presented, and their use of heavy sauces on the meats detracted from the delicate flavour and texture especially in the Australian Wagu beef. The desserts were also sub par, the sorbet was the best thing there, and that compliments of the chef. For $85 a person, you can stand to do much better then Aureole, especially in the culinary epicenter in Las Vegas.

Here's some photos off my Blackberry Bold.

FIRST COURSE

Top:ROASTED BABY BEET SALAD ARTISANAL BURRATA, ARGAN OIL CANDIED HAZELNUT
Bottom: BEET CURED GRAVLOX SALMON, HACKLEBACK CAVIAR, PORT WINE REDUCTION

SECOND COURSE

Left: GRILLED CALEDONIAN PRAWNS, CRISPY SUSHI RICE CAKE, SWEET CHILI SAUCE
Right: DAY BOAT SCALLOPS AND CALAMARI, SQUID INK / ARBORIO RICE, SPANISH CHORIZO

THIRD COURSE

Left:ROASTED MUSCOVY DUCK BREAST, TRUFFLE CELERY MOUSSELINE, HONEY MUSTARD DUCK JUS
Right:AUSTRALIAN WAGYU BEEF STRIP LOIN, CELERY REMOULADE, WILD MUSHROOMS, PINOT NOIR REDUCTION

FOURTH COURSE

ALMOND MILK ICE CREAM FLOAT PISTACHIO AND ALMOND TORRONE
SALTED CARAMEL NUT TARTBLACK MISSION FIG COMPOTE, AMARETTI CRUMB
SORBET tray - complements of the chef, with a thin slice of dehydrated pineapple.