Buca Osteria & Enoteca

I heard a lot about Buca and we finally got a chance to try out this upscale Italian eatery

It's hidden down this little alley way and when you go downstairs, it opens up to this amazing large and bright space for gatherings.

Pizza Salumi Di Buca with smoked mozzarella, king oyster mushrooms and salumi
Nice crispy crust on this artisianal pizza. 

Bigoli: hand-cranked duck egg pasta, duck offal ragu, venetian spices, mascarpone, basil
Really nicely plated and the pasta dish was lovely, but I found the portion a little small.

Gnocchi all'astice: lobster gnocchi in a white wine sauce
Yummy meaty chunks of lobster and delicious gnocchi!

Torte di zucchine
Very moist zucchini torte! Not too sweet and a nice change from the usual.

Semi-freddo
I thought this was lovely with the mousses and semi freddo together - lots of flavours going on and really beautiful to look at.

 
Baba Al Rum
Unfortunately, this was our least favourite dessert. The cake was a little dry, but soaked in rum flavour. However I found it a little overwhelming.

Overall: An okay meal at Buca - definitely on the pricey side considering the portion sizes.

Website: http://www.buca.ca/king/

Taftan Kebab

After reading about this place online, I wanted to try it since I was in the area for lunch:

Prices on the website were pretty cheap.

It wasn't until I got to the restaurant that I realized the prices all went up by a bit:

    

    
Combo #5: Chicken Kebab with salad $5.99
The chicken was juicy and tasty. I was a little concerned that it might have been undercooked (but I didn't have any stomach problems - so it must have been okay or my stomach handled it).
The roasted tomato was really good - I now understand the obsession: the crinkly skin, sweet tomato and slightly mushy inside...Yum! The salad was a simple Greek salad, but all this food together was very filling for less than $10.

Overall: Good take-out Iranian food a little south of Little Persia. I didn't have any problems with the service - they were quick and polite to me.

Website: http://www.taftankebab.com/

Jim's Wings and Pizza - Campbellford (ON)

Campbellford is a quaint little town and it's perfectly situated on the bank of the Trent-Severn Waterway.

We decided to go looking for pizza to bring back to the cottage and found Jim's Wings and Pizza on Front Street. 
 
   

We got three large pizzas:
  
Top: Chicken, ground beef and mushrooms
Middle: Meatballs, green peppers and sausage
Bottom: Large pepperoni

I was pretty impressed by the meatballs pizza. Those were massive meatballs and they were really tasty.

Website: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jims-Wings-Pizzaca/230750163605460

Pastel Creperie & Dessert House

There are a lot of Asian dessert places around Yonge and Finch, and after reading some good reviews about Pastel, we decided to check it out:

 

  

Tropical Crepe with mandarins, oranges, pineapple, shortcake, whipped cream and pistachio almond ice cream.
When ordering this dessert, my decisive factor was the pistachio almond ice cream. Yum! It had a concentrated pistachio flavour (way better than the Wanda's Waffles pistachio ice cream) - I could probably eat a tub of this ice cream. I was tempted to put in an order for pistachio ice cream take out.
The crepe was good - lots of fruit, but this dessert was all about the ice cream for me. I think the almond part of the ice cream really brought out the pistachio flavour.

 
Brownie Crepe with chocolate ice cream, whipped cream and brownies
Very pretty presentation! The brownies inside the crepe provided more substance to the crepe and I thought was better than the Tropical Crepe's fillings. 


Overall: Nice crepes - not too sweet and the ice cream was yummy!

 Website: http://www.pasteldesserts.com/

Sushi Bong

August 7, 2014

 I met up with my friend and we finally got to sit down and eat at the Sushi Bong restaurant instead of ordering take-out as usual:

 Sushi Bong Special $9.50

Spicy Salmon roll, California Roll and assorted sushi (Salmon and Butterfish)

Yum! And such huge portions for reasonable prices - I really don't have any criticisms. 

  

Bong Sashimi $10.40
Whitefish, Salmon and Red Snapper

May 24, 2014

Sushi Bong Menu

The Menu went up in price a little bit, but the food didn't change! 

The rolls are still as gigantic as before:

Unagi Special Roll, Dynamite Roll, Spider Roll and a Spicy Salmon Roll

Clockwise from top left: Spicy Salmon, Unagi Special, Dynamite and Spider Roll

Still delicious and still huge! Lots of great ingredients like the tamago (egg), fresh cucumber and creamy avocado and delicious seafood all tightly packed together in seaweed and rice with sesame seeds sprinkle around. Yum! Sushi Bong is still a favourite. (Great Value for Money)

May 15, 2012

The chefs hard at work

2012 Menu

 Menu

2012 Menu

Two Dynamite Rolls - Huge right?

I can't believe we ate that much rice....

From the top: Spider Roll (with soft shell crab) and bottom roll is Unagi Special

Top two rolls are spider rolls and the bottom right is dynamite roll

Delicious! The rolls are huge (a very large mouthful) and tasty. 

Every time I've been here, I've always found that the ingredients are fresh and everything is made to order.

The tempura is crispy and the bbq eel was right off the grill. 

I also like the touch of tamago (sweet egg omelette) and it goes great with everything else including the roe (orange fish eggs), cucumber and avocado.

The rolls are always tightly wrapped too (amazing considering how huge these sushi rolls are).

 

Unagi special

My brother decided to measure the size of the rolls: each piece of sushi was 6 cm across and the whole roll was about 12 cm long. Very impressive.

Overall: The actual restaurant is quite tiny (there's only seating for like 4 tables inside), so most of the orders are take-out orders. Parking is a hassle at Northtown Way, but usually you can put in an order and pick it up in 15 minutes. I would recommend Sushi Bong - they put out consistently great sushi, the prices are very affordable and you get value for money.