Kelsey's

UPDATE: Kelsey's at 861 York Mills is permanently closed. 

October 30, 2015

Kelsey's was promoting their "Under $12" menu and some of the main courses looked really appetizing, so I went to try it out with my friend. 

Hand-breaded Chicken Parmesan

The pasta was decent, they gave me a huge breaded chicken breast smothered in sauce and it was pretty tasty. 

Peppercorn burger with two patties, pesto mayo, swiss cheese and onion rings.

The burger was REALLY GOOD. 

Juicy beef patty, fresh lettuce and tomato, buttered bun and oozy cheese - Yummy!

Messy Fish sandwich

I may have been a little overambitious ordering this, but I was still kinda hungry after splitting the burger and the pasta (and I admit I was a little greedy in that I wanted to try everything on the "Under $12" menu).  The fish sandwich was actually disappointing.  The fish was fried nicely, but there wasn't enough tartar sauce or whatever sauce they used and it just felt flat. 

October 31, 2015 

I came back again because I really liked their burger and I decided to get the pasta too to try it out. 

The Chicken and goat cheese pasta was kinda of blah - they gave me a lot of goat cheese. 

The broccoli soup with the burger was rather heavy and felt like it came out of a cream of broccoli soup can. 

The burger was still great - but it kind of lost it's novelty the second time around.

Website: http://www.kelseys.ca/

Health Gourmet

Chicken, celery and snow pea stir-fry


Beef and Broccoli
The dish was pretty good since it used the good cuts of beef and it had good flavour.


Peking Duck


The Peking Duck was okay, but it wasn't anything that really stood out.


Lobster


Black bean tofu with peppers

Fish and the remaining duck meat from the Peking duck

Overall: It was a mediocre meal, we won't come back here. 

Pho 88

It's been a while since I've had Vietnamese food, so we went to Pho 88 to try it out. 

I love what they've done with the decor! It looks amazing inside.  It's polished and clean and there's so much to look at. 

Grilled Pork and Rare Beef, Well Done Beef and Tripe pho

Both meals were okay, I didn't think there was anything exceptional about the meals.  The concept was more upscale Viet food in a classy restaurant.  However, taste wise I think Pho Con Bo did a better job of these two dishes. 

Website: http://www.pho88online.net/menu.cfm

Chachago

Chachago recently opened up at Yonge and Elm Street a few blocks away from Yonge and Dundas, and they had a BOGO promotion, so I grabbed my friend to try it out: 

The promotion was only on certain drinks, so my friend and I got the BOGO drinks:

Taro bubble tea with real taro and an Original Milk Tea

I thought the taro on the bottom was kinda cool and it added a grainy and slushy texture.  However, I thought it was a little bland on the taste other than that.  The milk tea was a little better, but a little watery.

Website: http://www.chachago.ca/

Pardos Chicken - Lima

We had a pretty long lay-over in Lima before catching our flight back home to Toronto.  About 10 hours to be exact and originally, we were planning on leaving the airport area and checking out Lima.  However, we learned from friends who went to Lima earlier that it takes about 2 hours to leave the airport area because of the high volume of traffic (and lack of public transportation).  So it would take a lot longer than we originally thought to get to Lima's touristy areas.  We also heard that there were some rather sketchy areas in Lima and we would be doing most of our exploring at night, so we decided to forgo the excursion out of the airport and ended up hanging out and reminiscing in the Lima Airport food court.

When we got hungry, we got food:

1/2 BBQ Chicken with avocados, beets and fries

1/2 Chicken without the BBQ sauce.
Wow this was mostly white meat and actually really good! You could definitely tell they used free-range chickens because the meat was delicious and tender (there really is a difference outside of North America).  The sauces were also really good (especially the Aji sauce).

Starbucks

13 Nuevo Sols for a Mango Pineapple smoothie - ouch highway robbery - that's like $5 CAD. 

Cusco - Peru

We got back from the Manu Jungle tour at night and we were a little hungry, so we decided to wander around Cusco in search of food and found Amorino En Helados with empanadas in the window:

So we got some snacks! Pretty good and rather filling for a snack. 

The next morning, we finally got to eat the hostel's free breakfast (and they had bread but it wasn't as good as the one we got at the Manu Jungle tour). 

Then we were off to explore the city - first up was the San Pedro market:

Which had so much stuff to see and buy! The mercado had everything from home stuff like kitchen supplies to restaurant stalls and souvenir shops. And the chocolate selection here was pretty cool! (The milk chocolate I bought as a souvenir was AMAZING)

Then we went for another empanada run to a place recommended by the hostel staff:

They had Bolivian empanadas:

Definitely different and a lot heartier than the empanadas from the night before - really good. 

Amazon Wildlife Tour (Day 3) - Peru

Putting our feet up at the Bird Watching site (the muddy wall up ahead is Parrot Clay Lick)

Apparently the parrots eat the clay here to detoxify the poison from the berries and nuts they eat in the Amazon rainforest. 

We had breakfast of that delicious bread again:

So flaky on the outside with the crust and so soft and fluffy inside...yum (and it can keep for days!)

Then we got pancakes with dulce de leche syrup and designs! 

After that, it was time to drive back to Cusco, but on the way we made a detour to see the Animal Sanctuary:

 

A parrot with a damaged tail feather (meaning he can't fly and protect himself from predators) and some adorable baby hogs. 

Then we had lunch on our way back:

Quinoa with sausage and egg - it was like fried rice, but better! A simple and delicious meal. 

Then we headed back to Paucartambo:

We got some snacks:

 

The ice cream was 50 cents! We could barely believe it! The ice cream was pretty colourful - but tasted kind of like vanilla. 

Tres Leche cake

Pretty good - but rather sweet.  I really like the dulce de leche sauce!