Peoples Eatery

My friend was back in town and wanted to try out Peoples Eatery in the heart of Chinatown.

We got their tasting menu and started off with a platter

Smoked fish platter
The fish is smoked in-house and presented with sides of capers, radishes, cucumbers.
I thought the entire platter was really nicely done and the fish was delicious!

Croquettes with Indian butter sauce


Tofu with sauce
The tofu was crispy on the outside and soft and fluffy inside.


Whitefish salad with wasabi and toast and skewers of apple and ham/prosciutto
I really liked the crispy bagel toast and whitefish with wasabi.

Moroccan Eggplant
Interesting...but not the best eggplant I've eaten (I really like the Chinese version at Maple Yip or Shinobu's Japanese version)


Salad




Peking Duck

The cooked duck dish (that goes with the Peking Duck)


Dessert

Overall: An interesting eclectic fusion experience.

Website: http://www.peopleseatery.com/

Fat Bastard Burrito

My friend and I weren't hungry enough for individual burritos, so we decided to split a huge burrito: 

Baked Chicken Burrito

This was definitely huge! The two halves actually ended up being like two individual burritos. 

It was okay taste-wise; value-wise, it's a good option since they pack so much of the ingredients into the burrito. 

Tostos Quickfire Pizza Pasta

Tostos is a relatively new pizza and pasta place on Bay a little north of College.  We came here for celebratory lunch. 

Aragosta - Linguine, Lobster, Garlic olive oil, cherry tomatoes, capers and chili flakes

The concept of this sounded really good; unfortunately, it ended up being way too much olive oil, salt & pepper and it overwhelmed the dish.  They did put in a lot of lobster though, but it wasn't really a balanced dish.

Website: http://tostoquickfire.ca/

Hot-Star Large Fried Chicken

Since Hot-Star Chicken opened up in November, I've been hearing a lot of rave reviews about it.  My friends and I decided to do a movie night at Yonge & Dundas and then grab their popular Fried Chicken after.

There were line-ups but it was mostly people waiting for their food to be prepared rather than line-ups to order.  

The food came in these sturdy take-away bags for the chicken.

This was the medium spicy chicken
There was a lot of powder/spice on this one - the hotter you ordered your chicken, the more spice rub you got on it.  I thought it was too much and it dried out the top of the chicken (and the inside of your mouth).

Close up of the chicken and fries
The fries were deliciously crispy and not oily at all!

Salt and Pepper chicken
The chicken was huge, but I didn't find the meat particularly juicy - I liked the salt and pepper one better than the spiced ones. However, I still wasn't a big fan.  The chicken cutlets I had in the night markets of Taiwan were much better (and the most memorable was in Taichung)

Cafe (表哥茶餐廳)

We came here on a recommendation because this restaurant is known for being cheap and fast. 

The service was really fast - we ordered and they served us a bowl of soup almost immediately. 

 The soup came with the meals. 

Vermicelli and pork chop

The vermicelli was simply served in chicken broth and the pork chop was crispy and fried to a nice golden brown.  It was all pretty tasty. 

Baked Chicken Spaghetti

The spaghetti was okay, the sauce wasn't as flavourful as my favourite Macau Portuguese Restaurant. It might have been even better with something to offset the tangy tomato sauce. 

Tim Hortons

It feels a little strange to be doing a post about such a popular Canadian chain like Tim Hortons, but they had this Steak and Cheese Panini promotion and I thought it might be worth it to try it out. 

Steak and Cheese Panini

It was a total fail - I don't think I'd ever order this again - the bread was super hard to chew through, the cheese wasn't even melted and the steak was just clumps of beef sitting all day in the warmer/heater thing and thrown on top.  If you're at Tims, skip this sandwich. 

Jiichiro and Jucheim (Baumkuchen) - Tokyo

Dec 10, 2015

We actually got both of these baumkuchens from my mom's Japanese friend.  She made a trip back to Tokyo and picked these up at the Haneda airport.

This Jucheim baumkuchen was much better than the Hong Kong version.  However, it wasn't as good as the Nenrinya baumkuchen (despite being able to keep for longer). The cake was denser and not as flavourful and soft between layers (Nenrinya makes their baumkuchen without as many preservatives and the cakes don't last as long).

Also, we tried a new brand: Jiichiro

Looks pretty good!

It was okay, at least the cake was softer than the Jucheim cake.  The icing on the outside was a little thin and didn't really taste like anything (it's usually at least a little sweet).  Also, I'm not sure I'm a fan of this cloth-like packaging.

Brownstone Bistro

My coworkers and I went for an early Christmas lunch at Brownstone Bistro

A variety of appetizers: calamari rings, bruschetta, spring rolls and balsamic chicken strips

A sampling of their appetizers - I thought they did the balsamic chicken and bruschetta well. 

Pasta of the Day - Seafood Ravioli

It was okay, I've definitely had better ravioli and seafood pasta though.  I think it might have been better with a cream sauce to highlight the flavour than the heavier rose sauce (which was heavier on the tomato than the cream). 

Website: http://www.brownstonebistro.ca/

St. Louis Bar & Grill

We were meeting some friends after their movie for dinner at Fairview Mall. 

There are quite a few options for a sit down dinner at the mall and someone wanted wings - so here we were at St. Louis Bar & Grill. 

The Friday special was 1/2 pound of wings and 1/2 rack of ribs for $19.95 with the purchase of a drink. 

I got a non-alcoholic berry smoothie

Which turned out to be awful - something in this expired and warped the taste, but they took it back and didn't charge me for it - so that was nice of them. Then I ordered a root beer, and they only had Dad's root beer (which isn't your usual A&W or Barq's - so I was thrown off by that too). 

1/2 Rack of Ribs with Mississippi Honey BBQ sauce and Honey Garlic wings

At least my ribs and wings turned out okay, not the best I've ever had, but decent for the price I paid.  And I decided to get a salad instead of fries (my sad attempt to eat healthy). 

Website: http://stlouiswings.com/