Onnki Donburi

I originally wanted the Buta Fire (with charred pork) or Sake Lover (salmon) rice bowls, but they ran out. 

Steki Don

The flat iron steak bowl was really good. The marinated steak was cooked well and it was really tasty with the sauce and rice. 

Ebi Don

Buttered Shrimp and egg seemed like a sad substitute for my preferred options, but I thought I'd get the karaage appetizer to make up for my bowl. The shrimp bowl was good, but I think the steak was better.

Takoyaki and Karaage

Octopus balls with mayo and Japanese fried chicken were both really good. 

Nome Izakaya

Nome's Special Bento Box $19.80

Ebi mayo, baked oyster, short rib, Nome fried chicken, pork belly, salmon teriyaki in the lunch box and also a half boiled egg, pickles, salad, miso soup and rice

A really good deal since you get to try all of Nome's specialties in one lunch box! It's also quite a large portion since they give you a little of everything. There was a lot of attention paid to all of the individual dishes and they were all very tasty. My favourites were the fried chicken, salmon teriyaki, short ribs and baked oyster. 

NFC Donburi $12.80

Nome's fried chicken with rice 

A much bigger portion of the fried chicken. 

Website: https://nomeizakaya.com/our-menu/

French Made

Nov 21, 2019

Quince Tart

I tried the quince fruit in Australia (without realizing that you're supposed to cook it first). The tart was much better than the fresh fruit. Quince is like apple/pear, but also kind of citrus like. The tart was pretty good, I loved the almond crust on top. 

Oct 2, 2019

French Made has a promotion on selected baked good after 3pm - they're 50% off.

Raspberry Croissant $2

Flaky croissant with raspberry jam in the middle. It was a little too sweet for me because of the jam and it was also super sticky.

Peach Melba Cake

It was so pink and cute! Also, it was yummy!

Sept 27, 2019

Chocolate raspberry tart

This chocolate raspberry tart was SO GOOD! It was pure decadence. Chocolate ganache in the tart and it was topped with a raspberry mousse with a gelatin layer on top and some chocolate crumbles and raspberries along the edges near the tart crust. AMAZING! I'll definitely be back for more desserts from French Made. 

Website: https://frenchmadetoronto.com/

Onezo Tapioca

Nov 20, 2019 @ 2 Wellesley Street

The Totaro drink is made with taro and it's on sale this month.

Totaro drink with fresh milk and onezo tapioca (additional $1.20)

Unfortunately, the tapioca wasn't as good as the other location. The drink tasted kind of weird since they really only used fresh milk, purple ube and taro to make the drink. I don't think there was any tea in this. I'll skip this fresh milk drinks in the future.

March 17, 2019 @ 3621 Hwy 7

Merona Milk Tea with OneZo Tapioca (extra $1.20)

The melon flavoured milk tea was really sweet (and they can't cut the sweetness). However, it was really good without the powdery taste/texture. The OneZo tapioca are also delicious (even though they're so expensive - it's worth it for an occasional treat). 

Website: https://www.onezotapioca.com/

Hakata Ikkousha Ramen

Black Tonkotsu with flavoured egg and cha shu

The novelty of the black broth ramen was fun at first, but after a while, I kinda wished I ordered the normal tonkotsu broth. The cha shu and noodles were really good.

Tonkotsu ramen with cha shu

The clear broth had a delicious rich flavour. 

Website: https://www.ikkousha.ca/

Red Lobster

Nov 16, 2019

Endless Shrimp is back! The options are garlic shrimp, hand-breaded shrimp, grilled shrimp, shrimp linguine alfredo, chili shrimp and teriyaki shrimp

Garlic Shrimp and Hand-breaded shrimp with baked potato

They start off giving you double your order, which is great if you know exactly which shrimp you like.

Garlic shrimp and teriyaki shrimp

The teriyaki sauce was salty and sweet, I think I might just prefer the grilled shrimp without it. Garlic shrimp is always delicious and these were basting in garlic butter - Yum!

Chili shrimp

The breaded shrimp on this plate seemed kind of sad.

Garlic shrimp skewer and teriyaki shrimp skewer

Shrimp Linguine alfredo

The alfredo sauce tasted a little off today, but luckily the dish didn't really have a lot of alfredo sauce. 

Hand breaded shrimp 

I like the tangy cocktail sauce with the hand breaded shrimp. 

September 23, 2017

After running the Oasis 5km race at the Toronto Zoo - we decided we needed to load up on all you can eat shrimp at Red Lobster. In hindsight, this was not the best idea I had to eat tons of creamy heavy things after a 5km race. (I totally regretted it after)

Caesar salad

Coconut shrimp and Mediterranean shrimp

I loved the coconut shrimp with the pina colada sauce (the blue container). Unfortunately, after this, we didn't get any more of the pina colada sauce. The grilled shrimp were okay in comparison. The Nashville shrimp weren't that spicy. I didn't eat anywhere near the numbers I had at the Thornhill location, but I had quite a few. 

April 9, 2016

I love Red Lobster, but I feel like I always overindulge on creamy, cheesy, buttery and garlicky seafood meals (and biscuits) every time I visit since I get this "Red Lobster" food-over (like hangover with heavy food) the next day.  It's like garlic-butter seafood regrets the next day (it probably doesn't help that the carb and sodium content is through the roof here either).
Anyways, I got this coupon for a free appetizer with two entree meals and I was super excited to go!

 Cheesy Biscuits
Sadly, not so cheddar cheesy as they used to taste (and omg the original cheddar biscuits were amazing - but a total meal in themselves).  The biscuits were warm, flaky and most importantly unlimited (if your stomach could handle it).


Lobster Artichoke and Cheese Dip and Chips
Oooo this is what I mean by overindulgence of cheese and cream sauce goodness! The dip was heavily packed with cream and cheese and a few chunks of lobster - but it was exactly what I expected for a lobster artichoke and cheese dip and the chips were a little flimsy, but they served their purpose. So yummy - and yet so terrible for my health (it's totally a cholesterol-laden appetizer)


Caesar Salad
The salad felt like the "healthy" dish before the garlic butter seafood feast.
I loved that they made sure that every piece of romaine lettuce had dressing (a sign of a well-tossed salad) and there was so much cheese! (throwing shavings of cheese is a little lazier than grating it - but at least this way you know they're not skimping on the cheese).

Crab Linguine Alfredo
We were almost a little frightened by the sauce in this case - it literally looked like melted butter sauce (and a bit of a heart-attack waiting to happen).  The crab meat was soaked in garlic buttery goodness, but the pasta was just way too heavy for us to finish.


Ultimate Feast with Walt's Favourite Shrimp, garlic shrimp, Canadian snow crab legs and Maritime lobster tail with asparagus and rice.
Snow crab and lobster tail!! Do I need to say more? The meat from the crab and the lobster was super sweet and so yummy even without the butter sauce on the side.  The Maritime lobster was a little small, but there was still so much food on the plate that I didn't really mind. So many seafood options! I was in seafood heaven with my breaded shrimp, garlic shrimp, crab legs and lobster tail.

Overall: Service was pretty fast for the most part (it's always the wait for a table that takes the longest - I guess everyone needs time to sit and digest their seafood meals) and if you're looking for a seafood chain restaurant - this is definitely the best there is.

Website: https://www.redlobster.ca/

Cosmos Agora

There's a Greek hot table in Scarborough. 

Moussaka and potatoes and Pastitsio and lima beans

I've seen moussaka on menus at Greek restaurants before, but I haven't tried it until now. It's pretty reasonably priced at Cosmos Agora and the portion was quite big. The moussaka was pretty good, I liked it better than the pastitsio/pastichio which had a really big cheese layer on the top. The lima beans were a really good side. 

Assorted baklava and a cannoli

The baklava were okay. 

Walnut Cake

I thought this was pretty good with lots of crushed walnuts on the outside and inside. 

Website: 

Famiglia Baldassarre

Nov 8, 2019

The lineup was insane, I waited from 12:10 pm to 2:30 pm (without food) for takeout.

Tagliatelle al ragu, ravioli in rosso, ravioli in blanco and tagliatelle in blanco $13 each

Since we had to line up for about an hour for take-out, we decided to grab all the pastas and sauce combinations we could. I really liked the tagliatelle al ragu since the ragu sauce was really good and the ravioli in blanco since the butter really brought out the flavour from the spinach and cheese ravioli. The sugo sauce with ravioli was good too, but I thought it covered some of the flavour from the spinach and cheese filling. The tagliatelle in blanco was nice, but it seemed like it needed an extra punch of flavour that the butter sauce couldn't help with.

1kg Lasagna (baked at home) $22

We baked the lasagna a few days later. It was okay, but I wonder if it would have tasted better if we baked it the day of (since it was made with fresh pasta). 

Nov 9, 2018

When I saw the Blogto article on Famiglia Baldassarre, I started planning my trip to check it out on my next day off (since they're only open from noon to 2pm Tuesdays to Fridays). 

You can tell where the place is by the huge lineup outside the door. 

 

Turns out it's because they have about 5 tables, but a lot of people do take-out (so there's a bit of a wait)

I had a pistachio gelato bar from Bar Ape as I was waiting for my food. It was okay, I didn't really enjoy the white chocolate part of it. 

Fior di Latte and Crudo (Parma D.O.P.)

The crudo was really good. I wasn't as big a fan of the mozzarella because usually I like my cheese firm or melted. 

Tagliatelle al ragu (meat sauce), ravioli in bianco and ravioli in rosso (red sugo sauce)

Fresh pasta does make a lot of difference in the taste and texture of the food. I really liked the tagliatelle in meat sauce and the ravioli with spinach and ricotta in white sauce (butter and reggiano). The sauces were clean simple flavours that enhanced the pasta. I thought the rosso sauce was a little too strong for the spinach and ricotta ravioli. 

Great food, the lineups were still crazy (I hope they go away in a few more months or so), but it was worth it for the pasta. I would go around 1pm after the first rush of customers to buy their pasta (eat in or take out).

Website: http://famigliabaldassarre.com/#home

Tung Tung Dan Quen King

Pandan Coconut Egg Waffles!

I was pretty surprised to see pandan coconut egg waffles on the menu at this egg waffle shop since pandan isn't really a popular flavour. I was pretty excited to eat it, but it turns out it was still mostly coconut and vanilla flavoured. It barely tasted of pandan; my search for good pandan desserts continues.

Tre Mari Bakery

Veal Parmigiana and Lasagna

The veal was pretty good because the tomato sauce is excellent. The lasagna was really nicely done with many layers of pasta and a good ratio of cheese, sauce and pasta. If I were to rank the Italian hot tables we've eaten at, I would say that it's better than Agincourt Bakery for sure.

Pistachio cannoli and tiramisu

The filling was green which was promising. The pistachio flavour was a little bit better since it was incorporated into the filling as opposed to other places where they dipped the ricotta cannoli ends into a bowl of pistachio nuts. However, it tasted more custard-like than cream. The tiramisu was okay, it had a chocolate powder on top which I'm not really a fan of and it needed more cake than cheese and cream.

Website: http://tremaribakery.ca/

Sugo

Nov 2, 2019

Garlic Bread

Pesto Rigatoni and Spaghetti with ragu sauce

We got take-out since there was an hour long wait for a table and a pretty long lineup inside the restaurant (since it was so cold). I wasn't sure about the pesto rigatoni at first since it didn't look like it had any sauce, but it turns out the bottom had a lot more sauce. The spaghetti was really good. 

June 3, 2019

Pesto Rigatoni

The pasta was really good, but it was also really heavy. It looked like a small portion, but there was a lot of pasta.

Gnocchi with sugo sauce

Fluffy balls of pasta with tasty sugo sauce! Yum!

 

Tiramisu

Lots of mascarpone cheese, but I didn't really see or taste the ladyfingers (maybe they were so soaked into the liquor and espresso that they lost their form).

Website: https://www.sugotoronto.com/