West Street Cuisine

Aug 31, 2020

It looks like they stopped running the promotion with the rice noodles and congee combo.

Fresh rice noodles with youtiao and fresh shrimp rice noodles with salted egg and pork congee and beef congee

The portion sizes are still decent and the fresh rice noodles are delicious when eaten immediately. The takeout version is still pretty good (but not as amazing as when you eat them fresh when they make them). The noodles do get a little stickier after they sit for a bit, but they still taste yummy with their soy sauce, hoisin sauce or peanut sauce. I really like the congee at West Street cuisine - so this is our go-to spot when we want congee. 

Feb 1, 2019

Before 11am on Mondays - Fridays, both of these shops have a promotion on their rice noodles and congee combinations.

Salted Egg and pork congee and barbecue pork rice noodle

The congee was really good and a pretty sizable portion. The rice noodle was made fresh and it was super tasty with soy sauce. 

Scotty Bons Caribbean Grill

As we were waiting for our food at Burrito Boyz next door, we noticed a lot of people going into Scotty Bons. So we decided to try a sandwich to see what the lineups were about. 

Jerk Chicken Panini $5.65

Really yummy white chicken meat that was seasoned with a good jerk spice dry rub. It was quite spicy with all the ingredients - I liked that they had a lime sauce (which was a different from other places) and I thought it would help balance it out (but it was still pretty spicy overall). 

Website: https://www.scottybonsgrill.com/

Snacks & Food @ C&C Supermarket

Aug 25, 2020

The Cherry Blossom flavour Lan Fong Yuen milk tea was on sale a few weeks ago at C&C, but I didn't find it until much later at another Chinese grocery store. 

 

Sakura Flavour

The drink was kind of flowery, but it wasn't immediate when you smelled it. The milk tea was smooth and super sweet - it was really sugary (I probably wouldn't get it again unless they make a no-sugar version). 

August 18, 2020

Near the end of the day, the sushi at C&C Supermarket goes on sale. I managed to pick up a black dragon roll for $3.99:

Pretty good for the price since it had lots of eel with a yummy sauce and the roll had fake crab, fried shrimp and a lot of avocado. 

Also picked up some fried sesame balls with red bean (which were okay, but they lost their shape and were a little dry), youtiao (which were pretty good despite it being part of their end of day sale), spring rolls (skip that - they weren't very good) and Shanghai noodles with vegetable and meat (not that great since the flavour wasn't very strong). 

August 5, 2020

After watching a ton of historical Chinese dramas, I've really wanted to try their pretty flower cake snacks. Luckily C&C Supermarket was having a sale on their Osmanthus and Taro rice cake snacks for $1.68 per box - so I thought this would be a good opportunity. 

Osmanthus flavour and Taro Flavour (and what it actually looks like)

This is definitely a case of buyer beware - the pictures were definitely different from the actual rice powder cakes inside. It was super powdery, not pleasant tasting and had a weird grainy texture. The osmanthus had a flowery perfume flavour and the taro had a weird lingering after taste - definitely skip this (it was terrible). 

We also saw this on sale from the famous Lan Fong Yuen Milk tea place in Hong Kong

$1.99 for a cup of their Hong Kong style milk tea

The milk tea was really sweet but very smooth and it worked out to about 2 cups worth when reheated with more water to dilute the sweetness. It has the classic Lan Fong Yuen super silky texture and excellent flavour. There was also the silk milk tea flavour (which was also really smooth and very sweet). 

July 15, 2020

I was wandering around C&C Supermarket when I saw this on sale for $3.99: 

Snack size baumkuchen! 

The Marukin baumkuchen cakes were pretty good! They were sweet, buttery and still a bit moist with the baumkuchen layers like circular tree rings.The layers kept their shape as opposed to other pre-packaged baumkuchen which is usually just pound cake. I was pretty happy with this snack from Japan at the supermarket!

Burrito Boyz

August 25, 2020 - 789 Warden Ave

Skip the Dishes gave me a $10 coupon code, so I used it towards a pick up order for Burritos! (it worked out to pretty much BOGO)

 

Massive Small Chicken Burrito $10.47 with white tortilla, beans, cheese, rice, lettuce, coleslaw, bell peppers, tomatoes, onions, corn, salsa, burrito sauce and a little spice

The chicken burrito was really good - super tasty and toasted so well. Delicious!

The store also gave me free chips and salsa (which were delicious!)

Small Steak burrito $10.77 with whole wheat tortilla, beans, cheese, rice, lettuce, coleslaw, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, corn, cilantro and chipotle salsa

The chipotle salsa added good heat, but it was spicy! The burrito was pretty yummy with all the ingredients stuffed inside and toasted outside.  

October 3, 2018 - 74 Dundas St. E

Massive "small burrito"

Beef

There was a super long lineup, but the wait was worth it. 

The burrito was packed with tons of beef and all the toppings I wanted. Then it was all grilled together to make all the ingredients warm and melt the cheese. 

For other burrito posts, see here: https://peachgirlblog.blogspot.com/2016/02/burrito-bandidos-vs-chipotle.html

Website: https://www.burritoboyz.ca/

Bakery Nakamura

 J-Town is a great place for all sorts of Japanese treats and Bakery Nakamura is located in a prime spot right inside the tiny indoor mall. 

Mango Coconut Cake

Nice light cake with fresh mango chunks on top and coconut cake. 

Keropi Melon Bun

Really cute! Not a lot of melon flavour though, but quite nice and fluffy inside. 

Website: http://bakerynakamura.com/

Snacks @ T&T Supermarket

August 21, 2020 @ 9255 Woodbine Ave, Markham 

In my search for 'Chinese drama cakes' (aka the desserts the actors eat in the historical Chinese dramas I've been watching lately), I found these frozen mung bean cakes with red bean inside at T&T and thought these might be good. 

Around $10-$15 for the box

Wow, I did not expect them to be so tiny and with one red bean inside. The mung bean cake was okay (if a little grainy and powdery), but overall this was super disappointing compared to the advertised picture on the box. 

Ten Ren's Tea @ Fairview Mall

On a super hot day, the daily drink special at Ten Ren's is a welcome treat from the heat! 

Especially on Wednesdays, when it's strawberry slush day for $3.99!

The drink was pretty good; it was cold and sweet. It wasn't quite a strawberry slushie since it had a light hint of tea (and maybe yogurt?), but it was light and refreshing

Website: https://tenrenstea.com/lovetea/

Cakeview Bakery & Cafe

August 15, 2020

Egg Tarts (flaky pastry and cookie crust)

Yummy egg custard flavour and not too sweet with a perfect cookie crust. The cookie crust version is my favourite egg tart right now.

Durian Tart $4.50

So much durian with a nice flaky pastry crust

It was pretty smelly, so I ate it outside picnic style. 

July 16, 2020

The fresh mango cakes were really popular here, so we pre-ordered a 6 inch cake a day in advance for pickup. 

 

Fresh Mango Cake ($30)

The cake looked beautiful! There were tons of fresh ripe mango slices on top of the cake and lots of mango inside the cake between the cake layers with whipped cream. Deliciously sweet mangoes and fluffy light cake with whipped cream made for a yummy cake. I was kind of expecting a mango mousse somewhere, but it didn't have any mango mousse. 

Durian pastry and Taro pastry ($2 each)

Both pastries had a flaky outside layer with paste inside. I really liked the durian pastry, it had great durian flavour (it was smelly but not too smelly) and there was a lot of filling inside. The taro pastry didn't have as much flavour and it had a bit of a lingering sugar taste after I finished it. I'd probably skip the taro, but go for the durian pastry in the future. 

Good cookie crust egg tarts! 

June 14, 2020

Egg tart with cookie crust $1.40

The egg tart was pretty good with more egg flavour than Les Chateaux bakery. The cookie crust just wasn't firm enough, but it was still delicious and slightly cheaper than Les Chateaux. Egg tarts with flaky crust are slightly more expensive at $1.50

Les Chateaux Bakery

August 15, 2020

I've been noticing a lot of these almond cookies lately and I saw that Les Chateaux red bean almond cookies which seemed interesting - it was also strange that they were more black in colour than red (we asked for help from an employee to identify the flavours of almond cookies.

Red bean almond cookies $6.75 and one cookie crust egg tart and one flaky crust egg tart ($3.55 for 2)

The red bean almond cookies were quite firm with good texture. They were very solid with almond slivers throughout the main section of the cookie and also had crumbly edges which was nice. I found that flavour wise, they didn't really taste like almond or red bean which was odd. 

The other items I bought were egg tarts since this used to be my favourite egg tart shop. The egg tarts were sweet and had good egg flavour, but the cookie crust wasn't great since it was really loose and crumbly and I prefer a firm solid cookie crust.

 

March 15, 2020

Egg Tarts: 3 with cookie crust and 3 with flaky crust

The cookie crust (which is my favourite) has gotten a lot better, but I think it'd taste even better if it was baked longer to be more firm. The egg custard is really yummy here! 

Feb 22, 2014

Hidden inside the New Kennedy Square Mall at Highway 7 and Kennedy is Les Chateaux Bakery:

The egg tarts come in two kinds of crust: cookie crust and flaky crust.

I love egg tarts, and I was spoiled last year in Hong Kong.

Sadly, these were nothing close to the delicious egg tarts I had before. However, I will say that Les Chateaux Bakery is probably one of the better egg tart places in the GTA. The egg custard is relatively firm, but the quality of the crust just isn't consistent. Oh well, the search continues...

Burger King

Burger King has declined a lot in popularity among the fast food chains in Canada, they used to have a lot more locations in Toronto and now it's getting harder to find them. I've always really liked their chicken sandwiches and Whoppers - they're almost nostalgic for me. 

Original Chicken Sandwich (2 for $6) 

This is such a classic chicken sandwich: breaded chicken with lettuce and mayo on a sesame sandwich (kind of like burger but longer) bun. They also came out with a spicy chicken sandwich, which I would skip in the future. They used a sweet and spicy chili sauce instead of the mayo and the mayo tastes much better. 

Whopper Burger

The burger patty has a bit of the grilled taste (not sure about the "flame grilled" part), but it does have a nice char. When compared to other burgers, it obviously won't stand up to the tastiness or juiciness of gourmet burger chains, but I think it does a pretty decent job for a fast food chain and the toppings are pretty good. I filled out the survey on the back of a previous receipt which gives you a free Whopper with the purchase of a drink and small fries (making the combo about $4) - which is a great deal!

Chicken nuggets (10 for $2.99)

A few years ago when these first came out, they were 10 nuggets for $1.99 and they gave you two sauces. With inflation, I guess the prices went up. The nuggets are bigger than McDonald's nuggets, but the taste isn't quite as good as McDonald's. However, they do give you a bunch of different sauces to choose from and you can choose as many as you like. I like the sweet and sour sauce (and I would avoid their BBQ sauce). 

Website: https://www.burgerking.ca/

Swiss Chalet and St. Hubert Frozen Chicken Pies

 Aug 7, 2020

Frozen Chicken Pie options from Grocery Stores

Superstore was having a sale on their frozen chicken pies ($4.98 each) and I got two options 

Right: Swiss Chalet Chicken Pot pie 

Left: St. Hubert's Broccoli Cheese Chicken Gratin

The Swiss Chalet chicken pot pie was pretty good, you can taste rotisserie chicken flavour in the pie, the sauce was tasty and creamy and the pie crust was good (more firm than flaky). The pie filling was a little thinner in the middle, but it had chicken, corn, potatoes, carrots and peas. 

The St. Hubert broccoli cheese chicken gratin had lots of cheese and sauce and a nice flaky pie crust (compared to the harder more buttery crust on the Swiss Chalet pie - which I like more), but the chicken had no taste and it was swimming in a cream of broccoli and cheese soup. It had more liquid than the pot pie. 

Of the two, I prefer the Swiss Chalet chicken pot pie. 😃 

Läderach Chocolatier Suisse

August 5, 2020

I got a promotional ad for a free gift with purchase at Läderach, so I came back for more delicious chocolate!

Cornflake Milk Chocolate, Blackberry Dark Chocolate and Nut Trio

I got my favourite cornflake milk chocolate, but unfortunately they were out of the white chocolate raspberry blackberry. Instead, they had a dark chocolate blackberry which I think is probably even better since it won't be as sweet as the white chocolate. 

Turns out the dark chocolate blackberry is REALLY good, it's sweet and a little tart from the blackberry and it had a good balance overall with the rich smooth dark chocolate. I like this one a lot with the flavours and the sticky sweet texture (kind of like caramel) and a slight crispiness and it's dark chocolate which is even better (dark chocolate is my new favourite chocolate since milk chocolate usually tastes really sweet). The cornflake milk was AMAZING as usual with that crispy cornflake texture and smooth delicious milk chocolate. 

 

Nut trio milk chocolate with pistachios, roasted hazelnuts and almonds 

The chocolate is sold by weight $10.90/100g and this one is probably one of the more expensive ones since there are so many nuts. However, it's so worth it! It's a combination of delicious tasty premium nuts (pistachios, hazelnuts and almonds) and amazing really smooth rich milk chocolate. They incorporated full pistachios and hazelnuts and sliver of almond slices and also some assorted crunchy bits. Great texture and so delicious! 

The gift with purchase was a selection of their Choco Bijoux

White end - Blanc tartufi: hazelnut gianduja with white chocolate, roasted Piedmont hazelnuts and slivers of wafer biscuit) - the white chocolate was sweet and crispy, I love their textures to their chocolates - it makes things so much more interesting and fun - this was really good, but I prefer the dark chocolate or milk chocolate versions. 

Purple end - Gianduja Tartufi: hazelnut gianduja with refined milk chocolate and roasted Piedmont hazelnuts - Not as crunchy crispy as the blanc tartufi, but it was super soft and yummy (even if the texture wasn't as smooth as their chocolate bars). 

Orange stick - orange noir: fruity orange gianduja with crispy slivers of wafer biscuit covered in Swiss dark chocolate - strong intense orange flavour with dark chocolate - delicious!

Green twisty end - Noisette noir: caramelized, roasted Piedmont hazelnut with finest hazelnut gianduja covered in Swiss dark chocolate - super hazelnutty from the roasted Piedmont hazelnuts (which are honestly my favourite hazelnuts ever). This is definitely the choco bijoux you get if you want a ton of Piedmont Hazelnut flavour. 

Beige twisty end - Feuilletine lait: crispy slivers of wafer biscuit in hazelnut gianduja, covered in Swiss milk chocolate - crunchy, smooth and sweet - Yummy!

Red twisty end - Macadamia lait: Caramelized roasted macadamia nut with finest hazelnut gianduja covered in Swiss milk chocolate - excellent milk chocolate and hazelnut flavour and a macadamia surprise in the middle (featuring a whole macadamia nut). 

Blue stick - Stracciatella blanc: finest white gianduja with crispy cocoa pieces covered in Swiss white chocolate. Yummy with the crunchy finely chopped cocoa pieces to add a little crispiness and sweet white chocolate. 

July 21, 2020

Läderach, a Swiss chocolatier that I tried in Switzerland (the chocolate bark was AMAZING), opened a new location at York Mills and Bayview! 

I'm gifting myself delicious chocolate! 

All this chocolate bark is sold by weight - it's $10.90/100g and these 5 pieces worked out to $32. 

There's milk chocolate cornflake, rocher (milk chocolate with almonds), white chocolate raspberry blackberry (pink), Grand Cru (dark chocolate) and dark chocolate with almonds. 

My favourite chocolate barks were the white chocolate raspberry and blackberry and the milk chocolate cornflakes. I'm usually not a big fan of white chocolate since it's super sweet from all the sugar (and it's not really chocolate anyways), but the raspberry and blackberry crunchy bits and the delicious tangy taste of the berries with the sweet white chocolate is just SO GOOD - I remember this was my favourite chocolate in Switzerland years ago. It's also not too sweet for a white chocolate, which makes it even better. 

The milk chocolate cornflake is another favourite because it had the fun crunchy and crispy texture from the cornflake crisps with the smoothest and best tasting milk chocolate ever. It's so good all together - I would definitely get this again for an extra special treat! 

The other chocolate barks were really good as well (just not as outstanding as the two above in my opinion). The rocher was super smooth and tasty milk chocolate with roasted almond slivers (I would eat this over actual Ferrero rocher chocolates anyday!) and the Grand Cru was a 70% dark chocolate with a rich powerful flavour from Brazil with a fruity flavour to it. It was much darker than Lindt chocolate's 70% (I would say it was almost comparable to Lindt's 85%), but with a better flavour. The dark chocolate with almonds was also really good and it used a different dark chocolate than the Cru. It was smoother and creamier (possibly with more cream or milk in the chocolate) and it wasn't as strong. The almond slivers were great together with the chocolate. 

Overall: I would definitely recommend a visit here if you're looking for excellent quality chocolate

Website: https://www.laderach.com/en/