Banjara Indian Cuisine

Feb 12, 2012

 

On the outside, the Banjara at Bloor resembles a local diner (I think it actually used to be a Coffee Time). It's not very impressive inside either, but it must be the food that keeps customers coming back for more.

Papad - Thin, crispy and lots of spices 

A really nice way to start the meal. 

Butter Chicken with side order of Naan

It was really good butter chicken along with huge portions of Naan bread. There were large pieces of chicken Tikka smothered in a delicious sauce that flavourful and rich and not too heavy or spicy. 

Lamb Rogan Josh

The lamb was nicely cooked, not too gamy and it had a slow burning spiciness to it.

Lots of sauce and full of flavour - Yum!

Overall: I'm not really a connoisseur of Indian cooking, but I really liked what I ate! The dishes were tasty, delicious and super filling with the naan.

Location: 796 Bloor Street West, Toronto

May 2, 2013

I liked the Bloor Banjara so much that when I saw a Groupon for the new Yonge and Eglinton Banjara, I bought the Groupon: $15 for $30 worth of food.

Papad 

It was the same crispy starter with tons of spices. It's really great to nibble on as you're waiting for your main meal. 

Meat samosas 

We were kind of surprised by how big they were! The menu says two, but we were used to samosas that you find in grocery stores and potlucks. It was almost the size of a fist and filled with hot meat filling that was nicely spiced but not too spicy.

Butter Chicken Combination Platter 

Butter chicken on the platter was a much smaller portion (and the naan was a smaller portion too). The sauce was still really tasty and not too rich or heavy. The other items were hit and miss: the chickpeas and potatoes were okay; the long grained rice was lightly flavoured and nice; the crispy pakora was good; the rice pudding was very watery and had a strange sweetness to it - I wasn't a fan. 

Beef Madras 

The sauce was delicious and packed with flavour.

Overall: I think I liked the Bloor location better. The platters had a lot of food, but the quality was okay.

Location: 164 Eglinton Avenue East, Toronto

Website: http://torontobanjara.com/

Noodle Star

It's been a while since I've eaten at Noodle Star on 16th Avenue and Woodbine. It used to be one of my go-to favourites for afternoon tea. 

Seafood tofu soup

The soup was filled with shrimp, crab meat, tofu chunks and gailan slivers. The texture of the soup is thick and gooey and it's pretty substantial as a starter course. 

Fish sauce chicken 

The chicken was sweetened with the fish sauce flavour and it was pretty meaty and relatively boneless. 

Left: Dried fish with Gailan 

Right: Beef brisket and tofu bowl

The gailan was flavoured with a slight fishy taste and tasted pretty good (if you like that flavour). 

The beef brisket and tofu bowl was mediocre; the brisket wasn't tender enough and there wasn't enough tofu. 

Fukien fried rice 

One of my favourite types of fried rice: Fukien fried rice is always served with lots of sauce on top. The sauce was rich with mushrooms, meat and gailan and when you mix the sauce in the rice - it's just so much better than normal fried rice. 

Clockwise from top left: Stir fried green beans with pork, pan-fried pork chops with spicy salt and boiled salted duck. 

The stir-fried green beans and pan-fried pork chops were okay, but not as good as Maple Yip's. 

I liked the boiled salted duck though. It was relatively boneless, tender and delicious. The pink vinegar sauce added a tang to the duck meat.

Pork belly with pickled vegetables 

The pork belly was lean and a little tougher than I would have liked and it had a heavy pickled vegetable taste. I still think Maple Yip's is better.

Chicken and mushroom rice 

I really liked this rice dish. It was really tasty with all the juices from the chicken and chinese mushrooms soaked and flavoured in the rice underneath. Add soy sauce and it's amazing! 

Red bean dessert

A little watery, but it was okay.

Overall: It had a nice family vibe, the service was really efficient and the food was decent and affordable. 

Ramen Raijin

A few of my friends have been going ga-ga for ramen and I've been taken along for the ride...so here I go again:

Raijin menu

   

 

Hanpa Cha-shu $1

Two of my friends ordered Sapporo beer and got little dishes of this cha-shu, but then we decided to order one for the table since it made such an easy to share (and cheap) appetizer. The pulled pork was on the dry side, but it had nice flavour. 

Spicy Miso Ramen

The spicy miso ramen had a nice rich and slightly spicy broth - perfect for a cold winter's day.

 

Black Charcoal Dark Miso Ramen

This ramen is the specialty of Raijin. It has a distinctive black broth which looks a little intimidating at first, but it's actually a really delicious and grainy charcoal broth. It was definitely one of the better and more memorable ramens I've had.

Overall: Raijin's Black Charcoal Dark Miso ramen was really good - it was distinctive and different than any other ramen offered in Toronto and quite tasty.

Website: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ramen-Raijin/443570379034696

Yokozuna Japanese Ramen Inc.

We saw the Ramen restaurant when we passed by Silver Star Boulevard and decided to try it out:

Appetizer Menu


Ramen Menu

Tenderous Rib Soup Ramen
The beef ribs were tender and tasty, but I found that the ingredients didn't really go well together. There's something to be said about the balance of a good ramen and this felt like a haphazard pairing of ingredients including broccoli, corn, very thinly sliced naruto maki and mushrooms in a beef broth.

Sapporo Ramen

The Sapporo started with a garlic butter broth which was very heavy and super rich - it tasted like melted garlic butter in soup and was rather overwhelming. The combination of ingredients was better with this ramen even if the ramen egg was mediocre (see Kinton for a better ramen egg) and the cha-shu was okay.

Kyushu Ramen
The miso based broth was the best of the three (and I finally understand why most ramen places use it instead of playing up different soup bases). The cha-shu was okay, the narutomaki lacked flavour (most likely because they were too thinly sliced), overall it was okay.

Overall: Yokozuna Japanese Ramen experiments with the soup bases and the ingredients, but I wasn't really a fan of the combinations. The ramen was mediocre, but it was cheaper here than in downtown Toronto.

Solo Sushi Bekkan

A coworker recommded Solo Sushi Bekkan for lunch and so a group of us went to try it out.
It's a relatively tiny restaurant with around 20 seats - so if you don't make a reservation, it's probably best to wait until a little after the lunch rush to grab a table. 

The lunch specials are around $10-15 and come with salad and miso soup.

 

Salad

Fresh ingredients beautifully presented with a nice tangy soy sauce dressing.

Miso soup

Gyoza

The gyoza had paper thin wrappers around a meat and vegetable stuffing and they were lightly pan-fried. 

Chicken Teriyaki Bento Box

I kept staring at the bento wondering why it was different than the traditional Japanese bento boxes for lunch and then I realized that they served the salad separately and instead this bento had a side of egg and potato salad. It was okay, a little bland. However, the rest of the bento box with chicken teriyaki, spicy tuna roll and crispy battered tempura had tons of flavour. 

Overall: A nice lunch at Solo Sushi Bekkan: the food was decent and the bento was pretty filling.

Website: http://solosushiya.com/solo_sushi_bekkan

Lisbon by Night

Lisbon by Night has a great All-You-Can-Eat Fish deal for $24.95 (excl. tax and tip)

Fish Soup
A pretty good start to the meal.

Salsa, rice and beans and potatoes

The salsa was refreshing and tasty with tomato, coriander and peppers - it was the perfect complement to some of the fish.

So the All-You-Can-Eat Fish buffet starts with the waiters serving you one of each type of fish first.They serve about 9-10 varieties of fish with the fish changing up daily. <Interesting Fish Chart>
The All-You-Can-Eat part of this experience happens after you're done trying one of each fish because then you can reorder more of your favourite kinds of fish.

1. Sea Bream
The grilled sea bream was really delicious; the meat was sweet with a nice flaky texture. There were some tiny bones which made it a little difficult. It was definitely a fish I would order again.

2. King fish <eat with salsa>
The king fish was a thick cut fish steak. The flesh was firm, meaty and didn't really have a distinctive flavour.

3. Marithes

These were deep fried fish that were fully edible (you eat the fish with the head and crispy bones).
I was a little queasy about eating the heads of the fishes (just imagining eating their eyeballs and brains at the same time was kind of gross). It was an interesting experience.

4. Salmon
Something I would expect with a fish buffet. The grilled salmon was simple and delicious. It was quite a large portion too! (Great value for money considering most restaurants charge $20 just for the salmon).

5. Calamari

The calamari was fresh and simply marinated. It had a gummy texture and was pretty sweet.

6. Turbot <eat with salsa>

The turbot had really delicate flesh and it was cooked almost to a mushy texture. I wasn't really a fan of this one, but it was different from the rest.

7. Porgy fish <eat with salsa>
Relatively mild flavoured fish. It wasn't particularly memorable.

8. Stingray
I was thinking of the Ocean's deadliest animals as I was eating this. The meat was pretty tough and it was nicely breaded and deep fried.

9. Shrimp

The shrimp were pretty big and cooked in a yummy garlic butter sauce. I would definitely get seconds of this dish.

10. Sardine
It had a strong fishy flavour and was probably one of my least favourite fishes of the night.

After all the fish rounds (and seconds of the shrimp), we got dessert:

Grilled pineapple

Delicious caramelized grilled pineapple! Yummy!

Overall: Great all-you-can-eat fish experience at Lisbon by Night. Good value, quick service and there's live music entertainment on the weekends.

Website: http://www.lisbonbynightrestaurant.com/