Fishman Lobster Clubhouse Restaurant

We walked into the restaurant and this was the first thing we saw:
 

Tanks of gigantic Alaskan Snow Crab

  

Our snow crab and lobsters


Tofu Mushroom Soup
Nice clear soup broth with king oyster mushrooms, choy, tofu and a seafood taste.

Alaskan Snow crab legs

Sweet, succulent and delicious meat steamed with crumbly egg yolk, egg whites and green onion. I found the meat from the smaller crab legs was juicier and tastier than the larger crab legs.

 

Typhoon Shelter Crab
The lobster was seasoned perfectly - full of flavour and delicious. The meat was sweet and the sauce was savoury and salty with a hint of spiciness - a nice contrast.

Lobster with garlic chips

Lobster prepared with flaky and crispy garlic chips, but I wasn't really a fan of this style of lobster - it was way too salty.


Steamed fish with a glass of soy sauce
Typical steamed fish with soy sauce, but with an interesting take on the presentation of the dish.


Choy with ham on top
Simple & classic choy with soy sauce and it made for a nice reprieve from all the heavier seafood dishes.

 
Romaine Lettuce with soy sauce
I didn't really understand the soy sauce in a wine glass as part of the presentation - if anything I didn't even bother having lettuce with soy sauce because I'd grab a bunch of leaves and forget to pour the sauce on top.


Crab Fried Rice
This fried rice dish was so heavy, especially after eating all that seafood earlier. The rice was good and there were delicious chunks of crab meat - but it was just so much food.


Black Sesame Soup
A little watery, but okay.

Overall: It's a pretty big restaurant with a lot of big tables (usually for parties of 5 people or more) and it makes sense with all the large portion set-dinners. Definitely a Chinese seafood lover's dream here - they give you a whole boxful of disposable gloves to eat with (I probably went through 5 pairs of gloves myself eating all the crab legs and lobster - I also realized how oily and greasy seafood can get through that experience). Food was good here, service was great...it's pricey for Alaskan Snow Crab legs, but they're really delicious. 

O.Noir

Yay! I finally made it to O.Noir after I've heard so much about the place and the experience. When O.Noir had a Groupon deal, I seized the chance to try out Dining in the Dark. 

The entrance to the restaurant looks like a secret entrance to an underground tunnel or subway. I might not have noticed it if I wasn't actively looking for it. 

Once we descended the stairs, we found directions to our destination:

With a dark dungeon-like feel and a long corridor to walk down to the main hostess desk, we found the environment rather appropriate and a little spooky (which totally suited the theme of the unknown). 

We arrived in the dimly lit main room where we ordered our meals:

Oooo Surprises!

My first course:

Surprise!

Literally, I ordered the surprise appetizer and from what I could identify...

The first thing I found on my plate was a hard, wrinkly and sweet dried apricot. I love apricots, so it wasn't an issue for me identifying it right away. The next thing I ate was harder because it was a mushy, almost bland-tasting object which I was pretty sure was avocado (and I eventually confirmed it with our waiter Nasir). Then I tasted the tomatoes and the balsamic and olive oil and pieced it all together as a salad. 

I found the ingredients were random, but I think the combination was more about playing with the textures and tastes. 

Surprise entree

The first thing I chased around my plate was a grainy textured piece of meat. It took me a while to place it because the texture was so similar to ground beef and yet, I could see it being pork too. It also didn't help since it was also seasoned well (if a little salty), but I eventually concluded that it was Salisbury steak (made with ground beef). Then there were two sides of mashed potatoes and green beans. 

Chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream

After the first two surprises, I wanted to be sure of the dessert so I ordered off the menu. 

The chocolate cake was a little dry, but there was a lot of icing and vanilla ice cream to make up for that. The vanilla ice cream was in a separate bowl which made it easier than the cake. For some reason, eating cake with a spoon in the dark is really hard...I can't tell you how many times I thought I scooped up a chunk of cake only to eat my spoon instead. 

Overall: There's something freeing about eating and chatting in the dark.  It was actually so much fun guessing what I was eating because all of your other senses become heightened when you lose one sense (in this case sight). The food was okay, but it was definitely more about the experience.

Website: http://www.onoir.com/TO/frames.htm

Chocolate Tales @ The Mad Bean

Classic Chocolate Making Workshop with Chocolate Tales

Our Event Host and Chocolatier, Cocoa Janel

We started with a history of chocolate, in which Janel entertained us with cute and funny stories about the origins of chocolate and random facts. 

Next, she described what she was making with the heavy cream and chocolate ganache and she gave us 3 samples of chocolate mixed with "secret ingredients".

The first sample was sweet cinnamon chocolate. I found the flavour of the cinnamon chocolate was reminiscent of Christmas when it was folded into the chocolate. 

The second sample was a ginger chocolate ganache with quite a heavy punch of flavour. When the ganache was still warm, the ginger flavour was a little more subtle, but as it cooled, the ginger became more prominent.

Lastly, we tried the chili powder chocolate ganache which brought memories of Mexican cooking (tacos and burritos immediately come to mind). 

Next, Janel demonstrated the process of tempering chocolate and how to make chocolate (as well as the secret to Cadbury's Caramilk chocolate). She also explained things to watch out for when purchasing chocolate to make your own chocolates such as using couverture chocolate vs. other chocolates with substitutes like palm oil.

Then we got to decorating our chocolates, truffles and marshmallows: 

We were each given our own set of 4 cups: shredded coconut, warm molding chocolate (made by Janel), Marshmallows and cocoa powder. As well as the utensils, gloves and plastic aprons to make our chocolates.

Voila! The Fruits of our Efforts!
We used mini cookie cutters to make interesting chocolate shapes from the block of couvature chocolate Janel gave us. And we decorated the chocolates with the molding chocolate, coconut, cocoa powder and drizzled white chocolate on some of them. After that, the chocolates were taken to the freezer to be frozen.

Janel mentioned that she made chocolate lava cakes for us to decorate. So we happily got to doing that too:

Chocolate cake with white chocolate drizzle and coconut...mmmm

While we were waiting for our lava cakes to bake and our chocolates to freeze, we were introduced to different kinds of chocolates through some chocolate wafer samples. Chocolate from different regions around the world have different flavours which is due to botanical, geological and climate factors as well as local practices. It was demonstrated by the two sampled chocolates:
1) The one on the left is a Costa Rica chocolate with 64% cocoa content making it a dark chocolate. It had a strong and bitter taste with a hint of the woods and mushrooms.
2) The one on the right is a Venezuela chocolate with 43% cocoa content - milk chocolate. It was richer and creamier with a hint of caramel and nuts.


After the chocolate sampling, our chocolates and chocolate cake were ready to be taken home!

Moist chocolate cake - Yum!

 
Everyone got a box to pack their chocolates in and take them home.

Overall: The Classic Chocolate Making Workshop was a fun experience. Our event host was great and she was very engaging and entertained us with some great history, facts and stories about chocolate making. We learned a lot about chocolate in 90 minutes and we got some delicious goodies to take home. 

Tako Sushi

Update: Restaurant has closed.

September 22, 2013

We came back for the Lobster Teppanyaki Feast

Teppanyaki is a lot of fun to watch - they cook almost everything in front of you. The best is when they put on a show and set onions on fire! The chef who cooked our meal didn't do anything exciting, but we saw some flaming onions on the other teppanyaki table.

Marinated Shark Fin and Jellyfish Salad

The jellyfish was really good and it was a pretty simple salad - what you see is what you get.

Sushi and Sashimi Boat

The green dragon roll was mediocre with really mushy avocado on top. I liked the variety of sushi, especially the seared sushi like the mantis shrimp sushi (aka pissing shrimp), squid sushi and unagi (eel sushi).

Tuna & Salmon Tataki Roll in Yuzu sauce
Interesting combination...the tuna was raw, but the salmon was cooked and they were both wrapped around a bunch of lettuce. Weird.

Lobster Teppanyaki
A whole lobster for four people - cooked in butter. Yum!

 

Scallop, Strip Loin and Lobster
Everything was cooked well, but I found that the soy sauce taste was a little overwhelming for the strip loin and scallop.

Clam in Mixed Mushroom Miso Soup
I wouldn't have known this was miso soup because it tasted like a seafood broth with mushrooms.

Teppanyaki Vegetables

Shrimp & Chicken Stuffed Mushroom
Very interesting...not that great - I probably would have liked something to balance out the strong mushroom taste instead of stuffing it with two kinds of meat.

Teppanyaki Vegetables and Beansprouts
I love grilled zucchini and red peppers - delicious and not too much soy sauce.
I'm not a fan of beansprouts though...I would have liked more vegetables and less sprouts.

Beef Fried Rice
I can't believe the cook used butter to fry the rice. The fried rice smelt and tasted strongly of butter. It's weird to have butter in Asian cooking because it's so heavy and just doesn't fit well with Asian dishes. Awful.

Mango dessert

Condensed milk and mango pudding...I can't seem to get away from this dessert. I'm not really a fan of puddings, but this was the pudding of the day. 

Overall: Teppanyaki is a pretty good experience, but Tako Sushi didn't put on the nice teppanyaki show I was expecting. The food was decently priced and good (for the most part). I think the lunch teppanyaki deals are better than the Lobster meal deal though. 

Website: http://www.takosushi.ca/index.html

June 22, 2013

Luxury Lunch Beef Bento
BBQ beef short ribs. daily appetizer, 3pc California rolls, 3 pc Cucumber rolls, steamed rice and dessert 

The BBQ beef short ribs were delicious! Very tender and packed with flavour, but there wasn't enough sauce to soak the complementary rice. Tako Sushi isn't really known for its rolls and so I wasn't expecting much from the rolls - they weren't tightly packed or particularly tasty. The salad was good with a nice vinegar based dressing and I liked that the miso soup had tofu, green onions and seaweed. 

Top: Luxury Lunch Beef Bento (with Teriyaki strip loin steak)
Bottom: Luxury Lunch Seafood Bento (with Teriyaki Salmon)
All bentos come with miso soup, salad, some simple rolls and fruit as a dessert - it's quite a large lunch portion. The strip loin steak had a lot of sauce and was great when paired with the white rice. The salmon was nicely marinated and tasty as well. 

Overall:  Tako Sushi is good value for money for a Japanese restaurant. The take-out is cheap, fast and the food is okay. I'd probably skip the sushi and go for the bento boxes. If you do takeout and pay cash, you get an extra 15% off your meal. They also have some seasonal specials and teppanyaki meals, but I heard the service at the restaurant is horrible.

May 18, 2013

  Tako Sushi is a cheap and popular Japanese restaurant in the Don Mills area.

Take out promotional menu

Dinner in Bento

3 Cucumber Rolls, Japanese Spring Roll, Tako style Tempura Shrimp and Vegetable, Teriyaki Filet of Chicken and Japanese Steamed rice in bento
The best part of Tako sushi is that you never have to worry about portion sizes; there's always enough to go around. The sweet teriyaki chicken was flavourful and abundant. The cucumber rolls and spring roll were decent, but th Tako style tempura shrimp were just deep-fried panko crusted shrimp - a bit of a disappointment.

Future Bakery & Cafe

A popular U of T hangout spot in the Annex. They serve all-day breakfast, pierogis and cake!

Most of their cakes are from Bakery Street, but they have a few others from different Toronto brands like LaRocca and Dufflet

Clockwise from top left: Lemon cupcake from Dufflet, Caramel Crunch from LaRocca, Raspberry Blast from Baker Street

The cupcake was days old - the icing was super hard and the cake was rock-solid. It wasn't edible at all. 

The caramel crunch cake was good though with fluffy layers of cream and caramel between two layers of crunchy meringue - Yum!

The raspberry blast was good as it blended two of my favourite cake flavours: chocolate and raspberry. 

Overall: The selection was pretty good, but the cake slices were pricey!