Guu Izakaya

January 30, 2015

Irrashaimase! I feel like my knowledge of random Japanese words has been lacking lately and this dining experience was a big welcome back.

Nasu Miso
Following my recent obsession with nasu dengaku (miso eggplant), I knew I had to order this when I saw it on the menu


It's a nice purple colour and the eggplant looked really nice with the green onions and sesame.
The eggplant was really oily and not as soft as the one at Shinobu, but the format made it easy to share with a group.

Karaage

Fried Chicken Bites - delicious and simple with mayonnaise and lemon. I'll take a bucket full of this over greasy KFC chicken.

Unagi Doria with BBQ eel, mushroom and cheese on rice

I love BBQ eel and I feel like you can never go wrong with it. I'm always a little surprised when I see cheese in Asian food because we don't use a lot of cheese in cooking - but the cheese turned out really well in this because it added a slight hint of saltiness to balance out the sweet eel. 

Lobster Sashimi

It looked fantastic! However, it wasn't really lobster sashimi because the lobster was cooked and chilled. There were some good sized chunks though. 

Overall: Guu Izakaya is one of those places where you can always count on delicious food and quick service. The only thing you have to watch out for is the prices - it can add up pretty quick and the smaller your party - the higher the cost because Izakayas are all about large groups eating and drinking together. 

March 22, 2013

The Guu Izakaya location on Church Street was the first Toronto branch of the popular Guu Izakaya franchise in Vancouver. I've heard that this branch was "better" than Sakabar on Bloor and I was excited to see if this was true or not.

I walked in expecting to be served the same izakaya menu as the one online. Instead, Guu Izakaya had a separate lunch menu. The lunch menu was set up to be individual plates/meals rather than the sharing menu popular at Izakayas. In a way, it does make sense: Izakayas serve Japanese bar food (and alcoholic drinks) at night and they'd have to cater to a different clientele at lunch. 

 

Menus

 

The meals were served on individual trays like a bento box:

Toriten

Chicken Tempura with Tar-tare sauce and tempura sauce on the side

The tar-tare sauce was different: made with a pink mayonnaise (possibly coloured by beets) and chunks of chopped boiled egg in it. It didn't have the same salty and tangy taste I was expecting with tartar sauce. 

The battered chicken was fried to a nice crispy texture. I liked some of the sides including the miso soup with potatoes and carrots, the fried tofu behind the miso soup was also really good and the salad with soy sauce dressing was nice. 

Hirekatsu

Panko breaded pork tenderloin with sweet miso sesame sauce

I liked the way the miso sesame sauce complemented the mini crispy fried pork cutlets. 

Overall: The service was okay and we had a decent lunch at Guu Izakaya. I still want to come back for the real Izakaya menu at dinner.

Website: http://guu-izakaya.com/toronto/

Symposium Cafe Restaurant & Lounge

After trying the Lion Chai from T by Daniel at the Seasons Christmas Show, my best friend and I REALLY wanted some good Chai tea. Unfortunately, we live nowhere near Brampton and we weren't about to make a trip all the way out there in the snow and cold. So we settled for Symposium Cafe Restaurant & Lounge in Thornhill:

They also had a promotion: Buy one cake slice and get another one free on Sundays (with purchases of drinks)

That's what we did - Chai Teas and cake

Vanilla Chai on the left and Chai on the right

The teas were good, but nowhere near the Lion Chai we sampled before. 

The vanilla was a lot sweeter than the Chai, but they were both tasty (if a little foamier than usual)

Sky High Fudge Brownie Cheesecake

This cake was awful! The brownie bottom was almost rock solid and you could tell that the cake had been sitting out for days and it wasn't fresh at all. Of the three sky high layers, we could only eat the cheesecake layer and the other two were write-offs.

Mocha Crumble cake

We should have known when they served this to us that it was going to be a disaster. 

We thought, since it was the last slice of this particular cake on display, that it must be very popular and maybe one of their best cakes. We were so wrong - the cake was super crumbly (probably from sitting out the longest) and super sweet. It literally fell apart as we sliced our forks through it. Disaster. 

Overall: Terrible cake experience at Symposium Cafe. I would not recommend ordering cake here and we probably should have clued in when we saw more people eating meals here than ordering dessert. 

Website: http://www.symposiumcafe.com/thornhillrestaurants.html

Joons Korean Cuisine

Joons' Special Dakgalbee is what they're known for here:

Menu

Dakgalbee is a Korean hot plate dish made with chicken and cabbage. According to Wikipedia , it's a popular dish for University students since it's cheap and there's a lot of it. Eureka! It makes sense that it's at the Annex right next to U of T. At Joons, you can order additional toppings for $2 each like rice cakes, sweet potatoes, cheese and noodles. 

Original Spicy Dakgalbee for two with chicken and assorted seafood (baby octopus, mussels and shrimp) and additional toppings of cheese, sweet potatoes and noodles

It's so good! The chili pepper paste adds flavour to the whole dish and just makes it work so well together. The sweet potatoes are fantastic at absorbing the flavour of the dish and the cheese and noodles actually also make a huge difference in the taste of the Dakgalbee. 

Overall: Awesome cheap meal at Joons as usual. A definite must try if you're in Koreatown!

Aberdeen Delicatessen

This plaza on Midland near Finch has been around for a while, but every time I pass by - I think of it as new. I keep saying that I'll try out some of the food places here "one day" and I haven't really gotten around to it. Until I heard someone mention that Aberdeen Delicatessen has really good Hong Kong Milk Tea, then suddenly, the plaza was on my radar. 

Two cups of Hong Kong Milk Tea

Really creamy, smooth and delicious! They do serve really good HK Milk Tea here. 

However, I found this more fascinating: 

Tea in shot glasses! Very cute

The Asian Way of taking shots (LOL)

4 Kind of Fungus Soup

It was pretty watery and not particularly good. 

Barbecue Chicken and Liver Skewer, White Rice and Ginger Rice

The skewer looked good, but I didn't know that there was liver and a huge chunk of fat on the skewer. Apparently, you're supposed to eat the fat chunk with the pears and green onions underneath to cut the fattiness. The ginger rice was really ginger-y. 

Overall: I would come back for the Hong Kong Milk Tea, but probably pass on the food. 

Mexican Amigos

Mexican Amigos opened earlier last year in the Galleria mall between Leslie and Don Mills on York Mills Road. 

And we came on a very snowy day

Chips and salsa to start

Carranza s platillo combinado (combo platter for two)

There were 2 mini chicken burritos at the top, 4 cheese quesadillas, 2 beef tacos and 2 chicken enchiladas and we got rice and refried beans on the side. 

I wasn't really a fan of the rice or refried beans - oh well. 

I really like the sampler option! As a food blogger, I always want to try everything on the menu (but of course, my stomach always protests), so this was a great introduction to Mexican Amigos' offerings. 

The burritos were good and I liked that they baked it with cheese and topped it with a fresh slaw. The cheese quesadillas were very cheese and great with the hot sauce. The hot sauces were really good too - we liked experimenting with the jalapeno hot sauce and the habanero (?) hot sauce. The tacos were okay, but I would say the enchiladas were my favourite on the plate - they were drenched in sauce and baked with cheese on top and inside. Yum. 

Overall: I thought they did decent Mexican food and the service was quick. 

Website: http://yorkmills.mexicanamigos.com/

Celestin

Update: Restaurant has closed. 

January 2, 2015

We liked Celestin so much that we bought another Groupon and came back.

Lobster with squid ink ravioli
I think the concept was really creative, but the actual dish fell a little flat for me. The squid ink ravioli looked cool, but squid ink has a distinct taste and I felt the sauce didn't really complement it.


Escargot Bordelaise
In this case, I felt like the plate emphasized the small portion of escargots. It was okay, but definitely not the best snails we've had - I feel like a simple butter sauce would have been better than this sauce.


Steak Frites
The steak was cooked to a medium rare and it was decent.


Cassoulet
We liked this dish last time, so we ordered it again. However, this time the dish was really dry and a little blander without seasoning.


Civet de Lapin
Braised rabbit with red wine sauce
I thought this would be good! The French are known for making a good rabbit, but I didn't really like it. I'm not sure if it was the red wine sauce or the braised rabbit, but something didn't work for me here.

Overall: Again, service was REALLY slow. Granted it appeared to be a busier than usual Friday night, but the food came out at a snails pace and it wasn't as good as the last time we were here.

December 2, 2014

Celestin has been running a promotion on Groupon for a while offering $70 worth of French Dinner Cuisine for $39. I've heard about Celestin's classy French cuisine for a while, so I figured this was a good opportunity to try it out with the Groupon. 

The restaurant was located in a former bank and has a nice elegant feel to it.

  

Grenouille Sautée

Frog legs with garlic tortellini and parsley puree

The frog legs were nicely grilled and the sauce was delicious. The tortellini felt a little out of place though. 

Veau Poêlé

The veal was nice, but my favourite part was the crispy potato ring on top. 

Cassoulet

Duck confit, cured pork belly and garlic sausage on braised beans

This dish was really beautifully done. Delicious and so tasty with the crispy duck leg, flavourful pork belly and soft sausage. The braised beans also absorbed the flavour from the meats and the sauce which made the whole dish a lot more cohensive. 

Molten Lava cake

Very tasty and chocolatey 

Semifreddo mousse

I liked the tart raspberries on top of the semi freddo mousse, but it really tasted like melted ice cream to me. 

Overall: Nice French meal at Celestin. The kitchen and the service was a little slow, but the food was delicious and pricey considering the portion sizes.

Website; http://www.celestinrestaurant.ca/