Archive for October, 2006
Sunday, October 29th, 2006
Dear readers, I thank you for being here and reading my food blog.
The delicious vegetable Chinese buns you see in the picture above are what I named myself after –> Baozi. Baozi is one of the most popular Chinese food (yup, right up there next to Mentou and Dumplings). Baozi can be made out of different fillings. Some of the common ones include pork, seafood and vegetables. You are looking at one of the Chef's best inventions: Chinese vegetable (lettuce, carrot and clear noodles) bun!
All hail baozi! mahahahaha
Posted in Asian Pastry | No Comments »
Saturday, October 28th, 2006
What do you think about these two places? American coffee vs. Canadian coffee perhaps?
Personally, I like Starbucks better. I've never been a big fan of coffee. For me, they're just bitter black liquids that can condition your body to be more alert. Nope……black coffee are never pleasant to have.
What I do like from Starbucks are their delicious Frappuccino~ 
They're sooooo good. The best ones I love are the Banana & Cream as well as the Strawberry & Cream. Some of the people I know say the Starbucks latte and Frappuccino are too heavy…which may be true. However, after comparing the nutrition menu for both restaurants, I think if you drink the same amount of beverage (be careful with cup sizes, Starbucks follow the American standards, their small is bigger than a Tim Hortons large!), then the calorie/fat contents are actually relatively similar. In a few cases, the Starbucks' beverages actually appear to be healthier.
The good side about Tim Hortons are their freshly baked goodies. Their donuts and bagels are baked daily in the back of each local store. Starbucks….as far as I know, do not bake their muffins and cookies in their local stores, so the food you get are not as fresh.
Final ratings? Beverage - STARBUCKS! Baked goodies - Tim Hortons.
P.S. You do have to keep in mind though….Tim Hortons is primarily a coffee place, if all you wanted were baked cookies and bread…why not visit a real bakery?!
Posted in Restaurant Reviews | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 25th, 2006
We discovered a terrific Chinese Hotpot place today. Located between Steels and Warden (Toronto street names), there's this excellent place that serves dim sums during the day and hotpot buffet for dinner! You get to pick whatever soup base you want out of their wide selection including seafood, chicken, mushroom, lobster, vegetarian, etc. They also have this HUGE selection of food you can pick for hotpot.
Let's see…I was amazed by the variety this restaurant was able to provide, this is a short list of things I can remember right off hand:
-Fish balls (at least four or five types, including Japanese fried ones, the ones with a mixture of shrimp and other fish nuggets)
-Meat (tons of shreded meat, this is your must have ingredient for hotpot)
-Veggies (lots and lots)
-This tiny bird egg…ahh…quail egg?
-Japanese fish paste
-Tofu (both frozen and fresh)
Oh oh, another bonus for going to this restaurant is that it's located right inside this Asian plaza with a huge T&T supermarket. If you don't know what T&T is, check out the "Where to find Asian Supermarket" page.
If you live in Toronto, love Chinese food, love hot pot, then go try it out! HOT FOOD ~ PERFECT FOR THIS FREEZING COLD CANADIAN WEATHER!
Price: on week days, it's $15.99 per person, they also include a 10% service charge in the final bill. I believe it's a dollar or two more expensive on the weekends and holidays.
Time: They open at 10 am for dim sum, dinner runs from 4pm to midnight.
Language: MANDARIN. All servers speak Mandarin (restaurant people usually speak Cantonese here in Toronto). I like them.
My final rating: 5/5~
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Friday, October 20th, 2006
What you see in the picture are two of the most popular panstries you can get from the street food vendors in China! On the left, you see delicious corn bread (fyi, the ones the Chef makes are soooo much better, we got these from the local supermarket, I think they added ingredients to make the bread puffier, so they tasted more like cake than bread). On right right are the onion pancake, in some restaurants, these onion pancake can be made into multiple thin layers. When made in those style, the typical green onion pancake becomes the "Thousand Layer Pancake!".
I like the corn bread a lot. They are different from the American ones and are usually much softer. (I also love the American corn bread).
Posted in Bread, Cookies and Cakes, Asian Pastry | No Comments »
Friday, October 20th, 2006
This is the traditional white rice congee modified by adding in corn. However, unlike the Cantonese style corn congee that is salted, this congee is plain with no additional flavoring ingredients added. Great to have with salted vegetables as a side dish.
Posted in Soup and Congee | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 17th, 2006
Americans eat raw lettuce,it's put in salads, as part of a bigger meal or put in sandwiches. However, in China, lettuce is always cooked in dishes! It would be strange to eat raw vegetables unless they're part of a cold salad appetizer, even in that case, they're usually limited to tomatoes and cucumbers.
This dish is really good, you should try it. It's simple to make too, simply put together small slices of lettuce and tomato chunks, just like how you would prepare a salad. Then put the prepared vegetables in the frying pan, pour in some vinegar and a tiny bit of sugar. Stir the vegetables until they're done.
Posted in Vegetable Dishes | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 17th, 2006
Not sure if "seared" is the correct terminology, I thought it's only suppose to be applied to dried and crispy fish dishes….. Oh well, this fish is one of the most famous fish in China, it's called "Dao Yue", if translated word by word, it is the "Knife Fish". The fish is rather long, thin and flat. As you see in the pictures, these are chunks of Knife fish, sauteed/seared in a special flavored sauce prepared personally by the chef. I like this dish, I like fish.
Posted in Seafood Dishes | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 17th, 2006
If you're from the Southern part of China, you will be very familiar with this dish. Made of freshly cut cucumber slices, thin layers of cold rice noodles ( I have no clue how to call this thing in English, the Chinese name is Liang Fen) and specially mixed sauce consisting of all sorts of oil ingredients as well as specks of hot peppers.
The picture you see above is the unmixed version with all the ingredients laid out, you're suppose to mix everything in, make sure the sauce is well blended before serving it. This is one of my favorite appetitzers, we grew the hot peppers ourselves~
Posted in Vegetable Dishes, Appetizers, Salads | No Comments »
Friday, October 13th, 2006
So…last night, I woke up at 3 am in the morning and heard strange ding/dong sounds coming from the kitchen. Thinking bad people had broken into our house again, I carefully tiptoed my way over. And…..VOILA, the "burglar" has been identified. MY MOM WAS BAKING 3 am in the morning!!!!!
I think she either couldn't sleep or really wanted me to have freshly baked cookies in the morning.
These cookies are based on the delicious banana bread we recently discovered at the nearby mall. Her version is extremely thin and very crisp. This is one of Chef's more unique inventions, you can't get these anywhere else.
Posted in Bread, Cookies and Cakes | No Comments »
Sunday, October 8th, 2006
The Chef baked these last week early in the morning so they would be nice and fresh for breakfast.
The pancake and the walnuts are very good. The strawberries were a bit too sour.
Posted in Bread, Cookies and Cakes | No Comments »