98 Aroma in Chinatown

Sorry for being MIA for the last little while. I was in Tokyo for two weeks and then needed a week after coming home to recover from jet lag and to get back into the groove of things. Anyway, I've returned and I hope you guys missed me! :) I will be sharing some of my Japan travels on the blog soon too, but before that, I want to write about my experience at 98 Aroma (Instagram: @98aroma, Facebook: 98 Aroma), a Northern Chinese restaurant I visited for dinner a couple days before my Japan trip.

The first thing I noticed about the restaurant was its interior. Traditional decor executed with a modern touch, 98 Aroma differentiates themselves instantly from all the other Chinese restaurants in Chinatown. Without even having to taste the food, you know they are striving for something different. In photos, the blue mood lighting may seem a bit much but in real life they work well. It's too bad the exterior of 98 Aroma doesn't match its upscale interior - it needs a lot more work, in my opinion (sorry I forgot to take photos of the outside).

I really like the look of these booths.

98 Aroma brings forth refined Northern Chinese food. Its menu consists of some popular Northern Chinese dim sum, such as scallion pancakes, dumplings, and pan fried steamed buns, as well as many traditional dishes that most of us may not be familiar with or have heard of before.

SUMMER BREEZE ($9.99)

I normally don't care for salads but 98 Aroma's signature salad served with carrots, lettuce, cabbage and topped with fried shredded taro was a winner. Mix all the components together with their sweet vinaigrette and you'll find yourself loving every bite. Or, at least, I did.

Hanmoto: An Izakaya-Style Snack Bar in Little Portugal

Opened a little bit more than a month ago in Little Portugal is Hanmoto, a modest izakaya-style snack bar from the team behind OddSeoul on Ossington. Unlike OddSeoul, which specializes in Korean-American style small plates, owner and executive chef Leemo Han is serving Japanese-inspired snacks at Hanmoto.

Tucked away on Lakeview Avenue just off on Dundas West, Hanmoto is discrete and very cozy. To the left is the main room with the kitchen, bar and 80% of the seating (above) and to the right is the remaining 20% seating (below).

All the tables were already taken before 6:30pm on a Wednesday night so we took the remaining two seats at the bar. Even better. I am really diggin' the vintage, grungy-garage decor here, by the way.

The drinks menu at Hanmoto consists of mainly beer with a few cocktails, sake and two wines by the glass (one red, one white).

Fall Menu Preview at Earls Kitchen + Bar

I was invited to Earls Kitchen + Bar's new fall menu tasting several weeks ago at their 150 King Street West location (@earlskingst). In case you are not aware, all of Earls' menus are designed by a group of talented, award-winning chefs called the "Chef Collective". Here's a quick introduction about this group of elites.

It all started this summer when Earls (Twitter: @earlsrestaurant, Facebook: Earls Restaurants), a Vancouver based, family owned restaurant group, opened a brand new Test Kitchen in Vancouver. Although the kitchen is not only open to the public, it asks for feedback as they test new dishes - it is the first chain restaurant in North America to let the public in on how they create unique new dishes and methods those dishes are created with. 

(Photo Credit: Earls)

Instead of working with a small team of in-house culinary development chefs with guest chefs and chef consultants contributing a menu item, or with a “celebrity chef” putting their name on the entire menu, Earls decided to hire some of those consulting chefs to work for the company, some full time, some part time, but to have all of them work together collaboratively. Their talents are vastly different, yet equal, as are their positions in the kitchen. They noticed dishes that started with a brilliant idea from one chef could be elevated even further by another, or the reverse, a complicated fine dining recipe one chef brought to the table could be simplified and reworked to make a great Earls dish. Chefs working together brought new ideas, new cooking techniques, new ingredients and new inspiration into Earls Test Kitchen, so instead of a group of chefs working individually, it was a group of chefs working collectively. 

Meet the Earls Chef Collective

A series of Earls Chef Collective videos.

These awesome chefs flew in to Toronto to join us for the menu tasting and I had such a great time chatting with chef Dawn and chef Hamid during dinner! Anyway, enough about the chefs, right? Here's a look at what I got to taste that evening:

CRAB & LOBSTER ROLL

Lobster & prawn salad, capers, parsley, lemon, aioli, grilled brioche

BBQ PORK BUNS

Hoisin hot sauce, cilantro, roasted peanuts

DaiLo: Restaurant & Dim Sum Bar in Little Italy

After what seemed like an eternity awfully long time, chef Nick Liu, formerly of The Niagara Street Café, finally opened DaiLo last month. Located on 502 College Street beside Mexican taco spot La Carnita, the Asian Brasserie - which was to be called "GwaiLo" initially - encountered some tough times when it was supposed to open two years ago. With potential locations falling through, investors pulling out and business partner Christina Kuypers departing the venture, Liu's aspiration to open his own place seemed increasingly uncertain. Regardless, even without a kitchen, Liu still generated a ton of buzz for GwaiLo with his creative pop-ups and dinners (write-ups on those dinners can be found at the end of this post). He successfully captivated local foodies' palettes with his modern twists on traditional Asian cuisine. The dish that made a lasting impression on me two years ago was undoubtedly Liu's Whole Fried Trout and I'm thrilled that this stunning dish has finally found a permanent home on DaiLo's menu...but more on that later.

It has been quite a journey for Liu and thankfully, all that is now in the past. With co-owners Anton Potvin (who owned The Niagara Street Café), Jen Grant and David Dattel, Liu's much anticipated Asian fine dining restaurant is once and for all, a reality.

DaiLo (Twitter: @DaiLoTO, Facebook: DaiLo) is open for dinner from Tuesday to Sunday, 5:30 PM to 2:00 AM. DaiLo is the 80-seat, main floor restaurant while LoPan is the casual, 55-seat cocktail and dim-sum snack bar on the second floor (and it's certainly not your everyday dim sum like "har gow" and "siu mai"...think Big Mac Bao). My four friends and I had dinner at DaiLo a few Fridays ago so all the photos here are of DaiLo, not LoPan.

The room is distinctively Chinoiserie with a mixture of European and Chinese artistic styles and design.

Sunday Lunch at Chantecler

By the lack of brunch posts on my blog it should be obvious that I'm not a brunch girl. 

I mean brunch food is good and all but it's not that good so I'm just not that into it. I know for a fact that I'm the minority here because everybody in this city goes berserk over brunch. I admit that having to wake up early Sunday morning doesn't help the cause but then knowing that I may have to line up half an hour for food is a major turn-off. Thanks, but no thanks. I choose my comfy and cozy bed.

I think the main reason why brunch is not appealing to me is because being Chinese I'm used to family-style dining. Perfect example would be dim sum! So many options and the opportunity to try so many things. Even dinner - whether it be my Mom cooking at home or eating out at a Chinese restaurant - we would always order multiple dishes for the table. Nobody is ever stuck eating the same plate of food the entire time. And when I'm not having Chinese food I'm all about tasting menus; multi-course meals are right up my alley. So unless I'm going to a brunch buffet a typical brunch is incredibly monotonous to me. I've always wondered: Why can't brunch be family-style? And if so, why isn't anybody doing it?

Well, in comes Chantecler.

Chantecler's Sunday lunch, happening every Sunday from 11:30am to 3:30pm, breaks away from the norm. Consistent with their communal-style dinners, chef and co-owner Jonathan Poon serves lunch - not "brunch" - with a menu consisting of shareable small plates. Go with a few friends and go nuts ordering for the table. I bet you haven't done that before for Sunday brunch lunch!

Anyway, some of Chantecler's dishes here are unlike anything I've seen before, or probably will ever see, in Toronto. Let's just say you won't find eggs benny, French toast or pancakes here....even their Caesar is different than anybody else's:

SNOWCRAB CAESAR ($13)

Szechuan Pepper, Clamato, Cucumber & Coriander

Remember what I said about going nuts ordering? My friends and I did just that when we had Chantecler's entire Sunday lunch menu last week. "Go big or go home", right? Feast your eyes, friends!

HASH BROWN ($3.5)

Heinz Ketchup 

Why? How about why not? Everybody loves hash browns! Fried to a nice golden brown served with a packet of Heinz ketchup, this is just plain fun.

FRIED STEAMED BUN ($4)

Condensed Milk

Exceptionally soft with a slightly crisp coating, these fried steamed buns are served with a generous amount of thick, sweet condensed milk for dipping. No twist. Pure traditional Chinese plate here.

Back For More Happy Hooker

After hearing through the social media grapevine that The Happy Hooker has added some new goodies to their menu, my friend Alex and I made our way to the Dundas West seafood / fish 'wich shop last week to do a little taste test ourselves (click here for my blog post on The Happy Hooker's full menu).

I've always been a big fan of The Happy Hooker (Twitter: @HappyHookerTDOT, Facebook: The Happy Hooker). Their range of casual seafood selection encompasses small snacks from fish tacos and baja fries, to more substantial "between the buns" list of fish 'wiches and shrimp po'boy. You won't find anything elaborate or fancy like seafood towers here but what you will find is a wide range of fresh, top-quality, grab-and-go seafood options. I must admit that even though I love meaty burgers and pork belly banh mi's, I can never say no to the lighter menu at The Happy Hooker. 

*By the way, is it true that Asians love fish sandwiches more than any other ethnicity? Coming from Hong Kong I know for a fact that Chinese people love McDonald's filet-o-fish...I admit I'm guilty of that myself*

Anyway without further ado, below are the four new additions to The Happy Hooker's menu:

LOBSTER POUTINE ($9)

Offered on weekends and sometimes Mondays, The Happy Hooker's lobster poutine is quite a looker. These hand-cut fries, mixed with a generous amount of cheese curds, are first lathered in gravy (made in-house with lobster and beef stock) then finished with hunks of fresh lobster meat. After tasting the poutine, I thought the gravy should be thicker and could use a bit more flavour. I told Attilio Pugliese, chef & owner of The Happy Hooker, my thoughts about the gravy; he agreed and will be tweaking it.

DOUBLE FILET OF FISH ($7)

I inhaled this fish sandwich! Topped with thick, tangy house-made tartar sauce and shredded cheese, two large pieces perfectly fried Alaskan Pollock are nicely sandwiched between a soft Wonder Bread bun. So incredibly good. There's an option for bacon...if you must.

Crown Princess Fine Dining

In my opinion, unlike uptown Markham or Richmond Hill, where you will find a lot more average priced, middle-ranged Chinese dim sum restaurants, there are only two types in downtown Toronto, which are basically the two extremes: the cheap and the pricey. The cheap, semi sketchy-looking, hole-in-the wall dim sum joints offer traditional dim sum plates at bargain prices, and are typically located in Chinatown (or the general vicinity of Spadina and Dundas). The other type, the pricey, extravagant "fine dining" Chinese restaurants have fancy dim sum during the day and multi-course dinners at night (and often doubles as wedding banquet reception halls on weekends). These high-end restaurants often have over-the-top decor and aside from traditional dim sum, they also offer new creations and sometimes creative takes on traditional ones. They are also generally very keen on presentation and service.

Just by the picture below, you can probably tell that Crown Princess Fine Dining belongs in the latter category of dim sum restaurants. There are chandeliers on both the ceiling and the walls, where you will also find large fancy-looking paintings. The crown moldings, pillars, and the granite / marble bar completes the entire elegant ambiance that Crown Princess is striving for.

Fancy teapots and tableware at Crown Princess with porcelain rests for your spoon and chopsticks.

Dim sum are listed as either small ($3.10), medium ($4.30), large ($5.30), XL ($6.30) or Special / SP (no idea how much).

Recipe For Change 2013

FoodShare Toronto (Twitter: @FoodShareTO, Facebook: FoodShare Toronto) is Canada’s largest community food security organization. Founded in 1985, FoodShare works with communities to improve access to healthy, affordable, sustainably-produced food through community-based programs and policy recommendations, with a vision of Good Healthy Food for everybody. FoodShare's programs, which reach over 155,000 children and adults per month in the City of Toronto, include fresh produce sourcing and sales, childhood nutrition, hands-on food education from junior kindergarten to grade 12, a healthy school cafeteria model, gardening, composting, cooking, and urban agriculture. 

FoodShare’s annual Recipe for Change event, presented by GE Cafe Appliances, is a celebration of food as well as supporting FoodShare's work. This dining event raises funds to teach school aged children how to cook, grow food, compost and more. It also raises needed consciousness as to why teaching children these skills are important, in that they can become food conscious, competent and literate. 

Thanks to Mary Luz Mejia of Sizzling Communications, I was invited to Recipe for Change last night, which took place at the historic St. Lawrence market. The event consisted of 30 chefs, 30 VQA wines and 9 local beers. All the chefs created plates that showcased their own creative vision, combining foods and flavours to form a small meal.

Here is a recap of what I had last night.

Hooked: Cooke's Cove, PEI, and Leslie Hardy & Sons oysters - Served with house made horseradish, Ontario Riesling mignonette, Hooked hot sauce and fresh lemon

Chococrepe: Savoury pulled pork mini crepes and vegetarian mini crepes.

Momofuku: Momofuku brisket on a steamed bun with mustard, cabbage, and horseradish

FRANK at the AGO: Vegan fava puree with sunchokes and winter vegetables

Palais Royale: Rosemary smoked duck breast served with a mousse of duck confit, and a blueberry and raw chocolate coulis

George Brown Chef School: Savoury bread pudding with seasonal root vegetables and house made pickles

Fidel Gastro: PeKing Elvis sandwich  a butter grilled pita featuring spicy orange duck meat, green onion and the King's secret sauce

Star Noodle (Maui)

After a day on the beach yesterday, we headed back to the condo. While my friends went shopping in Lahaina afterwards I decided to stay back and take it easy. I also took on the responsibility of finding a place to eat for dinner.


I came across Star Noodle on Tripadvisor (ranked #10 in Lahaina) and with pretty decent reviews on Yelp (4/5 with 509 reviews) and Urbanspoon (92%), Star Noodle seemed like a good choice. Its website also indicated that Star Noodle's Chef Sheldon Simeon has recently won "The People's Best New Chef" in the Northwest & Pacific region from Food & Wine Magazine. Their online menu shows tapas-style plates with a mix of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai ingredients, and with chef Simeon's Hawaiian background, I was excited about Star Noodle.


Star Noodle is located at a really remote area away from all the tourist-y shops and restaurants in Lahaina. 

Food & Wine Magazine displayed at the entrance.

 A long communal table in the middle with smaller tables surrounding the perimeter. 

Macau Goodies & Other Delicacies

My day trip to Macau consisted of the following activities: 1) Eating 2) Sight-seeing and 3) Watching The House of Dancing Water show at City of Dreams (a show very similar to Cirque du Soleil shows). 


In terms of "Eating", I've blogged about my lunch at Solmar Restaurante where I had traditional Portuguese / Macanese food. This post will focus on Macau's street food, traditional delicacies and snacks. And breaking away from the norm, I will actually do a quick post tomorrow about the "Sight-seeing" part because I really want to share some of Macau's beautiful Portugal-influenced architecture. For example, the above picture is The Ruins of St. Paul's, which is an iconic symbol of Macau. Gorgeous!


Okay enough of that! Below chronicles everything I ate in Macau ^_^

ON THE WAY TO MACAU

Ferry Food - A cold and hard piece of cheese and a cold and hard piece of cold cut sandwiched in a cold and hard baguette. I had no idea what that jello-thing was either. Tofu packet produced in China. I did not eat any of it *gag*

IN MACAU

We were on our way to lunch at Solmar Restaurante when I couldn't help but stop here for some...

Meat Jerky - Extremely popular in Macau that it is hard to avoid. So many vendors sell them out in front of their shop and they are more than happy to let you to try a slice (they will use scissors to cut a small piece for you). Price depends on the type of meat and the flavour.

Bought half a pound of beef filet jerky. 

Stopped at Koi Kei, a very reputable and well-known store for their almond cake, egg roll, crunchy peanut candy, and filet of beef and pork. They currently sell over 300 varieties of product and is known as a traditional shop but they now also sell new varieties in pastry, cakes, cookies and nougat.  Koi Kei is a reputable Macau brand - it has13 stores in Macau and three chain stores in Hong Kong. 

Peanut Candy - Like all the other goodies in  Koi Kei, I got to sample these freshly made chewy peanut candy. 

Bought a bag. This one is with black sesame.

Almond Cookies - Referred to as almond cakes or almond biscuits, they are so incredibly dense and full of almond flavour. Bought a box.

After our shopping (and eating) spree at Koi Kei, we went for some traditional Macau snacks....

Steamed Egg Pudding - Which you can get either warm or cold (we got warm).

DumplingMe

I blogged about Ding Tai Fung previously as it is one of my go-to place for Shanghainese food. When Mack (@M3foods) suggested doing a Tweetup there (#DumplingMe) I was all for it . It is rare that Tweetups are in uptown (like Markham or Richmond Hill) so initially I wasn't counting on a big turnout....but whoa! This Tweetup was full in record time - I think after 15 minutes or so it was already full. I guess a lot of people like dumplings, either that or a lot of people like Mack =P

My first post about Ding Tai Fung can be found here, in case you want to read about what I had there that particular time. I have also included some background information about the restaurant on that post, and how it is actually different from the restaurant chain in Asia (even though they have the same name).

Having said that, I'm going to go right into the food. Mack and I were pretty much in charge of ordering food, with a few suggestions from Evie (@eviechiu) and Ben (@LauBenedict). We wanted mostly dim sum with a few noodle dishes on the side. 

Have you tried ordering dim sum for 13 people? It is not an easy task as it is hard to gauge whether or not we are ordering enough or ordering too much. It was quite a daunting task as I have never had to write down "5" besides "pork dumplings" on the order sheet before (each order has 6 dumplings)! Well I don't know, maybe it was just me who felt it was daunting since Mack was just like "yeah order whatever and as much as you want" =P Anyway, we had 3 to 5 orders of each dim sum dish to ensure that everyone got to try everything.

So here goes! 

Jellyfish and Shredded Turnip 

Savoury Soy Milk with Fried Dough Sticks

Fried "Man Tau" with Condensed Milk 

My Chubby Cinnamon Buns

Not many things can beat the taste of a cinnamon bun, especially during times when you are suddenly craving something warm, something doughy, and something really really sweet, then a cinnamon bun will definitely do the trick. 


Although I say that, I know not many people like cinnamon buns either because 1) they are not a healthy snack (an average cinnamon bun with frosting contains over 500 calories, with lots of fat and no nutrients), or 2) because they are too sweet (probably enough to create hyperactivity lol), or 3) some people just don't like cinnamon, or 4) they like cinnamon buns but they don't like it enough to buy them at Cinnabon, one of the most obvious place to get a cinnamon bun. I fall into category 2 and 4. I sometimes think they are too sweet, especially if they slather on too much frosting. And in terms of actually buying them, not sure if I'm just cheap or something, but I usually don't feel like forking out $4-$5 for a snack made of dough, cinnamon, and brown sugar, all of which are super super cheap ingredients. 

Personally, I don't know how many times I have walked by a Cinnabon at a shopping mall and think "wow that smells soooo good". Probably every time! It is just plain dangerous because the aroma of cinnamon buns can travel far and wide, even before you SEE the Cinnabon store you know it's coming up. So then, how many times have I actually stopped by to buy one? Two times. That's a pretty low number considering how much I go to the mall lol.


Solution? Make my own cinnamon buns without the frosting, although I did include the recipe for the frosting in case you feel your cinnamon buns would be incomplete without it. The cinnamon buns turned out absolutely wonderful and delicious - my boyfriend loved them too =) These chubby bad boys are quite filling.