30DC18: Something I Crave A Lot

Yeah, baby.

I love my sweets, but every so often, nothing can satisfy me better than a savoury, meaty, roast beef sandwich.  I'm not talking about the slimy, slippery, nitrate-saturated crap you buy at regular supermarkets, but slices of heaven that actually come out of an actual, filler-free, hunk-of-cow roast that was perfectly-seasoned and blasted in the oven. Yuuum!!!

I first experienced what I call "real roast beef slices"

30DC11: Something I Ate Today

One of my favourite lunches when I'm at work!

From my beloved Chipotle Mexican Grill!  Barely a two minute walk away from my office, I need to exercise real strong will to not have it too often.  My favourite order is:

30DC8: Places I've Lived

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Hong Kong – I was born and spent the first 8 months of my life here, where my family is from. Aptly described by Michael Kors as "Beverly Hills on steroids," Hong Kong is a vibrant and exciting place that requires a certain level of street-smartness to survive in.  In fact, months before I visited Hong Kong for the first (and so far, only) time when I was 10, my mom and aunts prepped me for weeks about how to navigate through dense crowds, how to find a seat on the subway, how not to mess my clothes up eating street food, etc.!  It's also where Cantonese is widely spoken - a dialect that is not pretty to listen to at all but is very close to my heart, because it's very colloquial and cheeky. :) Being from Hong Kong also creates a unique cultural identity in me, because my entire family (with the exception of my younger cousins) were born there when it was a British colony.  I've found that it's nearly impossible to describe to people who don't share a similar situation what it means to be bicultural - especially, I've personally found, if they're from Europe.  And for me, my situation is even more complicated because I grew up in Canada!  Which brings me to my next place...

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Toronto – I grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, which are safe and peaceful. I’m very proud of being from Toronto, and I self-identify first and foremost as a Canadian. In fact, I've been known to raise my hackles when people sh*t on Canadians. :P I’m now back living in my hometown after stints in the following places:

Target Canada Haul & First Impressions!

My first Target Canada Haul! :D

At laaaaaaaast!
My looove has come along...
My lonely days are overrr...
And life is liiike a sooong!!!

I am, of course, referring to Target’s arrival in Canada! This is proof-positive that every once in a while, the Retail Fairies answer our prayers*. Those of us who have Target on our US Must Go Lists have been hotly anticipating their debut here in the homeland ever since it was first announced.

On the day of their debut (Tuesday, March 19th),

Tasty Tuesday: Mars Diner

Grand Slam from Mars Diner - OMG SO YUMMY!

After yesterday's post, I've been asked what kinds of food I eat for my cheat meals, so I thought I'd show instead of telling!

I have a bit of a confession to make:

Tasty Tuesday: Shiso Tree Café

Shrimp Okonomiyaki Pasta from Shiso Tree Café

Is there any emotional issue in the world that pasta can't fix?  I don't think so.

Broken heart? 

Essie Jazz

This is me wearing Essie Jazz (and being a Chanel whore)

Oh my goodness, you wouldn’t believe what lengths I went to to procure this nail polish. But the effort was quite worth it, don’t you think?

It’s a beautiful,

Tasty Tuesday: La Bamboche

Left: Cassis & Earl Grey Cake  Right: Matcha (Green Tea) & Sesame Cake

I've been known to go bakery-hopping once in a while, and the most number of bakeries I've hit in a go was four.  For a city as large as Toronto, where things are so spread out, it was no easy feat!  Sometimes, I'm on a hunt for something specific -

Tasty Tuesday/Cupcake Chronicles: Bobbette & Belle

$2.95 each - Top L-R: red velvet, raspberry, mango | Bottom L-R: cookies & cream, chocolate, (and I think) apple spice

The Cupcake Chronicles have become something of a life mission.  I’m still looking for the best cupcake in Toronto, only it’s expanded – I’m also looking for the best cupcake in every city that I visit, if they’re available.

On this edition of the CC, I try the offerings from Bobette & Belle, a pretty well-known bakery down at the Beaches.  A lot of my fellow foodists have been wanting to make the trip down there

Tasty Tuesday: The One (Part 2: The Food!)

Lobster Spoons

Before you read this, please click here to read my review on the very, erm, colourful ambience of this posh restaurant!

Okay, let’s finally talk about what I was looking forward to most during this outing: the food! (Cue the harps!)

Tasty Tuesday: The One (Part 1: The Ambience)

Interior of the restaurant

I love pretension.  To be exact, I have a penchant for pretentious places and things but not so much for pretentious people, which admittedly, I can sometimes be.  So of course I was delighted and excited when I learned that one of my work Christmas parties was to be at The One (also known as the One Hazelton to some people), a very posh and expensive restaurant located below the Metropolitan Hotel in Yorkville (a posh and pretentious neighbourhood in downtown Toronto). 

It’s a popular celebrity hangout.  I know someone who was seated beside Gerard Butler on the well-known patio when she was there during the film festival, and I’d read that Bono was just there in September – and of course, as I’ve already established, what’s good enough for Bono is good enough for me. 

But most importantly, I’d heard that the food was amazing.  And of course, that was my primary motivation; I’m always there mainly for the food.  I’d do very much for good food.  If I were to ever write an autobiography, I’d call it “I’m Here for the Food.”  Dead serious.

The One is run by star chef & restaurateur, Mark McEwan, who also runs the gourmet joints, North 44 and Bymark, which another friend has been to and loved.  He's a celebrity on Food Network Canada and he has a big reputation to uphold.  They charge $56 for a steak at The One and $18 for a cocktail.  There must be a reason for all of this, and I was really pumped to experience it all firsthand.

Tasty Tuesday: The Burgers Priest

The Priest at The Burgers Priest

AAA-MEN!

When I am feeling particularly carnivorous (probably due to Hot-Blooded Canadian Girl Cravings), nothing can satisfy me more than a big, juicy burger, seasoned and grilled to perfection, on a lightly toasted bun, garnished with my favourite sweet, tangy, spicy, and crispy condiments.  *Homer Simpson drool*

So when I heard through the grapevine a while back that

Tasty Tuesday: Hae/Hwe Dup Bap at H-Mart

Hae dup bap at H-Mart

Hi, guys!

Summer’s winding to an end now and while most people would be bummed, I’m really enjoying the cooler weather (no more 40 degree temperature! yay!). And as always, I’m really looking forward to getting to rock some fall steeze – fall has always been the most exciting time of the year for fashion.

What does make me sad, however, is

Food Fail: Ciao Wine Bar

Pizza Capricciosa @ Ciao Wine Bar

I try to avoid writing negative reviews for things I don't like because, as they say, if you have nothing nice to say, you shouldn't say anything.  And goodness knows there are plenty of kickass things out there I can rave about.

But occasionally, it's so bad that I think the word needs to get out there, especially if the products are on the pricey side.  As I've written before,

Tasty Tuesday: Mofo-Delish Ramen?

Red-Blooded Canadian Girl Ethnic Food Cravings, as I've established, can be rather aggressive sometimes (see Exhibit A and Exhibit B), and a while ago I found myself desperately craving ramen, a Japanese noodle dish that's served in luscious, savoury broth. So I did my research on Yelp, CHOW and Google and came up with a To Eat List of eateries to try (story of my life).

Since I was heading downtown that weekend, like I usually am, I decided to hit up the place that was in that general area - Kenzo. It's not really known as THE best ramen joint in Toronto, but it has a solid reputation and a lot of people have said that the quality is decent. Plus one of their locations was on my way to Kensington Market, which was perfect.

It was the first nice day after about a week of rain, and I was happy to be able to rock a sundress for the first time this season - this dress, by the way, earned me a honk when I was walking in the Yonge & Eglinton area earlier that day, which reminded me of when I used to go to school in Nowheresville, Ontario ('cause it was something of a party school) and made me wonder if I was looking like a prostitute...

But I digress.

So the sun was beating down quite relentlessly and I was very relieved to finally find the restaurant, which had a very narrow front and was basically a hole in the wall (but there's a lot of depth inside). I was the second party in line, which meant that the people behind me had to wait outside the doors and couldn't bask in the air conditioning. I wasn't surprised to see that nearly everyone inside was Asian and about my age. :P

The party in front of me consisted of a Cantonese-speaking couple and a Mandarin-speaking couple. They ended up sitting next to me and my keen, professional eavesdropping skills let me know that the jagged-haired, toothpick-thin Cantonese boy was the one referring his friends to the place. He was going on about how amazing that restaurant was, how it was on a par with the ramen places in Japan, how no one can say they've lived until they've tried it...so I was giddy with anticipation!

Their food came and upon arrival, Canto Boy announced that he was going to take a sip of the broth first. That experience was apparently so world-rocking that he shouted something kind of rude in Cantonese that roughly translates to, "HOLY SH*T, THIS IS SO MOTHERF*CKING DELICIOUS!" He then proceeded to inhale his meal like a tornado.

I ordered a tonkotsu miso ramen (noodles in pork bone and miso broth) and...well, I didn't think it was mofo-delish, exactly, but it was good. Decent and solid, just like the reviews said, but nothing east of Vancouver is on a par with actual restaurants in Japan, in my opinion. The broth was super rich and flavourful, although I think there was a fair bit of MSG in it (but not, thankfully, nearly as much as Ajisen, which my family and friends affectionately call "MSG ramen" - 味精拉麵, a play on their real name, 味千拉麵).

The serving was decent - I was reasonably full afterwards - and the noodles were fairly good quality, cooked al dente just like it's supposed to be. The broth was very rich, a delicious, heavy punch to the tastebuds, if a little salty. The tonkotsu soup tasted like it was actually simmered for hours, which was good, because nothing's worse than ramen soup base that's from concentrate/originally powder. And the soup to miso ratio was most satisfactory.

The egg was cooked just right, with a medium-boiled yolk and all complementary ingredients were standard - green onions, bean sprouts and kamaboko. The chashu - the rolled pork - wasn't rolled, so the presentation was a little lacking, but they used a nice cut of pork belly that wasn't too fat or too lean, and the flavour was done well. It was also sliced paper thin, which is how it's supposed to be.

Many reviewers have complained about the service but I didn't find it to be that bad. Like I've said before, there's a general understanding that less-than-stellar service is tolerable in certain (usually inexpensive) restaurants if the food is really good. The food at Kenzo was slightly above average and the service slightly below. But there were only two servers working the entire restaurant, so I chose to be understanding. Besides, the male waiter was kind of cute. :P

This cost me about $9.95, I think, before tax, so it was not bad at all, and it did satisfy my craving. But was is really mofo-delish? I wouldn't say so.

The location I went to was:
138 Dundas Street West
Toronto, ON
M5G 1C3

Tasty Tuesday/Food Fail: Cafe Maxim's Patisserie

Dearest readers,

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend!  This is the first Mother's Day where I have a steady income and can actually afford to hold something of a celebration with Superwoman, so I asked her early on where she'd like to eat.

"Oh! I haven't actually thought about Mother's Day!" She said with an innocent flutter of her eyelashes before producing three Mother's Day special restaurant ads and asking me which one sounded good to me. :P  So we picked Cafe Maxim, because we were craving good desserts and they're known for their cakes.

When we told some family friends about our reservation, they groaned and berated us because, they said, for $38 a head before tax, there were much better choices in the city.  But we were really intrigued by the seafood pasta option, the all-you-can-eat desserts and the lobster bisque, so we went ahead with it anyway...

Tasty Tuesday: M Thompson Chocolates

Image Source: M Thompson Chocolates Facebook Page

Hi, guys!

In this week’s edition of Tasty Tuesday, I’m taking you all back to Canada. I still have a lot of material to write about on Madrid and Barcelona, but I very recently had this experience, and my eyes quite literally rolled back in my head from the overwhelming deliciousness, so I had to tell you all about it right away.

One of A Kind: Golden Goose Natural Products Co

Today is a day for shameless self-plugs - forgive?

My last pick for my One of A Kind series is, of course the one that's closest to my heart - my mom's all-natural, handmade toiletries business, Golden Goose Natural Products Co.

Shortly after emigrating to Canada, when I was just a baby, I developed this really uncomfortable and unsightly skin condition called eczema. We suspected that this was probably due to a combination of genetics, the sudden change of environment, and the dry Canadian weather. The doctors assured us that I would eventually grow out of it, just like most people.

But when I showed no signs of doing so, even after going to every kind of doctor imaginable, my mom started doing a lot of research to see if there was anything that might make me feel better, since the products out there on the market clearly weren't helping me. In fact, I developed an allergy to oatmeal because over the years, all the dermatologists I'd seen made me use the full range of Aveeno products, and I guess my body had had enough. I can't eat or use any products with oatmeal in it anymore.

Anyway, so my mum read somewhere that handmade soaps are much better for you, especially for people with eczema and psoriasis, so she set out to make her own soaps. Using family and friends as guinea pigs, she got a lot of positive response. Best of all, it was the first soap I'd ever used that didn't make my skin feel tightly stretched and dry. That's because she doesn't skimp on her ingredients - all of our soaps are genuine castile soaps, made of 100% vegetable oils, with the main ingredient being olive oil. Thus, the idea for her company was born.

She did her first craft show in 1997. Over a decade later, we're still going strong, and my mom is a proud vendor at the One of A Kind, the biggest and most presitigious craft show in Canada. Now, she's expanded the company's lines to bath bombs, bath salts, soy wax candles, and more.

By the way, I adore our candles - they're probably my favourite product. They're very environmentally-friendly because they are made of soy wax, which is a renewable resource, and natural, lead-free cotton wick. They also burn clean, so they won't soot up your ceilings and walls. They're scented with essential oils, and because the burning temperature of soy wax is lower than, say, beeswax and paraffin, the scent of the essential oils don't burn away as easily and can gently permeate a closed room quite nicely. Besides all that, they are aromatherapeutic and they are super chic, since they are uncoloured and are only decorated with a kiss of botanicals at the top. And each of the big ones shown here can burn at least 35 hours.

If you go to my school, please keep an eye out for my article on eco-friendly soaps in the Spring/Summer 2009 issue of The Style Review, our campus fashion magazine. I'll also have a cultural profile in there on the city of Nice from a student's perspective!

And of course, don't forget to go see my mum and smell our products at Booth E-38 at the One of A Kind, which opens tomorrow!

One of A Kind: Domistyle

I'm going to come home a slammin' cook - not so much because I'm so inspired by all the gourmet French cuisine I get to sample all the time, but more because I'm dirt poor living in glamorous poverty and can't afford to go out, like, ever, which necessitates excerising my culinary muscles chez moi. My brother was complaining that I have no pictures of food in my photo albums (he thinks I'm eating like Jeffrey Steingarten or something just because I'm living in France now), but I told him that he'll have to content himself with pictures of my cooking, because it's way too expensive to eat at restaurants.

However, I have this charming habit of cooking in my jammies, which I find dramatically increases the frequency of my having to do laundry, so I finally decided to look for an apron - and, my goodness, how I wish I could get a Domistyle apron here! They're the cutest. I think every woman should have two - one to cook in, and one to entertain in. My top choices are the ones in the pictures above (the one on the left says "will cook for shoes" - hee!).

Domistyle was founded by Jessica and Vanessa (Jess and Ness!), a pair of childhood friends who wanted to don cute aprons at a get-together they were hosting together. When they couldn’t find anything, they decided to start their own business, and they’ve become the rock stars of chic-apron-dom. The pictures are hand-drawn and silk-screened onto their products, which are made of a poly-cotton twill. These aprons make the perfect gifts, because they're gorgeous, they are low maintenance since they're machine-washable, and they're one-size-fits-all, so you can't go wrong. Their designs also range from elegant to funky, so there's a lot to choose from, no matter who you're shopping for. They also have an adorable children’s line that caters to both boys and girls and is as chic as their grown-up counterpart.

Domistyle aprons can be found in stores all over North America and at a number of online retailers. To see a store list, pictures of other designs, or just for more information, visit http://www.domistylegifts.com/. Also, remember to go check them out at Booth C-10 at the One of A Kind!

And below is a photo of my famous white wine seafood pasta in tomato cream sauce, which I'm really proud of, because it's better than a lot of pastas I've had at restaurants! Trust me, if you could only taste it, it would totally rock your world.

One of A Kind: Rustichella

Last year at the One of A Kind, my best friend J told me that I “absolutely have to try something!!!” Prone as she is to the occasional passionate outburst, I wasn’t particularly excited, but I followed her insistent tugging on my arm, anyway. She took me to this simple, but elegant booth that featured bottles of brown and green stuff, where there was a mini gazebo-like structure at the front with a table full of tiny paper cups holding drops of brown liquid. She took one and shoved it in my hand, commanding me to sip it. I asked her what it was, and when she told me that it was balsamic vinegar – I won’t lie, I was skeptical. But being the fervent believer that I am of the One Bite Rule (meaning you’re not allowed to write new foods off without at least trying one bite of it), I tasted it, and oh, Cosmos...I was so gone. I was instantly, helplessly and irrevocably hooked to Rustichella’s infused balsamic vinegars.

Rustichella offers 12 flavours (and counting) of infused extra virgin olive oils as well as balsamic vinegars. I like the oils too, but I especially love the vinegars because they’re so delicious you can actually drink it – slowly, of course. Last year, they had a cranberry one, a fig one, a smoky-flavoured one, and maybe one or two others that I can’t remember. I convinced the best friend to get the smoky one, and I wanted to get the fig one because the flavours are really intricate and multi-layered, but I ended up getting the tangier, sweeter cranberry balsamic because my mum likes it better. Either way, all three are so, so good. I want a fig one this year though, and I’m putting in my order so someone at home can get me a bottle. The one inconvenience is that they don’t have any stores, retailers, or a web site and they do the One of A Kind exclusively, so there are only two opportunities a year to buy their products which means you have to stock up.

The kind gentleman who sold us our vinegars also gave us a hand-written brochure full of creative ways to use the product, besides the traditional salad dressing and bread-dipping. You can use it to marinate or cook meats, mix with fruits (I like to use strawberries, but I was told that Italians traditionally like to use watermelons), and even drizzle it over vanilla ice cream. That last one sounds iffy, but I promise it’s really tasty because the dairy in ice cream mellows out the tartness of the vinegar, and the infusions just bring a whole new dimension of flavour to the palate. And I find that it’s always a treat to use it on meat (especially pork chop!) because it just makes the dish taste a little more spectacular. I especially like how the sugars caramelize as the meat gets cooked – divine.

Be sure to try a sample at booth C-20!