Dessert Kitchen 糖潮

I didn't know of this place until my friend told me there's a new dessert place in Markham. I asked her what kind of dessert and she said "I think Chinese" lol. I was confused why she wasn't sure, but after we went I understood why. It's more like fusionized Chinese dessert. 

My friend ordered this Mango Hor Fun.

My other friend and I persuaded her to try something different, so she picked a dessert with the coconut "hor fun". The slices of mango were sour, but they are fresh mangos and I guess mangos are not in season at the moment. She mango liquidy tapioca soup part was tasteless, it was really watered down. As for the "hor fun", it was chewy but I couldn't taste coconut flavor.

I ordered the Green Tea Creme Brule.

Sounded interesting since I never seen creme brule green tea flavor. Pictures on the menu are always deceiving. I was expecting more of a green color instead of brown. Anyhow, I didn't taste that great in my first bite, but after another bite it grew on me. It did have a green tea taste and overall wasn't bad. It was a bit too sweet though.

My other friend ordered the Mango pudding.

The picture in the menu showed tons of mango sauce leaking out of the sliced pudding - Clearly that did not happen. There were loads of chopped up fresh mango inside, which is good but other than that, nothing special. It tasted good but something you can easily make at home. The only thing we all looked forward to for this dish was the leaking mango sauce. We thought it would be like a chocolate lava cake.

Food: Alright

Service: Good.

Price: Slightly more pricey than average.
Atmosphere: The place is small but nicely renovated with a nice modernized look. I would not suggest sitting in the middle tables on those cushion seaters as it is not comfy and you will end up slouching the entire time since there's not back support. One thing I am curious is that the kitchen is super small. Makes me wonder how they are able to make the hot cooked food. (Yes they serve not only desserts, but there are rices, fries, etc.)
Overall: I'm pretty sure this place is opened by a group of young owners in their mid 20s. They were probably inspired by the successful fushionized Chinese desserts in Hong Kong. To be quite honest, I don't think their desserts are good. It's not that their food is bad, but it's just nothing special. In my opinion, the taste of their desserts does not justify their pricing. They do gain brownie points for the innovative aspect though. A lot of their dishes seemed really interesting, and it does catch me into wanting to pay another visit to try their other stuff. Hopefully I will have a better experience at my second trip. As a side note, don't trust the pictures on their menu.

Dessert Kitchen 糖潮

3623 Hwy 7 E, At Liberty Square - Suite 106, Markham

Caffe di Portici

After my exam, my bro picked me up from Ryerson and we decided to go for a late lunch. To try something different, my bro suggested going to this Italian cafe that his friend works there as a waitress, claiming that the food is good.

I ordered the Capricciosa pizza ($12)

I know it may not look that exciting through the pictures, which is probably why i wasn't excited when they served me my pizza. But after my first bite, totally different story. The pizza was delicious. The pizza contains fresh mozzarella, proscuitto, artichokes, mushrooms, olives, and fresh basil. I love how the crust was super thin and really crispy. I must say it is one of the best pizzas i've had aside from the one I had in California.

My bro tried the panini, Fontina ($8.95)

Ingredients included spicy calabrese salami, fontina cheese, arugula, and roasted red peppers. I normally don't enjoy peppers in a sandwich but this combination went well. The panini was really crispy.

Food: Excellent
Service: Really good
Price: A bit more pricey than average, but I would comment its great value for the fresh food.
Atmosphere: The cafe is in a rich area on the ground floor of a condo. It is small but really nicely decorated. A good place to chill in the afternoon, its like a hidden secret little spot. Just as a side note they do serve alcohol, I remember at my first visit the table next to me was a tipsy rich lady that was really friendly and kept talking to us. Drunk at 3pm in the afternoon, rich people's life eh?
Overall: I was not expecting much when I decided to come here, but to my surprise the food was really good. The good thing about this cafe is that their hot plates are freshly made - it is a bit of a wait but trust me, its worth it. Not some pizza that's been sitting in the oven waiting for a customer to come order and eat it. I recommend trying their paninis or pizzas - the only 2 things i've tried at this cafe but i believe to be the best.

Caffe di Portici
6 Scollard Street, Yorkville Toronto

Kingyo Izakaya

After hearing my bro go on and on about how amazing this restaurant is, I finally got him to take me. My bro has been to Kingyo so much, he's officially close with the owner and known as the "number one customer". Not that surprising considering he does seem to come here weekly.

And here comes our perk, free hamachi sashimi on the house.

 You probably can't really tell but its been torched a bit. The fish was really fresh, and the texture was soft but a bit chewy - good good!

As for starters, we ordered a salad. Spicy Soft shell Crab Sui Choy Salad. ($12)

When my bro suggested ordering this I was kinda shocked myself - couldnt really picture how good a soft shell crab salad would be that good. But to my surprise, it was really good. There was a lot of Soft Shell crab, probably 2 big full crabs. Finishing this salad could be equivalent to a girl's meal. The little shreds of black stuff at the top is my favorite Japanese veggie. Apparently in japan it is really expensive, people tend to add it into their rice balls. It's crunchy but chewy and salty. It definitely added a good taste with the salad. One thing was, on the menu its called "spicy", but i didnt find it spicy at all.

Tuna Avocado Shrimp Toast. I don't know the exact name of this dish, it was on the specials menu.

This was my favorite dish of the night. Slices of tuna sashimi, mixed in with mayo, avocado, and shrimp pieces to go with crispy garlic toasts - Perfect combination. I highly recommend trying this dish

Negi-Toro Gunkan ($8)

Not sure if you can see this clearly, but this is basically toro sushi. The tuna is chopped into super super mushy texture, with green onion. The sauce goes well with the combination as well. Really good, I recommend trying this.

Kimchi udon ($8)

I wasn't expecting much, but this tasted was really good. You might not be able to see, but there are tiny fish roe along with the kimchi sauce mixed with the udon. And no, I'm not talking about the red stuff at the top of the udon, that is actual kimchi pieces. However I do think this dish could be a bit more spicy.


Big Kingyo Short Rib ($19)

This is known as one of their popular dish, a huge short rib dressed in kurozu vinegar. I think the ribs were a bit over cooked this time since the meat was a bit tight and not as soft/fall off the bone. The sauce is kinda similar to one of the shanghai dishes, sweet vinegar pork.


Nagoya style Ebi Tempura Rice Ball ($9)

This didn't really come out the way I expected it to be. Or maybe because this dish came last and I was already stuffed to the max. The piece of rice looks small, but because we were so stuffed it felt like the rice was huge. I think i kinda gave up eating the rice and just ate the shrimp. The shrimp tempura was well fried and crispy, didn't feel oily at all.

2 Color Almond Tofu ($6)

I am not going to lie, I did not like this dish at all. I'm not sure if its because of the berry sauce and jasmin sauce in the middle which killed the tasting, but i did not enjoy this at all. My bro insisted on finishing it though since he said it would look too rude to not eat it, so I literally and to force myself to finish it. Maybe I'm just not a fan of almond or tofu. The top white layer was Almond pudding, which i told my bro to finish. I finished the bottom half which was tofu pudding.

Yes we definitely ordered a lot of food for just the 2 of us.

When they gave us our bill they serve you frozen grapes. I personally don't like frozen grapes, but it's so cute the way they serve them.

Food: Amazing
Service: Really good and friendly
Price: Expensive
Atmosphere: The place isn't small at all, but its always fully packed. You either have to make reservations a day or 2 before, or go early to get a table. (I think we went at like 530ish because we got rejected the last time we went at 6). The place is a lot more quiet than Guu, which I like because you can actually have a conversation without having to shout. They have lots of those mini arcade things on the walls as part of their deco, and they have a huge tv by the bar - they play doraemon! Well they play something different everytime so when i was there, they were playing some random old school black and white chinese show.
Overall: After paying a visit here, i finally understand why my bro loves coming to this restaurant so much. I agree, it is really good, exceeded my expectations. When I first saw the menu I wasn't as excited as nothing really stood out to me, but my bro kept saying just order anything, it tastes better than you think. It's definitely better than Guu, but at the same time more pricer. But what can you say, you pay for quality. As much as I do like the food here, I dont think I love it enough to come here every week like my bro. But without doubt, I recommend this place and would love to come again.

Kingyo Izakaya
51B Winchester Street, Toronto

魚樂軒

For my dad's birthday, my bro and I decided to treat my him to dinner here - famous for the humungo portions of seafood. I've never been so it was a good experience for myself as well.

We ordered one of the meal combos that had lobster and crab. Although it seems like its really worth it for the amount of food, since the meal includes the lobster and the crab. BUT it only includes the crab expecting it to be 6 pounds. Our crab was 7.5 pounds lol and what do you know, they charge you $40 PER EXTRA POUND. So yes, we had to add an extra $60 for this humungo crab. Apparently it was already the smallest from the tank.

Hello fellow humungo lobster and crab, we shall be eating you soon.

 

Ta da, here is the stacked up lobster.

The lobster meat was really "bouncey" (彈牙) (I can't think of the appropriate english word to describe the texture) but you could pretty much taste it being really fresh. I really liked how it was cooked - tons of garlic and mini dried fishes (白飯魚). Obviously we werent able to finish all the food, so when we packed it up we took these mini dried fishes and garlic bits and made our own fried rice at home. Awesome!

Crab Part 1
Here are the steamed crab pieces. I swear garlic makes everything tastey, not to mention the amazing texture of the seafood meat.

Crab Part 2
Here are the bottom legs - slightly fried and cooked with garlic.

Crab Part 3
Here's the head of the crab. And all the left over meat that didnt come along with the other 2 dishes, are fried along with this fried rice. It was alright, typical fried rice.


Here's the boring veggies.

Bok choy with king mushrooms. Nothing special.

Everything above was included in the combo that we ordered. But because this dinner was for my dad's birthday, we needed to have noodles. So we ordered the plainest noodles. nothing special, just noodles.


I don't remember how much our combo was, but I just know our bill for this meal ended up being $380. lol
For dessert they served black sesame paste? (黑芝麻糊). Tasted really rich and not too sweet. Good that they didn't serve the typical red bean desssert soup.

Food: Amazing, theres always a difference eating seafood when it's fresh and alive.
Service: Good
Price: Expensive
Atmosphere: The place is small, and they ONLY take reservations. It was funny because we sat near the counter and I heard the lady on the phone. Someone called and she said "we have no spots for tomorrow, unless you want to come at 4pm" LOL Who would come eat dinner at 4pm = = But yeah, we made reservations a week in advance. They didn't take any walk-ins cause it was just really packed.
Overall: I don't think i've ever ate a seafood meal that was as filling as this meal. Normally people do say seafood doesn't fill you up, but after having 2 pieces of lobster, 2 pieces of the steamed crab and 2 pieces of the fried crab legs, I was already stuffed. It was like eating never ending seafood meat. We had 5 people and still had 6 boxes of take out to take home lol. I would recommend this place, only for the seafood though. Smart thing to do is to come here with more friends to 1) chip in since its expensive, and 2) to actually finish the food so you don't have to take out. I dont believe any table was able to not have left overs.

魚樂軒
4911 Steeles Ave East

Sukho Thai

On the weekend my friend brought me to taste some authentic Thai food claiming that it is really good. 

We started off with the garlic shrimp. At first I was thinking they are probably going to serve the mix of fake shrimp paste. But to my surprise they actually served real shrimp.

I've had fried coconut shrimp somewhere else before and that just ruined my image of having fried shrimp at Thai restaurants. Good thing this one was garlic. It was nicely fried making it really crispy. I liked how the batter wasn't too thick and the shrimps were a fair size.

I ordered Pad Thai. ($12) - the one without peanuts. 

Pad Thai is essentially my favorite Thai food. As you can tell by the color, it's not like typical red orange pad thai you normally see at thai express or other thai restaurants. It tasted good, not too sweet while having a tiny bit of spiciness  However I do think it could be a bit more spicy. There were a lot of pieces of chicken. The chicken was a bit dry though, needed the sauce to accompany it. 

My friend ordered the Khao Soi ($13), yellow noodles in curry gravy with beef

I know you can't really see anything based on the picture, but there were quite a lot of chunks of beef in the curry. I personally thought this dish was a bit too sweet for curry, but the curry tasted really rich. The beef however is really tender, not chewy at all. Incase you are wondering, those are fried crisps added to the dish, those are not the yellow noodles. The noodles were chewy and not overly cooked, which

Food: Pretty good
Service: Alright
Price: Average
Atmosphere: This place is pretty small and it is really busy on the weekend. Probably better off making reservations.
Overall: I don't eat Thai food enough to count as a good judge, but of all the Thai restaurants I've been to so far, this place does stand out. I do recommend this restaurant if you're wanting some authentic and yummy Thai food. The two dishes I mentioned are the highly preferred and recommended dishes. Considering this place is far from where I live, but if I am around in the area I wouldn't mind coming back for another visit.

Sukho Thai

274 Parliament St., Toronto

Folia Grill

The first thing that attracted me in wanting to try this place was after seeing a picture of zucchini fries. Yes, I've never seen such thing before and it looked really good in pictures at that moment.

Before I walked in a saw the sign of the "new" Pork Souvlaki pita offering, and considering that I always prefer pork over chicken, I went for the Pork Souvlaki pita. ($5.25)

The pita comes with pork souvlaki (of course), tzatziki (which is their sauce), tomatoes, red onions, and french fries. Yes, the addition of french fries reminded me of my favorite Shawarma at Mozy's in Waterloo; Still my number one shawarma place. The pita bread was slightly toasted with a crisp on the outside but soft and thick. The pork was a bit tough and I struggled a bit eating this pita in a proper manner, but it still tasted really good. The portion of the pita is huge, but I couldn't help on wanting to finish the entire thing. 

My mom ordered the Chicken Souvlaki Pita. ($5.25)

What a mistake for me ordering the Pork instead of chicken. The chicken tasted so much more juicier and the chicken was just perfectly grilled. It could also be because the chicken was a bit more fatty, meaning the meat was more of the tender parts of the chicken. Regardless, this was really good. The chicken has french fries in it too but it's kinda hidden by the overflow of chicken.

And here are the Zucchini Fries ($4.50) as a side order. Fair pricing for the amount of zucchini. 

Thick cut pieces of fried zucchini. As you can see, you see the green lol It's not like deep fried and completely sunk in fried batter. Although it doesn't seem like it, it is really crispy. And the deep fried batter has taste to it already, a little bit spicy and salty. After dipping into the sauce, amazing combination. 

Food: Really good.
Service: Good.
Price: Average

Atmosphere: It's more of a fast food type of setting, not really a restaurant but they do serve you if you tell them it's not take out.
Overall: I loved the chicken souvlaki pita. I would definitely come back to have it again, if only the location wasn't so random and far from me. As we were leaving, my brother even ordered another chicken souvlaki pita to go since who noes when we would pay another visit here. This place is my second favourite shawarma place and I definitely recommend this place. The zucchini fries really added bonus points to this place.  

Folia Grill

1031 Pape Ave, Toronto

Santouka Ramen

Finally caught up, the last one and I've tried them all.

Of all the ramen places, Santouka seems to have more options and choices.
I chose Tokusen Toroniku Ramen with Shio soup base. ($13)

I think of all the ramen places I like the taste of this soup base the most. It was really rich, milky and creamy, which fits my taste buds. The only downside I would say is I felt like it was really oily. The pork cheek meat was really really good. The texture was really soft and tender, which really made thick twice how fatty it probably is. As for the texture of the ramen itself, it was good. However I would prefer Sansotei's noodles, tastes more unique. After eating this set of ramen, my stomach was full for more than half the day. I think their soup was too heavy and oily, I kept feeling very thirsty after my meal too.

My brother ordered the set with both ramen and rice. He ordered Shoyu Ramen. ($15)

The soup base of his ramen was good, tasted less fatty and heavy than mine. The grilled salmon rice bowl didn't pull off a traditional Japanese dish feel, and looked like canned salmon to me. Nothing great and I don't recommend trying it, not worth it.

Food: Very good.
Service: Good.
Price: Expensive
Atmosphere: The place is quite small, not a lot of tables, just like the other ramen places. You probably would expect a line up if you come during peak hours.
Overall: I really did like their ramen, but I did find it a bit too fatty. However, I do recommend this ramen place. One thing I did find a bit ridiculous was you needed to add $2 for an egg. Yes, normally ramens come with an egg already. Of all the ramen places I've been till now, (Hopefully they won't randomly open another one.) in my opinion, this would be the order of the best/my favourites: Santouka > Sansotei > Raijen Ramen > Momofuku > Kinton
If only there was a ramen place that had a mixture of Santouka's soup base with Sansotei's noodles.