Myungdong Kalkuksu Noodles and Shabu Shabu

After a day from wonderland, my friend and I decided to go eat korean food. I asked my korean friend where to go and he recommended this place. At first I thought it would be somewhere in korean town, but to my surprise it was a korean restaurant on Bayview, next to Phoenix Restaurant. I always passed by it, but I guess the place never looked appealing enough for me to want to go in for a try.

I'm not a fan of kim chi, but this kim chi actually tasted pretty good.

If you ask me, I didn't like how there wasn't much variety of side dishes.

Everything was basically in korean, and there wasn't much a variety of selection, so we basically just ordered what we saw tables beside us were ordering. We selected one of the set meals, but 2 people portion. One serving was around $15.

the King size dumplings were humungo! But I must say they are good. It's not like those huge typical dumplings that once you try picking them up with chopsticks, the whole dumpling falls apart.

I found this in the pot. Funny looking eh?

The purple one is taro rice cake wih bean paste inside. The yellow one had pumpkin paste inside. There was another white one in the pot stuffed with cheese, that one tasted the best to me.

The combo comes with either noodles or congee, we chose noodles.

You can tell their noodles were hand made. I was surprised the portion was a bit small though since it was 2 people serving.

Food: Good.

Service: Alright, they close at 9:30 but we were still eating at 9:47 so they started rushing us to pay the bill. I suppose it is normal though.

Price: Average

Atmosphere/Decoration: Nothing special.

Overall: The food is good, but not spefically my preference. I like having more variety. However, I do recommend ordering the king size dumplings.

Myungdong Kalkuksu Noodles and Shabu Shabu

8194 Bayview Ave (across from Thornlea)

東海海鮮餐廳

So a new restaurant opened and as always, my mom wanted to try. It was only my brother, my mom and I so I didn't understand why my mom would suggest having seadfood set dinners, but my mom insisted saying its a 餐廳 not 酒樓 so they have single dishes. In the end, we went and found out my mom was wrong, as expected. They did have single dishes, but it was for congee or fried rice, not like meat and veggies on rice as one dish. Or should I say they had them, but since the restaurant is labelled specializing under seafood, you would expect to go there eating seafood.

I'm not sure if its a grand opening special, but they had $50 set dinners (四和菜) with soup, 3 dishes plus either Peking duck, or lobster! We chose the lobster combo.

密汁豬排

I liked the porkchops, the meat wasn't tough and had good flavour to the sauce.

Crispy chicken. 

This was nothing special.

(Yes, I took the picture after eating it half way..it didn't look that appealing anyways.)

炒三鮮

This was nothing special either. I didn't like how the green bean peas were soft though, not crunchy at all.

爆肉龍蝦.

The lobsters came last. We thought it was only 1 lobster, since on the menu it was only titled as 'exploding lobster meat'. But to our surprise, there were two lobsters. It tasted good, but because of the long wait, we were quite full already from eating the previous dishes.

Their food did come really slow.

Food: Good.

Service: Good, had patience with us considering how we kept rushing for our dishes to come.

Price: Cheap, not expensive. The set dinners are a good deal.

Atmosphere/Decoration: Nothing special, they renovated the place after the previous owner.

Overall: Not bad, worth a try. Average food for cheap pricing.

東海 海鮮餐廳

328 Hwy 7 East, Unit 25-26, Richmond Hill

Chiu Chow Boy (潮州店)

It was so hard to think of where to take my dad for a nice father's day dinner considering my dad is so traditional and only likes chinese food. In the end, my dad said he wanted to go Chiu Chow Boy.

手撕雞

 

This was the best dish of the night. I'm not joking, this is really good. A stack of shreded chicken without any bone or skin, the meat wasn't dry either. Half a chicken for only $9.95! I strongly recommend this dish.

 鹵水鴨, this restaurant's specialty dish.

This was good, I'm not a fan of " 鹵水" so I'm not sure how the best ones taste. But my brother said it's the best he's had yet.

豉汁炒蜆

the clams were so fat and juicy, so good.

 攬菜四季豆

this was some real 四季豆. It was a bit too salty though, but acceptable.

My dad complained that the veggies were too salty so we ordered another dish, steamed melon (冬瓜).

Although the dish doesn't look too appealing, it tasted good. Light taste without strong flavours affecting your taste buds. The melon was sliced into thin pieces and were still a bit crunchy, which was good since I hate mushy veggies.

I've tried their 羊腩煲 before, it's was really good. I wanted to order it but they said they don't serve it in the summer cuz its "too hot". Although I dont really understand that concept considering people still go hotpot in the summer, but anyhow that dish is good. But it's $22.50 (I believe), quite expensive.

Food: Pretty good.

Service: Alright..

Price: Average, some dishes are really worth the price.

Atmosphere/Decoration: A typical looking chinese restaurant.

Overall: Worth going, I recommend this restaurant. Trying the chicken is a must.

Chiu Choy Boy (潮州店)

3261 Kennedy Rd, Scarborough

鏞記 (Yogi Noodle)

So this restaurant claims to be the best Hong Kong style restaurant. Lies.

I've been here a few times with my parents. They have a wide variety of choices but the food there just really isn't that great. Yes, knowing that the food is bad I still continue to come; don't ask me why. Or should I say, ask my parents why.

My mom ordered the Congee and fried noodles, one of the congee combos.

The noodles didn't taste good, it was dry wih not enough soya sauce taste. At least  the congee would be alright, or else that's just sad for a chinese restaurant.

My brother wanted to try the so called 'korean spicy beef noodles'.

It didn't even look spicy, and tasted like ordinary normal beef noodles. Given that, I don't know why they would call it 'korean'.

I ordered 窩蛋牛肉飯.

Doesn't look appealing eh? Lots of green peas, but that is what it normally comes with. The raw egg is buried underneath. After breaking the raw egg, I couldn't even taste or see the egg. It totally blended in with the sauce. The sauce wasn't good, which was basically the whole part of this dish. I actually didn't want to continue eating it..

Food: Not good.

Service: Alright.

Price: I suppose it's considered cheap considering the portions.

Atmosphere/Decoration: The renovation does look alright.

Overall: Not great, don't expect much. If you were to go here, order the foods where you can't go wrong. Pineapple bun, Porkchop/Chicken steak with rice, or the fried foods should be safe.

鏞記 (Yogi Noodle)

165 East Beaver Creek Rd, #4-6, Richmond Hill

The Cheesecake Factory (@ Buffalo)

On my birthday, I decided to go on a shopping spree at buffalo and knowing that they have 'The Cheesecake Factory' at the Galleria mall, of course that was my choice of restaurant for dinner. However, to my disappointment, it was a lot worse than the franchise I went to in Seattle.

Stuffed Mushrooms.

I loved this in Seattle, it was the most amazing mushroom I ever had. This was good, but the greatness was possiblly only 50% of the one I had in Seattle. This one lacked portion of stuffing.

Sausage and Ricotta Pizzettes.

This was good, I liked it. But nothing special.

My brother ordered the Fish Tacos.

The waitress suggested getting the fish breaded instead of grilled claiming it would have more of a taste. I think it would just blindly make customers thinks its good since everyone loves fried foods. In result, it tasted not good and not bad, I suppose normal then? It came with beans and fried rice, I really found that a weird combo.

I ordered the Wild Mushroom Burger.

This burger was supposed to be their Glamburger winner. All I can say was, eating this felt like eating a burnt burger. Coal was pretty much the only thing I could taste.

I think the best meal was what my mom ordered, the Portabella sandwich.

 

As a mushroom fan, portabellas are delicious. I liked the sauce, it went well with the whole sandwich. I would prefer claiming this as the Glamburger winner compared to my wild mushroom burger.

Here comes the best part, DESSERT! As a Godvia fan, obviously I ordered the Godiva cheesecake. Although it was pretty sweet and really filling, it had overwhelming Godiva chocolate taste. J'adore.

One thing I found funny was, we told them that today was the day of my birthday asking if there would be anything special for the birthday girl. They responded "We can sing for you, but we don't give you free cake." They charge $6+ for a slice of cake yet they are not even willing to offer a customer a slice of cake for free. They charge roughly  $6+ for a slice of cake depending on which flavor and ranges from $40+ for a whole cake. (Don't forget this pricing is all in US$)

My mom ordered the Kahlua Cocoa Coffee Cheesecake. Had a real rich coffee flavour to it.

They have plenty of cheesecakes flavours to offer. I wish I could try a bite of each one. But let's face the fact, the cheesecakes were too filling and I wouldnt have the stomach to try them all anyways, despite the fact of how expensive they are. I must admit though, their cheesecake is really worth a try. I actually wanted to try the Pina Colada flavored cheesecake.

After my meal, I began to wonder why so many people crave and are actually willing to wait 1-2 hours to get a table. One thing I couldn't understand was why everytime I go there is always a long wait and the restaurant is always packed. You would figure if people didn't have good food the first time, they would try a different restaurant the next time they pay a visit to Buffalo.

Food: the cheesecakes were delicious, but the main courses were poor.

Service: the service was really good though. Not really a good idea to ask your waiter/waitress what they recommend because they generally like everything on the menu.
Price: expensive

Atmosphere/Decoration: I really like the decoration though

Overall: I actually wouldnt recommend you going to this restaurant if you do head to buffalo for shopping and plan to have dinner at Galleria. It was definitely not worth the wait. Only thing I would recommend you is ordering a cheesecake to go. Going to "The Melting Pot" would be a much better option. However, if you ever do make a stop in Seattle, you should try the Cheesecake Factory there.

The Cheesecake Factory

One Walden Galleria Cheektowaga, Buffalo

Izakaya Tsuki

Indecisive me as always, wanted to have sushi for my birthday dinner. My brother suggested going to Tsuki, claiming the restaurant to be a Guu without a line up. After hearing that compliment, of course I said "gogogo".

We ordered some kind of boat combo that had sashimi, sushi, and maki.

 

There sashimi was really good, so fresh. The red snapper had a lot more texture than the normal hard ones you get at other sushi places.

In the background to the top left you can see the unagi (bbq eel) we ordered. It tasted good, nothing compared to the frozen ones or the ones you buy at T&T. You couldnt taste the bones.

sweet shrimp sashimi, my favourite.

 Chewy texture and sweet, really good. Nothing compared to the tiny ones you usually get at other sushi restaurants. They also fried the head for you to eat as well.

Yellow fish sashimi slightly torched on the sides.

The proper way of eating it would be adding a little salt and garlic piece to your sashimi. Tasted really good. We didn't order the salmon torched since you wouldn't really be able to taste how special it is because it will just end up tasting like smoked salmon.

Takoyaki.

 This was a bit disappointing. The ingredients and filling inside wasn't satisfying

Since my mom doesn't eat raw, she went for the udon. 

This tasted pretty good as well, even though not too special. But their udon was the top quality kind, chewy texture with a good soup base.

the black cod.

This was amazingly good. Better than the one at Guu.

We ordered spider roll as well, but it did not taste good. There was something missing with the maki, it was lacking a taste of something. I believe it was mayonaise.

Food: Pretty good.

Service: Very good. Surprisingly, the waiters and waitresses were all Korean.

Price: Expensive
Atmosphere/Decoration: Good. Obviously incomparable to Guu since there isn't much of a huge crowd or loud welcomings when you enter or leave, but I found their decoration really nice. It's a nice place if you want to dinner and lounge with your friends. Their menu offers group combos with a few dishes including alcohol.

Overall: I would recommend this place. I would call it a closer Guu without a line up, serving more sashimi as Guu doesn't have much sashimi options.

Izakaya Tsuki

5182 Yonge St. North York(across from tea shop 168)