黄金閣

For my dad's birthday, my bro and I decided to take him out for some good food since it is his 60th birthday. Technically for Chinese people it's considered a big birthday big step into next stage of life. This restaurant has been open for quite a long time now, but we chose it because they specialize in abalone and shark fin soup.

They had quite a few set meals, we went for the dinner for 4 combo which comes with shark fin soup and 3 dishes. The dinner combo was $108, which I thought was a pretty decent price.

Shark Fin Soup.

If you think of it, it's pretty worth it. The way they serve it clearly shows you the full portion of shark fin.

I thought the way of display was cute too since each person gets a small pot and you wait for the soup to boil. The shark fin was kinda tasteless though, relied a lot on the soup to bring some taste. But then again, shark fin is supposed to be tasteless.

Fried scallops with mixed mushrooms.

This dish was delicious and the sauce was just tastey. The scallops were big and had a small coating which was really crispy, and for some reason it kind of reminded me the taste of fish skin. Surprisingly I would say this was my favorite dish of the night. There were actually 9 big pieces of scallop inside. As for the mushrooms, they actually served a mixture of I believe 4 different types of mushrooms.
Here's a close-up for the scallop. Big eh?

Veggies.

Nothing special about this dish I suppose.

My mom doesn't each beef so we swapped one of the dishes to noodles instead. Why noodles? Because it is a chinese traditional to eat noodles when it's someone's birthday. The noodles represent the birthday person's life to be long lasting, just like the noodle. 

Funny story about the noodle. They first served us with this. When we ordered we asked for crab meat noodles. There was no way we were expecting this, soup noodles. 

We asked them to change it and they served us this. 

Please tell me if you can spot any pieces of crab meat lol because if you ask me, when I had my bowl of noodles I didnt taste any.

In addition to our set dinner, we added an order of abalone for $10 per person.

The picture probably makes it look big but to be exact, the abalone was basically the size of your spoon (the round part). It came with the chicken feet and piece of veggie. Pretty good deal for $10 I would say.

Here's the dessert. The red bean soup was really sweet, same with the coconut jello. The almond cookie tasted good though, crunchy. You could tell they were freshly made the day of and not cookies saved overnight.

Food: Good.

Service: Alright, there was one old lady (probably manager) which wasn't too nice. 

Price: A bit above average. I think the price is fair though (in reference to the shark fin and abalone) It wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be.

Atmosphere/Decoration: Nothing special about decoration. Surprisingly the restaurant was pretty busy at night, it was actually full house.

Overall: This place specializes in eating abalone and shark fin, so I would suggest trying those if you come for dinner. As for their other dishes, nothing special. Other restaurants probably would have more of a 'wok' taste to it. I've been here for dim sum too and it's pretty good. This place is a good choice for dim sum or eating the chinese speciality foods. As for the normal dishes, I would suggest going to other chinese restaurants. Other places probably make it better at a cheaper price.

黄金閣

270 West Beaver Creek Rd, Richmond Hill

Don Don Izakaya

Recently there seems to be a hype for this place. I personally think this place is a bit over-rated, it's more of a Guu replica (as my bro calls it). My brother took me there for lunch on a weekday, his friend was one of the managers. The place is owned by 5 owners, a mix of Japanese and Mandarin people.

Starters, miso soup and salad.

Their salad was not great. Normal salad dressing, not home-made dressing or anything special which most Japanese restaurants usually do have. I didn't like how there was a lot of water at the bottom when I reached near the end of my salad. Clearly they should have made sure the lettuce wasn't soaked before serving it and adding dressing on top. Or should I be glad they washed the lettuce?

My bro's friend suggested us trying this: Don Don Special Black Corquette.

Basically it's creamy potato mix in a piece of bread crumb dipped in octopus ink sauce (which is why it is a black). I must say it's not quite appealing. I really liked it though, but I think $7 for this dish is still a bit expensive. I actually think this is the best dish I had for this meal.

Shrimp sashimi. ($10.50)

It was alright, I've had better.

I personally thought this was a scam. It was one of the group orders having your fish torched. They only let you pick one fish, meaning 8 pieces of only salmon. 

I know the style of this type of sushi is supposed to be rectangular, but does the piece of fish actually have to be that thin?? That's a huge amount of rice there.

They had a sashimi combo, which we ordered.

Sashimi is fresh. The shrimp sashimi was different from the one we ordered separately. Weird to say but this one tasted better, even though the other shrimp was bigger in size.

Fried chicken. It is what it appears to be.

Nothing special, I think Cafe de Nichi makes it better. My brother said last time he went for a late lunch it was worse, the chicken was overcooked.

From what I remember, when I went the menu was only a white sheet of paper with only text and no pictures. But judging from the online menu, the food looks so appealing. Seems like there are a few things I would want to go back and try. The "Atlantic salmon egg salad" and "tokyo style hotdog" looks delicious. But then again, pictures can always be misleading.

Food: Alright

Service: Very friendly.

Price: Expensive

Atmosphere/Decoration: Really nice. The environment is really similar to Guu, but the place is more spacious. 

Overall: I thought my experience was disappointing, I was expecting something better.  But then again, we tried more of the raw fish selection. I suppose their hot food is a lot better but if you ask me, I would still prefer Guu over this place. Even though they have more sushi/sashimi selection, I would suggest trying their cooked food instead. They do seem to have quite a few creative dishes. One thing I know for sure is they serve more variety during dinner time, so if you were to pay a visit here, go for dinner.

Don Don Izakaya

130 Dundas Street West