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