Thawing Weekend - Saturday Dinner

I am way too occupied thawing from my trip to the east that I have no time to cook this weekend. Replacement Chef offered to make Saturday Dinner.

The only challenge is the house has tuna and pita bread and nothing else edible. So dinner was tuna salad pita pockets.

Feeling down due to my thaw preoccupation, I was hoping for something more adventurous to cheer me up.

So the second sandwich was shaped as an egg roll and the third one as a Japanese roll.

As I was getting excited over my boring-turned-fun tuna dinner, Catsess needed to drink some wild water to rinse down her tuna dinner. 

Grand Dim Sum

Grand Dynasty Seafood Restaurant in Burnaby is, in one word, grand.

10 other words that describe it.

1. Elegant
2. Good service
3. Authentic 
4. Inventive foods
5. Freshly cooked food
6. Non-rushed
7. Comfortable
8. Good baking
9. Well priced
10. Fun experience

(but be prepared to see a picture of the owner with PM Stephen Harper in the entrance)

The traditional baked pork pastry could easily be mistaken for something white and creamy oozing out of it. The fine dough is covered with sugar, but stuffed with pork. Excellent.

The steamed rice roll had 3 types of mushrooms in it. You can taste different mushroom textures as you eat it. Exceptional.

The steamed pumpkin and seafood dumpling looks pumpkiny but does not taste too pumpkiny. Loved the colour.

The deep fried taro dumpling was a step up from any other place I tried those. Typically I find them overly fried and a bit scratchy. These were just perfect and the stuffing delicious. Good job.

Sticky rice was probably very authentic, but had all sorts of weird meats that I was biting into. Not my cup of tea.

And then there was dessert. Excellent pastry on both. Egg tarts are addictive.

Grand Dynasty Seafood Restaurant

4331 Dominion Street

Burnaby, BC

granddynasty.ca

 

 

Wacky But Nice Nippy Snack

My last day of nippy weather before heading to the California of Canada.

A sweet smart mini human prepared an afternoon snack for me to warm me up.

Even the cat came out to witness this sweet snack production.

Simple toast with jam - but mine was special, it had cheese on it. And no coffee in these mugs; just juice.

Thank you mini human for such a lovely sweet tasty and memorable snack. See you again soon.

Fishing In The Ice

A restaurant that prints menus with their key staff's pictures on them is a restaurant that is confident of keeping its chefs and bar tenders for a long time.

With this confidence comes quality. The name of the restaurant is Canyon Creek Chophouse. The location is in Etobicoke, Ontario.

Service was swift and good. Food was inventive, well priced and tasty.

The starter was avocado and bacon salad - tomatoes, onions, avocados sprinkled with bacon and blue cheese and drizzled with a simple creamy bacon vinaigrette.

For the main, it was an Ontario fish called Pickerel. Here's its story....

Canyon Creek Chophouse

25 Carlson Court

Etobicoke, Ontario

canyoncreekrestaurant.ca

Eating In From The Chill

Canadian Winter Wonderland continues its freeze so hiding in tonight.

What's on the menu? Food to warm the poor cold visitor.

Healthy greens with olive oil and lemon dip.

This was followed by a hearty chicken barley chickpeas soup with lots of warming spices like cinnamon, caraway and peppers.

And for dessert (scroll down to end of article) a heartwarming cinnamon rolls and custard cake from McEwann's - a perfection of a dessert.

 

Dining Out In The Cold

Nothing other than the chance to try a new restaurant would have got me venturing out at noon in -17 degrees.

But I am a big fan of Mark McEwan and this is Mark McEwan's Fabbrica.

Ambiance - exceptional.

Food - fresh ingredients, elegant and well put together...

... like this buffalo mozzarella over tomatoes and balsamic vinegar.

The Ricotta gnocchi with burrata cheese was also well put together.

Elegant and very tasty marshmallow textured gnocchi that was obviously hand made.

Mark McEwan's Fabbrica Restaurant

49 Karl Fraser Road

Toronto, Ontario

fabbrica.mcewangroup.ca

Wonder if recipes for some of those items they serve are in Mark McEwan's book I just picked up.

Food Delivery in the Freeze

As the below -20 temperatures continue to haunt me in the east, dinner plans are best to be indoors (well at least for me, not for the poor delivery guy).

China Gourmet is good Chinese food in Toronto's outskirts. 

The order included:

- Egg rolls (poor)
- Szechuan Noodles (very good)
- Spicy Peanut Chicken (excellent)
- Chili chicken (good)
- Shanghai noodles (very good)

All in all, good food, value and their promise of delivered fast and fresh to your door was acted on (albeit not too fast, but must be the bad roads)

I am not sure though about their no MSG claim - a night of utmost thirst may disproof this claim.

China Gourmet Takeout

877 York Mills Road

Toronto, Ontario

www.chinagourmet.ca

Food Shopping In The Snow

Running away from the -24 something weather in Toronto, I ducked into Loblaws' at Maple Leafs Garden. Wow!

It does not feel like a grocery store, let alone a Loblaws' one. At the same time, it does not feel like a Whole Foods, Choices or Urban Fair - it is simply a sophisticated, well designed and stocked food fair.

The cheese section alone can keep you exploring for days. 

Yes, what you see behind is a series of high shelving fridges filled with all sorts of cheeses from around the world. Facing the shelving is a corner deli counter filled with more cheeses.

Now if the options of which cheeses to buy does not overwhelm you and, let's say, you decided to get some goat cheese, now you have to tackle decision number 2 - what flavour of goat cheese to buy.

Yes, these balls below are not ice-cream - they are different flavoured goat cheeses.

I think you've got the picture - this goes on and on for deli meats, pre-made foods, sushi bar, salad bar, bakery, teas, cookies. I just had to put my foot out and leave...

...with just a cup of tea in a fancy filter cover take-out cup.

Loblaws' Carlton Street

60 Carlton Street

Toronto, Ontario

www.loblaws.ca/en_CA/60carlton.html