Sansotei Ramen

Sansotei Ramen was on Dundas right across the street from Spadina Garden.
I was in downtown toronto for a training course and I walked by this gem! There was also a Kenzo Ramen located right across the street, which I have tried as this is a franchise.

Sansotei ranks #1 or #2 in my opinion of ramen places in Toronto so far. I have been to about 5 different restaurants.

This was the simplest yet most delicious ramen I have had in Toronto! The veggies were quite standard you could add more and more at the cost of 50 cents per veggie, and the cha-shu was cooked to perfection! Extremely crispy, so much flavour, so delicious. The soup was tonkotsu based and was fantastic. Probably on the saltier side but I love the salty ramens. You can even see the egg cooked very well too! still a little runny on the inside! I got extra noodles at the cost of 2$ extra but that doubled the size of my meal! so good!

I don't know if this franchise exists outside of toronto but this was very good and one of my favourites! If i'm ever in the area again i will definitely come back!

I would rate this an 88% as this was so good.

Spadina Garden

I was in downtown toronto for a training course and I was by Dundas and Spadina.
Spadina Garden was recommended by Tatiana's sister so I thought to try it out!

Every meal came with wonton soup and it wasn't bad at all!

My co-worker picked up the black bean beef dish and the sauce in my opinion was quite strong,
meaning a little too salty. However after putting the meat and veggies on a bed of rice, this complimented the dish and made it very good!

 I ended up getting the Lemon chicken dish that I saw a neighbour eating. This dish was sub par... boooooo. The chicken was okay, the lemon sauce was lacking, so it felt like I was just eating deep fried chicken. BOOOOOO.

I probably wouldn't go back again but the food was alright and the price was quite cheap.
I would rate this place a 71%

Lula Lounge

Lula Lounge is a restaurant in toronto that serves a set menu with a dancing lesson!

I took tatiana here for our anniversary as I thought it would be fun to learn some dance moves and try it out! We walked in and this place looks like a dance bar, there isn't much seating locations for people to eat but it was a very red atmosphere. The pictures of the food I took were kind of hard to take as everything was red and dark.

As part of the set menu we decided to get two different appetizers and share! The first one was the tostada, pulled pork, lots of veggies, and a cream sauce drizzled on top. This was surprisingly really really good! This could have been a main if they served more! Zesty, hearty, creamy all in one.

Our second appetizer were chips and dip! We got three different kind of dips which were avocado, bean, and a fresh and zesty salsa dip.

Now to the mains! My jerk chicken burrito was fantastic, I would come back for this thing! It was packed with food, and the flavours were so good. Each section had its own sauce like the mexican flag which made it great! I didn't mix the sauces but instead ate each piece down the line getting to a new flavour after each colour.

Tatiana's dish was red snapper, this was a BIG piece of fish, I mean after I finished my meal I could barely finish the rest of the fish she had left for me. I was stuffed! Flavour wise it was quite bland and nothing to rave about.

Now my favourite part of this meal! Usually I'm not a fan of sweet things and desserts but this white chocolate mousse was the best mousse I have ever had. It was addicting now good it was! Meanwhile tat kep eating my dessert because hers was sub par. I believe she had an espresso cake.

After the meal the lights got a bit darker and the dancing lessons began! It was quite fun at first but then people outside started coming in! This quickly became a dance bar in matters of minutes!
We sat back down at our dinner table and were in awe of how many people showed up and started really dancing salsa! They looked like pros dancing around with their partners! It was so intimidating that we didn't even try to salsa after that!

So overall it was a very fun experience! the food was good, the atmosphere was fun, the drinks are always pricey but thats how it goes!

I would rate this place 75%, because i still had a good time and was satisfied with the meal!
Good anniversary date!

Kenzo Ramen

Kenzo Ramen is I believe a non-japanese run franchise. I've been to the one downtown and as well as Mississauga. The mississauga one is run by koreans so perhaps this is a korean franchise. They don't use the same symbols as us japanese in their menu's so I'm assuming the whole chain isn't japanese as well.

This place is a little pricier then the competitors and have some pretty bad ramen dishes. On the up side they do have a really good ramen here as well! Unfortunately the picture I took was one of the ones that did not taste good. The tonkotsu ramen here is very disappointing, as well as the shio and shoyu ramens as well.

On the up side, the King of Kings Ramen is VERY good. This is the dish I would get everytime. It looks spicey but is not spicey at all. The content and ingredients within it make the dish very good. It has ground beef and tons and tons of different kind of veggies that make it hearty.

I have also tried the Netsu ramen (supposed to be hot) but I believe the netsu and King of Kings is the same broth, very good not spicey at all.

Then I tried the ramen that isn't even on the menu!! There are 3 levels of spiceness to this ramen, at level 3 if you drink the broth and eat the whole thing the meal is free apparently!

I'm good with spices but not that good, I decided to try level 1. Level 1 was SPICEY, i wasn't sweating when I finished the meal but it was quite hot. The hot soup plus spicey food doesn't make it any easier! I believe I can handle #2 but probably not worth it, I can't imagine trying #3.

Now my favourite part! the Dumplings!! The dumplings here are fantastic! The bottoms are crispy, the inside is PACKED with meat, and the dipping sauce is very very very good.

The combination of these three together make this one of my favourite dumpling places. The only con to this is that it is expensive. Each dumpling is worth 1.50$ atleast because the dish is around 9$ and you get 6 dumplings.

Overall I would rate this place a 77% as they have alot of crappy ramens but they also have some good dishes as well! I would like to try the yakisoba or the donburis next time!

Santouka Ramen

Santouka Ramen this is probably my 3rd or 4rth try and a good ramen place.

Now that I'm catching up to my reviews I have eaten at other ramen places as well!
I would rank Santouka Ramen either #1 or #2 of the 5~6 restaurants I have tried so this place is good!

When I sat down at the bar I saw them making the broth and man it looked good! you could see all the bones sitting at the bottom and they were carefully getting all of the flavours out!

Tatiana got the standard Tokotsu ramen, this is her favourite type of ramen which is a pork broth soup. This was very good, the cha-shu was crispy on the edges and very tastey on the inside. The black mushrooms were a surprise and I loved the texture! Almost like jelly fish.

I got the Kara Miso Ramen, which is just spicey miso ramen. This wasn't that spicey but the colour looks intimidating! I have had many ramens to this day and this place is good. At a certain point i don't think you can make ramen taste amazing to the point of raving about it. Ramen is ramen, I have had BAD ramen but i'm accustomed to going to Japan and eating good ramen anyways! If i like it, then that is good enough!

Like I mentioned before in Toronto I would rank this place #1 or #2 next to Sansoutei Ramen.

I would go to either anytime and I would even go to Kenzo ramen as well as this seems to be located in a variety of locations.

Overall I would rate this an 81%

This place is good, not that expensive and quick!

Give it a try!

Royal Shawarma

Royal Shawarma is a very small shawarma place in Oakville off of the QEW and Third Line exit.
This was discovered back in the day when I was working in Burlington, to this day this is my favourite shawarma restaurant!

This place gets some nasty reviews but the reviewers have no idea what to get. This place is famous for their chicken rice shawarma plate. Everyone who writes bad reviews talk about ordering beef, or salads, or anything other then the chicken shawarma plate. This is the GO TO dish! Don't order anything else just order this!

This is a mom and pop restaurant and the last time I went I believe the kids have started to take over the business! The food still tastes the same so I have no complaints!

Now to all the angry reviewers, yes this food takes a good 20 minutes to make but boy is the wait worth it! I have them in my phone so whenever I'm in the area, I call ahead and pickup the plates!

Now to the content of the plate! The chicken is cooked very well, still juicy, but very crispy! Great seasoning too. The rice is quite standard and isn't bad but man the garlic and hot sauce... man...
These two sauces combined offer the best flavour I have tried for shawarma!!

The hot sauce is not hot, more so flavour, almost like a sweet hot sauce this is a must!! Without both there is no reason to get the plate. Even Tatiana who can't eat anything remotely spicey can eat this! Its not hot sauce, they should rename it to god sauce or something. The garlic sauce is powerful and creamy but once you mix them all together the rice spreads the sauce around and makes it the perfect dish.

I rate this restaurant a 90% for its dish, however I have NEVER ordered anything else so I cannot judge the rest of the food. It seems like by reading the reviews that they all suck but this dish... is the golden plate.

Please support this restaurant, don't ever let it go out of business!!!
DO NOT order anything other then the Chicken Shawarma Plate, the dish is around 13$ and man is it worth it...

Asian Legend

Asian Legend is a franchise chinese restaurant that is located in a variety of places in Ontario.
I have been to many locations and this blog is a review about the St. Catharines one that has newly opened.

So! Asian Legend was a restaurant we enjoyed going to in Richmond Hill. The price is cheap, the food is good, and they also serve Peking Duck!

This used to be our go to Peking Duck place in Richmond Hill however we believe the quality has dipped a bit there and decided to go elsewhere for Peking Duck. I still like the restaurant though! To keep a chinese franchise this good is something quite difficult to do as all restaurant chains would seem to differ, however they are quite consistent throughout!

I didn't take a picture of the soup dumplings because we had to return them as the dumplings had popped and the soup was all gone :(, however we asked them to replace it and they were very easy going about it! Good service in St. Catharines.

We decided to get this carrot, egg, spinach dish. I do not remember what it was called but this was very flavourful. It seemed like it was cooked in some sort of broth (vegetable broth maybe??) but it had tons and tons of flavour.

We then got the mapotofu, this had one chili symbol on the side but I love spicey things so i thought that 1 would be easy enough for the family to eat... boooooy was i wrong! This was spicey! Even I had trouble getting through it but it was still quite good! I have had better mapotofu but this place was still good.

Now to Tatiana and my brother's favourite dish, the dong po pork. This is usually not my favourites in food because I like lean meat. I do not like very fatty dishes. However, this was something even I could have! Usually there is a fat to meat ratio of 7:3 where 70% of the dish is fat and 30% is meat. This was more so 5:5 so there was still quite a bit of meat on it! I loved it! The fatty portion was melt in your mouth and there was enough meat there to give it that fibrey texture. I would definitely get this again.

We got many other dishes too but it was hard to keep track as they all come one by one and by the time I remember to take a photo we have devoured most of it already :)!

So lets get to the rating,

Overall I would rate this place a 77%, however I would rate this place in St. Catharines an 86%.

The reason I rate this place so highly in St. Catharines is because this is a white town. There are no good chinese restaurants unless you want American Chinese food and that is a disgrace to chinese restaurants. So for this franchise to come to this white town and open up a restaurant, good for you!

This is now my families favourite chinese place to go as they live in Niagara but because it is the only one I rate this very high!

I would rate the Markham Asian Legend a 70% as there are plenty of good chinese restaurants near by there, and I would rate the Richmond Hill Asian Legend an 80% because we used to love going there but have recently stopped.

Open Cork

This restaurant was recommended by our close friends and suggested we go eat here!

Open Cork is a restaurant on Dundas in between Mississauga and Etobicoke. It is a little west of the 427. We love to eat at the restaurant across the street called Astoria!

As an appetizer for the four of us we decided to get grilled vegetables and goat cheese. I believe this was a main dish for the vegetarian section but was recommended by our friends! This was quite delicious as we ate it with bread! We cleaned the plate until there was no sauce left!

Sorry for the out of focus photos but it was hard to stop my friends from eating to take a photo!

Tatiana decided to get the Linguini of the Sea dish, this had huge chunks of scallops and pieces of lobster and shrimp! I believe there were some mussels hidden in there as well. This was a fantastic piece of pasta! I loved it but I didn't get to eat it as my main.

Antonietta got the risotto, this also had seafood in it but the main portion I believe were the portobello mushrooms. That gave it the distinct brown colour and flavour! This was also surprisingly good!

Stephen got the Open Cork Pollo which was a grilled chicken dish with a mushroom sauce. His meal looked quite plain and normal but the zucchini pepper was very good. The vegetables were better then the meat!

I ended up ordering the lamb dish the meat was cooked the way i like it, rare. The veggies were the same as Stephen's dish which was very good! The lamb was also good. I think I would prefer the lamb across the street at Astoria though.

Overall I would rate this place a 78%!

I am very surprised about the urbanspoon reviews of this restaurant but after reading the reviews I understand why there were so many dislikes.

The servers here aren't pushy or very attentive to customers, and I believe its just the culture of the restaurant. This place does mention that it is a lounge as well so people just like to hang out there and spend time.

The servers are always around but never really approach, so people talking about bad service and what not I can understand where they are coming from. We ended up staying for 2 hours and that was just the meals!

So yes this place is slow, but I think if you understand how they serve people you are more inclined to accept it. You just have to be more vocal to what you need. In our case we never asked for the bill so the bill never came and we sat there talking for over an hour! It is definitely very loungy with great food!

Try this place out! give it a shot, remember that the service is not like regular restaurants but the food is great so figure it out and go!

Bean Bar

Next on the list of restaurants is Bean Bar!

This place was one of our favourites in Hamilton while myself and Tatiana went to school at McMaster university. I also proposed to her this day at McMaster and we went out for our old favourite place in Hamilton.

Now back to food!
The bean bar was the first place I have ever tried yam fries! and the sauce it came with was quite delicious! Chipotle mayo and yam fries have become quite standard in all restaurant chains now but back then this was the only place that served it!

We decided to order calamari as an appetizer as I planned on upgrading to my yam fries anyways. I love it when calamari have the baby legs in the dish too! crispy crunchy deliciousness.

I got the upgrade on the fries to exchange my regular potatoes to sweet potatoes.
My main was fish and chips because the people sitting next to us ordered it and it looked fantastic.
I'm usually quite picky with my fish and chips because restaurants can really screw this simple dish!

What I like in fish in chips are the following qualities, very little batter, crispy batter, lots of fish. This satisfied all 3 qualities as I was able to tell from my neighbour eating it!

This fish and chips was really good! and there were 2 big pieces too! I don't remember if I had to doggy bag this meal home because there was just too much fish! something I won't complain about!

Tatiana wasn't very hungry today so she decided to get an appetizer as a meal. She ordered the Quiche of the day! I remember this being very cheesy, spinachy and very good. It was cooked very well with the egg's being still being soft and juicy rather then dry or runny.

The bean bar also has a big display of a but load of desserts to choose from! Usually they come with no explanation or title to the cakes so you have to get a walkthrough from a waiter/waitress to get the run down of what the options are! I personally don't even remember which one we ordered but I'm sure it was good!

This place occasionally turns into a jazzbar at night and or a live band plays in the back. It gets busy pretty quickly and understandably so! We arrived at 5:30 and got the last seat available! after that there was a wait to sit down.

I love to come to this place, always reminds me of the good days in university. Hamilton isn't known for their restaurants either but this place is a nice treat in this part of town.

The food is good, the service is great, the atmosphere is even better at night time and the price is alright.

Overall I would rate this place an 80% as it is a fun place to go to!
Check it out and support this place!

The Gabardine

Hey guys,

Its been a while since i've blogged as i've been quite lazy but i'm going to post a bunch of restaurants i have been to this past while!

First on the list is the Gabardine.
This is a very small restaurant by Bay and Richmond in downtown Toronto.

This was recommended by Tatiana and seems like a nice small restaurant.
They can probably seat only 30~40 people max and they have a very small menu for lunch.

Essentially to me, this seemed like a fancier pub food place.
Tatiana raved about the macaroni here so she got what she wanted!

I had a craving for shepherd's pie and this was also recommended by the waiter to try!
The mac and cheese was quite good! crispy top, creamy inside, cheese all over the place!

The shepherd's pie was a delight! The outside was very crisp, the inside was very hot and creamy as well! The inside though was full of richness and chicken flavour, it was delicious.

I've tried many shepherd's pie and this was one of the better ones I have had! I would definitely give it a go next time around if I'm ever around this area again.

I would rate this place an 80% for food taste, 70% for price.

Overall I would rate this place a 75%, mainly because yes the food was great, however these lunch items were expensiiiiive! 17$  for macaroni, 18$ for shepherd's pie with 2 coffee's and a dessert almost came close to 50$ for lunch!

Now I do know that this is downtown toronto and is more expensive then most, but I don't think this place tastes good enough to charge that much for pub food.

I would go again but would most likely try new places out!

Rocco's Plum Tomato

Rocco's Plum Tomato is a franchise in Etobicoke and the one we went to was on the Queensway.

We arrived at the restaurant and was not greeted at the door for a good while. As it was our first time there we didn't know that you can just choose any seats that you like. So after a while one of the servers told us to take a seat anywhere.

We checked out the menu and decided to do the set menu. We each got an appetizer, main and dessert. For the appetizer we got mussels and calamari. The mussels were good, quite strong in the wine flavour but that is quite typical for mussels in my opinion. The calamari was deep fried and was decent. The dipping sauce was a chipotle mayo like sauce and was quite good.

We were served french like bread which was quite hard and crappy in my opinion.

 

For the main we got the gnocci and ravioli. The gnocci was more potatoey then other gnocci's and was not bad! The ravioli sauce was very tomatoey and quite good. The cheese within the ravioli was good too!

Now to the desserts... the tiramisu was amazing, coming to an italian restaurant I would expect a good tiramisu but this was superb! I would come back to this restaurant just to have it over and over again! As you can see in the photo, i didn't get much of a chance to take a photo of it until it was practically done! Tatiana decided to get the carrot cake, which was quite plain for carrot cakes.

Overall I would rate this place a 75%, the service was extremely slow, the food was okay, the tiramisu was amazing, and the price wasn't that cheap but it was still affordable. (we used coupons and the total came to about 60~70$ between the two of us after discount with the set menu.)

I would come back to this place just for the tiramisu but probably wouldn't come back for the food. There are plenty of better italian restaurants within etobicoke.

Korean Village Han Kuk Kwan

Korean Village Han Kuk Kwan in k-town of toronto is a japanese korean restaurant. This place had korean bbq but in a portable sense. The tables did not have the integrated bbq that usually exists in korean bbqs. Typical korean restaurants serve the small korean appetizers which usually consist of kimchi, radish, potatoes, beans, and many other small dishes.

We decided to order a bibimbop and korean bbq. The bibimbop was pretty good, however the kocijan sauce was not one of my favourites. I think I am used to the popular sweet and light coloured kocijan sauce. But still, the rice and food inside was crispy because of the bowl and was quite good!

Here is a picture of our portable grill, run by propane.

Here's a photo of the meat being cooked! The meat was already marinated and had tons of good flavour. The red sauce that you can see in the first picture came with the meat for dipping. However I was not a big fan of this sauce. It was sort of spicey but really salty and overwhelmed the flavours of the meat. Other people at the table really enjoyed the sauce though so I guess it is hit or miss.

Overall I would rate this place a 78%, it was pretty good, ok price, and great service. The restaurant has the call buttons that are like modern asian restaurants where service can be called whenever with a click of a button. Before coming back here I would like to try other k-town korean restaurants.