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.

Chi's Congee & Noodle House

Chi's Congee & Noodle House is off of Central Parkway and Burnhamthorpe in Mississauga. This place is easily missed as it is tucked away in the corner of a chinese plaza.

We were craving some congee so we looked up some restaurants and this was one of the top hits. We walked in and read a sign that said cash only, so we had to go to the bank and grab some money.

When we walked in we got a seat right away and was served tea very quickly. As there were only two of us we couldn't really order much to try for variety. However we decided that we wanted congee and some other chinese dish. We ended up getting a seafood congee and a beef rice egg dish. The beef rice egg dish was sub par, in my opinion. The flavour was quite bland but had a salty flavour. The eggs were runny which made the dish slimy which I enjoyed!

Now on to the congee, the seafood congee was actually quite good! The flavours were solid, the saltiness was good and did not need any extra salt.

Both dishes plus tax and tip all came to 20$ and we got out within 30 minutes.

Overall I would rate this place a 70%, unfortunately I was not able to try a good variety of dishes but based off of the 2 dishes I ate that day, 70% is just about right. The congee was great, but the beef dish was sub par.

With the cost being very cheap I can understand why this place got such high reviews. You get great bang for your buck.

Thyme Ristorante

Thyme restaurant is an italian restaurant located on Lakeshore in Etobicoke.

I'm going to apologize in advance for the poor quality of photos as it was dark inside and I didn't have my good camera with me.

We drove by this place a couple of times and saw that the review was alright so we decided to give it a try! We first sit down to this small restaurant and are offered bread. This bread is fantastic! The bread is more like bread sticks but the balsamic vinegar and olive oil that is served for dipping the bread... was fantastic. This sauce was so addicting that I went through 2 sets of bread before even starting dinner!

Tatiana got the seafood risotto, this risotto was pretty good. Fred's not here's seafood risotto is still best in my opinion so far. However this risotto was still good! I also had the Thyme 4 Risotto which was the first item on the menu for risotti. This was even better then the seafood risotto and I completely recommend it!

As we came to an italian restaurant we had to try atleast one of their pizzas. All italian pizzas are thin crust and usually have interesting toppings! This one was smoked salmon, capers, and onions. I really enjoyed this dish however Tatiana was not the biggest fan of it. It really depends on if you like capers I guess because I love capers, the combination of smoked salmon and capers makes any dish great.

I decided to order manicotti. I have never had this before and after eating it, I would say that this was a pretty good dish. It was just one ginourmous ravioli in my opinion and the cheese inside was quite good. This dish was better then the seafood risotto but not better then the Thyme 4 Risotto risotto.

Overall I would rate this place an 85% as the food was good, the bread was phenomenal, and the service was good while the cost was affordable.

I would definitely come back again.

Cupcake Girls

Cupcake Girls is a Vancouver franchise run by 2 Canadian women. They have a TV show that is just based about their franchise. We tried it in Vancouver and enjoyed it quite a bit! However I remember the cupcakes being about 2$ each in Vancouver which is quite pricey in my opinion.

This franchise has many flavours and I find the icing and cake both to be quite good! The cake is fluffy, was not dry. Unlike a lot of the grocery store cupcakes that you can get. The icing is not like sugary icing either, but more of a creamy, soft, less-sugary, enjoyable icing. Icing is what makes a cupcake VERY good.

As we have tried many of the flavours before, we decided to get our favourite flavours. We got from the top left, carrot, red valvet, red valvet x2, cookies and cream, mint, lemon.

My favourites of these 6 were the carrot cake, red velvet, and the lemon! All of the icing has the same consistency however the flavours are very different! Very good icings. I am not a big fan of mint or chocolate so the other two were sub par to me.

I like all the cupcakes they have there but when we bought a 6 pac, the price was 3$ per cupcake!! That is outrageously expensive for a cupcake in my opinion. The location is also in a very strange place for Toronto, in Leaside.

Overall I would rate this place a 70% as the cupcakes are great, the prices are not. The location is in an up and coming neighbourhood but really far away from downtown which makes it inconvenient.

Would go back, but not often!

Kinton Ramen

Kinton Ramen is a ramen hut in Toronto and I believe is also in Vancouver. I have heard that the owner's of Guu are the same as the owners of Kinton. This is my 2nd attempt at a ramen hut in Toronto as my first was a disaster and not even a real japanese ramen hut.

I had much higher expectations as this actually had japanese people running the place. The area of where this restaurant is in an interesting place. There are many restaurants in and around this place, but is also within a residential area. When we got there, there was already a wait at around 12:30. We got a seat within minutes though as we were only a group of 2. The groups of 4 and above had to wait over half an hour as this little place is small and can only seat limited people. The wait soon became pretty long and there was a whole crowd waiting to get seats at this place!

We got some green tea and water to start, and the tea was in one of those make your own tea bags.

The interesting thing about this place is that all of the broths are tonkotsu. Unlike the Hokkaido tonkotsu which is the type of specific broth, they make it the base soup and add shio, shoyu, miso, spicey, and pork flavours. There is a vegetarian option but I think that is just the veggies in the soup and not the broth being veggie. You can also get double the noodles by paying an extra 2$ which I did!

There are apparently 3 levels of richness, and I got the regular. and Tatiana got the light. I decided to get the miso soup and she decided to get the shoyu soup. My miso soup was very rich and good amount of saltiness! The soup was filled with veggies and tasted fantastic. I have had better miso soup in my life time but this was still very good! The pork shoulders within the soup was very flavourful! Cooked well, also seasoned well and wasn't too fatty. You could have got the pork belly for a fattier option which we opted not to.

Tatiana got the shoyu soup! This was completely different from mine and tasted amazing! I loved both of it. The reason why hers was very good because it was less salty, had an egg, and as well had nori (seaweed). The nori gave the broth a seaweed flavour and was just great. I think this was one of the better shoyu ramens I have ever had!

When we finished we ended up paying around 28$ including tax and tip. Unlike Momofuku, I was quite happy walking out of that restaurant! Will go back again!

Overall I would rate this place an 84% as this was delicious, cheap, and the environment is very friendly.

I recommend! Try this place out, but don't go in large groups or you'll wait forever.

Butter Chicken Factory

This post is going to be a little bit different, mainly because it isn't Jeff writing but actually me - Tatiana! I've decided to hi-jack his blog and do a little guest blogging of my own of some restaurants I've personally been to but Jeff has yet to visit.

So, this post will focus on Butter Chicken Factory located on Parliament and just south of Wellesley. It's a fairly new restaurant (I'm talking 2 or so years) with a small handful of tables. I've only gone during lunch time but let me tell you, it is so worth it to do so. The reason, their $9.99 lunch special. With it comes - butter chicken, a chickpea curry, a beef curry, rice, naan, and two desserts (pardon my lack of official names).

Now onto the actual review. The food is delicious, especially considering the amount you get and for its value. My favourite is the butter chicken and I always judge a restaurant by its version of this popular curry dish. At Butter Chicken Factory, theirs is creamy without being too heavy. The other curries are also notable, and pack a punch with its spices. The addition of desserts is a nice touch, and the presentation is simple and clean. 

I've never tried the rest of their menu, but it contains all the standards you'd find at any other Indian restaurant. 

The verdict - come for their lunch special. For $9.99, you can't go wrong. I'd personally rate this restaurant an 85%.