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Ookay .. this Pizza Night blog is long overdue.

Last month, a whole bunch of us went to ES' place for a pizza night. SW brought pizza dough that felt so sooooofffftt (soft like a baby bottom), and ES already had tomato sauce and toppings at her place .. she even wrote down the menu:

Here are the appetizers (and pies and very creamy french vanilla ice cream for dessert — not in picture):

Hmmm … who knew making pizzas from scratch with a bunch of friends (and flour flying everywhere) could be a lot of fun:

Here are the pizzas (somebody even made some baby pizza — no, not me .. LOL!):

Now try to match the pizzas with the menu items ………………………

(Wed, April 28th)
Text message from SA: We're having hot pot at my place this Friday, are you in?
Me SMS-ing her back: Of course!

(Thu, March 1st – Winter storm hit Toronto dumping tons of stuff on the ground)

(Fri, March 2nd)
SW: Tonight, still yes?
Me: Of course!!!

Got to SA's place. SW and AH were already cooking the four different kind of soup (and yes, most of us did help out with the preparation and cleaning ).

LOTS of food (as usual — my kind of party .. haha):

And trust me, that beat any hot pot restaurant in T.O. Way cheaper too. LOL!

I have nothing to talk about for my blog today. And I'm a little bit too lazy to go to the (24-hrs) grocery store a few blocks down the street and check out some stuff .. although it is pretty “warm” right now (1C .. hmmm … I'll take that over -20C anytime .. yupe, it's all relative … hehe). I guess I'll go tomorrow after work …

Hmmm … I heard this guy in the elevator earlier today at work, he said he had to go home early to pick up his cat from the hospital 'coz it's costing him $800 (that's in CAD) a day, and he wasn't about to spend another 800 bucks for being late (apparently the hospital charges another $800 if the cat wasn't picked up by 5pm). Note to self: do not get a cat.

Ooohhh .. maybe I'll just blog about FOOD .. yes …

Top left: Restoran Malaysia (up on Major Mackenzie, east of Bayview Ave) .. they have a pretty good fried rice, complete with kerupuk (shrimp chips) and fried egg! YUMM!! Their rendang is good too. Next time I'll try their Char Kwey Tiaw .. see if it's similar to what Lion City has.

Top second from left: Finally I went to Licks! After all these years my friends just told me they'd go there with me but never actually did (heh!). I like their homeburger .. and the fries too (yes, I believe it is fried).

Top second from right: Golden Wok Seafood Chinese Restaurant (on 14th Avenue and Brimley) .. this is where we ate that “OH MY GOD! IT'S SO GOOD!” fried fish dish (see last blog). Their oyster was good too! Actually all of the dishes that my friend ordered were good. I think my friend kept the receipt so that if we ever go there again, we'll ask him to come along (since we don't know what he ordered). HAHAHA!

Top right: Royal Teahouse .. a new place for dim sum (the same friend, who suggested Golden Wok, suggested this place too) .. I like their eggtart (but then again, I love eggtarts. LOL!). And check out that cute fried buns pic .. how could one possibly eat it? And oh, what do you think they look like? Mouse? Rabbit? Porcupine?

Bottom left: Ajisen Noodle .. just opened on Yonge St. south of Finch Ave sometime last year. I like that kind of egg in noodles. Good food for a cold day.

Bottom second from left: Basil Thai Kitchen .. this is on Danforth Ave (I believe, east of Woodbine). Very close to my Curling club, but they're closed on Mondays when I curl. D'OH!!! They serve Thai, Malaysian and Burmese food. I told them to add Indonesian food there too. LOL! We tried a bunch of dishes .. they're pretty good.

Bottom second from right: Man Do Hyang .. Korean food on Yonge St. north of Cummer Ave. It was okay …

Bottom right: Matahari Grill .. this is on Baldwin St downtown. My friend took me there one day. I've never been interested to try it before, 'coz usually if I go to Baldwin St, I always go to the same restaurant (that one with the lobster dish! ). But their Nasi Lemak was not bad. The chili could be a little spicier, but that's just me .. hahaha.

YUMM!!!

P.S. Hey, fruity, what do you think of having all FIVE of your “fruity's blogging sins” all in one post, huh? MOAHAHAHA!

Hmm .. when was the last time I post a food blog … a month ago?! (Heh, that's a long time!). Hmmm .. I've been posting food pics to the food album though (that counts for something, no? ).

Anyway, I think I'll just write one blog for some of the places I went to …

Federick (top left): is in Scarborough (Ellesmere and Bellamy). We ordered their Spicy Chicken and Kan Shue green beans. Not too crazy about the green bean, but the spicy chicken was good. I should go back to Yueh Tung and eat their spicy chicken again to compare .. *grin*

Hello Noodle (top centre): is in North York (Yonge St. just south of Finch) .. good stuff! My friend said it's the same as Jim Jae Kee (spelling?) in Richmond Hill – the menu is the same. They only have noodle (we can pick from 3 kind of noodles – and either in soup or not), and either/combination of wonton (shrimp), beef and fishball. Great chilli!!!!
Now, I'm thinking of experimenting with them .. if I always order the same thing everytime I go there, how many times do I need to go until they say “The usual for you?” .. LOL!

Rex Saigon (top right): Sheppard/Brimley (across the street from Gourmet Garden food court. It's a Thai/Vietnamese buffet place. And they have nasi uduk! Well, not really .. but very close. Haha! It's coconut rice basically. They even wrap the rice in a leaf. It's an okay place if we want variety of thai/vietnamese dishes … their “make your own” vietnamese noodle soup is pretty good.

Lion City (bottom left): this one is in Mississauga. We ordered a bunch of stuff there .. let me see if I can remember .. hmm … some Coconut Rice, Curry Chicken, Belachan Kangkung, Oh Luak (egg + oyster stuff) and Wat Tan Hor Fun (or so my friend said). Yepp, we took a lot home for dinner the next day. HAHA!! Hmmm .. yummmmm!!!!

IKEA (bottom centre): okay, so who says IKEA is all about bookshelves and chairs and bed and non-edible stuff? They have this one-dollar breakfast thing served before 11AM (uhm .. plus 99 cents for coffee) and you get scrambled egg, a croissant, saussages and hashbrown. I'm not sure what else they put in the scrambled eggs – it tasted interestingly different than the other scrambled eggs I've tried so far. But today was the first time I went there for the breakfast, so I don't know if it always tastes like that or today was different. I guess I'll go back to test it .. lol! But for a buck, I'm fairly satisfied (and so far I don't have a stomach ache from the egg .. hehe!).

The the bottom right pic .. it's a pic of my creation!! Haha! I had some tempe and chilli lying around in my refrigerator, and then my friend's mom gave me some green beans (I believe the green beans were from her garden ) .. so I thought why not cook them together. It was oh, uhm, okay ..

Dinner at Mei Chuen Cafe (southeast corner of McNicoll and Middlefield in Scarborough). Ordered their ox tongue dish .. haven't had ox tongue in a long time.
Must admit that it didn't look too good when it came out, looked like it was gonna be “tough” … but when I tasted it, oh, it WAS good (and tender too)!!!

Hmmm .. not too crazy with their sambal (chili) though … hehe ..

Another Summerlicious lunch, this time with my co-workers (hmm .. team bonding thing?). We went to this restaurant in the Entertainment District called Fred's Not Here. I didn't remember that I've been there before this, but when I got there I realized that's the same restaurant where I tried ostrich meat (or I think it was). Hmm .. don't think I took a pic of that dish, but I remember it exactly 'coz my friend's friend's boyfriend commented that he liked my “courage” to try different food when I wasn't sick (when I met him the first time in OTT, I was sick, so I didn't eat a lot ).

Anyway, back to now .. the things I chose were okay .. only the Creme Brule was great! LOL!!

The Lunch appetizer selections:
Chilled Gazpacho with Balsamic Drizzle
or
Fred’s Jump-Up Vegetable Soup
or
Mixed Field Greens with Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Aged Balsamic & Sun Dried Tomato Bread Stick
or
Guinea Fowl & Vegetable Pot Stickers with Chili Vinegar Sauce
or
Baked Escargot Purses with Mushrooms, Romesco Sauce
or
Grilled Calamari with Roma Tomato Sauce

The Lunch main entree selections:
Jump Fried Szechwan Chili Shrimps with “Bang Bang” Noodle Salad, Peanut Chili Sesame Dressing
or
Grilled Kobe Beef Burger with Pancetta, Yam Yam & Yukon Gold Frites
or
Indian Buttered Chicken with Basmati Rice & Pappadums
or
Roasted Filet of Sole with Roasted Lemon Garlic Butter, Spinach & Red Skin Potatoes
or
Slow Cooked Confit Leg of Duck with Lemon Spinach Risotto
or
Fancy Mushroom Stuffed Ravioli with Sautéed Baby Portobello, Spinach, Grano Padano Truffle Cream

And some Chef’s Dessert Selections (Creme Brule or some fruit ice thingy or some chocolate cake — they don't list this on their website ).
So, was the team bonding thing successful? Maybe … maybe … LOL!!

Summerlicious is back!

That's when some of the “fancy” restaurants (ummmm … the “big plate little food” places .. HAHA!) in the city try to promote their place by serving lunch and dinner for less price than what they usually charge (between $15 to $35 – that's in Canadian dollars, please don't ask me to convert it to US$ ). We can pick from a selection of appetizers, entrees and desserts.

So, for lunch today, my friend and I went to Canoe (up on the 54th floor of the TD Centre Tower) in downtown T.O. We got a table right by the window .. we could see the lake and the Toronto Islands, and also the CN Tower, the Rogers Centre (formerly Skydome) and the Air Canada Centre. Awesome view!!!

The Lunch appetizer selections:
Peaches and Cream Corn Soup, La Ferme Duck Confit & Smoked Pepper
or
Warm C’est Bon Goat Cheese, Walnut Crostini Sledger Farms Organic Radish & Wheat Berries
or
Mixed Summer Greens, Pommery Champagne Dressing,Squash Pickles

The Lunch main entree selections:
Roast Breast of Organic Chicken, Globe Artichokes, Truffled Navy Beans & Parsley Crème Fraiche
or
Baked Heritage Salmon, Cookstown Blues Klondike, Haricots, Spiced Tomato Jam & Olive Sauce
or
Egg Fettucini, Marinated Sheperd Peppers, Pine Nuts & Tomato

The Lunch dessert selections:
Maria’s Cheesecake, Mulled Strawberries, Bonacini Rhubarb & Gingerbread Crisp
or
Molten Cake, Pistachio Ice Cream, Soma Mayan Spiced Chocolate Sauce

Hmmm .. oooooookay, so I don't know what exactly was in the food that I selected .. but it was a good lunch .. and a good break from work!

Two restaurants in this blog (save space .. HAHA! Yeah, right…):

In search for more food … this time, my friend and I went to Kimling Restaurant (Southeast corner of Lawrence Ave./Birchmount in Scarborough). It's more like me searching for new food, 'coz my friend's been to the place before. LOL!
Good stuff! We ordered 4 dishes for two of us .. err, how crazy was that?! (Okay, don't answer that ). Yepp, you guessed it .. we doggie bagged some. The fried noodle (which I forgot the name already – will ask my friend at some point .. hehe) reminded me of one noodle dish from back home. The Lemon Fish and Chili Chicken were good. And the best dish of the night was the “Stomach” dish (picture on the left) – can't remember the name either, but it was oh so good!!! It has some sort of (diced) pickled veggies (sayur asin) in there. Ooohh!

We also tried Jerusalem Restaurant (on Leslie St between Finch Ave and Sheppard Ave). No, NOT in the same day!
It's an Iranian restaurant – moved there from Leslie/Finch area after being “kicked out” by Asian Legend. We went for their buffet. Pretty good food! There was a birthday party there. Then they started dancing on the aisle (we had live music and the restaurant wasn't too crowded at that time) and asking people to start dancing too. And most people did! I could've sworn from my friend's face, that if he wasn't on crutches, he'd probably be on the floor too. HAHA!

Hmmm … I don't think I've ever tried an Iranian food before, so last Friday was the first time. There's this place on Yonge just south of Finch called Super Khorak that sells Iranian food. We went there to get dinner after spending some time walking around the block and me taking pics of my friends' CUTE 9-months old baby! Oooo … I love cuddling the baby .. she's very strong now, and moves a lot .. haha! Yeah, I guess we'll see when she starts to crawl and walk …

Back to the food, we got Lamb Shank and Veal/Eggplant .. they're pretty good!! Not sure what they put in the veal/eggplant dish, it tasted a bit strange for me (still good though). The Lamb was great!

We also saw people having a bbq .. spring is here, and so is the bbq season! We should go for a picnic at some point … oh yeah!