Guido & Angelina (Montreal)

Last night, I went out for dinner with R&S in downtown Montreal to Guido & Angelina's.

The price was right, but the food not spectacular. Calamari was a touch rubbery but definitely plentiful for the price.

My main course of mushroom risotto was delicious and too much for one person to eat. Lasagna and cannelloni were ok, but not great.

So overall a decent place and a good place for a party or a big crowd.

Les 3 Brasseurs (Montreal)

Montreal pub at it's best or perhaps busiest, this place is nearly impossible to get in on Fridays after work, or even late evening.

Ian and I enjoyed a moderately priced pint each with some free peanuts for me. Total cost was $12.

The blonde & amber are probably the tastiest among the brew made on site, but of course grouchy Ian thought his tastest like pipe cleaners? Like what the heck is that flavor and how would he even know that???? Has he been munching on pipe cleaner lately??

Lola Rosas (Montreal)

Time in Montreal is possibly winding down a bit, but on the plus side this means more Toronto postings for our faithful blog readers!

My coworker & I went to Lola Rosas in the heart of the McGill student ghetto. It is vegetarian that leans toward Mexican, although there were a few others cultures represented. The garage that houses Lola's was well renovated and the tables were especially cute & antique-like! Check out the notes in the drawers for some wisdom from past customers.

My black bean burrito was alright, nothing special, but the included side salad had a delightful peanut/orange flavored dressing. My coworker enjoyed her hemp burger with salad, chickpea salad & side of beets. Both dishes about $10. Big eaters will leave hungry. Next time I will try the nachos- they looked awesome with big hunks of avocado thrown on top!

Dessert was a highlight - a warm brownie with chocolate sauce and ice cream for the very moderate price of $3.50.

Biryani House

Tuesday is Butter Chicken day at the Biryani House on Hayden and Yonge and from the line that was practically out the door this is a popular day and/or place. The chef's special (there's one for every day of the week) comes with the special plus two veggies. The rice is then topped with some daal. Everything was tasty and it even stayed warm on the long walk back to the office. Next time though I think I will try to swap a veggie for more daal.

Dessert was a little rice pudding. The emphasis is certainly on the little. No complaints about the quality of it but it almost didn't seem worth having a spoon for the quantity of pudding provided.

All this food rang in at $6.77 (but they gave a quarter back in change from 7 bucks). I'll definitely be back but it's a painful walk since it requires walking by the empty restaurant that used to be the Green Mango take out place. I don't think I'm over that loss yet.

And More Korea....Andong Chicken

On our Andong heritage village adventure, we went to a house in the village for the local speciatly chicken. This had a good amount of tasty sauce, lots of chicken, some noodles, potatoes, onions, carrots and greens. Add rice & side dishes and it was way too much for 3 people to eat. A good deal for $22 all in!

It was the only chicken we ate on the entire 2.5 week trip.

Hero Burger

Today for lunch, I went to Hero Burger in Hazelton Lanes. I hadn't been to this location in quite a few years but the menu was basically unchanged. I decided to be healthy and only had a 6 oz Hero Burger. The toppings are the "star of the show" as Janice would say. I, of course, stick with the free toppings. Today, I went with their BBQ sauce that was a Maple Chipotle BBQ sauce which Janice would have been all over. Aside from that I had the normal mustard, pickle, tomato and onion. I've had moister burgers but overall, the Hero version of the Ian Burger was pretty tasty.

Combo's were priced at 2.20 more than a burger alone. Since fries by themselves were $2.40, it's a pretty good deal even with the free pop back at work so I had a combo.

My only complaint (I have to have one) is that the place no longer seemed to have the same upscale burger joint it used to have. Sure it's still in Hazelton Lanes but it felt a lot more production and McD like than it used to feel like. Perhaps it was just an off day for the crew.

Korea Again - Pancake this Time!

This is the same place as the tasty dumpling joint in Insadong Seoul. Seafood pancake seemed to be a speciality in Korea, particularly with squid. It is somewhat misleading for the veggie or non seafood fan, as these squid pancakes often showed up in the English translation as "green onion" or "vegetable" pancake!

This one was legitimately veg, making me happy (although I don't look it from the picture)! The waitress wasn't shy about going at it with scissors, thus saving me the hassle of slicing into bite size pieces with my chopsticks!




To the left of the picture, you can see an almost empty bowl of glass noodle salad..mmm. To the right is full kim-chee...ewwwww.

Top 10 Healthy Foods

Janice vs Ian showdown on which person eats more healthy food. I've collected top 10 lists from 3 reputable and not so reputable sources for the comparison. J stands for Janice, I for Ian.

And the results....

Total score is Janice 22. Ian 21. So fairly decent scores out of 30.

Scroll down for the details...

Mayo Clinic Top 10

1. Almond (J)
2. Apples (J + I)
3. Blueberries (I)
4. Broccoli (J+ I)
5. Red Beans (J + I beans in general)
6. Salmon (J + I)
7. Spinach (J + I greens in general)
8. Sweet Potatoes (J + I)
9. Veggie Juice (I)
10. Wheat Germ (nope)

Food Network Canada

1. Berries (J+I)
2. Legumes (J + I)
3. Citrus fruit (J + I)
4. Lean Meat (J+ I)
5. Olive Oil (J + I)
6. Nuts & Seeds (J)
7. Salmon (J + I)
8. Tea (Nope)
9. Veggies (J + I)
10. Whole Grains (J)
    

Canadian Living for Kids

1. Wholegrain bread (J)
2. Blueberries (I)
3. Yogurt (J)
4. Sweet potatoes (J + I)
5. Nut butters (J)
6. Beans (J + I)
7. Broccoli (J + I)
8. Omega 3 eggs (nope)
9. Avocados (I more than J)
10. Organic chicken (I regular chicken)

One More Korea - Beef Cartilage Stew

One more post...or at least the last one till I look through my Korea pictures again!

This was a small restaurant near my sisters place outside Cheonan. Their specialty is beef cartilage stew. Once it cooks down, meat gets infused with broth tastiness and starts to fall off the bones. Until this point, it's a bit tough to eat. The broth was delicious and there were lots of tasty mushrooms, greens and a few potatoes. Add a couple of baps on the side and a few side dishes and it's a pretty filling meal for about $6/person.

Here's my sister enjoying the stew:

Mikasa (Montreal)

From the looks of the website, this is a Montreal area mini-chain. We ventured out to the downtown peel location.

This seems to be quite a popular place and it was starting to get busy about 5:30 on Wednesday night. By the time we left, it was starting to fill up.

The meal started well with some yasai tempura (veggie). Light and crispy topping with great vegiges including mushroom, squash, eggplant and zuchini. Others seemed to enjoy seaweed salad with grilled octopus.

Main course was a fantastic custom veggie sushi platter including mini avocado, squash tempura rolls and a rather expensive fruit sushi ($13 I think for 4 pieces). The other sushi was a bit more reasonable at $4 to $6 I think.

Others liked salmon sushi & grilled seafood platter. I would definately go back, but not too often due to price!

Photo credit to Stephen S.

Trattoria Trestevere (Montreal)

This place appears to be among the more traditional/less trendy places on Crescent.

Dinner started well with some tomato-cheese crostini on the house. The co-workers arugula salads & tomato-bococcini salads were all delightful and fairly large servings.

The main courses were fun to order. Many of the pastas were names I did not recognize, so I was asking the waiter for translation. He gave up on that and started designing pastas around my choice of sauce, rose. The first few selections were meaty, but I chose the last one with fungi.

My veggie coworker went with my pasta, one guy had another custom pasta - penne arribiatta with spicy sausage. The carnivorous food guru had a massive veal chop with potato & veg.

The pastas and veal were all fantastic. Large bowls with great sauce. The rose was interesting - it was more like Alfredo with their tomato sauce ladled on top. Price was pretty decent too...about $18 or so I think for the pastas.

Where Rice Comes From...Korea!

In particular, these rice fields are near Andong at the Hahoe folk village.

More Korea - Bibimbap & Bulgogi

These were two lunch time staples in Korea and we generally ate at least one of these each day.

Bibimbap kinda varied, but the general theme was rice mixed with mushrooms, greens, onion, bean sprouts, seaweed and spicy hot sauce. In the mountains, you could order "mountain veggie bibimbap" but as far as I could tell it was pretty similar to the city!

I especially liked the dolsot bibimbap where it was served in a very hot stone pot and a raw egg was added. You immediately stir and the egg cooks in the pot. Ian is eating that type in the second picture.

Bulgogi came either pre-prepped to your table as a sweeter beef stir fry kind of dish (first pic, lots of mushrooms on top) or as a stew with beef and other assorted tasty veggies in broth (second pic).

El Fogon '08

We hadn't been out for Peruvian for a while so this weekend we hit the Peruvian strip in Toronto. (It's more commonly known as St. Clair to Toronto folk despite the two Peruvian places only blocks apart.) Of course we went to our favorite El Fogon.

To start things off I shared some Papas a la Huancaina with Janice. It was tasty as usual. Others had some Ensalada Criolla that seemed to be well liked.

Bread was fresh & light and came with some garlic hot pepper sauce.

As main courses the majority had Lomo Saltado while Janice broke from the herd and had Tacu Tacu. The Lomo Saltado was enjoyable as it had a nice flavour. My only complaint was that it was a little light on the lomo (beef). Overall though it was good with huge portions which always make me happy. The rice seemed to be reasonably peruvian so it was a nice change from the varieties we have at home. Janice seemed to like her Tacu Tacu as she devoured it (despite the large portion) and moved on to preying on the onions in my saltado.

With the big portions we had to skip dessert. Overall it was a good meal and we'll definitely be back.

North 44

Ian has finally graduated, so his parents were in town for convocation and a celebration dinner. Ian of course was riddled with indecision regarding restaurant selection but in the end he chose North 44, the location of a previous celebration dinner. It seems to be unanimously liked according to Toronto's food snobs & picky people.

Sorry about the pics about to follow - lighting was not great, but you can get the overall idea!

Appetizers included:

For Janice - cured tasmanian sea trout with potato pancakes. I had my eye on the heirloom carrot salad, but was swayed at the last moment. It was all pretty tasty, although the potato pancakes could have used some more excitement.
For parents #1 & 2 - they shared a pear watercress salad. They seemed to enjoy. The waiter was pretty on top of things - they just mentioned quickly that they would share and the salad came out split in half in 2 separate bowls!

Ian had seared tuna sashimi and he raved for quite a while on it. I was impressed by the rather large serving for $21 and the cuteness of the quail egg.
The bread basket was good with a nice variety of fruit, olive and french.

Main courses were the highlight. As per last time, everything was perfectly cooked (perhaps as you would expect for about $40 each).

I went with Indian spiced beef short rib with potato puree & wilted greens. There was even some okra floating around in the tasty indian spiced gravy! The short ribs were plentiful & no knife was required to eat this dish.


Ian went with the black cod. The fish was a hearty portion, perfectly cooked with onion dumplings & a generous amount of pre-shelled edamame. All was delicious and Ian is now convinced that all edamame should come pre-shelled. In particular, this fish was well cooked and the layers flaked right off in perfect form.

The parents has tuna with mushroom dumplings & european sea bass with crab & mussels.

Desserts were all $14 and well worth it!

The parents shared and I had my own creme caramel. It came with a surprising amount of extras including chocolate sorbet with some sponge toffee pieces and a bit of mystery sweet fruit. The caramel itself was a bit unusual with some salt on top. It was a bit more interesting than the typical creme caramel.



The happy customer below finishes off 1/3 of his chocolate sampler dessert with a shot of cumin spiced hot chocolate. This was a bit odd, but definitely tasty! Chocolate/banana mousse & a cheesecake were also included in the sampler.


Overall, we agree with the T. food snobs & this is a winner for a celebration dinner.

Calabash

Last week was a bit unusual. I was at home sitting around and Janice was at work bringing in the rent money. Oh wait, that isn't unusual. What was unusual was that Janice decided to spend a day in the Mississauga office so I ventured west for a lunch time rendezvous. I picked up Calabash. Janice has been before but this was my first time.

I had the chicken roti and I ordered Janice a veggie roti with channa and eggplant. All told it was around $15. I really feel I should get a discount for take out but we'll save those complaints for another time. I didn't have to wait long for the roti and luckily I was travelling against the Sheridan Park lunchtime rush so I was able to quickly meet Janice's with the warm rotis. I'm apparently not trustworthy enough to be given a vistor badge so we ate outside despite the brisk breeze.

As you can see, for Janice, it was more of a working lunch.


I did eventually pry her away from the berry and we dug in. It was pretty good. I still prefer the palace but if you're out in sticks then this is definitely a good option.

Taco Bell

Last week I tried to get back into the swing of North American eating as quickly as possible and to me that means fast food! We had our first hit with harvey's at YVR which was a walk down memory lane since I used to frequent that Harvey's/Swiss outlet back in the day. Anyway, that wasn't enough so I also went to KFC/Taco Bell last week. I had the fiesta platter with a chicken burrito for 7 bucks. For fast food, it was amazing!

The platter comes with chips, salsa, beans, rice and your item (a burrito in my case) and they're all on a nice platter - hence the name. They also gave me a cup for a drink. I'm not sure if that's normally included since the menu didn't mention it but I wasn't about to argue. Overall, it's a decent amount of food for a somewhat reasonable price but I really wish they'd throw in a KFC item to complete the meal. (Since as you know I have a longstanding relationship with the Colonel).

This was a big change from my usual habit of getting multiple Taco Bell and KFC items but I'll definitely get this platter again. Sadly though there are no KFC/Taco Bells near my new office so we'll have to get Janice to cross the border for some weekend lunches at Taco Bell.

Pho 24

In October I ate a lot of phở. Some pho was cheap, some pho was pricier but in general it was all tasty. I don't have anything against chains so I did check out one popular chain, Pho24, a few times. Checking their website they have restaurants popping up everywhere and not just in Vietnam. Apparently they're also in Australia, Cambodia, Singapore, Korea ... so check it out.

Anyway, as suggested by the name the chain focuses on Pho. I generally stuck with well done and less fatty cuts of beef. These never disappointed and the results were reasonably consistent across the different franchises I went to. I'm no phở snob though so refined palettes may disagree about the consistency.

Once when I felt like spending a lot ($5) I got a combo which included spring rolls (nem ran or some variation thereof) and a pop. Unfortunately, the spring rolls weren't spectacular.

Overall, I liked the chain and I'd go again. My only complaint as usual was the price. Street pho or even non-chain restaurant pho can be obtained for significantly less. Sure those places usually don't have AC so when you've just lost your body weight in sweat, paying a little more for hot pho that you can eat in a cool place doesn't seem like a terrible trade-off.

One partial regret is that I never tried chicken pho (phở gà) . I always planned to save it for some time when I felt the need for Vietnam's answer to dieta de pollo. While it's fortunate I didn't need this solution, I might have liked to try it to see how it stacks up.

Insider's Report - Christmas 2008

The new Insider's Report is out and there a few interesting items!

Here are some of the items that I may try:

• PC Entrees - Shrimp & Penne - This is one of these fast saute things. I'm not generally a fan of the concept as they're usually a little pricey (these are $6.99) but I'll probably give these a try.
• PC Wild Black Cod Fillets - Apparently black cod is the latest sensation. We'll find out if it's a taste sensation
• PC Dulce de Leche Cheesecake - Last year we tried out the then new PC dulce de leche and we definitely liked it. Now they've combined it with the cheesecake. I usually prefer chocolate on my cheesecake but let's face it, I really like all cheesecakes so we may give this a try. The related pocket PC Dulce de Leche Ice Cream Desserts looked tasty when we saw them on the weekend. Sadly the health police (Janice) were also around so this item didn't make it into our basket. Maybe I'll dodge the police with a mid-week trip.
• PC Salsa Peach and Mango - Janice loves the sweeter salsas so I forsee this ending up in our basket if we see it.
• PC Fair Trade Chocolate - I will likely try this for obvious reasons.
• PC Our Best Ever Meat Lasagna - I like lasagna but we'll have to see the damage this new creation will inflict on my heart before we take the plunge
• PC Soups - Asian Chicken Noodle, Tomoato & Roasted Red Pepper Bisque - We recently cracked the last of our Trader Joe's soups so we have to find a new tasty soup source

I'm Back

I haven't blogged for a while but over the next few days I have a few topics that need to be covered.

You can look forward to

• Insider's Report - Christmas Edition
• Pho 24
• Taco Bell - Fiesta Platter
• Janice's Mississauga Roti Place

Ginseng Chicken

Whole chicken stuffed with ginseng infused rice = moderately tasty chicken and gross rice!

See the small black pot in this picture.

Korea BR & DD Obsession

Baskin Robbins & Dunkin Donuts are basically on every block in major towns. These chains have taken a serious hold on the snack/dessert category in Korea.

Perhaps a cheesecake?


Donuts for the local taste...Ian thought it was OK.


Translation could use some work?


Fondue at baskin did not have the promised 31 flavors, nor was it a terribly good deal for about $12. Tastiness level was high though.



Ian goes forth west fondue cherry tomato. In Korea, tomato is truly treated as a fruit.

Misc Funny Korea Food Stuff

Ian meets the Colonel
Ian makes friends with the Kraze Burgers guy

Korea Street Food of the Dessert Variety

This was a favorite along Insadong in Seoul- deep fried donut with cinnamon brown sugar filling! For 900 won, the price was very right!



While waiting for our Changdeok Palace tour to start, we had some baked goods with red bean paste filling. The street vendors have these fun little mechanical baking contraptions to turn these things out hot and fresh. $1000 won for 6 of these little guys.



Basically a more popular version of the above. This time in fish format. 3 for a dollar.



Not shown, but rejected as gross by Ian and Janice - walnut cakes. Dough stuffed with a weird paste for quite a lot of $$$!