Lots of good treats here!
Green mango - $6 for pad thai (kinda boring) + green mango curry chicken (very good & lots of chicken) + 1 spring roll (large and sufficiently crispy).
Kingsway Fish & Chip - $6 for two mini pieces of battered fried fish + a hearty serving of chips & tartar sauce. This place is always good, although not exactly good for the arteries!
Chutneys Indian - $5 for a rather small portion of butter chicken and plain rice. Definitely not worth the money and probably the worst butter chicken I have ever eaten. The chicken was pretty tomato-y and lacked flavor. Where's the creamy goodness??? Ian and I both felt happy that we haven't wasted our money and eaten at this restaurant. The head booth lady was also rather mean and rude to her assistant. Kinda awkward all around.
Cafe Demetre - $3.50 for a decent sized waffle cone with lots of premium ice cream choices. Cookeo for me and Tira Misu for Ian.
Showing posts with label Indian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indian. Show all posts
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Tandoori Flame
After an hour or two bemoaning the lack of Indian buffet in our neighborhood, we hopped in the car and ventured out to Brampton to Tandoori Flame.
The lunch buffet was about $17 each and included just about any Indian dish you could ever want. Lots of rice, veggie & meat curries, three kinds of tandoori chicken, grilled veggies, salads, appetizers etc etc. I don't think Ian or I had a complaint about anything and usually we are rather picky. There was so much selection here, one had to be strategic to avoid filling up the tummy before sampling everything.
Desserts were also good - rice pudding, gulab jaman, bright orange stuff, squares, cake & ice cream bar. I was especially impressed with the ice cream - it looks like they actually replace the tubs pretty frequently. Most of these self serve buffet ice cream buckets appear to linger for months with just a little bit left on the bottom than people are too scared to eat.
As a side note check out the website for a laugh. It is quite slick and NOTHING like the restaurant!!!
The lunch buffet was about $17 each and included just about any Indian dish you could ever want. Lots of rice, veggie & meat curries, three kinds of tandoori chicken, grilled veggies, salads, appetizers etc etc. I don't think Ian or I had a complaint about anything and usually we are rather picky. There was so much selection here, one had to be strategic to avoid filling up the tummy before sampling everything.
Desserts were also good - rice pudding, gulab jaman, bright orange stuff, squares, cake & ice cream bar. I was especially impressed with the ice cream - it looks like they actually replace the tubs pretty frequently. Most of these self serve buffet ice cream buckets appear to linger for months with just a little bit left on the bottom than people are too scared to eat.
As a side note check out the website for a laugh. It is quite slick and NOTHING like the restaurant!!!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Aromatherapy
For lunch the other day, we headed over to Aroma on King for some delightful Indian lunch buffet. It's perhaps not the best place in town, but it does have "close to our house" going for it!
Skip the salad bar & head straight to appetizers. Try the greatly improved samosas (vs a few years ago), a pakora and a papandum. I like to make a chutney brew-ha-ha with yogurt raita, mango chutney and red mystery sauce.
Standard meaty offerings include butter chicken, tandoori chicken, goat curry and beef curry. Quality of chicken is a bit suspect with weird chewy or hard pieces swimming around in the tasty butter chicken sauce.
I generally stick with veggie - today was chana masala, eggplant curry, potato/broccoli curry and saag paneer (I think). Ian of course was not pleased by the lack of lentils, but he ate some extra butter chicken to help him get over it.
Ian goes for some dessert in the pic below - butter chicken with rice, gulab jaman and rice pudding. Generally, some iffy melon & ice cream round out the dessert offerings. Stick to the gulab and rice pudding!
Nominal price is $10.99 but for two with tax, tip and tap water total bill came out to $28.
Skip the salad bar & head straight to appetizers. Try the greatly improved samosas (vs a few years ago), a pakora and a papandum. I like to make a chutney brew-ha-ha with yogurt raita, mango chutney and red mystery sauce.
Standard meaty offerings include butter chicken, tandoori chicken, goat curry and beef curry. Quality of chicken is a bit suspect with weird chewy or hard pieces swimming around in the tasty butter chicken sauce.
I generally stick with veggie - today was chana masala, eggplant curry, potato/broccoli curry and saag paneer (I think). Ian of course was not pleased by the lack of lentils, but he ate some extra butter chicken to help him get over it.
Ian goes for some dessert in the pic below - butter chicken with rice, gulab jaman and rice pudding. Generally, some iffy melon & ice cream round out the dessert offerings. Stick to the gulab and rice pudding!
Nominal price is $10.99 but for two with tax, tip and tap water total bill came out to $28.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
India Palace
We eat Toronto is back in Toronto and celebrating New Years day by going out for buffet. India Palace is located on the mini-strip on Queen and was generally quite packed from 12:45 to 1:30 when we were there.
Lunch started off well with about 10 chutney varieties to go along with tasty veggie samosas, pakora and papandum. Generally, as a rule of thumb at Indian buffet, I skip salad but this place actually had some fresh looking items.
My veggie main course consisted of rice, delightful yellow daal, chana masala, mushroom curry, mixed veg curry and cauliflower/potato curry.
Ian enjoyed chicken tandoori, shrimp curry and other misc meaty items.
Dessert was decent with gulab jaman, rice pudding, fruit and custard.
Price was 11.95 each or $30 all in for 2. I give Indian Palace 1.5 thumbs up out of 2. My only complaint was table cloths were too long making getting up and sitting down rather precarious and involving lots of spilled water and the like. Ian felt the food was a bit cold, so good thing this joint seemed to have pretty high turnover or food poisoning seems iminent!
Lunch started off well with about 10 chutney varieties to go along with tasty veggie samosas, pakora and papandum. Generally, as a rule of thumb at Indian buffet, I skip salad but this place actually had some fresh looking items.
My veggie main course consisted of rice, delightful yellow daal, chana masala, mushroom curry, mixed veg curry and cauliflower/potato curry.
Ian enjoyed chicken tandoori, shrimp curry and other misc meaty items.
Dessert was decent with gulab jaman, rice pudding, fruit and custard.
Price was 11.95 each or $30 all in for 2. I give Indian Palace 1.5 thumbs up out of 2. My only complaint was table cloths were too long making getting up and sitting down rather precarious and involving lots of spilled water and the like. Ian felt the food was a bit cold, so good thing this joint seemed to have pretty high turnover or food poisoning seems iminent!
Monday, December 29, 2008
India Garden (Edmonton)
This is supposedly the best (most authentic) Indian joint in E-town, but last night, the locals speculated that the main chef was taking a break. The location is a bit odd - right in the industrial area off the Sherwood Park Freeway.
The buffet was nominally $13.95 for dinner, but with an "elephant beer" x 2 and 2 dinners, we ended up spending $41.
The salad bar was skip-able (as per most Indian buffets). Mulligatawny soup was moderately delightful with some veg floating around in there. Rice was plain, but good. Veggie pakora was a bit different - mainly cauliflower with a salty slightly spicy covering and then deep fried. Certainly less batter than normal.
Lots of veggie options including yellow lentil daal, channa masala and egglplant/pepper curry. Meat eaters enjoyed goat curry, butter chicken, fish tandoori and chicken tandoori.
Crispy light naan came in baskets to the table.
Desserts were a highlight of the night - good rice pudding, warm gulab jaman, yellow custard item, pumpkin- coconut fudge (I really don't know what this stuff was, but it was pretty tasty) and fruit salad with pomegranate seeds.
Final consensus from the Toronto people - stick with Toronto for Indian buffet!
The buffet was nominally $13.95 for dinner, but with an "elephant beer" x 2 and 2 dinners, we ended up spending $41.
The salad bar was skip-able (as per most Indian buffets). Mulligatawny soup was moderately delightful with some veg floating around in there. Rice was plain, but good. Veggie pakora was a bit different - mainly cauliflower with a salty slightly spicy covering and then deep fried. Certainly less batter than normal.
Lots of veggie options including yellow lentil daal, channa masala and egglplant/pepper curry. Meat eaters enjoyed goat curry, butter chicken, fish tandoori and chicken tandoori.
Crispy light naan came in baskets to the table.
Desserts were a highlight of the night - good rice pudding, warm gulab jaman, yellow custard item, pumpkin- coconut fudge (I really don't know what this stuff was, but it was pretty tasty) and fruit salad with pomegranate seeds.
Final consensus from the Toronto people - stick with Toronto for Indian buffet!
Friday, December 12, 2008
Mysore (Montreal)
After a failed Pacu Pacu Peruvian mission up St. Laurent, Mysore jumped out like a haven of tastiness. This rather large restaurant was packed at 9 on Saturday night, so it seemed like a winner.
We went with the veggie combo DD for 2 ($39).
The meal started well with delightfully crispy and flavorful papandums with carrot chutney. Also nice, was a 1.5 L bottle of water on each table that we seemingly did not have to pay extra for. The appearance of the bottle of course caused Ian some future bill stress, but when the waiter cracked it open & started pouring without asking us, he felt a bit better.
Then came 2 tasty samosas with yogurt mint sauce and 6 mini onion bhaji cakes with tangy red mango sauce. Better than usual.
Main course was rice with veggies, yellow lentils (a trade for spinach & potatoes), dry cauliflower curry and saucy mixed veg curry. Came with naan.
Dessert was coconut square & gulab jaman.
All dishes were great and did not suffer from the usual Indian food affliction of greasiness.
Service was a little on the slow side, but food came out pretty fast. Decor was a notch up from typical Indian Toronto buffet type places.
We went with the veggie combo DD for 2 ($39).
The meal started well with delightfully crispy and flavorful papandums with carrot chutney. Also nice, was a 1.5 L bottle of water on each table that we seemingly did not have to pay extra for. The appearance of the bottle of course caused Ian some future bill stress, but when the waiter cracked it open & started pouring without asking us, he felt a bit better.
Then came 2 tasty samosas with yogurt mint sauce and 6 mini onion bhaji cakes with tangy red mango sauce. Better than usual.
Main course was rice with veggies, yellow lentils (a trade for spinach & potatoes), dry cauliflower curry and saucy mixed veg curry. Came with naan.
Dessert was coconut square & gulab jaman.
All dishes were great and did not suffer from the usual Indian food affliction of greasiness.
Service was a little on the slow side, but food came out pretty fast. Decor was a notch up from typical Indian Toronto buffet type places.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
5th Elementt Christmas Party
Ian thought of a brilliant opening line for this blog, but on further wikipedia research by me, the line seems to have fallen apart.
Here it is:
"The 5th elementt supplements the usual 4 elements - earth, water, wind and fire with mediocrity"
But it does appear that people besides the classic greeks (namely Asian people), consider additional elements for a total of 5.
Regardless, we will ignore fact and stick with the mediocrity theme.
Ian finally has a job and with any job, this means Christmas Party! The company has enough people and guests to rent the restaurant out & require supplemental plastic chairs.
Drinks started somewhat poorly, with $7 a hit for a rum and coke and $3 for my cranberry juice. If we had known juice was not free, Ian could have hooked me up with free beverage from work.
Appetizers were yummy with plentiful chicken korma chunks on toothpicks. Ian had about 5 of these and at one time remarked "it's looks like a whole chicken per appetizer platter". Too bad chicken korma at local Indian buffets does not have chicken chunks this big floating around in the sauce. A+
Then came bruschetta with chicken. The chicken did not add anything and in fact detracted from an otherwise decent appetizer. Wikipedia does not recommend chicken and we all know this website is an authority on food... C+
In short supply were decent, although greasy, spring rolls, veggie/sun dried tomato pinwheel pasty and a goat cheese pasty. B
Then came the wait...from sitting down to bread & wine we waited about 40 minutes. Clearly this party overwhelmed the kitchen & wait staff. But I guess what restaurant owner in their right mind would turn down a packed house and lots of liquor sales on a weeknight.
When bread finally arrived, it was a nice herb bread with olive oil & balsamic. Perhaps not enough for our table of 8 though. No refills arrived.
House wine was poured - Jackson Triggs cabernet sauvignon. Our table were non-drinkers, so Ian and I enjoyed for the rest of the table.
Plated appetizers were the star of the night. Ian enjoyed some pan sauteed black cod with white beet. This was an incredibly large appetizer with a whole large fillet of fish on the plate. A bit bland, but pleasant overall. My salad of lettuce, Asian pear and mango was delightful & light. Others as the table enjoyed pork something...again a dinner sized portion. B-.
Main courses started a sharp decline. Huge chunks of pesto coated Chilean sea bass suffered from a rubbery texture and lack of flavor. The luke-warm (at best) temperature of the meal really was a detriment to the fish & sides (mashed potato & spinach). I could not stomach about more than 1/3 of the fish. D+.
Not very many positive comments on lamb. Chicken with rice seemed to be the best choice of the night.
Dessert was a bit of a fiasco. We were unfortunately one of the last tables served, so this meant no chocolate mousse for Ian. It seems as though the waiters let people change their mind at the event thus resulting in not enough mousse by the time they got to us. If they were that tight on dessert, why let people switch from their original order they made a few weeks in advance?
In the end, we both ended up with gateaux mango & lychee. Fairly pleasent, but Ian was still a bit grouchy about the whole experience. C+.
Here it is:
"The 5th elementt supplements the usual 4 elements - earth, water, wind and fire with mediocrity"
But it does appear that people besides the classic greeks (namely Asian people), consider additional elements for a total of 5.
Regardless, we will ignore fact and stick with the mediocrity theme.
Ian finally has a job and with any job, this means Christmas Party! The company has enough people and guests to rent the restaurant out & require supplemental plastic chairs.
Drinks started somewhat poorly, with $7 a hit for a rum and coke and $3 for my cranberry juice. If we had known juice was not free, Ian could have hooked me up with free beverage from work.
Appetizers were yummy with plentiful chicken korma chunks on toothpicks. Ian had about 5 of these and at one time remarked "it's looks like a whole chicken per appetizer platter". Too bad chicken korma at local Indian buffets does not have chicken chunks this big floating around in the sauce. A+
Then came bruschetta with chicken. The chicken did not add anything and in fact detracted from an otherwise decent appetizer. Wikipedia does not recommend chicken and we all know this website is an authority on food... C+
In short supply were decent, although greasy, spring rolls, veggie/sun dried tomato pinwheel pasty and a goat cheese pasty. B
Then came the wait...from sitting down to bread & wine we waited about 40 minutes. Clearly this party overwhelmed the kitchen & wait staff. But I guess what restaurant owner in their right mind would turn down a packed house and lots of liquor sales on a weeknight.
When bread finally arrived, it was a nice herb bread with olive oil & balsamic. Perhaps not enough for our table of 8 though. No refills arrived.
House wine was poured - Jackson Triggs cabernet sauvignon. Our table were non-drinkers, so Ian and I enjoyed for the rest of the table.
Plated appetizers were the star of the night. Ian enjoyed some pan sauteed black cod with white beet. This was an incredibly large appetizer with a whole large fillet of fish on the plate. A bit bland, but pleasant overall. My salad of lettuce, Asian pear and mango was delightful & light. Others as the table enjoyed pork something...again a dinner sized portion. B-.
Main courses started a sharp decline. Huge chunks of pesto coated Chilean sea bass suffered from a rubbery texture and lack of flavor. The luke-warm (at best) temperature of the meal really was a detriment to the fish & sides (mashed potato & spinach). I could not stomach about more than 1/3 of the fish. D+.
Not very many positive comments on lamb. Chicken with rice seemed to be the best choice of the night.
Dessert was a bit of a fiasco. We were unfortunately one of the last tables served, so this meant no chocolate mousse for Ian. It seems as though the waiters let people change their mind at the event thus resulting in not enough mousse by the time they got to us. If they were that tight on dessert, why let people switch from their original order they made a few weeks in advance?
In the end, we both ended up with gateaux mango & lychee. Fairly pleasent, but Ian was still a bit grouchy about the whole experience. C+.
Monday, December 01, 2008
The Host
With American thanksgiving last week, a calm settled over the office on Thursday and Friday so there was enough time to head over to the Host for their Indian buffet on Friday. I'd been years ago a la carte but I hadn't ever had their lunch buffet (available Thursday through Sunday).
The buffet is in a back little room which is sort of a step up from the normal restaurant set up where the buffet dominates the whole room. I picked up my plate and immediately bypassed the salads. (For the interested, there seemed to be a number of them. They looked alright and were generally green in colour.) The first items that I picked up were some papadum and a pakora. Both were good but offered no real surprises. They also had spring rolls whose presence I did find surprising so I skipped them.
I moved on to the rice which was tasty. They had 3 or so vegetarian dishes but I was very displeased that there was no daal. I tried to make do with the chana masala but nothing can compete with good daal. I don't have the same love for butter chicken that most people harbour but I did find their butter chicken reasonably tasty with decent sized chunks of meat. You certainly didn't have to dig around the dish to get the meat as you sometimes have to on Queen St. I also had the beef and some tandoor chicken. The beef was reasonably tender and the tandoor I quite liked as again the chicken pieces were large.
I ate and then repeated the process again placing the most emphasis on the butter chicken.
I went onto dessert after that. They had a fruit salad (with pineapple!), kheer/rice pudding, carrot cake and gulab jamon. I of course tried them all more than once. The gulab which is usually my favorite were only alright. The balls looked terrific. They were slightly smaller than the typical gulab I've encountered. However, I really prefer the gulab warm so it was disappointing when they weren't. Other than that the taste was great. Janice would have loved the carrot cake with its delightfully sweet icing. I had no problems with the rice pudding and as noted previously the pineapple in the fruit salad made my day (well it made the fruit salad if not my day).
As with every sit down place in Yorkville, nothing comes cheap. It was 15 dollars all in although if you're willing to wait for awkward amounts of change you could get by with 14.25 problem.
The buffet is in a back little room which is sort of a step up from the normal restaurant set up where the buffet dominates the whole room. I picked up my plate and immediately bypassed the salads. (For the interested, there seemed to be a number of them. They looked alright and were generally green in colour.) The first items that I picked up were some papadum and a pakora. Both were good but offered no real surprises. They also had spring rolls whose presence I did find surprising so I skipped them.
I moved on to the rice which was tasty. They had 3 or so vegetarian dishes but I was very displeased that there was no daal. I tried to make do with the chana masala but nothing can compete with good daal. I don't have the same love for butter chicken that most people harbour but I did find their butter chicken reasonably tasty with decent sized chunks of meat. You certainly didn't have to dig around the dish to get the meat as you sometimes have to on Queen St. I also had the beef and some tandoor chicken. The beef was reasonably tender and the tandoor I quite liked as again the chicken pieces were large.
I ate and then repeated the process again placing the most emphasis on the butter chicken.
I went onto dessert after that. They had a fruit salad (with pineapple!), kheer/rice pudding, carrot cake and gulab jamon. I of course tried them all more than once. The gulab which is usually my favorite were only alright. The balls looked terrific. They were slightly smaller than the typical gulab I've encountered. However, I really prefer the gulab warm so it was disappointing when they weren't. Other than that the taste was great. Janice would have loved the carrot cake with its delightfully sweet icing. I had no problems with the rice pudding and as noted previously the pineapple in the fruit salad made my day (well it made the fruit salad if not my day).
As with every sit down place in Yorkville, nothing comes cheap. It was 15 dollars all in although if you're willing to wait for awkward amounts of change you could get by with 14.25 problem.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
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.
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.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
The Indian Buffets (Queen St)
The Indian buffet strip on Queen just east of McCaul is now home to higher prices. All the places, India Palace, Trimurti, etc have upped their prices to 10.99. That's unfortunately starting to exceed the grad student budget. Luckily, I won't be a grad student forever so maybe one day in the near future I'll be able to go back
Friday, April 18, 2008
Restaurant Asha (Montreal)
The coworkers & I went to Restaurant Asha on Parc Ave in Montreal. Despite somewhat awkward service, we received a whole bunch of tasty food.
Dinner started out well with some papandum. Dip of some sort would have been helpful.
Appetizers consisted of samosa and onion bhaji. A little too much deep fried action for me, but the other two guys seemed to enjoy quite a bit.
We each picked a main course and I was a little surprised when veggies trumped the meat-i-ness. Chana masala, curried mixed veg and my choice, chicken korma, were all tasty and did not suffer from the usual Indian affliction of greasiness.
We ordered a naan and some rice on the side too.
Dinner started out well with some papandum. Dip of some sort would have been helpful.
Appetizers consisted of samosa and onion bhaji. A little too much deep fried action for me, but the other two guys seemed to enjoy quite a bit.
We each picked a main course and I was a little surprised when veggies trumped the meat-i-ness. Chana masala, curried mixed veg and my choice, chicken korma, were all tasty and did not suffer from the usual Indian affliction of greasiness.
We ordered a naan and some rice on the side too.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Run for the Cure and Aroma
Thanks to the faithful blog readers that sponsored us on the run this past weekend. Those who thought they were sponsoring us on a 5km run will be pleased to hear that it was actually 5.6 km according to mapmyrun.com (the route was very different than previous years). That's a bonus of over 10%! For free!
Anyway it was a relief to see that it was longer than expected. I took 28:01 minutes and Janice was 30 and change. Somewhat disappointing as it ends our multi-year streak of continuously getting better times. Also disappointing is how much faster some people ran than us on Sunday
- the fastest marathon on Canadian soil happened in Toronto (2:09:30)
- the fastest marathon ever was run in Berlin (2:04:26)
so if I had run 5km alongside any of those people during their races they would have beat me by 10 minutes while still going on to run for almost another 2 hours.
After the run we broke with tradition and skipped fressen. Instead we went to Aroma for lunch. It lived up to it's usual standard except for gulab jamon which was awful. All of my gulab tim bits were rock hard. Disappoint but of course we'll likely forgive and forget.
Anyway it was a relief to see that it was longer than expected. I took 28:01 minutes and Janice was 30 and change. Somewhat disappointing as it ends our multi-year streak of continuously getting better times. Also disappointing is how much faster some people ran than us on Sunday
- the fastest marathon on Canadian soil happened in Toronto (2:09:30)
- the fastest marathon ever was run in Berlin (2:04:26)
so if I had run 5km alongside any of those people during their races they would have beat me by 10 minutes while still going on to run for almost another 2 hours.
After the run we broke with tradition and skipped fressen. Instead we went to Aroma for lunch. It lived up to it's usual standard except for gulab jamon which was awful. All of my gulab tim bits were rock hard. Disappoint but of course we'll likely forgive and forget.
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Random Stuff
A few fun topics for the limited number of readers we actually have:
1. On Friday night, we went to the veggie food fair. Some of the magic from other years seemed to be missing for some reason. It could be that I'm no longer a veggie. Perhaps it was Ian in tow? Could have been the King's Cafe ladies trying to upsell me on my dumpling/sticky rice purchase. Maybe the lack of power bar type items to sample?
2. We went to Aroma yesterday for buffet lunch. Tasty as usual, and a deeeelightful new curry cabbage dish. As you walk in and leave the joint, they have a glassed in tandoori area with a guy making naan bread. In the last year or so, it's been my thing to wave at the guy and he usually waves back. Yesterday, he got to the wave before I did! Ha ha! We've got quite the little thing happening.
3. The original plan was to go camping, but we ditched it due to rain and a leaky tent. Instead, we planned to go for a picnic to Bronte park. The Gardiner was closed so we made alternate plans to go to Cherry beach. All was deelightful, but they had half of the park blocked off with a chain link fence. Ian speculated that it was due to some sort of contamination. I tell him to not be silly. But alas, we get home and he checks the web and he appears to be correct!
Anywho, had some veggie burgers with hummus, avocado, cheese, ketchup on Pita Break cooked on old school coleman stove. Pretty tasty. Ian wants to upgrade to a hibachi so we can do meat in style.
The back was slightly burnt in the parents day, but the real damage happened earlier this summer with a scrambled egg/overpressured fuel cylinder incident.
Ian puts away lawn chairs.
4. T&T asian food markets come to town off Cherry Street across from the Cirque near the Docks.
Stocked up on dumplings, buns, fried tofu, seaweed and veggies.
1. On Friday night, we went to the veggie food fair. Some of the magic from other years seemed to be missing for some reason. It could be that I'm no longer a veggie. Perhaps it was Ian in tow? Could have been the King's Cafe ladies trying to upsell me on my dumpling/sticky rice purchase. Maybe the lack of power bar type items to sample?
2. We went to Aroma yesterday for buffet lunch. Tasty as usual, and a deeeelightful new curry cabbage dish. As you walk in and leave the joint, they have a glassed in tandoori area with a guy making naan bread. In the last year or so, it's been my thing to wave at the guy and he usually waves back. Yesterday, he got to the wave before I did! Ha ha! We've got quite the little thing happening.
3. The original plan was to go camping, but we ditched it due to rain and a leaky tent. Instead, we planned to go for a picnic to Bronte park. The Gardiner was closed so we made alternate plans to go to Cherry beach. All was deelightful, but they had half of the park blocked off with a chain link fence. Ian speculated that it was due to some sort of contamination. I tell him to not be silly. But alas, we get home and he checks the web and he appears to be correct!
Anywho, had some veggie burgers with hummus, avocado, cheese, ketchup on Pita Break cooked on old school coleman stove. Pretty tasty. Ian wants to upgrade to a hibachi so we can do meat in style.
The back was slightly burnt in the parents day, but the real damage happened earlier this summer with a scrambled egg/overpressured fuel cylinder incident.
Ian puts away lawn chairs.
4. T&T asian food markets come to town off Cherry Street across from the Cirque near the Docks.
Stocked up on dumplings, buns, fried tofu, seaweed and veggies.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Aroma
Due to yesterdays lunch gone wrong, we ended up at Aroma (Indian buffet). It was far far far busier than normal...perhaps because we slept in and were running behind? Or perhaps it was the crowd coming over from the "Learning Annex"/Donald Trump event. Quite a few people had the cheesy little names tags still stuck to their shirts.
Anyway, doesn't really matter why it's busy - but it translated into some rather poor service. Took forever to get seated, numerous requests for a glass of water, and had to make a request for naan bread that usually appears quickly.
Food was tasty though. Pickled beets, pakora, samosa, papandums with 3 kinds of chutney for appetizers. They have salads, but most seem kinda creamy so I avoided them. Main course was tasty rice, chickpea curry, tasty black lentil curry, mixed veg curry. Ian had butter chicken, tandoori chicken, curry goat and perhaps a beef dish??
For dessert, the gulab jaman seemed a bit picked over, but the pieces that I managed to snag from under the foil were tasty. Rice pudding, as usual, was good. Took it easy on the ice cream this time, but the bit of cherry that I had was good.
Pretty good value for $23 (for 2) including tax and tip.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Indian Palace
For Friday lunch the lunch crew and I ventured down to the queen st indian buffets. Babur, the king of the strip was out because, while it's very good, it's very expensive. Instead we tried for Trimurti but it was full. We finally ended up at the Indian Palace. Probably a good call because with their 8 meat choices and 6 veggie dishes there was pretty good selection. The chicken was in general boneless although definitely nowhere near the quality of boneless chicken Babur has. Butter chicken wasn't that great in my opinion and instead my favorite was this shrimp curry they had. For dessert, gulab jamon, a limited selection of fruits, a hearty rice pudding and vanilla or chocolate ice cream. I of course combined everything together to make a delicious concoction. The ice cream was a little too hard but everyone knows I'm not too picky so something like that wouldn't bother me excessively
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Trimurti
On a mission to try new cheap restaurants, I flipped through our old "Cheap Eats" book and headed to Big Bowl on Queen Street. Too bad the new "Cheap Eats 2006" book that I bought Ian for Christmas hasn't arrived yet, or it would likely have told me that this place is now shut down.
As a substitute, I went to the busiest looking of the 5 or so Indian buffets on the strip - Trimurti. For $8.95 = $11 or so including tax and tip, I got a not so great Indian food. First the appetizers: the deep fried stuff was tasteless and unfresh (pakora and samosa). The papandum didn't have the deelightful seeds baked in there. Salads were appalling and old looking. Veggie curry stuff (potatoe/spinach, chickpea, yellow lentil, peas/paneer) were equally tasteless and veggies were horribly overcooked. Meat stuff didn't look great either.
Rice pudding was edible, but again not much flavor. To spice it up, I threw in a few gulab jaman, they actually had a yummy flavor, but were icy cold so they lost a few points.
Next time, for $1 more, I will go to Aroma on King Street!
As a substitute, I went to the busiest looking of the 5 or so Indian buffets on the strip - Trimurti. For $8.95 = $11 or so including tax and tip, I got a not so great Indian food. First the appetizers: the deep fried stuff was tasteless and unfresh (pakora and samosa). The papandum didn't have the deelightful seeds baked in there. Salads were appalling and old looking. Veggie curry stuff (potatoe/spinach, chickpea, yellow lentil, peas/paneer) were equally tasteless and veggies were horribly overcooked. Meat stuff didn't look great either.
Rice pudding was edible, but again not much flavor. To spice it up, I threw in a few gulab jaman, they actually had a yummy flavor, but were icy cold so they lost a few points.
Next time, for $1 more, I will go to Aroma on King Street!
Friday, October 06, 2006
East
Went to East for dinner since we haven't been to anything from the Spring Rolls family in almost a month. Of course the satay pad thai with seafood was the daily "pay the regular price" special. It was tasty as always. Janice broke with tradition and had pad thai - except of the curry variety. Both were reasonably tasty although I seem to have something stuck in my throat from the meal. No idea if I will ever recover from that.
For lunch, we went to Gateway of India. I found the naan better than usual and I think this was the first time I went since they started having ice cream so that was a nice little surprise. Overall though not that tasty with the butter and tandoori chickens similar and boring. For the mini-restaurant strip on baldwin though that may be as good as it gets.
For lunch, we went to Gateway of India. I found the naan better than usual and I think this was the first time I went since they started having ice cream so that was a nice little surprise. Overall though not that tasty with the butter and tandoori chickens similar and boring. For the mini-restaurant strip on baldwin though that may be as good as it gets.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Bombay Bhel
I went with the work crew to Bombay Bhel (beside Mr. Greek) on Dunda/Winston Churhill in Missisauga.
I am generally pretty biased against restaurants in the burbs and find they are never as good or as cheap as their downtown couterparts....but....this place was actually alright.
It is Cindy's favorite and she comes about once/week for the chicken korma. I had the veggie thali with a super-duper monster piece of naan, rice, pickle thing, spinach-paneer curry, pea and potatoe curry and a lentil/bean curry. Came with savory yogurt thing and a rice pudding. Overall ALOT of food for my $9.99. All quite tasty. Others had the meat thali which was pretty similar to mine.
The only problem with this place was the pickle, it was revoltingly salty (and I even like salty things). Service was also a bit slow, the kitchen seemed to churn the stuff out, but with only one waitress for about 10-12 tables, it was some bad news.
Final verdict, "tasty" with 1.5 thumbs up in the value department.
I am generally pretty biased against restaurants in the burbs and find they are never as good or as cheap as their downtown couterparts....but....this place was actually alright.
It is Cindy's favorite and she comes about once/week for the chicken korma. I had the veggie thali with a super-duper monster piece of naan, rice, pickle thing, spinach-paneer curry, pea and potatoe curry and a lentil/bean curry. Came with savory yogurt thing and a rice pudding. Overall ALOT of food for my $9.99. All quite tasty. Others had the meat thali which was pretty similar to mine.
The only problem with this place was the pickle, it was revoltingly salty (and I even like salty things). Service was also a bit slow, the kitchen seemed to churn the stuff out, but with only one waitress for about 10-12 tables, it was some bad news.
Final verdict, "tasty" with 1.5 thumbs up in the value department.
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