Fun Hand Held Blender!

For Christmas Ian's parents bought me a PC Handheld blender item. I used to blend soups and stuff in my food processor, but that meant horrendous amounts of cleanup. Now I pop off the blade and am finished!

Back in day, Ian used to make milkshakes with one of these things so he is thinking of getting back into it!

Here is a picture of me making some tasty beet-carrot soup.

Thanks Ian's parents (I have been instructed by secretive Ian to not reveal names!).

Young Thailand

Went with some friends for dinner to Young Thailand on Church. This may be the first thai restaurant in Canada, but it certainly is not the tastiest.

To start with, the waiter seemed quite preturbed by the people requesting separate bills and he refused to do it so we decided to split into two groups. Then when I tried to pay my share with a $20 he said he did not have change, nor would he let me bill less than $25 on my credit card. All very inconvenient and un-cool.

I had sweet and sour tofu and it was the hardest tofu I have ever eaten. Not sure if the tofu was old and/or just sadly overfried. The other veggie eaters red curry tofu, glass noodle salad and fried rice....dishes were ok but a bit overpriced. Most veggie dishes 8-11 with meat 10-13. Not really worth it in my opinion. Also upsetting, I ordered sticky rice with peanut sauce which they did not have so they brought me steamed rice. Then they charged my 2.50 for the steamed when it should have been 1.90. Very upsetting and a major ripoff to have to pay that much for rice, when most decent places include steamed rice for free.

The final verdict, not very tasty and a thumb down for value :(

Wacko Bread Maker

Ian and I just got married and got lots of bay $ so I went and bought a cuisinart breadmaker. I will review more later, but it appears to have some jam cycles. How is that for bizzare??

Fun Thai Avocado Salad

I used to be against avocado and called it "green butter" but it is actually pretty tasty.

I made a salad type item with:

Avocado, diced
Red pepper, green onion diced
Lots of fresh cilantro
Dressing with lime juice, olive oil, salt
Throw some dried coconut and peanuts on top
Put on top of some normal lettuce/carrots/red cabbage mix''

Assembling is pretty self explanatory and if you cannot figure it out, I would just recommend going out for some thai food...

The TO Grocery Store Low-down

For those who are new to the area and/or feel they are paying too much for groceries, here's the situation from a cheap person's point on view.

AVOID: Dominion, it is your worst enemy and only ok if you are settling in for a night of drinking and fogotten to buy chips or perhaps you are heading out to a party and said you would bring desert and everything is closed.

AVOID: Rabba, yes it is convenient, but believe you me, you pay for that convenience. The fried chicken items do smell tasty though...

OK: Loblaws, Zehrs, Real Canadian Superstore. I'm lumping these all together, yes the stores look pretty and you can buy fresh baked muffins and sushi sets, but prices are a bit steep compared to the discount genre. I was a bit mystified when I came to Ontario because real canadian is THE cheap place to go in AB. Not the case in Ontario. I should have known when they didn't make me pay $0.05/plastic bag and there were actually people bagging my groceries.

Good (by good, I mean cheap): No Frills. Ian and I (well I) shop at Rennie and Liz's No Frills. We used to shop at Joe's downtown, but they were on a subway line and beside walmart. In case you are mathmatically challenged, this means ALOT of people. Rennie's is a nice big store, not crowded and yes, very cheap, especially with some of their sales. Same deal for Mississauga stores. Generally clean/decent and CHEAP! Yeah! Also good, they carry the PC line of food which Ian and I are fans of.

Good: Food Basics and Price Chopper. Same deal as no frills, although IMHO not as nice and they don't sell PC items like the No Frill's do.

Anyway, that's the grocery store situation. My top pick is one of the larger, non-crowded no frills, but if you like nice and still not too steep, then go to the real canadian superstores.

Asian Farm Dissapoints, Whole Foods Good.

Got up somewhat early today and walked to the bank and then to Asian Farm to get Ian some fruit since the usual grocery store was a bit disappointing this week. It was about 9 AM and although they are supposedly open 24 hours, there was not a cashier in sight so I ditched the fruit and left.

They didn't seem to have very good deals on the fruit, no asian pears, no cheap pineapples. Also, there little outside tent didn't seem to be heated (aside from open doors to main building) and alot of the product seemed to be frozen.

On the way home from curling, I stopped by Whole Foods Market. It is the mother of organic/healthy/upscale grocery store chains. It is quite expensive, but really nice with lots of samples, weird vegetarian cooking related items, great bread, take-out, home-made sauces, soups etc. Ian and I went to one in NYC with a line-up basically circling the whole store. Yep, it's that good. Even better, for those gas guzzling types out there, they validate parking if you spend $25.

Fressen

Went with the brunch crowd to Fressen (Vegan, Queen West). Three people had my usual brunch item, sweet potatoe with corn fritters (come with about 8 side dishes and fruit). I tried a more lunch type item, a black bean avocado wrap with brown rice, dahl, salsa, guacamole, fruit. Quite tasty overall, the rest of the crew seemed to like their waffles, stews etc. The tea is kind of a fun item to get. Same with the fresh fruit juices.

Final verdict is Very Tasty with a 1 thumb up for price (most dishes $8-9 for ALOT of food).

Ikea

Ian and I occassionally go for the Ikea $1 breakfast. For this very small amount of $, you get a crossoint, potatoe, sausage and egg (or something like that). Only till 11am.

If you go after 3 pm, you can have a deelightful plate of pasta with tomatoe or alfredo sauce and some tasty cheese for $1. If Ian and I lived closer, this place would definately be a main-stay of our diet.

Also recommended is the fro yo. Large serving for $0.75? with a very tasty somewhat strong vanilla flavor.

Big Bowl

I went out with the work crowd to Big Bowl (I think?) on Dundas between Churhill and Erin Mills. The place is a vietnamese place that seemed to have some Thai stuff. As a general rule of thumb, I I avoid vietnamese food due to the extreme meatiness, but this place actually had a 4-5 item veggie section.

Vicky, who seems to be sort of an authority on pho, thought her dish was good. Two others had vermicelli and they seemed to like it. I had tofu and veggies on rice and it didn't have a heck of alot of flavor, although the fried tofu was fantastic. I think I made an ordering mistake and should have gotten the veggie pho like Anne recommended. I would give this place a tasty rating and a 1.5 thumbs up in the cheapness department. Most dishese were in the 5-6.50 range.

Tim Horton's

Sorry for the neglect, Ian and I were busy getting married in Edmonton and we didn't eat out that much + parents house only has dial-up.

Today I had to go to the vast industrial wasteland near Stelco/Dofasco. On the way home, I swung by Tim's and got a small egg salad with coke and a sprinkle donut, all for $4.27 tax included.

The sandwich was super tasty, bread was really good, egg salad light and yummy. Lettuce so-so, but didn't really detract from the sandwich. If you add up the whole meal, it is about $1 cheaper than our caf at work...must never eat there again, unless in a huge hurry!

Nutella

Argghhh, am sick, but not sick enough to prevent blog updates!

Usually I eat PB and jam or honey on pita or bagels for breakfast. I ocassionally go the gym at work in the mornings and buy breakfast at the caf. Last time I thought I would order nutella and it was actually pretty tasty. My main motivation was Ian, as I thought the nutella would cost the caf more than PB and this way I was getting better value. Yeah, I know, that's really cheap!

New Gen closed

Vicky went on the weekend and apparently New Gen is closed due to a fire. They seem to be renovating and will hopefully open in the new year. In the mean time, if you are on the bloor strip between bathurst and spadina you can try the Real Thailand weekday lunch special, Himalya lunch buffet, roti palace on Bathurst anytime or for an inferior sushi place, go across the street to big sushi. Also Sarah's shawarma next door, although watch out for the cleanliness. Also good, Sarah's italian on north side of bloor, goldfish in the same area too. Ok but a bit pricey. Oh yeah, future bakery is good, I have never eaten a meal there but people seem to like it. Deserts are good.

Asian Farm

This place is not a restaurant, it's a grocery store located on Spadina just south of Dundas. It's a rather small place, but they make good use of the sidwalk and seem to pack in the merchandise and people. I come here occassionally if I don't need to buy alot of stuff (namely when Ian is outta town...he's a big eater of things not found in an asian grocery store). Today I picked up some fresh chinese noodles, fried tofu, mushrooms, bok choi, 3 red/orange/yellow peppers, 2 asian eggplant, napa cabbage, 2 fuji apples, 2 asian pears and a whole fresh pineapple for the low low prices of $10.71!

They also have a meet and seafood counter at the back. It's all a bit sketchy/smelly with stuff sitting around in bins, but people seem to buy it so it must be alright. There are lots of sauces, teas, mystery dried items, obscure veggies, odd chinese fruits and lots of mystery frozen items.

The bottom line, it's cheap and the stuff is decent if you don't mind being a little pushy.

KFC

To counteract the vegetarian-ness of the recent posts I thought I should mention my Thursday outing to KFC/Taco Bell. I went with a few guys so we decided that we sould share a bucket. So 3 of us split a 12 piece bucket. To avoid being hungry when the chicken ran out I also got a spicy chicken burrito and a hard taco. For some reason, with the bucket they threw in a 2L thing of Pepsi. Yes I know Pepsi is the wrong cola but free is the right price. Overall this was enough food. I did of course feel dirty after eating that much grease but once in a while probably won't hurt the lifespan that much. As to the tastiness, I highly recommend the spicy chicken burrito. Of course it's not actuall spicy but it is tasty. As to the chicken, it was average. Better than what you get on Toonie Tuesday (if that still exists) but of course not even in the same league as good chicken like the Swiss.

Bo De Duyen

Ian has left a week ahead of me and gone back to Edmonton, so this will be a vegetarian food review bonanza for the next week!

Bo De Duyen is a chinese vegetarian restaurant on Spadina near Dundas. I arrived about 12:30 and was the only one there so I was a bit concerned that everyone else knew something about the place that I didn't! By the time I left at 1:15, the place was getting full, so I felt a bit better.

I have been to Be De one other time about 4 years ago and had a veggie, tofu, mushroom hot pot which was pretty tasty. This time I went with Lunch "Combo B" which included hot or cold soy drink, hot and sour soup and braised tofu, mushroom and veggie with rice. Also a pot of good green tea. I am normally not a fan of soy milk, but this stuff was alright. Same goes for the hot and sour soup, it was actually pretty tasty...much better than, for example, the spring roll chain's soup. Stir fry was good, rice was good. Lots of different mushroom and bok choi varieties as well as my favorite, deep fried tofu. As far as the deep fried tofu is concerned, it was only average. All that food for $6.84 tax included. A "Tasty" on the Ian scale with a "1.5 thumbs up" for value.

Also of note, this place a huge menu with all sorts of faux chicken, beef, seafood, duck etc. Have never tried it, but perhaps next time.

Martin's House

Tonight our manager had the whole crew (50-80 people?) over to his mansion in Milton. Growing up in Sherwood Park, I have seen some rather large houses, but this one certainly gives the park ones a run for their money.

I forget the name, but it was some chef college catering the event. There was a rather sparse selection of liquor, but that was ok since I was driving anyway. More or less wine with non alchoholic stuff. Wine was good though. Appetizers were tasty, sushi, stuffed mushrooms, mystery pastry items.....mmmmmm. Then came the hot buffet with salad, bread, rice with nuts/seeds in it, roasted mushrooms, very tasty artichokes. Turkey, chicken and rack of something for the meat eaters. Then finally the best assortment of deserts since Josh's wedding at the Metropolitian hotel this past summer. About 5 very good cakes and assorted cookies and pastries. All in all, a "Very Tasty" rating.

Alice Fazooli's

Last night was curling fun, tonight was my company young engineer Christmas party. About 40 people met at Alice Fazooli's lounge and had drinks and appetizers on the company. Everything was pretty decent, but I will bump it up to fantastic due to the freeness!

Leaside Curling Club

I am a member at Leaside and yesterday we had a little fun curling and Christmas party event. On the menu was PC meat and veggie lasagna, garlic bread and salad with deserts that people brought in. The veggie lasagna was a bit cheesy, but overall pretty tasty and I will perhaps buy it if I have a crowd coming over. Final verdict, the leaside ladies put on a good Christmas party!

Korean place on Baldwin

Friday lunch last week as at the Korean place on Baldwin, I'm sure it has a name but alas I do not know it. This week I had a squid dish instead of my usual bul-go-gi. For 6.99 + tax and tip you get a plateful of goodness and rice along with soup and random items, korean style. Not a spectacular bargain. Really we should go another day than Friday when the daily specia is something I like (On friday's it's beef (maybe that's implied) bi-bim-bop which isn't exactly my favorite)

Sushi on Bloor

Well today was fun final exam marking. The only fun part is that lunch is provided. Usually it's boring pizza but today we convinced them to get us sushi. We ordered platters from Sushi on Bloor (surprisingly it's on Bloor just east of Bathurst). For 45 bucks you get 90 pieces of sushi and maki. A pretty good deal. There was salmon, tuna, shrimp, a mystery sea item, and good old simulated crab. In terms of maki there was salmon, spicy salmon, california and various others. Overall a good deal I think. The tuna was surprisingly good I thought initially when I ate the first piece of it but the next one was a dud. Tuna fell to its usual position of second to Salmon, the king of the sea.

While we were out picking up all the sushi, pizza arrived. Unfortunately, people who know my meat eating ways tried to eat all the meat heavy pizza before I returned. I was stil able to get one piece but not nearly enough. Regardless I was still able to eat a disgusting amount of food.

The big question of the day is how much should we have tipped on take out. It's a lot of work for them - 4 big platters, but it is take out.