Saturday, January 16, 2016

Jatujak Thai Street Style Food

A while ago, I found an article titled “30 Of the Best Restaurants in Scarborough”.  Although I grew up in North York, Scarborough was foreign territory to me.  Scarborough never has anything that interested me, so I never ventured into that area.  I also find Scarborough a bit sketchy to be honest, theres some pretty ghetto looking areas……  Anyways, I sent this link to a friend and a few days ago I got a message from my friend asking if I was free for dinner and that we should try something from this best of list in Scar bough.  There were some restaurants on the list that we’ve tried already, so we were able to narrow down our choice pretty quick to Jatujak (also because we didn’t want to drive too far on a weeknight). 

I was pretty excited, the reviews on Yelp for Jatujak were pretty good.  And I love Thai food.  My favourite is Pai in the Entertainment/Theatre district.  But that’s FAR!  So I was really hoping that Jatujak would just as good so I wouldn’t have to go so far to feed my Thai food cravings.  For the four of us, I think we ordered a lot of food.  Guess it’s because one of the guys essentially eats the amount for two people.  Drinks, we got Thai iced tea, and a Nom Yen (Red Milk Tea).  The Thai iced tea I found was too sweet and too weak.  Previous iced teas I’ve tried usually has a really strong black tea base.  And for some reason, it smelled like grass jelly.  The red nom yen, supposedly a Thai specialty drink, smelled sweet and syrupy, reminded me of cough syrup.  It looked like Pepto Bismol in ice.  I wasn’t so keen on trying it.  The friend that ordered it said it was just meh….. 
Thai Iced Tea













For appetizers, we got chicken and beef satay (an order only comes with two skewers), lemon grass chicken wings.  I’ve never been a fan of satay skewers.  I’ve always envisioned the skewers to be barbequed at a high enough heat to cook the meat, not overcook it, and also carmelize the outside of the meat.  I’ve never had that, EVER……  These skewers had some colour on it, but very little, it could have been nuked in the microwave for all I know.  Served alongside the skewers was a salad.  It seemed to have pieces of iceberg lettuce, red onion, apple and green mango.  The salad was just ok, nothing special. 
Beef & Chicken Satay Skewers










Lemongrass chicken wings, looked like soy sauce chicken wings, lacked lemongrass flavour.
Lemon Grass Chicken Wings










For mains we ordered holy basil with chicken & egg, khao soi with beef, gaeng kiew whan with chicken, and pad see eew with beef.  The holy basil with chicken is my favorite dish when I eat Thai food.  I love how fragrant the basil is.  The chicken is cooked with the basil and served with steamed rice and a fried egg.  The chili sauce that was served on the side, was spicy and very salty.  I thought there would be some sweetness in the sauce but there wasn’t.  
Holy Basil Chicken










Khao soi is a must order for us whenever we see it on the menu.  When the curry sauce/soup/broth is done well, I eat it with any sort of white rice that’s left on the table.  This broth was just ok.  There was plenty of noodle, egg based I believe, and plenty of fried noodle.  But by the time I got to serving myself a portion of this dish, there was still plenty of noodle, but just one last piece of beef.  Complaints around the table with this dish was that the beef was tough….and tough it was.  
Khao Soi










Gaeng kiew whan is green curry.  The green curry had good flavour, just the right amount of spice, but was to thin consistency wise.  One thing I noticed was that the chicken in this dish, and the skewers had a bit of a rubbery texture.  The texture was similar to how Chinese restaurants do sliced beef, they typically ‘treat’ the beef with something, to soften it.  I wonder if they did that with the chicken here.  
Gaeng Kiew Whan








The pad see eew with beef was my least favorite of the bunch.  The dish is essentially sliced beef (there was a lot of beef), stir fried with vermicelli.  From what I saw and tasted, it wasn’t rice vermicelli, it was mung bean vermicelli.  And when mung bean vermicelli isn’t in a sauce of some sort, it clumps together.  So it wasn’t exactly appetizing looking.  Flavour wise, no basil flavour even though it’s supposed to be cooked in a basil sauce.  It again was heavy on the soy sauce flavour.
Pad See Eew










I have to say first of all, I have never been to Thailand, so I cannot claim that I know Thai food.  But in my own personal opinion I think overall, the food here is lacking something.  In Chinese it would be ‘wok hay’, extra fire?  For Thai food uptown, I would consider this to be better than any other Thai restaurant in Markham/Richmond Hill.  But I still prefer Pai over Jatujak.

Jatujak Thai Street Style Food
1744 Victoria Park Ave.,
Toronto, ON
M1R 1R4

Phone:  (647) 352-1744

Hours:  Monday - Sunday 11:00a - 10:00p

La Boheme Cafe

We had a friend come back from Hong Kong, and brought her coffee loving husband along to check out Toronto.  So I was going to take them to De MelloPalheta, my favorite coffee house uptown, but my friend overheard that I haven’t tried La Boheme Cafe and its on my to try list, she said we should check it out.

The inside of La Boheme is quite large, with plenty of tables for people to sit.  At the counter, behind the glass case, there were plenty of desserts and sandwiches to choose from.  I ordered a croissant and latte (they don’t do flat whites), the hubby ordered a spinach and cheese pastry/croissant and espresso macchiato.  The friends got a regular coffee and café au lait.

I’m not even sure I feel like going into detail about the coffee or food.  It was disappointing overall.  The latte lacked much coffee flavour, my friend said that her café au lait was disgusting.  The regular coffee took the longest to arrive.  The friend’s husband who loves coffee said that his coffee was ok, but then my friend said he also liked Tim Hortons coffee.  So loves to drink coffee, any type of coffee kind of guy I guess.  My croissant was large, but bready, not so buttery.  Hubby’s spinach and cheese croissant, they gave him a ham and cheese instead……when they changed it for him, I took a bite and it was like bread with spinach and cheese inside, nothing remotely like a croissant. Friend also ordered a blueberry tart and a macaron of some sort.  They didn’t finish either dessert.  I’m taking it as it wasn’t very good.   When I was paying for our food, I noticed a sign saying that the bread was from another bakery…..made me wonder if all of the breads and pastries are brought in from elsewhere…..  They do open pretty late for a bakery, so it only makes me assume all baked goods are brought in from elsewhere.
Latte & Crossisant











So if you’re in the area, skip La Boheme, and go a few doors north to De Mello Palheta where they have great coffee and cook their own baked goods!

La Boheme Cafe
2481 Yonge St.,
Toronto, ON
M4P 2H6

Phone:  (416) 489-2233

Hours:  Monday - Friday 8:00am - 7:00pm
             Saturday CLOSED
             Sunday 9:00am - 7:00pm

http://labohemecafe.ca (Not sure if the website is broken, but when I last checked it doesn't load)

Sushi Bong

Craving sushi?  Don’t have much money to spend?  Go to Sushi Bong!  I have to admit that it’s not the absolute best sushi, BUT, it is great value.  Portions are large, rolls have tons of filling, not a lot of rice, and most importantly, the ingredients are fresh.  When I used to have a random craving for cheap sushi, I would settle for T&T sushi.  I’m so glad I found Sushi Bong.  No more supermarket sushi for me. 

We ordered a spider roll, dragon roll and a salmon roll.  Everything together was under $25, pretty reasonable I thought, till I opened my take out boxes.  HOLY amazing deal!  We got in total 2 large sized square Styrofoam containers.  I thought was a bit strange at first, considering the size of the T&T rolls I normally get, I assumed everything would fit into one single square Styrofoam container.  Turns out that one container held the spider roll.  There were 2 huge rolls in there, for one single order. 
Spider Roll













The dragon roll and salmon roll was in the second box.  The hubby normally doesn’t comment much on his food.  He just eats.  This time he was like, “OMG, look at the amount of salmon in this roll!!!  There’s so much fish, more than rice!”  Proportionally, there was definitely more fish than rice.  In all 3 of the rolls, there was definitely more filling than rice.
Dragon Roll and Salmon Roll











Sushi Bong has 2 locations.  Both locations have very minimal seating.  So if you can, try to do take out instead of dine in.

Sushi Bong
7181 Yonge St.,  Unit 27
Markham, ON
L3T 2B2

Phone:  (905) 597-2200

Parts & Labour

Located in the up and coming hipster-ish part of Queen West, it is located quite far and out of the way for me to randomly go.  But after hearing from some of my food loving friends that Parts & Labour has half priced cote de boeuf on Thursday nights, gave me that extra push/incentive to go and check them out.  The cote de boeuf is normally $120 and serves 3 or more.  Half priced would be a steal!  I also used it as an excuse for another birthday dinner.  I have some other friends who have birthdays in November and beginning of December, so off we went.

Beef, beef, beef!  We were so excited.  The restaurant wasn’t as full as I was expecting, but then again, our reservations was for 8:30pm, which I think is pretty late for dinner.  But because of other circumstances, that was the earliest time that we could go.  My dining companions/friends had already tried out Parts & Labour, but a while ago.  They recalled that the burger was pretty tasty so we ordered one of those also.  I of course wanted some veg.  So we also ordered a beet salad.  The mac and cheese also looked interesting so that was part of the order as well.  An order of the cote de boeuf comes with mashed potatoes, creamed corn, and broccoli & cheese sauce.

Their ‘infamous’ mac and cheese arrived first.  Looked like any other mac and cheese, but topped with crushed Cheetos.  Taste wise, we just ok, nothing spectacular.  I think I prefer the sauce I make. This sauce actually reminded me of Kraft mac and cheese.  I did like the crushed Cheetos on top.
Mac and Cheese













Next was the beet salad.  The beet salad had beet puree, pickled beets (mild), shaved baby beets, charred ricotta and beet root dressing.  They were supposed to have puffed buckwheat but ran out, so they subbed with pistachios. Loved all the flavours and everything in there (minus the pistachios, I just picked them out). 
Beet Salad










The burger arrived next.  Looked like any standard burger.  We divvyed up the burger into quarters and dove right in.  Taste wise, the burger reminded me of McDonalds.  Or what I remember of McDonalds, since it’s been over 10 years since I ate a beef burger at McDonalds.  It’s been 6 years since I ate anything McDonalds.  I have to admit, beef taste and quality way better at Parts & Labour.  What I didn’t like about the burger was the bun.  I found it too soft to hold up to the meaty burger and the toppings.  My friend said she loved the soft bun for burgers.  So taste preference then.
Burger and Fries










Moment we’ve been waiting for, the cote de boeuf arrived with its sides.  The beef was cooked slightly too rare for my liking, but the others at the table liked it.  I just ate less centered slices.  Very tender (minus the one piece where I got a piece of tendon/muscle), and very good beef flavour.  One friend said she found it lacking beef flavour, but others agreed with me, and liked it.  What I didn’t like was the bordelaise sauce.  I assume it was some sort of red wine reduction.  I’ve never liked my beef with sauce or gravy in general.  I always think if there’s a good cut of beef, why try and cover up the natural flavours with something?
Cote de Boeuf
Sides













For dessert we ordered their small donut.  The small donut isn’t really a donut per say, it’s more like a fritter.  Because there are some food restrictions at the table, we had to get the toppings separate from the actual donut.  I wasn’t a fan of the donut.  It was very dense and bready, even a bit oily.  I would pass on this next time.
Donut











Parts & Labour
1566 Queen St. W.,
Toronto, ON
M6R 1A6

Phone:  (416) 588-7750

Hours:  Dinner  Tuesday - Saturday 6:00p - 11:00p
             Drinks  Friday - Saturday 11:00p - 2:00a
             Brunch Sunday 11:00a - 3:00p

http://www.partsandlabour.ca/
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