Dumpling Restaurant

I find dumplings so comforting to eat.  Reminds me of the days when I was a kid and would help my mom wrap dumplings for dinner.  Mom's dumplings are always the best.  I try and make them at home now, but they never taste the same.  Every so often I will buy frozen dumplings from the supermarket because they're convenient.  They don't necessarily taste very good, but they will do when you're hungry and need something to put in your instant noodles.

Whenever I pass by Peachtree Plaza, I see this very plainly named restaurant, named Dumpling Restaurant.  We went on a Saturday night for dinner, restaurant was quite empty.  Which usually isn't a good sign, but there's so much competition in Richmond Hill/Markham for Chinese food, that I just ignored it.  I was just expecting to see dumplings and noodles on the menu.  Strange enough, there's a Korean food section.  I guess it may have something to do with competition with the Korean restaurant right next door?

I have to apologize, I didn't take pictures of all the dishes we ordered.  And because it has been a while since we ate there, I may not remember all the dishes we ordered either!  From what I remember, we ordered a cold Korean noodle, bibimbap, steamed dumpling, pan fried dumpling, and deep fried dumpling.

This was the very first time i've tried the Korean cold noodle.  My cousin has told me many times before how good it is.  But it's kind of strange to see a piece of fruit floating in a savoury broth.  I'm not a fan of the salty sweet combo, so I just avoided the shredded Asian pear.  It was so delicious and refreshing.  There was also kimchi, cucumber, boiled egg and some sort of meat in there.  The noodles were the sweet potato noodles, so it had a good chewy texture.

Cold Korean Noodles

The bibimbap was nothing out of the ordinary.  Just like any other bibimbap you order at a Korean restaurant.

Bibimbap

The dumplings were very good and seemed very fresh.  I think we ordered a pork steamed dumpling and a deep fried seafood dumpling.  The deep fried dumplings were so good!  The skin was nice and crispy.  We also ordered a pork and leek pan fried dumpling but I forgot to take a picture of it.

Steamed Dumplings

Fried Dumplings

For dessert we ordered a caramelized sweet potato dish.  The sweet potato is cooked and covered in a sugar syrup that is cooked to a hard ball stage.  You take a piece of sweet potato and dunk it into a bowl of cold water and the sugar becomes hard and crispy.  I've had it at other restaurants and it's usually pretty good.  But here, there were some pieces that were good, and some that seemed uncooked.  I'm still wondering if it was uncooked or if the sweet potato was bad.  Next time I come i'll probably just stay away from dessert.

Dumping Restaurant
8362 Kennedy Road, Suite A5
Markham, ON L3R9W5
(905) 604-7288

Panagios

Whenever I drive towards Scarborough Town Centre, I pass all the car dealerships and some random strip malls.  I noticed once day this restaurant, kind of looked like a coffee shop with a name I've never heard of.  Panagios, what is it?  After running the Toronto 10-miler, I felt like I deserved to eat something heavy.  I have learned and come to accept that there's not many good breakfast joints to choose from up in suburbia, unless you are looking for HK Style Cafes.  While googling, I came across the name Panagios and a bunch of the regular chain greasy spoon breakfast joints.  I usually try and stay away from the chains, just not a fan of them.  I really do prefer the mom and pop owned restaurants.

Panagios is a very cute diner that is only open for breakfasts and lunches.  I was starving so I quickly ordered my Eggs and bacon meal.  Hubby ordered their big breakfast that has eggs, variety of meats, and french toast.  A friend ordered their eggs Florentine.  Size of the meals were big and very filling.  Excellent treat for after running :).

Eggs & Bacon Breakfast

French Toast

Big Breakfast

Eggs Florentine

Pangios
1928 McCowan Rd
Scarborough, ON M1S 4K1
www.panagios.ca

IÖGO Yogurt

I normally try and update my blogs in chronological order of when I visited a restaurant, or cooked a dish or tried a new food.  IÖGO yogurt has made break my process!  This yogurt is completely DISGUSTING!  I got 2 of the regular single serving yogurts from my mother in law.  Flavours were kind of strange to begin with.  One was a pineapple coconut, the other was peach passionfruit.  I tried the pineapple coconut first.  Smelled decent, colour was ok and had little chunks of pineapple in it.  I found it too sweet, fake sweetener sweet and oh my was it liquidy!  I'm not sure if its because I normally eat Greek yogurt now, or what.  The consistency of this was more like a watered down smoothie!

A few days later I ate the peach passionfruit yogurt.  I really didn't want to, I told the hubby to eat it, but he kept delaying it.  And no, it's not because I grossed him out by telling him how bad the first one was, it's just that he's too forgetful.  I open up the yogurt and am surprised with this weird pinkish orangish colour.  It's so weird I had a hard time describing it to the hubby, closest I got was maybe a peach or skin coloured crayon.  I really should haven taken a picture.  How can this company claim that they don't use artificial colours?  There's no pink in peach OR passionfruit.  DISGUSTING!

I really did want to like this product because of all their healthy claims and funky branding.  I guess I'll stay with my trusty Greek yogurt from Liberte or Kirkland.

Kinton Ramen

It's been a long while since I have posted anything here.  Lots of stuff has happened in the last few months, all good, making it hard for me to find the time to post on here.  I have continued on eating and taking pictures of all that I have eaten.  Now all I need is to find the time to blog about it.

Kinton Ramen, I went when it first opened, sometime in June.  I think I must have went on the hottest day possible.  At that time, they hadn't installed the glass partition in the kitchen yet, so it made the entire area HOT!  You know it's really hot in there when while you are eating you have sweat rolling down your face, and when we finished eating and walked outside, it felt cooler outside than inside.  And outside that day with humidity was low 40's!  They have since installed a glass partition, but I still find it quite warm in the restaurant.

For each soup base you order, you get a choice in light, or regular broth and pork belly or pork shoulder.  The three of us ordered a gyoza, Miso regular broth with pork belly, Shoyu regular broth with pork belly and Shio regular broth with pork shoulder ramens.  They also have a strange cheese ramen that I didn't have enough courage to try, just sounded too strange to me.  I always like to try the most basic of anything the first time I visit restaurant to see how well something is done.  The simpler the dish, the harder it is to make.  No masking of the flavours this way.  Just the pure flavour comes out.  The gyoza was nothing special.  Tasted like a normal pan fried dumpling/gyoza.  I have never been given the option of light or regular broths before.  I didn't realize that regular broth means chunks of pork fat floating around the broth.  It was not a pretty sight.  Aside from the chunks of pork fat, the broth tasted very good.  Thick and almost creamy, lots of flavour.  Never had ramen with a broth like this in Toronto, Japan yes, here no.  Broth flavour wise, I preferred the Shio as it was lighter tasting.  Miso and Shoyu was way too salty for me.  Pork shoulder was too lean, a bit too tough.  Pork belly, was like a thick slab of bacon!  They even torch it right before serving!  Delicious!  Last but not least, the perfectly cooked egg!  Again, never seen a egg cooked like this before in Toronto!  The only thing I didn't like was that the egg seemed to have a soy sauce flavour.  The outside of the egg was slightly brown too.

Overall, so far I think this is the best ramen spot in Toronto that I've discovered so far.  I have yet to try Momofuku (although I heard it's quite disappointing compared to the NYC location).  The broth here, the light version, so comforting!

Gyoza

Shio Ramen

Miso Ramen

Shoyu Ramen

Egg

Kinton Ramen
51 Baldwin St.,
Toronto, ON
M5T 1L1
647-748-8900
Hours:
Lunch Monday to Sunday 11:30am - 3:00pm
Dinner Sunday to Thursday 5:00pm - 10:30pm
               Friday to Saturday 5:00pm - 12:00am