Saturday, September 26, 2015

Sansotei Ramen Markham

I'm still super behind on my blogging.  The posts actually have been written, I'm really behind on posting.  But even though I'm so far behind, I feel like I need to post about Sansotei now, rather than waiting.  The reason for this is to let you know how bad I found the food to be.  A warning to stay away if you want good ramen.

Our line up on a Tuesday night, took abut 25 minutes, even though we arrived at 815p, which I thought should have been late enough for no lineup.  But given that it was still new, I guess a lot of people wanted to try?  We got in, and we were seated at a communal booth table.  We were starving, so we quickly placed an order for zangi (fried chicken), gyu don, tonkotsu black ramen and tomato ramen both with thick noodle.  Our waiter told us that they were sold out of the zangi, so we ordered the spicy slow cooked wings.

The slow cooked wings arrived first.  They did not look appetizing at all.  I guess partly because I didn't expect them to be soy sauce chicken wings.  The sauce was a combination of soy sauce, star anise, and chilis.  They were cooked well you could say, stewed for a long time, the meat was fall off the bone.  But I can't stand rubbery/soft chicken skin, so it was kinda gross.
Spicy Slow Cooked Wings










Gyu don arrived shortly after.  Beef and onions on rice.  The beef looked extremely fatty.  I hate the texture of fat, so I picked it off.  I wasn't left with much beef.  It was also ridiculously over sauced.  And for some reason the sauce was super watery.  After we scooped out a spoonful of rice, it was like a pool of sauce filled the empty space.  Shouldn't the sauce be thicker?  The sauce was also too salty.  What drove me nuts too was that the rice didn't appear to be Japanese rice, the grains didn't stick together, making me think it was Chinese rice.
Gyu Don










My tomato ramen was a tomato based broth, not sure if it used the same tonkotsu base, topped with pork belly, scallop and egg.  A bowl of perfectly cooked ramen must include a properly cooked egg, noodles cooked just enough, and a broth that has been simmering on the stove for a long time to produce the deep, smooth flavour.  First glance, it looked good.  But when I looked closer, the egg was slightly overcooked.  The egg yolk should still be soft.  It was mostly soft, but at the edge, I noticed that it was solid.  Cooking the egg this way is difficult, almost an art.  Maybe the chef is new and still trying to figure timing out?  The broth was just ok, it was smooth, it tasted tomatoey, but it also tasted like Thai tom yom flavouring was added.  The noodle was cooked really well.  I had read reviews where people said that the thick noodle was undercooked.  I thought mine was cooked perfect.  The scallop looked pretty.  It had the main scallop part, the frilly part and the roe sack.  But when I took one bite, that was it, I almost spat it out.  Way too fishy for me to handle.  The pork belly had good char marks on it, which I like.  Gives it extra flavour.  As I picked up the pork belly and put it near my mouth, I smelled it.  I sniffed it again make sure I was smelling it.  The smell of stinky old pork.  It's not the smell of rotten pork.  The pork did not go bad, and is edible.  This smell usually comes from lesser quality of pork, or older pigs.  I couldn't eat it.  My husband ate my scallop and pork belly, and gave me half of his egg.  So I was left to eating noodles, and 1.5 eggs.
Tomato Ramen










The tonkotsu black is the tonkotsu but just with added black garlic oil.  Broth was ok, not the best I've had, but also not the worst I've had either.  The noodles, thick noodles, was cooked perfect.  Pork belly again had the stinky old pork smell.  The egg was also overcooked.
Tonkotsu Black Ramen










If you want ramen, please go downtown, or go to Kinton at Yonge and Finch.  If you want soupy noodles within Markham or Richmond Hill, go find yourself a wonton noodle, or pho place instead.

Sansotei Ramen Markham
3987 Highway 7E,
Markham, ON
L3R 5M6

Hours:  Still on soft opening, so not sure if the hours will change in the future.
             Monday - Sunday 5pm - 11pm

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Todo Rico Bakery

Still hung up on eating empanadas.  So my coworker and I went to another Columbian bakery/restaurant for empanadas.  Todo Rico is another eatery that is small and homey feeling.  Our mission was to try their empanadas, so I ordered a beef empanada.  And because the sobrebarriga was so good at Las Delicias, that’s what I ordered here too. 

The empanada here is very different compared to Las Delicias.  The look of it is different, the crust, is harder, almost had a grainier texture.  Maybe they use a corser grind of corn flour?  The filling I prefer here, more flavour, more meat, less fillers.

The sobrebarriga, when it arrived, I actually wondered if I had ordered the wrong dish.  It didn’t look the same.  The sauce is much yellower.  Maybe there’s some additional spice, maybe saffron to flavour it?  But there wasn’t much difference in flavour, just the colour.  The beef was equally as tender.  The side salad was pretty much the same, rice, well it’s white rice, so not much to comment on. 

I think I may make the farther trek for empanadas and sobrebarrigas.

Empanadas

Sobrebarriga



















Todo Rico Bakery
900 Rathburn Rd.,
Mississauga, ON
L5C 4L3

Phone:  (905) 615-1999

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

Tao Canteen

Tao Canteen is a Hong Kong style café that opened a couple of years ago.  Always meant to check it out, but never got around to it.  It really isn’t in the most convenient of areas where you would go grocery shopping and say to yourself, I’m hungry and lets stop here to eat.  The only thing around here is Home Depot and Food Basics. 

There’s a steady stream of people coming in and leaving, with a lot of regulars.  The waitresses knew a lot of the customers names.  So food must be good right?  Not sure if we ordered the wrong dishes, but we didn’t find the food good enough to warrant bringing us back for a next visit.  We ordered lemongrass chicken, beef in red wine sauce, seafood veggie dish, and laksa.  The lemongrass chicken lacked lemongrass flavour.  The beef in red wine sauce didn’t even look like red wine sauce.  It was more ketchup based than wine.  The seafood and veggie dish was ok.  The laksa had spicy curry like flavour, but no coconut milk.  So overall, pretty disappointing, not understanding why there are so many regulars.  Did we order the wrong dishes?
Lemon Grass Chicken

Red Wine Braised Beef

Seafood Veggie Dish

Laksa




































Tao Canteen
1250 Castlemore Ave.,
Markham, ON
L6E 0H7

Phone:  (905) 201-1168

Hours:  Monday - Sunday 8am - 10pm

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Anniversary: Cafe Pamenar, NAO Steakhouse, Bunner's Bakeshop

I think this is the first year, after 5 years of marriage where we actually celebrated our anniversary.  I have to take the blame for this.  I’m usually the “Meh, its just another day”, type of person.  Which I know makes him less than enthused.  The hubby, who always likes to plan for surprises, planned this weeks in advance.  I have never been big on celebrating holidays, or birthdays.  I do however get excited for Christmas.  I’m not sure why there’s a difference. 

The anniversary was on a Friday, and because we had recently come back from a 2 week long vacation (there will be a post on that…just need to find time), we didn’t take the day off.  After work, I drove downtown to run some errands first.  Who knew traffic would be so good on a Friday!  To kill time, I wandered through Kensington Market.  It was really a horrible day to wander because it was POURING rain.  I thought I would be prepared by wearing my Hunter rainboots (they’re tall and go up to my knees) and carrying an umbrella.  It was raining so hard that rain got into my boots so my feet were wet.  That’s when I decided to stop into Café Pamenar.  Cute little coffee spot.  Lots of people sitting with their notebooks working, gave me the idea to work on my Noma post.  I ordered a cortado (discovered my love for them while in Scandinavia), my drink of choice now when I feel like I need a quick caffeine boost, and a vegan ginger molasses cookie (was told that it was from Bunner's Bakeshop across the street).  The ginger molasses cookie was very good.  Good ginger flavour, and sweet enough, almost on the verge of being overly sweet.  So for a person with a less bland palette, it would be perfect.  The cortado was also good, smooth, and just creamy enough with the milk.  Will return again when I’m in the area.  It’s a good working spot, even though I barely put a dent in my Noma post.  
Cortado & Ginger Molasses Cookie













Next stop was Bunner's, a vegan/gluten free bakeshop.  It wasn’t an intended stop, but I decided to stop in just because I enjoyed my cookie and it was on the way back to my car.  And also a friend (whose vegan) tells me that this place is awesome.  I picked up a red velvet cupcake and a chocolate salted caramel cupcake.  These were for dessert, after our mystery anniversary dinner.  At this point, my husband still hadn’t told me where we were eating, just told me to find parking in Yorkville. 
I think I already knew where we were going to go for dinner.  I just didn’t want to ruin the surprise.  My husband usually leaves the restaurant picking to me.  So for him to select a restaurant and “surprise” me with it, it must be a restaurant he heard me talk about a few times.  And it turns out, my guess was right.  Dinner was at NAO.  NAO is a steakhouse in Yorkville that has a bit of fusion flavours thrown in.  The range of beef available is quite extensive.  It ranges from just regular prime USDA , beef from Alberta, to Australian and Japanese Wagyu, to Kobe.  We ordered a salad to start (can’t remember what it was called), bone marrow, Alberta ribeye, and Australian Wagyu striploin, fries and asparagus.

The salad was great, the lettuce was fresh and crisp.  There were some candied pecans and avocado tossed in.  Dressing was a yuzu dressing if I remember correctly.  I normally ask for dressing on the side, because I hate overdressed salads, and I forgot this time, so I was worried.  But it came out perfect.  Also, love the plate itself.
Salad


We also ordered bone marrow.  I used to hate this stuff.  But after Noma, I learned to love it.  I think Noma can make you love anything.  The order came with 1 piece of bone, split into 2.  When our waitress brought it over, she said something about that it was split or something, and that the chef was going to give us another piece.  The more the merrier?  At least my belly thought so!  It was no Noma, but it was deliciously fatty.

Bone Marrow











When the beef arrived it looked a little darker than I would have liked on the outside.  Sorry the pictures are so dark!  I don't understand why restaurants like to dim the lights so much!  Makes for very difficult picture taking.  The Alberta ribeye was tender and had good flavour.  What I didn’t like was that I got a piece of muscle, so had to eat around that.  Of course, the best was the Waygu.  The Wagyu, you order by weight.  So depending on how much money you want to spend, you can go as lavish or bank account safe as you want.  So flavourful, and so tender.  Could eat more, but that would have gotten too expensive.

Alberta Ribeye & Wagyu Striploin











The sides were just meh.  The fries were done so they were like shoestring fries, served with house made ketchup.  I normally like shoestring fries because they tend to be crispier.  They were crispy in this case, but the pieces were so small.  It was almost as if they were the leftovers of the batch of fries and gave it to us as our serving.  The asparagus was cooked well.  It was served with a house made hollandaise sauce.  The sauce was great.  I ate a lot of the hollandaise sauce, not with the asparagus, but with the fries.  I can't say I enjoy the combination of asparagus and hollandaise.

Asparagus & Fries













Overall, the food was prepared well.  I liked the selection of beef available, and also like how you can order certain cuts by weight.  The service was just ok, nothing special.  What surprised me was that even though they knew that it was our anniversary (my husband mentioned it was our anniversary when he made the booking, plus he brought flowers and gifts etc), there was no dessert thrown in or anything.  I would have thought a high end steakhouse like this would have done something.  Guess their service needs to be worked on a bit more.  It’s still a relatively new place?
Back at home, we had the Bunner's cupcakes for dessert.  Overall, I found the cupcake base itself dry.  And the icing/buttercream/topping, was overly sweet and dense.  Is this what vegans have to settle for?  I know for sure that gluten free cupcakes don’t have to have this dense dry texture, because I’ve made gluten free cupcakes for a friend before.  And from what I remember, these cupcakes weren’t exactly cheap either.  So unless you really have a sensitivity/intolerance/allergy/strong aversion to eating animal products, don’t jump on the vegan/gluten free bandwagon.  Stick to how cupcakes are supposed to be made.
Salted Caramel & Red Velvet Vegan Cupcakes











Café Pamenar
307 Augusta Ave.,
Toronto, ON
M5T 2M2

Phone:  647-352-3627

Hours:  Monday 8am - 7pm
             Tuesday - Saturday 8am - 12am (midnight)
             Sunday 8am - 7pm

http://cafepamenar.ca

NAO Steakhouse
90 Avenue Rd.,
Toronto, ON
M5R 2H2

Phone:  416-367-4141

Hours:  Monday - Saturday 5pm - 2am
             Sunday CLOSED

http://naosteakhouse.com

Bunner's Bakeshop
244 Augusta Ave.,
Toronto, ON
M5T 2L7

Phone:  647-350-2975

Hours:  Monday - Sunday 10am - 7pm

http://www.bunners.ca

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