Grand Noodle

Grand Noodle has opened in that doomed corner of Commerce Gate.  Nothing really survives in that corner for some reason.  When I was on Yelp reading up on what to order at Grand Noodle, the general consensus was their submarines.  And no, their submarines are not like submarine sandwiches that we are all so used to.  These submarines are loaves of bread hollowed out and filled with rice and toppings.  So ridiculous sounding that I knew I wanted to try it.  Our order for the night was tomato sauce pork chop submarine, sake chicken with rice, and sweet potato noodle in fish broth.  All dishes come with a drink, hot milk tea, hot coffee etc.  Cold drinks theres an additional cost.  

The sweet potato noodle in fish broth was forgettable, as in don’t order it if you’re coming to eat.  If you want to eat fish broth noodle soup, go across the street to Times Square and eat at Deer Garden instead.  The broth itself was very bland.  It had the milky fish broth colour, but no sweet fish flavour, there was a bit of fishiness too.

Sweet Potato Noodle in Fish Broth

The sake chicken had no sake taste, but other than that was done quite well.  The chicken was cooked through, and very smooth.  Smooth is a very strange word to describe a chicken, but that’s a term Chinese people do use.  I guess it would be the opposite of overcooked and dry.  The dish is very similar to Hainanese Chicken Rice.

Sake Chicken & Rice

The thing I have been waiting for, the pork chop with tomato sauce submarine was MASSIVE!  The bread part was a whole Italian loaf that was hollowed out.  The bread was then filled with fried rice, topped with fried pork chop, tomato sauce, and a bit of grated cheese.  The entire thing was quickly baked/broiled.  How is this healthy?  I hope people don’t eat this often……  Taste wise, was pretty good, tasted like any other tomato pork chop baked rice really.  It was just interesting that it was all in a bread bowl.  For any normal sized appetite adult, the submarine could feed probably 3 people.  I wish I had put something next to it for size reference.

Tomato Pork Chop Submarine

I went another night with some other friends because I told them about the submarine rice.  We of course ordered a submarine rice, this time was the curry chicken one, and we also ordered the mustard beef, and black bean beef rice noodle.  The dish I liked least was the mustard beef.  It’s literally beef and some peppers cooked in mustard and served on top of rice.  The black bean beef rice noodle wasn’t very good either.  It was supposed to be a fried noodle, but it was too wet (saucy), no ‘wok hay’ at all.  The curry chicken submarine was just ok as well.  The submarine again was a hollowed out Italian loaf, this time, half of the bread bowl was filled with fried rice, the other was filled with curry sauce and chicken (bone on), and then topped with more curry sauce and chicken.  The curry sauce was the typical curry sauce that Chinese restaurants use.  Doesn’t really have that much flavour like Thai, Malay, or Indian curries.

Worth a visit just to try the submarine rice.

*** Update  I have been called out on the fact that I'm not a real foodie, I never really claimed I was, since I got some of my facts wrong.  I admit that i'm quite behind on my blog posts so yes I do make mistakes here or there.  So the soup noodle dish was with shiritaki noodles instead of sweet potato.  The broth was indeed fishy, which makes it worse because apparently they don't have fish soup, so it was the pork broth.  Fishy pork broth, need I say more?  They also mention that the menu doesn't offer black bean rice noodle.  Menus change.  I wish I took a picture as proof.  I just never thought I needed to do that.  My original opinion of Grand Noodle still stands unchanged.  Not worth a visit except of the novelty of the submarine rice.

As for the comment that I have removed from this post because of it's nasty nature, I believe it must be from one of the owners of Grand Noodles since they appear to know the menu quite well, and decided to post with a name of "Unknown".

Grand Noodle 

505 Highway 7 East, Unit 50-53

Markham, ON

L3T 7T1

Phone:  (905) 597-7782

Hours: Monday - Thursday 11:00am - 10:00 pm

            Friday - Saturday 11:00am - 12:00am

            Sunday 11:00am - 10:00pm

http://grandnoodle.ca 

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

Yiu's Chinese Cuisine

I had a non-Asian friend comment on one of my previous posts regarding the HK style cafe restaurants, and telling me that they're not worth going to, because you can make the same dishes at home.  TECHNICALLY, you can make most of the dishes you eat out, just takes time.  I agree that HK style cafes don't necessarily offer the best quality food, or the most innovative dishes, but they are cheap, and food is decent.  It's also for convenience.  I always thought that you couldn't screw up this kind of simple food.  That is until I went to Yiu's Chinese Cuisine.

Yiu's has been on my radar since I've been going to B&B Cafe for breakfasts.  But I never got a chance to go because Yiu's claims to open at 10am, but they never are.  This time, we decided to go out for a mid afternoon snack, and Yiu's was open so we decided to pop in.  Located almost right next to B&B Cafe, Yiu's is definitely a lot busier, which I thought would be a good sign.  However, I was wrong.  I ordered sesame french toast, and the hubby ordered satay beef noodle which came with a ham sandwich.  My french toast was super greasy, and heavy.  The difference between 'normal' french toast and Chinese french toast is pan fry vs deep fry.  The Chinese deep fry theirs, which I expected, but I didn't expect it to be so oily.  I felt pretty gross after.  The sesame part is a filling in between the slices of bread, so it's not visible in the picture.

Sesame French Toast

The satay beef noodle is a very simple dish, satay sauce, beef slices and put over soup noodles.  Can't be hard to make right?  Yet they still screwed it up.  There was no satay flavour at all.  The ham sandwich, was just half a slice of ham, and 1 slice of bread.

Satay Beef Noodle & Ham Sandwich

These meals usually come with a drink.  I got a red bean grass jelly drink and the hubby got a milk tea.  Our drinks didn't come while we were eating, which we thought could be because they normally bring it over near the end of the meal.  We finished our food, and still nothing.  We asked a total of 3 times.  The third time I asked if i could just get a take out cup, so I didn't have to sit there anymore.  Even though they kept forgetting my drink, they had the audacity to tell me I would have to pay extra for a take out cup.

I would say, forget Yiu's, price point is good, but not only is their food bad, their service is even worse.  The waitresses are not very attentive at all.  And I know that at a Chinese restaurant, you shouldn't expect much in terms of service.  Walk a few doors over and visit B&B Cafe instead, where I've always been able to get the server's attention, and they always great us with a friendly smile.

Yiu's Chinese Cuisine
50 Bur Oak Ave,
Markham, ON

905-887-1988

B&B Cafe

I used to hate HK style cafes.  The food just never appealed to me.  I much rather preferred Western styled breakfasts.  But ever since returning from a visit to Hong Kong a couple of years ago, my opinion changed.  Partly due to the influence from the significant other.  He loves the breakfasts from the HK style cafes.  So we began to look for the simple breakfast meals that usually give you a good amount of food, for a relatively low cost.  You would think that this would be easy to find because most Chinese plazas have one of these.  But some the flavourings are off (don't ask me how, because the meals are so easy to make), some are expensive, and I don't know, maybe it's just the feel.

On one of our Saturday morning rituals now, yes our Saturdays are very predictable, a sign of old age? We came to B&B Cafe for our breakfast.  Their breakfast offerings are very typical of HK Style Cafes, a noodle in soup with some meat served with toast & eggs, and coffee or tea.  All of that for usually $5.

B&B Cafe Breakfast Menu

B&B Cafe All Day Menu

I ordered Breakfast D, toast & butter, eggs, macaroni & ham in soup.  And the husband ordered the Satay Meal, egg sandwich and satay beef in vermicelli in soup.   As I said it's nothing spectacular.  But it's good.  I would suggest not to order the egg sandwich here though.  The scrambled eggs came out a bit tough.  And I have to apologize, I forgot to take a picture of the satay beef on vermicelli in soup.

Egg Sandwich

Ham & Macaroni in Soup

Butter Toast & Eggs

We come back to this place when we want to be close to home for a quick HK style breakfast.  Again, it's nothing super good, but it's kind of like comfort food.  I guess it also helps when you get the vibe that it's a family run restaurant as well.  They also offer typical Chinese stir fry dishes, noodles, fried rice etc for lunch and dinner.  I have been meaning to check them out for lunch and dinner, but just haven't had a chance yet.

B&B Cafe
50 Bur Oak Ave,
Markham, ON
L6C 0A2

905-887-1068

Golden Horse

Ever since coming back from Hong Kong last year, my fascination with Hong Kong style cafe foods has started to grow.  The food is usually decent, nothing over the top of fancy, but the price is always good with good sized portions too.  I typically go to this style of cafe for breakfast because I like the breakfast combo sets.  I lie, I actually just go because of the egg sandwiches included in the sets.  These sets usually cost $5 or less and either comes with a main such as pork and preserved vegetable vermicelli, or spam and egg instant noodles, a side of condensed milk toast or egg sandwich and a drink such as milk tea, coffee, horicks etc.  So much cheaper than a traditional type western breakfast.

This time, we went to Golden Horse, a HK/Macau style cafe, for dinner.  The dinner specials averaged around $9.99 and came with tomato soup or soup of the day and a hot drink.  Three of our friends ordered from the dinner special menu, seafood fried rice, smoked salmon on rice with white cream sauce and chicken filet and gravy on spaghetti.  I forgot to take a picture of the spaghetti since it came so much later than rest of the other meals.  The seafood fried rice was pretty good, not greasy, and flavorful.  The smoke salmon rice was just ok. 

Seafood Fried Rice

Smoked Salmon Rice

The rest of us ordered off the normal menu, beef brisket noodle 'buddies' style, baked porkchop rice, and beef and vegetable fried noodle.  I wish I was able to enjoy my meal more, but my stomach was hurting so much that night.  My stomach pains usually occur when I have had coffee during the day and had to wait too long for food.  From the little bit that I did eat, I enjoyed the noodles buddies style.  The broth was thick, rich in beef and pickled bamboo flavor, so it was a bit tart/sour.  The brisket was nice and tender.  My friend complained that his beef and vegetable fried noodle was very salty.  But he continued eating because he was starving.  The baked porkchop rice was ok, but the sauce was missing something.  Needs some improvement. 

Beef Brisket Noodles Buddies Style

Beef & Vegetable Fried Noodle

Baked Porkchop Rice

I almost forgot, but we also ordered a porkchop bun too since this is a Macau speciality. And this restaurant is supposed to be Macau style.  When it came, I was disappointed.  It was nothing like the porkchop bun like I had from the famous Tai Lei Loi Cafe.  This one tasted like a McD's Filet-o-Fish with a porkchop instead of fish.

Pork Chop Bun

I don't know if i'm the only one that found the Macau style dishes disappointing or what, because lots of other customers seemed to order and enjoy the baked porkchop rice and porkchop buns.  I will definitely return for their other since it's so close to home.  I have yet to try their breakfast specials.

Golden Horse
4580 Hwy 7 East Unit 3
Markham, ON L3R 1M5
(905) 940-3288