St. Lawrence Market - Buster's Sea Cove & Future Bakery

I had a great day planned out.  I had a day off from work and I was going to get a haircut, and join a friend for a late lunch at St. Lawrence Market.  The day started out great, until I get to the hair salon and the fire alarm goes off.  Turns out a water pipe burst in the basement which means that they needed to shut off the water.  While I was getting my hair cut, I see people getting their hair washed with bottles of spring water.  The worst part of my day was my hair cut itself.  Apparently my stylist didn't really know how to cut hair, and didn't understand what I wanted.  It was 3 hours of torture.

In the end I joined my friend wayyyy too late.  Good thing he was understanding.  So we met at the infamous Buster's Sea Cove at the St. Lawrence Market for lunch.  Even though it was 2 something in the afternoon, closer to 3, there was still a long lineup for food!  I ordered their shrimp po'boy.  The shrimp was perfectly deep fried and their sauce was just spicy enough, delicious!  

Shrimp Po'boy

For dessert, I wanted to get a Portuguese custard tart from Future Bakery, but they were sold out by the time I got there.  So I opted for a brownie.  The brownie which looked very good from behind the glass, was dry and crumbly and lacked the chocolatey goodness that a brownie should have.  I was very disappointed.  So avoid the chocolate brownie from Future Bakery!

Brownie

92 Front St E.,

Toronto, ON

M5E 1C3

416-392-7120

Hours: Tuesday - Thursday 8:00am - 6:00pm

             Friday 8:00am - 7:00pm

             Saturday 5:00am - 5:00pm

             Sunday & Monday CLOSED

http://www.stlawrencemarket.com

Green Tea Lounge

Green Tea Lounge is a sister restaurant of Green Tea Cafe located within J-Town.  I have always meant to go try Green Tea Cafe, but the hours were not very friendly to the people that have to work 'normal' working hours.

Green Tea Lounge and Green Tea Cafe serve the same dishes.  The only difference is that the lounge is more of a sit down restaurant and the cafe is cafeteria style.  The menu is pretty small, offering 3 options of curry rice, 3 options of udon/soba and a handful of appetizers.  That night we ordered karaage and gyoza to start, pork katsu curry, tempura with cold soba noodles, tofu udon in soup, and green tea cake for dessert.

The karaage was just ok, nothing too special about it.  The pieces of chicken were average sized and juicy.  Gyoza was tasty, I just can't remember what exactly was in the filling, but the skin was so nice and thin.  The pork katsu curry was very good.  Pork was thick enough, some places pound the pork so it's paper thin, which ends up making it very dry, but Green Tea Lounge's wasn't like that.  I like how the curry was served on the side in a gravy boat so your crispy pork stays crisp.  Since I got food poisoning from eating udon noodles, I have stayed away from udon noodles.  But I was told that the udon noodles were good.  I love soba, especially cold soba noodles.  The dipping sauce was flavored very well.  The shrimp tempura was very good as well, very light, crispy and most importantly NOT greasy!

Gyoza

Karaage

Pork Katsu Curry

Tofu Udon in Soup

Cold Soba with Tempura

The green tea cake was full of green tea flavour.  We were told that the desserts were baked by the bakery within J-Town.

Green Tea Cake

Green Tea Lounge is a great place to eat at when you want simple, cozy, comfort Japanese food.  They don't offer sushi so it's not a place to go to if you're craving sushi.

Green Tea Lounge
3120 Steeles Ave E.  Unit 118,
Markham ON,
L3R 8T3
905-944-9669

Hours:  Monday CLOSED
             Tuesday - Sunday 11:30am - 9:00pm

http://www.greentealounge.ca

Inakaya

June 21st, a few of my friends got together to participate and raise money for cancer.  This event was called Relay for Life.  This even occurred from 7pm to 7am, none of us slept.  It was a lot of fun.  I was a bit hesitant at first, but now I think I may do it again next year.  For additional details, go to the Relay For Life website.

After that fun night, our group wanted to get together again and celebrate.  I guess it was just more of an excuse to go out to eat.  Doesn't matter what the reason was, as long as my stomach was happy at the end of the night, I'm happy.  The meeting place was at Inakaya, a small, and hidden izakaya in North York.  The food here was pretty good, even the two non fish eaters were able to leave with a full belly, so thats always a good sign.  Price i'm not sure if it's on the higher end of izakayas, or if we just ordered way too much food for 5 people. That can be decided after looking through the pictures.

Overall I think the food was of good quality and fresh.  If I was in the area, I would consider going back again, but it isn't a restaurant I would make trip just to go eat at.

Beef Tataki

Miso Cod

Seafood Seaweed Salad

Spider Roll

Whole Flounder

Kaarage

Sashimi Plate

Deep Fried Monk Fish

Volcano Roll

Squid