maxwell turns one

Last Friday Maxwell turned one. To celebrate we threw him a small party with family. We kept things pretty simple. Platters of sushi and sashimi, some Korean and Filipino appetizers, and a homemade banana layer cake.

Mundoo, in honour of Maxwell's newborn nickname (Korean dumplings):

My mom made the Filipino lumpia (springrolls) and empanadas:

I baked the banana layer cake the night before. In the background are two go im towers (used to decorate the food table) that I made out of candy and beans. The one has Maxwell's Korean middle name written in Korean.

A platter of Korean rice cakes called tteok:

The highlight of a traditional Korean dol (first birthday celebration) is the future-predicting ceremony. Basically, a bunch of objects are placed in front of Maxwell and whatever one he reaches for first determines his future. A roll of string represents a long life, a pencil means he'll be a scholar, money equals wealth, a brush means he'll be an artist, and a bowl of food means he'll never go hungry. These days you can also add more objects, but we kept it simple. So what did he choose?

The food! 

I can't believe Maxwell is one already! He's crazy about food (surprise), walking up a storm, and turning into a pretty swell dude. I feel like I'm still learning the ropes at this parenting thing, but it's fun to watch him change and grow each month. 

foodstuffs

Some random food-related pics from this past week:

1. Trying out a new flavour of Pretz from Sanko. Supposedly black pepper chicken. Tasted like peppery chicken bouillon. Oh well. The melon cream(y) soda was pretty refreshing.

2. A new-ish addiction: milk chocolate covered toasted corn from Soma. Salty and sweet, I polished off this bag in no time.

3. The first scoops of the summer at The Big Chill. So many flavours! 

I settled on watermelon sherbert and pistachio kulfi. Can't believe I've never been here before.

4. Maxwell getting his first taste (ok, more like whiff) of an original steamer hot dog from The Little Dog (conveniently located beside The Big Chill).

It was a good week! 

roll house

Korean-Chinese food is one of those things that I crave on a regular basis. Especially tang su yuk and ja jang myun. It's the perfect combination. The problem is finding Korean-Chinese food. I stumbled upon Roll House in Koreatown a few weeks ago. I originally thought it was a sushi place, but noticed that the menu had all of the usual Korean-Chinese dishes. And the Korean name of the restaurant is actually House of Ja Jang Myun.  

You can get individual combos of one dish plus ja jang myun. I chose the tang su yuk and Joe got the fried mandoo (Korean dumplings). We had no complaints about the mandoo and tang su yuk. 

The ja jang myun, however, was mediocre. The noodles weren't chewy enough and the sauce was a little bland. Oh well, at least I crossed another Koreatown restaurant off the list.

Roll House (House of Ja Jang Myun)

648 Bloor St. W

dim sum at pearl harbourfront

I'm such a sucker for dim sum. To me, it's the perfect mid-Saturday morning meal. And while I mostly frequent the Chinatown dim sum joints for convenience, I recently checked out Pearl Harbourfront for a change of scenery. With views overlooking Toronto's harbour, the Pearl has a more upscale feel than the dim sum places I'm used to. They do offer cart service, but if the dining room isn't very full (like when I was there) they ask you to order off a menu. The food quality is definitely a step up from Chinatown. Everything tasted fresh and homemade. The price ended up being a few dollars more, but totally worth it. 

From top to bottom: haam siu gok (glutinous rice dumpling stuffed with pork); har gow (steamed shrimp dumplings); crispy deep-fried squid tentacles; bbq pork cheung fun (rice noodle roll); siu mai (steamed pork and shrimp dumplings); steamed black bean spareribs.

Pearl Harbourfront

207 Queens Quay W.

ding tai fung

Ding Tai Fung specializes in Shanghai-style dim sum and whenever I find myself in Markham, I always stop in for a quick meal. I'm not a dim sum expert, but I think that Shanghai style consists of mostly steamed dumplings along with some pan-fried versions (not a lot of deep-fried items like at regular dim sum places). And there is no cart service since everything is steamed/fried to order.

Always go for the xiao long bao or soup dumplings. These are the most popular and for good reason: they are really, really delicious. Be warned though, they are scalding hot inside. Use your chopsticks to gently pick one up and place it in your soup spoon. Nibble a little hole into the skin, slurp out the soup, then chow down on the rest of the dumpling. I like to dip mine in a mixture of vinegar, soy, chili oil and fresh ginger.

The sticky rice shu mai are ok, but seriously heavy. The sticky rice is mixed with a small amount of pork and mushrooms then wrapped in dumpling skin and steamed. One or two is usually my max.

The fried chicken soup is another one of my faves though not on the dim sum side of the menu. The dish is composed of two parts: the soup (pictured above) which has noodles (I think they are handmade), greens and pork, plus...

...A plate of toppings: soy sauce boiled egg, seasoned soybean sprouts, fermented chopped vegetables and a very crispy boneless fried chicken thigh. I throw everything on top of the soup and season it with a bit more chili oil, vinegar and soy. So utterly comforting on a cold day.

Ding Tai Fung Shanghai Dim Sum

3235 Hwy 7 E. 

Markham, ON.

mi mi vietnamese restaurant

Back in the day when I was an east-side dweller, Joe and I used to head to Mi Mi Vietnamese Restaurant whenever we needed our pho fix. I recently found myself back on the east side, so I stopped by for a quick lunch. 

The cha Gio (Vietnamese springrolls) weren't as good as I remembered them to be. These tasted pretty generic.

Instead of my usual pho, I decided to change it up and get a bowl of bun (rice noodles with shrimp on sugarcane, pork sausages and grilled beef). Can't go wrong with a huge bowl of meat and noodles—especially for under ten bucks! 

Mi Mi Vietnamese

688 Gerrard St. E.

sariwon

The tough thing about not having a backyard—especially in the summertime—is not being able to have a bbq. Especially a Korean bbq. Joe and I usually head to my mom's one or twice in the summer to get our grilling fix, but this summer seems to be flying past and we've been just too busy. So we did the next best thing: head to a Korean bbq restaurant. I'd heard good things about Sariwon at Yonge and Steeles (quite a trek from downtown) and decided to give it a try. For bbq, we had the marinated kalbi (Korean beef ribs). This was some good quality meat! Tender and flavourful—almost as good as my recipe. Almost. When the waitress started laying out all of the complimentary banchan (customary Korean side dishes like kimchi) my eyes grew with excitement. I love banchan!

Making ssam (lettuce wraps): Take a piece of lettuce, smear it with some salty-sweet bean paste, add some rice and meat and wrap it all up. Lettuce makes it healthy, right?

We foolishly ordered a bowl of spicy soon dubu chigae (soft tofu and seafood stew) too, not knowing that the bbq came with a bowl of doenjang chigae (soy bean paste stew). Both were really good, but we obviously had way too much food for just two people.

Luckily we were hungry because we may have also ordered a broiled mackerel...our eyes are definitely bigger than our stomachs. Surprisingly (or not) we actually polished off almost all of this feast. There's something about delicious Korean food that makes it so irresistible.

Sariwon

7388 Yonge St.

Thornhill

filipino ensaymadas

My mom is visiting for the week which means I'll be getting lots of home cooking. So far one of the highlights was when she showed up with bags of homemade Filipino ensaymadas made by my 80-year old auntie. Sort of a cross between a brioche and Asian-style breads, ensaymadas are buttery, soft, slightly sweet buns. They can be eaten plain, topped with a smear of butter, then dipped in sugar, or topped with a smear of butter, dipped in sugar and sprinkled with shredded cheese (yes, cheese). Sounds weird, but tastes amazing. 

My auntie used to make these all the time when I was a kid (though we never got the cheese version) and me and my bro used to devour them. She’s passed the recipe onto me, but they’re pretty labour intensive to make and I’ve yet to tackle them. For now, my freezer’s stocked and I’m set for a little while.

house of gourmet

I've been trying to be more open when it comes to eating in Chinatown. I have my usual joints for pho, dim sum and seafood, and when I want "rice & meat" aka roast pork, bbq duck, bbq pork or soy sauce chicken on a bed of steamed rice, I usually head to King's Noodle. But the last time I went, there was a way too long line and I was inpatient, so I tried someplace new: House of Gourmet. Overall it was a pretty good meal. Joe and I ordered our usual King's Noodle dishes and everything was about a dollar cheaper. 

Rice with roast pork and bbq pork. Can't go wrong with double pork right? 

Noodle soup with wontons, brisket and tendon. The portion here is smaller than King's, but I actually liked this version much more. 

This rice flour roll with Chinese doughnut (zha liang) is more of a dim sum staple, but I always order it I see it on the menu. Even though this is a larger portion than King's, the doughnut was way greasier and the rice roll much thinner. At King's the rice roll portion has green onions and dried shrimp mixed in too, making it more flavourful. 

House of Gourmet

484 Dundas St. W.

banh mi boys

Banh Mi Boys has quickly become one of my favourite places for lunch, dinner or a mid-afternoon snack. Not gonna lie, I was a bit skeptical at first about the mixing of Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese and Mexican cuisine, but after my first bite I was hooked. 

Let's start with the kimchi fries. Kimchi and fries may not sound like a good combo, but somehow it works. The crispy fries topped with pulled pork, mayo, chopped green onions and a good helping of kimchi were amazing. Every bite had so many textures and complementing flavours—very addictive. 

The banh mi here are a higher end version of the classic mystery meat banh mi sold on Spadina (which are also tasty in their own way). The lemongrass pork banh mi comes stuffed with juicy grilled pork, pickled carrot and daikon, cucumber and cilantro. It's topped with their Asian bbq sauce and the bun is slightly toasted so it has a nice, crisp exterior.

The kalbi beef taco layers Korean grilled short ribs with Asian slaw, kimchi, pickled carrot and daikon, and cilantro all in an Indian paratha-like shell. This bad boy is pretty messy, but equally satisfying. I like the chewiness of the bread and the meat is perfectly sweet and savoury.

When I first pictured the steamed bao, I thought they would be small two-bite buns, but they're not. The braised beef cheek bao is filled with a good helping of tender beef cheek topped with a sweet and tangy onion chutney and more of the obligatory pickled carrot, daikon, cucumber and cilantro. The bao itself is pillowy soft and hefty enough to hold all that filling.

The restaurant space is pretty small and there's no table service here: you need to order and wait for your food. I suggest going with a friend who can snag a table while you grab the eats. Line-ups are common, but the service is fast and efficient. So glad that Banh Mi Boys is a short walk from my house.

Banh Mi Boys

392 Queen St. W.

kimbap

The hot weather these days has got me wanting to be anywhere but in front of a hot oven. A staple dinner (and lunch) over here has been Korean kimbap. It requires minimal cooking and is filling enough to be a complete meal. Kimbap is sorta like sushi, except the rice isn't seasoned (usually) and there's no raw fish involved. Fillings include everything from cooked bulgogi (marinated Korean beef), crab stick and even canned tuna, plus sauteed spinach and carrots, fried egg and yellow pickled radish called danmuji. Here's my kimbap pre-roll:

Once rolled, it totally resembles a maki roll:

Some of my rolls had bulgogi and crab stick.

I find that kimbap is best served fresh, when the rice is still warm. Next day kimbap is ok, but the rice gets a bit hard and the seaweed goes soggy. I've heard a solution is a quick dip in some egg and a light fry in a pan, but that means more time in the kitchen.