♥ Food First

Are you in Toronto and looking for a good deal for lunch?
I'm not sure how long this deal is going for...

MONTANAS

Broke Bankers Lunch
....at prices even Bay St. can afford
$5.95
Wednesday thru Sunday
11:30am thru 4:00pm

MONTANA CLASSIC BURGER
All beef burger with tomato, lettuce, red onion & pickle served w fries

BBQ PULLED PORK SANDWICH
Pulled pork w caramelized onions on a ciabatta bun served w fries

CLASSIC HOT CHICKEN SANDWICH
A lunch classic served w hot gravy, fries and purple slaw

SMOKED CHICKEN POT PIE
Chicken, fresh herbs and vegetables under a puff pastry served w garden salad

SLOW SMOKED QUARTER CHICKEN
Our famous smoked chicken w homemade bbq sauce served w fries

CLASSIC PIZZA
Pepperoni, mushroom, onion, mozzarella & tomato sauce

FIRE ROASTED VEGETABLE PIZZA
Fresh roasted vegetables, tomato sauce, mozzarella and cheddar

BARBEQUED SPAGHETTI
Southern style spaghetti w barbequed pulled pork & zesty tomato sauce

SMOKED CHICKEN PENNE
Smoked chicken, sundried tomatoes & penile tossed in a creamy alfredo sauce

Special Desserts
$2.95
Molten Lava White Chocolate Cake
Apple Blossom with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

145 John St.
(corner of Richmond and John)
416-595-5949

From the outside, it looked like a rustic place, but once inside, everything was pretty modern. They also had television sets. The place is small, but still a good size. It was able to accommodate our group of 11. Lunch wasn't busy at all, so service was easy and all the food came quickly.

I'm not sure what everyone ordered, some got bibimbap, udons, etc...but how is it that every time I go to a Korean restaurant, I end up ordering something spicy? I got a spicy pork stir fry, which came with rice. I can't take that much heat and I only managed to eat half as it was extremely spicy to me.

I have to say I was not happy with the appetizers, I think pretty much everyone left theirs untouched.

The prices are still pretty good though as my total was under $10. What I also liked about this place is that it takes reservations.

However, with so many Korean restaurants in the area, I probably wouldn't go back.

Harubang Restaurant
5588 Yonge St
Toronto, ON
(416) 225-0904

Hema's back from the Carbondale, so some of us met up for food, drinks & desserts. We had a lovely server named Candace...except she either got really busy near the end of the night or was ignoring us, just kidding.

I didn't want anything too filling because I was planning on going home to have dinner. I mainly was there to get dessert, but since the others were eating & drinking, I couldn't just sit and drink water until it was time for dessert, so I got an appetizer. I love bread and dip, so I got the three dip med bread.

It was delicious! Although, it could do better with one of the dips. Tomato & cheese...supposed to be a salsa dip, I guess? It didn't cut it for me, they should replace the dip or just remove it from the dish altogether. Grace's chicken cannelloni & Hema's ginger teriyaki rice bowl looked delicious as well. There's no feature photo of Susan's chicken tenders as they were too basic? I don't know what term Susan used to describe that, haha. But, it did smell good on the car afterwards. Oh, StephH and Susan also had drinks. XD

Onward to dessert!

Grace had the blackberry apple crisp, which I tried & it was delicious. Hema & StephH has a bite of white chocolate brownie. I've had the white chocolate brownie, let me tell you it is soo good. The original size is really big though. Anyway, I had the raspberry mango cheesecake! It was so delicious and the presentation on the plate was very spiffy as well. Christinea threatened to finish it all if I didn't eat it any faster. I wasn't able to eat it all, so I gave the rest to Christinea. Everyone pretty much got a bite from the cake. Yum...

Went for brunch at Flo's last Tuesday. I love the diner ambiance of this place, located in Yorkville. Haven't been here in a while, did the management or chefs change? A friend that went and I noticed that the portions of the food were smaller than I last remembered...or the plates got bigger, haha. Even so, the food was delicious.

I had the Tuscany omelette + mango-strawberry-orange juice. Loved the home fries (potatoes) that came with it. I found the omelette & 12-grain toast smaller than before, like I mentioned, but still good. The juice was fresh. Yum.

Others had eggs benedict, a mushroom medley & a caramelized mushroom medley? They all enjoyed their meals as well.

This place is still highly recommended. Reasonable prices & good service!

What are your plans for the holiday weekend?

•  finish my packing tonight because i'm moving into res tomorrow morning
• come back home to go have dinner with friends
• labour day monday is mix 99.9's beachfest in toronto
• and then i go back to oshawa on tuesday and start classes on wednesday

I've been so busy and I'm so tired, I haven't had time to do a thing or blog.

What books are on your nightstand?

 

I'm currently reading Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. I've read Da Vinci Code, and right now it seems almost the same. A lot of people have told me that Angels and Demon is better though, so I guess I'll see when I finish. It was a book I asked and recieved for my birthday last month...I have the paperpack, not the Specal Illustrated Edition, haha. It's the only one they have using the Amazon search here.

Once I finish that, I plan to read Wicked by Gregory Maguire. It was a book I also got for my birthday, so I'm definitely looking forward to that.

 

 

 

Today I went to Caffé Demetre. I've always wanted to go and let's jsut say it did not disappoint. Steph H., Laura and I got there about 6:30pm and there was only some people sitting out in the patio area. I loved that they had a sign where we could seat ourselves. Someone spotted us right away and we were given menus, then we proceeded to go sit in the upper level, at the very back. I loved the fake leather seating. It was a nice ambience and the lighting just set the mood. The picture i took of the ceiling isn't that great because I took it without flash. We were just looking at the menu, which was really big, filled with all their desserts. Steph has decided already while Laura and I were looking at the food menu, which was on these containers on the tables that held sugar. We were hungry, so we wanted food before we tried a dessert. Someone brought us water and then we ordered our food. Laura and I settled to share a pizza while Steph just got dessert.

It didn't take that long for the pizza to come and we got plates, forks, and a knife. It was already sliced in four and the cheese was slipping off as we took our slice. I think that could be why we got forks? The crust was really thin and the pizza was still warm. The Ham of la Mangia has black forest ham, bacon, mozzarella cheese, mushrooms, red peppers, and what they called gourmet tomato sauce. I couldn't tell what was different about the tomato sauce, but the menu claimed it was gourmet. It was a little salty at times, maybe because of the big pieces of bacon, but otherwise I think it was pretty good. Soon after, Steph's Weigh of Life arrived when we finished our pizza. It looks good. While Steph was eating her crêpe with honey vanilla ice cream and fruits, Laura and I poured over the huge dessert menu. We were truly amazed and had no idea what to get. The titles were all really fun and interesting, like La Vida Mocha, Plump Fiction and many others which I can't seem to recall now.

It took Laura and us forever to order because we were so amazed by the menu and the waiters kept coming over to check on us, which was really nice. I also felt bad we were taking so long, but there were so many choices. We finally decided on Flabbio (my choice) and Helena Handbasket (Laura's choice), we were gonna split both so we could try both desserts. I had Flabbio first, I really liked it. It's also one of the favourites there. As for Helena Handbasket...I didn't enjoy Helena that much. I like peanut butter, but have never had peanut butter ice cream. I think I'll stick to normal peanut butter. I couldn't really taste the nutello ice cream. That's what I get for eating two different desserts, lol. The chocolate paradox ice cream in Flabbio was yummy, for lack of a better word.

Overall, I would definitely go back to try their other desserts. It's just a really nice place to go with friends to hang out, chat and enjoy some sweet delights.

Caffé Demetre

400 Danforth Avenue

Toronto, Ontario M4K 1P3
416-778-6654

 

This entry wasn't as long as last time, phew. :)

Yesterday I went to Wasabi for lunch. It was an AYCE sushi place run by Chinese people. I've been reading reviews online about it since I've never been there before yesterday and most weren't good, but then there were some good ones. I thought I'd give it try since it was sort of close by, especially for my cousins and they've been before. I went with my brother (Walter), my two cousins (Amy & Linda) and my cousin's friend (Jimmy).

Amy had made a reservation the night before because she said it usually gets busy around lunch time and I thought that was fine because then we wouldn't have to wait long to be seated since we had a reservation. Walter and I arrived about 10 minutes late, but it wasn't so busy when we got there. This was after 12pm. I have to say that the interior was quite nice. You could also see the sushi chefs right at the front of the room. I was able to look over at all times because we were sitting at one of the table that were right in front of them. Yes, the place was nice, but let's start talking about the food & service. It was 11.99 for weekday lunch.

When we were ready to order, we called a waitress over. Her name was Kiko Because you could clearly see her name tag. Any just started calling off these numbers in Cantonese and I throw in a few. I had no idea what she was ordering, but that was fine. All of a sudden, Kiko walks away and I was stunned. Were we done ordering? I just remember still looking at the menu and then looked up to see her gone. I asked and Jimmy said they weren't really done ordering, but she kind of just left without acknowledging if we were done. I just found that really bad even though I think we had already ordered quite a bit to start off. We waited a good

half hour or so before the first thing came and it was a thousand island and seaweed salad. No one had ordered the thousand island salad so we were about to call someone to tell, but then we decided to just keep it. According to Linda, it reminded her of the McChicken at McDonald's, okay then. I loved the seaweed salad, it was

probably my best dish there, haha. I've never had it before and don't know if they have it anywhere else because I usually never get salad. It was a little spicy and reminded me of the spicy jelly they have at chinese restaurants. If you don't know what I mean, that's okay. We actually ordered it again later on. The delivery of the food was extremely slow and it really wasn't that busy, I thought. As we stayed longer, the place got more filled, but I think they still had seating. Their time limit is 1 hour and a 1/2, but we were there for about 2 hours, most of the time waiting on the food. I don't want to talk about all the food we ordered because I don't know what some of them were called

and I didn't eat any of the sashimi or rolls that had raw fish because I just don't like eating raw fish. I wanted to insert another row of images, but it wasn't working because the

 images I wanted weren't all on the same page and when I go onto the next page, it deselects the ones I had already chosen on page 1. It's really bugging me. The salmon and tuna looked fresh to me, lol. I think that's beef and it was wrapped in the long stemmed mushroom. I thought it was good except for the tangy taste, I think they might've squeezed lemon on it. There was nothing special about the grilled salmon. I had ordered a shrimp tempura hand roll and it wasn't the best. I have to say I hate the seaweed they use, it was dry and tasted like the packaged seaweed strips you buy at a chinese supermarket. The shrimp tempura rolls I ordered were much better, maybe because I tasted the rice first and the seaweed was wrapped around on the inside. Everything arrived from our first order except for the bean curd pocket I had ordered, so when we got another waitress to take our second order, we asked about the bean curd. It finally arrived after asking them again. I wasn't impressed, the bean curd was a bit too sweet and the rice tasted like it had too much vinegar in it. I was so looking forward to it as well. I thought I took a picture of it, but I guess I didn't because I can't find it.

I've never heard of any sushi place have hashbrowns on their menu, but this place did, a hashbrown with curry sauce on top. It tastes like any other hashbrown, I tried a bit. Linda also ordered the udon, not sure what kind though. I ate the broccoli and it was crunchy. The eel was cooked and over rice, I found that pretty good. I was afraid to eat the fish eggs because there was a lot for one roll. I don't even know what that is called, but I ate it because I said I would eat it if Linda ate it as well, so that was that. I think we ordered two

shrimp tempuras because that's a lot more than what you would get for one order and I also ordered the sweet potato tempura, that's why it all came on one plate. The shrimp tempura was good, but they wait they made it didn't have the flakes in it like traditional tempura, I think. It was just fried batter. As for the sweet potato, it was not sweet. I was getting more and more disappointed with this place. The chicken teriyaki was the last of the food we got and we had waited a while for it and I thought it looked really messy. I mean, usually when you get teriyaki, the meat is all laid out in nice strips across the place, this was not the case. My brother was also being adventureous and ordered the full moon sushi. We had no idea what it was and didn't ask the waiter, so we had to wait and see. Since it was taking so long, it was the only dish we were waiting for, we ordered our desserts.

I got the red bean ice cream, Amy got green tea, and Linda got both. Jimmy got the green tea pudding when he was told that they didn't have any mango pudding left. I thought the pudding was really pretty, hehe. The ice cream came in the tiny bowl with one small scoop of ice cream. They also had really small cute spoons as well. The red cream wasn't too sweet and you could see whole bits of the bean. I liked it. I tried a tiny bit of the green tea ice cream and liked it. I found that the green tea wasn't that strong in the ice cream, which made it even better. Overall, the ice cream was nicely textured and that's another point for good dessert.

I can't believe I'm talking about the washrooms, but that's okay. They had a lovely round steel sink and automatic towel dispenser. It's really small with only two stalls. They weren't like normal stalls though because they had a full door and lock, which I found made it more high class? That's probably not the right word, but it was better.

We were still waiting for the full moon sushi and we asked a waiter to asks the chefs about it. I could see the chefs were making all these extravagant looking dishes, but I had no idea what they were and was also wondering if one of them might have been ours. It turned out that they still hadn't made it around to our order and won't be making it for some time. We were told we could pay our bill and continue to wait. We didn't have anywhere pressing to go after, so we agreed. The bill came and it there was an automatic 10% service charge for tip. There was a mini survey on the place, but it was written in chinese. Amy and Jimmy could read, so I let them do the survey while they explained to me some of the questions. #1. Their service was really bad. We kept waiting for the full moon to come and asked a 2nd/3rd time about it and they still weren't about to make, so we finally left. We already paid the bill and everyone wanted to just leave without asking if our sushi was coming, but both Walter and I thought that wasn't the best of ideas.

Anyway, it was good to try this place once, but I know I wouldn't want to go back if it was my choice. I might've made it sound really bad, but I think the most important things that should've been good was not. Possibly another time, another day it might be good, that's for you to decide. Weekday lunch is worth it, any other time, I would not go for sure.

Wasabi (AYCE)
668 Silver Star Boulevard,
Scarborough, ON M1V 5N1
416-226-9988

Prices:

Adult - lunch: 11.99 - dinner/wkday: 18.99 - dinner/wkend: 20.99

This was my first food entry and I have to say I took a lot of breaks writing this. I also wrote a lot, maybe too much. I've been writing this for almost 3 hours, it's 4pm now. Yikes. Look forward to my next post, or not. I usually don't eat out that much, but these next two weeks prior to the start of college again, I seem to be going out a lot...so there will be more entries soon.

What albums are in heavy rotation for you right now?

I gotta say...

Butch Walker and the Let's Go Out Tonites - The Rise and Fall of Butch Walker and the Let's Go Out Tonites

That's definitely my top album at the moment, others I've been randomly listening to a lot (new&old) also include...

Nan Quan Mama - Color Palette (Mandarin)

Kangta&Vanness - Scandal (Korean/Mandarin)

Our Lady Peace - Clumsy

Snow Patrol - Final Straw

Keane - Under the Iron Sea