Chocolate Pancakes

Attempt 1: Sheila's pancakes looked better. Mine were not uploaded. :P


Attempt 2: Better... but could be better. They're not burnt; they're just chocolate. And I happen to prefer flat pancakes over those fluffier doughy ones. Sometimes I put them in the toaster oven after making them for extra crispiness. I've decided that crispy = yum.

Banana Muffins

There's only one thing to do when the bananas are close to rotting: make banana muffins, of course!


Sheila: They're a bit tasteless.
Yeaaah... I just looked up and combined a bunch of online recipes since I couldn't find Casey's, and I sort of eyeballed everything.

It had good texture, and I added some flavour by pouring some maple syrup over the finished product. The muffins soaked that stuff up like a sponge.

Better luck next time, I suppose.

Bling Food 1

Madeline's (601 King Street West, Toronto)

Chef Susur Lee's (sort of) new restaurant on King Street West is a family (Chinese) style restaurant. You're meant to order several different dishes to share among your table. Instead of deliberating over the appetizing menu, the four of us had a go at two orders of the tasting menu for two. For $40 a piece, expectations were high. 

Forgive me for forgetting most of what was in the dishes, but they were chock-full of ingredients that I just didn't hear.

Starter: Apple something prosciutto salad. Berta wasn't a fan of the salty meat with the sweet apples, but I was. Then again, I like salty and by transitive properties I like prosciutto. The flat circular pastry at the bottom was pretty neat. It was like an apple pastry with salty meat and leafy greenness on top.

Next: Something something artichoke soup.

First off, it was pretty cool when four waiters came out at the same time to serve us each our bowl of soup. Synchronized food serving should be a sport. The soup was great, according to all of us. It had good taste, nice crunchy texture from the stuffs on top, and it seemed to have a bit of crème fraîche.

More: Giant scallops with crouton. I totally forgot about this until the pictures came. The scallops were pretty huge and awesome. They were like little pucks of soft, nicely textured goodness.

Main course: Beef with wild blueberries, choy, and sweet potatoes. I'm not a fan of berries, but the texture of the meat was pretty good. Not amazing, but it was pretty good. As people whose diet (presently and/or in the past) includes regular intake of choy, we all thought that they were way too mushy for any of our likings. It also had a weird bitter taste that none of us were accustomed to. This was our least favourite dish of the night. The sweet potatoes apparently had some cheese, which I did not taste. They weren't bad though, and I think there were some nuts in there too.

Dessert: Something-berry sorbet, chocolate apricot molten lava cake, and fried coconut vanilla custard. Can't comment on the berry crap that I did not eat. Of the two sweets that I actually consumed, the chocolate one was the most exciting. The apricots added a bit of sourness to the melty chocolate inside the cake. I think it was a good combination, but chocolate traditionalists (whatever those are) might not appreciate the added flavour. The inside of the fried thing tasted a bit like cream. Both sides of the table left a large chunk of it on the plate. 

Haina and Jess thought the fried custard was too large and "very Chinese", but they enjoyed the sorbet and wished it was bigger.

Amusing weirdness: Jess and Berta were discussing the lighting behind us, which was blue. The rest of the restaurant had a reddish glow. As Jess mentioned that she would've preferred the red side, the lights behind us changed to red. That is the only time that the colour of the lights changed. I wonder if they heard us. :P

Also, Berta's champagne tasted more like sparkling wine to me. It wasn't as exciting as I thought it'd be. Then again, I'm too poor to know what good champagne is supposed to taste like.

I'd go back again... when I have a job that pays me enough to eat there.

Meat on Bread

Open-faced sandwich from Jack Astor's.



It's not as exciting as meat on bread should be.

Snowboarding Food 2

That little used ketchup receptacle? Not mine.
This is how a snowboarding day starts (when everyone gets those McDonald's coupons in the mail).

Snowboarding Food

Can't not use McDonald's coupons. Breakfast:


No lunch.

Dinner:


I only finished half of the monstrous serving of chilli cheese fries, but I also had some wings (which I also did not finish). I was warned that the Hickory Dickory Doc flavour was quite salty, but for some odd reason it tasted sweet to me.

Me: Either it tastes sweet, or I'm getting old.
Megan: Nope, it's salty. You're old.
Brandon: It's so salty that it makes the meat taste sweet.

Some Greenery

Call it velvety, eggy goodness or call it cooked butter with a hint of egg, but I'll call it salty goodness in a spinach sandwich. 

A salad! Sort of. Either I don't know how to pick fruits, or Cara Cara oranges taste like grapefruit.

More McDonald's

The Chocolate melt. It tastes like a chocolate cinnamon bun drenched in chocolate sauce.
This particular McDonald's had been disguised as a decent eating establishment, complete with a television and an aquarium. Oh wait; I can't seem to remember the last time I saw an aquarium in a restaurant. I did appreciate the little stump of a seat on the side of the booths though. You never know when you want to cram seven or more people at a table so everyone can all delve into some fatty goodness together.

Fried Crap You Can Eat

Lemon Pepper Chicken wings from Wild Wings.
The messed up wing was a bit disconcerting, but it was quickly overlooked by the salty, crispy goodness of the wings. We also ordered pizza sticks (which looked like short, marker-sized spring rolls) that we gobbled down before capturing their fried beauty.



The bun top is so perfect, it looks like plastic. I haven't had filet-o-fish since maybe about the time they had the McDeal menu. It's best when hot.

Play with Food

What can I say? I'm 12.
I didn't mean for this to look like a face with an apple in its mouth; it just did.

I could not stop giggling while making this guy - this delicious peanut butter and banana French toasted, maple syrup drenched, happy little monster.

Montreal Poutines

We went hunting for poutines in Montreal starting at about 4 am. We meant to try more, but we felt a bit ill by the fourth one. I guess we'll have to clear some arteries before clogging them up again.

La Banquise (994, Rachel Est)
Open 24 hours.
Lots of selection.
If anyone can tell me what the heck a "Poutine Chouxxx" is, that'd be great.
Server was pretty damn nice for that kind of early morning.


Poutine Classique grande:
Some of it was cold towards the edges of the dish, but it was warm in the centre.
Andrea and Sheila noted that the cheese was not "squeaky" enough for them. I still don't know what the heck they mean by "squeaky cheese."
We all enjoyed the gravy, which had a nice pepper taste to it.

Rapido (4494 rue Saint-Denis)
Open 24 hours.
No hot chocolate or soup at 5 am, but they do serve poutine and escargots at that time.

Andrea on the escargots: They taste like they're from a can.

The gravy was a bit orange for my likings, but it was what it was - a poutine. I think I enjoy large chunks of cheese in my poutine so long as the gravy is hot enough to melt it all into stringy gooey goodness.


Fameux viande fumée et charcuterie (rue St-Denis and av. du Mont-Royal E)
NOT open 24 hours. Opened at 5:30 am on a Wednesday.
They gave us breakfast menus, but we were confused and asked if they could give us poutine. We were overambitious in ordering two: one with viande fumée (smoked meat) and one regular.


The fries: damn fresh, hot and crispy. (That could describe the person I'm looking for, except for "crispy." I don't know what a crispy person is.) I think these were my favourite fries because they were golden yellow as opposed to brown.

After those poutines, we had to nap and we couldn't continue our eating for a couple of hours.

Next poutines to try: Patati Patata and Smoke's Poutinerie. Bring on the fatty goodness!