Hakata Shoryuken Ramen

Hakata Shoryuken Ramen (5321 Yonge Street, North York)
(416) 733-3725

So, the last time I visited this ramen place was a long time ago.

Changes to note:
The prices on their website are about a dollar less than what they actually are (noted today).
The portion size seems much larger than the last time I was here, and if you're not full, you can get more noodles for $2 to be added into your leftover ramen soup.
There is an option of wavy noodles or straight noodles.
It is way, way, way busier now.
They are now open on Mondays.
The $13 lunch special (ramen plus don) is now from Monday to Friday.
There are more menu items now (including tako wasabi).

A little E. Honda. 

Chashu Lover

Seven pieces of melt-in-your-mouth chashu. Really, it is the highlight for me. The soup base is flavourful and very rich. The ramen is filling. The one guy running the room is super efficient. He set us up with menus and water real quick.

Would I return? Yeah, love that chashu. Though you have to wait a little bit for the ramen (there's two guys in the back making it, and only one server), it's good. Not the cheapest, but pretty tasty. Also, Street Fighter. 

McCain Marché Harvest Pockets

Fanciest non-pizza pocket I've ever eaten. It is alright... A bit salty, but pretty much what is expected of frozen foods. I might prefer the original pizza pockets more for convenience and nostalgia. I am not a superfan of fake healthy foods.

New Glasgow Lobster Suppers

New Glasgow Lobster Suppers (604 route 258, New Glasgow, Prince Edward Island)
(902) 964-2870

Heard lots about the East coast lobster dinners where you can eat lobster and all-you-can-eat mussels/chowder/dessert.

The mussels come in a bucket. They were a bit on the dried up side, but other than that, they were okay.

The salads

Coleslaw, green, and potato. With bread roll.

Lobster

First whole lobster of the trip! It came pre-cracked, so it was like lobster for beginners. Meat was tasty, fresh, and surprisingly easy to get out of the shell. If you eat the green stuff inside, the make it so that it tastes pretty creamy. Also, you can taste the ocean on it.

Coconut cream pie and lemon meringue pie.

Photo by Jo.

Not pictured: seafood chowder. The salad plate was okay, and the chowder was a bit standard, but I would later have much, much, much more interesting chowder later in the trip. The bread was surprisingly good, and it was, in fact, the only food item that Dave liked. I wasn't amazed with the food, but it was a good experience to have, and a good benchmark for the seafood to come. I quite enjoyed my lobster and pie. I think I remember Josie saying she liked the pie crust.

Some notes: 
You pay and pick your entrée of choice right at the front of the restaurant before you are seated (even if you have reservations). 
They ran out of chocolate cake. :( 
Service is nice enough, but a little understaffed.

Would I return? Possibly... but I had a much better experience at Baddeck Lobster Suppers... more on that later...

Bruce Cost

Bruce Cost Ginger Ale Unfiltered Original

Saw this at Loblaws for $2-something. It's delicious! The ginger flavour is strong, yet it is still pretty sweet. That fresh ginger taste is what makes this drink awesome. You can see the ginger bits in the settled drink - be sure to invert before opening. 

The ingredients are simple: carbonated water, pure cane sugar, 100% fresh ginger, and citric acid. And really, that's all it needs. 

Would I buy this again? I already have, heh. It's the best tasting ginger ale I've ever had.

PIE

Pie (499 First Street, Collingwood)
705-293-3900
Hours: 11:30 AM - 10 PM daily.

After a great experience at the other location in Barrie, I decided to go for some more after-snowboarding (okay, so I've been holding on to these pics for a while) Pie pizza (and stein of beer).

Stein of Sapporo

It's a thinner crust type pizza, and it was delicious. Again, I added some sausage to my Kobi pie. I cannot vouch enough for the stein of beer plus Kobi pizza combo. 

Would I return? Yes! Also, Kobayashi has eaten there.

Red Bench

The Red Bench (611 Yonge Street, Toronto)

(647) 748-4868

info@findtheredbench.ca

Hours: 1 PM - 10 PM daily. 

 A full ice cream sandwich: $6 plus tax. Brookie and Cookies n Cream cookies with Peanut butter ice cream.

For the full sandwich, you can choose two types of organic cookies, the ice cream flavour (on rotation), and a topping. There is a decent selection of toppings, but I opted for roasted almonds. The Brookie cookie (described as "brownie in a cookie costume") seemed softer and worked better in the ice cream sandwich. The other cookie was a bit harder, which made eating a bit messier. My advice would be to pick the Brookie or an equally softer-looking cookie. Overall, pretty good. I split this with Julie, and the half is a pretty decent size for a dessert/snack.

Photo by Phoebe.

Would I return? I might. I'm not crazy about ice cream in general, but ice cream sandwiches are a bit nostalgic for me. The cookies are organic, and they have some fun flavours. The made-to-order cookies reminds me of Sweet Flour, but this place is more conveniently located. Come to think of it, I never did try the ice cream sandwiches there... they'd probably be awesome since their cookies were fluffy and soft.

Garrison Brewing Company

Klingon Warnog Roggen Dunkel Ale

Also picked this up at the Halifax airport. I totally didn't realize this was a Star Trek thing. I also read "Warnog" as "Warhog".  

I like the cap. :D 

First thoughts: what is this headless beer I am drinking? Dark and opaque, it looks like Asian hot pot plum juice. Tastes slightly fruity with a slightly bitter/clove aftertaste. It was okay, but I probably wouldn't get it again. 

I just wanted to know what victory tastes like. Spicy? I didn't notice that.

Linda's Coffee Shop

Linda's Coffee Shop (32 Queen Street, Charlottetown, PEI)

Ran into this shop because the breakfast we thought was included in our conference fees at the Delta was not. It was basically the closest thing around that was open in the morning. Spotting other patrons with their name tags around their necks, it appeared we weren't the only ones who were misled.

Pretty tasty. The potatoes were crunchy on the outside and super soft on the inside. The egg with the cheese was nice. Server was friendly. Food might've taken a little longer than expected, but we just might've been really hangry.

Total damage: approximately $15 (including drink). 

Upstreet Craft Brewing

Upstreet Craft Brewing (41 Allen St, Charlottetown, PEI)
902-894-0543
Hours: 12 - 12 daily.
cheers@upstreetcraftbrewing.com

What's a trip to the East coast without some craft beer? We walked into an empty place at around 10-something p.m. on a Sunday night. Our bartender was really chill in true Maritime fashion. 

Settled in with our flights of beer

I think Jo and I agreed that the favourite was the Rhuby Social. It was fruity? I can't remember now. I also liked the Top Stamp honey brown lager and the Barnone IPA. I thought it was pretty cool that they had a tap dedicated to featuring other brewery's beer. Craft beer seems like such a friendly scene.

Board games

That's a lot of Catan. Giant Jenga!

Would I return? Sure. None of the beers were amazing, but there was a couple I liked. The vibe is cool in that it seems real laid back, and there are things to entertain you e.g. board games, pinball machine. Our bartender seemed to have no problem with us playing Jenga at the bar. They also have pretty decent hours.

Total damage: approximately $24-something for two flights of beers.

Cow's

Cow's (397 Capital Drive, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island)

902-628-3614

Hours: 9 a.m. - 9 p.m. daily.

Before travelling to Charlottetown, there was a lot of hype about Cow's ice cream. I was planning on only eating lobster, but figured if multiple people suggested it, maybe local ice cream couldn't hurt. There were multiple locations on the island, and there are other locations in Canada as well.

New York Moosecake

The ice cream flavour names generally have some sort of cow pun. The ice cream was good, as ice cream usually is. I guess the texture might've been creamier than lesser ice creams. I wasn't blown away, but it was good.

After Jo arrived to town, we had to go again so that she could see what all the hype was about.

 Cookie dough.

Would I return? Sure, I wouldn't mind. Ice cream is rarely a bad idea in the summertime. They have fun flavours, and merchandise includes cow-ified pop culture t-shirts. Oh, and they make cheese. Don't have a picture, but we bought their applewood smoked cheese at a Superstore in Truro, and daaaaaamn. The cheese almost tastes like bacon in the best possible way. Would definitely eat that cheese again. I think I might like the cheese more than their ice cream.

Total damage: about $5 per cone.

Edit: Found a pic of the cheese!

World's Best at WCC Cheese 2014!!!

This appletree smoked cheese was so delicious, I had to get Monique to bring me back some more in her cooler. Seriously delicious. So smokey and super flavourful. I am craving some now.

Dave's Lobster

Dave's Lobster (6 Prince Street, Charlottetown, PEI)
Hours: 11 a.m. - 8 p.m. daily

My first dinner after landing in Charlottetown had to be lobster. I was going to make it my mission on this trip to gorge on lobster at every chance. The popular Water Prince restaurant didn't have room for us, and we were hungry for lobster, so we strolled down the block to Dave's Lobster.

Some Fancy

It's basically my favourite version of the lobster roll: buttered lobster with lemon in bread/bun. Bonus: chives. As far as lobster rolls go, I like the hot, non-mayo version because I really like to taste the ocean on the lobster without other ingredients getting in the way. The large lobster chunks were very exciting. And so yummy. I wanted to eat two. My dinner mates were slightly less enthused with the lobster taco, but praised the half hot half cold lobster roll. The half and half is basically half warm buttered lobster roll, and half cold mayo lobster roll. 

Staff was friendly and mentioned that they were just opening new locations in and about the Canadian East coast e.g. Halifax.

Would I return? Yes. I like the giant lobster meat; it tastes so good. Not the cheapest lobster roll on the island, but definitely high on my list of good eats.

Total damage: approximately $20 for the lobster roll and bag of chips.

North Brewing Company

Farmhouse Ale (Halifax Nova Scotia)
7.5% ABV

 Picked this up at the Halifax airport, and it is pretty delicious. Darker in colour than I thought it'd be, it tastes a whole lot less bitter than I imagined as well. The bitter comes a bit after, but not in abundance. I like the deep colour. Hold it up to the light, and you'll see the reddish glow that looks pretty nice. The head is quite pouffy.

There's an unexpected fruitiness to it as well. Goes down easy, and high alcohol content (not noticeable in taste) for a beer. It is a bit creamy-tasting. Ingredients are simple, and look at that: "fair traide organic raw sugar"! If that doesn't immediately make you feel better about drinking it, then you're not a hipster. 

Would I purchase again? Yes. It's quite nice overall with simple ingredients that are listed. High alcohol content is a plus for me. Good job, Halifax.

Total damage: Around $6-something for 650 mL? 

Patria

Patria (480 King Street West, Toronto)
416-367-0505
Sunday 10:30 a.m.  - 2:30 p.m., 5:30 - close.
Monday - Saturday 5:30 - close.

Those are some pretty vague closing hours.

The following are pictures of the $60 prix fixe meal:

Ibérico de bellota

Fancy, salty, Spanish ham. It is yum!

House-baked bread with fresh tomato and olive oil

While the ingredients may seem basic, it's still pretty tasty. 

Quince jam and cheese

Honestly, I wasn't sure how to eat this. The proportions of the jam, the cheese, and the bread were so skewed, I wasn't sure if they were supposed to go together. Wasn't a huge fan the jam, but I'm not a jam fan in general. Also not sure what cheese that is. *shrug* I suspect it is manchego.

Croquetas de setas

The truffle comes through in the aioli, and really classes up this breaded, mushroom cheese stick. Porcini mushroom and manchego cheese, that is.

 Empanadas

They gave us six empanadas for the seven of us, and we were all trying to be polite by waiting for the last one to come. Alas, I consumed the empanada at a lukewarm temperature. It was still tasty, but perhaps it might've been better warmer.

Ensalada remolachia

Many at the table thought that the toasted almonds were the star of this salad. It had a lot of flavour for such a sliver of an item. I liked the vermouth vinaigrette and the goat cheese as well. I'm pretty much a sucker for most cheeses. 

Garbanzos con espinacas

Chickpeas with spinach and migas. Upon the first bite, there were very hard bits that were surprising. I think they were breadcrumbs, and they were kind of too hard and crunchy to belong with this food in my mind. That first bite was a little unsettling, like finding a bone in your Filet-O-Fish. This was probably my least favourite dish of the night.

Gambas al ajillo

There was a lot of parsley. Much of it may have masked the flavour of the shrimp. Otherwise, still good.

Bisteca

Here's the beef, cooked to about medium rare. This was probably my favourite plate of the meal. The meat was deliciously tender, and the crunchy chip bits were big enough for me to see so that they did not surprise me in my mouth. Lots of flavour here. Delicious, meaty flavour with peppers.

Churros con dulce de leche and chocolate pudding

The desserts looked pretty cool, but also looked like a piece of shit... Anyway, the long stick coming out of the poop-shaped chocolate pudding is candied olive oil. What's cool is that at the bottom of the stick is a rounded puck shape and olive oil gushed out of it when it was chomped at. The chocolate was rich and of the dark variety. I quite liked it. The churros were sweet, crunchy doughnut sticks that I have nothing to complain about. 

They brought out about three of each of the pictured plates for our table of seven. Coming into this, I expected to leave hungry, but I was pleasantly full. I enjoyed trying multiple dishes, made with legit Spanish ingredients like the ibérico ham and manchego cheese. Some dishes impressed me more than others, but I didn't not enjoy any of them. And I'm still wondering how they candied the olive oil. 

The place is pretty fancy, and also extremely loud. The loud music and all patrons trying to talk over said music detracted a bit from my dinner.

Would I return? I wouldn't go here regularly due to loud volumes and the fanciness of it all, but maybe on another special occasion since the food was pretty good. I feel like I'd need to try their paella because Spanish.

Credit to Julie for the pictures and cheers to Jenny the birthday girl for opting to eat here!

Sushitto

Sushitto (food truck found on University Avenue, near Toronto General Hospital)

Julie was raving about wanting to try this food truck that sells sushi burritos. I imagined a bastardized, oversized sushi roll wrapped in a tortilla, and told her to have fun with that. 

We passed by the truck at 11 a.m. on a weekday, but the sign said they open at 11:30. When we returned at about 11:35 a.m., there was a line of about 20-30 people waiting to order. Julie joined that line in anticipation of awesomely weird truck food. 

Prices seem a bit high, but I guess that's normal for downtown. 

The Cermaq box says "sustainable aquaculture", so that seems decent.

The wait in line was long, but the wait for the food was longer. Julie noted that the cash person was very focused on collecting cash and orders, and waited for a row of orders to be ready before beginning to hand out food. 

About thirty to forty minutes after lining up, the half shrimp tempura burrito was served - accompanied with what was described as sweetened sriracha sauce.

It looked like a hungry student made it. There was, however fake crab meat and alfalfa sprouts in it, which was considered a perk. It seemed like the wait and the price were too much for the product. Julie's review: "Sushitto was so shitto". 

Would I try it? I don't know... eating this would mean foregoing my lunch break nap. And I could actually get a full meal with beverage at McDonald's for those prices.

Dumpling Restaurant

Dumpling Restaurant (4385 Sheppard Avenue East, Scarborough)
 Phone number(416) 293-8321

I only noticed this afterwards, but there is Korean writing on the sign. This was confusing because the staff spoke Mandarin to us and Northern Chinese dishes were on the menu. Renée noted that she also saw Korean offerings like pork bone soup, but I didn't notice that. 

Hot and sour soup with noodles.

I think we could've done without the noodles due to too much food ordered, but it was good. It wasn't extremely spicy, nor sour. 

Pot stickers

I think these are my favourite kind of dumplings, next to the soup-filled kind.

Green onion pancake. Not the best I've eaten, but passable.

Steamed dumplings

We got both the pork and lamb versions. The lamb dumplings were way juicier, with meat juice squirting out at the first bite.

Beef pancake roll

I don't know what it's actually called, but it's basically a thin green onion pancake rolled with slices of beef. 

Would I return? Sure. The food is pretty reasonably priced and decent. There is ample space inside the restaurant. Though the staff may be found on their cell phones, they will multitask and grab your empty teapot with their other hand. Service may be a bit indifferent, but this is by no means a fancy joint. 

Total damage: approximately $15 per person (3 people total) for everything in the pictures (plus an extra steamer of dumplings).