Big Mouth Kee

Big Mouth Kee (280 West Beaver Creek Road, Richmond Hill)

905-881-8821

Hungry in the Richmond Hill area in the vampire hours? Go to Big Mouth Kee for some siu yeh.

Clams and Josie's Budweiser.

The sauce had a strong taste and we didn't want to waste it, so we ordered some white rice to soak it up. This was probably my favourite dish of the night.

X.O. sauce rice noodle rolls:
I feel like they could've had more sauce, but it was fine otherwise.

Salty deep-fried squid:
I thought filling up the plate with onion rings was unnecessary. Josie noted that they were cold. The actual squid pieces were hot and fresh.

Their logo is awesome:

Store hours:

It isn't fine cuisine and it doesn't pretend to be. The food is pretty cheap and plentiful. As a result, it's not uncommon to find the after clubbing crowd here.

Total damage: paid for by Josie. Yay!

Tim Hortons

Tim Hortons (Yorkdale)

Sausage breakfast sandwich:

The biscuit wasn't as crispy this time.

The utility derived from this thing is going down, down, down.

Total damage: $2-something.

Dave and Buster's

Dave and Buster's (120 Interchange Way, Vaughan)

905-760-7600

Sun - Wed: 11:30 a.m. - 11:00 p.m.

Thurs: 11:30 a.m. - midnight

Fri - Sat: 11:30 a.m. - 2:00 a.m.

With the Eat & Play Combo, one can have a meal and a $10 game card for $16.99.

I split a macaroni and cheese dish and a chicken caesar salad.

The mac and cheese looked better in the picture in the menu; however, what I was served wasn't bad. I liked the smoky bits of meat, and bacon makes everything taste better. The chicken in it was a bit dry, and there could have been more cheese. The size was decent and enough to fill up most people.

The lettuce in the salad tasted fresh, but some of the croutons were a bit mushy.

Cupcakes courtesy of Marianne (with help from Ian):
These golf-related cupcakes looked so cool! She used fondant to make the designs.

Oh Boy Burger Market Inc.

Oh Boy Burger Market (571 Queen Street West, Toronto)

416-361-6154

info@ohboyburger.com

Andrew read somewhere that this was rated the top "gourmet burger" joint in Toronto. Naturally, we had to check it out.

Spicy Boy Combo (includes a drink):

It wasn't really spicy so much as slightly tangy. Maybe the jalapeño was missing. The meat was thick and decent enough, but it wasn't dripping with meat juice like at Craft Burger. What was nice was the slightly crispy edges it had. Though the sauce was extra mild, I still liked how it paired with the beef.

I think the most noticeable difference in this burger from other burger joints was the bun. It was puffy and tasty. I believe it was from Ace Bakery.

The font on the music selection looks a lot like the one used for Wild Wings. Maybe they're all owned by the same company?

Andrew compared the fries to McDonald's fries. They're similar, but these ones were more brown and less salty.

Total damage: $13.56.

The Rebel House

The Rebel House (1068 Yonge Street, Toronto)

416-927-0704

Mon - Fri: 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 a.m.

Sat: 10:30 a.m. - 1:00 a.m.

Sun: 10:30 a.m. - 11:00 p.m.

On Saturdays, this casual joint is open for brunch from 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Thus, the window of opportunity for some grand portions of breakfast foods is quite wide.

My omelette of the day and a glass of orange juice:
The orange juice tastes store bought, but the glass jar with a handle that it comes in is pretty cool.

Berta's Rosedale melt:

I really enjoyed my omelette. It was huge, and all the vegetables in it mixed quite well together. The poached egg in Rosedale melt was cooked properly with runny yolk spilling out as it was cut. Berta and I both agreed that the slightly browned cheese on top of the egg was good. I found that the greens didn't quite agree with the rest of the melt though.

Berta said that she liked my omelette better than her Rosedale melt. I thought it was better too.

The kettle fries were abundant and some of mine were crispy. They were much better after adding salt. Lots of salt.

Vanilla cheesecake:
I found it less dense than most cheesecakes, but Berta thought it was pretty dense. The flavour was light, simple and pretty good. Berta thought the bottom crust was too sweet and didn't like the sauce very much. I didn't eat the crust because it was touching the red sauce that presumably contained berries or berry flavours. Neither of us really ate the whipped cream, but I think it was real whipped cream. Bonus points if it was.

Total damage: $21.

Ding Dong Pastries

Ding Dong Pastries (321 Spadina Avenue, Toronto)

416-640-2761

Right in Chinatown, this Chinese bakery delivers some great cookies ($2.50).
The cookies were softer than they appeared, and they didn't taste greasy. The chocolate bit on top was a nice touch. In Jess's words, "they're not mega hard and not so mega soft so that your hands get greasy."
The two of us cleared this snack package easily with continuous cookie consumption.

Yummy cookies!

Bier Markt

Bier Markt (600 King Street West, Toronto)

The Wild Game Feastivül (Nov. 4- Dec. 6) was on at the Bier Markt, and me and Jess got sucked into the restaurant with the help of some strategically placed signs outside of the building.

Alberta bison carpaccio ($10):
The meat was sliced super thin. The taste was similar to beef carpaccio, but Jess noted that the taste was "softer". It wasn't gamey even though I expected it to be so. I enjoyed the texture of the meat as well as the peppery seasoning on the edges of the bison slices.

Éphémère apple beer ($5.87):

The apple flavour seemed pretty subtle to me. It wasn't as exciting as the apple flavoured beer that I had at Beer Bistro. While eating my dinner, I wished that I had ordered a dark ale.

Nunavit caribou osso bucco ($25):
The celeriac purée tasted like mashed potatoes with extra grainy texture. Jess really liked the vegetables, but she said that she'd prefer a properly cooked steak over the caribou. The meat fell apart really easily, but it wasn't that moist. It was okay at first, but a bit hard to eat after a while. I would've liked more sauce to counter the chewy dryness of the meat. The entree was quite large, and I didn't manage to finish my plate.

As Jess said, this is a great place to bring someone you might not want to talk to because it is really loud and packed with people. I suppose it would also be suitable for friends who talk too loudly for quiet restaurants.

From this experience, I don't think I am a big fan of eating wild game. Well, not caribou at least.

Wonton Noodles

These wontons were huge.

The only bad thing about this was that I bit into a piece of shrimp shell when I attempted to eat one of the wontons.

I have no idea which restaurant this came from. I saw it as it was placed on the kitchen counter.

Casa-Imperial Fine Chinese Cuisine Ltd.

Casa Imperial (4125 Steeles Avenue East, Scarborough)
416-756-2788

This was my first time experiencing overpriced dim sum (and having to pay for it). It's an experience, but it's probably not something I could afford to do regularly. Also, the wait for a table was pretty long and finding parking involved waiting for people to leave the restaurant.

The shrimp dumplings in the bottom left corner are what they call "super har gow":
It's just like regular har gow, but a bit bigger. They weren't that special, but at least they weren't bad.

I forgot what was in those triangular pastries. The "salad" that came with the scallops were really just a couple of melon balls.
The congee we ordered was pretty good. The good thing about it was that the server actually took the time to remove all the clam shells at the table before serving it to us.
Apparently, these Shanghai style meat dumplings had crab in them. I had no idea.

The something something soup was very nice. It was quite smooth in texture, and it came in a fancy bowl. Unfortunately, that bowl was quite small.
The egg tarts had swallow's nest in them. I thought that was unnecessary, and I would've been fine with regular old egg tarts; however, my friends at the table noted that the swallow's nest added a smoother texture to the filling.
The most exciting dish for me was the de-boned chicken wings. There weren't that many on the plate, but I was pleased that the hard work had been taken care of for me.

The outside of Casa Imperial looks like a house.
Casey mentioned that the paintings and chandeliers juxtaposed with the giant Chinese character was like a fusion of Eastern and Western styles. I thought it was more like confusion.
We joked that they basically took a regular dim sum menu and added abalone and swallow's nest to everything.



Along with the prices, the teapots and menus are also upscale.

Tea charge? WHAT? I didn't know that existed.

Before arriving at the restaurant, I had estimated that the dishes would be approximately $5 per plate. It might have been slightly higher than that.

Total damage: $26 per person.

To add some perspective, I usually spend no more than $20 on dim sum and I average around $10-15. The upper bound is usually reached when I go with big eaters who are hungry.

Beer Bistro

Beer Bistro (18 King Street East, Toronto)

416-861-9872

French onion soup dumplings:
It was extremely cheesy, and a little difficult to find where the actual dumplings were. The croutons were crunchy and delicious. The whole thing really did have a French onion soup taste, but there wasn't anything soupy about it. It would've been cool to have a bit of the soup sealed in the dumplings like xiao long bao. Though that might have all been masked by the melted cheese.

Braised lamb shoulder:
Jess mentioned that anything braised on the menu would be good. It wasn't bad. Though the menu said there was pumpkin in it, I didn't notice any of it. The lamb was okay, as was the gnocchi.

I ordered the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, but this thing came:
There was a slight beer taste to it which added depth to the flavour. Speaking of beer, the glass of Fuller's London Porter was pretty tasty. It tasted a bit like chocolate.

Total damage $51 for a beer, half an appetizer, a main course, and dessert.