A Classy Bay Street Lunch

With another day on my own in Toronto, I decided to explore the downtown area, and opted to have lunch there as well.  My sister suggested a few places, including The Gabardine, to try for lunch or dinner.  Knowing that there would be lunch crowds on weekdays, I planned on heading downtown to get to The Gabardine between 11:30am and 11:45am to be able to get a seat.  Unfortunately, I left for downtown late and arrived about 11:50am, and there was already a small line-up with an approximately 40-minute wait in the packed place.

Going Beyond BBQ for Korean

I had not had some authentic Korean food in quite a while, so I asked my sister to suggest a Korean restaurant before our night out at the movies.  She recommended Mot Na Son, a small restaurant that appeared to be family-operated located in North York Centre, one of several Korean business hubs in Toronto.  Compared to other Korean restaurants I've tried in the Toronto area, the focus wasn't BBQ, though that was a possible option.  I appreciated this as I wanted to try other aspects of Korean cuisine, and I was not disappointed.

A Stella Lunch with the Parents

Close-up of Stella's Café's Provalone Roast Chicken Sandwich

I had the fortune of hosting my parents once more this year.  This has been the earliest in a year that I've been able to host them, as I managed to convince them to come see me perform in a community theatre production in late April; the comparatively late show times allowed them to avoid the usual winter season.  It had also been a couple of years since I last visited Winnipeg with my parents, so a full daytrip, including lunch in town, was in order when my parents visited me this past weekend.

Fine Dining by Students in Brandon

The study hall just off the main entrance to the Manitoba Institute of Culinary Arts (MICA).

For a few years I've heard of Grey Owl Restaurant being discussed by various people.  At first, shortly after I moved to Brandon, it was a mystery to me, as I couldn't find it listed in commercial directories like the Yellow Pages.  I then learned a couple of things about Grey Owl Restaurant that explained why it seemed so elusive to me:

1. It was a restaurant operated by students of the Assiniboine Community College's (ACC) Manitoba Institute of Culinary Arts (MICA); and
2. It was a seasonal restaurant, open only for four (4) weeks in January and February of each year.

A La Kitchen for Lunch

Of all the Chinese cuisines, perhaps Shanghainese cuisine would be my favourite.  Though Shanghai is located south of the Chang Jiang/Yangtze, its cuisine is argued to be associated with the northern half of the cuisine by virtue of breads and noodles being staple foods instead of rice, as well as the comparatively heavier dishes offered in Shanghainese cuisine compared to southern Chinese styles like Cantonese.  Perhaps the prevalence of noodles and dumplings better associated with northern Chinese cuisine could explain my love for Shanghainese cuisine.  My parents knowing this, they suggested that our family go to A La Kitchen for lunch.  A La Kitchen recently expanded, virtually doubling its seating capacity, and we did not have to endure a waiting line even though it was fairly busy.

Chinese Cress with Minced Bean Curd

A Golden Court Dinner

A dinner with the maternal grandparents was in order, especially since I for one had not seen them since my last Christmas break.  Though my family and I have noticed the existence of Golden Court Abalone Restaurant several times, only my parents and sister tried it last year due to a banquet event being held there.  Having enjoyed the cuisine there, they thought it was a good place to try for just a more casual dinner.  The Chinese cuisine offered at this restaurant, along with the price tag, was definitely on the higher end, with quite a few dishes on the menus offering various Chinese delicacies like shark's fin, conpoy and swallow's nest.  Even with some of the simpler dishes, greater attention was given to presentation compared to most other Chinese restaurants.

A personal serving of Snake Soup.

Sister Plays Culinary Santa

The feast being prepared.

This holiday season, I'm conceding on one point and hypothesizing on another.  The concession: I cannot keep apace to my sister's cooking, let alone baking, abilities.  The hypothesis: I believe my sister may soon, if she hasn't already done so, surpass my mother in being the best cook in our immediate family.  Case in point: the Christmas 2011 feast.

Winter Solstice 2011 Feast

I had completely forgotten that the Chinese traditionally has a festival to celebrate or commemorate the Winter Solstice.  Known as Dongzhi, the main (southern) Chinese traditional activity is for family to get together and have some tangyuan.  Feasts can also occur, especially in light of the family get-together, a significant event in any world culture.  Unfortunately, work commitments meant that my sister couldn't join us in time for Dongzhi.  Aside from tangyuan, neither my family or I have been aware of other traditional dishes from where my parents were raised, so my mother decided to make a few dishes involving food items I've really enjoyed at home.

Greek Serendipity

On my latest daytrip to Winnipeg I was actually undecided on where to go for dinner for a while, and I hadn't picked at least figure out a shortlist before my trip.  After a short drive down Osborne and Corydon I decided to give Kristina's on Corydon a try.  I didn't know what cuisine to expect there, but once indoors I discovered it was a Greek restaurant.  It was a small, cozy place, and, on that evening, it was nearly full of diners and abuzz with conversation and laughter.  The only visible indications that it was a Greek restaurant were all indoors with paintings of coastal Greek scenery along the tops of the walls, and two guitars and a mandolin hung on a wall, waiting to be played at any time, not to mention a fiery serving of saganaki at one point, with the flames shooting several feet into the air.

A cup-sized portion of Avgolemono topped with some freshly ground pepper.

Red Star Revisited

Since Friday was the last day when we could have dinner together as an extended family, we returned to Red Star Seafood Restaurant for dinner.  Of course, it's a no-brainer that one should have seafood when in Vancouver, so this time there was a greater focus on seafood this dinner.  There were some other dishes that were seen in the previous entry for this restaurant, so I only photographed the untried ones as highlights.

Soy Sauce Chicken

More Than Just Noodles

After a long day of exploring the city on my own, including lunch with some friends I knew from Brandon, I was getting exhausted and hungry.  Fortunately I'd made arrangements to meet my parents near the end of the Canada Line at Lansdowne Station for dinner in Richmond.  It was a few days since we were able to enjoy dinner on our own, and we decided to do so at a restaurant that features more casual Chinese dining, Michigan Noodle Restaurant.  It was a nice change of pace as it also reminded me of my childhood and teenage years when we'd go to these types of restaurants for lunch or dinner when visiting the Toronto area.

A serving of Green Radish and Carrot Soup.

Of Pigeons and Winter Melon Soup

Another dinner with the Vancouver relatives was in order, but this time one of my uncles realized dinner should be had at another place partly for variety and partly to allow us out-of-towners to try something different.  For that, it was decided that dinner should be at Sun Sui Wah Seafood Restaurant on Vancouver's Main St.  Though this restaurant does specialize in dishes made with fresh, live seafood, it also specializes in Roast Squab, or Roast Pigeon.  I'd first discovered this dish when I travelled to Hong Kong at the age of 10.  A restaurant just north of Sha Tin was famous for its Roast Squab, though at that age I was perhaps more enticed by the carp-filled ponds in the courtyard.

Roast Pigeon/Squab

Impromptu Lunch Out

I'm usually not a spur-of-the-moment kind of person.  I like to have things figured out or planned in advance, even if only for a day, but this past weekend was pock-marked with a few spur-of-the-moment events.  One of them was having a couple of friends crashing at my place Friday night after they went for drinks at a bar near my apartment.  By the time we were all awake the following morning it was brunch/lunch time, and my fridge was not properly stocked for a homemade breakfast (chiefly, no eggs).  However, one of my friends and I learned that our other friend had never before been to Lady of the Lake, so we agreed to go there for lunch.

Soupin' Up for the Fall

Oh, there were several possible factors that motivated me to make some suit for the first time in a while, and a slow-cooked one for the first time ever. Perhaps it was my sudden realization that I hadn't done any experimental cooking since this spring. Perhaps it was the bout of snow my city got last week. Perhaps it was my sister showcasing a slow-cooked soup she made herself recently. Perhaps it was my sister reminding (taunting?) me this weekend how I've been missing out on some finer foods and especially more exotic and/or unique ingredients that at times can only be found in large cities. In any case, the urge to experiment had sprouted and had to be nurtured to fruition.

My inspiration at one of my local supermarkets this weekend was oxtail. Though there is a definitely Chinese version of oxtail soup, my first thought upon seeing oxtail pieces was my childhood experiences of Hong Kong-style Western cuisine, of which my memory of oxtail soup was most vivid. HKW cuisine is essentially fusion cuisine with a slant that's more suited to Chinese tastes. and often than not feature ingredients that are either frequently in Chinese cuisine or are readily recognized as foreign derivatives of Chinese ingredients. With an inspiration and a memory in hand, I proceeded to create my own rendition of oxtail soup. I'll admit now that my method of making this soup was restricted by what I could easily get in town; a traditional southern Chinese version of oxtail soup with certain Chinese herbs was very impractical for me to make, and I've yet to start stocking up on those items from my Winnipeg daytrips.








Behold, a (large) sample of the final product! Though in hindsight cabbage could've been used here, I didn't buy any nor had any leftover to put in the soup. However, I did have plenty of celery from making some chicken thigh stew the previous weekend; carrots I had to buy during my weekly grocery run. To further add a Western twist to this dish I also added some pot barley and bay leaf into my soup. The oxtail meat easily fell off the bone after being cooked for about 4 hours, though perhaps I should caution that this cut of beef, with some gelatinous texture and, of course, a few large bones, may not be for everybody. If you're not a fan of oxtail, you could substitute with other bony cuts, and it doesn't have to be beef at all; with the soup my sister described in her blog, she used pork shoulder instead.

With this experimentation, I must confess I've failed on two points. First, in hindsight I could've added some more vegetables, such as cabbage and tomato. The second and arguable the bigger mistake of the two was that I didn't bother trimming the fat that was present on the larger oxtail pieces; I'll have to remember that next time. I didn't blanch the meat beforehand like my sister did with her pork shoulder in her soup, but I was able to skim off the surface the foam that naturally comes from boiling chunks of meat. Next time I could try adding other ingredients that could bring different flavours to the soup as well; for some reason Ancho chilis come to mind right now.

Below is essentially what I did. Feel free to experiment with other vegetables, herbs and/or flavourings to suit your particular tastes.


Andrew's Fusion Oxtail Soup

~1.5kg (~3.0lbs.) oxtail bones (preferably the larger, meatier pieces)
~1.5kg (~3.0lbs.) mix of vegetables, cut into bite-size pieces (e.g. carrots, celery) or shredded (e.g. cabbage)
1-2 bay leaves
75mL (1/3 cup) pot barley
3 litres of water (preferably filtered)
Salt & pepper to taste

In a large stock pot add oxtail bones to the water and bring to a boil for about 5-10 minutes. In the meantime, cut up the vegetables. (If using celery, save the yellow portions in the heart, especially the leaves; they themselves can help flavour the soup.) After the water has taken its time to boil, skim off the foam on the surface of the boiling water with a small sieve.

Add vegetables, bay leaves and barley to water and bring it back to a boil. Cover and let simmer for about four (4) hours on medium-low heat. If you've added something starchy to the soup mixture such as barley or potatoes, stir occasionally to prevent sticking to the bottom of the pot, which will result in burning which can easily ruin the flavour of the soup.

Just before the soup's ready to be immediately served, add salt and pepper to taste. The soup can be served with the meat and vegetables on the side or, if served as a meal, in a large bowl with the broth itself.