Taiwan - Hello Kitty Sweets in Pictures

Everything was surprisingly really good except for dessert.

P.S. Not a Hello Kitty fan but dear friend was.

Hey MEATBALL

For those who follow Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, you know that Guy Fieri visited a couple spots in Toronto for the show and Hey Meatball was one of them. Located in Little Italy, lots of interesting restaurants in this area. Don't be surprised here, but this was my first time in Little Italy having lived in Toronto for soooooo long.

The menu is on the chalk board in the back. You place your order at the counter and they will call your name once it is ready. You find your own table and water is self served on the side. 

The chicken balls were featured on the show so of course I had to order it. It was chicken balls with mashed potato and mushroom gravy for around $12. You get THREE chicken balls on top of mashed potato covered with mushroom gravy. Nothing blew me away. It was alright.

The second item ordered was meatball (pork and beef) spaghetti for about $12 as well. Now this was below average. The meatballs were kind of tough, had a really strong pork taste. The noodles were more like an egg noodle instead of your normal white pasta. Not to my likings. The sauce was bland, not enough flavour. Overall, very disappointed and most definitely not worth $12!

Quite disappointed at this recommendation from Guy. Most people didn't finish their noodles around us either so that must be a sign... Will not be returning nor will I be recommending this place. 

Final Verdict: Par

Korea - Palsaek Samgyeopsal (8 Flavour Pork Belly BBQ)

As you can tell by the entrance, this restaurant has received a lot of media coverage for its famous 8 different flavours of pork belly.

Each table is setup like the below minus the meat where it was brought out upon ordering.

These are the condiments to go along with your pork belly. They offered three types of leaves for you to wrap your pork belly with. Perilla leaf, romaine lettuce and ???

Complimentary seafood tofu soup. Looks like it's not spicy right? No, once it starts boiling... it's get red and very spicy. It's a light but spicy seafood tofu soup.

The server will help you cook all the pork belly. All you need to do is eat.

My favorite flavour out of the 8 was the hot one. The hot flavour wasn't spicy at all, it was sweet and that's why I liked it. The second best one I liked was herb. It was something I never really tasted before. Overall, everything was alright, nothing really stood out. You definitely cannot eat the pork belly alone, or else you will get sick of it quickly. Having it wrapped with lettuce makes it not as heavy. Honestly, this was more gimmicky than anything else. The cost was 30,000WON enough to feed 2ppl which is less than $15CDN per person. Still worth a try when you are in Korea.

JaBistro

Unlike most Asians, I'm not overly crazy about Japanese food. A raw piece was fish over a bed of rice just doesn't entice me all that much. That is probably due to the fair amount of AYCE sushi I had in the past 10 years. I completely stopped eating AYCE in the last 2-3years. I had decent fresh sushi and sashimi from Le Cafe Michi and Aoyama but it did not bring me back on the Japanese food craze. JaBistro has been highly talked about and highly recommended by various food blogs I have read.

I'm usually not a fan of smoked salmon but this in house smoked salmon was a surprisingly nice start to the meal. The salmon was fresh and the smoked flavour wasn't overpowering in your pallet. The dressing for the salad was light and just coarsely drizzled. - smoked salmon salad 14

I was not able to taste every piece of the torched sushi platter, but every single piece I had was DELICIOUS. The fishes were fresh and the taste was exquisite. No soy sauce or wasabi were needed. Each piece of sushi is packed with flavour. These aburi sushi melts in your mouth in one bite where all the flavour and texture blends beautifully together. I'm not going to try to explain the texture and taste, you will just have to try it out yourself. - aburi 27

This was my least favorite dish of the night. It was a lightly battered chicken with a mayonnaise tartar sauce. The chicken was not crispy because it was plated on top of some broth. It paired well with the julienned cabbage as it provided a good texture in contrast to the "soggy" chicken. It was good but I would not order again and I would not recommend it.  - tori nanban 16

The shrimp toast that accompanied the seared cod was incredibly crisp. It tasted familiar yet I was not able to recall what it reminded me of. The cod was seared to perfection. The first bite literally melted in my mouth and had a buttery smooth texture. It was the best cod I ever had. It was seasoned just right without overpowering the taste of the cod. Perfectly executed, highly recommend this dish. - gindara 22

Now on to the famous JaBistroll that everyone is talking about. Nevertheless, this roll lived up to its hype. It was nothing I had before. The rice and all the ingredients in the roll blended beautifully together. It was a full bite of flavour and it just worked together. You taste all the ingredients yet it's all unified. There were salmon, uni, snow crab, fish roe with refreshing cucumber to balance everything out. No soy sauce is required here. Must try. I have to say, if you ate at JaBistro, you are probably not able to have sushi elsewhere. - JaBistroll 22

The sakura puff for dessert was average. Couldn't taste the sakura, maybe it was the pink foamy thingy on the side. Not sure. The green tea ice cream tasted store bought. I do not expect them to make it in house anyways. On the menu it said it's red bean custard cream? It's just whipped cream to me. Maybe they forgot the red bean part. Hahaha - sakura puff 10

I say skip ordering dessert as you do get a complimentary rosemary truffle =)

Can't wait to go back again!

Final Verdict: Above Par

NAMI

The whole purpose of me visiting NAMI is to have sukiyaki. NAMI is probably known for its fresh sushi and sashimi but I only wanted to have sukiyaki. I was first introduced to sukiyaki in Taiwan back in 2009 at Mo-Mo-Paradise specializing in AYCE hotpot. It was probably not authentic but it tasted really good. Sukiyaki is basically thinly sliced beef cooked with a sweet soy sauce. In other words, it's Chinese hotpot, Japanese style. If I ever craved for sukiyaki, I would usually go to Ematei. I discovered that NAMI also offers the same at a slightly more expensive price of $33/per person, whereas Ematei is priced at $60 (enough for 2 people or 3 girls, hahaha). Nonetheless, I wanted to give it a try.

 All the delicious ingredients being cooked in the sweet soy sauce. Taste wise, they taste the same but ingredient wise, there is a ever so slight difference with Ematei. NAMI provided udon noodles and Ematei provided yam noodles. It comes with a raw egg where you dip your beef that will give it a very tender texture.

Service was excellent as the server was informative and provided attentive service with privacy. However, it didn't seem like the server did not know to the assemble the raw ingredients on the hot pan. Ematei does a better job in that area. In end, it was a delicious meal. If I was craving for sukiyaki, I think I would go back to Ematei since it's cheaper and the service for the sukiyaki was better.

Black sesame icecream with a sesame crisp for dessert. A nice end to the meal. 

Final Verdict: Slightly Above Par

SongCook's Authentic Korean Restaurant

After a couple of my travel posts, let's bring things back home so you can actually go and have the food featured on my blog. After coming back from Korea, I was obviously craving for Korean food. I read about SongCook's on a couple of blogs but was hesitant to try it out early due to location. It's inconvenient for me but may be convenient for others. I did my research and made a list of the things I wanted to order.

Arrived early because I hate waiting and I was really hungry around 5pm already. You get a choice of being seated in the heated floor section or the tables. I opted for the seated floors because it reminds me of the times in Korea. It was nice and clean and very spacious. As most bloggers have mentions, the servers here speak fluent English =)

Here are the banchans, nothing too crazy. The jap chae was bland and the kimchi was okay. I liked the green bean jelly aka nokdumuk in Korean aka liangfen (涼粉) in Chinese. It was the first time I seen that in a Korean restaurant. The raw egg is for the seafood soon dubu later.

Got the jajang combo as many has recommended. The jajangmyun was fairly tasty. The noodles had a nice bite without being too soft.

JaJang combo w/ TangSu Yuk 13.00

Many reviews had suggested to pass on the tangsu yuk but I never listen and I want to try it since it seems like it's one of their best dishes. AND... I should of listened. It wasn't that good and pork was dry in the middle with a very strong sour taste.

TangSu Yuk

Now, the kalbijim was a must order recommended by everyone and it was really delicious. The beef rib was off the bone tender and had a really good flavour. It tasted very Chinese to me and so much Korean.  Perhaps more sweet than your average Chinese dish.


KalBiJim (s) 12

The seafood soon dubu wasn't worth anything to write about. It was very average. The rice came at an additional cost of 2.50 I believe which you can pick betweem brown rice and many other varieties. I definitely prefer my soon dubu at Tofu House in First Markham Place.

Haemul Soon Tofu (s) 7

complimentary dessert - not sure what it was but it tasted good

Overall, I liked SongCook's and would come back for the jajangmyun and try their tabletop cooking next time.

Final Verdict: Slightly Above Par

Taiwan - Sweets Edition: Dazzling Cafe and Snow King Icecream

I first discovered the whole honey toast (Chinese is known as 蜜糖吐司) ordeal from a Taiwanese travel show. It looked so pretty and yummy through the screen, so I had to mark it down for my future Taiwan trip. The exact name of the cafe/restaurant was not listed but with the help of Google, nothing is impossible with Google, I found the cafe. Through Google, the honey toast extravaganza exploded for me. Honey toast originated from Japan and was first introduced in Taiwan in 2010 by a Taiwanese socialite, and the very first Dazzling Cafe opened in 東區 (Daan District).  It was an immediate success and they only took reservations once a month and it would usually fill up very quickly. Nowadays, they have opened 6 other locations to fill any girl's craving for a pretty and yummy dessert. I visited their original location called Dazzling Cafe Pink and there was still an 1hr wait around 7pm. 

This was a very girly pink cafe, but don't get me wrong, there were still guys in there, most likely accompanying their girlfriends though =P There were also male waiters. There is a minimum charge of one drink per person in addition to whatever else you wish to order. The drinks were around $4-6CDN and the honey toasts are around Demetres' pricing more or less. I would say this is quiet pricey in Taiwanese standards, reasonable in Canada. I was previously told by a local teen saying that ordering one is good enough for 2-4 people depending if you have ate previously and it is very sweet and filling. The drinks were really meh. Now on to the good part, the honey toast. Upon presenting your pretty dessert, the server will let you know that they will come back and serve the honey toast to you once you have taken pictures of the massive toast. Nowadays, camera eats first! That was very considerate of them to avoid any awkwardness of them waiting for you to finish taking your pictures. 

The inside looks like the below once it's dissected by the server. Inside it was filled with sticks of crispy toast. It was funny how we didn't end up using the honey for this "honey toast", it was already sweet enough. It was filled with custard and ice cream. So you take a piece of toast stick and spread some ice cream and custard with a piece of strawberry and VIOLA, heaven~ It was delicious! The toast sticks were toasted to a crispy coating and soft interior. It was not overly sweet since we didn't pour the honey on top. It was AYCE custard, just ask the server for more. I was happy with my first experience with honey toast and I would definitely have it again. In fact, I want to introduce this to Canada. Anyone with me?

One of my favorite foreign food blogs to read is a hungry girl's guide to taipei. I obviously made good use of that while planning to trip to Taiwan. My hotel was in the Ximen area so I looked up all the good food places around there, and upon came this, highly recommended by hungry girl. It's an ice cream shop with 73 flavors everyday.

If you read Chinese, you can see all the cool and interesting flavors they have. All the flavors are house made. For those who don't, some examples are tomato, corn, milk, lotus seed, wasabi, curry, hot pepper, beer, brandy, pig feet and sesame chicken just to name a few.

In the end, me and friend decided to stay safe and picked fruit flavor such as watermelon and lycee. Both were really delicious and tasted like the real fruit. The store owner also advised us to eat the watermelon first and then the lycee since lycee had a stronger taste than watermelon. Check out this ice cream store the next time you are in Taiwan! Do it! Seriously. Hahaha~