Eating With Gordon

I have seen Kefir in the supermarkets and normally ignored them. Spoke to a few of my work colleagues and found out that they have been taking a lot of home made kefir products to keep their immune systems up. They say it works miracles on keeping them healthy when they are close to being sick. 

When you have kids, you are share the love and the sickness too...

What is Kefir? 

• A sour-tasting drink make from cow's milk fermented with certain bacteria. 
• Made from Milk Kefir grains mixed with milk (that has lactose - milk sugar) to allow the bacteria strains to grow.
• Can buy Kefir milk products from supermarkets and the cost is about 3.8 to 5 dollars for 1 L bottle   

What are Milk Kefir Grains?

• Milk kefir grains are a combination of live bacteria and yeasts that exist in a symbiotic matrix on a surface of a complex polysaccharide with a casein core. Kefir grain make-up can vary depending on culturing location and conditions, resulting in a highly variable community of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts. 
  
  Following is a list of bacteria and yeast strains found to comprise kefir grains from different regions and through 2 different scientific studies.* The strains listed may include numerous subspecies and variants. 
  
  

  Bacteria Strains Common to Milk Kefir Grains

  Lactobacillus acidophilus
  Lactobacillus brevis
  Lactobacillus casei
  Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus
  Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. delbrueckii
  Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. lactis
  Lactobacillus helveticus
  Lactobacillus kefiranofaciens subsp. kefiranofaciens
  Lactobacillus kefiri
  Lactobacillus paracasei subsp. paracasei
  Lactobacillus plantarum
  Lactobacillus rhamnosus
  Lactobacillus sake
  Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris
  Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis
  Lactococcus lactis
  Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. cremoris
  Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. dextranicum
  Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. mesenteroides
  Pseudomonas
  Pseudomonas fluorescens
  Pseudomonas putida
  Streptococcus thermophilus 

  Yeast Strains Common to Milk Kefir Grains

  Candida humilis
  Kazachstania unispora
  Kazachstania exigua
  Kluyveromyces siamensis
  Kluyveromyces lactis
  Kluyveromyces marxianus
  Saccharomyces cerevisiae
  Saccharomyces martiniae
  Saccharomyces unisporus

Source Material: Link

This Asian cafe spot is located in a plaza south of Pacific Mall in Toronto. My friends and family have been visiting this place for a while. The prices are very affordable and the food tastes superb. With most Asian establishments, the servers bring food quickly.

These are photos after coming back from cottaging. Special thanks to Joot for his "Jootfest" treat.

Food: 3.5/5
Service: 3.5/5

Photos of Stuff Asians Eat:




3447 Kennedy Road
Scarborough, ON M1V 3S1
(416) 291-6088

‎

This is another Chinese Asian dim sum restaurant within Market Village besides Pacific Mall. The size of the restaurant is large and the dim sum dishes are $2.10 from Monday to Fridays. Weekends dim sum cost are about $2.50 a dish.

For Mother's Day, the restaurant was filled with elderly people. They would usually do the tai tea exercises in the cafeteria of Market Village but seems everyone took a lesson break today for tea.

The food service was very slow. When the dim sum cart eventually came to our table, some of the foods were gone (ie Chicken Feet!). Additionally, the food becomes colder as the cart trolleys around the restaurant. I also found out that the master Dim Sum chef does not usually arrive till 11 am; so the variety of foods was lacking.

I would probably come back next time when the master chef is there.
Note: this is probably the only restaurant where the shrimp crap hands dishes are the cheapest (2.50 per 2 craws per dish)!

Food: 3.5/5
Service: 3/5
Price: $15 per person

Food Photos for Dim Sum:


Address:
4390 Steeles Ave E
(905) 947-8340

150 Eglinton Ave E
Toronto, ON, Canada
Map
Website

My colleagues and I decided to pig out on "meats". We decided we are meatatarians. It is something we decided long ago and we feel very comfortable about. =)

This restaurant was formally a pizzeria on Eglinton Street. Now it is location to the new CopaCabana - a barbeque steak house buffet where a variety of mouthwatering, skewed meats are brought directly to your table and carved onto your plate. This style of service is called Rodizio-stype dining. To keep the meat servers coming, you keep this paper face up "Fire It Up!" Once you are almost dead, just flip this paper over for "Cool It".



In addition to their selections of meat, they have a salad/appentizer buffet bar on the side which contains seafood, rice dishes, pasta, cheese and vegetables. Desserts are extra; however you probably will get full from the meats and grilled pine apple. The cost per person without tip, tax is exactly $30 dollars per person.

By the end of the evening, I was going to explode. It was great especially the pineapple. I wish they had more selection since they give more on Fridays and Saturdays. Would I come back? For sure.

Side Buffet Stations:


Our choice of side buffet foods:


Complimentary Dishes:

Note: tasted like korean mochi bread, deep friend banana, corn bread muffin

Meat Selections:


The Grilled Pineapple:

This was the best tasting pineapple in the world. Crispy on the skin with flavours of caramel with the soft inner texture of the pineapple. I probably requested 6+ slices.

This place is located at 1589 Ellesmere Road Scarborough ON.
We went here before our little trip. This location is known for it's Deep Fried Mars Bar.



Here is the menu



Meat Pie and Fries



The classic fish and chips



The classic deep fried mars bar.

Overall experience was fattening and greasy. I give this place 4/5 finger licks.