Eating With Gordon

Went back to Yu Seafood with dear for Lunch Dim Sum.  It was crazy packed with long lines. Lucky, I was able to get a small table quickly.


Food Rating: 5/5 - amazing quality - best of any dim sum dishes in Toronto

Service: 5/5

• the servers were immediate and quick
• constantly changed your plates 
• complained about the empty pepper shaker and they quickly fixed it
• no credit cards allowed=> cash or debt cards

Food Pictures from Visit:

Lobster Seafood Congee - perfect balance of savory and flavours	Eel Rice Roll - it was great	Chicken feet was very great tasting - the side snacks (of 2 peanuts type) weren't good ...
Almond Bun ! so good	Doggy bag to go - ordered too much
they will have a market place to sell seafood	setup for the commercial selling seafood market	pork and taro with pumpkins
they gave an empty pepper jar

Wife was craving some thai food for a long time since we watched a lot of Mark Wiens youtube videos (his food travels clips in Asia). After some googling, the logical conclusion was to try the restaurant called Khao San Road located in downtown Toronto (I'm not used to paying for parking).

We almost couldn't find the place but saw the partly lit neon sign. The seating arrangements is similar to Salad King where everyone is squeezed together like cafe style. You can hear people's conversations next to you ... (like this Asian guy asking this white guy if she would go out with Asian guys ...).

Food Rating: 5/5 - I would definitely go again. It was definitely back and there seems to be an endless flow of students coming into the restaurant. It is definitely expensive for a lunch menu.

• The Thai ice tea was very sweet like candy but interesting. The colour supposely matches the real version back in Thailand (based on the youtube videos)
• I loved the Khao Soi dish - you get multiple food notes of sweet, sour (lime), savoury (curry), crunch (fried noodles)
• Service was amazing - we must have got like 7 glasses of cold and hot water and also requested the fried egg be cooked more

My Food Pictures:

Thai Ice tea - looks orange!	Fried squash fritters - very tasty	Amazing Khao Soi signature dish
As usually, we ordered too much	The other signature dish	Entrance to restaurant
Menu (dear would like to try to cook it)

Inside the restaurant

A new restaurant called "Yu Seafood" opened up  to replace the bankrupt Wasibi buffet restaurant that existed in the West Beaver Creek location. When my lunch party got there for dim sum on Tuesday at 11:45 am, there was a long line already waiting.

Style and Decor:

• Totally different from Wasibi decor 
• Looks very open with booths and tables with high ceilings (probably $1-2M renovations)
• Japanese theme with the light colours and wood nature contrasts
•  They built 2nd floors just for washrooms (the original Wasibi never had a 2nd floor)
• They got individual rooms for washrooms with labels for Men and Woman (located on the 2nd floor)
• why bother when you have individual rooms already? 

Almond Bun that was amazing (hot, sweet, savoury, crunchy)

Food:  

• Dim sum dishes pretty good - loved the Almond bun
• I haven't tried dinner dishes
• The noodles were very disappointing - lacking flavours

Pricing:

• Take cash or debit cards - NO CREDIT CARDS
• Top end pricing for dim sum and the dinner pricing looks expensive too
• S: $3.10
• M: $4.10
• L: $5.10
• XL: $6.10
• SP: $9.80

Conclusions:

• 4.5 stars - I would go back again 
• I went back again here:
• Part 2 

Name: Yu Seafood
Address: 270 West Beaver Creek Rd, Richmond Hill, ON L4B 3Y9
Phone: 905-881-1688

After getting recommendations from local foodies on Chowhound and colleagues, I decided to purchase on Amazon of these Laksa instant noodle package.

This is probably one of the greatest instant noodles in the world. If you make it according to the instructions, it will turn out tasting better than some of the "good efforts".

Product Description: 

Indulge in this new experience ~Aromatic Prima Taste Laksa gravy with silky, steamed and air-dried noodles. Every bite is as good as traditional noodles. Every aroma and texture is an ode to the authentic taste of Singapore, and a full gourmet meal.

Notes: 

• Says no MSG in package for those who are sensitive.  
• Kind of expensive for instant noodle package but very tasty 
• Was sold at T&T supermarket but they ran out and I bought it on Amazon.ca

My Rating: 4.5/5

An old friend introduce these pretzels to us during an ice fishing trip up north in Ontario. It was a great hit within our hut and was unfortunately informed that it was only available back in the USA in the 2009 years.

As fast forward to present day (1/22/2016), many Canadian retail food stores sell them now!  I have seen them at No Frills, Loblaws and Canadian Tire. Definitely a tasty snack with multiple flavours!

My current favourite is Mustard.

Found these are the local supermarkets and they are the baking Japanese Kit Kats (I found these at Tone Tai Supermarket in Toronto).

You can supposely microwave the candies for a few seconds and supposedly send you to feel good frenzy. I didn't try it and ate it like regular candy.

White Rabbit Creamy Candy is white, with a soft, chewy texture, and is formed into cylinders approximately 3 cm long and 1 cm in diameter, similar to contemporary western nougat or taffy.
Each candy is wrapped in a printed waxed paper wrapper, but within this, the sticky candies are again wrapped in a thin edible paper-like wrapping made from sticky rice.^[1]

The rice wrapping layer is meant to be eaten along with the rest of the candy and can be found in the list of ingredients in the UK as "Edible Glutinous Rice Paper (edible starch, water, Glycerin Monostearate)" along with liquid maltose, white granulated sugar, whole milk powder, butter, food additives (gelatin, vanillin), corn starch, syrup, cane sugar and milk. Each candy contains 20 calories.

These candies were very popular with asian children and I normally never eat the rice wrapping layers. I can find these candies at any asian supermarket especially T&am
p;T in Toronto.

I always find that the Starbucks staff would always write the wrong names/spelling on the cups. As such, I always find myself being a new person every time I visit them.

Disclaimer: you might have realized that I'm a fan of Marvel movies and Game of Thrones.

My Previous Purchases at Starbucks:

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