Day of eating location #8 Chipotle Mexican Grill

And now I invite you to the final “Day of eating” location.  Chipotle Mexican Grill. Some people might have seen advertisement for this on the TTC. Here it is~

 

To be truthful, I don’t remember what I got. I believe it was a chicken wrap. Basically you could choose what ever you wanted to be inside.

You could choose between 2 different types of beans, veg, and spicy sauce.

 

Somone in the group got something else. There wraps with different stuff in it.

 

Overall: Mediocre. It just felt like a wrap with lots of stuff stuffed into it. It also wasn’t that cheap so I personally didn’t really like it that much.

 

And this is the end of the crazy “Day of eating” day~

Day of eating location #7 Pho….or not…

Our initial thought was to eat a very good Pho place. When we got there it ended up being closed on that day.

The shop that was right beside it had this inside. we weren’t sure what it’s their for because this was the entire shop…literally.

 

Since it was closed, we decided to go to Tap Phong to get some culinary utensils. Since we were standing their waiting for the bus i decided to snap some photos of my friends.

 

While we were walking Tap Phong we decided to drop by an Asian bakery  because it was so ridiculously cheap 6 buns for $3.

 

Pretty much everyone bought something. We decided to just sit around and chill for a bit cuz we were all tired.

 

The bread was just like any other asian bakery, except ridiculously  cheaper.

 

And ownward to the last destination~

Day of eating location #6 GrindHouse Burger Bar

GrindHouse Burger Bar. Environment was nice and dim inside, like most bars. Sadly for the group, that was a very bad sign as most of us were pretty tired by now from the loads of walking and eating. Several of them started getting sleeping/napping while waiting for food.

 

The restaurant had a high-class-feel to it, which couches and nice tables, chairs and utensils.

Now the most important thing, that food.

The onion rings were definitely good. a tad bit pricy for the portion, but everyone should at least try it once so they feel what good quality crunchy onion rings feel like.

The description in the menu says ” Spiced Buttermilk Batter and Panko Crusted,” and it came with a mysterious sauce who’s name i have forgotten.

 

The other dish that was ordered was “Sweet potato fries with Black Truffle Aioli.” It was slightly disappointing as the fries had a slightly burnt taste to it. To be truthful i’ve never had sweet potato fries before so i’m not sure if they are suppose to taste that way. But the sauce was delicous.

This was the “high-class” untensile i was talking about. The knife was very uniquely designed.

 

Overall though: onion rings are Good. If I had to make a comparison, i would say they are like crunchier Costco fries.

Day of eating location #5 Smoke’s Poutinerie

I would call this place a “classic University snack place” Large portions, cheap food, good taste and loads of grease

Introducing “Smoke’s Poutinerie.” The fact they have so many news articles should mean they have some good food to eat.  We all wanted to have the “rabbit poutine” that was being advertised on the chalkboard, but it was just a joke since it was near Easter.

First up, we have the chili poutine. Not much to expect as it really is just poutine with chili on top. But it still tastes good though. $6.49/7.99

Next, Hogtown Poutine: Double-Smoked Bacon, Italian Sausage, Sautéed Mushrooms, Caramelized Onions. $6.99/8.99

Lots of meat. Nice combination of flavours, bits of salty from the meats, a little spice from the sausage and sweetness from the onions and mushrooms.

Finally, Triple Pork Poutine: Chipotle Pulled Pork ,Double-Smoked Bacon , Italian Sausage. $7.99/9.99

Overall, not bad but I would have preferred a bit more meat so all the fries get a bite of meat. Not much to describe in terms of flavours and such as most of the ingredients are frequently eaten anyways.

Day of eating location #4 Petite Thuet

Petite Thuet. A very small “bakery” near king station in Toronto. Very classy place where you can grab a small snack and a coffee and work or lounge on the couch to relax.

There seems to be a limited supply of baked goods everyday because when we got there, there were not that many baked goods left by the time we got there.

First up is the Blueberry and almond tart. The crust was rather thick and the filling was thin (as shown in the picture); however, it might have been intentional. A thick filling might make the tart fragile and very sour/tart from the increased amount of blueberries.

Next up we have the Pear tartlet. The tart is not your traditional hard tart, it had more of a cakey feel to it. The pears were neatly placed into the tartlet and very finely sliced so that you don’t feel like you biting into a gigantic chunk of pear. The tart as a whole was sweet and the bits of almond made it so much better because it adds a contracts to the soft texture of everything else.

Following that is the key lime tartlet. Thin tart, strong lime flavour and a nicely browned meringue on top made it the “tart that everyone liked.” You can tell they didn’t skimp out on the lime flavour like some restaraunts/bakeries do. The intensity of the flavour makes you want to take another bite just to make sure your taste buds are working properly.

Last and probably least, in my books, was the flourless chocolate cake. I am well aware the reason for the fourless cake are for those who can’t have gluten but I personally don’t like the heavy and dense texture that it has. For this particular flourless cake you could tell they use quality chocolate(or they burned the chocolate, i’m not sure since i’m not a super chocolate fan. I’m just assuming they know what they are doing).They allowed the chocolate to shine  as the bitterness of the chocolate was prevalent and there didn’t seem like a large amount of sugar was used to try to offset the bitterness of the quality chocolate.

just a picture with all the tartlets.

Overall view of the restaurant was mediocre. Some of the tartlets were good, some were not so liked but the environment was nice. I probably won’t go back, unless someone else really wanted to go as well due to price and size (sorry if i sound asian and all)

Day of eating location #3 Soma

Above are some random things that were in Toronto’s distillery district. Not exactly sure what they are, but they were pretty awesome to stare at.

Sadly I forgot to take a picture of the place. The place was called Soma.

As the picture says, this is a Melangeur, it crushes roasted and cracked cacao beans into a powder, called chocolate liquor.

A gigantic bag cacao beans ( I think), there were several bags just lying around the store.

Their “laboratory” is basically where they made most of their chocolate. We got to see them pull out huge blocks of chocolate that finished cooling.

This is basically the store. A small glass refrigerator for small chocolate bits in the back and on the left is the gelato/sorbet store. The things they have were higher quality than what you find in normal chocolate stores.

These were the little bits of chocolate they made. Most are very unique and all made almost perfectly the same. I particularly like the candied orange (just the look) the candying was done so well it almost didn’t look like a real orange.

The main attraction for us at Soma was the gelato and sorbet. Sadly they didn’t have the buckets of flavors made so we had to buy the small ones and all share, but the spoons they gave us are small and the sorbet/gelato was rock hard at the beginning so everyone took small bites.

Funny story, after a while, a very small bunch of us started eating the icecream like no tomorrow. We even slowed down and didn’t cross the street when the light was about to change so we had more time with the ice cream XD.

With that, that is the end of Day of eating location #3 Soma.

Day of eating location #2 Kenzo

With much waiting between my previous posts, I FINALLY do place #2!

Surprisingly enough, we actually arrived before the shop opened so they kicked us out. We didn’t feel like waiting in front of the shop so we decided to walk across the street to Canadian Tire and looking and laughed at random stuff they had and Quach had to buy some stuff for culinary class.

Sadly I forgot to take a picture of it, but they had measuring spoons for “pinch dash and …….” something else, I forgot what the last one was. We ended up walking around in there for a good 20 min and 2 more friends joined our group.

At last we got to enter.

Its literally right beside Ryerson’s Ted roger’s building.

People trying to figure out what they wanted to order. We wanted to try 1 of everything so it took AWHILE to figure out what to order.

The menu.  A very small menu but that means the food will be guaranteed fast and always taste the same since the chef has less things to mess around with.

First up, Andrew Kwan ordered Tonkotsu Sho-yu Ramen. It was a Miso based ramen.

Next, Jessica Chen and Vivian Ng shared a Sho-yu Ramen. This was Japanese Soy sauce based.

Quach and Jermane Lee both got a Tonkotsu Ramen.  As the menu says, “Hakata style pork bone soup.”

Grace Cheung got Tonkotsu Miso Ramen. Only difference is the soup base difference.

Last but definitely not least (literally) is the “King of the Kings Ramen.” Let’s just say this one was truly one crazy ramen in both size and flavor. At first I assumed that because it was spicy I would get the flavor of Korea’s instant ramen flavor, but it was not even close. After the first sip I could tell that it was made fresh or at least not coming from an aluminum package. The amount of salt in the soup base was not noticeable, the spiciness, on the other hand, is a different story. It was rather spicy (which was not the smartest thing to do since I had a dry throat that day) but it had a ton of flavor with it.

I definitely have to give a thumb up for the noodles.  The noodles had a nice flavor to them and were a little chewy. They didn’t seem like they were frozen, more like made in the store or delivered to the restaurant raw which allows the noodles to be chewy (I think…I might be wrong about that).  The quality of the noodles made me want to go back for 2^nd round.

Overall thought about Kenzo? Totally worth it! Experience was good, food was good.  Totally worth it, but a tad bit expensive for my liking, but was good.

Day of eating location #1 Saving Grace

The Restaurant. yeah…..from the outside doesn’t even look like a restaurant.

As you can see, everything inside seems to be 2nd hand stuff. all the water carrying devices all seem to be wine bottles.

Not a single thing here seems new, which sorta made it quite interesting.

The specials and Part of the menu

Dish #1 French Toast with caramelized banana and maple syrup.

It was very interesting. instead of the usual bread for french toast, they used a baguette. In most cases, baguettes have a  dry and crispy crust; however, the eggs batter seem to have softened the crust and gave it a interesting texture.

The caramelized banana gave a nice alternative to the usual smothering of maple syrup on the french toast. It was sweet, but not so sweet that it masked the flavor in the egg and bread.

Dish #2 Rajanstani Eggs with red spicy onion and tomato and chick peas

This had more of a Indian feel to it, with the spices and curry taste in the food. The partha had a bit of curry in the dough so it gave the dish a bit of a kick. A very unique set of flavors but not one that I had a particular liking for. Nothing that made me want to eat it again.

The dish came with some baked potatoes that didn’t have anything special on them, but they were nicely seasoned and tasted good.

(the breakfast sausages were ordered by Michael Quach to satisfy his cravings)

Dish #3 Okonomiyaki: Japanese mushroom, cabbage pankcake with egg in center with spicy mayo and okonomiyaki sauce.

This was also a fairly unique dish. The pancake had shredded cabbage and Japanese mushroom brought together with a pancake batter and quite literally an egg in the center. The flavour was quite nice and was enjoyed by the entire table.

The salad that came with the dish had a apple cider vinaigrette (i think)

Overall, Saving Grace was a very unique experience. We almost got to travel the world with the food we got to eat. The decor and the shop it self was a weird mishmash  of random things, but the food was nicely executed and proves to show that the food is the only thing that matters.

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