The Royal Chinese Restaurant - Toronto

Whenever my sister is in town she and her husband always crave Chinese food. We went to my dad's favourite place last night. The Royal Chinese Restaurant is very busy and there are always people waiting in line for a table. We usually arrive early so that we don't have to wait.

I am never disappointed in the food. It comes out fast and piping hot. Everything we ordered last night was full of flavour and fresh.

Here is a rundown of what we devoured!

Complimentary pork bone and dried vegetable soup - you can see the reflection of all the specials posted on the wall.

Deep fried little fish - I'm not sure what this is called in English

Boiled shrimp served with sweetened soy sauce concoction - the shrimp was so sweet!

Sweet and sour pork chop

Spicy eggplant, chicken and tofu hotpot

Hollow vegetable with fermented bean curd - this is one of my favourite summer vegetable dishes.

Deep fried oysters with spicy pork

Chinese veggie with fish

Deep fried crispy whole chicken

Frankie Tomatto's - Toronto

I'm baaaaAAaak!! I don't know if anyone noticed but I've been MIA the last couple of weeks. My grandmother passed away and we've been busy with arrangements and family things. I didn't feel it was appropriate to be blogging about funeral food.

Monday was hubby's birthday and he got to choose where to eat. He mentioned Frankie Tomatto's and when I called to make reservations the bonus was that kids eat free on Mondays! Or should I say you get one free kid's buffet with every adult buffet. We have three kids so we had to pay for one child.

Unfortunately I wasn't very hungry because I had a big lunch celebration at my cousin's house but I still managed to scarf down two plates of dinner and two little plates of dessert.

Here is what I had...

Beef spareribs, rice pilaf, calamari (that was my absolute favourite thing there!) eggplant parmesan, pasta in cream sauce, grilled sausage.

More calamari, rotisserie chicken, anti pasta and some peel and eat shrimp.

Spumoni ice cream and baked apples

Butter tart, coconut tart and cream puff

The kids even got a special treat! On Monday's they have a cotton candy machine running and kids each get a stick of cotton candy to bring home. It was a great family night out!

Duff's Famous Wings - Toronto

I blogged about chicken wings a couple of weeks ago and someone commented that I should try Duff's because they have the best wings around. My curiosity was tweaked and I couldn't get my mind off of these amazing chicken wings. I had to try them!

I'm not claiming that I am a connoisseur of wings...I'm not...but I do know what I like.

As soon as you walk in you see this sign up on the wall. I thought...83 wings? That's it? I could do that! Wings are mainly bones anyway so there isn't much meat. I was starving so my eyes were much bigger than my tummy.


There were three of us and we were sure we could eat at least 15 wings. We ordered the 50 wing special with three flavours...honey garlic, bbq and medium mild. Their claim is that the medium is HOT so we didn't want to burn our mouths.

It comes with celery and blue cheese or dill dipping sauce.



We were hungry so we also ordered the spicy onion petals. They were tasty and just the right amount of heat.

Medium Mild

BBQ

Honey Garlic

I'm not going to say these are the best wings I've ever had. After eating so many wings I don't even think I'm a wing person. After eating 15 wings I felt so full...too much meat...I guess I wouldn't have done well in that eating competition. I still like my wings at Casey's...medium dusted as a side to go with my nachos.

Avocado Salad

Avocados are just so good for you. Creamy and rich. It's considered a good fat. My sister swears that it's great for brain development in young children. I'm not sure if that is true. I just love eating it for it's flavour and texture.

Av0cado Salad is one of my favourite party dishes. I love it with pita chips, tortilla chips or as a side on a heaping plate of food. I only make it when I'm having a party since I can't eat an entire bowl myself.

Avocado Salad

5 Hass Avocados

1 Can of Summer Crisp Corn

2 teaspooons of chopped garlic

Handful of grape tomatoes (cut and salted)

Handful of chopped coriander

Juice of one lime

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

Mix it all together and enjoy.

Mother's Day Dinner

It's been a weekend of eating!! We celebrated with my mother-in-law yesterday and today it was my family's turn. We decided to buy everything from Costco so that we wouldn't have to run around for groceries. Here is what was on the menu...

Shrimp Cocktail

Caesar Salad
Steak marinated with Balsamic Vinegar, Montreal Steak Spice and Garlic Plus

Salmon seasoned with Montreal Steak Spice and Garlic Plus

Cherry Cheesecake

We also bought a fruit tray with cantaloupe, honeydew, grapes, watermelon and pineapple. It was a feast and a nice change from eating Chinese. I loved how we could compile an entire meal with so little fuss. We just needed to make some steamed rice and bbq the meat and dinner was served.

More Hakka Chinese Food - Federicks

My friends and I went out to celebrate an early Mother's Day. My Mum wanted Federicks and who am I to complain. It is one of my favourite places to eat.

Here is what we ordered...

Manchurian Fried Rice (It's probably better not knowing what makes this dish so unmistakably orange. Looks like it could glow in the dark. )

Hakka Chow Mein (one of my favourites)Sweet & Sour Chicken (yummy but I usually like mine slightly breaded)

Vegetable Pakoras (This is the first time we ordered this dish. We complained that it looked overcooked but they insisted that vegetable pakoras are always more browned than the chicken or shrimp pakoras. They were tasty but their appearance were kind of off putting.)

Red Curry Salmon on Asian Slaw

Summer is almost upon us and I'm trying to lose a few pounds before pool season starts. I'm trying to low carb for dinner. It's hard for someone that doesn't eat veggies but as long as everything is full of flavour it isn't horrible.

As an Asian girl it's hard not to eat rice with everything. I've tried cutting out rice completely but my mother acts like it's a sin if I don't eat at least a small bowl. I've tried to explain that white rice is just a filler...no nutritional value but she doesn't believe me.

Tonight I had some leftover red salmon curry from last night. Instead of rice I stirfried some asian coleslaw that I bought at Costco. I just added a teaspoon of oil to my pan and heated at medium heat. Added a couple of handfuls of the asian slaw and cooked until tender.

I served the red curry salmon on a bed of cooked slaw and then added the almond and fried noodle mix that came with the salad as a garnish. I have to admit it wasn't bad. I would call it yummilicious but without rice curry just doesn't taste the same.

Baked Salmon

We've been eating out too much lately...as you can see from my posts...so I decided to cook something homemade and healthy. The kids love salmon so I decided to bake a slab of salmon from Costco. So simple and so delicious! I just quickly rinsed it and then sprinkled Montreal Steak Spice and some Garlic Plus Seasoning...popped it into the oven for 20 min. at 375F. Perfect!

I love mangoes!!

I love mangoes! I've noticed that mangoes have returned to the grocery stores lately. I had my first taste this morning and I was in heaven. It was unbelievably sweet. My friend showed me a cute way of serving or cutting a mango.

First wash mango thoroughly and with a sharp knife cut the mango twice along the seed. Score the two sides so that you have a small grid pattern.Holding with two hands push the centre upwards and you will get this cute edible porcupine. You can also cut the squares off into a small dish but I like to serve mine like this.

Of course don't forget to peel the skin off around the pit and eat that in the privacy of your kitchen. It can get pretty ugly eating that pit...juices running off your chin and elbows as you slurp up all that sweet nectar....I usually have to wash my arms and face and maybe floss before greeting my guests.

Roasted Whole Chicken

I was inspired to make my own roasted chicken today. I've never done this before but was inspired by a recipe on Spoon it On. I bought three whole chickens from Costco today and decided to bake two for dinner. I didn't look at the recipe beforehand and realized just before baking my chicken that I didn't have any of the ingredients that were listed on her recipe. I improvised and hoped for the best.

Ingredients:

One whole chicken

margarine

Montreal Steak Spice

one medium onion

Preheat oven to 350F. I washed the chicken and then sprinkled Montreal Steak Spice into the chicken, put a small dollop of margarine and half of the onion into the cavity. Sprinkled the rest of the chicken with the Montreal Steak Spice. Baked for an hour and a half or until the internal temperature read 185F. Take out of the oven and baste with the pan juices. Cover with foil and let rest for 20 minutes before carving. It was delicious!

Lunch at Skyland de Shanghai - Toronto

My cousin was sweet enough to treat for lunch at Skyland de Shanghai today. It's another Northern Chinese Food restaurant...much like my favourite, Asian Legend. It's interesting because they actually have a window where you can watch them make the noodles from scratch.

Here are two of my favourite dishes from today...

Red braised beef noodle soup

Fried Rice Cake with pork

Spicy Dragon - Toronto - Hakka Chinese Food

I was tired from a busy weekend so we decided to go out for dinner. I wanted to try a new Hakka Chinese Restaurant, Spicy Dragon, that got rave reviews from my cousin. Hakka Chinese food is quite spicy and a nice change from the usual.

Tonight we ordered...

Crispy Chicken Wings...this was the kids' favourite.

Hakka Chow Mein...this was perfect tonight...not too greasy.

Sweet & Sour Fish...could have been more sweet and sour...

Chili Chicken

This was my favourite of the night. Crispy and spicy.

Cheapest breakfast EVER!!!

Running errands today and decided to have breakfast at Ikea. It's so cheap! For $1 plus tax you can have a pretty filling breakfast. It includes scrabbled eggs, hash browns and sausages. All for a dollar!!! In these recessionary times you can't go wrong!


AND...

we stopped off at McDonald's and got a free coffee which we drank before getting to Ikea. McD's is having a coffee war with Starbucks and other expensive coffee places in Toronto so they are offering a free small coffee anytime before 10:30am. I think it may be ending this week.