Toronto food adventures

So I've been in Toronto for almost 3 weeks. Fortunately, Toronto is pretty friendly to someone who is on a cash saving mission (plus I live at home when I'm here) as there's not much to do ... so eating and horse riding (mutually exclusive events) have been the highlights of my trip. Here are some of my favourite foodie experiences so far.

1. Shiso Tree Cafe

Japanese cafe that sells pasta, regular style and J-style. I mean, seaweed and tartare sauce on your fries? Genius. Plus, they have a salad / pasta / garlic bread combo at lunchtime. Here's some of the weird and wonderful stuff we ate

2. Ten Ren tea house

Bubble tea plus taiwanese food, great for cheap snacking or lunching. Bring on the tapioca and brick toast with condensed milk!!!

3. Asian Legend

I love asian food shop names eh, but this one is actually pretty legendary as far as their siu long bao goes (I have no idea what this is in English, soup-filled pork dumplings?) And they had a crispy rice with seafood thing ... was almost like eating deep fried rice crispies. Sounds weird, but it was awesome.

4. Yoghurtys

Froyo is in abundance here and we're fortunate enough that we have one round the corner (ok its 10min walk but by Toronto standards its around the corner). I love the marketing, love the flavours, love love love just generally. Miss B and I went on a froyo walk on more than one occasion and this was definitely the winner for me. Who can resist flavours like caramel corn, tiramisu, passionfruit, green apple, peanut butter and pistachio? Plus about 50 different toppings?

5. McDonalds.

Yep, its as good as Sydney here. Mr T and I go and eat Maccas everywhere we go just for comparative purposes and Toronto is pretty high on the list. There's also a Maccas at either end of our street (no kidding and its a recipe for disaster!) Can you believe the strawberry sundae actually had chunks of strawberry in it ... sooooo exciting!!! and they even asked if you wanted peanuts! (we ended up giving these to dad who ate them as part of afternoon tea) There was also a mysterious McChicken sauce, who on earth knows what kind sauce it actually is ...

6. Assortment of random yummy food

I love food here, its almost like being back in Sydney. Even the lettuce tastes good. Below is a mixture of family food at home and some more yummy stuff outside ... oh and I gotta finish off with the orange juice. Extra pulp orange juice! Unheard of! (don't worry I know you're shaking your head at this already so I won't bother with a picture .... though I did take one). I also made a couple of cakes whilst here, but more on that next time.



Till next time, Happy Eating guys!

Malaysian care package - prawn rolls, prawn crackers and laksa

Another super exciting thing that happened the other week was my bag of goodies from Mr N. He has just moved to London from Malaysia and had brought me a stack of all my favourite things. Mrs A and I had gone on a trip to her family home in Malaysia last year and this is where I discovered …..

1. Mini spicy prawn rolls.

These were THE tastiest little morsels that I ate at breakfast every morning. I had to exercise a massive degree of self control as the family only managed to get them when someone had been to Singapore.

I will try and make these one day; I think it'll have to be a weekend where I can sit in front of the tv and roll, roll, roll!

Incidentally my flatmate had gone on holiday to Malaysia and surrounding countries in April so it was only 12 months since I had eaten these. Here are the ones that she had brought back for me – it was the only thing I could think of to request! Apparently it wasn’t a particularly easy task to source these either so I’m very grateful.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Prawn crackers

Malaysian prawn crackers how I love thee. Thick, crunchy, packs a punch in terms of flavour, I think I’ve eaten at least half a bag in one sitting before. Even Radley here is disinterested in getting a hug or looking at the camera – this fussy dog just wants the prawn crackers!



 

3. Laksa paste



While this may not look like much right now, it is the basis for my favourite laksa. Not just any laksa, but Kuching laksa, which tastes quite different from the ‘generic’ laksa that you buy in the shop. The ingredients seem simple enough but there is definitely something about it that puts me into laksa happiness every time.

I was lucky enough to be given more than 10 packets of paste, so I can probably make it last 12 months if I only eat laksa once every 5-6 weeks. However given that I do like to share laksa and other food joys, realistically I might only be eating laksa every 2-3 months with a bunch of other people. Plus my Malaysian friends have to be around to help make it and eat it right?

I'll post about laksa making next time we eat laksa; in the meantime here is a quick happy snap of the a laksa made by Mr T (apologies for the photo quality; I was so eager to eat that I forgot to take the photo until after I had started).

Thanks again to Mr N and family for the presents to feed this greedy guts, much appreciated!