Hits the Spot

What: Various menu items
Where: Emerald Chinese Restaurant (Mississauga)
Cuisine: Chinese
Affordability: $10+ per dish

Pointers:

If you are craving greasy, salty, and overall bad for you Chinese food that’s good, this is for you.

We were craving deep fried pork belly but all the regular Filipino restaurants in Mississauga that we would trust to eat at has already closed for the night. We ended up at Emerald, which someone recollected to have deep fried pork belly so we gave it ago. This place hit the spot, alright! The pork belly had crispy skin but had a moist and succulent meat. Paired with fried rice and scallops, we were convinced that the badness in all of this was good. We also had the corn soup, which was just really there to start with. We were here for the grease.

Would we recommend Emerald? Sure, especially if you had been drinking. You need the grease to dilute the beer anyway. Just go with the expectation that service may be slow. Different servers were serving us and that may have confused who was ordering our food in the kitchen and who was bringing it out.

Taste Of Manila, A Tale of an Epic Fail

The first Taste of Manila in Toronto opened today to a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd of mostly Filipinos seeking to reminisce laid back life “back home” with samplings of Filipino food. The unfortunate part is, although the use of the word “taste” hints food, Taste of Manila offered little for the foodie at heart.

There were about ten food stalls, if not less, all serving Filipino cuisine. Taking up about two blocks worth, limiting Bathurst Street to one lane for each direction of traffic, Taste of Manila is a hodge-podge of real estate vendors, insurance agencies, discount clothing, satellite TV offerings and the like. There was also an entertainment stage setup on one end where performers took turns strutting their stuff whether it be dancing, singing or a fashion show. The two day event even promised a visit from a celebrity from the Philippines.

Going back to the food, we strategized a divide and conquer seeing how the lines are really long for the food vendors. One by one, upon reaching, or at least close to the ordering, two food stalls we lined up for has ran out of food. We lucked out in one but can only order fish balls (pictured above) and shumai (pictured below). Other than these two, we couldn’t be bothered to try anything else. People at the lines were getting aggressive in that they jump the lines by pretending to be looking at what’s available. Even the Colonial mindset (in this day in age) from food vendors was practiced in the event; white man gets served first. It was utter chaos and a total turn off.

As much as we like Filipino food, this event was an epic fail as a food event. It failed in that it didn’t showcase savoury, and often considered delicacy, that is Filipino streetfood. Instead it was a collection of existing local Filipino restaurants in the area bringing their menu to a tent. We felt it was a missed opportunity here to highlight what Philippine street food is all about. The food vendors offered combos (often rice with 1 or 2 side dishes) like the ones they offer in their restaurants instead of a sampling of authentic dishes that is more conducive to these types of events. There was no opportunity for legit food event goer to get a sampling of dishes. Instead, the food vendors banked on monopolizing the business by offering a slew of dishes in a combo. One to note is the Kabalen Restaurant’s food tent, which offered a buffet table style service. You get a serving of rice and 2 sides of your choice for $9. In fact, Kabalen was such a turn off for us with just overall bad servers (one decided to be mute to patrons but not to fellow staff) and food running out, that we left the queue. Another one to note was Bella’s Lechon, who wasted an opportunity to advertise their lechon (roast pork) by not serving any at all. Just as bad was Grill Heaven, which has ran out of their own specialty (Filipino style skewered pork and chicken) just as the crowd was gathering. We just don’t think the food vendors and organizers get what a “taste” festival means. If this is the Filipino community’s translation of the word, it is an epic fail.

Overall, Taste of Manila was a big disappointment. Even though attendance was in droves, it just wasn’t up to par with other cultural events in the city. We think the organization missed the boat here on possibly highlighting food from the Philippines. Our hope is, should this continue next year, is a thought out plan that will satisfy the foodie in all of us.

TD Night It Up 2014

The annual TD Night It Up at the Markham Civic Centre was another success this year. Sticking to the traditional night markets in Asia, food vendors offered a wide range of street food that some may consider delicacy. But if you are Torontonian, this is normal grub. Below are the ones we got to try before calling it “we’re full!”

What: Oolong Tea Creama
Where: Sharetea
– Sharetea added a twist to the bubble tea movement with their Oolong Tea Creama. It’s basically iced oolong tea but with a heavy sweet milk cream on top. It has a fluffy cream cheese like texture that you can either eat by itself of try to mix it in with the oolong tea at the bottom. It was interesting alone but it made the oolong tea bland if you ate the cream first. Eventually, I mixed mine in. That resulted in a refreshingly sweet drink. Check out Sharetea at Northtown Way in North York!

What: Spicy Chicken (left) and Rice Squares (right)
Where: Roy’s BBQ
– I think Roy’s BBQ is a pop-up food tent for now. They served us up spicy but mild chicken skin and tendon balls (they were more like chicken popcorn than BBQ) and a cooling rice squares. Both were very nice.

What: One Up, Porkzilla and Angry Birds
Where: Me.n.u
– Me.n.u started as food tent vendors in events like the TD Night Market. I think we first saw them at TO Food Fest about two years ago. Now they have a food truck added to their roster but continue to do food tents. We were able to try all three. We liked the Angry Bird the most interestingly enough since we are fans of pork. But for some reason, the One Up and Porkzilla wasn’t as savoury as we remembered them. They also used to have more meat in it and moist, but they were a little dry today and maybe a little over fried. Overall, it was still good eats. Just need to be mindful of the texture next time.

What: Pork, Beef and Chicken Satay Skewers
Where: Mamak Satay
– If you go to any night market this season and you see these guys, go! You can’t go wrong between the three satay skewers they serve up. Each has an explosion of flavours that is just wonderful. We liked all three with or without the sauce. Check them out if you see their pop-up food tent.

What: Mango Ice Cream
Where: Ice Volcano
– One of our favourite stops in these food events is Ice Volcano’s 100% Canadian milk liquid nitrogen ice cream. It’s always a blast watching these guys create their ice cream right in front of you. It’s an edible science experiment! They added dry ice to the presentation so your ice cream cup is not only fancy to look at but also keeps the ice cream stay frozen a little longer. Check these guys out when you see then at food events!

What: Assorted stuffed chicken wings
Where: Stuffed and Co.
– Stuffed and Co. is a catering company that is serving up stuffed chicken wings. Yes, they stuff the chicken wings with things like Mac’n’Cheese (Cheesy Mac), dumpling (Wonton Bomb), and jambalaya (Yaya Wing)! We liked all three, but our fave was the Yaya Wing. It had an Asian yet Southern comfort zing with jambalaya in sriaracha aioli and creole seasoning stuffed in a chicken wing then fried. It had an explosion of flavours that is unique to Stuffed and Co. Very good indeed!

What: Oyster Omelets
Where: Oyster Omelet
– The Toronto Star raved about this food stand as a must check out in this season’s food events so we decided to check it out. Sad to say we were not impressed by the dish at all and decided to throw most of it away after a bite or two. It just wasn’t good and we actually blame it for perhaps causing stomach upsets later on. Just not a fan of oysters that way. Give fresh oysters with a bit of lemon and garlic butter and I’m good. Cooked this way? Not so much. We say, skip this one unless you are heading home soon to be near a bathroom.

Overall, another successful TD Night It Up event at the Markham Civic Centre. We love getting invited to this event every year and look forward to it. See you next year TD Night It Up!

Hawkers Market – Vancouver

Second foodie event of the summer! Hawkers market is a cool event that aims to bring local food businesses together for foodies like us to experience new and innovative food creations. This year, the event was held in East Vancouver, near Kingsway with the majority of vendors inside but also a few food trucks lined up outside.

Our first stop was the table selling Chicken Waffles. The sandwich was made of free range chicken (really nicely fried), organic kale slaw (which they ran out of), chipotle maple aioli (super creamy), and watermelon gastrique (we had no idea where this component was). Overall, not bad for $9 and it was really filling!

We then tried some blueberry lavender marshmallows toasted with a blow torch, followed by a blackcurrant, raspberry and cream popsicle which was my favorite dessert of the night 🙂

The beautifully designed bottles of Taiwanese cold tea were from Oolloo Tea, the founder has a long family history of growing tea leaves and I love the simplicity and chicness of her designs and packaging! The chocolates were made by a lady who infused lavender and roses into the cocoa and cream, which makes the chocolate very rich and flavorful without being sweet at all. Probably the healthiest chocolate I’ve ever had. Another drink stand was called Kombucha, which is a different way of brewing tea with sugar. I got to try the pumpkin flavored one, which reminded me a bit like gingerale. Definitely a new foodie creation and seems very interesting!

Overall, it was a fun event although I wish there were more food vendors! A lot of the vendors didn’t prepare enough portions so my advice would be to arrive early next time! Thanks for inviting us Hawkers Market – hope to see you at the next event!

VIP Vietnamese Cuisine

What: House Special and Deep Fried Tofu
Where: VIP Vietnamese Cuisine
Cuisine: Vietnamese
Affordability; $7+

Pointers:
– I admit there are lots of Phó choices in Markham, but VIP is kind of a regular spot for us. I used to work in the area and we’ve always called this place J6…J6 being one of our picks on the menu. It looks like, however that they changed it, so J6 is no more.

– I decided on the House Special since it’s 20 minutes before closing and I can’t make up mind. It’s the perfect Phó if you can’t decide. It has all your meat basics including tripe and tendon, noodles and beef broth. You can’t really go wrong with that. And VIP doesn’t disappoint either. Our Oder came really quick as usual, and flavourful. I didn’t even add hoisin sauce in mine. Quickly dug into it and gobbled up the Deep Fried Tofu, which is also a favourite.

– Overall, a good meal. Check it out when you’re in the area. They have lots of different soups and the old J6 is the curry. If it is back on the menu, get that!

– Thank you to the staff for not kicking us out even tho it was way past their open hours. Much appreciated.