icook: an all you can eat hot pot self service experience.

Icook

7030 Warden Avenue

Markham, ON

(905) 307-7878

Like in that giant T&T complex @ warden and steeles

Me and my friends were gonna go out for Hot Pot to this place we went before, but decided to check out this All you can eat self serve hot pot place in Markham called, icook @ 7030 Warden Ave. We were so excited about it, OMG, we get to take as much food as we want, and cook our own food and then get up and serve ourselves drinks and get more food ourselves... AWESOME.... yeah. now that i think about it... We're paying, what $20.00 each, for trays of uncooked, unseasoned food, talk about gold mine... icook is right, icook and iserve myself. itip myself. 

but really, what are you expecting out of an all you can eat place anyway? standards are always set pretty low (except if you're Country Style mmm mmm mmmm)

some of the items available: mussels, prawns, meat slices (beef, chicken, pork, lamb), fish balls, quail eggs, noodles of sorts (glass, udon, ramen etc), veggies (chinese cabbage, green stuff?)

Good:

• all you can eat sauces, hot sauces, sesame butter, chili oil, egg, satay, soy, garlic flakes, onion flakes, etc etc etc all you can think of (that usually costs extra for each sauce, and egg) to put in  your personalized dipping sauces.

• all you can drink pop (usually pop is extra at sit down AYCE hot pot)

• individualized hot pots, to keep my broth clean from those lamb meat stinkers

• everything is put out in the back, so you can help yourself to everything

Bad

• everything is put out in the back... and it's overlapping each other, cooked stuff, raw stuff, there are 1 set of tongs for everything

Gross

• now i didnt experience this, but in the boys bathroom, the place is a health hazard, with the counter rotting from the bottom up, and a roll of paper towel nesting in an ingenius waterproof (ding!) garbage bag covered cardboard box with a hole cut through to pull the paper out.... we totally had laugh about it... and then all went home to threw up.... oh and he wanted me to add... also throw up in toilet from his butt.

It pretty much is the consensus between all my friends that we are not going to visit this place again. a hot pot experience isnt life changing, i mean you cook your food in flavoured water. most hot pot places are All You Can Eat (AYCE) anyway, so the difference here is....... that you have to get it for yourself... soooo, depending on how fast you move... i guess its timeliness of getting food into your mouth? if that really matters to you and you cant wait for a server, than yeah, get the table at the back and stuff your face to your heart's content.

Any Time is Congee Time!

Congee Time

5817 Yonge Street
Toronto, ON
(416) 225-6688

http://www.congeetime.com/

Ohhhh fancy shot! hahha i was so proud of this one since im generally a pretty horrible picture taker. haha. SO Congee Time, what can i say except this place brings me back... when i first moved to Toronto some 3 years ago, my friend Stef and her boyfriend at the time picked me up from the airport and brought me to this place by Stef's condo, and my new home for the next year.  Congee time, i made the stupid joke of asking them, if they knew what time it was, and they fell for it and i got to say, IT'S CONGEE TIME!!!! (though i guess it's always time for lots of stuff... morphing time, tool time, hammer time?)

Oh yeah, well Congee Time is near the Yonge and Finch intersection, and it's always pretty crowded during the dinner scene.  I used to take out quite a bit when i lived near by, they have really good take out containers for their congee (canadian made! hard plastic! selling point! :)

 

I went with Chris and he picked one of their SuperBowls, which is the equivalent of 2 normal orders... i left the teacup for scale. This superbowl consists of: shredded duck, shredded chicken, mushroom and egg - $7.75... which is super cheap, considering my minced beef congee at Vancouver's Congee noodle house was almost 6 dollars... (however, I would pay to have Congee Noodle House congee shipped to my mouth. so...... )

Also, we got the Chinese Eggplant with Spicy Minced Pork.  Funny story, one time i ordered the wrong thing, cause their menu is massive with M15 and A5 and B20 ETC ETC ETC and i called out the wrong thing and accidently ordered a MAO PO TOFU which i never order, and only eat if my dad orders it (cause he loves it, my dad loves everything, if you have been reading along, lol).  which is tofu, with this spicy pork, and i tried to send it back and the waitress would have non of it, comeon', its a chinese place.  So I was stuck with it, and was like, I AM NOT EATING IT, but i remember people like to put it in their congee, so i did so and DAMN it was sooo good, so hence, this time i ordered this eggplant version.

if you know me but at all, this will not come as a surprise to you, cause i am a messy girl with no judgement of volume whatsoever, with addition of gluttony and greed. This wasn't done so I could take a shot of an overfollowing bowl of congee... i just couldnt judge how small the bowl was.....

Chris picked this Salt and Pepper fried shrimp for his side. I think this is one of my dads favorites too... hahahaha.

And the total... not too bad eh? It's decent food, decent prices, quick service, and a bright environment, you'll see lots of postings from this place for sure.

Family Gathering @ Fortune House Seafood Restaurant in Metrotown

Fortune House Seafood Restaurant
4700 Kingsway, #2199A

Burnaby, BC V3J1A1

Tel: (604) 438-8686

Fax: (604) 438-5138

Burnaby, BC, V5H 4M1

http://www.fortunehouserestaurant.com/

so, if you saw my previous post, i went back to vancouver last week, and the very next day i woke up to a giant dim sum feast, and some 5 hours later, we were driving to Fortune House for some post-Chinese New Year dinner with my family.  It seems that Fortune House gets a lot of flack from people, but it wasnt too bad, we picked our own selection, outside from the set menus, and it really wasnt that bad!  We even got to see a sample show of traditional Chinese Mask Changers, and the 25 year old master changed his face like 9 times. very cool. no pictures tho. only food.

So we started with soup, whenever i see these ceramic chinese soup things i, this is what i see in my head, now you see it too! 

Started with this egg dish, really interesting, its like a steamed egg with a whole bunch of other eggs in it, like thousand year old, and duck egg, with scallops and dried scallops on top. I was never a fan of thousand year old egg when i was a kid but i totally dig it now... i still dont like duck egg, but at this rate, i'll probably love it in another 20 years.

My dad loves this, some sort of fatty 5 layer pork with brocolli.  Apparently a great cut of pork where its like meat-fat layers times 5... hence... 5 layer pork... it makes sense now...

mmm honey garlic spare ribs, cant go wrong with that!

lemon chicken, lemon on the side

birds nest, with some really tender beef chunks

pea tips, a fav in my family

mmm this was great, some sort of breaded giant massive prawns in a sweet and sour sauce, as you can see the waiter is bringing it in, his hand is on the right, i just had to get the shot in.... i have no patience at all...

Steamed fish, i love steamed fish, so simple and so flavourful.  I dont think my parents were a fan of this, but what do i know, whens the last time i got to eat some...

and voila, we cleaned the plates.  Of course what kind of chinese meal is it without a bean dessert at the end. but no picture of that though, they`re everywhere, a dim a dozen, its like taking picture of rice or something. 

The Magnificent Dim Sum Feast @ Western Lake Chinese Seafood Restaurant in Vancouver

Western Lake Chinese Seafood Restaurant

4989 Victoria Drive
Vancouver, BC
(604) 321-6862

Last week, I came back home to Vancouver for a family visit, and my cousin Lincoln said he'd take me and my family out for dim sum and i immediately said... WEST LAKE!!!! With their massive HA GAWS (do you see them in the middle, like massive bosoms overflowing out of a too tight bamboo holder, salivating right now...) Everything is so oversized, yet with incredible quality.  You'll see with scale shots, like the HAGOW in the bowl, like too how HUGE it is!  soooo good...it's a smaller place, and it's always packed, i mean, for the value and quality and bloated dim sum items, duh, winning.

So I want to point out, that there were 5 of us, me, my mom, dad, 93 year old grandpa, and my cousin Link who invited us all out in the first place, and we ordered 20 dishes. TWENTY DISHES.

-2 steam prawn dumplings (HAGOW)

-1 sui mai dumpings (SUI MAI)

-1 steam shanghai pork bun (SHAOLONG BAO)

-1 steam spareribs with black been sauce

-1 steam scallop with prawn

-1 steam prawn sui mai

-1 steam tofu roll

-1 meat rissoles chiu (??? HUH???)

-1 steam fish maws with shrimp

-2 steam rice flour roll with beef

-1 Pan fried chive dumpling

-1 deep fried prawn shrimp roll

-1 panfried eggplant with shrimp

-1 bbq pork baked pastrie

-pork skin radish soup

-1 chicken feet soup

-2 egg tarts

I'm just gonna post up the pics, you can play the match game with the items from above, have fun!

my dad likes the tower. 

Last Meal in Vancouver - Ningtu on Kingsway

Ningtu

2130 Kingsway St.
Vancouver, BC V5N2T5

I went back home last week, and i know these posts are going to be out of order but i am sooo bad with updating, i just like to eat eat eat. So Grandpa wanted to take all of us out before i went back to Toronto, and i love Shang-hai food, especially the dim sum parts, so it was a no brainer, also, my brain was mush as i was kinda comatose after a 7 day eating spree, and just went with Ning Tu on Kingsway.

The last time I was in Vancouver, we went here for dinner and the staff recommended this, house soup? special soup? I really should be paying attention if i'm planning to document this, but im sure they'll tell you same.  It was super savoury and hearty.  If was snowing giant flakes outside, and something like this really just cradles you from the inside and comforts you.  It's a whole smorgasbord of I have no idea of stuff in there, like these lil pork dumplings wrapped in fried egg, and some sort of egg tofu? and greens, and glass noodles, and i have no idea, but its delicious.

Love Love Love Vancouver Dunguness crabbys, we picked out a 3 pounder for this deliciously oily crab and gluttonious noodle... wait. im a gluttoonious noodle... what do you call those starchy round things? Leen Goh? Leen Goh and Crab, its sooooo good and i know some people have a phobia of eating crab in public cause it's a messy feast, but i have no such phobia, i will rip that thing apart with my hands, that meat is so bountiful and sweet.  Plus the crab brains... mmmmmm...

A staple in my family, and one of my dad's favs (as you will notice, everything is my dad's favorite), beef rolls. What am i saying, i love them too, i think like beef briskey, with green onion and a hoisin sauce, wrapped with green onion pancake. The pancake was thin and perfectly crispy. super yummy.

 We generally stick to ordering the same things, so i was surprised when my dad was asking the waitress for her opinion and we came up with this shrimp, egg, and broccoli dish.  I've never had this before so i wouldnt even know where to start, but luckily my cousin was with us and he was familiar, so he mixed the whole thing with the egg.  It was so good and the shrimp was so perfectly cooked, had that shirmp "crunch" when you bite into it. 

Again something i have no idea what the proper name is, except, deep fried with sauce, I think ppl usually pour the sauce straight in to hear that satisfying SSSSZZZZZZZZZ of the rice, but we like to keep our rice dry and sog-free. Sauce consisted of ham, peas, bamboo shoots? and some other stuff.

One of my dad's fav's deep fried bread with sweet condensed milk

And according to my dad, everyone's favourite was this pork and cabbage dish, again i have no idea what i was, i just eat it, but we stuffed the deep fried bread with it, so good.

Pea tips. what else you want?

So all in all, it was a good satisfying meal.  I've been here a few times before, for lunch and other dinners, its a good decent and decently priced restaurant.  It's a bit homey in appearance, but really, you're not there to eat the chairs. Enjoy!

Most Excellent BBQ is Most Excellent. @ Richlane Mall, Richmond Hill

Another awesome little place by my work in the always giving Richlane Mall , 9425 Leslie Street 16th Avenue Richmond Hill, Ontario, this lil BBQ place: Most Excellent BBQ. 

Me and Chris always come here for a good generous fix of most excellent meals for lunch. There's always a line (for take out), which is sign of a good thing, like one time i was sitting there eating and just watching the line, there was a constant line of 4-5 ppl from when i sat down to eat til when i finished.

The sit in meals that we always get are either $5.99 or $6.99, the $5.99 includes 1 type of meat (like bbq pork, roast pork, roast duck, sausage, soy chicken, the usual Chinese bbq stuff), on rice, with a side of steamed veggies, plus a soup, plus a drink (pop, soy milk, or tea).  With $6.99 you get 2 types of meats, or what I got was the BBQ duck in rice noodle soup, plus greens, plus drink.

There's a framed picture of jean cretien eating there, so it must be good if he's opening his sideways mouth for this!

$5.99 BBQ Pork Meal

my $6.99 Duck on rice noodle soup dish!