Toronto 2018: Meals Recap!

Toronto is the closest haven for good Asian food. Of course, after last year’s success with Asian Legend for Drew, I started thinking up some spots to go to already. There were some changes in plans but in general, it all tastes pretty awesome and we had a few nice chats and some great drinks.

Lets check out where and what we ate!

Day 1 Dinner: Kinton Ramen, Markham

Hogtown Ale, Sake Mojito and Bamboo

Chicken Ramen

On the day we arrived in Toronto and even the day after, we had still some snowfall and what beats winter like eating some hot ramen. It helps that my husband was so excited to go. And when we got there and they had the whole Yakuza game soundtrack sort of music blasting, it was super good for everyone’s mood.

Day 2: Moxie’s Grill and Bar at CF Fairview

Starters: Sushi Cones

Half rack ribs

Hunger after a long day at the zoo and then some shopping took us to a more convenient location at the mall. We have had Moxie’s before in Markham and Vancouver and both experiences either left us with a sour taste from bad service or kind of average food for the price tag. The one at this Fairview mall however gets a thumbs up in both categories. It had some delicious food and pretty decent drinks.

Day 3: Korean Grill House in Markham

Cherry Blossom (Gin + Orange Juice)

Special Bibimbap (Spicy)

Chicken Bibimbap

The original plan was to do the whole Korean grill experience since my  husband hasn’t tried it before but since we were all fairly tired after EGLX, we ended up just going with some bibimbap. I personally love it a lot but wasn’t feeling quite as hungry so just took the chicken bibimbap. In the afterthought, I probably should have gotten beef but it still tasted fantastic. There was a choice to add on the spicy sauce but I didn’t take any. My husband on the other hand took the special bibimbap which had chicken, shrimp and beef and also added in one spoon of the spicy sauce.

Day 4 Brunch: Ding Tai Fung Restaurant

Soup-filled Steam Dumplings

Fried Rice

Fried Pork Buns

To wrap things up, we went for a lovely little brunch at Ding Tai Fung for a little dim sum. Of course, there was no denying the soup-filled steamed dumplings because they are my faves. We also ordered a few other dumplings and such from the menu as well as a fried rice to wrap it all up. Everything still takes very good. I haven’t been here in 2 to 3 years and its nice to see the food quality still very much the way I remembered it.

Overall, a great foodie trip (as much as it was everything else)! 
We had some nice chats and tried some nice cocktails and beers.
Awesome company usually makes it even better!

Toronto still has lots of great food that we’re going to be trying out soon (or next year)!
The recap of our two main highlights of the trip are coming up!

My Weekly Adventures #55

The last two weeks of November has been somewhat of a whirlwind. I’ve talked about catching up with a lot of stuff and posts unfortunately, it hasn’t quite worked exactly as I had planned but I’m working hard through it. Regardless of that, there was some fun times even though I’ve covered most of it in other posts.

Montreal Expo Gaming Arcade 2017

MEGA Montreal happened on the November 18th and 19th. It I did a quick recap about it while linking back to the huge recap that I did for the Montreal Independent Games Festival which was held in collaboration with each other. Suffice to say that it was fun. We do hit a lot of the gaming events but this event usually has the most games. While I only saw 40, apparently there was over 50 games. I read that in an article afterwards from the festival.

Kinto Ramen & Sugar Marmalade

Last Friday was a busy day. My friends and I met up after work to go grab some ramen in celebration for the cold weather. Soup-based noodles are the best for getting ready for any cold weather. We went to Kinton Ramen which I have written about before HERE. It was delicious although we had quite a wait and ended up being seated at the bar which was nice because you get to watch the kitchen in action.

Afterwards, we went across the street to Sugar Marmalade which is a Chinese dessert place that finally opened in Montreal a few months ago and has incredible line-ups. The line-up did help us digest the dinner so it all worked out. I’ll be posting about that soon.

Black Friday

If you missed my Black Friday Haul post, you can find it right HERE.

You will also find that I forgot to add my David’s Tea buy. I usually pick up Dragonwell tea however, to be honest, I’m more of a fan of Emperor’s Cloud and Mist at Teavana. Its the green tea they serve at Starbucks pretty much. My absolute fave even before Teavana got bought by Starbucks. Regardless of that, David’s Tea had a cool promotion which ended up to be that I picked up like 10g of an extra tea and ended up making my purchase less than when I bought two. Thanks to the customer rep for sharing with me that info. Its very nice. These are all new teas for myself. I have had Butterfly Jasmine before in another independent tea store when I was on vacation and liked it.

Christmas Decoration Begins

Since the weekend of November 18th, I’ve been getting together the Christmas decor in the house. I got the flowers in the vases done (fake flower displays) and centerpieces. I did a brand new wreath right here (which has been modified since this initial design) and the Christmas tree is up. However, we’re just a little way from the finish line to fix up the bannisters. I’ll have a Christmas decoration post coming very very soon!

Healthy Lifestyle Take…

I don’t know what take it is now. Since the 2014 surge of crazy where I managed to work out a ton and get in a really nice routine and then got hit with some ridiculous eye infections, I never got back on track. Maybe I did for the summer before I got married but then I fell out of it again. This year has been really bad and the last two months have really taken a hit of just all kinds of crazy which has affected how I feel a lot so I’m changing it up. I started up my Nike Training Club app and put in a 4 week program to get back into the training mode. I only missed 2 workouts so far with the final workout coming up today to wrap up the 4 weeks. Then I’ll be starting up the 6 weeks one. Its going to overlap the holidays but I’m sure I can shift the schedule around as this one is pretty flexible especially with their latest updates on the app, its polished it up quite a bit.

Indoor Container Update

A surprise gardening update! It was a last minute thing that I thought about this one. When I was closing the garden back in October, I ended up trying a second time to grow the pineapple sage in water and after doing a ton of research on what to use which they suggest tinted mason jars, I used my extra purple tinted jars leftover from my wedding centerpiece materials to get it going. It is doing great as it sprouts some new leaves and has some roots .

What is about the 3rd attempt to bring in the rosemary this year has seemed to work. Perhaps its because this year, the rosemary is much more developed and not just two twigs. I’m watering it sparingly and it seems to be pretty happy where it is. I’ve always had humidity problems with rosemary where it just drowns itself so its near a vent right now, hopefully it’ll help prevent that from happening again.

Cute Kitty Pic

Upcoming:

• A lot of TV Binge
• Holiday marathon announcement

This wraps up this Weekly Adventures!
What have you been up to? 

Restaurant: Kinton Ramen (Montreal, Canada)

I’m super behind on some restaurant stuff lately. A week or so ago, my friend and I had a change in plans and ended up going to Kinton Ramen for dinner. Japanese ramen noodle restaurants have had an a huge popularity in Montreal in the last few years. I’ve never been to this one before but its in downtown Montreal. We got really lucky and found a decent parking spot so let’s check it out!

Kinton Ramen

Combo Menu

There is another main menu which has some appetizers and a similar ramen choices sort of menu to customize however there is a slight price difference. We each took one of these combos.

Tea

I can’t remember if I’ve talked about these before but I had these types of teabags when I went to the Maritimes for vacation this summer. Its a pretty interesting way as it just overlaps the side of the cup. Its a cute idea. Back to the tea, it was a good green tea.

Appetizers

The actual appetizer here is the fried chicken. My friend wanted to order this. I took a taste of one piece of it. Its very tasty. Crispy outside and tender on the inside, it was really good.

Meal

My friend took the little extra for his meal on the top. Its rice with some chicken and whatnot. It was alright. I didn’t end up taking it since I already had the chicken combo (where as he had the pork one). You get to customize what you put in including the type of noodles and the soup base. That is nice to have those choices. I chose the normal soup base with thin noodles along with seaweed, scallions and the egg came with the base meal already. There may have been other stuff I added but I can’t remember anymore. The day we went was starting to get a little cooler. Autumn weather is definitely hitting us earlier this year so it was nice to have some warm soup noodles. Everything was very delicious and done really well.

Overall…Kinton Ramen is definitely worth a visit. The food is great. The service is quick and friendly. Plus, its always a bonus to have the customization options for how you want in your noodles. Just beware that the options do add up in price. 😉