Restaurant: Mon Ami Restaurant – Somerled

As usual, I’m a tad delayed in this restaurant recap which happened a few weeks ago after the water park day with my friends. Mon Ami Restaurant is a Korean restaurant, known for their Korean Fried Chicken. They have multiple locations and one that is opening on the South Shore of Montreal soon, which is fantastic.

Mon Ami Restaurant

Appetizers

As with many Korean places, the meal usually started with these little appetizer dishes. A variation of Asian radish and kimchi and pickled cabbage and seaweed salad and a salad. These are pretty good. It all depends on your tastes which one works for you.

Dinner

Whole Fried Chicken

It is pretty justified that they are known for their fried chicken because its absolutely delicious. It obviously still has some of the oil heaviness that comes with fried food but the chicken itself is quite tender on the inside. We took a whole fried chicken to share among 3 people. I personally would think afterwards that a half chicken would have been enough because we got other foods to share.

Bulgogi Bibimbap

I never go to Korean restaurants and skip on the Bulgogi Bibimbap if its an option. They are delicious, especially if they have the stone bowl option that makes the rice crispy and crunchy at the bottom. This one does all that except, its definitely not at par to other places I’ve tried. Its not my first place to go get a bibimbap but for a simple craving, it could do the trick.

Noodle with Black Bean Sauce

Finally, one of my friends’ boyfriend loves to order this noodle with black bean sauce and I believe, it also has some minced pork or something in it. I can’t remember anymore. The best part of this was the noodles. The sauce was a little heavy. Black bean sauce is one of those sauces with flavors that varies between people. You really either like or you don’t, in my opinion. I don’t love it. However, this is one of the few times I’ve eaten this sort of noodle so I’m also no expert. It could be amazing but its just not to my taste.

Overall, it was quick service and pretty fun time there. We had crazy good luck for parking however, I’m guessing it depends on the time you go. I’m really looking forward to the closer location opening next week.

Have you ever tried Korean cuisine?

Restaurant: Mon ChiCha Bistro

Finally some new restaurant visits to share. This first one was somewhere in mid-July when my best friend joined me for Fantasia Festival and we had a double movie date for Napping Princes and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. We ended up walking by this restaurant called Mon ChiCha Bistro, which peaked out interest and we ended up going in there for a quick lunch in between the movies.

Mon ChiCha Bistro

Decor

Halogen lights don’t work well on camera however the setup and seating for the restaurant is pretty cool and trendy.

Food

There is a more Asian Fusion menu however due to our time constraints and preferences, we stuck with a more traditional Chinese menu.

Something you should know about me is that I’m super traditional and simple when I go for Chinese foods most of the time. Whenever given the choice at a new restaurant or too many choices or whatever factor, my fallback is always automatically Fried Rice or Wonton Noodles.  I actually haven’t had Wonton Noodles in forever for so many reasons. Regardless, this one was pretty good. There was something different about the wonton noodles, more accurately how they made the wontons which I liked a lot. It gave it a really nice texture and distinct taste. It was also a very generous portion for the price.

They recommended to us their in-house specialty, which is a soy sauce chicken. Its a very simple everyday meal. Actually, my mom makes a super delicious one. Usually when my mom does something well, its hard for restaurants to even compare. My mom doesn’t read the blog so its the truth. This one was pretty good also. The wonton noodles filled me up quite a bit so I didn’t eat a lot of this dish.

My best friend had the Fried Sauce Noodles which is a Beijing specialty. She has a fond love for it and a craving from what I gathered during our conversation. However, we didn’t discuss how she felt about this as we were in a rush to leave for the movies and had to eat the meal quickly.

The more traditional portion is really just a side. If you check out their website, its a lot more of the asian fusion sort of food. I’d definitely be interested in heading back to see what else they serve for their mainstream clients. Maybe there will be a second post when and if I get a chance to go again.

Unboxing & Recap: Miss Fresh #5

*Technically, it should be #4 but I did get a box in October but was so busy that I didn’t end up putting up a post or taking pictures of any of the meals.*

 Its been a while since I’ve posted a Miss Fresh recap. I usually do about one of these per month. Mostly when it has a meal that appeals to us. The experience so far is pretty good. I’ve had a few little things but then I’m adjusting myself to the experience and making better choices. Box #5 (aka this one) has to be one of my favorites. One of the best parts about Miss Fresh is learning all the different recipes and a lot of them are pretty multicultural. This box in particular has that perk and its probably why I loved it so much. Meals are shown in the order that I prepared them.

Miss Fresh
(Week of November 14)

Recipes

RUN DOWN CODFISH
poached in a spicy coconut sauce with orzo salad

Run Down Codfish, Spicy Cocnonut Sauce, Orzo Salad

Run Down Codfish is a Jamaican dish. I’ve never made any Jamaican and I’ve only ever eaten Jamaican food once before. I have no idea what this is supposed to taste like but this meal was so good. I personally can’t spicy food but that time that they gave was so good for the codfish that it was perfectly cooked and the spicy coconut sauce had just the right amount of heat and delicious blend with tomatoes and jalapenos and coconut milk that I just loved it. It was burning my  mouth but I just kept eating. I try to avoid gluten and raw foods but I did eat a bit of the orzo salad which they have the recipe to make the dressing as well. The coolness of the salad contrasts well with the heat from the codfish. I liked this one a lot.

CHICKEN KORMA CURRY
with Basmati Rice

Chicken Korma Curry, Basmati Rice, Green Beans

Indian food! Personally, I don’t go to eat indian food for the sheer fact that curry usually is made with yogourt and being lactose-intolerant that kind of makes it hard to enjoy an actual meal at an Indian restaurant. With that said, my husband had this entire meal to himself. He isn’t a fan of tomatos but he liked it alright. The curry definitely has a good kick and was a tiny bit spicy. I didn’t eat it but my kitchen was smelling like curry for at least twelve hours later.

MAMA YU’S WONTON NOODLE SOUP
with Broccolinis

Mama Yu’s Wonton Noodle Soup

Possibly the quickest Miss Fresh meal I’ve put together. Generally, the meals take about an hour to put together but I guess seeing as this is a Chinese dish, I was already a tad more familiar with it and had a lot more confidence with it so it took less than an hour. I love wonton noodles. Sadly, I never have time to make it anymore and I don’t eat at Montreal restaurants that serve this in fear of MSG since I’m a tad sensitive to it. This one gives you the broth and the veggies and the egg noodles and the recipe for making the wonton from scratch. They give you the wrappers. It makes 12 wontons so six per portion. Yet again, I liked it a lot. Its easy to make something like this more on the salty side but this one worked really well. It gave us the liberty of seasoning the shrimp and minced pork mixture for the wontons with pepper and I might have put just a dash too much, but it tasted really good. On top of that, the portions are really generous. One portion wontons and with the egg noodles and the broccolini was a filling meal.

CAULIFLOWER TACOS
with lime crema

Cauliflower Tacos

The last recipe was put together by my husband. He left me the pieces to compile to show. He did add in some tuna to have some protein in his version and had the lima crema. Unfortunately, no photo of that. This is the version with the lima crema but generally the same. The bottom portion is something of a makeshift coleslaw which was pretty good. The cauliflower uses indian spices which I think is what made me not like it so much. It had a weird flavor that I’m not accustomed to and didn’t quite acquire the taste of. However, it does seem to be a relatively quick recipe to put together.

Overall…one of my favorite ones to put together. The meals here are delicious, especially the first three caught our attention. What is really nice is that in the last month, it feels like they have changed the food packing style and I like it better especially placing the ice pack and cardboard at the bottom to separate the meat ingredients to the fresh ingredients. The recipe sheets always were improved and I like the design of it more. Its been rather multicultural which also is something I enjoy to try new flavors and also experiment with new spices and new ingredients that I personally wouldn’t use in my cooking. A great experience!

November is a pretty busy month so we’ll be having another box coming in soon to ease on the dinner cooking duties, plus, it looked like a nice meals for the next one as well. Probably will be up in two weeks or so!

Food Review: C-Jade Kitchen

Back to back food reviews are awesome, right? Don’t worry, I do have some good food to share with everyone and its an actual meal that I enjoyed a lot.  This restaurant is a chain throughout Asia actually.  This one was located at New Town Plaza in Shatin.  On Sunday, I went to this restaurant with my mom, aunt and uncle and also cousin after visiting grandma.  The lunch there was scrumptious.  This restaurant is called C-Jade Kitchen.  It focuses on Cantonese and Teochew cuisine.

Seeing as we have a bigger group of people, we also ordered more food to share.

Congee: This is a type that was originated from fisherman’s village with peanuts, fish pieces and lean meat and green onions

Soy Sauce Chicken and Barbecued Pork with Rice.

I didn’t show the rice because I’m sure most of you have seen steamed rice.

Scrambled Eggs and Shrimp Noodles

Fried Rice Noodle Roll with Soy Sauce

Teochew style Sweet and Sour Fried Noodles

This one was a pretty interesting experience because the noodles are crunchy but you have to pour a bit of vinegar on top and then add a little bit of sugar and mix it before you eat.  Its a pretty interesting taste, in a very good way.

Looks familiar? Yes, its black sesame paste but this time its with Tofu Pudding (thats what Wikipedia calls it in English)

This place was a great eating experience.  I haven’t had actual Teochew style meal before so the noodles were a really wonderful experience.  As weird as the combination may seem, it tasted really good and I’d gladly eat more of it if I had the chance.  The dessert was good as always.  I’m not a big fan of congee but this one was really tasty.  I think this style suits my taste.  The noodles and Rice Noodle Rolls were also quite yummy.  Everything was even better because it tasted just right.  I usually have the problem of how restaurant food puts too much sugar or MSG or oil.  At this restaurant, I didn’t feel it as much.

Have you tried any of these foods before somewhere around? Which do you like? I need to start looking into which to try to make. It should be fun!