Showing posts with label large groups. Show all posts
Showing posts with label large groups. Show all posts

Chotto Matte (Toronto)

Nikkei is a term that describes Japanese people who live outside of Japan. In the food world, the word is also synonymous with Japanese Peruvian cuisine, which combines both countries’ love for seafood with traditional ingredients found in each culture (miso soy with Inca corn anyone)?

There’s also the tried and true sushi. Chotto Matte dresses it up Nikkei style ($28) by topping the seafood with elements like aji Amarillo (a hot pepper), black garlic, and truffle. Traditional condiments like yuzu also make an appearance to give the sushi a burst of freshness. The tuna, salmon, and yellowtail were all delicious; the scallop even better.


Most of the tuna tartare found in Toronto is made from the lean and vibrant Albacore tuna. Chotto Matte serves their’s ‘o-toro’ ($23), the fattier cut releasing a flavourful rich bite. Just make sure to get to the bottom of the dish where you’ll find sweet soy with a hint of wasabi, it’s where you’ll find the flavours. Yet, the dish really needs something like toasted nori as an accompaniment: to add a textual contrast against the soft tuna and act as a chip to eat the tartare from.


For the price, I was surprised to only see one shrimp spring roll ($14.50) arrive, but I guess it was a really really tasty one. Filled with succulent pieces of nobashi shrimp and shiitake, a shisho leaf is layered with the wrapper adding a citrusy herbal taste.


The kitchen made a terrible decision serving the barriguita de chanchito ($18.50) and gambas huacatay ($29) together. The pork belly is such a powerful bite having been marinated in a salty and spicy aji panca and aji amarillo chilli sauce … it reminds of a fattier deep fried chorizo.  Biting into the rock shrimp tempura afterwards tastes like eating plain batter. The gambas are said to be accompanied by mint and butter ponzu, but the dish seemed like overly soft tempura batter with what could be pieces of diced shrimp mixed into it.


From the robata, the pollo den miso ($21) is surprisingly tasty for a dish that’s really just grilled chicken. The miso glaze gives the dish flavour without rendering it overly sweet like teriyaki, while the yellow chili salsa bring in the Latin flavours of Peru. In the end, it’s also that lovely charcoal smoky aroma of the robata that ties everything together.


Peruvian fried rice is one of my favourites - the arroz chaufa ($9.50) is a bowl that needs to conclude each meal. Each kernel of rice infused with spicy soy and augmented by bits of herbs that adds a lovely freshness to an otherwise heavier dish. The bits of crusted rice strewn throughout creates a lovely toasted aroma and enough texture that the hard corn nuts are really redundant and frankly really annoying to bite into.


Chotto Matte brings a westernized version of the cuisine to Toronto (original outposts can be found in London and Miami). But then, it’s not trying to hide that it’s not authentic - the Andy Warhol like dining room and the black light bathrooms are a dead giveaway. It’s a place to be seen, shout over loud music, and sample Nikkei cuisine in the safety of corporate Toronto.

Indeed, the Brookfield Place address brings with it high price points. Luckily, Chotto Matte is offering Toronto Life Insiders a 50% discount off of food items from now until early December, just by showing the membership card. If you’re going to visit with a large group, the membership will likely pay for itself, especially using the discount code below. Note: amounts listed in this post are the regular menu prices.  

Overall mark - 7 out of 10

Want to become a Toronto Life Member? Toronto Life is providing Gastro World readers a $15 off discount code to become a member!

Just use discount code GASTROWORLD at the Toronto Life Member checkout and the discount will be automatically applied.

How To Find Them
 Location: Toronto, Canada
 Address: 161 Bay Street

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____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System

  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!


Is That It? I Want More!

Other Gastro World posts similar to this:



Chotto Matte Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Spoonful (Brampton)


It’s been years since I’ve been to a traditional buffet, where there are food stations to select to your heart’s content. As a child, we’d visit them for large family dinners - our parents were glad there were enough options to satisfy picky tastes and we could leave the table to walk around without them being judged. Somehow, we stopped going as my cousins and I became better behaved and our parents’ appetites shrunk.

Hence when Spoonful invited me out to try their buffet and my eyes swept across all the food, a pang of nostalgia ran through me. The layout feels familiar - the buffet area in the middle with various rooms of seating surrounding it – but the amount of choices were remarkable, figuring out where to start can be a challenge!

There’s of course an array of salads, but I steer clear of these at all costs. There’s no way I’m filling up on salad, even if there is an area that you can customize with Japanese cold noodles, edamame, and more. Soups are kept in domed heated pots that give an intergalactic feel to the restaurant - I was a tad disappointed that there wasn’t my go-to hot and sour soup, but there was lobster bisque, Chinese bone broth, mock shark fin, and wonton.


Beside all this was a sushi bar that had SO many maki, sushi, and sashimi choices. As pretty as they are to look at, sushi is never good at buffets… sitting on ice causes the rice to get hard and dry. A piece of dynamite roll confirmed my suspicions. But boy, do they look tempting.  


With the plethora of seafood options, my first plate was dedicated to crustaceans and fish. A lady stands guard overly freshly shucked oysters, cold sea snails and chilled crab legs, ensuring items like the raw oysters are kept sanitary. From the hot section, the baked garlic scallops in shell were tiny but delicious. 


I had all this before realizing there was another seafood tower on the other side of the room, filled with mussels, snail, octopus tendrils, and cocktail shrimp! The restaurant is a place for seafood lovers, offering even more choice on weeknights when there’s also crawfish and baked oysters (on Wednesday), and stir-fried BC crab (on Thursday).


From the Brazilian churrasco grill, the steak was surprisingly good, a perfect medium rare when taken from the middle. I only wish they left off the sweet teriyaki sauce to preserve more of the beef flavour. Generally, most of the meat items I had were delicious: the roasted duck well marinated and the skin of the roasted pork giving off a lovely crispy crunch.


While Spoonful offers a variety of stir fried noodles and rice (smartly kept in domed heated plates to resist getting dry), I went for the made-to-order pad Thai – the same station offers an array of freshly made Italian pasta dishes as well. I was happy to see the pad Thai sauce was brown instead of the bright pink meaning it's made with ketchup. It tasted pretty authentic, but less sauce could be used as the tamarind was overpowering and it could be stir-fried longer to give it more wok hay. If you like heat, you’ll also want to opt for the “very spicy” pad Thai sauce, I could barely taste any chili with the “spicy” one.


Spoonful invests in specialized equipment to keep things heated as optimally as possible. Like the domed heating plates used for the noodles, deep fried items are kept as a single layer in hot boxes and there are flat top warming grills for items like taquitos.


I barely made a dent into trying everything. Just to name a few more items they also offer lobster mac ‘n’ cheese, a variety of savoury tarts, beef ribs, the traditional choy suey buffet items (spring rolls, fried chicken wings, etc.)… *deep breath* … grilled teriyaki items, duck rolls, grilled pineapple … it goes on and on! Surprisingly, the thing I missed most were hot stir-fried vegetables. The stir-fried green beans were ignored and dry, so I stuck with the plain broccoli and Shanghai bok choy.


For those with a sweet tooth, Spoonful has TWO huge dessert stations containing a variety of cakes, tarts, cookies, Jello, and custards. There’s of course a waffle station and a soft serve ice cream machine that’s great for topping the waffles.


As if this weren’t enough, they also have a cascading chocolate fountain with marshmallows, fruits, and bubble waffles for dipping. A rotating ice cream station is also a cool feature and since there’s someone there to scoop it for you, I didn’t have to worry about sticky hands getting into it or the ice cream becoming too soft as the freezer lid is left open.


By the entrance are candy pod stations with a variety of chewy candies - just looking at them made my teeth hurt!  Needless to say, Spoonful dominates in the dessert category - any sweet lover would be in heaven.


The coolest feature has got to be the doughnut machine where you can see the automated spout pipe the batter into the hot oil and the doughnuts conveyor through until the end. Talk about nostalgia, the station reminded me of Tiny Tom doughnuts from the CNE.

I’ll admit, the doughnuts smell better than they taste as they’re oily. Perhaps it’s my fault, I had to get the freshly fried ones that just dropped off the conveyor belt. Maybe if I took them from the basket and gave them a chance to drain it would be drier. Nonetheless, adding some red bean ice cream to it and forming a doughnut ice cream sandwich made the oiliness less noticeable.  


For all the options, their prices are very reasonable: for adults, lunches are $17.99 and $23.99 and dinners are $27.99 and $33.99 for Monday to Friday and weekends and holidays, respectively. They also offer a host of specials to seniors (60 years + of age), birthdays (50% for the individual on the day of their birthday or 10% for the whole table during the month), and if you promote them on social media (10% off after posting on Wechat, Facebook, or Instagram).

As an affordable buffet, Spoonful is one of the better ones I’ve been to. If only we visited the restaurant as a child … it’s like a magical AYCE Willy Wonka world.

Overall mark - 7.5 out of 10
Disclaimer: The above meal was complimentary. Rest assured, as noted in my mission statement, I will always provide an honest opinion.


How To Find Them
 Location: Brampton, Canada
 Address: 499 Main Street South

Follow me on twitter to chat, be notified about new posts and more - https://twitter.com/GastroWorldBlog
____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System

  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!


Is That It? I Want More!

Other Gastro World posts similar to this:


Spoonful Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Grandeur Palace 華丽宮 for dinner (Toronto)


I have a love-hate relationship with Grandeur Palace: they’re one of better dim sum restaurants, in terms of taste for value, but the sheer amount of “friends and family” they let go to the front of the queue grates on the nerves while you’re waiting. Luckily, they’re quiet during dinner and with a small group we’ve just walked-in. It’s so much better when there’s no one jumping the line!

Unlike other Chinese restaurants, Grandeur doesn’t serve complimentary soup. So, if you’re used to wetting the whistle before the food arrives, plan accordingly. Their soup of the day ($9.98) is reasonably priced and sufficient for about 8-10 people. While it changes, one evening brought us a bone broth made of pork, carrots, apples, and white fungus, arriving piping hot and flavourful (not having been diluted).  


Almost every table orders the roasted Peking duck special ($19.80), a steal for two courses (duck with wraps and chopped carcass). While it’s not the most stellar version of the dish, it’s still satisfying. Their biggest flaw being the consistency of the bird – larger tables are given larger birds.


Moreover, their wrappers are a little thick and left in the steamer too long causing the top ones to dry out and crack. Nonetheless, they’re a good three-bite size ideal for making a duck taco.

You will spend more on other dishes – even a simple vegetable dish is above $15. However, Grandeur doesn’t skimp on quality or portion sizes. The sweet and sour pork ($16.80) is made with pork tenderloin, so even older family members could bite through the meat, and there was enough sauce for flavour. Sadly, the large chip is prettier to look at than eat: thinking it was a gigantic shrimp chip, I was disappointed to be greeted with the taste of Styrofoam.


The salt and pepper pork chop ($16.80) is a substantial dish. Again, the kitchen ensures it remains tender while creating a crispy crust, it just needs to be spicier.


While it’s common in Chinese restaurants, the actual seafood in the tofu, vegetable, and seafood in hot pot ($18.80) has little flavour given it’s quickly blanched before cooking. Most tables order the hot pot for the sauce over the natural shrimp, scallop, and squid flavours.


If you’ve never had bamboo fungus, it has an interesting crunchy spongy texture that I love. At Grandeur, you’ll find the ingredient in the stir-fried vegetables with bamboo fungus ($15.80), topping broccoli and mixed with black and white fungus.


The baby bok choy with salted and preserved egg ($13.80) isn’t my favourite dish as the grainy texture of the salted egg yolk is strange against the vegetable. However, it’s simple and relatively healthy feeling for those wanting a lighter option.


At $19.98 a pound, it doesn’t sound expensive for a large lobster, but when you’re greeted with a behemoth 6-pound dish ($119.88), it adds up. Best for big tables, large lobsters aren’t always as sweet as their younger counterparts but there’s more meat, especially in the claws and legs. The traditional stir-fried lobster with green onions and ginger was done well, chopped into large enough pieces so it didn’t become overcooked.


The braised grouper ($48) is another dish for larger tables – a platter with a big slab of meaty fish topped with tons of tofu and surrounded with vegetables and mushrooms (these sides alone enough to count as its own dish). The thick grouper was just cooked through and there was sufficient oyster sauce to keep everything flavoured.


Whoever chopped the deep fried whole chicken ($33.60) did so in a haphazard manner, it arrived disheveled looking. Nonetheless, it was well flavoured, the skin crispy, and the meat cooked through but not tough. Perhaps it was cut while it was still hot - if it’s between presentation or temperature, I choose temperature any day.


Although the restaurant doesn’t provide soup, customers do leave with a sweet ending. The customary green bean soup with tapioca was hot and sweet and on a weeknight dinner there were also bite-sized mango pudding and cookies.


While dining at Grandeur Palace doesn’t make you feel like royalty (even on quiet nights it’s hard to get a staff member’s attention), their dishes are decent interpretations of Cantonese cuisine. Just go in a table of six or more; they don’t skimp on portion size.

Overall mark - 7.5 out of 10


How To Find Them
 Location: Toronto, Canada
 Address: 2301 Brimley Road

Follow me on twitter to chat, be notified about new posts and more - https://twitter.com/GastroWorldBlog
____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System

  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!


Is That It? I Want More!

Other Gastro World posts similar to this:

Grandeur Palace Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

CRAFT Beer Market (Toronto)

CRAFT Beer Market Toronto

Since Craft Beer Market’s opening event, I’ve been back twice – for lunch and dinner. The lunch visit was a much easier endeavor as the reservation was easy to come by and even walk-ins sat easily. Dinner reservations, on the other hand, are restricted to 40% of the restaurant and securing a walk-in table after 5pm is difficult.

Having had my fair share of tacos and ribs at the opening event, my meals focused on other offerings. The Brewmaster’s chicken sandwich ($17.50) takes a moist chicken breast and tops it with crispy bacon, melted aged cheddar, guacamole, and other fixings – a typical but tasty combination. The ciabatta bun was warm and chewy, with the fries it makes a filling meal.


Since the chicken wasn’t overdone with the sandwich, the Beau's beer can chicken ($19.50 for a quarter or $24.50 for a half) seemed like a safe choice. Again, it was tender and moist, but since the thicker breast was just on the cusp of being cooked, the texture can seem underdone. If you’re squeamish about chicken that’s not thoroughly done, ask the kitchen to cook it longer.


With a Cajun spice rub on the chicken, it was already sufficiently flavoured, but even better once the beer gravy was poured on top. Served with smashed potatoes, they were crispy but fried too long resulting in oily and dry spuds.  Thankfully, the simply roasted Brussel sprouts were done well, combined with the sizeable piece of chicken, I didn’t need the potatoes.


Of course, their significant drink menu is still what keeps people coming back to Craft Beer Market. I decided to try the world tour 6-pack sampler ($15), where all but one of the options impressed. Unfortunately, there was no introduction to what beers were being featured, verbally or written, so makes it difficult to ever re-order a specific brew. Regardless, the eats were good and the drink options endless, this is what makes Craft Beer Market a great option for lunch and after work drinks.


Overall mark - 7 out of 10


How To Find Them
 Location: Toronto, Canada
 Address: 1 Adelaide Street East

Follow me on twitter to chat, be notified about new posts and more - https://twitter.com/GastroWorldBlog
____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System

  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!


Is That It? I Want More!

Other Gastro World posts similar to this:



CRAFT Beer Market Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Adrak (Richmond Hill)


Adrak isn’t a place you simply stumble upon. Located at the base of an office building, in the dark you merely see their glowing sign - if you’re looking for it – then still need to drive around the block to enter the complex at the back of the building. While the restaurant doesn’t benefit from a direct view from Hwy 7, they do occupy sizeable space and is one of the poshest Indian restaurants I’ve visited in Toronto. Adrak also has a contemporary vibe: there’s no glint of red or gold, instead the comforting dark browns and cool creams that is reminiscent of a steak house … if a steak house features a huge tandoor oven in their open concept kitchen.

Diners are treated to an amuse bouche to start, a fried cheese ball that’s could be an arancini topped with a spiced curry. It’s unclear if the bite is authentic, but who cares, it's tasty.


Adrak’s menu is extensive, containing several dishes rarely found elsewhere. Feeling adventurous, we picked out a couple of unfamiliar appetizers to try such as the stuffed potato wheel ($15) where a potato is hollowed out, coated with poppy seeds, and stuffed with a cheese and spinach mixture. While it tastes pretty good, I could do without the raisins used in the filling and the coating could use more seasoning.


The soya malai chaap ($13) is sometimes referred to as vegetarian chicken in Indian cuisine, as the soy protein is molded to resemble pieces of meat. To me they look like Jerusalem artichokes (or sunchokes) covered in mayonnaise. While the ingredient has a dense texture, it doesn’t resemble the consistency of tofu. Again, the appetizer could benefit from more spice as after getting past the creamy sauce, the inside was fairly bland, except for a light smokiness from the charcoal oven. I’m glad it was accompanied by a tart chutney and plump soy bean salad, which helped give the malai chaap some flavour. Perhaps, even something as simple as including more of the sauce for dipping would help.


Aside from the “vegetarian chicken”, we also had an actual chicken starter. The chicken seekh kebab ($18) is a sizeable portion and smelled great, but the texture took some getting used to – the consistency ground down to a paste, rather than minced. Personally, I would prefer if it contained more bite and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, more flavour.


When I picture Indian food, it’s usually something that’s packed with exotic spices. Therefore, when all the appetizers were so muted, it was a strange start to the meal. While I’m glad we branched out to try new dishes, there’s a reason why starters like samosa and chaat are popular.

Luckily, as we got to the mains, the flavour level increased … perhaps the appetizers merely were preparing the taste buds for what’s to come. The gobi aloo & peas ($16) had a strong hit of masala and heat, the roasted cauliflower adding a further smokiness to the dish. Wrapped in a thin roti this could have easily been a delicious vegetarian main.


The smoky baingan bharta ($18) was accurately named given the eggplant was grilled over charcoal adding a smoldering taste and smell. Along with onions, tomatoes, herbs, and chilies, the mixture was great for dipping bread into and could easily work as a starter. In fact, most of the bread basket ($8), for me, went towards this dish. Containing a piece of butter naan, garlic naan, laccha parantha, and tandoori roti, the bread basket was a great sampler, but the soft chewy naans stole the show.


Huge pieces of soft and tender paneer were in the saag paneer ($17)… Adrak certainly doesn’t skimp on the cheese! Along with the thick spinach base, the dish was rich and filling.


The Goan-style seafood curry ($25) incorporated interesting flavours: predominantly sweet and sour with a creaminess from the coconut milk and a light heat. Yet, it was more fish than seafood as both spoons contained flavourless white fish... where's the shrimp and scallop? It's a dish that goes well, perhaps even needs, steamed rice. On its own or even with the naan/biryani, something seemed off.


To be fair, the vegetarian biryani ($17) doesn't need any more sauce, even by itself it was moist (without relying on oil) and flavourful. With tons of vegetables (green beans, onion, tomato, and peas), in lieu of the customary chicken or lamb I normally have the rice with, it's nice to eat something lighter. 


Even on the dessert menu there were some unfamiliar choices: the dinner provided my first taste of kesar phirni ($8) a slow-cooked vermicelli pudding flavoured with saffron. While it was mushy with no distinct bits of the noodle, the cashew pieces added crunch helping to improve the texture. Once again, the raisins could be left out; Adrak should really consider calling out this ingredient on their menu as it's generally insights a love/hate relationship with people. 


Surprisingly, even with our weekend dinner the restaurant wasn’t busy – perhaps due to their hidden location. Most of the diners were large groups with 10+ people; Adrak’s long tables and open concept design is great for hosting large groups and semi-private parties. Their service was also exemplary and one of the better restaurants for accommodating dietary restrictions. In fact, it’s the closest option for a fine dining Indian restaurant I’ve visited in the city. And, if you have diners that don’t like spice, at least they can stick to the appetizers.

Overall mark - 7.5 out of 10


How To Find Them
 Location: Richmond Hill, Canada
 Address: 15 Wertheim Court
 Website: http://adrak.ca/

Follow me on twitter to chat, be notified about new posts and more - https://twitter.com/GastroWorldBlog
____________________________
Gastro World's Grading System

  • Anything under 5 - I really disliked and will never go back
  • 6 - decent restaurant but I likely won't return
  • 7 - decent restaurant and I will likely return
  • 8 - great restaurant that I'd be happy to recommend
  • 9 - fantastic restaurant that I would love to visit regularly and highly recommend
  • 10 - absolute perfection!


Is That It? I Want More!

Other Gastro World posts similar to this:


Adrak Indian Restaurant & Bar Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato