food – Page 19 – Tiana Feng

Hello Zomato

December 26, 2014Food, Social Media, Technology1 Comment

There’s no doubt that the food scene here in Toronto is huge. There are plenty of restaurants, events, bloggers, apps etc that cater to all kinds of food lovers.

Recently, I became a blog partner on Zomato, a new restaurant discovery service that is impressive enough to take out Yelp and Urbanspoon. What makes Zomato different is that all the information collected on restaurants is done by actual people (working for Zomato). This results in accurate and up-to-date menus, phone numbers and existence. So many restaurants come and go on a weekly basis that this information is vital.

A unique feature to Zomato are it’s Collections, a series of curated lists with a common theme. Current ones include “Christmas Events”, “Great Breakfasts” and “Terrific Thai”. They also have an app as beautiful as the website. Users can bookmark restaurants, upload photos, call restaurants and more. Refined searches are available where users can circle (or heart) part of a map and discover the type of cuisine they are looking for in the area.

For those looking for something to cure that Foursquare itch (because Swarm sucks), Zomato also has a check-in option! It has it’s own social network where users can follow others and “heart” and comment on photos and more. I’m a newer user to Zomato but I’m enjoying it so far and already have so many restaurants bookmarked.

I had the pleasure of hanging out with some of the Zomato team, and they are awesome people but more on that later!

If you’d like to follow me on Zomato you can find me here:

https://www.zomato.com/tianafeng

Now to go back to bookmarking a million delicious places on the app!

Desserts Baked in Apples

December 7, 2014Food, Recipes3 Comments

The winter holidays means a lot of potlucks and dinner parties. If you need ideas for interesting twists on traditional desserts how about cheesecake or apple crumble baked inside apples?

I tried the Cheesecake Stuffed Baked Apples recipe from Creme de la Crumb. They are best eaten the day of and have a nice creamy texture.

Apple crisp inside apples is simple if you know how to make apple crisp already. Sautee apples with brown butter and cinnamon, stuff the apples, sprinkle with oats and voila!

Apples have been on sale lately and I’m constantly thinking of other creative ways to use them. Let me know what types of things you do with yours!

Craft Beer & Music

November 25, 2014Drinks, FoodLeave a Comment

A few weeks ago, I photographed the 4th Annual Big Smoke Fest hosted by Tall Boys. The night featured a great music entertainment as well as a fine section of craft beers.

The most memorable beer I tried at the event was a mysterious one from Nickel Brook Brewery. They had over 10 varieties at their booth but I was drawn to a mysterious bottle with a black label and the numbers 11 05. The friendly rep told me that it was a barley wine beer that had been aged for a year on exactly November 5th. It had a striking 11% alcohol but was smooth and sweet.

You can see the entire photoset of the night on the Tall Boys Facebook Page.

Thai Lime

September 21, 2014Food, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a Comment

Recently, we tried Thai Lime, close to the Junction. It was very cozy and the menu items were relatively inexpensive. Nash ordered the Pad Thai pictured above.

I had the Malaysian Beef Curry ($12.69). Rice was included with the order (which isn’t always a thing at Thai places). The portion and flavours were plenty.

The great thing about the place is that they’re also available on a lot of delivery platforms in Toronto including Just-Eat and Orderit.

Tacos & Beer @ O&B Canteen

September 6, 2014Food, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a Comment

I stopped by O&B Canteen one day after a Jays game for their $5 Mill Street happy hour. I was a bit hungry so I ordered the Calamari Tacos ($12). After all, I was at a restaurant owned by Oliver & Bonacini! The tacos were nice and light and had a delicious mango sauce with buttermilk cream.

Disgraceland

September 4, 2014Food, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a Comment

A few weeks ago we hit up Disgraceland for the first time in Bloor Court. The place is a little bit divey but they are known for their bar food and wide variety of vegetarian/vegan options. I’m not a vegan by any means but I like to try the occasional vegan cuisine for fun. The first thing I ordered was the Cinco de Fryo ($9 pictured above)- fries topped with cheese, black bean corn salsa, guacamole and cilantro mayo. The ingredients worked really nicely together and I enjoyed the flavour of mayo.

Not entirely sure why, but I also had the Vegan Rib Dinner. Since I really enjoyed Hogtown Vegan’s take on meat goodies, I thought I’d give them a shot here. However, the ribs turned out to be dry and after a few bites, I didn’t find them appetizing at all. I kind of lost my appetite for the beans and the coleslaw after trying the ribs.

Nash ordered the Lord of the Rings burger, which is really what I should have got.

I’m not sure if meat-eater bias came into play here, but I really didn’t enjoy the vegan dish I ordered. The fries on the other hand were very good and I heard no complaints about Nash’s burger!

Electric Mud BBQ

August 24, 2014Food, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a Comment

Located on Brock Ave in Parkdale, Electric Mud BBQ serves up unique BBQ eats. It’s by the owned by the same people as buzzy Mexican restaurant Grand Electric (which we still haven’t been there because we aren’t really committed to lining up for a meal). The first item we ordered was the day’s special, a grilled chicken. It came with a dipping sauce, but we couldn’t tell if it tasted better with or without. The white sauce, chives and marinade were already perfect.

Also our meat list were these rib ends. They were crispy and had a tangy bbq sauce spiced with jalapenos.

Since we were eating meat, we thought we’d get some vegetables as a side. Well, sort of. These buffalo cauliflower (compete with a blue cheese salad) resembled classic buffalo wings. What a lovely twist.

To wash it down I had a lovely Porch Crawler (watermelon lemonade, thai basil gin and simple syrup).

Nash had a Bourbonade (which is exactly what it sounds like).

Somehow, we had room for dessert, but I am glad because this Sweet Potato Pudding was to die for.

Our overall experience was lovely and we just learned the place delivers! Now we can get our BBQ on even if we’re lazy.

Clara’s Gourmet Burgers

August 19, 2014Food, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a Comment

We stumbled upon Clara’s Gourmet Burgers while on a walk in the area, and naturally we had to try it. They had a creative burger menu with very affordable prices.

I had the Bruschetta Burger with diced tomato, feta, oregano. The flavours worked quite nicely together with the beef. I ordered them with a side of sweet potato fries which were also very good. Not to mention GIANT:

View this post on Instagram

Wtf giant sweet potato fry

A post shared by Tiana Feng (@tianafeng) on Jul 9, 2014 at 3:58pm PDT

Imagine the sweet potato that made that!

Nash had the Nacho Burger with jalapenos, onions, tomatos, lettuce, and nacho chips!

The tables at the restaurant are all chalkboard so we amused ourselves while we waited for our food.

They aren’t the most complex burgers in the world, but they didn’t need to be and it was definitely worth the price! They do run out of ingredients for some of their burgers throughout the day so if you want to try something like the seafood or mahi mahi, go earlier! They were unavailable in the evening when we visited.

The Porch – A Rooftop Patio

August 10, 2014Food, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a Comment

On top of Adelaide Hall and Rock n’ Horse Saloon is a relatively new rooftop patio called The Porch. The place has a lovely unobstructed view of the CN Tower. I was there for a friend’s birthday and ordered a margarita which came in a bucket the size of my head. Considering it was around $10, it was a great value.

The menu features finger foods as well as pub food like burgers and ribs. I ordered the guacamole with corn chips to start ($14).

I also had the Korean Short Ribs ($15) which were served with market greens in a balsamic vinaigrette.

While I think it is a great place for drinks, I think the food is overpriced for what you get as they weren’t anything special. Also worth noting is that if you make a reservation, it doesn’t guarantee a table or your party’s spot in line. The few times I’ve been there, there was no cover, but I could also see this changing if it hasn’t already.

Interesting Food Combinations @ Lisa Marie

August 3, 2014Food, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a Comment

Named after Elvis Presley’s daughter, Lisa Marie the Toronto restaurant is owned by the same people behind the Fidel Gastro food truck. The decor includes an Elvis print. We were delighted by the experimental sounding menu. There’s always some sort of weird sounding twist almost as if you were playing the game “which one of these doesn’t belong?”. For example we started with the Pork Belly Chow Mein Pizza ($10 pictured above). The combination of crispy pork belly, king oyster mushrooms, chow mein, sweet and sour sauce on top of a deep fried pizza dough was playful but it actually worked surprisingly well together.

Nash I chose to share the Mac and Cheese, one of the day’s specials ($22). This was no regular Mac and Cheese. Inside the cheese itself was pulled pork and it was also topped with fresh Pico de Gallo (cilantro, tomato, avocado, green onions etc).There were probably a bunch of other ingredients I missed but the waitress did a great job of naming everything and making our jaw drop every time she explained a menu/special item. Despite the seemingly ridiculous sounding combination, this Mac & Cheese was delightful. Every spoonful was like a new adventure. It was also a generous portion that there was enough left over for the next day’s lunch.

The Lazy Sunday

Testa Dura

Another thing that can’t be ignored is their fabulously witty drink menu. Nash had The Lazy Sunday comprised of Hendricks gin, sunflower sprout lemonade and Jack Rudy Small Batch tonic. It had enough alcohol that if you had too many, you’d probably need to take an actual lazy Sunday. I had the Testa Dura (means “stubborn” in Italian). In it was Tromba tequila, Asperol, fresh lime and limonata. It was tart and refreshing at the same time. All the drinks will definitely give you your moneys worth in alcohol.

This photo looks a little funny, but it’s their play of Elvis in a Jar ($6). The jar consisted of maple/rum fried french toast, bacon, peanut butter marscapone, flambéed bananas topped with a big piece of crispy bacon. In a nutshell it was heaven and even though we were so stuffed from the rest of the meal this jar was definitely licked clean.

We were happy with the entire experience from the creative food to the friendly waitress who was very knowledgeable on all the dishes. At the end our bill came in a random cassette!