My Little Dumplin's.

Oh ho ho. Dumplings. Pot stickers. Just call them 'My Precious'...

We went to Mother's Dumplings in Chinatown for a lovely dumpling lunch.
The restaurant is cute. Small small small, but cozy and clean. If you know me, you may know that when it comes to my meals, I enjoy having a variety, and since we had never eaten at Mother's, variety was on order.

However, it appears that there may have been a little too much variety! You can only order dumplings in minimum orders of 10, and it was just G and I, but we ordered a few different things to try anyway. When the waitress came to take our order card, she said, "No, this is too much!" We laughed and said we'd take it home if there were leftovers (and despite my best efforts, there were leftovers!!!)!

The table had these cute little sauce bottles. Gotta love it.

Our first dumpling to arrive was the boiled chicken and mushroom. Oh. My. Goodness. Oh. My. Goodness. Yeah.


Normally, I am not a huge fan of the boiled dumpling, but these were absolutely amazing. The wrapper was really tender and light, and the filling was just the right amount of chicken-y mushroomy flavoury yumminess. (or something).

We also ordered a Green Onion Pancake.



A hoy hoy, you sexy thing! Really oniony and crispy. The dough was solid, but not tough. Really a nice thing all on it's own.

We also ordered kim chee and potato salad.



The kim chee was frozen, and the potato was cold and spicy. Really tasty, but I wouldn't order them again. The waitress came over and told us our steamed rice was unavailable, but we wouldn't need it! (And she was right!!!)

Our next dumpling was the beef and green onion steamed dumpling.

These were probably the least favorite, but still really nice. The beef was a mince, which wasn't what I expected. In fairness, I don't now what I did expect, but I really did enjoy it.

Our final (!) dumpling was the pan fried pork dumplings. Now, pan fried are my favorite. And these really lived up to the reputation of the restaurant...

WOW. Pan fried indeed. These were absolutely delicious, but I think the boiled chicken were the ones I would come back for again and again. It was really an experience that I greatly enjoyed. I highly recommend it.

(Scroll down for another post...)

Chew Chew 'Burger.

Hello. Posts about the stomach will be saved for another day. Instead, let me post about a new diner that has opened in the 'hood, called the Chew Chew Diner.


G and I just had to give it a try. I mean, look at that mural. It's beautiful, and a real improvement over the craptastic building that was there before. (And, so you see, I didn't get the name wrong!)

And if it's a diner, it can only mean one thing... CHEESEBURGER.


So of course, if there's a cheeseburger on the menu, I am going to give it a go. And if it's a day ending in 'y', I gotta try it.



As Gregg Wallace (or Greg with two g's, as he's known around here) would say on MasterChef, "Oh yeahhhhh, right on...that's a good 'burger!" And it was. Oh it was. And coleslaw! Well smack my you-know-what and call me chuckles because that coleslaw was delightful. And the cheeseburger in it's proper format does come with lettuce, but as the smell of heated lettuce makes me wanna hurl, I forgo the same.

I could go on and on. The fries were lovely. Really crisp, homemade feeling. The bun was really good, would have been better if toasted. The cheese was totally melted, the mushrooms were cooked gorgeously, adding just the right amount of brown flavour.

G ordered the open face roast beef sandwich with mashed potatoes.



Look at those veg!!! OLD SKOOL! I love it. The roast beef was lovely, the potatoes were really good, and the whole thing just tasted like food when I was a kid. Really fun. We had such a good meal and were full for the whole day!!!

It's on Carlton between Sherbourne and Parliament, and I believe that everyone should go there. Really nice for a good lovely meal. (And they have beer and wine.)

LCBO Dinner -- SLOW FOOD

A couple of weeks back, G and I, (and a friend from work) attended a dinner at the LCBO about the Slow Food movement, with star chef Tobey Nemeth from Jamie Kennedy's restaurant. Now, I have to confess. She totally rules. Totally. She walks the talk about good food, and I really admire her ability to do so. The dinner was three hours of deliciousness...

First, we started off with Tobey's housemade head cheese.

I know I know. This is something that I can honestly say that I never really thought I would try, but was lured by Tobey saying, "it's not such a big deal, we make it at the restaurant, eat it up." So I ate most of it up. As long as it was on bread. And I am pretty much done with that then.

We then watched Tobey cook compile a lovely panzanella salad. This salad wasn't anything super fancy.

But it was super good. It had these amazing sun cured tomatoes in them, that were not dry and tart like sun dried tomatoes... The best part was that Tobey walked around with the big bowl of salad after we'd been served, bringing us more! That's right! Feed us!

From there, we moved on to an amazing chorizo, cheddar and olive risotto.



Wow. That picture is washed out. While I could fix it... I am not gonna. I thought the risotto was really nice BUT the olives were really overpowering. The chef was saying that the chorizo was the dominant flavour, but I really didn't think so. The olives were a bit too strong. But the combination was lovely.

We moved from there to an excellent explanation of how to make duck confit, along with a course of duck confit with polenta. The polenta was made with cream and it was unbelievably rich. I think the duck confit was the reason why my coat (and bag, and shirt, and hair) smelled so FOOD-LIKE when I left the LCBO. But whatever the reason, my bag was so stinky the next day, I was embarrassed on the subway!



The duck was amazing. Really tender, the skin was crispy, the polenta was a lovely dish to have with it, but really rich. Tobey said she would not serve these together normally, but wanted to showcase both dishes.

Honestly, the food just kept coming. We moved from there to a local cheese plate.



Lovely. The one in ash is called "Don Cherry's Puck" or something. And a dessert cake that tasted like a truffle.


As I have said before... the LCBO's dinners are really fun. I highly recommend them to anyone who wants to have a nice dinner out and learn a thing or two.

While I am not ready to go total Slow Food, I do like the idea of eating better. Fresher, cleaner, and more humanely.

As a result, I urge EVERYONE to make a donation to the World Food Programme. They are running dangerously low on food, and with the many food riots in the world, and escalating cost of staple foods such as rice, I can't see it getting any better

In fact, we were just chatting with G's mom about this crisis, and she was saying how short-sighted people were in the "East" (China, India, etc) for moving away from farming to living in cities, and selling their lands to developers. I pointed out that this is a huge problem RIGHT HERE AT HOME, and really, the nice new subdivision she lives in out in Richmond Hill was once all farmland.

It's an enormous problem. I am reading a very interesting book regarding this issue, titled, "Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World's Food System". I am not sure that the author, Raj Patel, is pro- WFP, but at the same time, at least someone is out there trying.

I don't know. Haiti and their food riots are frightening. The rice prices in Asia are going to effect millions and millions of people. And here at home, we're seeing the cost of our cheap and easy lifestyle. I want to make it better, I just don't know where and how.

SPRING!

Spotted on a walk last weekend. Not that you'd know it this weekend. It's grim outside.