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In Four Beakers

Buca: One of Toronto’s Top Italian Restaurants

May 26, 2012

Buca is an Italian restaurant in King West area of Toronto. It was recently named one of Canada’s Top 50 restaurants. The food is simple, but is known for the amazing flavour and quality.

We were originally going to Lee, but they are closed on Sundays. BaguetteGirl decided to take us to Buca instead and it was not disappointing at all.

The interior is quite rustic and has some cool interior decor. They even have cured meat hanging in certain places of the restaurant.

It’s usually busy and its hard to get a reservation for weeks apparently. Fortunately, without reservations, we were able to get a table for 3.

Their menu changes daily depending of their ingredients that they have on hand.

Orecchio Di Maiale ($8) is crispy pig ears with wild fennel salt. It was very crispy and most delicious! It also wasn’t too oily too. I would highly recommend this item!

Pomodoro E Tartufo ($29) has preserved tomatoes, basil and truffled burrata cheese finished with scorzone truffles. It’s a simple pizza, but it is incredibly thin and super crispy. They even give you scissors to cut it up into pieces. You must get pizza here!

Spaghetti Al Nero Di Maiale ($22) has hand cut blood pasta with n’duja, soffruitto and wild leeks finished with burrata cheese. The pasta was surprisingly spicy, but if you can stand the extra kick of spice, you’ll like it. The burrata cheese gives the pasta a nice creamy texture.

Orecchiette ($27) has hand-made pasta with basil fed snails, soffrietto, brussel sprouts and fresh fava beans finishes with butter and crisp pancetta. The pasta was soft and the snails contrasted nicely with the salty pancetta.

Overall, it was a great dining experience at Buca. I can see why they are one of the Top 50 restaurants in Canada. Their pizza is to die for and I’ve never had anything close to it in Vancouver. The service was sparse and it would be hard to get the attention of the waiter.

Words of Wisdom:

Pizza and crispy pork ears is a must!
Make Reservations

We Rate Bucca:
Address:
602 King Street W.
Toronto, ON
Website:
http://buca.ca/

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In Bar and Grill

Fat Dragon BBQ: Dining on Pig head

April 22, 2012

A new restaurant has popped up on the Downtown East Side called Fat Dragon BBQ. The location is quite remote and nothing very pretty is around this place.Even though it is a Chinese restaurant, its more of Chinese x Southern US fusion. You won’t be able to find any fried rice here or anything traditional. You’re going to the wrong place if you want Chinese food.

Ange of FoodPunk and I headed to try out Fat Dragon BBQ since I heard from my sister they have an amazing pig head. Pig head on a menu isn’t regular and I’ve never heard of people eating pig head.

Once you walk inside, you’ll enter a pink tunnel and you will be transported into the restaurant where you will find a very rustic interior.

The interior is quite cool since there are lots of small dim light around. It kinda reminds me of lanterns and fireflies. Also, there are huge scales running across to the back of the restaurant like a dragon’s tail.

You get chopsticks for your meal and the best part is the bad grammar on the packaging! Clearly it is a product of China.

Yanjing Beer ($5) is a light beer and does not have a strong hop taste to it. Its refreshing especially with BBQ.

Junmai Sour ($8.50) has fruit tea sake, gin, lemon, orange blossom and egg white.

Crunchy Squid Bao Buns ($2.50) is a unique twist on the steamed buns. It has calamari, scallions, coriander, chili salt and hot sauce. The batter of the squid was light and well seasoned. I enjoyed it.

Slow-Smoked Beef Deckie Bao Buns ($2.50) has minced meat, cabbage and candied peanuts. The filling inside would easily fall out, so be a bit careful when eating. I thought the beef was a bit on the dry side, but there was hints of a smokey flavour. The texture of the cabbage and the meat contrasted nicely.

Smoked and Roasted Half Pigs Head ($45) it is served with lemon, bacon bits, herb sauce as well as bean sprout kimchi and lettuce. This is meant to serve 4 -6 people. It does take a while to prepare, so it is best to get a few drinks or appies to not get bored waiting.

The cheeks were quite fatty, but it was so delicious and tender. It was like pork belly but on its face. Ange and I both devoured this without trouble! While we were eating it, several people did have to come to our table to check out 2 small Asian girls eating a pig’s head. It’s really not that big, but we were able to survive through it.

Don’t spend too long eating this because when it gets cold, the fat does solidify. We didn’t run into any issues since it stayed warm for a long time.

We took a little bit of everything and put it into the lettuce. I found that the lettuce and the bean sprout kimchi is needed to enjoy the meat! It gives it a refreshing crunch, plus the taste of fat will not overwhelm your tastebuds.

Jasmine Hot Tea ($2.75 per pot) was definitely needed after the pig head to aid digestion. I always have a habit of drinking tea after fatty meals. Ange ordered the Vanilla Oolong tea ($2.75 per pot) and it did smell very fragrant and sweet, but it did not taste sweet.

Fat Dragon Chocolate Bars ($7.50 each) was a bit disappointing when it arrived at the table. We did not expect it would actually be just chocolate bars. It seemed ordinary, but the 2 kinds do have interesting flavours.

Milk chocolate with crispy rice, toasted coconut and ceylon cinnamon.

Dark Chocolate with smoked peanuts, candied ginger and sea salt.

Overall, nothing too Chinese here, but the BBQ is pretty good. I saw lots of people ordering ribs. We didn’t ordering too many variety of items, but the pig head was fun to devour.

Words of Wisdom:

Free parking on the street after 6pm
Some items can be expensive
Good for BBQ

We Rate Fat Dragon BBQ:

Address:
566 Powell Street
Vancouver, BC
Website: http://fatdragonbbq.com/

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In Dim Sum

Dinesty Chinese Restaurant: Steamed Pork Dumplings (XLB) Is Addictive

March 29, 2012

Dinesty is a Chinese restaurant in Richmond best known for the Xiao Long Bao (Steamed Pork Dumplings). They have been know to have amazing food and great prices.

Since the last dinner didn’t go so well at Po King with my parents, I decided it was time for me to decide where to eat. After luring them with delicious internet photos, they agreed to take me here.

Once you enter the restaurant, you’ll see a wall of teapot and little dim sum toys. They are glued to the shelf, so don’t think about stealing them.

Told you there were mini dimsum toys.

For a Tuesday dinner, this place was packed. My mom was super surprised and excited at the same time. We only had to wait about 10 minutes for a table. I’m pretty sure the weekends are crazy to get a table.

The best part about the interior is their open kitchen. You can see everyone cooking in the kitchen. It reminded me of watching a reality show on Food Network or something.

Look at them making the Xiao Long Bao. I was excited.

All your utensils and plates already at the table.

Steamed Pork Dumplings ($6.50) comes in 8 pieces. The skin has a nice thin layer, but still keeps the juice locked up inside. They were pretty good! My little sister couldn’t get enough of these.

Comes with a vingar and ginger dip for the dumplings. I love dunking it in this sauce.

Marinated beef with soy-sauce wrapped in pancake ($5.50) is crispy on the outside and has a great flavour overall.

Cold Wined Chicken ($7.50) was good, but it did have a bit of a strange taste with the wine. If you are into the whole cold chicken type of thing, this may just be for you.

Stewed Chicken Leg in Brown Sauce ($6.50) was good, but most of the meat was closest to the drumstick. The meat was quite tender too.

Noodles Topped with home-made Meat Sauce ($6.50) is similar to the Korean Jajangmyeon. You mix everything together really well and just eat it. The dish was ok, but the sauce was a tad bit salty and needed to be more thick and chunky.

Fried rice with scallop and egg whites ($9.95) I liked it. It had a good mixture of ingredients and it wasn’t too oily.

Steamed shrimp scallop and pork dumpling ($7.50) was definitely not as good as the XLB. Even though I really like seafood, the taste didn’t wow me. It just tasted so fishy. It also comes with 8 dumplings.

Steamed Pork Dumplings ($6.50) we also got more of these because we really really liked them!

Almond Tofu ($2.75) was good, but the picture on the menu was pretty misleading…it had more fruit and when this name out…it seemed like there were only a few pieces.

Overall, the food was great and at good prices. The service was really good as well. I love their menu since it’s so easy to read and has PICTURES! I’ll definitely ba back to eat more steamed pork dumplings!

Words of Wisdom: