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Chiu Chow Boy – Toronto, Ontario

We didn’t know where to go for dinner as it was a family dinner with lots of people. It isn’t easy finding place for a large party over the weekend and still during Chinese New Years. We ended up making a reservation at Chiu Chow Boy in Scarborough located in a strip plaza on Kennedy Road. This was one of the best dinners we had as the food was very flavourful and well made.

We ordered lots of dishes, as mentioned, there was an entire army of family for this dinner. We ordered Duck in Marinated Sauce which is like a soy sauce marinated duck. We had a half order and it was still quite large! The lo-sui flavour was infused into the duck meat thoroughly and made it really good.

This is an interesting dish that we enjoyed, it’s a Stir Fried Pig’s Intestine with Sweet & Sour Preserved Vegetable and it was really good. The sweet and sour flavours was balanced really nicely with the preserved vegetables and the intestines. I really like eating the intestines and the texture is really unusual. It’s important to eat intestines only when they’re cleaned properly and they cleaned it thoroughly.

I really liked the dish of Deep Fried Baby White Fish with Spicy Salt from Chiu Chow Boy as the fish was deep fried perfectly. The tenderness of the fish meat and the perfectly crispy coating was delicious. The spicy salt sprinkled on top was so good it was one of my most memorable dishes from this restaurant. It’s soo good that I didn’t even need any other dipping sauce or anything!

An all time favourite dish for me in “late night – da laang” style (which is a Chiu Chow style eating with white congee) is Pan Fried Oyster Patties Chiu Chow Style! This was great because we ordered it as a normal dish and I pretty much ate a quarter of the entire dish! Sometimes, this dish is called an Oyster Omelette, but those tend to be thinner. This omelette has just the perfect amount of oysters and stuff ratio to egg which is a nice treat as most places have an omelette with a few oyster pieces floating around!

Our family loves braised pork belly, and normally with large gatherings, we’d order some. It’s less guilty when everyone has a little bit of pork belly to indulge instead of a big plate to yourselves. This time, we got Pork Belly with Taro Root which is braised slices of pork belly and some fried taro slices and then smothered with some sauce on top. This dish is always an appetizing dish no matter how you make it because the sauce is always delicious over rice!

Anyone who knows me knows I love fish and I eat it no matter how it’s prepared! We ordered Braised Garoupa with Tientsin Cabbage in Hot Pot and this is one of the tastiest fish hot pots! Lots of sauce, deep fried fish pieces, it was just perfect! It’s a great winter dish as hot pots tend to stay hot longer on the table.

Finally, a dish I actually don’t eat since I claim it tastes like “nose bleeds”, but a lot of people in my family likes it… it’s Blood Jello & Chives! Yup, it’s actually what you think it is, and I know the texture as a silken tofu. The texture is great but I can’t get past the taste — the entire plate did disappear so it means it was good, right?

Chicken with Chinjew Sauce which is basically deep fried chicken pieces with deep fried kale. I normally really enjoy this dish, but they over fried everything so the chicken was dry and almost tough. They seemed to have over salted this dish. It was the only dish on the table that didn’t get finished which was really too bad as it’s a simple dish to make – you just got to do it right!

Our vegetable dish was Satay Beef on Gai Lan and the gai lan was cooked perfectly! I never remember how delicious it is to just use plain good quality satay sauce on something like steamed/boiled gai lan! It’s a small picture, but it was pretty much beef in satay sauce poured on top of the gai lan! it was a total hit as you can see, I couldn’t even get a shot of it without chopsticks!

Overall, it was a good restaurant! The service was like any other Chinese restaurant, so nothing special. The rates weren’t too bad either. The food was full of flavour and the quality was really nice! I’d return here as it was a location that I remember a lot from the trip due to the food!

Chiu Chow Boy in Scarborough

3261 Kennedy Rd
Toronto, ON M1V
(416) 335-0336

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City Hollywood Cafe – Toronto, Ontario

We took a red-eye flight out to Toronto for a quick trip. When we got there, we quickly picked up our rental can and checked into our hotel room. From there, we took a quick hot shower and went out looking for breakfast as it was only about 9am. We found a place where my cousin took us to a few years back called City Hollywood Cafe located behind Pacific Mall – 太古 on Steeles and Kennedy in Markham, Ontario.

We sat down, and I quickly ordered a cup of Milk Tea – 奶茶 as I was craving a cup – with condensed milk. It was quite strong of a tea and that’s the way I like it. When I got home, I actually made my own version of milk tea, and it’s just as good!

Since I was a tad jet lagged and really sleepy as we didn’t really get sleep from the night before, I opted out for something smaller. I ordered the French Toast – 西多士 I really like Chinese/Hong Kong style French Toast because they usually use Chinese “square bread” which usually is sweeter than your typical sliced bread. The egg batter is always thick and delicious – and the sheer amount of oil they use to make their French toast makes for a crispy breakfast

The breakfast set meals are always fun to order. They normally come with tons of stuff at a really good price – at only $4.99! This meal was also ordered with milk tea, and the set meal was for Cutlet Pork Chop with Egg. This particular meal came with toast, eggs, and of course a deep fried pork cutlet ontop of macaroni’s in soup.

Overall, I really enjoyed the few times I’ve been to City Hollywood Cafe and I’m sure I’ll be back again for any meal during the day! The food has always been really good, and nothing beats their prices and hours.

City Hollywood Cafe in Markham

4372 Steeles Ave E
Markham, ON M1V4S5
(905) 305-8877

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Big Smoke Burger – Toronto, Ontario

We went for a walk into downtown Toronto this one afternoon during one of our short visits to Scarborough, Ontario. It was near lunchtime, and wanted something to eat before their downtown lunch rush. We stepped into Big Smoke Burger and it was a cute little burger shop. Right away, we noticed a lot of types of burgers, where we ordered our meal.

I tried the Crazy Burger which was a giant burger that consists of jalapeno havarti cheese, fresh-crisp coleslaw, chipotle mayo, bbq sauce, hot peppers & lettuce. The combination of the spice and the cooling (from the coleslaw) is really nice! It’s a larger burger with great flavours and it’s one of the best burgers I’ve had.

We also ordered a combo – for a drink and a side of onion rings with the Big Smoke Burger, and this burger has horseradish mayo, caramelized onions, smoked cheddar, tomato & lettuce. The horseradish mayo sounds innocent but after eating about half the burger the heat level of the horseradish really kicks in and clears your sinuses! I can’t say there was too much of a “smokiness” to the burger, but it was a wonderful tasting burger on it’s own. I’m suspecting the horseradish mayo numbed all my senses before I could really savour the smokiness of the smoke cheddar.

Big Smoke Burger is a great burger place to go to! They source out great Canadian ingredients that are fresh and they take pride in the quality of their ingredients and product they will present to you. Your burger and meal may take a little longer to wait for, but it’s definitely worth the wait as it wasn’t sitting there waiting for you to order it – made to order burgers, what more do you need?!

Big Smoke Burger – Downtown Toronto

573 King St W
Toronto, ON
(416) 596-6660

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Radisson Toronto East

We’ve been going to Toronto annually now for the last 3 years and we love it in Toronto. We stay at Radisson Toronto East primarily due to location. Each time we’ve stayed here, it seems to get better – so that’s a major plus. One thing I noticed this year was the fact there was a guest parking fee now of $8! We never had that on our bill before.

We really like the location of this hotel as it’s just off of Macdonald-Cartier Freeway (Highway of Heros – 401) and Victoria Park Avenue which are main arteries for easy commute. Our family lives in the area East of the hotel, and we’re up at Pacific Mall a lot – so the location is just wonderful.

The hotel itself seems like a typical hotel, and it’s been showing it’s age every year. We’ve noticed slight modifications and effort to update the hotel, but I think it still needs more work.

The customer service at this hotel front desk is wonderful. They’re always very accommodating and they take and respond to comments and concerns I address to them. The room we stayed in this year has been updated from the previous years, and the one thing that stands out more than anything else is the convenient single cup coffee maker in the room and a mini-fridge. I really like this feature in my room, as it was really nice and convenient.

Instead of 1 King bed in our suite this year, we had 2 queens, and both beds had the Sleep Number Bed systems which was easy to adjust for comfort. It was really neat as the smaller queen beds still offered a control for both left and right side of the bed, just as the king beds we stayed in previously.

Overall, the hotel is a clean and comfortable place to stay especially with their newly updates to the hotel. The sleep number bed system makes a wonderful bed to unwind and caters to all guests.

Radisson Toronto East

55 Hallcrown Place
Toronto, ON
(416) 493-7000

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Chateau Deli – Fairmont Lake Louise

Lake Louise is one of my favourite places to visit in any season! When I go in the winter time, my favourite thing to do is grab a hot chocolate with marshmallows from Chateau Deli and just walk around or look at the frozen lake. This year, I went for the Ice Magic Festival which I’ve always wanted to go see. It’s really neat watching talented people make an actual sculpture from blocks of ice.

The deli is almost a cafeteria styled place such that you take/order what you want and then pay at the end. There is a small seating area for you to enjoy your purchased goods, but during special occasions, it’s a little challenging to find a table to sit at and enjoy.

This time, like all others, we ordered our Hot Chocolate with Marshmallows and I never get whipped cream as it’s a little too much dairy for me. The hot chocolate here is really delicious and it’s not like any other location for hot chocolate. Chateau Deli is on my top 5 list for hot chocolate, so be sure to try it out when you’re there!

As this was my lunch, I’ve ordered a soup and sandwich combo, so the sandwich I choose was actually a Smoked Salmon Bagel with cream cheese, red onions and capers.

The soup with the combo, we enjoyed the soup of the day, which was as Cream of Mushroom Soup and it was really good. It actually tasted a lot like the homemade cream of mushroom soups I make! Of course, theirs seems to have something special in there, but it’s comparable. I must say, I like their soup more than mine as I only make cream of mushroom soup once a year.

The last thing we enjoyed for this lunch is a big bowl of Beef Chili which was really hearty filled with lots of ground beef and beans. The flavours was magnificent, and something I would get again if it was available.

Everything is always delicious from Chateau Deli, so no matter what meal or snack, be sure to stop by for something – big or small. The flavours are always really good no matter what you order, and be sure to order your food in a combo as it’s much more economical if you’re having more than just a drink!

Chateau Deli

111 Lake Louise Drive
Lake Louise, AB
(403) 522-3511