Blue Ocean Cafe 藍海茶餐廳

Malaysian curry beef brisket - One of my favorite curries in the area. Flavorful, good texture with peanuts and coconut milk, not too spicy. However, bigger pieces of beef were a bit tough and half of the pieces were fatty/tendon. 

 Steak and Rice (Lunch combo)

 Hainanese Chicken Rice - Rice was plain but different with the crispy topping (dried almonds? garlic?). Chicken pieces were large, meaty and tender. Overall good, but no distinct Hainan flavor even with the sauces.
*07/25/2012 Today's Hainan Chicken Rice was much tastier than usual! Both the chicken and rice were oilier and more flavorful*

Baked Pork Chop Rice - I like that the sauce has a subtle tomato flavor without being too red, thick or heavy, and it included peas, carrots, corn and fresh tomatoes. The cheese was perfectly melted and pork was tender and pre-cut. Probably my favorite baked pork chop rice.

With a wide menu selection of the standard cafe dishes along with Malaysian, Taiwanese and Japanese influences, Blue Ocean is a promising hk style cafe. The white/grey/black interior with blue accent wall gives it a bright and clean 'blue ocean' feel. Good taste and value for money. Dinner combos start from $7.99 and come with soup and drink.

*Update: Five months later, this cafe has become my weekly dinner spot. New items I tried: Japanese style Fried Chicken Rice with Egg (Donburi style) and Pork Bone Soup Taiwanese Squid Ball Noodle - both taste good but don't come in a combo. *

Japanese Chicken Cutlet Rice w. Egg - better than I expected! The chicken was hot, crispy outside,tender inside (was worried it would be hard and dry with little meat) Rice was good with the sauce and onions. The only thing is that it could use more egg - I could only see and taste remnants of fried egg when it should be more scrambled egg to mix in with the rice. $7.99, no combo.

Unionville Arms Pub & Grille

 Chicken Quesadilla (with peppers, onion, cheese) ($12.99) with Sweet Potato Fries (+$2)

Sweet potato fries are my favorite appetizer and they really ruined it - flat, thin, poorly fried, burnt. Very disappointed - the regular thick-cut fries looked much better. The quesadilla was quite bland.

Pasta of the Day - Fusilli with chicken, mushrooms and sundried tomatoes in white wine cream sauce 

($14.99). 

Had a bite of the al dente pasta and it was surprisingly not bad, or maybe because I love sundried tomato and everything tastes good with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.

Beautiful weather throughout Victoria Day weekend - perfect start to BBQ and patio season. Jake's was full so we opted for Unionville Arms. Had to wait at least half an hour for the food which overall wasn't too good, but I guess it's more of a place for socializing over beer.

Sassafraz

 Beef Tartar - doesn't look too appetizing, but beef was high quality with taste of pickles, paired with mayo and crisp crackers. It was good but a bit too slimy/mushy for my taste; I prefer tuna or salmon tartar.

Sirloin (grass fed?) with asparagus - very plain presentation. The steak was nicely cooked (medium rare), but didn't have much beef flavor.

 Salmon - nicely cooked but crust was a bit salty.

Capellini - didn't try this but my sister said it was very plain tasting; tomato sauce was sour and tasted like it was from a can. The hostess said it's a French restaurant, so only one pasta dish, but I didn't find the other entrees to be particularly "French" inspired.

My order - Summer Vegetables with couscous. Personal preference - I didn't like this dish. It was my first time eating couscous and I found the texture to be very odd, like I wasn't biting into anything. I like vegetables but this dish had some spices that had a more middle eastern flavor.

Complementary dessert - shortbread with chocolate and raspberries.

For Mother's Day, all the French/Italian restaurants I wanted to go to were fully booked. While walking in Yorkville, we passed by Sassafraz and since it was quite empty, we decided to give it a try. The restaurant is separated in two parts - a cafe area that's more casual but classy, good for a drink and people watching, and the main dining room, which is bright and beautiful French style with white table clothes, accents of green and orange and a serene waterfall.

Service: Disappointing, long wait, inattentive. We waited about 10 minutes before a server gave us bread (warm, crispy, served with butter), before we were even given water. 10 minutes after that, our server came and asked us which water we wanted - sparkling or still ($7 Evian) - when we could've just had ice water which they used to refill afterwards. Overall I felt ignored; maybe it was our server that wasn't the friendliest.

Overall: Beautiful interior and ambiance, but food and service was average for the price. Total bill around $170 for 1 appetizer, 4 entrees, 1 glass of wine, 1 Evian.

Tsui Wah & ChaTime

1.  Gui Lin Noodles 桂林米粉 @ Tsui Wah 翠華

It's called 'vermicelli' but it's not the usual thin kind, almost like spaghetti. Soup base was quite good with minced meat, cilantro, tomatoes and preserved vegetables, but I think it could've used a bit more spice and flavor.

2. ChaTime

Authentic Taiwanese bubble tea place on Dundas St. W. Offers unique and natural offerings such as brown rice milk tea, genmaicha and roasted milk tea.  You can choose the sugar and ice level just like in Taiwan. The interior theme is white and purple - very clean and modern. I tried the Taro Milk Tea because it's one of the recommended drinks. The texture is gritty/sandy; I'm not sure if it's powder or the texture of real taro blended in. I like that there's bits of real taro but overall the taste is average - don't see the hype for $4.75.

3. Ice Cream Mochi

Couldn't resist buying this mango and black sesame ice cream mochi from T&T - cute packaging and tastes good too, reminds me of summer days in Hong Kong.

Day & Day Coffee 百家小廚 (Closed)

I just found out from 18boot's blog that 百家小廚 has closed down :( I actually drove by the other day and noticed the sign was gone. I've only been there twice for their inexpensive and large lobster (波子龍蝦) and soup and wanted to go again soon, only to find out they are no longer in business.


Out of 金沙，油泡, maggi, and rice wine, my favorite was the 金沙 - just the right amount of coating without being overly salty and taking away from the sweetness of the lobster. I also really liked the coconut chicken soup. Now where can I find large marble sized pieces of lobster & tasty homemade MSG-free soup?

Go For Tea (Midland)

Hot Barley Milk Tea - actually not bad, good malt taste, better than their cold version (dislike sprinkling hard flakes on top, prefer blended in). If you order two or more dishes from a set menu, you can get a soup. 

Green Onion, Chili and Pepper Chicken (椒鹽) (popcorn chicken again!) and Satay Beef (~$10.99?). The chicken was pretty good - large, tender pieces, spicier than I expected (black pepper). The beef was on the oily side, but sauce pretty tasty. Served with white rice.

Prawn Paper Hot Pot - very strong rice wine taste with a hint of red date. Comes with rice and a side of spring rolls and tomato & egg (cold).

G4T is not my first choice for bubble tea, but food was decent.

Lohas

Friends' first impressions: very purple & green. feels like a jewelry store. comfortable chairs. A few other people were there enjoying the free wifi.

Food: I never really eat at bubble tea places 'cause it's expected that the food isn't great, but that day I wanted to try popcorn chicken. I expected it to be all batter and no meat, but it wasn't. The pieces were quite big,  tender on the inside, slightly crispy outside and the portion was quite large (~12 pieces). The rice had a bit of meat on top, but I wish they put more 'cause eating the rice with no sauce was a bit bland. The rice combos also come with a side of corn and cucumbers. For $2 extra, I added a Malt Milk Tea - my usual go-to drink. It was good with soft bits of [oat flakes?] mixed in and not artificial tasting. So overall for ~$10 it's a quick meal of "average" quality expected from a bubble tea cafe, though other dishes that my friends had (rice + fish and noodles) were not good.