Tasty Eats at Lamb Soup Noodle House

Lamb Soup Noodle House
Location
: 4750 Yonge Street, Toronto (inside Emerald Park food court)
Website: none

The lamb soup at Lamb Soup Noodle House is pretty tasty, with a very clean lamby flavour.  I got the spicy version, which also had a very noticeable fiery kick.  Nothing about it blew my mind — but I’m a fan of lamb, and I’m never going to dislike anything that packed with lamb flavour.

Lamb Soup Noodle House

(The chunks of lamb are a bit tough and the fat noodles are overcooked, but I think the broth is the real reason to order this.)

I think the better thing to order here, oddly, isn’t the lamb soup — it’s the jian bing, an eggy Chinese crepe.

Lamb Soup Noodle House

I actually tried the jian bing here several years ago and quite enjoyed it.  It was called Gao’s Crepe back then, so I’m not sure if it’s the same place or another jian bing spot in the same location, but either way, it’s thoroughly delicious.

Lamb Soup Noodle House

Rather than going with the standard jian bing, I went with the one that comes stuffed with spicy noodles and cheese (!), and wow it was good.  The wrap itself was chewy and satisfying, it has a nice crunch, and the zippy noodles and melty processed cheese work surprisingly well together.  There’s also some kind of sausage in there, and yeah, that’s tasty too.  It’s all quite junky, but in a really satisfying way.

Tasty Thai Food at Kao Kang

Kao Kang
Location
: 486 Front Street West, Toronto (inside Wellington Market)
Website: https://kaokang.ca/

Kao Kang, which is part of The Well’s recent expansion, is a spinoff of Koh Lipe, a Michelin-noted Thai restaurant downtown.

Michelin-adjacent eats in a food court?  Yeah, sign me up.

Kao Kang

The guy behind the counter noted that the pad gra prao (“holy basil, chili, green bean, garlic, fried egg on rice”) is their most popular dish, so that’s what I went with.  You can get it with either chicken or beef; I went with beef.

I enjoyed it.  Was it the best version of this dish that I’ve ever had?  No, absolutely not.  But it’s still a food court.  Let’s temper our expectations here.

Kao Kang

It’s very, very sweet, and is kinda lacking in the umami punch that you typically get from this dish.  It’s a bit one-note in its flavour, but is thoroughly pleasant, with a mild spicy kick and a perfectly cooked fried egg on top.  I don’t think I’d order it again, but I’m not mad I ate it.

Quick Bites: Jaffna Street Food, The Keg, Sheliss Bakeshop Cafe

Chicken Kothu Roti from Jaffna Street Food
Chicken Kothu Roti from Jaffna Street Food

I’ll say this about the chicken kothu roti at Jaffna Street Food: it’s a great deal.  If you come on a Friday, you can get that dish for a cool ten bucks, and considering the hefty portion, you can’t go wrong there.  Was it the best kothu roti I’ve ever had?  No, it was pretty dry and nothing about the flavour really popped.  But it was perfectly okay.  For the price, I absolutely can’t complain.

Steak at The Keg
Steak at The Keg

Generally speaking, the quality of the food at Canadian casual chain restaurants ranges from “passable, I guess?” to “are you sure this is food?”  But whenever The Keg comes up in discussions online, people tend to be pretty complimentary about it.  I just checked the place out for the first time in like twenty years, and yeah, I get it.  I tried the escargots, a steak, and a slice of the famous Billy Miner pie, and they were all solid.  Nothing here blew my mind, but everything was well-executed and tasty.  I can definitely see why people are fans of this place (especially given the competition).

Cheese tart from Sheliss Bakeshop Cafe
Cheese tart from Sheliss Bakeshop Cafe

It’s rare that I get to try a pastry that I’ve never even heard of, but it recently happened at Sheliss Bakeshop, a delightful Mexican-influenced bakery on St. Clair.  The pastry in question: the cubilete de queso, or cheese tart, which they describe as “creamy cheese filling in a buttery pastry shell.”  It’s great.  What I really liked about this is how restrained the level of sweetness is, with the dense but creamy filling tasting kinda like a cross between a custard and a cheesecake.  And the shortbread-esque complements it well.  It’s a tasty dessert.

Stellar Diner Food at Susie’s Rise & Dine

Susie's Rise & Dine
Location
: 539 College Street, Toronto
Website: https://susiestoronto.com/

The crowds at Susie’s Rise and Dine are no joke — the first time I tried to visit, I told them I didn’t have a reservation and was told the wait would be something like two hours.  Clearly, reservations are advised.

It’s in the style of an old-school diner, with the menu mostly consisting of brunch and diner standbys (with the occasional item having a bit of an Asian twist).

Susie's Rise & Dine

I tried a couple of things.  First up: the tuna melt (“Japanese tartar sauce, malt vinegar pickled celery, sour cream & onion kettle chips, American cheese, served on griddled rye bread”).  I wasn’t planning on ordering this, but the waitress said it was her favourite, so sure, why not?

The waitress was 100% right.  Good god, that tuna melt.  It’s almost certainly the best I’ve ever had.  I know that it looks pretty standard (I mean, there’s not much you can do to gussy up a tuna melt), but trust me, it was obscenely good.

Susie's Rise & Dine

The contrast between the perfectly crispy bread and the creamy tuna (not to mention the extra crunch and flavour from the chips) is perfect, and the whole thing has an addictively zippy flavour that just works.  It’s so satisfying.

Next up: The Big Trouble Breakfast Sandwich (“soft scramble, char siu glazed sausage, crispy hash brown patty, cheese, scallion milk bun”).

Susie's Rise & Dine

This was good, but after that mind-blowing tuna melt, there was really nowhere to go but down — and yeah, that’s where this went.  All the components are quite nice and it’s an above average breakfast sandwich, but none of the flavours really pop and it feels like it’s missing something.

Susie's Rise & Dine

Some pickles or a sauce with some zip to it would really perk things up (though the sausage was quite light on the char siu glaze; it’s possible that more of that might have added the flavour that the sandwich was missing).  Still, I didn’t dislike eating it, that’s for sure, but it couldn’t help but be a bit of a letdown after the tuna melt.

Tasty Hot Pot at Mabu Generation

Mabu Generation
Location
: 1177 Central Parkway West, Mississauga
Website: https://mabugeneration.com/

Mabu Generation is a small chain (they also have locations in Markham and Toronto) that serves what they call Taiwanese fusion.  Their specialty seems to be their “Taiwanese style mini hot pot.”  Not so sure about that “mini” designation —  I split this with one person and it was way more food than either of us needed.  I’m pretty sure you can comfortably share this with three or even four people (making it a great deal at 26 bucks).

Mabu Generation

I went with the House Special Spicy Hot Pot: “Nappa cabbage, seafood mushroom, tomato, iced tofu, meat ball (pork), clam, quail egg, pork blood cake, pork blood, pork intestine, preserved vegetables, cilantro, sliced beef, luncheon meat.”

Mabu Generation

It’s a very enjoyable dish.  It’s absolutely crammed with tasty stuff, and the Sichuan-peppercorn-infused soup has that satisfying spicy/numbing mala thing going on in spades.  It could probably be spicier, but it’s got a decent enough kick.  It’s quite good.