kimchi – Michael Eats

Cheap Eats at Mini Bar

Published on April 21, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 116 Spadina Avenue, Toronto
Website: None

If nothing else, Mini Bar is an absolute steal. A relatively hearty sandwich downtown for eight bucks? Yeah, you can’t go wrong there.

Well, I suppose you could go wrong if the sandwich didn’t taste good, but that’s clearly not an issue here.

I ordered the bulgogi and kimchi, which comes in a Kaiser roll, topped with tender beef bulgogi, kimchi, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and a slice of cheddar cheese.

Is it going to rock your world? No, probably not; it’s a pretty no-frills sandwich, but for what it is (and considering the price) it’s very tasty. If I worked in the area, I’m sure I’d be a regular.

Mini Bar serves kimbap on Fridays, which is also quite satisfying. They were making them as I ordered, so it was super fresh and filled with tasty stuff.

Tasty Korean Food at Sinjeon Topokki

Published on November 21, 2024 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 712 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Website: https://sinjeoncanada.ca/

Sinjeon Topokki is a Korean chain that’s recently been expanding in the GTA — this is their third location. As you’d imagine from the name, they specialize in topokki (more commonly spelled “tteokbokki”), a dish that features chewy rice cakes in a spicy sauce.

They have a few different types of topokki — I went with the original, which is the classic version of the dish. You can pick your spice level from one to three. I went with the second level, which is legitimately fiery.

It’s quite tasty, with a very pleasant chewiness on the rice cakes and with a whole bunch of the sweet, savoury, and spicy sauce. The rice cakes are basically swimming in sauce, which is good because you can use it as a dip for the other stuff you order.

I also tried the fried combo, which comes with an assortment of fried fish cakes, dumplings, and other fried goodness. This stuff is tasty on its own, and even tastier when you dip it in the topokki sauce.

Kimbap (which is kinda like a Korean sushi roll, but filled with non-sushi ingredients) is another specialty here; I went with the Sinjeon cheese kimbap, which is filled with kimchi and gooey cheese. This one was a bit dry, but a dunk in the topokki sauce makes quick work of that.

Asian Fusion at the Smorgasburg Food Festival

Published on August 7, 2022 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 7 Queens Quay East, Toronto
Website: https://www.smorgasburgtoronto.com/

If you haven’t checked it out yet, Smorgasburg is a local offshoot of an American outdoor food festival, and finds a whole bunch of tasty-looking eats crammed together near the waterfront. The vendors have been curated by food writer Suresh Doss, which means that unlike at a lot of food festivals like this, it’s a safe bet that everything is as good as it looks. And there’s a lot of good-looking food on offer, with dozens of vendors each serving up a handful of tempting dishes.

I got a couple of things from Nozomi, who describe themselves as serving “Asian inspired comfort food,” and yeah, it was top-notch.

I tried a couple of things. First up is the bulgogi kimchi cheesesteak, which is exactly what you want it to be. Sometimes fusion dishes can feel a bit like they’re cramming together two things that probably didn’t need to be combined, but everything here really works: the flavourful beef, the gooey cheese, and the zingy kimchi all go perfectly together. The soft roll does a great job of holding it all together without getting in the way. It’s a great dish.

The other thing I tried is a dish they call “pocos,” which based on my attempts to google this, seems to be something they made up. It’s basically a poke taco (it’s filled with salmon and seaweed), but with a crispy wonton-style shell instead of a tortilla. It’s super tasty, with the tenderness of the sauce-coated salmon contrasting very nicely with the crispy shell. Like with the cheesesteak, it takes something that could have come off as gimmicky and unnecessary, and makes it absolutely delightful.

Chodang Soon Tofu

Published on May 30, 2013May 29, 2013 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 5130 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: None

Ah, Chowhound. As a resource for discovering hidden gems, it is second-to-none. Case in point: Chodang Soon Tofu.

The place specializes in fiery red soups that come to the table in a piping hot stone bowl; it’s a roiling inferno of a soup that is pretty much guaranteed to burn your tongue. As I’ve had the soup here a couple of times (and it is quite tasty, despite the pain), I decided to get something different. I went with the Tofu Kimchi, which is a bit more expensive than the other items on the menu at $12.98 (all the soups are eight bucks).

Korean food is traditionally served with a variety of side dishes — banchan, in Korean — and they definitely don’t skimp on that here. Before the main course, we received soft, fresh tofu with a soy-sauce based dipping sauce, two different types of kimchi, bean sprouts, and a breaded, fried fish. All tasty stuff, and all free with the meal, so it’s a pretty great value.

And as it turns out, the Tofu Kimchi was more expensive because it is clearly meant to be shared. I’m not sure if the picture adequately conveys the scale of this dish, but it was massive. I got about halfway through and had to throw in the towel.

It’s a fairly simple dish; stir-fried kimchi with thin strips of pork belly and green onions, surrounded by soft, creamy tofu. It seemed a bit simple when I first started eating it, but the spicy kimchi and pork mixed with the creamy tofu turned out to be a suprisingly addictive combo.