rice cakes – Michael Eats

Solid Korean Food at Gyodong Restaurant

Published on October 22, 2026 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1170 Burnhamthorpe Road West, Mississauga
Website: https://www.gyodong.ca/

Gyodong is a Korean restaurant that specializes in jjamppong (a spicy seafood noodle soup) and jjajangmyeon (black bean noodles). They’ve got a couple of locations (this one, in Mississauga, and one in the Koreatown area of Toronto near Christie Pits Park), so clearly, they’re doing okay.

I started with the kkanpung tteokbokki, which is like normal tteokbokki, but with a sweet, garlicky sauce subbed in for the usual spicy one. It’s intensely sweet, but with a nice garlicky punch that helps balance things out.

The rice cakes themselves were a bit soft, however — they were fried, which gave them a pleasantly crispy exterior, but the inside was overcooked and didn’t quite have the chewiness you’re looking for. The sauce was tasty enough that it mostly didn’t matter, but it was a shame.

As for the jjajangmyeon, it was quite good, with a deep savouriness from the black bean sauce that’s really satisfying.

Again, however, it was a bit overcooked — the noodles were softer than they should have been, which is a shame. But again, the sauce is tasty enough that I can’t say I’m too upset about it.

A Satisfying Meal at Hancook Cheese Dakgalbi

Published on November 30, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 605 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.hancookcanada.com/

It’s always nice when you go to restaurant and know exactly what to order. In the case of Hancook Cheese Dakgalbi, that’s an extremely easy decision: it’s gotta be the Hancook cheese dakgalbi.

Dakgalbi is a Korean dish that consists of stir-fried chicken, rice cakes, and veggies in a sweet, gochujang-infused sauce. You can get it without cheese, but why would you? The richness of the cheese actually complements the zingy dish quite well.

It’s seriously tasty. It’s kind of like an amped-up version of tteokbokki, with the tender chicken being a great addition to the sweet/spicy sauce and the chewy rice cakes.

You can order it at a spice level from one to four; I went with three, and it was pleasantly spicy but not overwhelmingly so. I’d probably get four next time, but it certainly wasn’t lacking in spice.

I also got an order of the fried vegetable dumplings. Nothing about these particularly blew me away, but they’re nicely crispy on the outside and come with a creamy dipping sauce that’s thoroughly delicious and surprisingly fiery.

A Last Visit to Momofuku

Published on December 15, 2022 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 190 University Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://noodlebar-toronto.momofuku.com/

Momofuku announced a few months ago that they’re shutting down their Toronto outpost later this month (with their location being replaced by Mott 32, a fancy Chinese restaurant chain). I figured one more visit to the Noodle Bar was in order to say goodbye.

I tried a couple of things. First up: the spicy rice cakes from their greatest hits menu, which the menu describes as “rice cakes seared on the plancha and tossed in a sauce with pork sausage, tofu, sichuan chili, gai lan, and finished with scallions.”

It’s a great dish; the rice cakes have a nice combo of crispy exterior and chewy interior, the flavourful sauce complements them perfectly, and the tasty pork sausage rounds things out. I can see why they consider this to be one of their greatest hits. It’s very good.

Since this is almost certainly my last ever visit to Momofuku (at least in Toronto), I had to get one of my favourites: the extremely spicy noodles. I feel like the level of extreme spice was slightly toned down from previous visits, and the noodles were a bit on the soft side, but this was otherwise a tasty (and still explosively spicy) dish.