rice – Page 6 – Michael Eats

Unique Chinese Food at Tangritah Kabab House

Published on December 17, 2023December 17, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 900 Rathburn Road West, Mississauga
Website: None

One of the things I like about living in Toronto is that not only is pretty much every country’s cuisine available to try (which I explore in another blog, 196 Plates — I think it might be about time to bring that one back), you can actually get so much more specific than that.

This place — which specializes in Uyghur cuisine — is a great example of this. “Chinese food” tends to be put under one enormous umbrella, but China is a huge country, and its food is wildly different from region to region.

I tried a few things here, and it was all extremely delicious. First up: a dish the menu only refers to as “fried meat.” I think it was beef, though it might have been lamb (if it was, it didn’t have much of a lamby flavour). Either way, it was super tasty, with a bunch of tender meat, nicely cooked onions, and a very cumin-tinged flavour that was extremely addictive.

Next up was the Tangritah Special Langmen, which is an Uyghur dish in which hand-pulled noodles are topped with stir-fried veggies and meat. The flavour here was a bit less distinctive than the fried meat, but the noodles had a really satisfying chewiness, and the veggies and meat were perfectly cooked (again, I’m not sure what the meat was, but I’m gonna say beef).

Finally, I tried the samsa, a bun filled with a mix of lamb and onions. This looks like it might have initially been crispy on its exterior, which would have been nice, but it was either steamed or microwaved to reheat and was soft throughout. Regardless, it was quite tasty.

Solid Poke Bowls at Pokeworks

Published on December 5, 2023December 7, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 197 North Queen Street, Etobicoke
Website: https://pokeworks.ca/

Pokeworks is an American poke chain that’s just starting their Canadian expansion (with 50 locations to come, apparently).

If you’ve been to a poke place before, then you know the deal: they’ve got the usual assortment of raw tuna and salmon (along with cooked chicken and tofu) that you can get with various toppings and sauces, served on rice, noodles, or salad (or some combination of the two).

You can either create your own bowl or go with one of their “Signature Works.” I went with the latter, and got the Umami Ahi (“Ahi tuna, cucumber, sweet onion, shredded nori, edamame, umami shoyu sauce, surimi salad, pickled ginger, green onion, sesame seeds, garlic crisps”).

It didn’t exactly blow me away, but it’s a solid bowl of poke. In particular, the chunks of tuna are fresh, sizable, and generous. The flavours are a bit too muted and the rice was overcooked (it was mushy in spots), but everything else was quite tasty.

I don’t think it’s going to rock anyone’s world, but if you’re in the area and you’re looking for a tasty, relatively healthy meal, you could definitely do worse.

Enjoyable Health Food at iQ

Published on December 29, 2022 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3401 Dufferin Street, North York (inside Yorkdale Mall)
Website: https://www.iqfoodco.com/

Though I hadn’t heard of iQ until very recently, they actually have nine locations as I write this, mostly downtown. The whole place kind of comes off as a parody of a trendy health food joint, with various bowls and avocado toasts on the menu, but based on the bowl I tried, it’s actually pretty tasty.

I got the Steelhead + Veg bowl: “roasted steelhead trout, avocado, roasted sweet potato, steamed broccoli, cucumber, pickled onion, jalapeno, brown rice, chopped romaine, lime wedge, carrot ginger dressing.”

It’s not bad at all. It’s got a good variety of tastes and textures, the dressing was nice and zippy, and the quality of the fish (which is served cold, like the rest of the ingredients here) is quite good. I don’t think it’s going to blow anyone’s mind, but for something that’s so blatantly healthy, it’s pretty satisfying.

Amazing Roast Pork at Luen Hing Barbecue

Published on November 13, 2022 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 888 Dundas Street East, Mississauga (inside the Mississauga Chinese Centre)
Website: None

If a restaurant has an enormous slab of tasty-looking roasted pork hanging in the window, you should eat at that restaurant. That’s just a fact. Is that a law? I think that might be the law. If you see a restaurant like that you have to eat there or you’ll go to jail. That sounds fair to me.

Luen Hing also has chicken and duck hanging in the window, and clearly I have to go back, because that pork… wow.

I ordered the roast pork and barbecue pork on rice, which comes with a seriously generous amount of tasty eats for about twelve bucks. It’s a great deal, that’s for sure.

I actually brought this home instead of eating in the food court, and I had resigned myself to the fact that the pork skin probably wouldn’t be particularly crispy. It’s hard to retain your crunch when you’ve been steaming in a sealed take-out box. But oh man, that skin was crisp. It was at delightful, kettle chip levels of crunchiness.

And the pork itself was so good. Super flavourful, nice and tender, fatty but not too fatty, and of course, the aforementioned super crunchy skin. Delightful.

The barbecue pork wasn’t quite on the same level — it was a bit dry — but it was still quite tasty, with a nice balance of sweet and savoury.

The steamed cabbage and the sauce they poured on top were also quite good. It all adds up to a seriously satisfying version of this dish, and a restaurant that I’ll almost certainly be returning to in the near future.

Quick Bites: Happy Sundae, Allwyn’s Bakery, Tom’s Dairy Freeze

Published on October 4, 2022October 4, 2022 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Banana cream pie sundae from Happy Sundae

So, hmm… I’m trying to balance my newfound desire to keep this blog negativity-free with my need to warn you that this place isn’t very good. Because it’s not very good. The biggest issue here is the “ice cream” itself, and I’m putting ice cream in quotes because they say right on their menu that the soft serve is dairy-free. Here’s the thing, though: Honey’s has illustrated fairly conclusively that it’s possible to create dairy-free ice cream that’s just as creamy and delicious as the real deal. The stuff here, on the other hand, is exactly what you fear non-dairy ice cream is going to taste like. But in the interest of not dwelling on the negative, I’ll just say that the banana slices were quite tasty (a lot of dessert places make the mistake of using underripe bananas, and that wasn’t an issue here) and leave it at that.

Jerk chicken meal from Allwyn’s Bakery

On the plus side, the small jerk chicken meal from Allwyn’s is a pretty great deal. Ignore the word “small” — for eleven bucks, you get a hearty portion of rice, two pieces of jerk chicken, and a side of coleslaw. I wish it tasted better, however. I couldn’t taste any of the spices and complexity that you’ll find in the better versions of this dish; it was just one-note salty in a way that got really monotonous to eat. It’s a deal, though!

Pineapple sundae from Tom’s Dairy Freeze

Okay, let’s end things on a more positive note. I know I’ve written about Tom’s Dairy Freeze about a billion times on this blog, and guess what? It’s still great! I got the pineapple sundae this time; the sauce has a decent proportion of small pineapple chunks and sweet syrup, but it’s the ice cream itself that’s the real draw. This is still — hands down — the best soft serve in the city. It’s rich, creamy, and delicious.