Tuesday 11 September 2012

Restaurant Review: Shiso Tree Cafe

Were back in J-Town! I don't know why I only remember to take pictures of my food when eating in J-Town but Shiso Tree Cafe definitely has food worth blogging about. Now Shiso Tree is a small little cafe within J-Town specializing in Italian pasta with a hint of Japanese influence. The last place I expected to be eating Italian was in J-Town but I had heard good things and decided to give the place a try. Some of the pasta Shiso uses is actually made fresh in house (it is usually displayed on one of their chalk board menus and will say fresh pasta!) In addition to the plethora of pastas the menu also includes fry dishes where crispy potato fries are seasoned and slathered with various toppings and sauces. During my first visit we had Nori fries, spaghetti bolognese and another spaghetti dish with cream sauce and smoked salmon.



The Nori fries were potato fries topped with seaweed. The fries themselves were not particularly great, they were soft and could have bene crisper, indicating that not enough starch was removed before frying. The seaweed was also quite bland and overall this dish was not well seasoned. The other fry dishes on the menu are much better in comparison, especially the ones that incorporate sauces, as the sauces here are great. Nori Fries 4/10


 Before we continue I should say that I am a huge fan of bolognese, more specifically the ragu style of bolognese where it is a meat based sauce that uses tomato for flavour as opposed to a tomato based sauce that uses meat for flavour. Although Shiso Tree's bolognese isn't Michelin star, it is fantastic for local fare. The sauce itself is bold and rich in flavour, with the meaty earthy tones flushed throughout. It also clings to the pasta perfectly which is another indication of an excellent sauce. The accompanying slice of garlic toast appears to use milk bread, which is a Japanese form of bread that is extremely soft and slightly sweet. The flavour combined well with the sauce and I thought it was a great touch. Although I loved the dish I did taste a hint of burnt flavour, I am not sure if the dish was meant that way or if it was just an outlier but that did hurt the score a little, but considering the dish still gets  6.5/10 from my book lets you know that this is good stuff.

Finally the spaghetti with cream sauce, smoked salmon, salmon roe and a little caviar. The reason that the name is so long is because I cannot remember what it actually was on the menu, but who cares, another reason to go back! Now the cream sauce was light and delicious, it complimented the salty salmon and caviar well and the dill accented the flavour of the fish and sauce that made for a pleasant mouthful. The smoked salmon itself also had a great texture. This combination of ingredients is by no means ground breaking but the execution here is what matters and this was a great plate of pasta. Now the qualms I had about the dish was that the smoked salmon was a tad bit salty and could have been infused with more smoke but overall the dish is great. 7/10

Now during a separate visit (yea thats right I went a bunch of times before I finally blogged about it, =P) I remember having spaghetti with rose sauce and clams, with a cream of potato soup, okonomiyaki fries and a red bean and green tea sundae for dessert. Now I don't have any pictures of the okonomiyaki fries and I don't review desserts (my sweet tooth rarely finds anything wrong with any form of dessert -_-). But okonomiyaki fries were much better than their nori counterparts. For one thing they were laid out on a large plate, which meant they weren't as soft and/or soggy from being stacked on top of each other and steaming. The fries were topped with okonomiyaki sauce (a sweet Worcestershire based sauce), Japanese mayonnaise, green onion slices, bonito and if I remember correctly seaweed (don't quote me on that). Although the fries themselves were again nothing spectacular the toppings were great and the flavours of okonomiyaki lent itself very well to a bed of potato frites. 5.5/10

Now the spaghetti with rose sauce and clams was a favourite of both me and my better half. Personally rose sauce is one of my favourite pasta sauces (only beaten by a good ragu) the combination of  a light cream sauce and the slightly acidic tomato base is amazing and in this dish they were further heightened by the flavourful minced clam meat. The flavours in this dish harmonized the best out of any I've had so far at Shiso as each ingredient seemed to elevate each other. 8/10



The pasta came with soup and salad and you rarely see me review complementary dishes like these but this cream of potato was a pleasant surprise that made my visit. The soup itself was not overly thick and if its something that Shiso does well it is making possibly heavy overbearing flavours light and delicious, it makes you feel less guilty for eating the grub. Now the cream flavour mingled with the pieces of ham, potato and corn in a way that surprises you. The actual combination of flavours isn' t the surprise, tons of restaurants around the world put those ingredients in cream of potato, but at Shiso it was different. The potatoes are tender but not chalky or overcooked, the corn and ham gave the dish just the right level of savoriness and sweet. Overall it was a fantastic soup, although the croutons could have been replaced with a thinly sliced toast crisp on the side for better depth of texture. 7.5/10

Shiso Tree Cafe is a great restaurant and anyone who has a taste for good Italian pasta should pay a visit, you will be pleasantly surprised. Definitely recommended.


 Shiso Tree Cafe is located in J-town in Markham, Ontario. 3-3160 Steeles Ave. East L3R4G9
For more information check them out on urbanspoon at the link below
Shiso Tree Cafe on Urbanspoon



All photos courtesy of Christian Lin and Vivian Lam

Tuesday 28 February 2012

Restaurant Review: Izakaya Ju

Izakaya Ju is a small restaurant/bar located in Toronto's J-town (not really a town, rather a small collection of Japanese themed restaurants, outlets and a supermarket but I am not here to judge...wait never mind). For those unfamiliar with Izakayas they are basically Japanese bars that serve food with their drinks.

Now the restaurant is small with a couple tables in a relatively square room. From the room you have a view of the bar and the kitchen behind it where you will find the all Japanese staff. On the wall to the left of the entrance is a giant chalk board; listing the grilled morsels offered and even what apparently are most popular at the moment. I went during lunch with my girlfriend so the place was not as bustling, if you really wanted to enjoy the environment I suggest going late night with a bunch of your friends so you can knock back some sake or Japanese beer with grilled meats... mmmmm meat on a stick.
Now that I have eluded that I am a sucker for meat on wooden skewers lets introduce the appetizers. We ordered three sets of skewers, chicken cartilage, chicken wings and my personal favourite chicken meatballs. I have been to Japan multiple times as a kid (lucky I know) and during one of my trips we went to a Japanese Yakitori restaurant. Yakitori is Japanese for chicken skewers and one of their staple dishes was chicken meat balls. Their meatballs would come in a plethora of different flavours and sauces and you could have a field day trying each of the different ones (which I did). You may be thinking, "how many goddamn ways can you put chicken on a stick?" But when you consider that the Japanese use almost every part of the chicken (innards,offal,skin and all!) you can find almost all of poultry anatomy on a flame grilled skewer (my mistake, coal grilled).

Back to the dish at hand.Pictured above are the wings and the meatballs, obviously I was too damn hungry to show you the cartilage, my apologies.
Overall the skewers were grilled well, the cartilage had a seasoning salt that really accented well the smoky grilled taste. The meatballs could have been more juicy but they still had good flavour, the sauce could have been more thick though. The chicken wings on the other hand were very succulent and had a nice char, could have used a tiny bit more seasoning but definitely good. Six for the cartilage and meatball and a six and half for the wings.

On to the main course!


Pictured above is what I ordered: Gyu-don accompanied with salad and miso soup. Gyu-don is beef and onions simmered in a sweet broth. Kind of resembling ginger pork. The beef and onion is then put over a bowl of rice hence the don part. First taste of the dish I noticed that it was sort tough. The beef was over cooked for my taste. My girlfriend referred to it as beef jerky (in a good way!) it had good flavour overall, soft sweet onions accompanying the beef, but did feel a bit one dimensional. I feel like the sauce was a bit watery and the rice was already very soft which made it a bit soggy. Overall I would give it a five it was decent but not that good.
Pictured above is grilled miso cod with rice and of course the complimentary soup and salad. Now my girlfriend ordered the fish because she loves fish, and I must say that she had the better dish that day. The cod was grilled nicely, crispy skin and succulent flaky meat. The miso glaze definitely lent itself well to the grilling process and the overall flavour of the dish. My one quarrel was that the dish was very oily, but cod is a fatty fish and its fine more omega-3. I give this a seven out of ten.

Overall Izakaya Ju was decent. The grilled foods were good so they definitely live up to their namesake. The gyu-don was a little disappointing but I blame that more on me ordering a non signature dish. I feel Izakaya would definitely give me a better showing at night with a bunch of drinks and just grilled meats instead of actual set lunches. Overall I would go again and would recommend to friends.

Score overview:
Chicken cartilage skewer - 6/10
Chicken meatball skewer - 6/10
Chicken wing skewer - 6.5/10
Gyu-don - 5/10
Miso glazed cod - 7/10

Recommended.

Izakaya Ju is located in J-town in Markham, Ontario. 3-3160 Steeles Ave. East L3R4G9
For more information on the restaurant check our their website here: Izakaya Ju

All photos taken by Christian Lin and Vivian Lam

First Post! Let the noms begin.

Before you read on, keep in mind that I have since abandoned a lot of the guidelines I created in this post. I was young, inexperienced and probably very hungry when I first started this blog so things have evolved a ton in terms of how I approach food and how I approach creating reviews. I keep this initial post here as a kind of memento of how I used to write and of how much I've grown. Writing for me has always been off the cuff, even more so when I was younger so its funny to go down memory lane and read some of my older posts. I only hope you can get a laugh from this stuff as well.

Yarharhar! This is the inaugural post to my food blog. The blog will be primarily made up of food reviews, personal recipes and general foodie adventures. It will let me document some of the delicious things I happen to come across during my life on earth. I only wish I started this sooner, as so many delicious delicacies have faded into memory.

But enough with the rambling, time for something worth reading. I mentioned restaurant reviews, but before I lay my subjective judgement onto poor unsuspecting restaurants I need to set some ground rules.

My reviews will be unstructured, I will not be using any set criteria other than prior experiences to judge the dishes I consume. As much as I want to be as consistent as possible for your sake (and mine) there will be times where I miss the mark. I may give overly favourable reviews because I just happen to be in a better mood on X day then on Y day. It happens, and should be taken into account when reading.

My review and subsequent rating will be primarily based on the food and the dish I ate. I may outline the decor, atmosphere and all around service at the restaurant in my review but that will in no way affect the mark. I am all about the food baby.

Finally I will explain the scale that I will use, this will be the only time I explain the scale because I feel like a singular in-depth explanation is better than me writing the scale over and over again in every post. From 1-10 the scale is as follows:

1 - Disgusting; never eat; avoid at all cost. Now I highly doubt I will ever give anyone or anything a one. For something to deserve this rating it would have to be basically inedible, which begs the question, why the hell am I trying it at all?
2 - Awful; who let this out of the kitchen? Not as bad as before, but not much better either. I would throw these dishes away after the first bite.
3 - Very bad; for lack of a better term. This is the land of the tasteless soup, of the burnt steaks, it was food once destined for greatness suddenly dropped into the depths of hell.
4 - Bad. The dish wasn't a complete train wreck but there were enough flaws that made it something I would like to not eat again.
5 - Mediocre. Now things start getting better, just making the cut, a passing grade, 50%, am I making my point?
6 - Decent. The dish in general is fine, it may have one or two problems but they are not enough to hold the dish down. It is here that dishes start to have good qualities to them as well.
7 - Good. The dish has been executed well, flaws are minor, and things are tasty enough here that I would definitely eat again.
8 - Excellent. The dish is very well done, it has multiple exemplary qualities to it or has little to no flaws.
9 - Amazing. You must eat this, the only thing that is setting this back from a ten is.. well look at the description for ten.
10 - Holy Shi- now here is the creme of the crop, tens are not only perfectly done but they will give you a new take on food that you will not be able to experience anywhere else. These dishes are either culinary master pieces or new takes on old classics.

I wanted to make this scale as realistic as possible, I wanted to avoid becoming the IGN of food (TENS EVERYWHERE), bear in mind the numbers may seem harsher than normal, but if you read the actual reviews you will realize that I will give 5-7s to places I actually enjoyed eating at.
So lets the culinary journey begin *bites pepper*

P.S. I still cannot believe the chairman ate a yellow pepper raw

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