Chomp!

I just had a very cold shower. A very fast, cold shower. I turned on the hot water heater in the bathroom around 8 am thinking that I would have enough hot water by 9 am to wash my hair. I was wrong. First, I couldn't figure out how to get the hot water out of the tap. Did you know that, in India, hot is to the right? In all my years of travelling here, how did I not know that? Maybe because our old house had separate hot and cold taps instead of a single faucet? Maybe because of the old school bucket baths? I don't know. Anyway, the hot water ran out before I even finished rinsing the shampoo out of my hair. I turned off the water while I soaped thinking that maybe it would come back. Nope, no hot water. I may not have completely rinsed the conditioner out of my hair. Fortunately I have a heater in my bedroom. I sat in front of it for a few minutes to warm up. Ahhh India!

Anyway, onto more important things. Food. I had rasmalai and very milky tea for pre-breakfast. I plan to have rasmalai for breakfast every day that I'm in Delhi. Because it's my favourite and I can do that. Go ahead, call me a princess. I'm going to have yoghurt (with my doctor-prescribed wheat bran) and a samosa for breakfast. It might be closer to elevenses though. Yesterday when we arrived, we went to the local plaza to top up the minutes on my dad's Delhi SIM card and picked up a loaf of bread and yoghurt and a bag of milk from Mother Dairy. The yoghurt and milk were about the equivalent of C$1 and the loaf of bread was around 30 cents. I forgot how much the mishti (Bengali for desserts or sweets) and samosas were. We picked those up on the way "home" from the airport. I think it was around Rs 110 which is around C$4. How can you beat that?

We have a cook here and he's pretty good. His name is Ram Krishna. So far we've had chapati (or roti), dal, fish, mutton (only Indians call goat "mutton", apparently), cauliflower, some other random veggies and rice, of course. I'm happy to eat this way for the rest of the trip. I'm sure we will go out for dinner tonight. Some friends are picking us up in about an hour. I don't know what we're doing yet. Probably some shopping and stuff. My facebook horrrrrorrrrscope says that today will be filled with my favourite things. I'm excited to see how true that is. I already had my favourite dessert for breakfast and a cup of tea. All I need now is a newspaper, some friends, some conversation and some laughs. I'm fairly sure I'll get all of that. And maybe play with a puppy :)

You know what else was good? The food on Cathay Pacific. My dad got the omelette. The sausage and hash brown I stole from him were good... by plane food standards, obviously. I chose the vegetarian option which was idly sambar (see Indian food post below) and it was good. It was actually as good as anything I have tasted in India. I was very impressed. Cathay's service was good too. They accommodated every single one of my dad's grunted requests for water or newspapers or whatever. The fruit was a little soft but that's inevitable on aircraft. And there was a small cup of plain yoghurt. I should probably start carrying around one serving of wheat bran at all times in case I randomly run into yoghurt in my travels.

One last note on food. I was a buffet for a mosquito last night. It figures that the only mosquito in Delhi in December would find me. I got bitten three times: twice on the chin and once on my right arm. Now I'm all puffy and itchy and swollen and irritable. I have been sensitive to mosquito bites my entire life. When I was little, I used to get them around my eyes and it looked like someone had given me a shiner. My parents used to send me to school looking like that. I remember when I switched schools half way through Grade 5, the nurse called my parents looking like I was the victim of some horrible kind of child abuse or something. My dad told her it was fine and to send me back to class. Hazards of being a doctor's daughter. Anyway, fortunately I only have a triple chin today and not a black eye. I hope that little bugger died trapped in my room.

Anyway, it's time for breakfast. Stay tuned for today's food summary either late tonight or early tomorrow morning (my time, naturally).

Hong Kong Food Phase I

I have been in HK since Thursday afternoon and I haven't done that much eating out. However, two places are worth noting.


A couple of nights ago, some family friends took us to Tung Choi (Ladies Market).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tung_Choi_Street
It was a lot of fun to see all of the stuff for sale to random tourists and locals alike. I didn't buy anything but I will probably go back for souvenirs.

Afterwards, we went for dinner at the Temple Street night market.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Street,_Hong_Kong
We went to the Spicy Crab place on the corner and sat outside with the locals and ate what was basically glorified "street meat". It was fun, fast, tasty and cheap. We ate for around HKD$85 per person (less than CAD$15). Admittedly, this type of eating is not for the faint of heart or squeamish tourist. But if you like cheap Chinese food and authentic experiences, this is a hit.

This afternoon, a friend from high school took me to Isola at IFC mall. It was lovely.
http://www.isolabarandgrill.com/about.html
We just had coffee (I had hot chocolate) and sat and caught up on the last 15 years. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The atmosphere is relaxed and comfortable, it was surprisingly quite considering how busy it was, the service was great and our foam came with pretty designs (hearts and spiderwebs). There is even an outside seating area but we decided not to bother with it because it was a little muggy and overcast today. I will definitely go back there again.

Long overdue update

So, a couple of things.

1. It has now been so long since we visited The Olde Curiosity Tea Shoppe that I doubt I can do it justice anymore. Highlights include the jam and cream-filled shortbread cookies which only come with Tea for 2 but are well worth it. The tea selection is impressive. There were almost one hundred different types of tea on the menu. Also, the service was excellent, considering the large size of our group (eight plus baby) and the small size of the establishment. The waitress brought each of us our tea selection to (for lack of a better word) smell. As a result, most of us ended up changing our tea choice. They were very accommodating all afternoon. I'm fairly certain that I had the darjeeling (I know, I'm nothing if not predictable) but I can't remember anymore. It might have been the Windsor Castle something or other. Finally, the owner was very friendly and gracious. I will definitely be going back in the new year.

2. Since the other tea ladies don't have time to blog (husbands, babies etc), I am commandeering this blog for my travels to HK and India. I won't be able to blog frequently but I will try to compensate for lack of predictability with length and detail. I am hoping to have high tea in Delhi and Calcutta but my schedule is rarely up to me. Look for updates on facebook as well.

I have eaten at some really great places so here are some shout-outs if you're looking for places to try in 2009:

My favourite Thai place - Golden Thai, Church and Richmond
http://www.goldenthai.ca/goldenthai_home.html
>Great service, good food, decent price - Hit

Recent date place (or maybe it wasn't a date?) - Rain, Mercer Street
http://www.rainrestaurant.ca/rain.htm
>Great decor, excellent service, decent food, very pricey - Hit if you're willing to spend the money. My "date" called it "food on a diet". The menu appears to have changed since I was there a few weeks ago but the mushroom tasting was excellent, as was the black cod. The salmon/tuna pairing was good but the salmon was a little fishy. I ate it anyway but I wish I hadn't.

As a caveat, I think that they served me something with egg in it after I specifically told them about my allergy. I didn't complain as I thought at the time that I was on my first real date with this person. I now wish I had said something because I'm starting to think it wasn't a real date at all. Didn't have dessert and there's a story behind this. Ask me if you're interested.

Recent rehearsal dinner - Asian Legend, Yonge north of Empress
http://www.asianlegend.ca/webe/menu.htm
>Surprising nouveau decor, good food, typical Chinese restaurant service, good price - Long time hit. Has been here for ages and the food is as good as I remember from their hole-in-the-wall days

Recent dinner with family and friends - Dynasty, Bloor west of Bay
>Overpriced Chinese food - Miss and go to Pearl at Harbourfront if you can't stomach the thought of eating at Chinatown. Looking forward to Chinese banquet this Saturday at Pearl for Andrew's wedding!
http://www.pearlharbourfront.ca/

Low key dinner with Jay on a weeknight - Jack Astor's, Dundas Square downtown
>If you're looking for something predictable and fast, by all means go to Jack Astor's. The food is significantly better than the Pickle Barrel or Milestone's (although Milestone's has great ambiance and a kickass patio) if you're looking for a safe, generic place to take your visiting cousins. However, this Jack Astor's is very small and you will likely have to wait for a table and may even end up at a small, bar height table as we did. Service was fast and good, as always. Food was exactly as it always is. We had two screens to watch basketball and hockey which was exactly what we needed: to sit, have dinner and not be too sociable (gotta love guy's night :). But it was loud, loud, loud. Good place for quick dinner, a beer and the game. Not a good place to take the girls for a catch up session.

Okay, that's all folks. Next post: overseas!

The Olde Curiousity Tea Shoppe

http://cuppa.ca/
This review is pending mental clarity and decaffeination of my blood stream. Please stay tuned. In the meantime, check out these awesome Nuit Blanche photos.

Bottega Gianduia Grappa

Ladies, pay attention. I have discovered sex in a bottle. That's right, chocolate grappa. It is the best thing since... Geoff's mother's cooking. Yes, that's right, that's how good it is. Now, I'm not a fan of regular chocolate liqueur. Creme de cacao is awful and chocolate martinis are an abomination to the entire martini food group. Chocolate grappa, however, is like liquid dessert. Imagine drinking chocolate fondue out of a shot glass with a bit of a kick at the end. Ah, so good.

I feel like I need to provide a backstory for this information. Last night, I went to the Fat Belgian for dinner with Anjali and two other girlfriends. I really like this restaurant and wish that it wasn't across the street from Hooters and Circa. However, the location is great if you want to have dinner and drinks downtown before you go out to a club. Or even if you don't plan to go out afterward. If you can find room in the budget to pay $10 for parking and can forgive the occasional fire truck that pulls out of the neighbourhood fire hall (ooh, chocolate grappa and firemen! I digress), this restaurant doesn't disappoint.

I have had dinner here many times before. Their online drink list doesn't appear to be up to date. I had my usual pina colada style martini but if I had seen the butterball martini on the menu, I definitely would have ordered that for dessert! We shared the fried calamari and the goat cheese wrapped in phyllo pastry appetizers. For our main course we shared the Fat Belgian mussels and the moules mariniere. All of the food here was excellent as always so I won't even bother to tell you that the phyllo was flakey, the calamari was crunchy and the mussels were tasty enough to make a toxicologist forget that they're filter feeders.

The head waitress comped us a round of shots. This is when we discovered the chocolate grappa. As soon as I post this, I'm going to the liquor store to buy myself a bottle. Or seven. It is not available at all LCBO stores though so check before you head to your local store. And a word of advice from the waitress. Before you crack the seal and serve, give it a good shake otherwise it will pour out lumpy. Yes, that's how chocolatey it is!

For dessert, we indulged. We shared the Deus creme brulee, the mango sorbet and the chocolate trifle. All were excellent. A warning about the creme brulee though. Deus Brut de Flandres is a champale and you can definitely taste the ale. If you don't like beer flavoured food, give this a miss. It was otherwise an excellent brulee.

In the interest of full disclosure, I only sampled two spoonfuls of the creme brulee and trifle as I'm allergic to eggs. After we split the bill, we ended up paying about $50 each so this was not a cheap night out but I thought it was worth it. I hope I still think that when I get my VISA bill!

The Fat Belgian is definitely a big hit. I'll be back there in less than a month.

Oh right, I'm Indian too

I have had a very Indian few days. Not only have I had Indian food three out of the last four days, I saw the most atrocious film. But this is not about that (because I don't want to slam the film and put my name to that review) This is, however, about fooooood.

Udupi Palace, 1460 Gerrard St. E (at Coxwell), Toronto

On Friday night, I had dinner at Udupi Palace. A (non-Indian) friend wanted a dosa for her birthday dinner. She had the Mysore masala dosa which she seemed to enjoy and I had the regular masala dosa and a mango lassi. Our other brown friend had the paneer dosa (yummy and filling).

For those of you unfamiliar with dosas, they are basically an Indian-style rice crepe. They can be quite large but only the centre part is stuffed so start in the middle and work outwards. Usually dosa is served with chutney and coconut sambar. The paper dosas were *huge* so be warned!

We ordered appetizers because we were starving. We shared the combo platter (idly, daal, pakoras, medhu vada - like a lentil donut - and chili pakoras) and samosas. The samosas were good as were the idly and pakoras. I opted out of the chili pakora and the medhu vada was a little dry but perhaps it's supposed to be? Frankly, I have no idea.

For dessert, they were out of rasmalai (my favourite, I was heartbroken!) so I had the gulab jamun ice cream. If you like gulab jamun (dry milk and cottage cheese balls, deep fried and dipped in light syrup and rose water, served warm), skip the ice cream. It basically froze the second piece of gulab jamun before I could start eating it and the entire thing was too sweet, even for me.

They serve vegetarian, vegan and jain food. It looks like a basement food court with the bright lights and ghetto furniture but you don't seat yourself, you order from a waiter and they bring you the bill. Apparently they request that you tip in cash but we paid the entire bill in cash so we weren't asked. Bathrooms were not too bad but it was early in the evening (7.30 pm).

I will go back there if I'm feeling like dosa or want to remember whether or not I like utthapam. Overall good value for money ($80 for 5 people with tax and tip), decent service given the ambiance, excellent mango lassi.


Lahore Tikka, 1365 Gerrard St. E.(at Greenwood), Toronto

On Saturday night, I had dinner at Lahore Tikka. Another non-Indian friend (and altogether different ethnicity) wanted Indian food. Actually she loves all things Indian but her family won't eat Indian food as it's too spicy. She is vegetarian and heard about this place through her brother's girlfriend.

It's a large restaurant and can be quite confusing. When we walked in, we seated ourselves in what appeared to be one of a number of different rooms. The tables and chairs were patio furniture and I think that the entire restaurant was a series of interconnected trailers. It wasn't exactly clean and it's cafeteria style dining. The waiters will bring you a menu and a pitcher of water but you have to place your order at the front cashier. They give you a number and the food is delivered to your table.

We had the paneer tikka masala, the combo sizzler, till (sesame) naan, regular naan and I had a mango lassi. The combo really is a mixture of palak (spinach), chana masala (chick peas), aloo ghobi (cauliflower) and tarka dal (lentils). It was actually not very appetizing. The paneer (cottage cheese) tikka masala was good though. We forgot to order rice but, when we did ask after the food arrived, it came quite quickly. The portion sizes were not very large, especially considering how much we paid ($22 each with tax and tip). The lassi was only passable and we didn't try dessert. I don't think I will go back there.


Eddie's Wok and Roll, 6400 Millcreek Drive, Mississauga

I had lunch with a coworker here today. It's close to the office, located in a plaza at the south east corner of the intersection of Erin Mills Parkway and Millcreek Drive. The restaurant serves Hakka food and was nicely decorated, quiet despite being quite busy (arrive at noon if not earlier) and the service was excellent.

I had the butter masala chicken lunch special ($7.50) and the mango lassi ($3.50). I had to forgo the soup choice (hot and sour or creamed corn) because both had eggs in them. Instead, the waiter gave me an extra spring roll. The portion sizes were generous and I took half of mine home. The butter chicken was actually very good. I was quite surprised and will definitely go back there to try something different. Or maybe I won't be adventurous and stick with what I like :)

All three places were reasonably quick. There are other places on Gerrard Street that I would like to try (Siddartha, among others) but I would venture back to Udupi Palace with vegetarian friends and definitely will go back to Eddie's for lunch when I'm back at work full-time.

Wedding Cake and Fallen Angels

I didn’t drink tea but I was given mad e-props for knowing where to find the best gelato in the City.

We started at 7 West. I’m not sure why I had never heard of the place before considering it’s practically around the corner at Yonge and Charles. Three floors of cozy hard wood floors and small tables topped by a west-facing windless but worthwhile patio. I had one martini – a wedding cake - but would love to return for dinner soon. The wedding cake was more like a pina colada. Vanilla vodka, Malibu and a splash of pineapple juice. Except for the whipped cream. I think that was the “wedding” part. Which would have been fine had it not melted quickly in the afternoon heat and slid obscenely down the side of my martini glass. Fortunately, I rescued it with a napkin. The incident may have been too risqué for the company I was with.

Second stop for the evening was The Red Room at College and Spadina. Again, great atmosphere with interesting art, quirky lighting and medieval feast furniture in the back. Picture oversized benches and long wooden tables which would be perfect for a large group of starving and thirsty graduate students from U of T. The patio is one of the few, if not the only one, on Spadina. My Wedding Cake was stripped of its whipped cream and demoted to a Fallen Angel. She treated me well though and I will likely to return to pick her up again. We ordered perogies and the chicken fajita. Both were more than reasonable in portion size and, although I didn’t sample the fajita (again, a little too risqué?), I did enjoy the perogies. They don’t measure up to Lord English’s culinary creativeness but they’ll do in a pinch. Don’t be in a hurry though, unless you’re prepared to be assertive with the service.

Next up, gelato. The Big Chill in Little Italy has been one of my favourite places since a coworker discovered me to it last summer. It’s a tiny nook just off College on Manning and is worth the walk for a scoop or three. Filled with cows, it offers a surprising array of flavours and options for its limited 500 square footage. Thursday’s tasting included pistachio for me and strawberry for The Other. While I was offered a taste, I was too coy to take advantage of the situation. More fool me. The pistachio rivalled Ed’s at The Beach(es).

Finally, a pre-pumpkin drink at Il Gatto Nero (College and Crawford). The patio was sizeable, the service acceptable. We even saw a minor celebrity, according to the patron at the adjacent table. Never figured out who he was though. They have Guinness on tap which was apparently a hit with The Other. My mystery Riesling – Canadian, with a hint of bleach – was not worth a repeat trip but I haven’t entirely written off a second visit.

$20 should have bought us more

Hmm, Dining Queen is too generous. Millcroft Inn would not merit a passing grade from me.

While my Bukhial assam tea was fabulous, I was underwhelmed by the service and the quality of the food. I would expect nothing less from a tea rated TGFOP, now that I understand the rating.* In fact, I would say that the food and wait staff did a disservice to the high quality tea being served at this establishment.

Usually when I go to a restaurant and I tell them that I am allergic to eggs, they are quite accommodating. They won't revamp the menu but they will try to find ways to make sure I'm not hungry when I leave. It doesn't matter if it's the dodgiest dive in Chinatown or a fancy schmancy Italian place in Bloor West Village. They want repeat customers and they don't want to get sued. They either cater to their clientele or go out of business.

This afternoon, I asked the waiter to let me know if there were eggs or mayonnaise in anything. And that was all he did. I'm almost positive that most restaurants would prepare an alternate batch of sandwiches with butter instead of mayonnaise. Or at least prepare a few more sandwiches of a different variety. This place, not so much. Because, as our hostess informed us when she seated us, the food is prepared ahead of time. Sandwiches! And scones! Prepared ahead of time! Seriously?! That probably should have been our cue to leave. But I know I was starving and my tummy was making audible rumbly noises. One of the other ladies stated a preference for no smoked salmon. It was moot. There were no smoked salmon sandwiches at all that day. Perhaps we should have told them about our food preferences when we made the reservation? Silly me, I thought I only had to do that at catered functions.

Furthermore, I don't recall the menu stating that a 15% gratuity would be added automatically to parties of 6 or more. In fact, I'm looking at the online version and it specifically states that gratuities are extra. Both the hostess and waiter failed to mention it when they seated us. The waiter even asked if we wanted separate bills. He should have mentioned it then. Had I known, I would have been more demanding of his time and attention. I guess he knew that he didn't have to work for his tips with us. I certainly would have left less than 10%. At least we filled out the comment card.

So overall, I would not recommend the Millcroft Inn for afternoon tea. If you find yourself stranded and starving in the Village of Alton, by all means stop in for an inexpensive lunch. While it was nice to spend ten minutes sitting in the Muskoka chairs on the lawn in the sunshine, high tea at the Millcroft Inn is a definite miss. Spend your $20 on a bag of tea instead.


*According to the Holy Mountain Trading Company, Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe - This grade represents some of the most precious tea in the world. After brewing, it is not uncommon to see whole leaves in their original state. The tip on these leaves can make up as much as a fourth of a whole leaf.

Millcroft tea

Well I guess I'll start the reviews... our most recent misadventure was to Millcroft Inn for Afternoon tea at 2pm for $20. The grounds are very cute and the waterfall looks really quaint... it has the feel of a country inn. A couple of the girls went early for spa treatments and had rave reviews of the service they received... unfortunately for the rest of us who just went up for tea, we were not so lucky.

Tea started off on the wrong foot since the reservation was for 7 and we only had 6... the host looked really peeved at us. The waiter looked really young and didn't know the details of the menu when we asked about an acronyms about the tea that was listed. Service was on the whole was very slow... it was a good thing we ladies like to talk since we had to wait for our tea, refill of hot water and extra orders of ice cream.

Now let's talk about the food: scones- hard and too sweet- covered in sugar. Sandwiches- bread was crusty and not freshly made (the host said that everything was pre-made), there was no smoked salmon that day so we had egg, tomato and cucumber, ham sandwiches... not really a 4 diamond rating restaurant. VERY disappointed about them not having salmon. Pastries- cream puffs with cherries was okay, brownies was too rich (I could feel a toothache coming on) and dense and last was blueberry crumble cake was the best part of the meal. The portions of the dessert was huge for afternoon tea standards, just too bad they didn't taste so good.

I would rate this tea spot a 6/10.

Ladies who do tea

Hi, welcome to our blog. This blog is written by, about and for ladies who do tea. Specifically, eight lovely, wonderful, beautiful and intelligent tea-loving ladies. We are close friends who consider ourselves very fortunate to be able to spend the occasional afternoon having tea and eating finger sandwiches and scones and devon cream. This blog is about our misadventures with tea.