This past summer, I found myself back in Toronto. It had only been a couple years since my last trip but this time around I had my parents in tow. It was their first time in the big city, so I became the unofficial tour guide.
We flew with Porter Airlines for the first time and we had such a good experience. Surprisingly, it was the most affordable option we looked at. What sets Porter apart is free Wi-Fi and no dreaded middle seat. Space is still tight but it's such a game changer. Especially when there's enough overhead bin space.
Flight attendants also came around twice with snacks (all Canadian-made), and free beer or wine served in glassware. It was 7:30 in the morning but my dad still indulged in a beer. Because why not? It's free.
We ended up staying at the same hotel I stayed at last time (the Residence Inn Toronto Downtown/Entertainment District). The location is just 5 minutes from the CN Tower, making it super convenient and walkable. Each room has a kitchenette and there's a free breakfast buffet in the lobby every morning. We also got upgraded from their studio to a 1 bedroom suite!
Chinatown is an easy 15 minute walk away. It was actually quite hot and busy, understandable given that it was a Saturday.
For lunch, we hit up House of Gourmet. It's almost a Toronto institution. Bustling at any time of day, the restaurant is open 7 days a week until 1am, 2am on the weekends. They're known for quick service and a massive menu. You can opt for a more casual meal. Think congee, wonton noodles, and Chinese BBQ on rice. Or you could eat family style with their very affordable combination dinners.
We chose the latter and ordered the peking duck special combination. The price starts at $93.99 and increases with the number of entrees you add on. It comes with soup, your choice of the daily broth, hot & sour, cream of corn, or tofu thick soup. The hot & sour soup was served scalding. It's not my favourite soup, but it was sour, tangy, and spicy. A generous amount of ingredients laid within, including shrimp, tofu, and mushrooms.
The peking duck came out next, with a pile of skin in the middle and thin meat slices around the perimeter. Wraps came steamed, along with the usual accompaniments of hoisin sauce, cucumber, and scallion.
The peking duck wasn't great unfortunately. The skin wasn't crispy and it was overly greasy. The only plus side was that the portions were generous, making our wraps fully loaded.
The leftover duck is stir-fried with your choice of ginger and green onion or with bean sprouts. This was mostly bones so we didn't touch much of this dish.
For our entrees, we got three kinds of seafood with seasonal vegetables. There was shrimp, scallops, and squid, sauteed with gai-lan (Chinese broccoli). Generous with the seafood and the shrimp were quite big and meaty. A clean tasting dish.
To round out our meal, we ordered the house special fried rice. It appeared to have chicken and BBQ pork. This was pretty good with decent wok hei.
We walked around the rest of Chinatown afterwards, and found a random stall selling egg waffles in one of the malls. Egg waffles are so nostalgic for me, but this wasn't a very good one. Super bland.
For dinner later that night, we planned to take it easy at the hotel, tired from our early wakeup call and travel day. To supplement our leftovers, we stopped at Banh Mi Nguyen Hoang, a grab and go deli famous for their cheap banh mi. It's cash only so you know it's legit.
We got the banh mi thap cam ($5.50) which is basically assorted cold cuts with pate, pickled carrots and cilantro. The bread got soggy by the time we dug into it so it suffered a lot from that I think. The best banh mi should shatter into a million crumbs by the end. If it's not scraping the roof of my mouth, I don't want it.
Another quick stop on the way back to the hotel. SOMA chocolatemaker, a bit on the pricier side but a great place to pick up souvenirs.
Who doesn't love chocolate?
View from the hotel room. We had an early night to prepare ourselves for the busy day we had planned tomorrow.
- CT
0 comments:
Post a Comment