On day 2 of our trip, we ventured outside of downtown Toronto into the GTA, specifically Markham. Markham is to Toronto, as Richmond is to Vancouver. Asians. Asians everywhere.
To fuel ourselves for the commute, we hit up the breakfast buffet in the hotel lobby. Selection was more than decent considering everything was free.
The walk to Union Station only took around 15 minutes. It was a beautiful day to be out!
When we got inside Union, we found % Arabica, a Japanese coffee shop chain. There are currently 213 cafes around the world, including the 3 in Toronto and 1 in Whistler, BC. They're known for their sleek, minimal branding.
We ordered an iced Kyoto latte ($6.75) and a canele ($6.50). The Kyoto latte uses their proprietary blend base with a Japanese-style subtle sweetness. I had sticker shock when I realized the canele was almost the same price as the latte, but at least it was good. It had a crisp shell with a deep caramelized flavour, and a moist inside.
First time taking a GO train! We each got the $10 one-day weekend pass, which allows you a full day of travel anywhere on the GO network. It was pretty easy to navigate, considering we only needed to take one train to our destination.
Our destination being Pacific Mall. P-Mall, as it's affectionately called, is the largest Asian shopping mall in North America.
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It's a mecca of cheap phone cases, hair accessories, and medicinal herbs. It can get confusing inside since there are rows on rows of stores selling identical products. I swear, I had deja vu around every corner.
On the top floor, you'll cross a "lucky bridge" to find their food court.
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I went to Onigiri KaiKyoTei, who went viral across Instagram and TikTok for their fresh, made to order onigiri. I ordered the creamy uni (sea urchin and egg yolk) onigiri ($5.99). Upon first bite, there was a strong hit of wasabi. It then mellowed out and was super creamy. It's probably not something I would go out of my way for, nor wait in a long line for, but it was worth trying.
My parents went to a random stall and each ordered a BBQ combo on rice. No complaints from them.
They also couldn't resist Coffee Dak Lak for some Vietnamese coffee and dessert.
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Always have to scope out the blind box stores. We love a trinket.
For a lil' sweet treat, we found RuRu Baked, an ice creamery that specializes in unique, Asian-inspired custard ice creams. Some flavours that caught my eye were tofu fa or che ba mau. Unfortunately, their flavours change quite often and were not in rotation when we visited. Instead, I settled on sinh to bo ca phe (avocado ice cream and coffee caramel) and miso crumble (miso brown sugar ice cream with black sesame crumble). The ice creams were both smooth and creamy, but I found them both on the sweeter side. I also wasn't a huge fan of the black sesame crumble because the bits and pieces throughout were rock hard.
During the next couple of hours, we took an Uber over to First Markham Place, a mall/strip mall hybrid with more Asian stores and restaurants. For dinner, we found ourselves dining in a food court again.
Most people were lined up for one of two Chinese BBQ stalls, but I decided to give Hong Bo a try. Hong Bo serves Asian-style burgers complete with housemade buns. I got the crispy shrimp burger combo ($13.50) which comes with a side and a drink. For burger buns, you can choose between the original with sesame seeds, beet, and charcoal. I doubt the buns taste any different besides their colouring. For a side, I got their green salad with sesame dressing. You can also get fries or honey butter corn, but I thought it would be nice to get some greenery while on vacation. For a drink, there is pop, lemon tea, or coffee. Iced drinks will cost $1 extra.
I loved this burger! It was a thick juicy patty made up of lots of shrimp. Shrimp burgers are pretty common in Asia, and should become more of a thing here.
After dinner, we were pretty tired so we called it a day and hopped back onto the GO train to home base.
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