Amici Italian Ristorante
Armouries Grille
Aroma Mediterranean Restaurant
Auberge du Petit Prince
Blackfriars Bistro
Braise Food & Wine
Braywick Bistro
Cello Supper Club
Chancey Smith’s
Ciao Bistro
Crave Restaurant
David’s Bistro
Dawghouse Pub & Eatery
Eddington’s of Exeter
Idlewyld Inn
Il Tenore – new restaurant
J.J.’s Bistro
Jambalaya
Jewel of India
Katana Kafe
La Casa Ristorante
Maggie’s Supper & Jazz Club
Marienbad Restaurant
Mykonos Restaurant
Next Door Bar and Grill
On The Fork
Pho Ben Thanh
TG’s Addis Ababa Restaurant
Thaifoon Restaurant
The Church Key Bistro-Pub
The Only on King
trü
Under the Volcano
Winks Eatery
Zen Gardens Vegetarian

Other London restaurants not in this list:
Bertoldi’s
Blue Ginger
Dragonfly Bistro – 0 stars
Fellini Koolini’s
Garlic’s
Gozen
J Dee’s Market Grille
Manna Grill – 0 stars
Spaghetti Eddy’s
Shiki
Symposium
The Tasting Room
Veg Out
Vietnam Taste
Waldo’s on King

Places I’d wish I’d gone to before leaving London:
David’s Bistro
On the Fork
Marienbad for the Murder Mystery Dinners

The brunch consisted of muffins, breakfast squares, pancakes, bacon, and pastries, as well as orange juice (with or without champagne¹).

Everything was made with loving care and of course, from scratch.

These breakfast squares had a layer of homemade cranberry jam, topped with baked brown sugar and egg whites. The top layer was especially good, the brown sugar definitely came through.

The muffins were made from a pumpkin base, so they were a lot less sweet than the cranberry-brown sugar breakfast squares.

Homemade pancakes with blackberry compote (or maple syrup) and strips of bacon came out piping hot. The pancakes were light but held their form well.

To note in this picture:

• Someone will always stop at Tim Hortons before breakfast, because we. are. Canadian.
• Someone will always pull their Blackberry out and put it on the table, because we. are. business students.
• Homemade whipped cream. Also, I forgot to take a picture of the quince pastries but they were probably the most delicious of all (and probably took the most time to make because, let’s face it, homemade pastries are a bitch.)
• I was apparently the only one who deemed it appropriate to drink champagne at 10 in the morning, but with good food and good company, I had a lot to celebrate.

All in all, a huge success! I think my foodie circle is widening. Woohoo!

1. Although for me, it was more like “champagne, with or without orange juice.”

When I am not frequenting Summerlicious restaurants, I will be eating my way through the local/organic food joints of the city. I also have a list of vegan restaurants that I am dying to try.

Finally, I am still on the lookout for the best brunch and best Thai in the city.

How will I fit all this eating into the next two months of summer? We’ll see!

Affordable:
Big Mamma’s Boy – 554 Parliament Street
Il Fornello – 491 Church St., 214 King St. W., 207 Queen’s Quay W.
Edward Levesque’s Kitchen – 1290 Queen St E (very far east)
Czehoski – 678 Queen St W
Magic Oven – 360 Queen St E, 6 Wellesley St W
Live Organic Food Bar – 264 Dupont St.
Fresh – everywhere
Fressen – 478 Queen St W
Urban Herbivore – 64 Oxford St.
Fresh Wood Grill – 197 Baldwin St
Jamie Kennedy at the Gardiner – 111 Queen’s Park
Pulp Kitchen – 898 Queen St. E.
Trapper’s – 3479 Yonge St. (between Lawrence and York Mills station)
Pizzeria Libretto – 221 Ossington

Not as affordable:
Cowbell – 1564 Queen St W (very far west)
Conviction by Thuet – 609 King St. W.
Pangaea – 1221 Bay St.
Epic – 100 Front St. W.
Globe Bistro – 124 Danforth Ave.
Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar
Veritas – 234 King St. E
Harbord room – 89 Harbord St.
Sequel – 3362 Yonge St. (Yonge and Lawrence)

So the other day, I was to make something to show off my culinary skills to these professors that I was having a meeting with. I immediately thought of the unused muffin mix in my pantry, and volunteered to bring muffins to the meeting. But I’d never actually made muffins before (tiny little secret), so I was a little bit anxious as to how they’d turn out.
The mix was for a standard muffin with blueberry filling. The filling was the tricky part, since it was heavier than the muffin mix and would start to sink when I put it in the half-filled muffin cup. In the end, they turned out rather perfectly, worthy of being presented by the SassyChef.

I made the omelet with one large egg and 3 egg whites, and used two slices of chicken ham. Very simple, and very delicious!
svgallery=hamandegg

However, I did buy a delicious frozen pizza from Price Choppers this past weekend. Now, I know what you’re thinking: Why am I listening to this sleep-deprived chick talk about her stupid frozen pizza? She’s thinking of eating her roommate’s cat food for crying out loud – clearly, a crazy.

Well, call me crazy all you like, but Casa di Mama pizza is by far the best frozen pizza out there – and I should know, I’m a university student! The first thing I noticed is that the dough was so soft I could barely handle it when I took it out of the box. Now, this may have been because it had thawed, but usually, even thawed frozen pizza is still tough as a brick. Moreover, the pizza came on parchment paper. Delissio doesn’t come on parchment paper. McCain’s doesn’t come on parchment paper. But Casa di Mama does.
In any case, I added some toppings (I usually add red peppers because there never seem to be enough toppings on frozen pizzas) and followed the instructions on the box for heating times.

When it was done, the crust had risen into a golden halo around the pizza, with a slightly crunchy surface giving way to light fluffiness. This was comparable to some of the best pizza I have had – ever! Toppings can definitely be improved (I had pepperonis and hot peppers on mine) but the crust was really just perfect.

Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day, hands down. If I could, I’d make myself a home-made extra special deluxe super duper breakfast platter every morning.
It also happens to be one of the few meals I am fully comfortable with making.

• Scrambled/fried/hard-boiled/omelet eggs? I can do that.
• Bacon/fake bacon/ham/sausages/breakfast paddies? I can do that.
• Toast? Toast with butter? French toast? I can do that.
• Pancakes/waffles/Chinese pancakes¹? I can do that.²
• Fruit? I can do that.
• Coffee/(soy) milk? I can do that.

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to do all that every morning. But every Sunday morning, without fail, I make myself an enormous breakfast platter. Sunday mornings are the best. It’s my last day of the weekend, so I know I have to get some work done. The first thing I do is brew myself a nice hot cup of hazelnut coffee. I drink my coffee without milk/cream/whitener because 1) I am lactose intolerant, and 2) that is the way coffee is supposed to be drunk, so buying high-quality (hazelnut) coffee roast is a must.
Then I’ll have any combination of the above (things that I can make). I usually don’t have bacon/sausages so I must forgo the meat portion of the programming, but I can make tons of things with eggs, so I still get my protein.

This morning was no exception. Check out the fancy colourful super duper awesome breakfast platter of the day:

This platter features scrambled egg whites, fresh strawberries, toast drizzled with maple syrup, and yogurt sprinkled with some fiber cereal flakes.

It is also exactly 200 calories.

Huzzah!

Nutritional Information:
Calories: 200
Carbs: 31
Fat: 1
Protein: 18

1. Chinese green onion pancakes are deliciously light and fried; made of flour – multi-layered almost like a pastry, but still thin, with salt and green onions
2. By “I can do that,” I mean, I can buy that.

I am TheSassyChef’s pantry, and let me say, what an honour it is to be invited here today. I am so glad TheSassyChef has finally decided to share her culinary experiences with the World Wide Web, because I was worried for a minute that she might let her food-obsession consume her in her solitary life as a student. But my worrying was for naught it seems.

She asked me to introduce myself today because I am one of her confidants, as they say, and one of the only people in her life who understands how important food is to her. I have seen her through the good, the bad, and the ugly, and my contents hold the secret of her many ups and downs. But today, we’ll only talk about the ups.

As pantries go, I am an undeniably Asian one. I am always stocked with sushi rice, soy sauce, black vinegar, Guilin chili sauce, and sesame oil, and I can only recall one instance when I did not have any cornflour, but TheSassyChef has assured me that will never happen again.

In the past year, I’ve also seen a shift from quintessentially Chinese ingredients, such as black bean sauce and oyster sauce, to Thai and southeast Asian flavours, such as fish sauce, coconut milk, and red curry paste. The most aromatic ingredients are probably the dry Kaffir and Bay leaves, and the rice cooking wine. My favourite ingredient, and her best-kept-secret, is the store-bought peanut satay sauce.

TheSassyChef has also been flirting with the domain of baking, although less successfully. I have had to make room for baking flour, brown sugar, molasses, artificial vanilla flavour, nutmeg, cinnamon, oatmeal, and chocolate chips. I’ve also had to make room for tomato sauce, garlic, and basil for the times TheSassyChef craves pasta (she’s also against store-bought pasta).

TheSassyChef tells me she doesn’t like using pre-made chicken soup base, or artificial flavours like ginger or onion powder when there’s real ginger and onion to be had, but she nonetheless keeps them around all the time. What a lazy hypocrite.

And finally, the newest additions to my collection are sushi ingredients: dry seaweed sheets, rice vinegar, sesame seeds, and Japanese mayonnaise.

So that’s that. Don’t tell her I said this, but personally I don’t think she’s found her place yet in the culinary world. One of these days, my little girl will grow up to be a big and powerful overlord-type chef, or at least an excellent wife, but until then, I’ll encourage her in all her culinary endeavors. I hope you do, too!

Ta ta!

Sincerely,

TheSassyPantry

Until I had a mango mousse cake in a French cafe in Montreal last year.

The second slice of cake I had was a year later, in a Coffee Culture in London, Ontario.

I was there with a friend, who ordered the New York Cheesecake. Being lactose intolerant, I’ve never taken to cheesecakes, despite protests from many of my friends that they were heavenly. This time was no different, my friend in question made me try some of her cheesecake. It had the slight sourness of a cheesecake, which toned down the sweetness of the chocolate-y-ness of my cake, but it wasn’t a little piece of heaven by any stretch of the imagination

And then yesterday, I had my first, certifiable, heaven-on-earth cheesecake experience. It was like finding true love. The moment I put it in my mouth, there was a clap of thunder, a gong hit somewhere, and the world froze around me, but all I could feel was the mishmash of heaven on my palate. It was a standard chocolate cheesecake with glazed strawberries on top, but it was the perfect blend of sweet chocolate and cheese, with a smooth consistency and a slight woody finish. Sounds like it could be a wine, doesn’t it? If only.

The photo does not do justice to its heavenly-ness. But actually, this was my friend’s order, which I ended up devouring piece by piece. My original order was something called “Milky Way,” a giant of a chocolate cake, with four layers of mousse, a dark chocolate crust and a thick caramel glaze. It was so rich and sweet that I had to drink a full cup of water with every bite.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my coming of age cake story.