The interior is modern and well-lit. The tables are quite close together but the semi-circle dividers give an illusion of spaciousness.

The menu was varied with bright, bold pictures of mouthwatering dishes. We started with a “dessert” as an appetizer, gui hua tang ou (steamed lotus root stuffed with sweet sticky rice).

This steamed dessert was soft and sticky with sugary juices, and the sweet glutinous rice complemented the slightly crispier lotus root. I have always wondered what dessert in Chinese culture really is, but now I know why I had such a hard time figuring it out. For most families, there is no distinction between courses, everything is set on the table pretty much at once. Sure, you have bigger dishes and smaller dishes, hot dishes and cold dishes, but the distinction is not as clear as in Western tradition. For example, here is a dessert that looks deceptively like an appetizer. Who would have thought of lotus root being a dessert? It comes down to a fundamental difference in technology: Chinese chefs don’t bake. Baking is very much a Western technology, and Canton baked desserts have been influenced that way. Traditional Chinese desserts are made much in the same way that all dishes are made, on the stove.

Next up was ban li shao ji (chicken with chestnuts stew).

This was every good as bit as it looks. Braised chicken with chestnuts is a common family dish in the Shanghai area. It’s an exceedingly simple recipe – just soy bean paste and salt – but the chestnuts add something very subtle and unique to the sauce.

The highlight of the evening, however, was the Shanghai special hot pot.

In this pot contained an elaborate combination of: dan jiao (pork in egg wrapper dumplings), pork in tofu wrapper, Lion’s Head meatballs, fen si (vermicelli), fish balls, dried ham (salted and air-dried as opposed to smoked) and various Chinese vegetables. It was glorious.

Another unique dish was belly pork in a fermented beancurd sauce. Fermented beancurd (or dou fu ru) is not as strange as it might sound. It is not pungent at all, instead it is very flavourful.

Belly pork is pork that has a lot of fat, and it is usually cut in big chunks with the skin still on it. Although this is probably not a dieter’s dream, the skin, fat, and meat goes really well together, especially in a dish like this that would need to be cooked for a long time until a lot of fat has melted into the sauce.

On the side, we also had a bowl of bok choy fried rice.

For dessert, we had lan gua bing (fried pumpkin pancakes).

They are made with glutinous flour and covered in sesame seeds, fried until golden brown. These were melt-in-your-mouth good, the best I’ve ever had.

Service could have been more attentive but no worse than a typical Chinese restaurant of this size. The prices are very reasonable (although a little higher than some of the other restaurants in Scarborough). There are a lot of unique, home-grown Shanghai dishes on the menu that I have not seen elsewhere. I would definitely come back, and next time, I’m bringing more people so I can try more dishes.

Rating:

Dumplings (jiao zi) originate from the northern regions of China where rice is less common. Although they are considered an appetizer or “dim sum” in North America, they are actually a lone entree in China, especially during family gatherings, where everyone can help make the jiao zi before they are steamed. Savoury fillings usually consist of ground pork with some sort of vegetable, such as Chinese cabbage and chives. Mushrooms and other fungi family ingredients are sometimes included to enhance the savoury flavour. Dumplings are typically steamed, but a pot sticker is fried “on the bottom” and steamed “on top.”

Pot stickers

Ingredients:
Dumpling Dough:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup boiling water
Filling:
8 ounces Chinese cabbage (Napa cabbage)
3 tsp salt, divided
1 pound ground pork
1/4 cup finely chopped green onions
1 tbsp cooking wine
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp sesame oil
Other:
2 – 4 tablespoons vegetable oil

Instructions:

1. Cut the cabbage across into thin strips (or use a food processor). Mix with 2 teaspoons salt and set aside for 5 minutes. Squeeze out as much liquid as possible.
2. In a large bowl, mix the celery cabbage, pork, green onions, wine, cornstarch, the remaining 1 teaaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon sesame oil, and the white pepper.
3. In a bowl, mix the flour and 1 cup boiling water until a soft dough forms. Knead the dough on a lightly flour surface until smooth.
4. Divide the dough in half. Shape each half into a roll 12 inches long and cut each roll into 1/2-inch slices.
5. Roll 1 slice of dough into a 3-inch circle and place 1 tablespoon pork mixture in the center of the circle. Lift up the edges of the circle and pinch 5 pleats up to create a pouch to encase the mixture. Pinch the top together. Repeat with the remaining slices of dough and filling.
6. Heat a wok or nonstick skillet until very hot. Add 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, tilting the wok to coat the sides. If using a nonstick skillet, add 1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil. Place dumplings in a single layer in the wok and fry 2 minutes, or until the bottoms are golden brown.
7. Add 1/2 cup water. Cover and cook 6 to 7 minutes, or until the water is absorbed. Repeat with the remaining dumplings.
8. Serve hot with vinegar on the side.

Duck stewed in Beer

Ingredients:
1 whole duck/chicken
1 bottle of beer (12oz)
1 head of garlic
2 tbsp ginger
2 star anises, broken up
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup of soy sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 stalk green onion
1/2 cooking onion, chopped
8 baby carrots

Instructions:

1. Chop the duck into big pieces with a cleaver. Slice the garlic and ginger.
2. Heat up the iron casserole pot and add some oil (1 tbsp). Put duck pieces in the pot, and stir-fry for 5 minutes till they become golden.
3. Add the garlic, ginger and anises, and then stir-fry for 5 minutes more.
4. Pour the beer in and boil for 5 minutes. Add soy sauce, salt, sugar, onions, and carrots, and cook for another 5 minutes. If you are using chicken, you can stop at this point as the chicken will be fully done (the meat should be half-hanging to the bones). If you are using duck, continue to the next step.
5. Preheat the oven into 250F and put the iron casserole pot with the dish together in the oven to roast it for 1 hour. Then open the cover and add onions in it. It will be cooked after being roasted for another 15 minutes.

Kung Pao Chicken with Ssamjang

Ingredients:
2 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, 5 to 6 ounces each
Marinade:
2 teaspoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
1 tbsp ssamjang
Sauce:
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
1 teaspoon sugar or brown sugar
1/2 tbsp gochujang
1/2 tsp Lao Gan Ma
Other:
small dried red chili peppers
2 cloves garlic
2 green onions (spring onions, scallions)
4 stalks of celery, chopped
1/2 cooking onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
4 tablespoons oil for stir-frying, or as needed
1 teaspoon Szechuan peppercorn, optional
1/2 cup peanuts or cashews

Instructions:

1. Cut the chicken into 1-inch cubes. Combine with the marinade ingredients. Marinate the chicken for 15 minutes.
2. While the chicken is marinating, prepare the vegetables. Cut the chilies in half so that they are approximately the same size as the chicken cubes. Remove the seeds. Peel and finely chop the garlic. Cut the green onion on the diagonal into thirds.
3. Heat the wok over high heat. Add 2 tablespoons oil. When the oil is hot, add the chicken. Stir-fry until it is 50 percent cooked.
4. Add the garlic and stir-fry until aromatic (about 30 seconds). Add vegetables, the chili peppers and the Szechuan peppercorn if using. Stir-fry until vegetables are soft (add water if needed).
5. Add the sauce to the wok. Bring to a boil. Stir in the peanuts and the green onion. Remove from the heat. Serve hot.

Fried Eggs and Tomato
Ingredients:
3 tomatoes
3 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup water
Oil

Instructions

1. Beat eggs and add in salt.
2. Slice tomatoes into sixths.
3. Heat up wok. Add oil to coat bottom. Fry egg (like scrambled eggs).
4. Add tomatoes when eggs are done. Add 1/2 cup water and sugar.

Other dishes: corn and cream of mushroom soup, beef and broccoli, stir fried Chinese greens.

Our party of 7 arrived at 7pm without a reservation, but were seated within about 40 minutes. The restaurant was busy but the waiters were nonetheless attentive and quick to take our orders. We ordered off the Summerlicious menu, which was pleasantly varied and a great deal ($25 + tax and tip) for a three-course meal.

I had the Sun Ripened Watermelon & Tomato Gazpacho to start, the Preserved Lemon & Chili Chicken entree, and Warm Strawberry & Rhubarb Buckle to finish. The appetizer was a disappointing start to the meal, as it was too sour for my tastes. The sourness overwhelmed all other flavours so that the watermelon did not come through at all.

I had a taste of my friend’s Potted Tiger Shrimp Pate, which was much better than my sour bowl of questionable yellow contents. Perhaps I just ordered the wrong thing.

The entree was two pieces of chicken breast (skin on), generously rubbed with seasoning, sitting atop two slices of tomato. The seasoning for the chicken was great, but unfortunately, like all chicken breasts I seem to try, they were thick and dry and bland past skin surface. The yogurt sauce was also extremely strange and did not compliment the spelt salad at all.

Is this what all chicken entrees are doomed to be? Why are restaurants so adamant to do a chicken breast entree when they can just as easily use boneless, skinless chicken thighs that are so much more tender and flavourful? And why do they refuse to marinate the white meat? Why must the seasoning be restricted to a superficial layer on the outside? I simply cannot understand.

My friends ordered the lamb brochette, which I did not try because I’m not a fan of lamb but I was told it was all done “medium” when they’d asked for rare.

Then there was dessert. Ah, dessert. Always my favourite course. It was at this point that the restaurant finally managed to get back on my good side, with an amazing, crumbly strawberry and rhubarb buckle. I haven’t made up my mind as to whether or not I like rhubarb, and there wasn’t a lot of it in the dessert. It was topped with a heavenly toasted almond ice cream.

The best part of the dessert was not the ice cream nor the rhubarb (or lack thereof), but the amazing texture of the slice. It was crunchy on the outside and moist and soft on the inside. It wasn’t incredibly rich, and it wasn’t soggy either. I didn’t think it was possible for this restaurant to redeem itself after I left my appetizer untouched and my entree only half-eaten, but the dessert really was quite perfect.
I had a taste of my friend’s eton mess, which really did look messy, but in a colourful, unpretentious kind of way. The taste was sweet and fruity, but nowhere as good as my buckle.

The environment was a lively, classy one, which is surprising considering the restaurant is located in an unassuming plaza. I also cannot forget to mention that the service was excellent, especially considering our waiter took time to explain proper etiquette in getting a waiter’s attention (we asked) and listened while we explained the story behind the tapping of the table by Asian customers (he asked).
All in all, the meal did not live up to the name of the Oliver & Bonacini restaurant chain, but the dessert did.

Rating:
svgallery=oliverbonacini

As soon as we sat down, we were introduced to the “wish list,” which was filled with imaginative cocktails and mouth-watering desserts. My friend and I immediately knew what we wanted for dessert, and decided to order our entree with that in mind. I had the recommended Milestones Original Bellini, which was a colourful mix of premium white rum, peach liqueur and sparkling white wine, topped with Boone’s sangria. The peach liqueur with sparkling white wine was what drew me to this drink, but the sangria was the real topping on the cake.

I ordered Thai chicken tacos, which were a huge platter of three Indian flatbreads with slaw, three skewers of chicken, and two dipping sauces. One dipping sauce was a mango vinaigrette, which was refreshing and only slightly sour. The other was a peanut satay sauce, which was not very peanut-y at all and not viscous enough. The satays were grilled to perfection, but were not marinaded in the traditional Asian style. The slaw was filled with coriander, which I detest, so I could not have very much, but what I did have was crunchy and fresh. The Indian flatbreads were warm and fluffy, but quite tasteless. I had very little of my entree because everything was covered in coriander, so the platter was still as full when it left as when it arrived.

My friend and I each ordered a dessert and split it (though I’ve now forgotten the names and it’s not on their website). One was a chocolate cake with vanilla gelato and whipped cream on top (I think it was called Ibana), covered in caramel. The caramel tasted in-house, in a good sort of way, and the vanilla gelato tasted amazing with the rich chocolate cake. The other was a dark chocolate pie with a pecan crust. The dark chocolate was an interesting experience, since it was still rather creamy and milky, but it was less sweet with subtle bitter undertones. The pecan crust was the real masterpiece. I’m not a huge fan of pecan but this was quite a treat. Unfortunately, the dessert is not made in-house, so I can’t give Milestones credit for that.

Overall, the experience was relaxing and enjoyable. The entree was memorable only because I could not eat most of it due to the coriander, but the dessert and the bellini more than made up for it.

Rating:

Rating:

467 Bloor St. W.
Toronto, ON
(416) 840-9988
Website

Rating:

240 Queen St. W.
Toronto, ON
416-351-EAST
Website

Anyway, I bought some chicken giblets¹ the other day and I’ve been really looking forward to cooking them. If you’ve never had giblets and are a little grossed out by them – don’t worry! They don’t taste strange, they’re just extremely chewy. So if you like tendons, you’re sure to like giblets (gizzards are my favourite)!

Now this recipe is an original so don’t go thinking I’m just copying and pasting some disgusting chicken innards recipe on here. When I read up on gizzards, I realized that they have to be cooked for a long time. You know what else is simmered for a long time? Tea eggs! One of my favourite street-vendor-foods (and extremely easy to make), tea eggs are simmered in a pot with soy sauce, star anise (or five spice powder), and green tea. Hence, that is how I decided to infuse flavour into my gizzards! I call this dish “Dragon Gills” (because all Chinese dishes have crazy names).

Ingredients:
0.2kg giblets – separate hearts and livers from gizzards
1/2 an onion, sliced into squares
2 slices of fresh ginger
3 tsp salt
2 tsp ground pepper or 1 thsp peppercorns
1 tsp green tea leaves
3 bay leaves
2 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
0.5 tbsp Guilin chili sauce²
2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine or sherry (or Grand Marnier in my case, since I had neither)

Instructions:

1. Bring a pot of water to boil and add gizzards. DO NOT add hearts or livers. Scoop/rinse off the foam, refill pot with water, and bring to boil again.
2. Add ginger, salt, peppers/peppercorns, tea leaves and bay leaves. Turn heat down to medium and cook for 30min.
3. Add 2 tbsp soy sauce, turn heat down to medium, and cook for another 20-30min.
4. Heat a wok/pan and add olive oil.
5. Pour pot contents into wok. Remove bay leaves (and tea leaves if possible). Add 1 tsp salt and 2 tbsp soy sauce and cook for 2min.
6. Add chicken hearts and onions. Sautee for a while, and add Guilin chili sauce.
7. Finally, add chicken livers, dark soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, and sugar. Mix constantly.
8. Chicken liver does not need to be cooked long. Remove from heat and serve hot with white rice.

1. Technically, giblets are gizzard, heart, and liver, but there was no liver in mine.
2. I recommend Lee Kum Kee’s Guilin chili sauce. This is a very versatile chili sauce that can be used with many Chinese dishes containing meats. It is not very spicy, does not overwhelm your taste buds, and enhances flavour without affecting other ingredients.

As usual, the ambience was dark and moody¹, as was our waitress. For a party our size, she really should have been more amicable if she was thinking about her tip. Not only was she cold and unhelpful, she was rather snotty².

The food took a while to come, but that may have been due to the size of our party (but 1 hour for dessert – really?). To start, I had the smoked duck carpaccio, which was quite lovely. The ground pistachios gave the arugala a nutty taste and some texture, making the otherwise bland greens much more interesting. They were quite liberal in dousing the duck meat in orange-ginger sauce, considering that the meat was already very well marinated, but in between mouthfuls of the greens and the duck meat, it didn’t seem to get in the way of the subtle smokey taste. The peppercorns were a bit strong, although they do give the dish a nice dash of colour.

I chose my entree for its interesting description. “Malibu chicken” was a dish of coconut-crusted chicken breast, with a rum mango pina colada sauce, served with basmati rice, sautéed asparagus, red pepper, red onion and baby corn topped with crispy plantain chips. In the end, the dish did not live up to its description. There’s something wrong when the crispy plantain chips, a finishing garnish, has the best taste of the entire entree. The dish failed for several reasons. The chicken breast was not marinated under the batter, the batter was fried for too long, and it was not sticking to the chicken breast at all. The last is an easy problem to solve for anyone who’s ever made fried chicken or pork. All you have to do to get the batter to stick to the meat is dip the meat in eggs before applying the batter! Surely, the chef at Crave should have been capable of such a simple addition to the recipe. The fact that the batter kept coming off meant that most of the time I was eating the (un-marinated) chicken breast and the (over-fried) batter separately. Not all that enjoyable, as you can imagine.

The sauce was also rather strange. The taste of pina colada was too strong, and quite frankly, a weird combination with the fried chicken breast. Maybe if they put more rum into the sauce, I could’ve overlooked the strange taste, but alas, the combination was simply not right. The sauteed vegetables and asparagus were rather bland, although the basmati rice was surprisingly fragrant. A last, saving characteristic for a wholly unimpressive dish.

To compliment the meal, I had a glass of Wolf Blass Riesling, which was on the dry end for a riesling (probably a 1 on the sugar scale) to my disappointment. It ended up working out nicely though, since the sauce on both the appetizer and the main were sweeter than expected.

For dessert, I had the Crav’in chocolate brownie. Dessert is always my favourite course, and this one certainly satisfied my sugar craving! The chocolate-peanut gelato was just superb, and I loved the whole peanuts hidden throughout (I always love a good crunch). The brownie was very rich and dense, so much so that I couldn’t finish it. But overall, a great way to end the night.

Would I come back? $55 (including tax and tip) for a three-course meal doesn’t exactly scream enticing to me, especially when the main was so disappointing, but maybe for a date if I’m craving (haha) over-priced food.

Rating:

svgallery=crave

1. What’s with this trend of poorly lit restaurants? Is it like the more expensive a place is, the darker it should be?
2. When I asked my coworker what was on the side of his appetizer – something that looked like bacon – she interjected with “It’s panchetta.” “Oh, ok… Wait, I know what that is! That’s bacon!” I swear her nose was pointing to the ceiling when she stalked away.