chocomoo

*bump* I'll be in Toronto soon, and would like to check out any great pastry shops or bakeries. Any more suggestions? I know that Tournayre has closed. I think Clafoutis will be a good place to stop at when I go shopping on Queen Street.

I cannot believe this day has finally come! I was at one of the konbiniyas (specifically, Izumi-ya) here on the weekend, and spied bottles & bottles of Dakara which came with Pigling Bland figurines. Pigling Bland is a character in the Beatrix Potter books who loves to dance ballet. Here's a picture of what the figurines look like (I have no idea what the blog says): so cute! There are 6 different figurines. Anyway, I bought 4 bottles just for the piggies (I gave 2 to my friend who is as obsessed with Japanese cutesie figurines as I am). The best part is, Pigling spins!! When you slide the magnetized bottle or fridge towards Pigling, the magnetized Pigling figurine spins as it's pushed away. SO CUTE I wish Gatorade & all those gross North American sports drinks tasted like Dakara & Pocari Sweat!

Sorry to hijack this thread, but I'll be in Toronto for about a week too, and I don't want to start yet another thread on Toronto restaurant recommendations. We don't really have the luxury to drop $135+ on the Splendido tasting menu, but I was thinking of doing lunch at an upscale place instead. We've already decided on JK Wine Bar for dinner. I was thinking maybe Bymark or Canoe, although Bymark's menu entices me more... that being said, Canoe's online menu is more than 2 months old.

Good choice! I usually either get the lemon tea, milk tea, or milk tea/coffee mix. Sometimes though, at the end of service (around 7?), the tea becomes really watered down. The curry fish balls are pretty good there too. The curry reminds me of Japanese curry - thick & sweet, so the fish balls are evenly coated with the curry.

Yeah, that's the place with the famous "wind-sand" chicken wings Do you get the big $1.50 milk tea too? That place is also famous for their "little cart" noodles. Don't get the beef brisket variation though - it's pretty meh.

I saw the sign up for Beard Papa a few weeks ago when I was at the Aberdeen food court - the location will be right in front of the escalator, where the Taiwanese shaved ice place used to be.

What about Azia on Smithe & Burrard? It's on the same side of Smithe as the Paramount Theatre.

I was finally able to try the Mt. Matcha bun and loved it! I think basically all the matcha baked goods from Kei's are delicious - I also tried the matcha cream & red bean pan, and the matcha financier. I haven't tried the matcha melon-pan yet, as I didn't want to overload on the matcha goods. I like the shape of the Mt. Matcha - star-shaped, so cute & pretty! The owner told me to eat the matcha cream bun from the side that they squirted the cream in, as "it will squirt up your nose! Trust me, it's happened to me 2 times!" I've also tried some salty ones now - the pepperoni one (the dough is dotted with black sesame seeds & wrapped around a stick of pepperoni) and the croquette (corroke). I really liked the croquette - there's no meat in the deep-fried patty, and it's topped with tonkatsu sauce.

Yep, "fo lam" is the same as "siu yook". "Fo" as in fire, or roasted; "lam" as in belly. As far as I know though, "fo lam"/"siu yook" is not piglet - that would be "yue jue" (suckling pig), which is usually only eaten during special occasions. markemorse, we have quite a few jars of Lee Kum Kee sauces in our house too. The cha siu sauce is pretty good, and we like those one-time-use packets of tomato garlic prawns too. And of course we have the oyster sauce (2 different grades - normal & premium, but I can't tell the difference). Continuing the topic of Chinese condiments, I've never seen mention of thick soy sauce here on eGullet. From Wikipedia: We use a brand that's made in Taiwan, but I don't remember the name right now. We do use it to cook certain things, and also as a dipping sauce for hot pot items.

Oh, I didn't realize those 2 locations on Robson were owned by the same people! No wonder the signs look so similar! I actually like the one closer to Chapters more - and there is never a burnt smell wafting out the door. They had these really good Middle Eastern/Turkish/Greek pistachio desserts before, that were so light. I didn't see them last time I think they told me they were a version of baklava, but they were not drenched in syrup.

I haven't had that cookie before, but if there's a smoky taste, it could very well be longan-based. The smoky taste is actually the reason why I don't like dried longan.

That's the sandwich he taught Adam Sandler to make for Spanglish

^Did you also go to Granville Island beforehand? I took my friend to Go Fish for her first time. I had the Emperor scallop burger (one of the specials) and it was one of those enligtening moments The scallop was perfectly grilled (nice grill flavour but the scallop was just cooked & slightly translucent), and the accompanying sauce married perfectly with the scallop flavour without overpowering it. The sauce was a nice sticky, spicy one (don't remember what it consisted of, but I think it had orange in it). There were 5 thin slices of scallop sandwiched in the slightly crusty Portugese bun.

I went with my friend last Friday and it looks like the entire line of Zotter bars are available at Monde! I was too chicken to try the weirder flavours, but I bought the elderflower bar. It was soooo good! I made my whole family try it (parents, uncles, aunties, godmother, godfather), and everybody loved it. The filling contains apple brandy as well. The flavour is delicate and the floral aftertaste is amazing. I also got the famed bread crumbs & milk chocolate bar by Stella (although, I can't seem to find it on the Stella website). I have to say, although it was nice & creamy, I preferred the elderflower bar. My friend got a passionfruit mousse milk chocolate bar (sorry, I can't remember the brand). While the passionfruit flavour was really intense and didn't taste artificial, it overpowered the chocolate. It was still really good though. And then we walked down Burrard and got some Japanese buns from Kei's Bakery. I liked the coffee melon pan (strangely named "E.D.A.") the most. Actually, I liked the kinako-paste filled one more, but I could've done without the piece of mochi in the middle. Alas, they were all out of the Mt. Matcha bun. The weather has been so warm that all of my chocolate has become soft - I currently have 6 different bars of chocolate in the fridge. Plus a bag of Japanese Peko mini chocolate bars (they're like KitKat plus 2 more layers).

^ I can't vouch for Oji, and almost always stay away from "pan-Asian" restaurants. However, Azia on Smithe & Hornby is surprisingly pretty good. I haven't tried the dim sum yet (and frankly, probably never will - I'll stick to actual dim sum restaurants, thanks). The "wok air" of the fried rice with eel was surprisingly good, and the chow mein with black bean sauce & chicken was really good as well. The chow mein had a good amount of sauce (not too much so that the noodles were all soggy, but not so little that we only got crunchy noodles), the black bean sauce not too salty, and there were lots of big chunks of chicken.

I tried a couple of flavours of Orbitz, and only remember the orange one. It tasted like sweet 7-Up with orange flavoured balls in it. It wasn't horrible, but I didn't like the texture of those floaties - they were slippery & not chewy, although they didn't melt in your mouth. They sure looked cool though (come on, I was in Grade 6!). Although I like bubble tea, I usually get it without the tapioca pearls as I find them too filling. I like getting bubble tea with coffee jelly, green tea jelly, or coconut "jelly" (although not all together). They should start making those jellies with agar.

Yep, here. You can scope out Osaka supermarket, Candyland, or Izumi-ya for it in a few months.

Sorry Do you work in downtown? Are you looking for specific Kit-Kat flavours? I have some Chocolatier ones (ujimaccha, kinako & ume; strawberry, pistachio, almond & thyme) but the boxes have already been opened. Honestly, they're not that special & I wouldn't get them again.

*raises hand excitedly* I know! I know!! Those are called "ngao lei so", aka "cow tongue crisps", so called because of their shape. The dough is denser that that used for "you tiew" or "you za gwai" (same thing, different name), and contains more baking soda than "you tiew". I generally don't like "ngao lei so" because I can taste the baking soda and because it's so dense, but I like small pieces of "ngao lei so" that don't taste of baking soda.

There's a Chinese dessert that is almost the same, except that "ma dou" (yellow split peas??) are used in place of corn. Chinese dessert soups seem to use a lot of different legumes and grains and in all sorts of combinations. Ingredients vary from black sticky rice ("hak law mai"), barley, soy products ("foo jook") to gingko nuts ("bak guo"). Different combinations of ingredients are supposed to have different effects for your health, such as cooling, cleansing, etc.

Tim's has great gan dan tsai! Unfortunately, they're only good while they're hot, so they won't travel well If you wanna go for Taiwanese sweets/baked goods, try Mega Bakery at Continental Centre in Richmond.

I didn't even know that mooncakes were sold at this time of the year! Frozen dim sum & the like lead me to think of "tong yuen (Cantonese)/tang yuan (Mandarin)". Hon's sells black sesame filled ones (and maybe some other types). However, they don't come in nice packaging like mooncakes would.

I was going to suggest that too, but isn't meat one of the no-nos for bringing to the States?

What about some Chinese snacks? There are a few stores in Aberdeen (I like "Taiwan Kwong Leung Hing" on the 2nd floor, near the parking lot entrance) that carry Chinese/Asian snacks in bulk, such as: - tiny spring rolls (smaller than your pinky finger) filled with spicy dried shrimp & shrimp roe - dried cuttlefish - multiple types of preserved plums - vegetarian duck gizzard (if you don't know what this is, I know it sounds totally weird, but I highly doubt you'll be able to get these in many places in Seattle, if at all)

^ Candyland! THAT'S the name of the candy store at Yaohan! They also have a location at Aberdeen Centre and other places. By the way, HungryDog, here's the eGullet thread on Japanese snacks (it seems that Kristin tries out all the new KitKat!) and Japanese candy.