LUXOMME

Tonight, my date and I are heading over to La Carnita Taqueria!

And by tonight, I really meant back in August - because I am a procrastinator.

And by date, I really mean Tiffany - except whenever we are together, its less of a date and more of a situation.

 I promise you. Something is bound to happen.

Upon arrival at 4pm, even though we were no where close to peak hour, we were told that the wait would be 15 minutes or so (because La Carnita is a happening place). The hostess asked us if we would like to sit outside or inside, to which I quickly chimed "outside please!"

Because everyone knows that natural lighting is much better for the gazillion photos I intend on taking.

Tiffany, who lived in the States for part of her life and frequents it often, is an absolute pro when it comes to Mexican food. So I let her take the reins.  

Because it's realistically only 4pm, and we intend to continue our night with more food, she decided to be conservative with our order. One order of Tortilla Chips dusted with Ancho Chili Power & a side of Guacamole [8], one Mexican Street Corn [9], one Beef Cheek taco [5.5], and one signature Carnita Taco [4.95] which was highly recommended by our server.

The chips came immediately, and unlike the guacamole at El Catrin, it comes pre-mashed and ready to eat. I don't mind doing less work.

Famished after a long morning of downtown wandering, we quickly dug in to the generously seasoned chips and smooth guacamole. 

First bite, we were hooked. Second bite, our mouths were on fire.

Quick! Pour the water!

Crunchy bites between massive gulps of water. The chips were delicious and the pain wouldn't stop us.

Thankfully, around the 5th chip, something else arrived at the table.

A perfect distraction to our current woes. A perfectly charred corn on the cob, topped with a special spice blend and a drizzle of crema. 

As I made Tiffany pose for the nice photo, which I had to re-take at least 5 times because she refused to smile for me, our tacos finally arrived!

Some of you may find it peculiar that we would go to a Mexican place and only order two tacos, but I think that La Carnita does everything else much better.

But the two tacos we had were also fantastic.

Fillings were generously piled on. You can see how it completely fills the entire shell, threatening to spill over at any moment. 

Makes for a very very satisfying bite.

Midway into my first chew, the waiter frantically hurried over to our table. 

Remember how I said something always happens when Tiffany and I are together?

Well, apparently it was about to rain and if it started to pour, the waiter instructed us to leave all the food at the table and then rush inside, and our food would be carried and brought back to us to make sure the bill found its way back to the right table.

One thing worse than cold food that's supposed to be hot, is soggy food. 

Quickly putting the camera away to finish off my food, Tiff and I stuffed the remainder of our taco into our mouths and then requested the bill.

The mayhem that ensued shall not be documented on camera. 

One day we will have a quiet uneventful dinner. 

naomi

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For more reviews and information on La Carnita, please visit the following link,

 

YUTAKA

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Izzy and I are inviting you to join us on our lovely day out in Toronto. 

This is a first of three posts which I've collected over our day out in #the6ix when she dropped by for a visit (after ghosting me for 3 years). Yes, I'm calling her out.

We first bonded 6 years ago one chilly night at the Queen's Taiwanese Student Association hotpot event where I adamantly insisted that she was Korean (she is not), and since then she has been the instigator of all my terrible habits (online shopping being the least of them). We don't see each other much - or at all - because she's busy being a boss pharmacist in the US, and I'm in Winnipeg being me, but sometimes she'll grace me with a message and let me know she's back up north. 

Marking our 6th year of friendship (which she doesn't know we celebrated), we spent the day downtown wandering the streets of Toronto getting lost, getting frustrated at google maps, and getting ourselves into situations where we eat a lot more food than we should.

Yutaka was one of these places. 

Originally wanting to go to Japango, which is just around the corner from Yutaka, we ended up at the latter when the former couldn't accommodate us. Feeling upset, those emotions quickly turned into excitement when we saw their daily menu - which has a very generous selection of specials. 

After deliberating over what to order, I decided on the nabeyaki udon and her the chirashi with a side of amberjack sashimi. 

My udon arrived at the table first, piping hot with a egg that has a perfectly runny yolk. Her dinner came a few moments later. An array of fresh and colorful sashimi laid gently on a bed of lightly vinegar sushi rice. 

Not only was everything fresh and flavorful, portions were also generous and extremely filling. We had plans for ice cream afterwards and ALMOST ended up not making them because our meals were so huge. 

It's hard to find a decent nabeyaki that comes with good quality ingredients, but Yutaka really hit the spot, and if Izzy's smiles and complete silence during the meal say anything about how delicious her meal was, it's definitely a place you don't want to miss. 

Located a hop skip from Eaton's Center, it's the perfect stop after a long day of shopping. The restaurant is large and spacious and seating is generous (just like their meals) so that you have plenty of room to set your retail damage down as you enjoy a delicious meal.

naomi

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For more information and reviews on Yutaka, please visit the following link;

 

So this Summer, I've been feeling very unmotivated to blog as of late, mainly because I haven't done anything really blog-worthy that I haven't already posted about before. Or rather, I've been feeling very unmotivated to drag my large camera around everywhere I go and risk everyone complaining about me "paparazzi-ing" them all meal. 

Since I've been spending my entire Summer in Toronto, my routine has been a little different than what it's like during the academic year. It's a welcome change of pace, and also an opportunity to get together with friends whom I haven't had that much of a chance to see since I've left Queen's.

People are often confused at why I spend so much time in Toronto, and it's difficult to explain my situation because it's not very typical. This Summer however, I had a focused project. 

For the last three months, I've been working on renovating a condo here, which has been an endless wheel of learning, coupled with the biggest headache ever. 

Thankfully, it's coming to an end.

To celebrate (and also to escape the fumes of sawdust), I texted these lovely girls and basically begged them to have dinner with me. (Mainly because I missed them and because they handle my paparazzi-ing really well)

Let me distract you with this picture of this deep fried ika [7] while you try to figure out who these two lovely ladies are. This dish which was the perfect start to our evening. Juicy tender pieces of squid which are coated in a very delicate batter. 

MeNami is a Japanese restaurant that specializes in udon, but also serves a variety of tapas. Located in a very convenient location (Finch and Yonge), it's extremely accessible, but difficult to snag a table simply because it's so popular. 

One thing that I love about the menu at MeNami is how simple but thoughtful each item is. They're also not trying to do ten different things at once like some other restaurants, but have decided to focus on udon and tapas - not udon, tapas, sushi, and korean food etc. 

Udon and tapas are also the perfect complement to each other.

When the udon finally arrives (we all got the same thing), the girls were lovely enough to entertain my blogging needs. Not only were they patient enough to let me take a million pictures of the food even though they were famished, they even re-arranged everything so that it was instaworthy.

If that's not true friendship, I don't know what is.

10 minutes later, I was done and it was time to eat!

Except.... 

We weren't really quite sure what to do or where to begin.

The Original Kama Udon [7.95] comes chilled on a bamboo mat accompanied with a side of green onions, wasabi, grated daikon and a bowl of udon sauce.

Let's do a quick udon quiz.

Do we

A) Dump all the noodles in the sauce

B) Dump all the sauce onto the noodles

C) Just eat the noodles and forget about the sauce?!

Thankfully, our waiter, seeing our confused faces, so graciously explained the proper way which was neither A, B, nor C.

Oops.

For those of you who have never had cold tanuki udon before, the appropriate way is to first take the green onions, grated daikon and wasabi and add it to the udon sauce, to taste. 

Then you're supposed to use your chopsticks to pick up a bite of udon. 

Dip it into the sauce. 

Gently lift it out and wait a moment to allow the excess sauce to drain away.

And then consume!

Why didn't we think of that.

As for these mystery girls who were such a good sport for me and my camera, they're my lovely housemates from way way back.  You'll see them pop up in many of my posts over the years, because they're very photographable and also because they don't sit and complain about my camera the entire meal. 

Very important quality when choosing dinner-mates.