Snack Foods: Hmmm, What's That?! - Sicilia Lemon Pocky!!

As soon as I saw Lemon Pocky I stopped in my tracks and had to pick up a box.  Another shopper whispered to herself, "lemon pocky?!" as well.  Needless to say, we both popped a box into our shopping carts.  Apparently it's a limited summer edition Pocky - Sicilia Lemon Resort Pocky to be exact.  (Love Furochan's post on limited edition snacks/treats (also known as 'gentai' snacks) in Japan.)

So, how does it taste?

A sweet lemon taste that is very pleasant.  The Pocky stick is coated very thinly but the flavour is strong enough and it's slightly creamy.  It's not tart if that is what you're looking for though. 

The packaging is also very nice, I really thought the drawing on the inside foil bag was quite nice.  This would be very nice at an outdoor dinner party or even an afternoon baby or bridal shower.  I went to a baby shower recently and we got Lindt Lindor chocolates as a thank you treat which was nice as I enjoy Lindt chocolates, but I can definitely see this lemon Pocky being a hit too!

I could definitely eat the whole box in one sitting...but of course, since they are packaged into 2 portions, I stopped :)

The other limited summer edition is a chocolate coconut flavoured Pocky and both were selling at T&T for $1.99.

Sometimes we are in need of a little treat and need to turn to something boxed, bagged, or wrapped.
Snack Foods: Hmmm, What's That? will be my space for highlighting snack foods from Japan and Taiwan or snacks new on the Toronto marketplace.



Ryerson Farmer's Market - Cute Little Market

Last Wednesday I went to the Ryerson Farmers Market and came across several interesting booths.  The market is not that big but has a variety of items including fresh produce, baked goods, local honey, and several artisanal food purveyors.

I picked up some kale at the Rye's Home Grown stand which sells produce grown on the top of their engineering building which was a nice surprise.  Hmmm, would love to walk through it one day, it apparently supplies food to different food operations within the university.

 

 

I also stopped at a tea stand, Genuine Tea (pictured above).  Initially I just thought it was new tea company offering the same teas as most others but upon talking to Sarah, one of the co-founders, I found out that they have spent several years in Taiwan and source their oolong teas directly from tea plantations in Taiwan.  This definitely made me perk up my ears as I‘m a big fan of Taiwanese oolong teas. 

 

 

They offer a couple of iced teas already brewed but can make a cup of tea with your choice of tea leaves.  It was way too hot to have a hot tea, otherwise I would have tried a cup of their Oriental Beauty oolong tea!  Next time...but, if you're interested in learning more about them, check out their website here.

Some other stands include Brixton Grill, selling vegan bbq items and dairy free ice creams.  I was going to get a cup of kombucha but the line was a bit long. 

 

Mini sugar donuts...

 

And empanadas...

   

 

There are also a few tables and chairs (with umbrellas) set up so you can eat your meal or desserts a little more comfortably.  If you're in the area on Wednesdays (11am - 3pm), it's definitely worth a visit!

An Ji Bai Cha (安吉白茶) - a delicate green tea

Anji baicha
-I love looking at the leaves after brewing, totally amazing that the bud and 2 leaves can look like it was just plucked!

After completing the Tea Sommelier Certificate Courses at George Brown College several years ago, my sampling of a multitude of teas every week had ceased and I returned to drinking only my favourite teas, occasionally having a chai or a sencha.  So it was nice to sample a range of teas again and loved doing it at Tao's Tea Leaf Spring Tasting Event.  Anji baicha is one tea I picked up at the event.


Anji baicha - dry leaves, rolled thin and long


An Ji Bai Cha (安吉白茶) is a light green tea whose flavour is mild and delicate.  The characters 安吉 "An Ji"  is in reference to the city/town in China the tea leaf originates from and the characters 白茶 "Bai Cha" which translates to "white tea" refer to the colour of the leaf before harvest.  The buds are whitish-green in colour and are only this colour before the first harvest.  The term 'Bai cha' is commonly used for white teas such as Silver Needle or Bai Mu Dan (White Peony), but this is not a white tea.

This is actually a new green tea, it was discovered in the 1980s but some believe this is a lost tea that was referenced in a 900 year old ancient book.  According to the Seven Cups Tea Shop, this tea must be picked before the temperature rises above 25 degrees Celcius, otherwise the leaves start to turn brighter green, losing their white-green colour.  This apparently changes the characteristics of the tea.

I brewed this quite mild at first.

2g in 6oz of water for 1.5 mins.
Water temp 175F

But I found it was better with 3g in 6 oz of water.  Taste is grassy with notes of some sort of vegetable like asparagus...can‘t really say.

 

I paired it with a red bean taiyaki treat from Kevin's Taiyaki that we picked up from Galleria supermarket.  The taiyaki complemented the tea nicely.  Since the tea was a little more delicate, I'm glad the red bean wasn't too sweet.  My only comment about the taiyaki was that there was actually too much filling and not enough cake!  There were certain sections of the cake that only had a very, very thin layer surrounding the red bean filling which is actually quite impressive that it didn't leak out.  

 

This cross-section shows a good balance between cake and red bean filling but aside from the centre, red bean was much more dominate in other parts of the cake.

Overall a nice green tea.

 

 

Keung's in Markham - The Salted Pork Bone Congee, a Must Get!

Keung's Restuarant
8390 Kennedy Rd, Unit C1& C3
(Peachtree plaza/New Kennedy Square)
Markham, ON L3R 0W4
905-940-0488

Hong Kong style cafes are very popular for a weekend breakfast and if you show up after 10, you'll be waiting in line...yes, lineups out the door for very popular places.  This happened to us a couple of weeks ago.  So, we ended up at Keung's Restaurant by default as they had just opened and I'm glad we did.  I haven't been to Keung's in a while, especially for dinner so I haven't seen their regular menu in a while.  They don't offer a breakfast menu so we only had the regular menu to look at and my partner decided on this special congee:  salted pork bone congee.  It was such a great pick, we all loved it!

What is salted pork bone congee?  It's a congee made from pork bones that have been salted and left to marinate for 8 hours before water, rice, and other ingredients are added.  The website explains here.

The congee was nicely salted because of the prep to the bones and I liked the combination of conpoy (dried scallop), mustard greens, and thousand year old egg.  The congee was seasoned with just the right amount of white pepper. 

Not sure if it was the unique bowl it comes in that caught their eye or others were in-the-know way before us, but the next few tables coming in all the got the same congee.  They mention there is limited daily supply so get there early!

Copper looking bowl with woven basket is a nice touch to highlight this special congee.

The fried dough fritters were also quite tasty but I could have just eaten the congee alone, it was that good!

 

I ordered a pork chop noodle soup dish which was okay; pork chop was fried well and there were quite a bit of noodles.  But, the congee stole the show - it really is a must get!

 

 

 

 

Purple Yam Mochi Recipe - The Filling

I've been doing  a bit of dessert making...if you call popsicles dessert.  And a bit of cooking, yes, just a bit. And from that bit of cooking, I had some left over purple yams and knew I wanted to make a dessert out of them.  I love the bright purple colour, especially if you can see a bit of the purple through the skin.  So, here it is, purple yam mochi - the filling.

Ingredients
2 small purple yams steamed and skinned (approx 250g)
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup water

Instructions
Strain the yam through a sieve or puree in a food processor.
Heat on medium heat and add the sugar and water and stir until steam comes out and paste starts to bubble.  At this point you can decide if you want the purple yam filling to be thicker or thinner by cooking longer or adding a bit more water.
(I preferred a thinner filling this time so I only heated another minute.)
Cool and refrigerate.

Using 2 spoons or a tbsp scoop, scoop yam and roll into balls.  (Can dust hands with corn starch or glutinous rice flour if needed.)  Freezer or refridgerate till hardened.


Now to make the mochi skin.  I actually tried out two new methods:

1.  Method outlined over at Lady and Pups for sticky rice balls or "tang yuan" resulted in mochi pictured at the top.  But instead of serving in a sweetened broth/soup/sugar water as the per Lady and Pups, I ladled them out onto a bed of cornstarch to coat and wrapped in cling wrap when cool.  The texture was not bad, but I had to add more glutinous rice flour than the recipe called for which was noted in the recipe.

2.  Method outlined in the cookbook The Food of Taiwan.  It involves baking it in the oven which I thought was a pretty good idea.  But unfortunately the water to glutinous rice ratio didn't quite work out for me causing me to make some adjustments.  Because of the adjustments, my finished 'dough' was a little harder to work with and thus the shape of the mochi was a bit uneven.  I retested the recipe with a different brand of rice flour and still found the ratio to be off so went with what I know and it turned out well after baking.  Still think the book is great so far, just need to try a few more recipes to really make a review.



Baking the glutinous rice flour mixture.

If you'd rather use the microwave, Chocolate and Zucchini has a good one which I've used often but requires you to wrap the mochi while the glutinous rice is hot/warm which can be tricky.

Emma's Country Kitchen - House Made Everything!

Breakwich with a side of fries

Emma's Country Kitchen

1108 St. Clair Ave West.

Toronto, ON L7E 1M6

416-652-3662

http://www.emmascountrykitchen.com/
 

We went for a late breakfast at Emma's Country Kitchen...on a weekday. (I had the day off...yay me...sometimes it's good to be off on a random day!)  I've wanted to try this place for a while now but Emma's Country Kitchen is in the west end near St. Clair and Dufferin where we usually find restaurants in this area a bit out of the way to get to.  But, we're glad to have finally made our way there as it was well worth it! 

On weekdays, their menu is pared down quite a bit, only offering a few breakfast items compared to their weekend brunch menu (e.g. homemade donuts, eggs benny, and a host of other items).  We still found something to order though and had a great breakfast.

Since we were there late, we had the mushroom soup to start, and it was pretty good; lots of mushrooms.  But, it wasn't a smooth soup if you're expecting that.  We liked the flavour nonetheless. My partner had the classic breakfast and I had the 'breakwich' which included cheese, an over easy egg, and sausage on buttermilk biscuit.  It was really good!  Larger than your breakfast sandwiches at Tim's and McD's and the biscuit was flakey and buttery, yums!  I also got a side of sea salted fries which turned out to be just okay for me. They are cut in-house but were skinny fries which I'm not too fond of since it's hard to maintain the crispiness on the outside while still having enough soft potato on the inside.  This is my personal preference though.

The classic breakfast (2 eggs, house cured bacon or sausage, griddled red potatoes, and toast) was done really well; the scrambled eggs consistency was great and the bacon was thickly sliced and nicely smoked.  The toast, honey whole wheat I believe was really good too.  You could taste the honey; afterwards I regretted not buying a loaf to take home!

 

Classic Breakfast (sorry for the poor picture quality!)

Everything was house-made: the bread was baked, the bacon was cured and smoked, the fries were cut.  I really liked this aspect and the food definitely shows the quality and skill they put into their items. Service was also friendly and attentive.

A great breakfast place, (but not ideal for big groups), I definitely would like to be back for their weekend brunch.  Too bad it's a little out of the way for us, otherwise I think we would've gone back in a few days!  

 

 



Cha Me Cha - Taiwanese Tea, Food and Desserts

Three Cup Chicken Meal

Cha Me Cha

8333 Kennedy Rd, Unit 1078 (The Mall at Langham Square)

Markham, ON L3R 4P8

T: 905-470-8836

http://www.chamecha.com/

Hours: 12pm - 12am (daily)

A couple of years ago Cha Me Cha opened in North York and I went to try out their teas.  They were okay but the space was just average.  I read reviews that the food was below average so never ventured back to try their food.  (Now the North York location is closed.)

Fast forward a couple of years and their Markham location is busy, busy, busy!  Why?  Because they seem to have the hit the right formula at this location.  Lunch and dinner specials, kids meals (3 different ones for $4.99) which is why there are always lots of kids during the meal hours it seems, a huge selection of drinks and affortable desserts.  I'm guessing during the later hours it would be a good hang-out.

We went for lunch and was pleasantly surprised by the portions.  Taiwanese tea places that serve food often give you small portions but these meals were decent in size.  The teas and food in general taste average, but I did find my meal to be pretty good.  My three cup chicken tasted traditionally made; flavoured with soy sauce, rice wine and basil.  It was also nice to see green veggies.  If you've ever had a Taiwanese lunch box, it usually consists of a main entrée (usually a meat) and 3 side dishes.  This meal follows suit in providing the 3 sides: a boiled egg, stir-fried leafy greens, and frozen veggie mix.  The frozen veggie mix wasn't too great as I think it was over boiled/steamed though.

Minced Pork & Sausage Meal

Crispy Chicken

The crispy chicken was crispy and salted exactly as it should be.  Loved the portion that they gave.  Didn't try the desserts as we were already full but they looked so good on the tables of others!  Size of the shaved ice desserts were huge, great for sharing with a group of friends.  I'll definitely be back for the desserts!

 

Service can be a little slow, especially during meal times.  We tried to go again for dinner but it was already packed and the servers were running around quite a bit.  So, if you do plan to go, go early! 

Exterior - across from T&T Supermarket