The Food Pursuit
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Somehow, I always find myself in the most hole-in-the-wall places as you can ever imagine. For the record, I’ve managed to find decent eats at those places so I’m never hesitant to try them. However, I’m hesitant in bringing guests to such a place before I do a test run for comfort reasons. When I do find something worthy of bringing a friend, I make sure they’ll understand what to expect from the experience. Or I go ahead and order takeout because I know the experience would be much better at home. This time, I went solo to a little joint called Basilico Italian Bistro.
It’s been a while since I visited a Congee named restaurant so this time, I headed to Congee Queen. The reason is because these restaurants get really crowded, especially on weekends, and I like to avoid crowds wherever possible. But with nothing special planned and well, there’s always time for food and company, Congee Queen it was!
I’m doing my part to create positivity in this heavy time for Koreans in Toronto with this news: Galleria (Korean) Supermarket is expanding! I admit it might not be the most joyous thing you’ve heard this week but I’m doing what I can, with food (food cures all – heck maybe tensions will ease over some good old food at Kitchen Stadium. If not, battle it out with the secret ingredient kimchi!). Hence on a lighter note Galleria’s new location opened November 6 in North York while their old location has closed and are moving one block south from their original location in Thornhill. That means soon enough there will be two Galleria locations to shop from! I went to Galleria a couple weeks after their grand opening in North York. Here’s a peek at what to expect.
There’s a pretty good reason why I chose to visit Congee Star. In Cantonese, there’s an expression to describe what we know as ‘twinkie’ or ‘banana’ – yellow on the outside, white on the inside. That term is called ‘Jook Sing’. As for Congee Star, I’m not sure if the owner meant to use a pun but Congee Star’s direct translation to Cantonese is ‘Jook Sing’, where it sounds the same as the term I was referring to but written differently in Chinese. Whatever it is, I’ve never tried this restaurant before so I figured why not? And yes, if your restaurant has a great name, chances are I will be more inclined to give it a second look.
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