Sumo mural

You'll find this mural at one of my regular hangouts on Yonge Street - Ajisen Ramen. The worn-out pink seating might turn some people off, but I find it kitschy cute. I actually discovered this place a few months back when I saw a picture of ramen soup on someone else's blog. I started to get a craving, so I googled "best ramen in Toronto" and Ajisen came up. I've been going there ever since!

This is the first soup I sampled, vegetarian with a miso-based broth with two squares of fried tofu on top. Now I usually get number 25 which is veggies in a curry broth. Whatever you choose, it's bound to be delicious, I don't think there's anything "bad" on their menu. For more murals, take a look at Mural Monday.

PS: Happy Monday and happy birthday to me!

Yumm!

This post is for Leia. A look at the delicious sushi dinner I had at the restaurant in the Bloor Street West restaurant. It tasted as good as it looks!

Delicious!

Sometimes I just get a craving for sushi. When I do, there's a little place that I like to go to that has a great chirashi plate. It's nothing fancy, but the fish is always fresh and beautifully presented. In fact, I'm thinking my husband and I need to make a stop here when we get back to T-town.

Valentine's pie

This past week's cooking class landed on Valentine's Day, so our instructor thought it would be a good week for making pies. He gave us a recipe for coconut cream and they all seemed to turn out really well. Some people even used the cream to make cute decorations, like this heart. 

Which looked like this when it was finished. Very cute! If you like hearts, take a look at Random Hearts, it's sure to make you smile.

Japanese delights

I recently attended a Japanese cooking demonstration by one of Toronto's top chefs. It was quite interesting and informative and this is a look at the end result of all his hard work. I don't recall what all of these dishes were called, but I can give you an idea of what some of it is: 

The black things in front are little crunchy sardines (they were quite tasty actually!), next was some kind of crab meat wrap, next to that is a chicken meatloaf, the orange is filled with a salad of cucumbers, radishes and jellyfish and garnished with a lotus blossom (also tasty) and the last thing is black cod. I tried everything, even though I typically don't eat chicken and fish and I was surprised at how tasty everything was. My compliments to the chef!

Indian night

As I mentioned before, my husband and I are taking a cooking course through the Toronto School Board. It meets every Tuesday evening for nine weeks. So far it's been quite fun and I've gotten some new ideas for recipes and have improved my basic kitchen skills. 

We visit a different type of cuisine every week, this is a look at our Indian night. You have mango chutney, fragrant rice, yogurt and mint sauce, red lentil dal, chana masala, aloo gobi, vegetable pakura and onion nests. It was all delicious!!

Delicious dinner

I did some cooking this weekend and here's a look at the results. It's a butternut squash stew with whole wheat couscous. And yes, it was delicious! Hope your weekend was nice too.

Nice mice

These little mice are made of chocolate, almonds and licorice. They were also on the menu for the bake sale which I helped out with back in December. I showed you the cookies we worked on last month. These little guys are almost too cute to eat though!

PS: I've got some photos from my recent trip up on my travel blog. Stop by and take a look!

Holiday treats

I recently volunteered to bake and decorate cookies for a fundraiser for a school for handicapped children. It was quite fun, although I mainly stuck to the baking part. I don't think my hand is steady enough for the decorating. The treats looked tasty, but since they were for charity I didn't taste!

Party time!

A new Loblaws supermarket recently opened in downtown Toronto. Normally a grocery store opening wouldn't garner much news coverage but this one is special. It's located inside the Maple Leaf Gardens building, the former home of Toronto's hockey team, the Maple Leafs. 

I toured the building last Thursday. It was pretty crowded and there were people taking pictures all over the place. I'll show you some of the highlights over the next few weeks. Enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving!

From my understanding, the Canadian tradition is to cook and serve the turkey the weekend before Thanksgiving. So we had our big show last night. 

Here's what was on the menu: turkey stuffed with white-bread sage dressing, German-style potato salad, red cabbage with apples, green beans, turkey gravy, rolls and to top it off, pumpkin pie with French vanilla ice cream. It was a feast! Hope my fellow Canadian readers are having a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Authentic

Today my husband and I are officially immigrating to Canada. I won't be moving there permanently until mid to late March, but today we become official semi-Canadians. 

One good thing about Toronto is it's an international city, I am looking forward to lots of good international cuisine!