Father's Day Brunch: Four Seasons, Avenue Lounge

Restaurant:  Avenue Lounge, Four Seasons Hotel

Where:  21 Avenue Rd., Toronto, ON  416.964.0411

The day for the other parent, Father's day.  Another breakfast brunch at a different hotel.  I had another idea but I will save that for another year when the babies are older.  It fun and interest of it would be lost on them and us because they are so young.

This day, we went to the Four Seasons, Avenue Lounge.  It was a nice spread but the consensus was, we enjoyed the brunch at Intercontinental Hotel's Azure Restaurant more.  Don't get us wrong, the spread was nice but due to our taste, we thought the selection at Azure was more to our liking.  (Plus, it was more inexpensive.)  A change of scenery was good as well. The thing was, Avenue has a larger anit-pasti selection which we didn't care for as much.  I found the dessert selection wasn't as good either.  The decor was nice but it was much too cramped.  Oh ya, and they threw in 1 golf ball for the fathers.

- mussels, lamb, mini burger, French toast, smoked salmon/bagel -

- orange juice & some tabletop arrangement -

- dessert:  tirimusu, creme brulee, lemon tart, fruit/cake with chocolate, fruit tart -

- cold shrimp -

- view from our table of the bar (elevated section) -

- antipasti bar -

- bowl of shrimp -

- dessert selection -

Sticky Rice

In short, love this sticky rice sold at T&T in the freezer section.  Cost just over $3.  There's a smaller version but I think this is the right size for a quick and easy meal.  There is just enough filling.  Sometimes you get cheaped out on the filling.  The minced pork with a little sauce throughout lets you have a bite of stuffing with every mouthful of rice.  There's mushroom, bbq pork, Chinese sausage, duck yolk, shrimp, chicken...

IN IT'S LEAF WRAPPER

JUST UNWRAPPED

DIGGING INSIDE THE GOODNESS

Lunch: Beef Brisket & Tendon with Mung Bean noodle

Stewed beef brisket & tendon was pre-made months ago by my mom.  A quick defrost and heated up in a pot and spooned over some noodles with some green onions sprinkled on top.  Another great noodle meal.  Unfortunately, this was the last of the reserve.

I must get the recipe from my mom on how to stew a big batch of this.  She taught me once before but she has no set measurements.  She'd say, "Just put some of this in and some of that and more if you don't think it tastes right."

Dim Sum Dynasty

Restaurant: Dynasty
Where: 131 Bloor W., Toronto, ON M5S 1R1, Canada

This Sunday, we tried out this Chinese restaurant that we've walked past many times on Bloor St. I've always looked up to it's 2nd floor location with people sitting at the window seats. I knew they served Chinese food. I assumed they served the "not authentic" type of Chinese food due to its location and just by the way it looked from the street. So dim sum wouldn't be something I thought they served there but after reading the Chowhound message board on the merits of Dynasty's dim sum versus its pricing, I thought we should give it a try. I only thought we'd try it out because I felt it would be spacious enough to fit the babies and so it did. We were comfortably seated at a four person table; stroller replaced a chair and our portable high chair fit on top of another chair. Our table was right next to a stack of fish tanks. No fish in the tanks but a few lonely lobsters and BC crabs.

There was no trolley service at Dynasty, it had the tick off your choices from the carbon copy listing of dim sum.  I found the price to be expensive but the quality was good.  Although I have had the same quality of dim sum at other restaurants for a fraction of the price we paid here.  This may be the trade off for the cleanliness and the amount of space we need for the babies.  There was a premium dish that a waiter came by with that a regular dim sum resto would not have and that was the roasted suckling pork.  YUMMMM!!!!  It was worth the extra $$$.  The skin was a crispy perfection and the meat was oh so tender.  We just hope that on our next visit, the roasted suckling pork is offered again!

Two other items to highlight were the scallop wrapped in egg tofu and the scallop dumplings.  The first, beautifully natural and steamed.  The hollowed out piece of tofu was deep fried oh so lightly.  It's appearance resembled a tator tot.  The dumpling's skin was the perfect chewy consistency that you look for in this type of dim sum dumpling.

My Mother's Day Meal: Intercontinental Hotel, Azure Restaurant

My mother's day feast took place at the Intercontinental Hotel's restaurnat Azure. We had been there for breakfast once before and that meal was decent. It is convenient for us because it is a short distance from our home. The restaurant is spacious, especially on the weekends. It is probably busier during the weekdays with business people wheeling and dealing. Oh, it also has good high chairs. I didn't expect many people there because when we went there a few weeks back, the restaurant was practically empty. We might have been the only people there. Anyway, I thought we'd be ordering off the same brunch a la carte menu but....no! Azure was offering a mother's day brunch buffet. On this visit, the restaurant had people in it - mommies and their families.

There was a lot of food and a great selection. There were breakfast foods, eggs benedict, sausages, waffles, made to order omellettes; hot foods - vegetables, fish, chicken, potatoes, roast lamb; antipasto platter; fruit platter; cheese platters; variety of breads; soup; seafood table - mussels, shrimps, oysters & clams; sushi; and a separate dessert area. I have probably left something out and don't remember some of the special names of the food items. I concentrated mostly on the seafood and didn't stuff myself with anything ordinary.

Here are the mouth watering visuals of most of plates...

Lunching with Nong Shim

One of my favourite instant noodle brands. Thick noodles and tastey broth. To my senses not as MSG'y as many other brands.

Product of Korea

Cooked and ready for the bowl.

Ready or not, here I come...mmmmmmm