EDO Restaurants

    I had the pleasure of experiencing EDO Restaurant with their Groupon menu. It was least to say, pretty unexpected. I came into the restaurant without any expectations to avoid disappointment. The reviews on Yelp and Google was not very high at all, I on the other hand felt differently. Parking is a hassle though, so be warned that you will not be able to find parking on a busy Friday or Saturday night.

Christmas Edition: Bier Markt

One of my favourite holidays has to be Christmas. For years and years I have been waiting to go to a place with great charcuterie selections. Finally I had an excuse to go. Usually this place is pretty packed but perhaps we went a little later so there was barely a line up. Still, it took us a while to be seated but we were greeted with an ear to ear smile from the waitress. It definitely made the waiting a little more bearable. The setting of the restaurant was very bar-like, so if you're looking for an intimate date...this is not the place to go!

Since it is located at shops at Don Mills, the area was very festive and is always a really pretty sight. We sat near the window and had it snowed, it would've been the perfect Christmas view! You can see that there's a blown out candle on the ledge, for whatever reason I thought the smell of the candle was too strong so we set it aside. 

Although there was no line up, you can still see that most of the restaurant was packed with large groups of people celebrating. It has a very pretty interior and also features hundreds of beers! I personally am not a beer lover myself but definitely should try one of the rare beers that you can't find in stores. They have a great selection of beers that you can probably find something that will suite your tastebuds. The menu features beers from Germany, China, Africa, Canada, Italy etc. pretty much any place you can name...they'll have it.

I have only had a bouillabaise a couple times, one of them which consisted of dining at Canoe. To my surprise, for a fraction of the price...this was definitely way more worth it. The soup had lots of seafood flavour and the presentation of the dish was definitely something picture worthy. I believe the yellow cup on the side is mustard and that added a nice touch to the bread slices provided.

I like to be safe, and this is salmon with bok choy and quinoa cakes. For a small person like me, I was not able to finish everything on this plate. Have I not had the charcuterie selections, probably I would've been able to. The salmon was cooked really nicely being crisp on the outside and super tender on the inside. The bok choy was just bok choy, perhaps a little too much oil was used for my liking. What I did forget to take a picture of was the quinoa cakes. Usually I don't prefer quinoa, but this was actually quite tasty! The texture resembled potato cakes with a little more gritty texture to it.

Of course last but not least is the selections of meat. I wish I can name you everything that we ordered but I really only remember what was very tasty. The candied bacon and the proscuitto is DEFINITELY a must try! I thought that candied bacon was going to be a little weird but it had a very strong sweet bacon taste. It was absolutely delicious. The proscuitto is usually something that can never go wrong with either. The rest of the meat was very mediocre but was still a great paring with the bread.

I had a wonderful experience that night, from all the food to the waitress (Shout out to you!). She was very nice about everything and always checked up on us even after she had initially asked us how our food was. There are a lot more other food selections I have yet to try, and I am already counting down the days till I get to come back! 5/5 stars for this one, and it was definitely worth the $120 for the meal.

Kiku Japanese Cuisine/Destiny's Bubble Tea

 Sushi, again! Another birthday calls for sushi celebration! My dear friend is celebrating her birthday this month and we had the opportunity to go to Kiku to try out their menu. The interior of the restaurant is quite modern. It allows you to feel as if everything inside is new and fresh. The chairs were slightly awkward to sit on, since as you can see in the photo that the ones in the aisle did not have a back rest. What is cool about this restaurant is that they adopted the idea of using an ipad to place your order, so you don't have to flag someone down. 

We didn't have the all you can eat option, but instead ordered a party set. It was the sushi and maki set. It consisted of squid, shrimp, salmon, octopus, red and white tuna, eel, imitation crab, and some other fish near the tip of the boat. We didn't realize that there would be so many sashimi sushi, but we should've paid more attention when the description said 'assorted sushi'. It was an awesome set because it consisted of green dragon and red dragon! 

Although some of us at the table weren't really a fan of the sashimi sushi (such as myself) it wasn't a horrible experience. The squid was my least favourite though, probably because of the texture and slime that came with it. The salmon was my second least favourite, since it came warm. 

 The rest of the sushi was mediocre, nothing great nothing horrible. It's phenomenal to see restaurants serving a la carte options for those who don't have a big appetite. Unfortunately though, it really causes the quality of the sushi to be less than spectacular. I was a bit shocked that there was no sauce on top of the dragon rolls. Usually, those would be my favourite but I wasn't that big of a fan. 

I took a picture of the place set to feature some of the sushi. The plates at the restaurant were a bit dirty, so I'd advise you wipe it down yourself first before enjoying your meal. It was the standard wooden chopsticks, soy sauce in a bottle kind of restaurant. Not sure if I would suggest coming here again for the food, but if they wanted a modern looking restaurant sushi north of the 404...this would be the place! I'm rating this restaurant a 2/5 stars. The total of the bill was about $80 with tips and tax.  

Destiny's is totally unrelated to the sushi restaurant, but we went to the neighboring plaza to grab some cake and dessert. No birthday is complete without cake! Destiny's is one of the popular bubble tea place north of the 404. They have been challenged by other bubble tea cafes recently though. The atmosphere is bright, which allows you to be awake while you sip through the night with your drink. I would not advise you to order a piece of oreo cake if you already had a very filling meal.

 I enjoyed the strawberry shortcake very much and usually is one of my favourites. We also had drinks as well but perhaps I'll make another blog entry about that. The total for this dessert adventure costed us $40 with tips and tax.