D'Amore Italian Deli...

I really hate when lunch time comes around and I forget to bring lunch and I have absolutely NO idea on what to eat. By the time I figure out what to eat it's almost 1pm! After humming and hawing, I decide to go to D'Amore Italian Deli. No one really knows of this place except for the people who work around that area. They don't even advertise, it's all word of mouth that gets people to come to this place. You know the food will be good when they don't advertise. lol

Walking in it seems a little ghetto, I admit but like I said in my last posting "the more ghetto the restaurant looks the better the food because they put all their time and effort into the food!" lol ^_^ They have a pretty small menu but really you just need a couple of winners and you're set.

I usually get a medium assorted Italian deli meat sandwich with everything on it. It's just right for me, mind you I'm only 5'1 so if you're a big eater go for the large or XL sandwiches. The sandwiches are quite big and they load it up! You can get a medium sandwich with a drink for under $10! Nowadays that's a steal! You get the choice of either white or brown bread, also you can have them toast your sandwich if you like. I recommend toasting it, tastes so much better.

My delicious sandwich, realized I forgot to take a picture before taking a bite. 

I don't know if I should tell you guys about this place because then it'll be so busy and it'll take forever to get my sandwich! lol Just kidding! If you are ever in a mood for a sandwich and cheap lunch I suggest you go to D'Amore Italian Deli.

Strawberry Rating:

Service: 4.5 strawberries out of 5 (the old lady needs to smile a bit more lol)

Food: 5 strawberries out of 5

Price: 5 strawberries out of 5

Cleanliness: 3.5 strawberries out of 5 (don't get me wrong the employees are clean, they wash their hands etc etc. but they could spruce up the place a bit)

Overall score: 4.5 strawberries out of 5

You can find D'Amore Italian Deli at:

12943 127 Street Northwest

Edmonton, AB (780) 455-5233

Happy eating!

"In Mexico we have a word for sushi:  bait."  ~José Simons

Hi Ho Hi Ho It's Hainanese Chicken Recipe We Go...

My bf and I decided to take my mom for dinner and we all decided to go to Tropika (I'll blog about that later). This is where I first encountered a dish called Hainanese Chicken, it was about $13 for the dish. When the dish was brought out it doesn't look like much, all I could remember thinking was, "That's it? boiled chicken???"

Getting over my disappointment, I gave it a go and I loved it! You know what they say, looks can be deceiving. Apparently it also comes with Hainanese Chicken Rice which is just white rice cooked in the broth the chicken was simmering in.

I loved this dish so much that I set out to learn how to make this dish. My bf laughed at me but I didn't let that bother me, I put on my apron and I was on a mission! After some trial and error and looking up many many many recipes later, I have perfected my recipe, well for me anyways. lol Hopefully you'll like it as much as I do!

Ingredients:

• 4-5 chicken legs
• 1 "chunk" of peeled ginger (just cut a piece, peel it and throw it in the pot)
• 3 green onion, chopped in half
• 2 cups white rice, rinsed and drained well
• 4 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 1 tsp grated ginger (for the dipping sauce)
• 2 to 3 bay leaves
• Salt, to taste
• Chicken stock ( I use Knorr Homestyle stock cubes, pictured above) 
• Cucumber, few slices for garnish
• Iced water (to cool the chicken)

Method

1. Rinse chicken and drain well. Put all the chicken legs into a pot and fill the pot with water. Just enough to cover the chicken. Turn on the heat to medium and let it come to a boil. 
2. Once it starts to boil throw in the ginger piece, green onion, garlic cloves, bay leaves. Let it boil for 45 mins. To tell if the chicken is cooked, insert a fork into the thickest part of chicken leg. If clear liquid runs out, it’s cooked if not then cook it for a bit longer. 
3. Immediately transfer chicken legs into iced water and soak for 15 to 20 minutes. I read on numerous sites the ice water is a way of making the skin and meat of the steamed chicken become smoother and more tender. 
4. Once you remove the chicken add the Knorr's Homestyle Chicken broth cubes (1 cube would be enough) into the pot, I find it adds more flavour. Let it come to a boil. Add salt to taste. Voilà! You got soup to go with your chicken!
5. You can use some of the broth to make your rice or you can use plain water. Up to you. You can use  a rice cooker or use a pot.
6. When the chicken legs cool down, drain well. Chop into chunks and serve with cooked rice. Garnish with cucumber slices. Pour some soup into a small bowl and your meal is finished!
7. Last but not least to make the dipping sauce. Heat up a bit oil in a pan. When the oil becomes very hot, immediately pour the oil onto minced ginger. Add salt to taste. 
8. Time to eat!

Should of used a smaller plate, looks so sparse. lol

Sorry the picture is not that great. I'll take another one when I make this dish again! ^_^

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Happy eating!

"Anybody who believes that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach flunked geography."  ~Robert Byrne

Bacon Wrapped Eggs? Yes Please!

My boyfriend was browsing through and watching random videos on Youtube and stumbled across a video called Bacon Wrapped Eggs by RecipeCards. I'm the chef out of the 2 of us, so of course I hear "HONEY! Come look at this!" I watch the video and I must say it looks delish! It's seems pretty easy to make as well.

Next day we decide to go to Safeway to buy our ingredients. Simple list really. All you need is bacon, eggs, cheese (your choice, I used Kraft Italian mix), fresh thyme, and  fresh chives. When it comes to herbs it's up to you, you can go with whatever you like. I stuck to the original so I used thyme and chives. I didn't use dill because I forgot to buy some. lol

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd the finish product *drum roll*.....

OoooOoooO

Ahhhhhhhhh

Also made French toast and sliced up some left over steak and ta-da! You got the perfect brunch dish. Let me tell you this held me over until dinner!

You can check out the video here, background music is pretty dope:

Hope you like it as much as I did. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Happy Eating!

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." ~Virginia Woolf

Pho Song Huong...

I'm always on the look out for good pho places here in Edmonton. For those of you who do not know what pho is,  it is a Vietnamese noodle soup usually served with beef or chicken. The soup includes vermicelli noodles made from rice and is often served with basil, lime and bean sprouts. The correct pronunciation would be "fuh". No I'm not trying to swear. lol

Back to Pho Song Huong, I always drive by this place while driving home with my boyfriend from his parent's place, and thinking we should try that place some day. Meeting up with some friends we decide to go there for lunch. The thing with pho restaurants is you're never going to find one that is "posh" looking, far from it. You want a nice place to eat at go to Earl's. Usually the outside would be ghetto looking and if you're lucky the inside may be decent looking. When you think about it you're really there for the food not for the decor. I always joke about it and say "the more ghetto the restaurant looks the better the food because they put all their time and effort into the food!" lol

Walking into the restaurant we got lucky because it's decent looking. Looked like they took the effort to make the place look nice. A for effort I say! The server comes up and asks "how many?" when we tell her the number she tells us to sit anywhere we like. Um...why ask how many people we have in the first place? Just wondering.  We find our table and sit down, the server hands us our menus. Looking at the menu it's pretty cool actually the covers are made of wood. Looking through the menu it's pretty basic just like any other pho restaurants, it has it's usuals.

We just cracked open the menu and the server is already asking us if we're ready to order. We tell her we'll need another couple of minutes. I decided on #27 which is the beef noodle soup with round eye steak slices and beef flank slices or pho tai nam in Vietnamese in a size small. My boyfriends orders #18 the special noodle soup combo that comes with round eye steak, flank, tendon, tripe and Asian beef meatballs also in a small.

Our soup is brought out and I take a look at the broth and I see that it's clear and no thick layer of oil. I have been to places where there's a thick layer of oil on top and it's pretty gross. Makes you lose your appetite. Who wants to eat a layer of oil? Second thing I notice is that they give you a lot of meat! That is a bonus, usually some restaurants skimp out on the meat and just give you more noodles.  Sneaky, I know! I give the broth a taste before I add anything to it and it was delish! It was pretty flavorful, instead of adding a heck load  of my usual hoison sauce and hot sauce to the broth , I only added a little bit of each out of habit.

I must say I finished the WHOLE bowl. I never finish my bowls because to be honest the pho is not that great at some restaurants. Even my boyfriend was surprised, he said to me "it must be that good eh?", yes sir it sure is! The service overall was OK, friendly and efficient, mind you when we were there it was not too busy. Can't say how the service is when the restaurant is busy. We did have to flag down someone for our bill and had to go up to the till to pay. Speaking of the bill it came out to $28 for the four of us. Pretty good, can't complain!

I will definitely come back for the food and recommend this place to everyone I know. Maybe next time when I come back I'll give their Bun Bo Hue (another type of beef noodle soup) a try.

Strawberry Rating:

Service: 3 strawberries out of 5

Food: 4 strawberries out of 5

Price: 4 strawberries out of 5

Cleanliness: 3.5 strawberries out of 5

Overall score: 4 strawberries out of 5

You can find Pho Song Huong at:

12929 97 Street NW

Edmonton, AB T5E 4C2

Phone:(780) 478-1557

Happy eating!

"Red meat is not bad for you.  Now blue-green meat, that’s bad for you!"  ~Tommy Smothers


***Please note the pictures here were not taken by me and it's not from the restaurant.

Koutouki - Downtown Location...

I've been to Koutouki a couple times and thought "hey let's write about my experience". I remember the first time I went I had no clue what I was in for and what to expect because I have never had Greek food before. Walking in you see plants and pictures all over the walls. Strangely it makes you feel at home or feel like you're in Greece.

A friendly server greets you and brings you to your table. Now looking at the menu it can be overwhelming for someone who has never been there before. Luckily for them the servers are pretty knowledgeable and can guide you through the menu and make suggestions. Everything in the menu is a bit pricey.

We decide to get a bunch of appetizers instead of the full meals. Gives you a chance to try everything. Being just the two of us (my boyfriend is the lucky person who gets to come with me on all my food cravings ^_^), we decided to go with calamari, Saganaki (pan fried Greek cheese), Dolmades (stuffed grape vine leaves), homous and pita bread, and Ouzo prawns.

As we sit waiting for our food, the lights are dimmed and all of sudden European techno music starts blaring and you hear bells? You see a belly dancer come out from the back and the "bell" sound you hear is her finger cymbals. For first-timers you would find this fascinating because where else can you find a belly dancer dancing while you eat?! But for regulars it kind of gets old. With the music being really loud forget trying to have an intimate conversation because you won't be able to hear each other. It'll be like "WHAT?!" "HUH?!" "WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" As if on queue the server brings our food. With failed attempts of having a conversation we decided let's dig in and eat!

Now being here several times before I've noticed the food didn't taste as good as the first time I was here. Dare I say it was a bit bland?? The only thing both my bf and I found that was good was the calamari. 1 out of 5 items is not a good sign. Adding to the disappointing food, every time you try to have a conversation the bloody music blares up again adding to our annoyance. I understand the belly dancer needs music to dance but does it have to be that loud?? The idea of having a belly dancer is great but it gets pretty annoying after the 2nd and 3rd time when you're trying to eat and she keeps shaking her hips at you getting you to dance and obviously tip her. It got to the point where you're thinking, "OMG go away just let me eat in peace, go bug someone else". You end up avoiding eye contact as well and you just keep your head down and eat. lol

All in all the experience I've had here was sub par. Seeing the price tag left a bad taste in our mouth as well. It was almost $100 for appetizers! It would be great for parties or for people who have never been there before. So if you want a intimate, quiet dinner.....go somewhere else.

Strawberry Rating:

Service: 3 strawberries out of 5

Food: 2.5 strawberries out of 5

Price: 2.5 strawberries out of 5 (cheaper if you go in a big group and share)

Cleanliness: 4 strawberries out of 5 

Overall score: 3 strawberries out of 5

You can find Koutouki at:

10719 124 Street NW

Edmonton, AB

Phone: (780) 452-5383

Happy eating!

"Great restaurants are, of course, nothing but mouth-brothels.  There is no point in going to them if one intends to keep one's belt buckled."  ~Frederic Raphael

***Please note the pictures here were not taken by me and it's not from the restaurant.

Knorr Frozen Entrées...

In this day and age, we as humans get busier and busier. With work, school, family, sports, and other hobbies or all the above, it's hard to get in a decent dinner. I for one will take the easy route and go to McDonald's and grab myself a Big Mac meal. Easy peezy don't have to bother cooking something to eat. Yes, I know I can't eat McDonald's everyday or I'll end up like that dude in the movie Super Size Me. I like my liver the way it is thank you very much, no need for it to become pâté.

While shopping at Safeway I stumbled across these Knorr frozen entrées. There's about 8 different varieties. It helps that it's on sale too. ^_~ I'm a sucker for sales. It was on sale for $9.45, wow what was the original price then? Even though it's on sale that's still a bit pricey for my taste but I digress. I thought to myself, Knorr makes great soup stocks why not try their frozen entrées? I grab the Grilled Chicken Florentine and Farfalle because all the other flavors are gone. With that in mind, they must be good!

As soon as I get home and put away all my groceries, I pull out my pot and got ready to prepare the entrée. Looking at the directions it's pretty easy and straight forward. Wow even my boyfriend can't mess this up! ^_^ You don't need to add anything, just need to heat up and in 10 minutes you got dinner. You got to pay attention though because I left to go grab something and almost burnt the pot! *nervous laugher* Anyways looking at the packaging it says it contains 2 servings. To be honest it looks like it can be 1 serving. But hey maybe it's portion control? Yeah? Yeah? No. I guess it's meant to eat with other sides, maybe a salad? Garlic bread?


I go in for the kill and hey I got to admit it's pretty darn good! It eased my hunger but I was not full, well I was full but not to the point where I got to unzip my pants so my stomach can breathe. I probably had room for more. I'm a small person at 5'2, 110lbs and if I feel that way I wonder how a 6'5, 230lbs person would feel eating that? They'll need to eat the whole bag and that might not even be enough! If you were expecting to have leftovers so you can bring it for lunch then start cooking something else because you won't have enough.

I probably will buy a couple and keep them in the freezer for those busier days but at that price tag I won't be buying it often.

Strawberry Rating:
Service: N/A
Food: 3.5 strawberries out of 5
Price: 2 strawberries out of 5
Cleanliness: N/A
Overall rating: Can't really do an average rating as 2 out of the 4 didn't apply. But I'll give it 3 strawberries out of 5. ^_^

"When baking, follow directions.  When cooking, go by your own taste." ~Laiko Bahrs

UPDATE: Apparently Knorr Frozen Entrees are no longer sold in Canada, well in Edmonton anyways. Boo-urns!

Lee House...

I am a big fan of Korean food and to know more and more Korean restaurants are opening up here in Edmonton is great! My friend introduced me to this restaurant, if it wasn't for her, I don't think I would ever find this place.

It's this tiny little restaurant off of Whyte Avenue called Lee House. Walking through the door you're greeted with the aroma of Korean food in the air and it just makes your mouth water. Looking around, you can see that it is a very small restaurant probably about 8-10 tables. If you wanted to book for a big birthday party or whatnot be prepared to book the whole restaurant. That's how small it is. We're greeted by a nice Korean server, who in a way sort of looks like one of my aunts, same hair, similar facial features...hmm...creepy.

 The server takes our drink orders right away (which is a plus) and scurries off to get our drinks. As I'm waiting for my drink, I take a browse through their menu. It's not a very big menu compared to other Asian restaurants who tend to have menus the size of accounting textbooks.

The server returns and gives us our drinks and asks if we're ready to order. We decided to order 4 items. We went with the chicken balls (kam poong gi), soon tofu stew, BBQ beef short ribs (kal-bi) and pork bone soup. While waiting for our food I noticed the restaurant has gotten a lot busier. I would recommend you either come early or make reservations if you want a table. This place is bumping!

The server returns with bowls of rice, 2 different kinds of kimchi (cabbage and daikon radish), and a plate of cooked bean sprouts. All complimentary by the way, when you run out of kimchi you can always ask for a refill, I believe the limit is 3 refills. I taste all 3 side dishes and I must say they are delicious. The cabbage kimchi was a bit salty, loved the daikon kimchi and not being a big fan of bean sprouts the cooked bean sprouts were pretty good. The advantage I have is that my boyfriend hates kimchi so I get to have it all to myself! Yum!

Shortly after the server brings out a little "hotpot burner" as my boyfriends calls them for the pork bone soup. Our food comes out right after. Everything looked delicious! Mental note for next time, order the pork bone soup when eating with more than 2 people. The soup was huge! Mind you it is about $32 CAD for the soup so it better be big! The chicken balls are deep fried and drenched with Korean sweet chili sauce, the soon tofu stew is bubbling hot in a small bowl, and the kal-bi comes out sizzling on the hot plate, be careful not to burn yourself. No more talking it's time to eat!

You know how sometimes food looks and smells great but the food tastes like crap? That's not the case here! Everything looked delicious and was delicious. I was stuffed like a turkey. I thought I had to get my boyfriend to roll me out to the car. We ask for the bill and I see for 2 people it was a bit pricey about $70 without tip, add the tip in and it'll be about $80.50. Keep in mind though we had a lot of food left over so we packed it up and save it for lunch tomorrow. I believe if you had more people come out and eat and share it probably would be a lot cheaper per person.

Overall, for the service and for the food I would definitely be back and also to try the other dishes on the menu. I recommend all the dishes that I have mentioned in this posting!

Strawberry Rating:

Service: 4 strawberries out of 5
Food: 4 strawberries out of 5
Price: 3.5 strawberries out of 5 (cheaper if you go in a big group and share)
Cleanliness: 4.5 strawberries out of 5 (they need hot water for their sink!)

Overall score: 4 strawberries out of 5

You can find Lee House at:

7904 104 Street NW

Edmonton, AB

Phone: (780) 438-0790

Happy eating!

"The belly rules the mind"  ~Spanish Proverb

***Please note the pictures here were not taken by me and it's not from the restaurant.

Who's ready to eat?!

I know I am! I've decided since I tend to eat out and cook a lot why not have a blog about the restaurants I go to and also post some of my favorite recipes? It'll help me keep track of the places I go to, have a place to store my recipes and maybe help you out with the "what's for dinner?" dilemma. I hope you all enjoy my blog! Happy eating!

"A nickel will get you on the subway, but garlic will get you a seat." ~Old New York Proverb