What I Ate: Laduree, Toronto

Laduree's store at Yorkdale Mall opened last December. The line was too long then for me to come to the store. My Mom and I met up at Yorkdale Mall to celebrate my birthday early. When we passed by the store, there was no line so we took advantage of it. 

I love interior of the store. It's a pastel heaven! Everything was cute!

Hard to choose what flavour to get. I had tons of choices!

I got a box of 6 macarons for $27. Love the boxed packaging!

My cute Turquoise box.

I picked 2 pistachios (my Mom ate want already), salted caramel, chocolate, passion fruit, and rose petal. 

You can also dine inside the store. They have a selection of sandwiches, soups, cakes, and of course macarons. And also gourmet tea's and coffee. 

What I Ate: Soos Resturant

I keep forgetting to post photos and write blog posts about restaurants that I try in Toronto. I usually post it on instagram but this dinner was really good so I want to immortalize it here on my blog. And I really want to write more restaurant recommendations for tourists coming to Toronto. 

We celebrated my eldest sister's birthday here at Soos Restaurant (Malaysian fusion). It was a girl's weekend! We opted for an early reservation so that we can enjoy each other's company longer. And we knew the restaurant will be busy later on the night. 

We all ordered the "feed me" for $38 pp. We wanted to all taste their favourite dishes. 

Pulled kapitan tacos - house made tacos with nappa carrot slaw with tzatziki

Pork belly pancakes - nyonya sticky soy pork bellly on a crispy taro root pancake. I really loved the crispy taro root pancake! I could eat it all all day.

Light Cafe

After the big CNY feast, we walked over to Baldwin Street to search for dessert. We found Light Cafe because we wanted pastries (well the girls did).

The first thing that you notice is the plant wall! And the first thing I said was, "this place is so instagrammable!". We all went crazy taking photos of that wall before we sat down to get our order.

This is a new cafe that opened up on Baldwin. I've been coming to this street for years now since I used to work close to it and I have seen this street go through different changes. Restaurants opening and closing all the time. I hope this one sticks around. I used to go to Margarita's all the time for Mexican food and now I also go to Kinton ramen. Lovely street to explore if you love food!

My boyfriend ordered this flowering jasmine tea. I shared it with him because it was really too much for one person to finish. It's really good and quite strong. I guess you can add more hot water if you want to dilute it a bit.

Shared this with one of the girls- seasonal mille fille. Super pretty and quite yummy too! I don't think I could have finished this alone too.

And they have this really hipster cotton candy coffee. I'm not a coffee person but our friend enjoyed it.

Overall, it was a fun experience. Lovely decor, good food, and drinks. Will definitely come back here to try the fresh waffles next time! 

**not sponsored post.

Chinese New Year Feast

I never say no to any celebration so it was no different that I celebrated the Lunar New Year with friends. We went to King Crab Seafood Restaurant in Chinatown. The restaurant was full and everyone was in a jolly mood and drinking Maria Christina wine. I'm not sure why almost every table there had the exact brand of wine (it was not being served by the restaurant).

As you can see, we ordered so much food but it was for 6 people. We ordered a combo and added more dishes to it. It was still a lot but we managed to finish everything off.

I'm not a veggie person but this dish made me a convert. Snow peas with king mushrooms.

 Fried fish with blackpepper sauce.

Sweet and sour pork.

Before the table became too full.

This is one of my favourite dishes and I actually cook it at home. Eggplant with minced pork.

Since I'm allergic to crab we ordered the Hong Kong style lobster.

 Lobster with E-Fu noodles.

Christmas Market 2016

I never pass up the opportunity to visit the Distillery District Christmas Market. It's a tradition now with A to visit every year. We usually go during the week to avoid the crowds and the entrance fee (haha!). 

It was freezing cold this time and I actually almost cancelled our date but changed my mind after having tacos for dinner!

It's always fun to walk around and find installations where you can take photos because it changes every year. I love the light up words they have dotted around the whole Distillery District.

And I love popping in and out of shops to look for gifts as well. Some of the shops go all out in decorations.

But everyone's favourite is always the giant tree outside! It's the best!

And I'm so glad I went because it powered up my Christmas spirit. Now, I'm very excited about Christmas and I can't wait to spend it with family and friends. 

Summer Part II

It has been a busy but fun summer! Lots of sunshine and friends visiting from various parts of the world. You can read about how I spent my first part of summer here.

I ended up going camping again. This time we went all the way west to Pinery Provincial Park. I was so happy to have found this place!!! It was heaven!!

I love love this Provincial Park. I love the sand dunes, no mosquitoes, and the sunsets of course! We saw the most glorious sunsets ever! The best one was on our last night. We made sure to come to the beach early to catch it from the beginning to end. It was very magical!

I loved the beach as well although it was rocky and the lake is very wavy!

 And nothing beats summer bbq outside with wood. It tastes x1000 better!

I also had a chance to go to the Toronto Beer Festival. It's always fun every year. I especially love sampling ciders and they had plenty this year. We are having a cider boom in Toronto! and I picked a few favourites from the samples I got.

Another event was the Feast of St. Lawrence Market. We got to dine outside the street and had the most delicious meals with wine pairings from Niagara region.

It was a really fun event and for a great cause!

I also went to the Craft Beer Festival at Steam Whistle. It's much smaller than the Beer Festival in terms of size but it was a lot of fun! Lots of food trucks and beer tents. They had less cider selections but I enjoyed it anyways.

And who can say no to ice cream? This one was from La Diperie. It's soft serve ice cream and you can dip it in chocolate, dark chocolate, etc. and add a whole lot of toppings as you wish! Lots of fun but plenty of calories.

My good friend Keiko came to visit us in Toronto! This is our second time meeting up this year. I have to post my Japan/Taiwan trip earlier this year. It's always so nice to see her!

I took her for lunch at St. Lawrence Market. The picture above is from Carousel Bakery. They serve a "breakfast special". It's basically peameal bacon with egg on a bun. It's SUPER delicious! I used to eat that for breakfast back in college. I got to show her around here and sample more delicious treats!

Nothing beats this view of the Toronto skyline!

A good friend of mine got married in Cambridge. This was their reception set-up. We dined al fresco! It was amazing! The food was great and my friends were the most laid back couple I know. It was perfect and fun! I danced all night and broke one of shoe. It was a very good night!

The next day after the wedding, we walked around Cambridge and had brunch with our friends. It was the perfect long weekend!

I can't really complain on how this summer has turned out except for the 3 weeks sore throat/cold I got at the end of August that still lingers on. But that was probably a good thing because it forced me to sleep more and rest.   

I hope you had a great summer! Now let's bring on Fall.