If there were any doubt in my mind about who is the best chef in Toronto, they were put to rest after my recent experience of the intricate flavours presented at Susur restaurant. I pride myself in being able to find and experience the best cuisine that this fair city has to offer; whether it be a mom-and-pop shop, or a classy establishment like Susur. I love to eat and enjoy even more when I’m with friends. My recent experience at Susur was far more than I could ever hope for, so I apologize if you begin salivating at my delicious recollection of the night.
Who Is Susur Lee?
Susur is a celebrated chef in Toronto with his unmistakable trademark long hair and pony tail. Originally from Hong Kong, Susur opened his first restaurant in Canada, but later became the executive chef consultant for the Tong Luk group, overseeing the quality of Singapore’s finest restaurants. (Yes, there’s always a Singaporean connection in my stories!) He opened Susur in 2000 and followed up with Lee right next door in 2004. Susur has received many critical acclaim and accolades; among which being named in the company of the top 50 restaurants in the world on many international lists.
As if those accomplishments weren’t enough, Susur is also
As I’ve reviewed previously, I was born in Singapore and lived 11 years of my life there. I am currently a dual citizen shared between Singapore and Canada and I really needed to get some things done with a Singaporean Embassy. My search for it revealed the bitter truth – only 1 Singaporean embassy exist in all of Canada!
Which cities are internationally known in Canada? Most people would agree that Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal all come to mind. My research showed that Singapore used to have embassies in both Toronto and Vancouver but the Toronto branch had been closed down for a while now. The nearest embassy to my location is now located in New York!
What’s stopping me from going to New York? That’s not the point because of the sheer inconvenience. But if I were to go to New York now that the borders between Canada and United States have tightened regulations, I would have to get my passports in order first. More delay!
This is just a rant, so you can ignore it. But if you are Singaporean-Canadian or know of any who have had the same problem as me. Do you have any advice? Much appreciated!
My obsession with finding and eating good food knows no boundaries, and I’m glad that I have friends who share an affinity with my quest! If you’ve read my previous blogs, you know that when Michael comes to town, my expertise on Toronto fine eats is put to the test. This weekend’s challenges was Indian cusine. I had eaten at quite a few Indian restaurants in the GTA but none that has floored me. I pulled out all stops asking all my Indian and Pakastani friends for ideas of authentic Indian cuisine. One restaurant keeps getting mentioned: Lahore Tikka. I knew I had to embark on this culinary adventure
I had to do some pre-adventure reconnaissance. A quick internet search yielded all positive rave reviews. I particularly enjoyed a review by SpotLightToronto.com, especially because there were pictures! There are many other promising reviews on SpotLightToronto.com, that will be sure to keep me busy in the future.
The SpotLightToronto review is spot on with all their details about Lahore Tikka. I won’t bother to rehash the same details. There were four of us on Saturday night, Michael, Allison, Rose (Michael’s cousin) and myself. Walking through the trailer doors, I was greated with a cafeteria style setting with loud Indian dance music. Lahore Tikka was still trying to build their own 2 storey restaurant building and the trailer setup though not inviting, was not why we were there.
Michael and Allison came down to Toronto for the labour day weekend. They were looking to buy furniture for their move to the new place, shocks for Mike’s car, and other miscellanous items. But we made sure to set aside some time to continue a tradition we started this year.
I think this must have been the 3rd time that we went to Ding Tai Feng. Allison really likes this place, and I have to admit that I absolutely adore the food! But it’s not a place that I get to get frequent very often. I like to keep such a venue for special occasions.
Ding Tai Feng is a restaurant franchise that originated in Taiwan, it have various locations all over the world. Here is a review of the Shanghai location that I found over the internet. I’d suggest you disregard any mention of animosity between Taiwan and China in the review as food really is not about politics! Nonetheless, the restaurant’s specialities are their soup dumplings – ‘Xiao Long Bao’. The soup dumplings are packed with juice inside, and one usually pokes a hole in the dumpling, let the juice seap out onto the spoon, and savour it before consuming the dumpling.
This has been a favourite tradition of ours, and there are not many things more enjoyable than having good friends, good food and good conversation!
Once in a while, nature decides to humble humanity and the results are both spectacular and devastating. Where’s Noah’s ark when you need one? On Friday, August 19 2005, one huge storm blew over the Greater Toronto Area, leaving many without power, cars submerged in flooded streets and generally causing huge inconvienence to everyone who the unfortunate luck to live in the worst hit parts of town. A tornado even touched down near Fergus, Geulpeh (thankfully no where close to us).
To put it into perspective, the wind speeds of the tornada were 240km/h. The rain fell so hard, that you can see the results was a flash flood. River banks were overflowing, low lying areas were collecting all the water, and travel slowed to a crawl. Toronto police had to use jetskis to rescue some of the stranded drivers!
The flood also affected my area of residence, but I do count myself very lucky indeed. The basement of my house was flooded, but nothing muc was really damaged by the thin layer of water. Things really stink now as the carpets are soaked, and it’ll be a lot of time before it truly dries up.
To compound the problem, the power box outside of my house for the wholestreet was half submerged in water, causing elecrical problems and blackout for the entire street. We had water, but could not dry it for lack of no power. And I had no way until 24 hours later when Torono Hydro was finally able to come fix it. I wouldn’t blame them because there were so many little blackout areas throughout the city.
All’s well that ends well. I am thankful that nothing of importance was damaged, but still this is way I’d rather have snow than rain!
My mother is a practicing mormon and I’m very happy for her to have found this community. I myself have no use for a religion but I’m certainly glad that hers brought her down to the Greater Toronto Area this weekend. She and her church members have to make a pilgrimage to a temple in Brampton once a year. I received her email saying that she’d like to spend a day with me, and I was elated to prepare for it.
She mentioned that she wanted to visit the CN Tower, so it would be the central theme of the day. After picking her up at the temple, we went for a good lunch and also went back to let her see my living area. Being a mother, she immediatley pointed out what was deficient in my living setup, and we immediately had to go to Walmart to purchase the missing necessities. It was near 3pm when we were done, so we started heading downtown and I took her on her first Toronto subway ride to Union Station. We took the SkyWalk to the CN tower and enjoyed the scenary and tour for the next couple of hours. One of the highlights was taking my mother on the “simulator” ride. She had never been on one before and it was absolutely fun for her.
It was a perfect match. I had never been to the CN tower myself at all so to be able to spend a day with her doing these activities was quite like heaven. My mother remarked that it would be too bad for any of my future girlfriends, since I wouldn’t be able to capture that first time feeling using the CN tower on a date again. We went all the way up to the skypod of the CN tower, the tallest observation deck available to the public in the world. When I first stepped out and saw the view of the CN tower observation deck beneath me along with the skydome, I was pretty scared. I do have a little fear of heights but I did adjust to the view within minutes.
I had obtained free tickets to the Toronto Blue Jays vs Boston Red Sox baseball game so we left CN Tower to go the Roger Center (formely known as SkyDome) as people were filling in the seats. I’ve been baseball games before, but never had as good a seat as I did this time around, just off the 1st base in row 15. I taught mother the rules and how to watch baseball. She was very quickly knowledgable and calling the strikes and balls herself! Foul balls flew close to the left and right of us, and I have to admit, I’m not a fan of watching baseball, on TV or live. But this game was something else! It helped that the Jays played very well against the World Champs and jumped out in front with an exciting 6-0 first inning. Absolutely Thrilling!
We left at the seventh inning stretch, to beat the traffic, have dinner and rest up for the night at my place. The Jays went on to win 8-2. I feel very proud to have shared this day with mother.
So it was the night before we were all heading to the 2005 auto show in Toronto. Michael and Allison came down earlier and went to the Vaughn Mills shopping mall. I got their call when they were leaving the mall and told him that we should go Korean BBQ. I knew Dave and Pierre were coming too but they were going to pick up Victor near midtown Toronto.
We were meeting up at the Korean BBQ in the Commerce Gate Mall at Highway 7 & Commerce Valley Drive West. Mike and Allison were already there, but we waited for a bit before the boys joined us. And then we were down to business.
An interesting story and more pictures after the jump …
