Kinton Ramen didn't measure up to my ramen standards

I've been hearing about this new ramen place called Kinton Ramen which has recently opened by the owners of Guu.   I also heard about the 40min line up, so today we went there around 5pm to avoid the wait, hoping for a yummy bowl of ramen.

I ordered the Kinton Pork Ramen which came with extra pieces of pork.  You have a choice of the regular soup base or light soup base.  I chose the regular soup base and pork belly and I got three pieces of thick, fatty pork belly.  Typically, you would expect to get some chashu with your ramen, but this was no chashu.  Personally, I like pork belly, but this pork belly was fatty but not very tender...not my favourite.  Their ramen noodles were the cheap quality, translucent kind that you would expect to get at a Japanese restaurant that doesn't specialize in ramen.  The soup base was ok.  I didn't think it was too salty as some people have been commenting.  Overall, I was not impressed with this $12.8 bowl of ramen and I expected more from Guu.

2hung ordered the Spicy Garlic Ramen which only came with one piece of pork belly, so I gave him some of mine which I wasn't very fond of anyway, hehe, sorry.

 The gyozas were mediocre.

If I had to summarize my review of Kinton Ramen in one sentence, I would use the Japanese phrase "juunen hayain da yo!" (You are 10 years too early!).

Jiro Dreams of Sushi - a must see for all foodies

I had been eyeing this movie for the longest time.  Jiro Dreams of Sushi is playing now at the TIFF Bell Lightbox until Thursday, May 24.  Good thing, my friend told me that it was playing, or else I would've missed it.  You can check the showtimes here.
85 year old Jiro Ono is the only Michelin three-star sushi chef in the world.  I hope I will have the honour of eating at his restaurant one day.  Make sure you go into the movie with a full stomach because you will leave the theatre feeling hungry after.

Fun in Vegas 2012

The girls and I were in Vegas a couple of weekends ago to celebrate a friend's bachelorette party.  We ended up doing mostly shopping and walking around the strip, nothing crazy that you would expect on a regular Vegas trip :P  I'm surprised that there are so many new hotels since my last trip there two years ago.  We stayed at the Luxor this time.  I've been inside the hotel before but never stayed there.  The rooms were alright for the price that we paid, pretty standard rooms, nothing luxurious.

 

Glimpses of Winnipeg - March - April 2012

I have been working in Winnipeg for almost two months now, and I just wanted to share little bits of what I've seen so far in the city of Winnipeg.  The first night that I was there, we were invited to a Jets game at the MTS Centre.  This was my first time at a hockey game and the atmosphere was quite amazing.  Even though I don't normally watch hockey, it was quite an experience to watch a live game from a box.

 

The Forks is a famous place to gather in Winnipeg.  There's a small market and some small shops inside.  Similar to the St. Lawrence market, but a much smaller version.  This is right by where we work so we walk over for lunch every once in a while and get a view of the river.

Based on a recommendation from a colleague, we found a nice cozy restaurant called Segovia which serves up some wonderful tapas.  The restaurant is inside a house.  The dining area is quite small and they don't take reservations, so you probably want to limit your party to a small number.

 

My colleague and I over-ordered a bit.  We had five tapas in total.  First was a biscuit with prosciutto. 

 The a skewer of octopus and chorizo.

 Then we had the duck breast with hummus.  This was my favourite dish.

 We had a kabob of goat.

 And a beef tartar that we had to mix ourselves.

We finished off with a dessert of chocolate torte and ice-cream.  We were so stuffed!

Buttery Treats at Butter Avenue

A couple of weeks ago, we dropped by the Yonge and York Mills area and decided to go into Butter Avenue because it was recommended by a friend of ours.  We tasted the chocolate croissant and a bunch of macarons, along with some of their teas.  The croissant was buttery soft with many fluffy layers.  Reminded me of the croissants I would get when I was in Montreal.

There were a large variety of macaron flavours.  I thought the flavours were quite nice but the meringue was a little more chewy than I would have liked.

 

Their cakes looked pretty amazing, but the prices were a little too high ($7.25 for a small slither!), so we didn't try any of them.

Overall, this place would've been great to come to if it was located a bit closer to the subway line.  It is right smack in the middle of York Mills and Lawrence on Yonge and closer to the Loblaws, so not a lot of shops around there.  I think most people would stay along the area where the rest of the shops are located closer to Lawrence.

Ready to Run!

My fiance signed me up for the Sporting Life 10k Run for Kids with Cancer, so I decided that I'll need some new running gear for optimal performance.  Here's what I picked up from Lululemon.

Run Your Heart Out Tank

Run: Inspire Crop II

I also made a running playlist based on the song suggestions from jog.fm.

Now all I have to do is run!

Montreal Week 1

Haven't been back to Montreal in over a year.  I'll be spending two weeks here for work, so I took the chance to try out some new restaurants.
You've probably heard about how Laurier BBQ fired Gord Ramsay recently.  Despite the fact, we still gave the restaurant a try to see what gourmet rotisserie chicken tastes like.  The restaurant is a very nice hang out and there were still lots of diners at 8:30pm on a Tuesday night.  I got the 1/4 chicken leg with fries and coleslaw.  Their gravy was pretty good.  We kept comparing what we were eating to another rotisserie chicken joint called Scores.  I preferred Laurier BBQ's gravy and coleslaw, but I think Scores has better fries.  My fries were a bit over-fried.