Hwang Kum

Hi all!

I have taken advantage of my summer vacations to try out many restaurants. I believe that after Chez Hwang, I discovered another one of the best Korean restaurants in Montreal. This one is called Hwang Kum. The place is a lot smaller than Chez Hwang but the food is just as succulent!

Hwang Kum serves 5 side dishes. The radish cubes and bean sprouts taste rather ordinary. The cucumber tastes sweet. The one I like the most is the marinated potatoes and the kimchi comes with a pair of scissors and you get the cut the spicy cabbage. It's a small detail but it makes the restaurant more unique!

One of the popular dish at Hwang Kum must be the seafood pancake. The first time I went there, every single table ordered it. The pancake smells amazing and it tastes just as good! They don't use a lot of flour to make up the "emptiness" of the pancake, and instead, they put a lot of shredded carrots and cucumber to make it more filling. Trust me, the pancake is crispy and fluffy!! It is definitely the best Korean seafood pancake I have had!

The yummy sauce that comes with the seafood pancake. Although it looks spicy, it is not at all. It is slightly salty and sour.

Does it look delicious?

This is the spicy soft tofu soup. The tofu is ultra soft, so soft that you will forget you are eating! The only drawback is that there is solely tofu in the tofu soup, while you usually have seafood or pork served in this soup in other restaurants. The broth is also more spicy and not very "sweet".

Spicy chicken is fabulous! The meat is very tender and is not too spicy. It also came in big portion. I usually do not order chicken when comes the time for Korean meals because it is not very classic "Korean". But this one is so delicious! It is to be mentioned that this spiciness is not the same as the spiciness of the spicy tofu soup. This chicken is not very spicy and you taste a certain sweetness. I highly recommend it.

Spicy octopus served with noodles. One of my favourite at Hwang Kum. The sauce is so soo soooo succulent! There is not a lot of octopus, but the combination of the vegetables and the sauce served with the noodles is so perfect. It looks small in my picture but it is supposed to be a dish for 2 people, and you cannot order the 1 person portion. Priced at $29, it is a specialty of Hwang Kum that you should not miss!

Hwang Kum

5908 Sherbrooke Ouest

Montreal, Quebec,

H4A 1X7

(514) 487-1712

Fashion nails

Do you like my new art work? ; ) This was supposed to be posted long time ago. It was some day during the Christmas vacations. I went to my friend's house because she wanted me to prepare her nails for her California trip!

For this manicure, I used China Glaze Sexy Lady and another grey nail polish that my friend bought from Europe. The name was unkown to me but it was nice grey creme.

These are some nail accessories that we found at my friend's house. To add some final touches to the nail art, I added the cute ones that looked like sequins. The sequins, along with the pink and grey colours, this manicure really looks like a piece of clothes! What do you think?

The nails here look super shiny because we put several coats of Seche Vite top coat to make sure that every single sequin would stay. I think it worked well and it was also this day that I found out how Seche Vite top coats dry really vite (fast)!! d=

Airbrush design

Do you like my nails? The picture is not very clear because it was taken in a restaurant, and it was dark. Anyway, this airbrush design was not very well done so a picture in the dark makes it look nicer d=

I went to do my nails with a friend at a very small nail place. Equipment and skill was a little poor hahaha so it took the aesthetician a very very long time to finish spraying the powder on our nails. However, the shaping part was done very fast and result was satisfying. Both my friend and I like the shapes of our nails. Only the airbrush itself was a little disappointing. Our nail tip are not completely covered so you could still see the white part of my nails, and on some of our nails, the design is not complete... I still think airbrush can give us very lovely results so next time, we will just try another salon ; )

Valentine's dinner @Aikawa

This was my Valentine's Day celebration dinner with my boyfriend. Every year, I ask my boyfriend to pick the restaurant because I always find that it is the guy's job to do all the preparation for Valentine's Day d=

My boyfriend picked Aikawa, a restaurant in the West Island. For a long time, Aikawa had been our favourite Japanese restaurant. It's been a year we haven't visited Aikawa, so my boyfriend thought it would nice to have a lovely Valentine's meal there, but sadly, it was a d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r!

We entered the restaurant and noticed a big change in the personnel. I have a feeling that this is the reason that the very good Aikawa has become an amateur restaurant!

This was the Valentine's menu.

Since it was a menu for 2 people, I think it is just natural that customers expect 1 soup and 1 entree for each person. The waiter asked us if we wanted a soup or the appetizer Heaven Deluxe. This was not the problem, even though on the menu, it said clearly miso soup AND Heaven Deluxe, it was still ok to me. I thought that sometimes we make miso soup at home, so it was better to choose Heaven Deluxe, so both my boyfriend and I opted for the Heaven Deluxe.
The waiter came back with a soup and the Heaven Deluxe entree. Why? because apparently, it was not a choice. We have one soup and one Heaven Deluxe. Does it sound weird to you guys? I mean, it is a set menu for 2. Are we expected to share a soup? Ok, and then I thought maybe because it is a menu for a couple, and it was for Valentine's Day, so it could be cute and sweet to share a warm bowl of soup...but there was only 1 spoon...
This was the Heaven Deluxe. It was similar to a sushi pizza. Basically, it was a fried rice cake topped with smoked salmon and crab mixed with mayonnaise and caviar. At the moment I ate it, I found it ok, not outstanding, but not bad.
We could choose 3 specialities from the menu. The first one I chose was the Rainbow Sashimi because I am a sashimi lover. From far, the plate looked appetizing. When it arrived to the table, I noticed that the pieces of fish were not cut evenly, they were all of different size..but the worse was really the taste! If you are an asian and eat steamed fish, you know what I am talking about. The sauce taste exactly like steamed fish. I am almost sure it is the same soya sauce and boiling oil used for Chinese steamed fish. It tastes good but not for sashimi....it was very weird and the saddest part was that the pieces of sashimi was warm! Honestly, I found this Rainbow Sashimi more than horrible.
After the disappointing sashimi, my boyfriend and I expected that this Empress would impress us like before. This specialty was not part of the choices in the Valentine's menu, but since it was my favourite roll at Aikawa, we had to order it! It came nice, but the portion obviously got a lot smaller. The restaurant is not as generous in the sauce either.. and it made a huge difference. When we were eating this wonderful roll, we did not have the joy we used to have before anymore..and to be priced at $16, it was a disappointment.
Volcano is a specialty that we have had tried before. It is supposed to look and taste amazing. The waiter comes and he puts fire on the sushi roll. It really reminds you of a volcano. But on this night, there was just toooo much alcohol, the bottom sushi was like soaked in alcohol. I really didn't like it!
Lastly, there was the Summer roll. When this plate got to our table, I immediately told my boyfriend that I would never come back again if the quality is this poor. There was so much cucumber for this little filling, plus, the cucumber was a little dry. Funny huh?
The Mont-Tremblant dessert was a better success. It was vanilla ice cream served with deep fried Kinder Bueno chocolate. It was pretty good, but honestly, it really had nothing to do with Japanese cuisine. Although Aikawa has never been very Japanese in the decor, and even the personnel was not entirely Asian, we have always found that the food served to us was good enough. But this night, I just want to say that the new owner or staff should just stick to perhaps French cuisine and forget about Aikawa as a Japanese restaurant. This dessert was simple yet delicious. If the restaurant can continue in this path, it might have a brighter future.

Briefly, this Valentine's dinner was a total failure in my opinion. Not only the food was disappointing, service was incredibly slow too. The whole dinner lasted for about 3 hours, and it costed over 100$. For the price we paid, I believe we could have found much better food!

All those who have tried Aikawa before or recently, what do you think? Share your experience with us!

Chez Hwang

Hi everyone!

It's been a while, I miss blogging! This semester is my busiest one so far. Forgive me for not being able to blog weekly as I planned..

This post is about the all you can eat Korean BBQ at Chez Hwang. As I said, I love Chez Hwang's bulgogi and kalbi. The beef is absolutely sweet and tender. I have been waiting for a long time, and finally, yesterday night, I went to the restaurant with my boyfriend and 4 other friends to eat a lot of their Korean BBQ.

At Chez Hwang, the all you can eat BBQ is only for tables of at least 6 people. This is why it took me a while to enjoy the all you can eat... Since my friends and I are in our reading week, we could finally gather together again and simply relax and eat some succulent food.

The all you can eat menu does not offer a big variety. We could choose only bulgogi (marinated beef), pork and thinly cut beef brisket. The spicy chicken, which I never tried, and the yummy kalbi (ribs) are not part of the menu for all you can eat.

A miso soup is included in the meal, and like previously mentioned, it is so so and a little too salty. My friends agreed with me, but since we don't pay for it, we don't complain. A basket of lettuce is given too (to wrap the meat), but to refill it, we have to pay 3$, so we were contented with our bowl of rice d=

Starting from left: pork, beef brisket.

As you can see, the meat is not marinated, so you need to dip in their red paste sauce that resembles a little to miso.

The famous tender and sweet bulgogi. We were 6 and we probably ordered 4 plates of this (and we could have had more). It was magically flavourful!

I noticed that there is always only 1 waiter/waitress in the restaurant. So service can be slow sometimes. I suggest you go with the idea to spend time to slowly eat and chat with your friends. Last night was a very relaxing and fun night. Food was really amazing! If you love Korean BBQ, find a few friends to enjoy Chez Hwang's all you can eat bulgogi. My friends and I found that the marinated beef was really the only food we needed in the menu d=

Chez Hwang

5545 Chemin Upper Lachine,

Montreal, Quebec,

514 484 5263

Japon Sushi Bar

Hi readers!

Anyone needs ideas for a romantic dinner for the coming-soon Valentine's Day? Tonight, I want to share with you the wonderful meal my boyfriend and I had at a Japanese restaurant two years ago. It was our first Valentine's Day, and I remember we had a quiz the next day...To make things easier, we simply chose a restaurant that was not too far from where we live. And surprise! What a delicious dinner!

The name of the restaurant is Japon. It is not a place that I particularly love, but their Valentine's menu was sooo good. This was the menu placed on the table and inside was a candle. Of course, candles are a must to make a romantic dinner heheheh It was an omakase 5 courses dinner, priced 48$ per person. I found every course very special, they were all dishes that you cannot find in the menu in regular time.
Unfortunately, I took only 2 pictures...but overall, I enjoyed everything I ate. This one was the main course, a mixed of traditional and creative sushi platter. Yummmmy!! My favourite ones were no doubt the grilled beef sushi and the crab sushi. It was 2 years ago, but I still remember the smokiness I smelled and tasted in every bite. Succulent!
I have always found that desserts were never very emphasized in the Asian cuisine, but voila my surprise =) Japon Sushi Bar is more like a fusion restaurant, especially this Valentine's menu had a lot of non-asian elements in it, such as gazpacho, etc. I personally find this "Indecent Proposal" came in a very simple but elegant presentation. It looks like the type of plate you would get in those Iron Chef show. I completely fell in love with it. Every part in the plat was not too sweet, refreshing and delightful. It was an unexpected and unforgettable surprise!

Any of you has tried Japon Sushi Bar before? I am usually not a big fan of the restaurant, it is rather an ok place to me, but this Valentine's menu, I am willing to give it a 4.5 stars! d=

Japon Sushi Bar

1320 Boul. Marcel-Laurin

Ville Saint-Laurent, Quebec,

H4R 1J9

Hi my dearest readers!

School has started, and i have a very very early schedule this semester.. Only 2 days, and I feel I am exhausted..but in 2012, I will try my best to blog as regularly and often as i can! =)

Today's post is another one about lunch. This time, it's at my favourite Raku Izakaya. The pictures are really not that nice and probably won't make you drool..However, my other Raku pictures from my previous posts should assure you about the restaurant's quality ; )

Since Brossard is so far, I usually don't go to Raku for lunch. The only time I enjoyed a lunch there was during summer. Recently, I noticed that there has been some changes in their menu.. Take a look! Prices vary from 7.50$ to 15$. You can get a decent lunch for around 12$.

This was the salad that was included. It was a plain green salad. Now, if you want to have a salad with your lunch, you have to pay 1$, so maybe the salad you get will be a little fancier.
Curry Katsu Pork Rice. It is a cutlet of pork, deep fried, served with rice and curry sauce. The Japanese curry is not very spicy. The same is thicker and has a light sweetness. A good Pork Katsu should have the deep fried "batter skin" stick to the pork, and this is an example of a successful one.
This was a yummy sushi platter, with maki and nigiri. You see that Raku is not a restaurant that tries to give you cheap avocado or cucumber maki. Instead, a delicious spicy salmon maki was served on the plate. Otherwise, the big roll was a California roll, and the 4 pieces of nigiri were mainly classic sushi. On that day, we had tuna, shrimp, saba, and slightly "grilled" salmon sushi.
This one is my favourite chirashi. It does not include as much seafood as the dinner chirashi. If I remember correctly, the price for lunch is about 10$ lower. Yet, I could still enjoy my succulent sea urchin.
In the end, a scoop of green tea or red bean ice cream to perfect the lunch.
For more updated information, please check:

http://www.rakusushi.ca/menu-midi.pdf

Lunch specials @Hyang Jin

Hyang Jin's lunch bentos are all $9.95 +tax. Other choices include Hwe Dup Bap, soup udon, etc. These prices range from $6.95 to $12.95 +tax. All lunch specials come with a miso soup or a salad, a side dish of seaweed or kimchi, an ice cream.

This is the miso soup. I love it when it comes super boiling hot, with a lot of green onions and seaweed.
This is the sashimi bento. The bento comes with rice, salad, and a lot of vegetable and shrimp tempura. There are other bentos such as beef teriyaki bento, california roll bento, sushi bento. They are all delicious! If you like tempura, this Hyang Jin bento is definitely the lunch for you. For only about 10$, you get to eat your tempura with choice of another Japanese dish.
I like to have a light lunch. And since I love sashimi so much, I almost always get the sashimi set. It comes like this, beautiful and colourful. This day, the portion was slightly smaller...but I still love it!
Bibimbap is the famous Korean rice on a hot stone bowl. It is part of Hyang Jin's lunch menu, and it is priced for only $9.99 +tax. Inside are beef and many traditional marinated veggies. It is yummy too, and it's the one that my boyfriend usually gets. For hot dish lovers, this might be a good choice.
A scoop of ice cream comes in the end. Usually, you get to choose between green tea ice cream and red bean ice cream, and occasionally, Hyang Jin serves mango ice cream as well.

Has any of you tried Hyang Jin during lunch time? What do you think?

Lunch specials @Ottavio

Hi everyone!

The coming posts will be all about lunch specials at various restaurants. The first one I present to you is Ottavio.

Ottavio is an Italian restaurant specialized in pasta, pizza and mussels & fries. I have tried all of them and they all taste delicious. I personally find that Ottavio makes the best pasta. The spaghetti or penne is never never too cooked, it's something that many restaurants fail to do. You can find Ottavio at 2 locations: Saint-Laurent and Laval. The first Ottavio was open in ville St-Laurent. After about a year, the owner could open another one in Laval because of the great success of the first restaurant.

The place itself is very big and the personnel is always very friendly. Prices are very affordable and all the main dishes usually come in more than enough proportion. Today's post will be about Ottavio's lunch specials.

The basic pasta is 9$, with tea or coffee included. You get to make your own pasta, meaning that you choose the pasta, the sauce and anything you want in it. For meat, you have to add 2$-3$, but you don't have to add meat if you want to go with a simple cheap lunch. You get to choose up to 3 vegetables with the basic 9$. If you want a more complete lunch, you can get a soup for 2$, or a salad for 2$, and even unlimited soft drinks for 2$.

Here are 3 examples of pasta I or my friend created d=


Take a look at their menu. I find the basic 9$ or even 11$ with a soup or salad is a very good deal.

http://www.ottavio.ca/aboutus.htm

Skin Food nail polish

Have you heard of Skin Food nail lacquers? I was first introduced to Skin Food by a friend who uses this brand's BB cream. Later, when my mother went back to Hong Kong this summer, she also bought me a Skin Food BB cream. As far as I know, this is a Korean cosmetic brand...and it stops here! hahahha Until today, I went to my friend's house for a relaxing princess day, and guess what I have discovered? A bottle of Skin Food pink nail polish!

This must be the cutest nail polish in the market!! The bottle is totally like a baby milk bottle. I find it marvellously unique. It is printed "Milk Creamy Nails". I think the company really had in mind to create a lovely milk bottle to attract all us girls. d= Many nail polishes, especially from those big expensive brands, tend to have a square shape, which I find a bit boring now, for the mature look. Skin Food, on the other hand, has not only a more round shape, but also transforms the simple look into an amusing baby bottle with so many little details. If I see one in a boutique, I will definitely buy it!!

Do you see the ruler and the "ml"? How can you resist to the cuteness of the bottle? The nail polish colour of my friend's is a light creme pink with a hint of orange. I opened the bottle, but the nail lacquer looked a little old because it was a little too thick. I have a feeling that painting on the nails will not be a pleasant experience. I would still like to try it next time though..at least to see the cute nail polish bottle heheheh

Fairies

This is a simple nail art. I added some black fairies and some purple flowers on my pink nails. The bubbles that come with the fairy design on the Konad plate are so lovely and add a hint of fairy tale. I really like to "cut" the image when I do my konadicures; I don't stamp the entire image to make each nail unique. I thought that it might not work as well when it comes to fairies..but the result isn't bad, isn't it? d= The colours and design remind me of spring. What do you think?

Until next time,

Miss K

OPI Sparrow Me the Drama

m20, m39

Raku Izakaya

Hello everyone!

One of my 2012's resolutions is to try to blog more often and more regularly =)

Tonight, I want to share with you guys some delights from Raku Izakaya again! Towards the end of the year is the anniversary with my sweet boyfriend. It did not take long before we decided to have our meaningful day at Raku.

For appetizer, we had something light and simple: korokke. It is deep fried mashed potato, served with a slightly spicy mayonnaise. I have had korokke with corn at Raku before. I like the latter better because the corn brings a sweetness to it.
If you have been following my blog for a long time, you know that I had raku lobster once for Valentine's day at Raku Izakaya. For some reason, the owner removed this succulent dish from the menu. Nevertheless, he is very nice and would try his best to satisfy all the customers. We are welcome to call them in advance and pre-order anything we want to eat. He tries to get the freshest ingredient to prepare the delight we want. This is how my boyfriend and I could enjoy the wonderful Raku lobster =)
To prepare the baked Raku lobster, it was not necessary to get the fresh alive lobster. The owner said that even the frozen one would do. So last night's meal included only the lobster tail (if you order lobster sashimi for example, the owner will buy a whole lobster and prepare delights with different parts of the lobster).

The first time, my palate was not as developed..hahhaha I couldn't really tell what exactly was used to make this yummy dish. But this time, my sense of tasting has improved hehehhe In the Raku Lobster, I could taste egg, miso, mayonnaise, a little bit of cheese. All this baked and finally topped with some red caviar that pops in your mouth. I found it was so delicious!
Sushi is definitely a must at a japanese restaurant. These are what we ordered:
Carnivore maki includes beef filet mignon sashimi, ginger, tempura flakes. It is 13.50$ and comes with only 5 pieces but it is amazingly delicious!! If you find this maki too pricey, a great alternative would be Raku's beef sashimi.
666 is a maki from Raku that for the first time, I did not really enjoy. It is a spicy roll, with spicy fish, spicy sauce..mixed with avocado and tempura flakes are a combination that I usually like. However, the cajun powder on the rice was too strong for me, and this was what I disliked.
Gozilla was a nice maki roll, but it is not the best from Raku Izakaya. Inside were grilled eel, caviar, cucumber, tempura flakes. On top of the maki were bonito flakes, seaweed flakes and spicy mayonnaise. I would say that when I put the maki in the mouth, it was as though I was eating a takoyaki.
We can never forget about my favourite uni, sea urchin sushi at Raku. We ordered 4 nigiri and again, my boyfriend was sweet enough to eat only 1 and leave the rest of the sushi for me. Sometimes, I wonder if it is truly because he is this lovely or is it simply because he does not love uni as much as I do.. d=
Lastly, we also pre-ordered the milk pudding that was no longer in the menu for a while.
Again, it was very soft, but this time a little sweeter for my taste. The presentation was so cute! I remember that the first time we had it, the pudding had a layer of green tea milk on top, this time it was just plain...I think green tea milk would have made the dessert perfect!

Raku Izakaya
8080 boulevard Taschereau
Brossard, Quebec
J4X 1C2
450-671-7386