Shanghai Bund in Unionville, Canada

I was really excited about spending my birthday in Canada and wanted to try out some new dishes. After spending a great deal of time reading forums, I stumbled upon some wonderful reviews of a place called Shanghai Bund. This place was known for having really good Beggar's Chicken and Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings). Growing up I've watch many wuxia movies based on Louis Cha's novels and was curious to see what the famous beggar's chicken tasted like. The version made in restaurants these days seem very elaborate and orders must be place a day in advance. I called Shanghai Bund to make reservations the day before my meal and when i got there they told me they ran out!!! i was really disappointed since i wanted to enjoy a nice birthday meal. The service there was also bad, maybe because I'm not chinese?? Instead of the chicken, I had some soup dumplings and spicy crabs. After our food came out, we had to wait almost 10 minutes before they brought out some rice (after reminding them twice). The soup dumplings and crab were pretty good, but I was disapointed about not being able to have the beggar's chicken. Then after we paid our bill and headed out, I saw the waiter bring out an order of beggar's chicken for another table!!! I'm not sure what the deal was, is it because I didn't speak Chinese?? Over all the service everywhere I went just totally SUCKED!



Spicy Szechuan Crabs (at least 62 red chilis in this baby!)

Toronto Chinatown - Fruits

We all know that Vancouver B.C. has the best Chinese food outside of China so how does Toronto compare? Well, initially I thought it'd be pretty good, especially after spending hours on chowhound and finding rave restaurant reviews but boy was it a culinary disappointment! The two things that I found really good were: 1) all the yummieeee fruits (I heart mangosteens!) and 2) Banh Mi` Nguyen Huong (delicious banh mi pa te cha for 1.50!).

The "long kong" fruits belong to the same family has a fruit called the "langsat", they're exotic fruits from Thailand. The ones I got this time were pretty sweet!(http://www.simply-thai.com/Thai-Market_Fruit_Langsat.htm)




I could only eat so much fruit so I didn't buy these orangy pomogrante like fruits so I have no idea what they look like inside or taste like. If anyone has any idea, I'm curious to know.


Another fruit I didn't buy...these are Thai Dragonfruits...



I think I'm sticking to the usual reddish dragonfruit, it was a great choice as they were very sweet!


arghh...I didn't buy enough of these mangosteens, next time i'm gona get 2 dozen or more for me, myself, and I!