Restaurante Benazuza - Cancun *.

😻  Hola from Cancun!! 😻 

A quick update from Cancun for Restaurante Benazuza. I'd highly recommend this restaurant because the environment, service and food quality were top notch! We're going on excursions every day so it's been really fun packed! Jet ski is one of them!

😻  Jet ski pic from earlier in the week! 😻 

Loved my experience at Restaurante Benazuza located at The Pyramid in Cancun. 

Service was excellent and we all had a great time dining here.

We had a cocktail bar with 2 bartenders serving us prior to our main course - it was fun trying the different types of cocktails (one even in a jelly-form!). We moved onto the dining room where we reserved the private room for our group. We had 6 servers in total!! Everyone was very attentive.
The menu for the night was as follows:

COCKTAIL BAR

1. Old fashioned cocktail

2. Pina colada - infused pineapple with rum

3. Shot: mascala (tequila) smoked mango strawberry - tastes like smoked bacon!





APPETIZERS
4. Popcorn - not just your regular popcorn, it tastes like crunchy candy!

5. Patchapower - fermented pineapple with beer/ vodka lime infused foam

6. Pig tacos - carnita - pasta mushroom sauce
7. Fish and Chips - caramelized pork skin / dehydrated potatoes
8. Strawberry with liquor infused mint

9. Beets with pork skin and kimchi sauce

10. Taco salmon

11. "Sea paper" - seaweed with shrimp

12. Taco with hibiscus

13. Tasktacan Chips with pork

14. "Bao" with pork - it tastes like Cantonese Cha Siu Bao!

15. Tortilla soup - Oaxaca Chile and cheese

16. Cucumber stuffed with grouper, beets and coriander foam

MAINS
17. Turbot fish salad bacon Italian dressing and mango sauce

18. Turkey , Mayan Chiles sauce, hard boiled egg




DESSERT
19. Tetaquis-cucumber slush caramelized Apple with celery

20. Chia dessert - cookie biscuits lime marine

21. Truffle balls - mini coconut cream and rum
22. Liquor candy on the map of Puerto Vallarta - tequila shot with honey

Shoutout to P for recording all these detailed menu items!! :D


😻  They gave me a rose at the end of the night! 😻 




😻 Thanks for the lovely dining experience! 😻 

Benazuza

$$$  Mexican, Cocktail Bars

Blvd. Kukulkan S/N
77500 Cancún, Quintana Roo
Mexico

Kisa Korean BBQ *.

Stumbled upon KISA Korean BBQ when my family and I were visiting Daldongnae for dinner. 

It was under construction and the person at Daldongnae asked us to visit their sister restaurant, KISA Korean BBQ! I like KISA's location a lot better because of how spacious it is! 
Also, tidbit for those who are driving - there's parking at the back of the restaurant.




I'd recommend the beef options over the pork options. It's a bit pricer but the quality of the meats tastes better. For the sides, I'd recommend the kimchi cold noodle and also the spicy cold noodle. It's a savoury and appetizing pairing with the meats. All the side dishes are unlimited refills! 

My fave is the cheese x corn :P Very addicting - I'll be revisiting for sure!

Kisa Korean BBQ

Barbeque

6347 Yonge Street
Toronto, ON M2M 3X7

Multiple Media Events*.

😻 Happy June! 😻


I've been slacking...!

Or.. just really busy lately :) So much events to update my blog with; I've decided to just update with one mass post with a little bit of everything. Once I have time to update the rest, then I'll be more detailed :P

😻 OMESCAPE SCARBOROUGH 😻

First off - my friends and I went to Scarborough's Omescape to try their new room: Magic Academy
It is basically a bootlegged version of Harry Potter. We were able to escape!! They've incorporated a lot of "magic" / "spells" related things which we really enjoyed. Going with a group of 5-6 people is best. It allows 5-8 people but I think 8 is way too many.

Just have 5-6 people go if anything - 6 smartypants, that is :P 

😻 RAMEN BATTLE 😻

Let's clear the path first - I did not participate as a contestant, but as an audience! My friends joined the ramen battle hosted at Hakata Ramen. The challenge was to finish as many ramen noodle refills as possible within 30 minutes time. It was a tough competition with titles like 'the Ramen King', 'Black Hole', 'All Carb Kings' etc. but the one that fought through was Alex!!

Congrats burger for winning a life time supply of ramen and $100 :)

😻 This guy 😻



😻 Black hole - Burger - Self-promoter (LOL) - All Carbs 😻



😻 POKE GUYS 😻

Finally we have our very own Poke place uptown!!
I went  for a media event to try out their poke bowls - very fresh and yummy. It is very convenient for those who live in the condos around the area. 
Tidbit: park at the parking lot where the carousel is.





😻 GONG CHA 😻

Gong Cha released a new series of drinks!! It is very delicious - I really like sweetened popcorn. 

Thanks Gong Cha for all the cute swag bag items! (It's a phone holder by the way :))

😻 NAAN AND KABOB 😻

Attended an event downtown to promote Naan and Kabob's Afghanistan foods.
My favourite was this baklava!  

😻 LISA MARIE 😻

One of my fave brunch locations after yoga with the girls - this time, I got to attend a dinner event instead! Highly recommending the Pad Thai Fries - it's nice and crispy with a touch of spice!





😻 Another favourite of the night is their pesto pasta - very creamy and addicting 

😻 Hank Daddy's Barbecue 😻

I used to find it hard to locate a good barbecue rib place uptown - until now! 

Hank's Daddy's Barbecue has really nicely marinated meats - I'd recommend their burgers & ribs. It's so delicious! Even their corn bread was really good :P

GoGo Chicken Pot *.

There was a big hype about this place so my family and I decided to 'chick-it out' haha. It smells really good in the restaurant! The down part of it smelling really good is that the smell stays on your clothes and hair afterwards. Service was good.




* ORIGINAL CHICKEN POT (3/5)
It is all you can eat for the chicken and the assortment of some fish balls, frozen tofu, tofu, veggies etc. If you want to add beef / other meats, it's an additional $4.99. The chicken is precooked with some red peppers and spices. They provide you with some chicken broth to add to the pot as well.

Overall, I think the flavours were good but everything became overwhelmingly salty after a few rounds. We were all really really thirsty and ordered a few drinks. We were saying how they are smart to get a liquor license because they're making so much money off of drinks!! There was one table that ordered 10+ Tsingtao beer for 4 people.

GoGo Chicken Pot

$$$  Hot Pot, Cantonese

10610 Bayview Avenue
Richmond Hill, ON L4C 3N8

Harbour Sixty *.

😻 Happy (belated) Beeday to P!! 😻 

Celebrating with some good steakhouse for his dirty 30 hahaha :D 
Finally took him to Harbour Sixty after multiple trolls - I kept saying we were going to Miku (which was around the area) hahaha

I continued to troll him throughout the day. I got him some random Shoppers mini-gifts and said it was his present HAHA - April fools day carries out throughout the entire month, obviously!





We had dinner at Harbour Sixty to celebrate P's birthday. Service was excellent - our server was very attentive and friendly. He was very knowledgeable about the menu items. 

😻 Menu





😻 Appetizers 






* BLACK TRUFFLE STEAK & EGGS (5/5)
(10 oz Prime Tenderloin Topped with a Free Range Fried Duck Egg 'Sunny Side Up' & Shaved Black Truffles, White Truffle Oil)

5 stars!! Loved this so much - I ordered medium rare steak. They loaded the top with lots of truffle shavings and the truffle oil flavour was very strong. Highly recommending this, it was so delicious.





* BONE-IN RIB STEAK (4/5)

P ordered this and thought the portion was perfect - which means it would be too much for me haha. He ordered this in medium rare too - the meat was nice and tender! Obviously I thought the meat was too much, but he was able to finish it all. I can't say I'm proud that he's a "beast" or just a pig muahaha

SIDES:




* BRUSSELS SPROUTS (5/5)
(Soy Ginger Glaze, Sesame, Garlic)

Since we were consuming all meat, we thought it would be nice to pair it with brussels sprouts. Best decision. This was so yummy - the taste doesn't get bland at all! 





* LOBSTER MASHED POTATO (4/5)

This is very delicious but very filling! There are huge lobster chunks in the mashed potato - which tasted very fresh.I think one side dish was enough for us - we ended up packing this.



😻 P was too excited about desserts and I wasn't able to take a pic before he blew out the candles haha




😻 FYI for the wine lovers.. they had a huge selection of wine!! The wine menu was like a textbook!

Harbour Sixty

$$$$  Steakhouses, Seafood

60 Harbour Street
Toronto, ON M5J 1B7

Azyun Restaurant *.

😻 I hope everyone had a Happy April Fool's Day! 😻 

I had so much fun playing Finding Waldo on Google Maps - the best update ever for April Fools!!!

After hearing great reviews about Azyun Restaurant, P and I decided to check this place out! 

We called on the same day to make a reservation and got a seat at the bar. Our server was very friendly and we got to watch him work the bar, making specialty drinks for the customers. I'd actually recommend the bar seats for a date night :) The restaurant is small so it's a good idea to book well in advance.

DRINKS:





* Azyun Caesar + a Pork Mantou (bun) - mine (3/5)
I compared this place to Nextdoor Restaurant because it gives me a similar vibe. I enjoyed the ND Caesar (at Nextdoor) much more than the Azyun Caesar because the tomato flavour is too light - it's almost watery. The part that earned its points is the pork mantou, it is sweet & crispy. Very delicious! I'd recommend ordering that on its own.

* Rickards Red - his

FOOD:





* TRUFFLE FRIED RICE (5/5)

Okay. Can we talk about how yummy this is?! Firstly, I'd like to mention that I'm pretty biased when it comes to truffle-anything because I love truffle oil infused everything. This was so good! Shout out to the mushrooms because it had the most truffle flavour. The poached egg was a great touch to the rice, it kept the rice from being too dry. I'd highly recommend this!






* CONFIT DUCK BIANG BIANG NOODLES (4/5)

The duck confit was very tender and flavourful. P made a comment about how he wished they added more meat and I made a comment about how they should add more veggies. So you get a mix of what we both prefer on this dish haha. Nonetheless, very delicious - again similar to the truffle fried rice, the poached egg was a nice touch.






* LAMB RIBS (3/5)

Here's the difference in opinions - P loved this because the lamb flavour (or smell) was very strong, whereas, I didn't really like that part. This dish is very sweet and very saucy. I could only take one! The rest got devoured by the lamb-meat-lovin' dude beside me.

Overall, I had a great experience here and I plan on bringing my friend here next time!

Azyun Restaurant

$$  Chinese, Asian Fusion, Tapas Bars

144 Main Street N
Markham, ON L3P 5T3