Set lunch at Pizza Hut [Review]

partial of the set lunch (missing the pizza... see below)

Set Lunch @ Pizza Hut
$200 HKD + $20 tips = $220 HKD (approximately $30 USD)

My choices:

• Soup

1. Clam Chowder
2. Chicken Mushroom soup (cream)

• Appetizer

1. Mushroom Risotto 

• Entree

1. Tropical Pizza (it is Thousand Island Sauce based)

• Drinks

1. Berry Fantasy
2. Ice Coffee

This is not exactly a review, since I won't be reviewing every menu item... but I would say that I was impressed with the quality and quantity. I literally had a 6 month food baby when I walked out of the restaurant.

Tropical pizza

There was one thing I didn't like, and that was the Thousand Island sauce used... usually pizzas made with a Thousand Island Sauce (instead of the usual Pizza Sauce) is nicely flavoured... I found it quite sour tasting... the pinapple was already very tangy... and adding a Thousand Island Sauce made it super sour. Unless you like sour/tangy food... I would suggest you order the other item.

score: 8/10
website: http://www.pizzahut.com.hk/en/home.html
address:

Kowloon - Hung Hom
Shop G10A, G/F, Site 2, Whampoa Gdn, Hunghom
Store phone no: 2764 5490
Delivery Hotline: 3180 0000

Shiso clam vongolé Pasta @Shiso Tree Cafe JTown Review

Shiso Tree Menu

please click here for my review about the restaurant and Smoked Salmon a la Red Wine pasta

Shiso Tree is a Japanese-Italian Fusion restaurant. It is famous for their Italian pastas with a mix of Japanese culture. Before I talk about this dish, I want to mention about how much I like this restaurant, the atmosphere is very casual yet elegant, there is a mix of Japanese in its simple interior design. Every time I go, there is Jazz music playing softly in the background.

Impressions:

• Great atmosphere for chatting and hanging out
• service is good
• great pasta, great salad
• skip the soup

When the weather starts to warm up, I find myself longing to come to Shiso Tree @ JTown. It seems to be a very Spring/Summery place to visit with its Japanese/modern decorations and natural lighting and "light food". For this particular visit, I had ordered Shiso Clam Vongolé Pasta from their Wafu Pasta selection.

Shiso Tree complimentary salad

Salad:

With every Pasta set, they provide Garlic Toast and a Wafu Salad. As I mentioned in my previous Shiso tree post, The Wafu salad dressing, it is one of the best tasting salad dressings I have ever tried in a Japanese restaurant. If you visit this place, you cannot miss it. I'm not an expert in salad dressings, so based on my limited understanding and trusty taste buds I would say it tastes like  a clam/mussel soup base combined with soy sauce and sesame oil).

Shiso clam vongolé – white wine, olive oil, garlic, bacon, tomato, fresh Manila clams & shiso

Pasta:

Now, for the dish, Since I always get Smoked Salmon a la Red Wine pasta, I decided to try something new... I mean... life is about trying new things and having different experiences, no? I decided to give the Shiso clam vongolé a try. It consists of White Wine, Olive Oil, Garlic, Bacon, Tomato, Fresh Manila clams and Shiso. This pasta was from their Wafu pasta category. (Wafu can be translated to touch of Japanese)

The price was $15, I think it was because of the amount of clams they had. I mentioned that their prices may be startling at first, but when you finish your meal you will be happy you decided to eat here. This dish added Shiso shavings, I think they taste a bit like lemon/lime leaves. But... to be honest, other than the unique herbiness of Shiso and clams, I found it troublesome to distinguish this dish from the Smoked Salmon a la Red Wine Pasta. They seem to taste very similar. It was still good... but I was looking forward to something different.

This was a well made dish, but I think it would be better if they could make the different pastas taste more different so each dish can preserve its uniqueness. I will continue to visit this place and try their new dishes in hopes of finding something that tastes really different yet as delicious!

the soup we decided to pay extra for

Soup:

I did not enjoy the soup, it was very average. I was thinking it would be something that would "wow" me, but it was none other than an ordinary tomato, beef- soup based beef brisket vegetable soup. The taste was very ordinary, I was quite disappointed. The presentation was interesting, but the soup was very average.

Verdict:

The Pasta and atmosphere are what attracts me to this restaurant, I really love their salad. However, I do not recommend you paying extra to try their soup, it is not worth it.

address: 3160 Steeles Ave E #1, Markham, ON L3R
score: 8.5/10

website: http://www.blogto.com/restaurants/shiso-tree-cafe-markham

Remy's at Yorkville review

Fusilli Con Pollo

Located on Yorkville avenue, in the District of Yorkville, Remy's is one of the few restaurants that would stand out. It has a rooftop patio, one of the largest patios in Yorkville (as it claims). Sometimes when I pass by this place, I catch waves of their food scent inviting me to go in. I was intrigued by their great smells.

The menu was very simple, yet there was a good enough selection/variety. Everything looked really good, the prices were a bit pricey but given it is located in the heart of Yorkville, I consider it quite reasonable.

Remy's menu

I would like to comment how bad the service was, I have been warned but I was a bit skeptical. I figured that people in Yorkville probably demanded too much, these were my thought till the server came to our table to serve us. It was very hard to get her attention and to order food. When we asked to get more water, she gave us dirty looks. We waited for almost 20 minutes (and had to remind her kindly 2 times that we wanted water) before we could get our water.

Prices:
Fusilli Con Pollo Chicken breast, mushroom, peppers, sundried tomato cream sauce 14.50
Mussels in a thick creamy mustard sauce with garlic bread and 12.50

These were the two items we ordered.

mussels with garlic bread in a thick mustard sauce

First, I really want to comment on how good their mussels dish was, I would have never associated mustard with mussels, but it was very tasty. I highly HIGHLY recommend this dish (I am not sure if it is a seasonal dish though).

To be honest, the Fusilli Con Pollo Chicken was ok, the sundried tomato cream sauce was very tasty. But, after trying the mussels, we were expecting something as tasty.

I am not sure if I will come back to this place, maybe for the mussels? but definitely they need to "train" their servers.

website: http://www.remys.ca/home

Olive Garden Review

I have heard many MANY positive reviews about Olive Garden, so out of curiosity  I decided to try it. I only have 2 things to say about this place: Great Service and Delicious food! I have found one of the best Italian restaurants I have and ever will encounter. The prices are extremely reasonable, the food is in large portions, the staff are extremely friendly and  the most important thing, the food is very delicious!

Zuppa Toscana

They had a meal combo available, so it was much easier to choose from the various choices they had. We were a company of three, so we ordered three meal combos, that way we can share and try different foods. The first we ordered was Zuppa Toscana and salad. Since I am not a huge fan of salads, I cannot comment much other than to say the salad was fresh and had a lot of ingredients inside (e.g. various lettuces, olives, peppers, etc). The soup, Zuppa Toscana was my surprise, it is one of the best Italian soups I have ever had! Either I have not really had a chance to try different types of Italian soups (other than the "basic" ones such as Italian Wedding and other various types of tomato based "Italian soups", come to think of that, I am not even sure if the soups I have tried were authentic, or just fusions of the original) nonetheless, I enjoyed EVERY sip of that soup, it was cream based and contained Italian Sausage, Kale/Spinach, bacon, etc. each ingredient played it's part well. 

complementary garlic bread sticks

Olive Garden was very considerate to providing us with complementary garlic bread sticks. It was very fresh and buttery, they even let us bring it home after, which was very nice and thoughtful of them. And, of course, this way, no food is wasted!

Grilled Chicken Toscana

We ordered Grilled Chicken Toscana as one of the combos. It was very tasty, the chicken had a wonderful grilled tasted and it was seasoned so well! They paired it with a kind of cheese Risotto  and some spinach on top. Most importantly, the dish was served very hot. The Chicken was very tender and smooth. 

Parmesan potato crusted chicken

The next thing which came was Parmesan Potato crusted Chicken. I was very impressed with the quality of this dish, just like the grilled Chicken the 

Penne di mare 

Experience tells me to never order seafood at any Italian restaurant, however, I am glad I decided to order ONE dish which contained seafood. Unlike most Italian restaurants I have been to, Olive Garden's seafood dish (Penne Di Mare) had large quantities of seafood (as described on their menu) and the seafood was FRESH!

Chocolate moouse cake

For our combo, we order 2 chocolate moouse cakes and one caramel hazelnut macchiato. I am so glad we ordered these two choices because they were really good. The chocolate moouse cake was delicious, unlike most "Caucasian" places, it's cake was not very sweet (which is good). I liked the presentation too. Though it doesn't look like a lot in the picture, it was more than enough after such a heavy meal.

caramel hazelnut macchiato

For our other choice of "dessert" we ordered Caramel Hazelnut Macchiato. Never in my life have I heard of Macchiato, so out of their selection of Lattes, Cappuccinos, Expressos, etc. I decided to take my chances and try this Macchiato. I do not know coffees enough, but this is one coffee I would definitely try again (when I get the chance to). If I had to describe this drink, I would say it is a cross between a latte, cappuccino and some other type of coffee, but the mix is so well blended that it tastes far better than Cappuccino and Latte.

I would give Olive Garden a rating of 10/10!

Shiso Tree Cafe @ JTown review

Smoked Salmon à la Créme Vodka - Vodka based cream sauce with Smoked salmon & fresh dill. Garnished with ikura (salmon roe) & caviar.

I am hardly a fan of Fusion Cuisine as the food is usually combined in all the wrong areas, however after visiting Shiso Tree Cafe & JTown in Toronto, I was impressed. Shiso Tree Cafe is a Japanese restaurant which combines Italian and Japanese cuisine.

I tried the Smoked Salmon a la Red Wine pasta entree. It was part of the Cream and Rosè Sauce pasta category. Though the price might be startling at first ($12), I can guarantee you being full after the meal. The serving sizes are quite big.

The pasta entrees also come with a piece of very crispy, toasted garlic bread and salad.

The wafu salad dressing, it is one of the best tasting salad dressings I have ever tried in a Japanese restaurant. I'm not an expert in salad dressings, so based on my limited understanding and trusty taste buds I   would say it tastes like somewhat a clam/mussel soup base combined with soy sauce and sesame oil).

The pasta was very tasteful, the sauce was light yet very flavourful, there was a lot of smoked salmon. The iKura (Salmon Roe) and Caviar were there but a little too less, they felt like "decorations" more than being part of the actual dish. The pasta was very well prepared, not too soft and not too hard, just right. I was very impressed. The whole pasta entree was very well put together.

I was also very surprised as to how full I can be from eating something that seems to have such a small serving size.

I would give Shiso Tree Cafe a rating of 4.5/5.