The Week in Yum Sept 28-Oct 4



This was a much better week than last week but let's be honest, pretty much any week would be better than last week but enough about that.

spicy miso tofu ramen from Ryu's Noodle Bar, just don't get exited about the rice

What did I do this week? Hmmm, not a ton but what I did do was really cool. On Saturday we went to see the Bowie exhibit at the AGO and before we ventured in to that particular exhibit on a weekend we knew we would require some serious fortification so we parked by Baldwin St and popped into Ryu's Noodle Bar. I like the idea here - you choose your basic ramen and one dipping sauce and then you can choose add ons like a half cooked boiled egg or wok fried veg and they also offer a combo menu so you can throw in some rice, gyoza and a free pop. The Kid ordered a combo with the shio ramen, a half cooked egg and gyoza, Shack and I both got the spicy miso tofu ramen and I got the half sized combo with wok veg. Shack ordered his combo with rice with more spicy tofu. Our lovely waitress came out a few minutes after we ordered to inform Shack that they were out of rice.



Out of rice.

Think about that for a minute. A Japanese restaurant was out of rice. Mid afternoon on a busy Saturday with an entire dinner service to get through looming.

Okay, we had a good laugh at that and he said he would take the gyoza instead. She returned five minutes later to tell him that they were out of gyoza. They could make some more but it would take another 20 minutes or so and since our soup was due to arrive any minute, that didn't sound like a good option. The only thing left was a plate of wok veg which he accepted because, well, there really wasn't anything left to him at that point. Happily, the wok veg were very tasty. Oh, he also asked for corn to be added to his soup and was presented with a little bowl of ice cold corn so that had to go back as well.

The spicy miso tofu ramen was fabulous (The Kid didn't care for his ramen and will stick to shoyu or miso next time but it wasn't the fault of the broth - it was very tasty, just not his jam) and The Kid's gyoza were also very good indeed.

All in all, service is pretty slow but the servers are so lovely and polite and courteous and apologetic that you can't even get angry with them. Despite Shack's no good, terrible food karma that day, everything we did eat was delicious and I would go back if I wasn't in a hurry and I wasn't really committed to the idea of eating rice or gyoza in a Japanese restaurant.



After that we lined up for a little over half an hour so we could then shuffle through the Bowie exhibit, more or less, in the same line. It was a bit better on the second floor but we had to miss a ton of stuff because you just couldn't get close enough to read his diary entries etc. It is a fabulous exhibit but, please, go on a weekday, preferably early in the morning.


The true highlight of the day was scoring a pair of chocolate brown leather Chuck's in the boy's department on sale for half price. Thank you small feet and thank you generous Shack who still bought them for me even though he was the one looking for leather Chucks.




Sunday we had a really great dinner with friends to celebrate a birthday - great company, beautiful home, ginormous, 4 foot thick brontosaurus steak grilled to velvety perfection in a green egg. Yum.




Monday and Tuesday were uneventful and I am not sure I even ate much of anything in particular but Wednesday was a great surprise. I was invited to attend a launch for a new food prep/delivery service called Fresh Canteen and all the attendees got to roll up their sleeves and cook their own dinner from the company's fresh box. I wrote all about it here so go and read about it so I don't have to write it all out again. We made a seared duck breast with a butter grape sauce with mashed potatoes and they also made sure we had a lovely glass of wine with an array of tasty desserts. They served a teeny, tiny little lemon meringue cupcake like they actually crawled inside my brain and pulled out my favourite dessert theme in the whole world. I know they didn't actually crawl into my brain because if they had they would have all ran, screaming, from the building and nobody did that.

I overcooked my duck but it was still delicious


Thursday, I made the Mock Butter Chicken that they sent home with all of us and on Friday I used up the leftovers to make Butter Chicken Sopes , which were the bomb, if I do say so myself.


All in all, it was a fine week in Yum.



My fave pin:   I would pay a hundred dollars to the first person to bring this to me right now

My fave facebook:   Look at these gorgeous pies from Family Feed Bag!

My fave instagram:  stunning citrus salad by Eat Live Travel Write

My fave food find:  I am really pretty excited about this Fresh Canteen situation

My fave tweet:

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