Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu.

tofu... One of my favourite Korean restaurants is Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu, which serves homemade tofu stews and a few other common Korean dishes such as bugolgi and bimbimbap. They have less than 10 items on their menu, most of them being different types of the tofu stew. The different Tofu Stews (aka Soon Doo Boo) come in different flavours including Kimchi, Vegetable, Seafood and Soy Bean.
I went with a few other friends and among us, we tried the Kimchi, Vegetable, Seafood and Soy Bean Tofu Stew (each of them ~$7). Each one comes hot and bubbling in a mini pot with tons of soft homemade tofu in it. It is also served with hot pot cooked mixed purple grain/white rice and you can also ask them to adjust the level of spiciness of the stew. If you like spicy, the Kimchi one is a good choice, if not, the Soy Bean Tofu Stew is not spicy at all. Each soup also comes with a raw egg that you crack into the soup while it is still bubbling hot. These stews are especially good on a cold winter day, but they are equally tasty any time of the year.

As this is a Korean restaurant, they also serve side dishes/ appetizers (unlimited as usual). This time, they only had kimchi, sprouts and some kind of sweet beans (the selection varies from time to time, as I have had some kind of seaweed side dish as well).
The Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu that we went to is located at Yonge and Finch in the Korean area of North York (5445 Yonge St.). If you are driving, you can try parking in the area behind the restaurant (although spaces are limited). They also have another location in the Korea Town on Bloor (691 Bloor St. W), which is frequented by many UofT students downtown.

VIP Lounge and Billiards Club.

pool hall, drinks and food... One of my friends, Andy, had been backpacking around the world for quite some time (check out his adventures on his site) and I went to his "welcome back get together" at VIP Lounge and Billiards Club. This place is basically a big pool hall and bar with many pool tables ($10/hour for a table). There were about 20 of us and this was a pretty good place where we could all play pool, eat, drink and chill in a big group. For a big group, this setting was better than trying for a giant table at a typical restaurant and more relaxed than partying at a club.

We grabbed many pitchers of beer (I think it was around ~$15 for pitcher of canadian) and for food, I split some Nachos with Beef ($12.99 + tax) with another friend. These nachos were expensive, but tasted good as they were covered with jalapenos, pretty tender pieces of beef steak and came with sides of salsa and sour cream (2 each). For the price, they should definitely give bigger portions though as I found the size of the nachos to be much smaller than other places!
VIP Lounge and Billiard Club is located in the basement of 385 Yonge Street (Yonge and Gerrard), right next to The Big Slice. It is south of the College TTC station on the east side of Yonge.

Tasty House.

cold drinks... It's the summer time now and its been pretty hot lately, so one of the best things to get while you are out are some cold refreshing drinks. One of my favourite places to go is Tasty House inside of the First Markham Place food court. This place is often busy with people lining up to grab some bubble tea or random drinks such as fresh fruit juice. They also serve some small food items like sandwiches and crepes.

My favourite thing to get here is the Mango and Coconut Milk with Sago Drink ($3.49 + tax). They mix mango juice with coconut milk and within the drink are little sago pearls and chunks of mango (you can also choose to get tapioca instead of sago). You can only get this drink in large size as well, which is really good for the price compared to other bubble tea like drinks. Before you enjoy the tasty drink, it is key to shake it up vigorously, so that you get to enjoy all the sago and mango chunks with each sip. I've included a video of the Mango and Coconut Milk with Sago Drink being shaken up:

Tasty House is located in the food court of First Markham Place (3255 Highway 7 East, Markham) at Woodbine and Highway 7. They also have a location inside of Market Village (Kennedy and Steeles).

Xe Lua Vietnamese Cuisine (aka Trainhead).

pho... I haven't eaten or reviewed a pho (fahhh) place in awhile, so we went to Xe Lua Vietnamese Cuisine (aka Trainhead) in China Town. This is a well known place in China Town that is frequented by many UofT students who live in and around the area. There are quite a few places to grab pho in china town, but this is the spot where me and my friends usually hit up, especially since it is open until late night (open till 6 am!). The pho or beef noodle soup here is a bit more expensive than other places (Small- $4.95, Large- $6.00, X-Large, $8.00), but they are pretty consistent with giant, tasty bowls of pho and the place is pretty nice, being recently renovated in the past year. Honestly, I don't think their pho deserves to be higher priced than other places, but I still keep coming back. I usually order #106 XL- Rare Beef Tendon and Tripe Rice Noodle Soup ($8.00), and my friends got #101 XL- Special Beef Noodle Soup ($8.00), which is just a mix of different types of beef.
I often come here after chilling with freinds or playing ball at UofT (...also going to class and studying...haha). After playing ball, one of my favourite things to get is a fresh fruit smoothie ($3.50 or $4.25 with tapioca). The mango and sour sop smoothies are legit (no idea what sour sop is, but it tastes good). The key to drinking these is to eat your whole bowl of noodles first and just killing the whole smoothie in one huge gulp- the feeling of refreshment is ridiculously good.

Xe Lua (aka Trainhead) is located at 254 Spadina Ave in China Town (South of Dundas). It's also quite spacious, so very seldom do you need to wait for a table. Its not the cheapest pho place, but it fills you up and i'm satisfied every time.

The Big Slice.

pizza... I was out downtown pretty late last week and my friend Daniel suggested that we go to nearby "The Big Slice," to grab some giant, cheap slices of pizza. It was around 1 am and they had quite a few customers already. Big Slice is open 24 hours, which makes it a popular place for late night munchies. I ordered a slice of the deluxe pizza (pepporoni, mushrooms, green peppers). These slices were actually huge, as the name of the place suggests. In terms of taste, it wasn't anything special (I'd say about the same as pizza pizza quality). In terms of price and quanitity, Big Slice is great. For $3.75 a slice, you get a giant pizza slice without breaking the bank.

The Big Slice is at 385 Yonge Street (South of College on the East Side). They also offer delivery until 5 am (416-977-8451 / $15 minimum).

Mandarin Buffet- Free on Canada Day.

On July 1, 2009, Mandarin Buffet locations are celebrating Canada Day by offering their all you can eat buffet for FREE to all Canadian Citizens (12:30 pm-8:30 pm). They have 21 locations. This is an awesome free event, as mandarin will usually cost $12-$24 regular price depending on lunch or dinner. Here is some more info that I got from their site:

We ask for your co-operation in respecting the following:

• Buffet meals (including soft drinks, tea, and coffee) are free for all Canadians* with one of the following proofs of citizenship: Canadian birth certificate, Canadian passport, Canadian citizenship card
  
• No reservations will be taken – guests will be seated on a first come first serve basis
• Our first seating is at 12:00pm and our last seating is at 8:30pm
  
• All guests in your party must be present in the line. If a member of your party needs a break, please inform the people behind you o
  
• Dress code is in effect
• This offer does not apply to: other beverages, take-out or delivery meals
• Tips are not included and are appreciated by the staff
  
• À-la-carte will not be served on July 1, but we will continue serving take-out & delivery at regular prices

Masellis Supermarket.

sandwiches... When I was working at Eastern Commerce, I ate out a lot at places like Square Boy, but one of the students told me to be healthy and try the sandwiches from Masellis Supermarket instead. Masellis is a local Italian supermarket and you go to their deli/ butcher for the sandwiches. They serve very basic sandwiches, where you select your own bread (I go for the cheese buns) and choose what type of deli meat you would like on it (they seem to have a huge selection. I got an oven baked turkey sandwich on cheesebread with mozarella cheese ($3). They have limited selection of toppings (just mayo and mustard), but if you want veggies or other toppings, you can buy them from the supermarket and they will put it on your sandwich and give you the rest to take home.

Masellis is located at 906 Danforth Avenue and is a good place to grab a cheap $3 sandwich, or even shop for some italian delicacies.

Queenslice Pizza and Pita.

shawarma... A friend of mine from school, Prashanth, who chills a lot in and around UofT recommended Queenslice Pizza and Pita. The place serves things such as Pizza, Pitas, Falafels and Shawarmas. According to Prashanth, the best thing to get here is the Chicken Shawarma Platter + Pop Combo($5.99 + Tax/ Tip). Normally, I like to get Shawarma Sandwiches at these places, but I had to try this platter. The platter includes buttered rice with a salad on the side and plenty of Shawarma Chicken pieces on top. There was also a couple of roasted potato pieces. All of this was covered with some kind of tasty sauce (maybe thousand island sauce?).

I haven't tried anything else from Queen Slice, but I would definitely recommend the Chicken Shawarma Platter. It is super convenient for UofT students as well, as it is located at 177 College Street, across the street from the main South entrance of the UofT St. George Campus.

Korean Grill House.

all you can eat... After a long day of beach volleyball, with barely any lunch, everybody was super hungry, so going to eat Korean BBQ at Korean Grill House was the obvious solution. It might not be the most healthy food but you can fill yourself up until you can't eat anymore and its cheap! All of us went for the basic all you can eat option (Adults: $12.95, Children under $8.95), which comes with Pork, Beef Chicken, Beef Ribs, Ox Tongue, Ox Liver, Salmon, Squid and Fish Filet. All these items are given to you raw so that you can grill it up on a shared grilled (usually 2-4 people per grill). This meal also comes with unlimited Korean appetizers that include kimchi, deep fried tofu, bean sprouts, spicy bean sprouts and pickled turnips. In addition to this, they also offer all you can drink beverages (I think additional $2).
There were 5 of us at our table and we killed 4 or 5 rounds of meat and drank about 3 or 4 pitchers of Soy Milk and around 2 pitchers of Iced Tea. One of my friends, Aston, showed us how to fully utilize the dipping soy sauce.

Aston's Korean BBQ Technique:

1. Cook meat on grill
   
2. Pour Dipping Sauce (I think its just soy sauce) on the meat while grilling
3. Repeat steps 1-2
   
4. Enjoy the tasty BBQ'd meat.
   

The meat is already marinated but it definitely tastes much better when you keep pouring the sauce on while it is cooking. We used 4 full bottles of sauce during the entire meal and left the restaurant more than satisfied.
Korean Grill House is located at 214 Queen St. West (Queen/University) and is pretty busy for dinner (we waited about 15 minutes for a seat). At this location they also have an upstairs, so there is plenty of seating, although they still often packed. They also have 4 other locations (Yonge/Bloor, Yonge/Dundas, Commerce Gate, Midland/Finch). If you want an even better deal, go for the after 10 pm late night special ($8.99), includes pork, beef, chicken, squid, fish fillet. Korean Grill House may not be the best quality of food, but if you are really hungry, really cheap or both, then this is a perfect place to eat out at.

Seoul Restaurant.

korean... Having craved Korean food for awhile, we decided to grab a meal at Seoul Restaurant in Korea Town. It is not the nicest place, as its decor is closer to cafeteria style, but this place has some delicious food at cheap prices. This place is known for their big hot pans, so we decided to get the Budae Jigae (a big spicy stew with spam, pork, cheese, tofu, kimchi, vegetables, rice cakes, $18). All that stuff might not sound to appetizing, but it is seriously delicious and adding $2 for instant noodles is worth it as well. We also decided to share some pan fried dumplings to share ($5). Another dish we got was the Jia Jiang Mian ($8), which is noodles with meat sauce/ paste and this was pretty flavourful here. Finally, to fill us up, we wanted to go with something a bit spicier, so we tried the Dduk Bokki (stir fried rice cake in spicy sauce with vegetables, fish cake, $6), which was pretty cheap for a pretty big portion, although I'm not the biggest fan of really spicy stuff.
Seoul Restaurant also serves your typical korean foods like Gam Ja Tang (pork bone soup), but it is definitely worth sharing one of the Budae Jigae with a bunch of friends. The Buda Jigae here is much better than the one I wrote about from Toong in North York. This place is good for a very casual or quick meal and from what I saw, it was filled with many UofT students. If you want to check it out, Seoul Restaurant is at 621 Bloor Street West (on Bloor, South of Bathurst).

Congee Queen.

congee queen... 3 friends and I were super hungry, so we went to close by Congee Queen by Don Mills Centre. It is always pretty busy during dinner time and we had to wait to get a table for about 15 minutes. This place has decent food and we usually get pretty similar things each time that we come. We ordered a "Spiced Soya Sauce Duck" ($5.99), which is a popular dish, with the duck placed on top of tofu that soaks up all the sauce. Since this is Congee Queen, we got a "Seafood Super Bowl Congee" ($8.75), which came in a giant bowl and was loaded with lots of seafood including shrimp, scallop, salmon, sliced fish, squid and fake crab meat. We also ordered one of their most popular dishes (at least for me.lol), the "Seafood with Dried Garlic Fried Rice" ($9.95). This was good but would be even better if it was just a little bit more salty (and I don't usually like salty foods). To complete this meal, we had one more seafood dish, the "Spice and Pepper Salt Squid" ($6.75). This was basically deep fried squid with salt and hot peppers, although it is not spicy at all, the peppers definitely add to the flavour.
Congee Queen is also owned by the same people who run Congee Wong, but from my experience, Congee Queen is more clean and a little better. It is a great place to go with a bunch of people to share a variety of dishes that come in big portions at pretty cheap prices. The location that I usually go to is in North York at 895 Lawrence Ave. E., Unit 8 (across the street from LCBO at Don Mills Centre). They also have another location at Don Mills and Steeles, although I haven't been to that location before.

Luminato 1000 Tastes of Toronto.

WRITTEN and EATEN by Jerry He

The Luminato festival was hugely advertised these days. It's a 10 day long "creative arts festival," but my roommates and I were only able to check out 2 events. We didn't want to just let a huge crazy event slide through our fingers so we decided to take lunch at the *1,000 Tastes of Toronto*. The organizers blocked off a section of Queen's Quay (street), where maybe 100 restaurants offered a taste of their fare for just $5. I only ate 3 dishes here, but could have easily eaten 3 more.

From Picture: Combo dish from Dhaba with chicken, samosa, cheap salad, chick peas and long grain rice. The first thing I ate after taking this photo was the chick peas. All I have to say is: if you like cumin, you'll LOVE these chickpeas. The skin is still intact, but the centre tasted just like the sauce that surrounded it. Samosa and salad were alright. Tasted like stuff you can buy at the local Safeway or Sobeys. Rice was pretty good - a good, lightly seasoned staple. However, the chicken was the deal breaker. It was dry and burnt in several places, and Couldn't Have Tasted Better! There was a mild curry flavour, but mostly it was a nicely charred drumstick. I couldn't pick out exactly what made this piece Indian, but it perfectly complemented the other parts of the dish. Portion size was decent, and I found it right beside the East entrance. Lineup only took 5-7 minutes, not long enough for a complaint.

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Jerry He is a Guest Star/ Guest Writer for Good Food Toronto. He is a student from UBC (Vancouver), who is enjoying both working and having fun in Toronto. He loves food.

Boardwalk Pub.

woodbine beach restaurant... Yesterday was another Saturday, so as usual, I headed down to Woodbine beach to play beach volleyball (best way to spend my weekends, no doubt!). Last time we had ice cream from the ice cream truck, but we were pretty hungry this time, so a couple of us decided to check out the "Boardwalk Pub" restaurant right by the beach. This place has a nice outdoor patio with a big tree that gives its customers some nice shade on a hot summer day. We all got a bunch of different stuff:

• Cheesy Cheese Burger - topped with Cheddar/ Jack cheese and Comes With Fries [$13 + Tax]
  
• Cajun Burger - Cajun toppings + lots of Jalapeno peppers [$12 + Tax]
  
• 1 lb of Chicken Wings (I got the Smokey BBQ sauce flavour) [$9 + Tax]
• Pasta of the Day - Creole Pasta [$12.95 + Tax]
• Sweet Potato Fries - came with creole mustard dipping sauce [$6 + Tax]
  

I had the wings and wow... I have to give them props as the flavour on these wings were awesome. They weren't the biggest or juiciest wings, but you could really taste the smokey flavour. Each of the burgers had 8 oz patties, and my friends who had thought that they were pretty big and tasty. The cajun one was loaded with jalapeno peppers, so if you like spicy, this would be decent. The Creole Pasta was the pasta of the day and was decently sized as you can see in the pics. My friend commented that there were about 4 or 5 big shrimps in there and that it was really spicy! We all shared the sweet potato fries, which are always good no matter where you get them (these were larger cuts of sweet potato then most places though).
Overall, the Boardwalk Pub has some pretty delicious food with big portions, although it is quite pricey. I guess the fact that it has prime location, right by the beach, is the reason for the high prices. The only other options around the beach is the extra expensive Pizza Pizza and Hot Dog stands. Their patio is a nice place where you can relax in shade and take a break from being under the sun for hours at the beach. As it is a pub, they also serve alcohol, but mostly premium beers (ranging from $6-$7 a pint). It is located at 1681 Lake Shore Blvd. E., within the Woodbine Beach Park. If you don't want to drop this kinda cash, hot dog stand or bringing food to the beach (loblaws down the street) are good options.