beer crab... My friend Florence recently got into a design school in San Francisco called FIDM (congrats!), so of course we had to go out and celebrate with some good food. She decided on going to a Vietnamese restaurant called Saigon Star, mainly to get the Beer Crab dish that they serve. I had never tried this beer crab previously and was looking forward to a trying a crab cooked inside a broth/ soup made of beer. There were 4 of us (my friends Jess and Dave also), and we ordered about 3 dishes to share.
We ordered a Beer Crab Hot Pot dish ($39.95 + tax/tip for large), which was the definite highlight of the meal. It was literally a giant crab cooked in a large pot with a soup made with beer. The soup itself tasted awesome with lots of crab flavour mixed with a slight taste of beer. There was plenty of flavour in the soup, which was also loaded with vermicelli (which soaked up all the flavour too). Florence taught us how to eat this dish and here's the instructions:
- Split the Crab up and using the tools they give you (ie. crab cracker..lol.i dunno if that's what it's called), take out as much meat as you can.
- Pour out bowls of the soup (including everything in it, vermicelli, veggies, etc.)
- Place lots of crab meat pieces (from step 1) into each individual bowl and enjoy!
This type of dish is perfect when it is colder outside, as the meal is really hearty and even with the beer in it, it make's you feel nice and warm inside after you eat it.haha. In addition to the beer crab we also wanted some variety and ordered a Vegetable Hot Pot ($9.50 + tax/tip), Curry Beef Brisket ($10.50 + tax/tip) and french bread ($1.50/each + tax/tip) to go with the curry. The vegetable hot pot was a pretty big portion of mixed vegetables (including broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, bok choi, etc) and vermicelli cooked with lots of flavour, tasted kind of like some satay type sauce. The dish was a little oily, but very good anyways. The beef brisket was also really good and it came in a pretty big portion. They warm the french bread up before they serve it so it is nice, soft and goes awesome with the curry. Unfortunately we were all pretty full from the beer crab, haha, so we didn't eat too much of the curry.
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Since we came here to get beer crab, we also had to get some beer to drink along with the meal. We had to stick with Viet beer at a Viet restaurant, so we ordered 4 Tiger beers ($4.50/each + tax/tip). Florence also ordered a Vietnamese Ice Coffee ($3.50 + tax/tip). Saigon Star is located in Richmond Hill in a plaza on Highway 7 between Bayview and Leslie (there is also a HSBC in the plaza and it's across the street just West of Commerce Gate). The unique beer crab dish is definitely worth checking out.
Saigon Star Restaurant
113-330 Highway 7 East
Richmond Hill, ON
905-731-7221
burgers... Harvey's is currently holding a deal for their Original Burgers. Until May, 30 2010, you can grab 2 Original Burgers for $5 + tax (no coupon needed). I found this deal on RFD and apparently many locations are not advertising this, but if you ask them most places should honour this deal. I haven't been to Harvey's in awhile, but this is a pretty good deal considering how much bigger and better Harvey's burgers are compared to McDonald's (and you can load on the toppings!). Also: Harvey's free original burger day hasn't been advertised yet, but it should be coming soon (last year it was on May 24).
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thai... For the past 5 weeks, I've been doing a placement for Physiotherapy at St. Mike's Hospital and in the last week, Jaimie, the Physiotherapist I'm working under, generously treated me and some students to lunch! We decided to check out a place called Golden Thai on Church street, which is conveniently located walking distance from St. Mike's Hospital (and Eaton Centre). It is a pretty busy place for lunch. The inside looks pretty nice with traditional looking decorations throughout the restaurant. The seating arrangement is quite spacious and the atmosphere seems more relaxed compared to other busy lunch places around the area.
Upon being seated, we received lunch menus, which is what we all ordered from. There was a list of about 10 items (ranging from $7.95 + tax/tip- $9.95 + tax/tip) including things like Pad Thai, Salmon Curry, Pattaya Chicken/Shrimp/Beef. There were also Combo Options where you get to choose different items to go along with fried rice, noodles (yes, both noodles and rice!) and a salad (1 item- $5.95+ tax tip, 1 item + Vegetable Spring Roll- $6.95 + tax/tip, 2 items + Vegetable Spring Roll- $7.95 + tax/tip, 3 items + vegetable spring roll-$9.95 + tax/tip). There was a list of items you could choose from which included: Ginger Chicken, Lime Leaf Beef, Sweet and Sour Pork, Butterfly Shrimp, Spicy Calamari, Grilled Eggplant, Peanut Tofu.
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I ordered the Pad Thai Plate ($7.95 + tax/tip, pictured top right), which came with shrimp, chicken, pad thai noodle, some veggies and a vegetable spring roll + a spicy/sweet dipping sauce. It also came with typical crushed peanuts that come with Pad Thai. I found that the Pad Thai noodles were a little too dry and was lacking some flavour, as I ended up dumping all the spring roll dipping sauce into the noodles. The portion was not too big either. There were about 2-3 pieces of shrimp wrapped around a deep fried dough, making it crispy as you bit into the shrimp.
Everybody else ordered the Combo Option (mentioned above) with 2 Items + fried, noodles fried rice, some veggies and a Vegetable Spring Roll ($7.95 + tax/tip, pictured middle left and bottom). The first impression of these combos were that the portions were huge. They piled on plenty of everything. Everyone different things including ginger beef, eggplants, peanut tofu, etc (as mentioned above). Most people at our table who ordered these combos had some trouble finishing it all or ended up only eating some!
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Golden Thai is a decent place to have a nice quick lunch if you are in the downtown area as it is walking distance from Eaton Centre. The food isn't the greatest for a Thai place, but the prices are quite cheap as all the lunch menu items are below $10 (before tax/tip) and the place itself is nice and spacious (good place to go with a larger group of people and make reservations).
- Parking: park on the street (on Richmond), it is downtown though, so don't expect free parking around here
Golden Thai
105 Church Street
Toronto, Ontario
416-868-6668
