Bop N Grill (Chicago)

This is the best place for unique burgers and their kimchi fries. The location is in a small neighbourhood near a school (I think University). I came here because I saw it on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives.

When you first walk in, you are greeted by people at the cashier. They were very friendly and very patient, as my friends I just couldn't decide what to order. In the end, I ended up ordering the Kimchi burger, my friends ordered chicken katsu and the Father. We ordered kimchi fries to share.

First off, the Kimchi fries. THEY ARE AMAZING! At first I thought the Kimchi fries at Bahn Mi Boys (Toronto, Canada) were amazing, but then I tried these, and they were many times better than BMB. Crispy thick fries with cheese and kimchi and green onions and uhhhh...i'm drooling just thinking about it! It's a must try if it's your first time here (like I was)

The Kimchi burger was very unique. Basically stir fried Kimchi and coleslaw and egg. The egg was a bit raw for me, but I still ate it anyways. It's definitely a very messy burger. When I ordered the burger and was told the meat would be medium, I was bit a worried it would be a bit dry. That did NOT happen with this burger. It was still so moist, and especially with all the sauce from the other ingredients, it did help to make it a messy burger.

My friend's Father burger was amazingly tall. I just remember there being an onion ring at the top right before the bun. Not one of those small thin onion rings, but a thick onion ring. He had so much trouble eating it, but he really enjoyed it.

My other friend liked her chicken katsu. They don't skimp out on the chicken at all. Lots of crispy, hot chicken with rice and kimchi and coleslaw. We were all so full finishing our food.

I'm so glad I was able to make it to this place during my trip to Chicago. If I ever went back, I would definitely come back to Bop N Grill to try out the rest of their menu! (It's also conveniently near a subway, giving it an extra plus!)

- Jfu

DMK burgers (Chicago)

My friends and I came a time when there weren't a lot of people. I saw good reviews on yelp and decided to give it a try. It's a bit far from downtown, but very close to the subway.

































This place is literally all about burgers. Their menu is very small. Fries are separate from the burgers, just a FYI. I guess it's so you can focus all your attention on the burger. They have lots of burgers, so it was kind of hard to decide which one to eat.

I ended up getting the special which was Santa (something). I don't remember. But it was salsa, egg and tortilla chips. It was very unique and very good. HUGE burger with very moist meat, grilled to perfection. THe only thing that was disappointing, which I know would be really hard to perfect was the fact my tortilla chips were soggy. I know, that's just being really picky, but the sides that didn't soak up the sauce were very crispy, so it left a nice sensation in my mouth.

 

My friend ordered the double stack. It was HUGE! He had a messy time eating it. But definitely worth it. My other friend ordered the regular. Still a very big burger, but also grilled to perfection.

We ordered sweet potato tots to share. Those were really good. Very sweet potatoes and very crispy. Usually sweet potato fries aren't as crispy as you'd get with regular fries, but these tots were super crispy. The sauce it came with was also really good.

My friend ordered the choco banana milkshake. SO GOOD. If I had more room in my stomach, I probably would have gotten one myself. Very banana-y flavour and good hint of chocolate. VERY thick milkshake, I used a spoon to take some from my friend's drink. Hahaha.

Great place for burgers and milkshakes. The only thing is it's far from the city, so for tourists like me, it would be very hard and probably would go unnoticed if I hadn't done some research ahead of time. At least we stopped by Lincoln park when we came back from this place. It's only a few bus stops away.

When you go visit, be prepared to get messy. Not a place to be eating your burger with delicacy and table manners!
- Jfu

Toronto International Luxury Chocolate Show at Roy Thompson Hall

So, another food adventure for me. I've always wanted to try the chocolate show, and this year, I was able to finally attend it. Honestly, I was so hyped up about it that when I got there, I have to say, I was a tad bit disappointed. There were lots of vendors, but not a lot of samples. My friend and I both bought 12 sampling tickets. It was 1 ticket for wine tasting, and 2 tickets for the food sampling. Majority of the food places didn't accept tickets, and only accepted cash, which made it pretty useless for us to even have the sampling tickets.

For wine, they were trying to show you what types of wines would be good with dark chocolate. There were some wines that stood out more than others, for sure. They were all red wines from all over the country. I personally liked the one that came from California. I forgot the name of the wine (which makes this completely useless), but I liked it due to the fruity flavor from it. It wasn't as pungent as the usual red wines, and it definitely complimented the dark chocolate I had with it.

Moving on, we went to sample the cocoa and cumin scented pulled pork taco. Homemade tortillas made from corn instead of flour, and pulled pork. I have to say, I didn't find it very amazing. I didn't even taste the cocoa! Tasted just like a regular taco to me.

The other thing we lined up for was Crepe a Gogo. All the employees spoke French to one another. It seemed the owner, Chef Veronica, was also there. She was the one making the crepes. My friend and I ordered a Chomo to share. It's basically a crepe with mozzarella and chocolate. I actually enjoyed this one, as it was a different and had a unique taste. The cheesy mozzarella complimented the sweet chocolate well. It was a great sweet and salty treat.

We then continued to line up for La Rocca chocolate cakes. They had Mocha, Chocolate, Milky Way, Banana and Black Forest. We got the Milky Way and the Mocha. The Milky Way was rather plain. It tasted like any normal chocolate mousse style cake. Not too decadent, but light and airy with a nice moist chocolate cake.The Mocha, on the other hand, was different, but very decadent and rich. It didn't have a strong mocha flavor to it, but the meringue, nuts and mousse complimented each other very well. If only it wasn't so rich, otherwise, I could have gone for another slice.

I was very amazed by the chocolate sculpture. There were an army of chocolate Terracottas. It was so cute. Some were even broken, or half missing something, which actually does resemble the real Terracottas in Xian, China.

There were also other chocolate vendors that had some sculptures. There were chocolate shoes, chocolate turkey, chocolate snowflakes, and chocolate house.

Overall, I thought there would be more to the chocolate show then what I found out. I think going once might be enough. I might go again next year, to see the sculptures, but I wish they had more than one amazing sculpture, and more tasting of different chocolate. I wouldn't mind going for some samples of chocolate from places all over the world, but I'm probably thinking way too ahead of myself.

Until next time, chocolate world!

-Jfu

The start of something new

It seems food blogs are popping up everywhere nowadays, and from the influence of many of my friends (I know, peer pressure is horrible), I've decided I shall join this era of food blogs. As a food blog, I will obviously be posting about food, so don't blame me if you start getting hungry! 

I suppose I should start off with a little bit of information about myself and about the name of the blog. My first name starts with a J, and my last name is Fu (sounds like foo). When you add the d (dee) at the end, the blog then sounds like J Foody. And surprise! I'm a foody! (yes, it sounds corny, but that's the most out of my creativity).

I am a CBC (Canadian born Chinese) residing in Toronto. I am a part time healthcare worker, and full time foody. And by full time foody, I don't mean professionally (just to make things clear in case some of you think I actually get paid for doing this). I enjoy going out and trying new restaurants, bakeries, cafes, you name it. Basically, I like to eat. I also have a very very big sweet tooth (as most girls do).

I guess it would make sense for me to start my blog off with a food show, rather than a restaurant, since I don't want to play favourites with the restaurant I choose first to talk about. Yesterday, I went to the Delicious Food Show 2013 in Toronto. This was my very first food show, and I am ecstatic I went.

I had no idea what to expect going into the show, as I'd never been to one of these before. Once we got in, I got really pumped. Many vendors were set up everywhere. My friend and I went to see Michael Smith first.  I was so excited to see Michael Smith. I love watching his cook shows on TV. I was more excited of the fact ath I would see this guy cook right before my eyes in real life! It was amazing. He's such a down to earth guy and so nice and he makes cooking fun.

 We later went on to eat lunch. Bought a Sgt. Siather from the Fidel Gastro's. It has a hot dog like bun and filled with BBQ pulled pork, then topped with guacamole and crushed tortilla chips. It also comes with some Neal Brother's maple bacon chips. I've actually never had pulled pork before, but I really liked this. The pulled pork was so juicy and tender. The guacamole was so fresh and the tortilla chips on top gave it the final crunch to the sandwich. The amount of sauce in the pulled pork was just right. The sandwich was hard to eat, as there was lots of meat in it, but not too messy.

 

We went on to try an Ossobuco Gnocchi Poutine at The Frankie Fettuccine Food Truck Co. The poutine had fried gnocchi, quebec cheese curds and 10 hour braised veal shank. It seemed very interesting, since the potato aspect of the poutine was the gnocchi. I've never had gnocchi before, and this first time was interesting. I didn't expect the gnocchi to be soft like pasta, but still be a bit chewy like mochi. It's a nice take on poutine. The cheese curd was really good. Melted so well with the sauce from the veal shank. The cheese was just so creamy and soft, unlike the usual ones we have. The veal shank tasted like beef, but looked like pulled pork.












We then went to watch a bit of Lynn Crawford. Then moved on to try some beer at Samuel Adams corner. I'm not a big beer fan, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I found it too filling. Lots of gas.

We then tried some liquid nitrogen ice cream from Origin. It's maple cream with nitrogen (to freeze it up), and they put apple, walnuts, caramel, kumquat and spice. I'm not sure where all the apple and spice were, since I didn't taste any of it. There were, however, blueberries that were frozen from the nitrogen, and some breadcrumbs that were also frozen. This was a very unique ice cream. The maple cream wasn't too sweet, and the ice cream wasn't as icy as I've had before when someone made ice cream out of liquid nitrogen. Too bad there was only one kumquat. I gave that to my friend to try.

Moving on, we tried Jack and Lil's meringue. I got the passionfruit, and my friend got the dulce de leche. The meringue was very fresh; nice crunch on the outside but soft and gooey on the inside. The passionfruit was a little bit too sour, so it didn't go too well with the sweetness of the meringue.

Belly ice cream was another one of my favourites. I got the buttered scotch whisky with smoked almonds and salted caramel. I really liked this. The ice cream was hard, but at the same time, creamy when it lands in your mouth. The amount of buttered scotch was just enough, not making it too sweet. Even after several spoonfuls, I didn't feel overwhelmed with the sweetness of the buttered scotch. Usually anything with caramel (for me) gets to be too much after awhile, but not this ice cream. I would definitely get some of this again next year, or find out where the store is (that will be another mission).

At the end of the day, I ended up buying an apple pastry and chocolate croissant from O&B bakery, and a pink lemonade cake in a jar from yummy tummy. The apple pastry wasn't sweet enough for my taste. The chocolate croissant wasn't too sweet, but it was very filling, for some reason. I think they use different chocolate compared to other places. It tasted a bit bitter, and the croissant was made of chocolate (I found out when I took a bite in it, and found a small piece of chocolate, and the pastry flake to be brown).
The cake in the jar was an interesting way of eating cake. I really enjoyed it, however, it didn't taste much of lemonade. It had its own flavors. The buttercream really overpowered the cake, and the cake wasn't as moist and soft as I hoped it would be. Other than that, I think it was still a unique way of eating cake.

Well, that was a long first post. Hopefully I get to this more often, so I don't take years doing this (I mean, it took me literally 2 weeks to write this first post. Yes, I'm slow)

I also apologize for the way the pictures are located. I don't really know how to change the sizes, rotate them and move them properly.

-Jfu