Today's eats and walk
May 1, 2004I’m up in the Toronto area for my employer. I walked around Chinatown and tried the dim sum at Bright Pearl on Spadina. nThe place struck me as Toronto’s equivalent to New York’s Golden Unicorn. nGood, cheap and easy to find. Being by myself therenwas a limit to how many dishes I could sample: pork shumai topped with nfish eggs, steamed bbq pork bun, baked pork bun, fried shrimp wonton, nbeef in sticky rice and spring rolls. nI would have liked to try the mussels, beef and rice steamed in a leaf, and nbbq ribs and bbq chicken but by the time those carts came through I was full.nEverything I ate was fresh, hot and tasty. Flavors tended toward the sweetnwhich surprised me a little.nnI walked around the city. I stopped to take in the exhibits at the R.O.M. The Egyptian antiquities that I missed when they showed at Brooklyn were on displaynand then walked back toward Chinatown and Kensington market. Along the way I had coffee at one of the Second Cup cafes that dot the city. I prefer the coffee at Second Cup but the local favorite Tim Horton’s has better sweets. nnKensington market was not what I expected. The groceries, second hand shops, dried fish and barrels of dry goods are cheek to jowl with way too much newnstuff and army-navy and the whole over crowded by trendy lonely nplanet types. Maybe it’s better at night. I tried a Jamaican beef patty from a busy shop, but I’m spoiled by the patties sold by Christy’s on Flatbush in Brooklyn, and only finished my ginger beer.nnThis evening, I went looking for a place recommended by a colleague andnnot finding it, found a Dim Sum and Seafood restaurant in a strip mall innMississauga off Dixie Road near Dundas named Happy Jade. The number ofnAsian families crowding the place and enjoying their meals was a good sign. nI had the soup with chicken, mushroom and vegetable which was hot but notnparticularly flavorful and the fried seafood with XO sauce which was very good.nShrimp, scallops and squid were stir fried with pea pods, celery, green onions nand ginger. The thin, mostly clear, spicy sauce is made with oil infused with chilies, pork fat (and maybe rind), garlic and, I think from the taste, ground dried fish. Nothing was over or under done and sauce was delicious.nThe waiter was engaging and when I mentioned I was visiting for work notednthat they are open seven days a week and have dim sum in the morningn(I’ve gone back for dinner again and the hot and sour soup and fried noodlesnwere very good).