We went to Toronto to visit my sister and her family almost a couple of months ago now. My mom was there, visiting as well (all the way from Malaysia) – so we had a nice little reunion. We were in Toronto for only a couple of days and the main activity (it felt like) was eating. :) Below are some pictures of the food we enjoyed while we were in Toronto. There would have been more pictures but I was either too busy eating or getting ready to dig in. :)
Notice how fatless the duck was under the crispy skin – my sister told me that according to the seller, a lot of his customers are very health-conscious nowadays, so the store tries to keep the meat on the leaner side. The meat was still as flavorful as those really fatty ones that you still find in a lot of restaurants (personally, I thought these leaner ones tasted way better). We also had scrumptious Char Siew and Duck Livers (not shown as I was getting ready to chow down). :) We are so deprived here, in Northeast Ohio…sigh…
When I was growing up, papaya was pretty much one of the cheapest fruits available. We ate a lot of papaya for that reason and I was pretty sick of it even long before I came over. Now, I miss papaya so much…the ones that we can find here never ripen properly (they rot as they ripen) and generally, if you try to eat them before they are entirely rotten, they would still be pretty much green – the flesh would be fairly firm and not sweet at all. I wish I could grow a papaya tree in my backyard as well as a durian tree, and guava tree, and rambutan tree and…the list goes on. :) When we were in Toronto, my sister brought us to one of the infinite Asian stores there and that was where we bought the papaya. I was a little wary of how it would taste (from all the bad experiences we have had with the fruit) despite the fact that it seemed to have ripened properly (note the bright orange color without big, black spots everywhere). Hence, I decided to play it safe and not waste money by just purchasing one of these beauties…sob..sob…I would have bought 10 of these and pigged out on them for the next three days if I had known how delicious they were – sweet, juicy, firm yet tender. How come we can’t get papayas like this here???!!
My sister got us hooked on these cranberry cookies/crackers while we were there. I just had to bring some home. It’s hard to find thin, crunchy cookies like these here (the cookies in the States or at least where I live tend to be more on the softer or chewier side) – their texture reminds me of cookies back in Malaysia. We have got to move…for the food if nothing else :)
