Yang’s Braised Chicken Rice

With over 6,000 locations around the world, Yang’s Braised Chicken Rice is one of China’s biggest food chains and they’re now available in Canada! They recently opened several new locations in Ontario. Check out their website to find a location near you!

Website: http://yangschicken.ca

Yang’s Braised Chicken Rice actually really reminds me of a hearty home cooked meal. My mom is a huge fan of one pot cooking so this is definitely something I’m familiar with.

The portions at Yang’s Braised Chicken Rice are humongo. I got two meals out of this one meal combo! The chicken is marinated all the way through and so tender. My favourite part is the sauce and this one pot wonder is oh so saucy. I drizzled the sauce on my rice so each bite is full of flavour. Yang’s Chinese chicken pot recipe has been around since the 1830s, passed down from generation to generation. The chicken here is braised daily at the restaurant and each order only takes five to nine minutes to prepare. It’s the perfect quick, healthy and delicious meal if you’re under a time crunch!

Yang’s Braised Chicken Rice may be famous for their signature braised chicken and rice, but I was actually really impressed with their cucumber salad. It sounds simple, but it’s so refreshing and such a nice pairing to the braised chicken and rice. This is something my grandma used to make as a side dish too! There are lots of side dishes to pick from the menu so I definitely recommend trying them out too.

Yunshang Rice Noodle x SickKids

Sometimes I get caught up in the daily grind of things and forget just how lucky I am to be here, to be healthy and to be surrounded by some truly amazing people in my life. 

I had a lot of health issues when I was a kid. I still remember being in and out of the hospital with my mom and how scary all the wires and machines were. I was fortunate enough to have access to great medical care and I’m now able to enjoy all these food adventures and explore the world, one restaurant at a time.

SickKids is an amazing hospital that not only takes care of the kids, but they also provide comfort and support to the parents and family of the kids going through treatment. 

The founder of Yunshang Rice Noodle is a regular donor to SickKids. His son was only one year old when he was rushed to SickKids to receive treatment. He was able to make a full recovery thanks to the incredible team at SickKids. The founder is committed to giving back to this incredible organization and is passionate about bringing awareness to the important issues plaguing the health of children, and becoming educated in helping an organization that does so much for children and their families.

On July 7th 2019, the beloved Chinese rice noodle brand, Yunshang, will launch a “Pay-What-You-Can” campaign in support of SickKids to build a new hospital!

An exclusive “Support-SickKids Menu” will be available at all Yunshang locations in the GTA on July 7th. Guests are encouraged to come to any Yunshang store, order whatever they like on the menu, and pay what they can. 100% of the proceeds collected that day will go to support SickKids Foundation. Besides helping to provide children with access to high quality healthcare, this campaign will hopefully end hunger in the city even if it’s for one day. 

I’m such a fan of the rice noodles and the different broths here (the tomato soup is my favourite).

The broth itself is made from scratch daily with Canadian sourced ingredients. It’s simmered for at least 12 hours with pork, chicken AND beef bones to really get the flavourful broth without the use of MSG.

Each noodle set comes with a variety of sides dishes that are served in a cute little bento style box. I love the quail eggs and the fish tofu. The noodle set really is a full meal once you add in all the side dishes.

This exclusive “Support-SickKids Menu” at Yunshang offers a cold dish/appetizer and a drink in addition to the rice noodle set. An amazing meal for an amazing cause!

Yunshang stores open at 12PM and this campaign is for dine-in only. Remember to come early on July 7th and celebrate the day for a good cause!

For more about this great causes check out: http://yunshang.ca/sickkids_en.html

Sakura season at Cheese Garden

It’s Sakura (aka cherry blossom) season at Cheese Garden! 

Sakura’s actually one of my favourite flowers. I love the subtle pink (my favourite colour) and the cute little petals. It’s a symbolic flower of Spring, which is also my birthday season. Needless to say, when I heard Cheese Garden came out with their Sakura Spring Collection, I just had to try it!

Featuring Japanese Sakura from Kanagawa, this beautiful Sakura dessert set comes with:

1 Sakura Fraise Cheesecake

2 pieces of Sakura Yakigashi

1 Sakura Raindrop Cake

1 exclusive Sakura spoon and Sakura bag as free gifts (SO cute!)

I love the different layers of the Sakura fraise cheesecake. The cake consists of the following layers: Sakura mizu yokan, custard pudding, Sakura jam, no bake strawberry cheesecake and matcha sponge cake. The matcha sponge cake and the strawberry cheesecake go so well together! I like that the Sakura wasn’t over powering so I got to really enjoy all the different flavours.

The Sakura Yakigashi is my favourite from the dessert set. This Sakura and cranberry cookie bar is as yummy as it is beautiful. The toasted pistachios adds a nice crunch and the marshmallows gives it a nice chewy texture and added sweetness.

If only raindrops can be as beautiful as Cheese Garden’s Sakura raindrop cake then maybe I’d enjoy rainy days more. The texture of this raindrop cake reminds me of jello and it has a very distinct Sakura flavour. I can’t get over the beautiful flower sitting perfectly in the “raindrop”. It’s almost too pretty to eat!

This new and limited Sakura Spring Collection is only available from now to May 12th!

Only 50 Sakura Spring Collections are available per day at each location and limited to 1 set per customer (no reservation, first come first serve).

Available at all Cheese Garden locations: 

 📍5291 Yonge St

📍Unit G120 - 3250 Midland Ave. 

📍B58 - 4300 Steeles Ave. E (Pacific Mall) 

📍Saks Fifth Ave. Pop-up store, 176 Yonge St.  

Website:  http://www.cheesegarden.ca/ 

Tsujiri Patisserie

Location:  596 Yonge Street, Toronto, ON, M4Y 1Z3

Website:  https://tsujiri-global.com/

Grand Opening Promo: This iconic Japanese Matcha brand will be celebrating their very first Tsujiri Patisserie store in downtown Toronto by offering FREE matcha ice cream lava cakes for the first 88 customers on March 30, 2109, starting at 12:00PM!

Tsujiri is just one of those dessert places that never goes out of style. There’s a reason why there’s still so much hype about this 155 years old Japanese matcha brand. I have been such a fan ever since I had my first bite of matcha soft serve. 

The store itself is bright and spacious with a very minimalist design. There are lots of seating available so it’s a perfect spot to catch up with friends over some matcha appreciated treats (I couldn’t resist... My blog post is not complete without at least one pun).

Tsujiri Patisserie offers unique items such as their beautiful dessert platters. Perfect for indecisive individuals (much like myself) because these platters offer a variety of treats selected by the pastry chef. 

The crunchy eclair is filled with a generous portion of Tsujiri’s delicious matcha cream. I absolutely love this combination of a crunchy eclair shell and a creamy matcha filling. These eclairs are made fresh to order, meaning the matcha cream is piped on the spot once an order’s been placed. This helps prevent the crunchy eclair from getting soggy.

The matcha ice cream lava cake will have you coming back for more! There’s a mountain of Tsujiri’s famous soft serve sitting on top of a fresh out the oven hot and ooey lava cake. I mean you really can’t go wrong with a dessert like this! So much care’s been put into this one dish. From the made to order lava cake, to the beautiful platting and the yummy mochi and chestnut, this dish is definitely a must try at Tsujiri Patisserie! 

I was lucky enough to check out a few of the Tsujiri locations when I was traveling in Japan. I can honestly say that the quality here really does match the quality of the matcha treats served in Japan. Food is always able to magically trigger specific memories for me and this lineup of matcha desserts brought me back to my adventures in Japan. Now if only it can literally bring me back!