On a rainy December night, a couple friends and I planned to eat dinner at Tangerine Asian Cuisine--a Hakka place in the new-ish plaza at Markham and Ellesmere. It was a celebration of sorts; an end-of-exams-feast, if you will. Coming from downtown, Sam and I took the subway, RT, then Highland Creek bus to the restaurant, where we met Jess.
I have written about hakka food in Scarborough so many times! But I just love the stuff so much! Having frequented Tangerine before, we knew the food was good and the location was better. Perhaps not the caliber of Lucky's (hard to beat its spicy Scarborough charm) but Tangerine is still delicious and is located in a more convenient spot for my friends and I.
When dining at hakka restaurants, can always order to classics: chili chicken, vegetable pakora, and chop suey, but it's nice to spice (nice use of words) it up sometimes! We each ordered a dish to be shared and there were a few dishes I hadn't tried before.
Chili Vegetable Ball: Jess found it unnerving that these meatball phonies did not taste like meat, but if you're expecting a deep-fried, carb-filled, dense potato-things, then you'll like them! The sauce was flavourful and spicy!
Manchurian Tofu with Mix Vegetable: The sauce was tasty and the vegetables were crisp, but I would have liked more tofu. As well, at Tangerine knives aren't given out, which means you have to devour that whole Chinese vegetable at once. That can be tricky and messy.
Shrimp Shanghai Noodle: The noodles had a good texture and there were lots of shrimp. It was a little bit plain, but still worth eating. I think I've been eating at my (Chinese) fiance's house too much. I'm starting to feel like ordering noodles or fried rice at a restaurant is kind a waste of money. At Tangerine, you receive bowls of white rice for free!
Total Damage: Roughly $10 per person, plus there was a sizable amount of leftovers; I like it!
Tangerine is a bit of a franchise, too. There are also locations in Markham and in Whitby. Check out the website! The website also has menus, hakka history, and lots of information about the food.
Lucky's will always hold a special place in my heart, but I'm going to rate Tangerine the same as Lucky's: *** and a half / ****.
DESSERT
Not wanting to end our night quite yet, we headed across the parking lot to Coffee Culture, a classy-esque coffee house.
But on the way, right beside Coffee Culture, we saw this:
So Into Cupcakes? I'm so into cupcakes! When did this get here?!
I did a little bit of searching and found that this cupcakery opened only last weekend. There's a Facebook page with lots of pictures if you want check that out. I will have to peruse this bakery soon!
On to the main event...
CAKE!
I definitely could have found a better angle to display the cake, but I suppose I was in too much of a rush to eat them! Us three shared, two pieces of cake, and ordered tea. (I had Earl Grey and it was lovely.)
The cake on the left is a chocolate truffle cake, I believe, whereas the cake on the right was more of a mousse cake. The right cake was absolutely, mouth-watering, smooth and decadently delicious. The left cake was good too, but it was no right cake.
And for some holiday cheer, we were sitting beside the fire.
What did you see?!
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