Indulge Desserts by Fareena

A friend of ours throws the most amazing parties ever. She always has interesting themes, beautiful decor, fun games, delicious food and scrumptious desserts. Needless to say, we always attend her parties.

At her most recent party, she ordered a gorgeous ombre rosette cake to match the orchids. Although the cake was absolutely stunning, we were skeptical about the taste. In our experience, you can’t judge a cake by it’s appearance. It is usually the too-pretty-to-eat cakes that turn out to be dry from the inside and lack flavour. We are sure you can agree that it is not just about the outside of the cake that matters, the inside is the deal maker or deal breaker.

At this party we made sure to leave room for dessert and we are glad we did. One bite…and we are no exaggerating…one bite and we were in a state of amazement. The cake was super moist (which is rare) and the frosting was soft and luxurious (even more rare). The chocolate cake was incredible beyond belief.

We thought we were the only ones who thought this but as we looked around the room, all the guests had huge smiles on their faces as they indulged in this dessert. All the guests were raving (as we are right now) about the cake after the party. We kid you not, this was possibly the best cake we have had in a really long time.

We inquired right away from the host about whom she had ordered the cake from. This cake was from Indulge Desserts by Fareena in Markham. Currently, we are trying to find an excuse to order a cake from her. Eid is too far away…

Website:

Indulge Desserts

Phone number:

(416) 453-8790

Pizzano Pizza & Chicken

Tired of regular pizza? We sure were. So when we tried Pizzano’s Spicy Chicken Supreme pizza couple of years ago at a friend’s house, we instantly fell in love with it.

Pizzano is a (cozy) halal takeout pizza and chicken eatery that offers a variety of pizzas, wings, and other items. It is located on Dundas Street East, Mississauga between Cawthra and Tomken.

Our family loves their Spicy Chicken Supreme pizza. The base sauce is delicious Alfredo topped with spicy chicken, green peppers, hot peppers, onions and jalapeño peppers. The crust is fairly soft and chewy (as opposed to brittle and hard, which is fairly common). Big time yum!

Their prices are fairly reasonable. The medium and large (other sizes available as well) go for $8.99 and $11.99 respectively. They also deliver!

For more information, please visit: www.pizzanomississauga.com

Chopped Canada

Food Network Canada is the channel we exclusively watch on TV. Although many of the food competitions are boring, whenever the Canadian versions of shows start we are glued to them. So when Top Chef Canada started, we went crazy. Now that Chopped Canada started last week, we are already huge fans! To be honest, one of us sisters dislikes the American version of this show from the start. However, Chopped Canada changed this. Since the chefs are Canadian, we are somehow able to relate to them more. The first episode was exciting, but not thrilling. However, the second episode had us on the edge of our seats! We loved every minute of it.

The contestants are always interesting, have huge egos and exciting to watch. The unique and weird ingredient combinations given in each round are fun to say the least. It always amazes us when the chefs are able to transform such ingredients into wonderful dishes. Some of our favourite judges are Michael Smith, Vikram Vij, and Susur Lee.

Our favourite round is the dessert round. In episode two, chef Shelley Robinson made scrumptious looking couscous fritters with a grapefruit salad . We just wanted to reach into our TV and grab it! The judges couldn’t stop raving about her dessert creation. Chef Daniel Janetos made a couscous rice pudding with macerated grapefruit. The judges thought the pudding was heavenly! Since we love rice pudding, we were drooling over it.

You can watch the episodes online on Food Network Canada’s website by clicking here.

Enjoy!

Big Mamma’s House – Burgers & Ribs

We have been wanting to try Big Mamma’s House – Burgers & Ribs since we heard about it at the Halal Food Fest. Unfortunately, we couldn’t try it at the Halal Food Fest due to long lineups and along with the fact that it was pouring that afternoon. Since we were in the Durham area recently , we decided to try it out.

Big Mamma’s House has a look that resonates with burger joints from the 60s and 70s. We loved how it’s well maintained (nice and clean sitting area). Since it was getting pretty late in the evening and it was almost closing time, we quickly ordered:

The Big Momma’s House burger: This burger was well enjoyed by our guest who was looking forward to  a double beef patty burgers. All the ingredients gelled well, that made the burger quite flavourful.

The Big Spice: This was one of the burgers we were very much looking to try. We found this burger just as delicious as the preceding burger.

The menu is expansive you can be assured that hopefully everyone. We could tell within the first few bites that the burger patties were made from scratch and prepared right in front of us.

We tried their fries and loved the fact that they were hand cut with some skin still on. One word: tasty.

There are now gourmet burger joints all across GTA and if you happen to be in Pickering, Ajax and Whitby area, you should try out this burger joint.

For more information, please visit: Big Mamma’s House – Burgers & Ribs

Mushkaki

Check out our review of Mushkaki on Halal Foodie.

“The KK was the most interesting dish we have tried to date. It was pan-fried bread cut up into bite size pieces, topped with various sauces and chicken or beef. Chef Osman explained that it is actually a Somali paratha called Sabayad that is used in KK. The dish had lots of flavours and textures, which our palates enjoyed quite a bit.”

Click here to read the full review.

Asian Wok n’ Roll – Milllcreek Location

Hakka Chinese food is a crowd pleaser and it is one of our favourite kinds of cuisine. Asian Wok n’ Roll has everything going for it:

• Hand slaughtered halal meat – Check
• No alcohol served – Check
• Prayer area- Check, check!
• Buffet- What?! Omg, check!

At our most recent visit to the Millcreek location, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that the restaurant has started a lunch buffet. All you can eat halal Hakka Chinese food is like a dream come true. The buffet is from 12pm-3pm and rates are adults: Mon-Thurs $12.99/Fri-Sun $14.99 and children (3-10 yrs): Mon-Thurs $9.99/Fri-Sun $11.99. The restaurant is huge and is great for families and large parties.

The buffet features many of the popular menu items including fried rice, noodles, chilli chicken, general tao’s chicken, spring rolls, various beef, fish and shrimp dishes, soups and many vegetarian dishes as well. Sushi was also available in the buffet.

Here are some pictures of the buffet stations.

Us sisters absolutely love soup. One of us can have soup for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a week straight and not get bored. So it is not surprising that between us sisters, we had about eight bowls of soup. Yum!

This plate features fried rice, general tao’s chicken, chilli chicken, lollipop chicken and vegetarian manchurian.

This plate features sweet and spicy fish, chicken wontons, shrimp spring roll and vegetarian manchurian with gravy.

Overall, the quality of the food was great, and the food was fresh and delicious! The service was commendable as well. The buffet experience at Asian Wok n’ Roll was awesome and we will visiting often, inshallah!

Address:

6905 Millcreek Drive, Unit 13
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
L5N 6A3

Website: 

http://asianwoknroll.com

Crave Grill House

Lately a number of North American/Italian halal restaurants have opened in and around the GTA. We’ve tried a number of them and some are winners all round, whilst others have been disappointing.

We were a little cautious trying out Crave Grill House; however, our experiences have been great thus far. Briefly, a few things that makes Crave Grill House a winner for us include:

• Nice and spacious seating area
• Great ambiance
• Excellent customer service
• Great food

We’ve been to Crave Grill House on several occasions and we have also taken picky guests along with us, who enjoyed the overall dining experience as much as we did. Here’s what we’ve ordered thus far:

Cheese Nachos: We were expecting plain boring nachos with some cheese melted on top. We were glad to receive a shareable appetizer with colourful nachoes with melted cheese along with a generous amount of jalapenos, some other veggies and of course accompanied with sour cream and salsa. We have tried this appetizer both with and without chicken, and have found it equally good. Hence, the second time we only ordered Cheese Nachos and it tasted great!

Four Cheese Chicken: We absolutely loved this dish and so did our guests. To start off, the chicken breast is coated with breadcrumbs, which makes every bite so delightful. Once you work past the crust, you realize how delicious the chicken breast really is. We didn’t think spinach and artichoke dip stuffed in chicken would taste good, but we were dead wrong! The dip and the four cheese make every bite very flavour (hardly any bland moments), and as you’re taste buds are done working there way through it, you enjoy the cajun sauce blanketing the chicken breast. We paired our chicken with cilantro lime rice, which is also our favourite here!

Linguini with Blackened Shrimp: This dish is another winner at Crave Grill House. The Alfredo sauce is delicious; the button mushrooms and the sun dried tomatoes compliment the shrimp very well. Gotta say we are quite picky about our pastas and this one was a winner for us. The accompanying bread was seasoned well and was tasty.

Blackened Chicken & Shrimp with Cilantro Rice: We enjoyed this dish as well!

One thing that we think Crave Grill House can improve on is their dessert menu. They offer cheesecake, molten lava cake, apple crumble and ice cream. All of these are great options but we feel that they can do so much better. We have tried their Molten Lava Cake, which was good.

We have been back a number of times and would recommend this restaurant to others as well. Crave Grill House is also a great option for lunch. Most items on their lunch menu range from $10-13.

Address:

25 Woodbine Downs Blvd #5

Toronto, ON

M9W 6N5
(416) 213-1977

Website:

Crave Grill House