Zem One Revisited- May 2016

You may remember our 2013 post on Zem One. Since our last review, the restaurant has moved to a new location with new management (but the same owner). It is the same great halal Japanese food, but with a new sushi chef on board and everyone we know has been raving about his sushi. We were in for a pleasant surprise.

Located at 51 Village Centre Place in Mississauga, Zem One is a hidden gem in the Square One area but away from the hustle and bustle. We loved the quaint nature of the location, which had a nice brick patio and water feature.

The inside of the restaurant had a serene ambiance, which we quite enjoyed. We liked how it was not as crowded and loud as some of the other sushi restaurants. The simple and well maintained decor contributed to the ambiance. It a perfect place for dinner with your special someone.

Since Zem One is located in an area surrounded by executive buildings, it is quite busy during breakfast and lunch hours. We visited the restaurant for an early dinner and went for the All You Can Eat menu. If you have read our 2013 post, you may remember that we were not huge fans of sushi back then. However, all that has changed in recent years, and we can be found munching on Dynamite Rolls.

We started with Chicken Corn Soup, Hot and Sour Soup, and Tom Yum Soup. The Chicken Corn Soup is our all time favourite, and always lifts our mood. The Hot and Sour Soup had a a generous serving of chicken in it, and we loved the spicy kick it had. The Tom Yum Soup was hot and tangy, just the way we like it. The soup servings for the AYCE menu were generous, and quite filling.

Next up for appetizers were Shrimp and Sweet Potato Tempura along with Edamame. We love anything deep fried, so tempura is always in our good books. The crunchy panko coated seafood and vegetable tempura, dipped in sweet sauce is a match made in heaven.

Pad Thai is by far our favourite carbohydrate-laden food. Stir fried rice noodles with shrimp and flavoured with tamarind and fish sauce, this Pad Thai did justice to our taste buds. We would order this again in a heartbeat. 

We also tried the Szechuan Shrimp, which had a rich sauce and generous amount of vegetables and shrimp. The chili paste and the use of Sichuan peppers made this dish spicy.

Next up was the star of the night, sushi! We started with California Roll, Red Tuna Sushi, Salmon Sushi, Shrimp Sushi and Sashimi pieces. We found the seafood to be fresh and flavourful, and the sushi was devoured within minutes.

Our absolute favourite is the Spicy Dynamite Roll, which has shrimp tempura, cucumber, crab and avocado, topped with spicy mayo. The combination of the spicy sauce with the crunchy shrimp and cool cucumber is what elevates the Dynamite Roll. We highly recommend this dish.

The Torched Mississauga Paradise was the best sushi we had that night. It had spicy salmon, avocado, cucumber, crab, cream cheese topped with spicy mayo and teriyaki sauce. The use of the blow torch allowed the spicy mayo and teriyaki sauce to melt right into the sushi, and created a heavenly roll. 

Check out the video we made of how this roll was made.

And because we can never get enough of sushi, we ordered sushi to-go. Pictured below is the Rainbow Roll, which had cucumber, avocado and crab, topped with tuna, salmon, butterfish and shrimp. We enjoyed this thoroughly for lunch the next day.

We also ordered the Crunch Roll, which had cucumber, avocado, crab, shrimp tempura and topped with tempura flakes. This, again, was munched away the next day. 

Given our sweet tooth, we couldn’t leave without dessert (although we were already in food coma). We ordered Coconut and Mango Ice Cream. These were the classics we love and provided a sweet ending. 

The Tempura Cheesecake was hands down the best dessert ever! We are HUGE cheesecake fans, so imagine our delight when we had this deep fried cheesecake. It was everything our sweet tooth could have asked for and more. It was creamy cheesecake, dipped in batter and coated with tempura, and fried to perfection . We can’t even begin to describe the epic-ness of this cheesecake. A definite must try if you visit Zem One. 

Zem One is one of the few Japanese restaurants in the GTA offering halal food, so kudos to them for this. The friendly service, freshly prepared food, and the cozy atmosphere allowed us to wholly enjoy our dinner at Zem One. Do we recommend this restaurant? Yes (and please take us with you)!

Address: 

51 Village Centre Place

Mississauga, ON, L4Z 1V9

Phone: 

(905) 712-1615

Bismillah Sweets (BM Sweets)

If you know us, you know that we are die hard mithai fans. Ever since we moved to the west end of the city, we have been on the lookout for a good mithai shop.

We heard of BM Sweets through a relative and they were raving about their sweets. Since BM Sweets doesn’t have a website, Facebook group or any sort of presence online, it was a bit of challenge to find. But we did find it eventually in the Heartland area of Mississauga.

It’s a small takeout shop with friendly customer service. On our first visit, we got a small box of assorted mithai. The mithai at BM Sweets is pretty darn good. We particularly enjoyed the barfi and the gulab jamuns. On a subsequent visit, we tried their jalebi and also found that to be delicious.

Whenever we go with our little one, they have always given us a free piece of mithai. Someone sure knows how to win our hearts.

Our family enjoys their samosas a lot. We tried the chicken and veggie samosas that came with free chutney (yes, free). Our favourite are the chicken samosas. Being South Asians, we have a never ending love affair with samosas and chutney.

So the next time you’re in the mood for mithai or need to take mithai to that someone special’s house or you’re obliged to be fed mithai for your special occasion, we recommend giving BM Sweets a try.

Address: 

812 Britannia Road West

Unit 103

Mississauga, ON

L5V 2W1

Phone: 

905-821-8321

Muslim Fest 2015

We had an amazing time at Muslim Fest this year. Since we went on both days, we got to try food from most of the food vendors. Please excuse us for the horrible pictures; we didn’t plan on blogging about this event and so we had just taken casual pictures of the food we ate.

We had the Lahmacun from Pasha’s, which was a thin bread topped with minced beef, vegetables and herbs. The giant bread was cooked fresh and wrapped with salad. It was quite filling but we thought it was dry. A bit of sauce would have been great. We took a really cool video of it being cooked for Snapchat but…it’s gone now.

We heard a lot of the BBQ Brothers at the Halal Food Fest and had been looking forward to trying their meat lovers poutine. As we lined up, the idea of tandoori chicken, kabob and jerk chicken on poutine just didn’t sound so appetizing. We ended up just getting regular poutine, which was average.

Aside from Pasha’s, there was another Turkish vendor that had interesting things on the menu. One of us got the Doner Shawarma, which was delicious. We had asked for extra sauce, but it still wasn’t enough for us. We also tried their Spinach and Feta Cheese Borek. This was light and fluffy and for $1.50 we didn’t mind trying it. We also got their Baklawa.

Our favourite vendor, by far, was the Chill Out booth. Their mango bubble tea with lychee jelly was the most incredible drink ever. It was so good that we went back three times. The third time, they actually gave us a discount. This drink alone was worth going to the Muslim Fest on both days. We also tried their lychee bubble tea, which was also good, but couldn’t beat the mango one.

East Meats West sandwiches are our weakness. We got the Pastrami sandwich and it was worth every single ounce of saturated fat and every milligram of sodium. Yumm!

Our mom tried the falooda flavour Kulfi and we also tried fries from the Popeyes booth. Both items were priced well but not really worth the calories in our opinion.

Overall, the beautiful weather, the great food and atmosphere really made Muslim Fest 2015 a great event.

Fresh East by Paramount

Did you read our review of Fresh East on Halal Foodie? If not, go check it out. We loved, loved, loved the breakfast sandwich. Mmm…

Click here to read the review.

East Meats West Review

We had some of the most delicious sandwiches ever at East Meats West in Mississauga. Check out our review on Halal Foodie.

Click here to read the full review.

Roasted Beets with Mint Yogurt Sauce

One of us sisters does food demonstrations at a local community centre for a group of women in a fitness program. We focus on healthy, easy to make recipes. Recently, we made Roasted Beets with Mint Yogurt Sauce from Martha Stewart’s recipe. It turned out delicious and the ladies in the group loved it.

Here is the recipe from Martha’s Stewart’s website:

Ingredients: 

• 1 bunch medium beets or 3 bunches baby beets (about 1 1/2 pounds total), scrubbed
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1/2 cup low-fat plain yogurt
• 1 tablespoon fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a 9-by-13-inch baking dish, toss beets with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Cover dish tightly with foil and roast until tender when pierced with a knife, 45 to 60 minutes, depending on size. When cool enough to handle, rub beets with a paper towel to remove skins.
2. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together yogurt, mint, cumin, and lemon juice; season with salt and pepper. Spoon yogurt sauce over beets and serve.

We roasted the beets differently than in the original recipe. Since it was our first time cooking beets we googled a few more recipes to see how others roast them. So for step 1, we washed and scrubbed the beet roots. Then we wrapped each beet root individually with foil. We placed all the individually foil wrapped beet roots on a baking sheet and baked them at 425 F for 45 minutes. We then took the them out of the oven, unwrapped them and THEN peeled the beet roots and chopped them.

Many ladies in the group mentioned that they boil beet roots, but it gets messy because beet roots leave a lot of colour. We found that wrapping them in foil was relatively mess-free.

The mint yogurt sauce is what makes the roasted beets comes to life. Honestly, the sauce is everything. You can have these roasted beets as a side, as mixed into a bigger salad, or tossed with almost anything you like.

Watan Kabob

Check our review of Watan Kabob on Halal Foodie.

“The Chaplee Kabob dinner plate ($11.99) consisted of two large spicy beef kabobs on a bed of seasoned rice and accompanied by a fresh, colourful salad of lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers. Made of minced beef marinated in ground spices, the Chaplee Kabobs were moist and bursting with flavour. Red spices that were mixed into the ground beef glittered, and made for an interesting visual.”

Click here to read the full review.

Saffron Foods

ATTENTION: THIS RESTAURANT HAS CLOSED DOWN.

Excited by the idea of the first authentic Hyderabadi restaurant in the GTA, we were uber excited to visit Saffron Foods when it first opened up a few months ago. We have a few Hyderabadi friends and we always enjoy eating food at their homes. Some of our favourites are Khatti Daal, Red Chicken and Double Ka Meetha.

The interior of the restaurant had an old world feel to it. Ethnic wall hangings, pictures of historic buildings and historic looking decor pieces. We looked at the menu and were eager to find our favourite items on there. The menu was modest and, unfortunately, had none of the items we were looking forward to. To us, the menu seemed to mostly have the usual Indian dishes: butter chicken, palak paneer, chicken tikka. That didn’t seem too Hyderabadi to us, but maybe these dishes had a Hyderabadi touch to it?

Trying really hard to pick Hyderabadi items, we decided to order Yoga Chicken (never heard of it before) and Chicken Dum Ki Biryani, along with Garlic Naan. The Biryani came with Bagharey Baigan and Raita.

The Chicken Dum Ki Biryani was very mild in terms of both flavour and spice level. The raita complimented it well. We really enjoyed the Bagharey Baigan though! The Yoga Chicken was the best item we tried. It had the Hyderabadi flavours we were familiar with. It had that certain “bhagar” that we know is done to many of the dishes with karri patta, turmeric, zeera and coriander seeds. This dish really satisfied our Hyderabadi food craving.

Overall, we enjoyed our dining experience at Saffron Foods. We do wish that the menu would offer more Hyderabadi dishes.

Address:

1710 Lakeshore Blvd
Mississauga, Ontario

Phone: 

(905) 822-2222

Website:

http://www.saffronfoods.ca

Max’s Chicken & Seafood

Check out our review of Max’s Chicken & Seafood on Halal Foodie.

“Naturally, we compared the food at Max’s to the food at this same establishment. We feel that comparing Max’s to them is like comparing apples of different kinds: Gala vs. Macintosh.  Even though the apples look similar, they have different tastes.”

Click here for the full review.