Toronto Eats: Birthday Dinner at Han Ba Tang

Toronto Eats: Han Ba Tang, Kiku Corner

Han Ba Tang, meaning “one full round,”  is a new Korean restaurant in the North York area of Toronto. Ryan and I made the trek up there to celebrate my birthday. Having already had some drinks downtown, we skipped the alcohol and went straight for the food. The menu featured small tapas- or izakaya-style items with […]

Matcha White Hot Chocolate

Matcha White Hot Chocolate, Kiku Corner

Ryan and I used to go to a crepe restaurant in Toronto called Chococrepe. Obviously they served crepes (both sweet and savoury, and all delicious), but they also served amazing hot chocolate. You could get either dark, milk, or white hot chocolate made with either cream or milk (or 50-50), and you could get it plain, […]

Thyme Flavoured Salt

Thyme Flavoured Salt, Kiku Coner

Michael Stadtländer is a German chef who set up an eccentric farm-restaurant in rural Ontario. On Stadtländer’s sprawling property, Eigensinn Farm, his team grows the organic produce and raises the free-range pigs, sheep, rabbit, goat, and poultry for his restaurant at the farmhouse. He also has beehives for honey, a stand of sugar maples for maple syrup, and he combs […]

Furikake on Everything!

furikake on everything, kiku corner

  When I was a kid, we had a goldfish. Even though I wanted a cuddly, furry pet, our parents started us off with a goldfish. And of course, we would have to feed fish food to our goldfish. Fish food, in case you haven’t seen it before, is generally a can of flat fish […]

DIY: How To Make Vanilla Sugar

DIY Vanilla Sugar, Kiku Corner

Once you have a vanilla bean, it is really simple to make your own vanilla sugar. When we lived in Saudi Arabia, it was impossible to buy vanilla extract since it was made with alcohol – and alcohol was illegal. Instead, I would bring Dr. Oetker vanilla sugar from Germany every summer to use in my […]