Yiu's Chinese Cuisine

I had a non-Asian friend comment on one of my previous posts regarding the HK style cafe restaurants, and telling me that they're not worth going to, because you can make the same dishes at home.  TECHNICALLY, you can make most of the dishes you eat out, just takes time.  I agree that HK style cafes don't necessarily offer the best quality food, or the most innovative dishes, but they are cheap, and food is decent.  It's also for convenience.  I always thought that you couldn't screw up this kind of simple food.  That is until I went to Yiu's Chinese Cuisine.

Yiu's has been on my radar since I've been going to B&B Cafe for breakfasts.  But I never got a chance to go because Yiu's claims to open at 10am, but they never are.  This time, we decided to go out for a mid afternoon snack, and Yiu's was open so we decided to pop in.  Located almost right next to B&B Cafe, Yiu's is definitely a lot busier, which I thought would be a good sign.  However, I was wrong.  I ordered sesame french toast, and the hubby ordered satay beef noodle which came with a ham sandwich.  My french toast was super greasy, and heavy.  The difference between 'normal' french toast and Chinese french toast is pan fry vs deep fry.  The Chinese deep fry theirs, which I expected, but I didn't expect it to be so oily.  I felt pretty gross after.  The sesame part is a filling in between the slices of bread, so it's not visible in the picture.

Sesame French Toast

The satay beef noodle is a very simple dish, satay sauce, beef slices and put over soup noodles.  Can't be hard to make right?  Yet they still screwed it up.  There was no satay flavour at all.  The ham sandwich, was just half a slice of ham, and 1 slice of bread.

Satay Beef Noodle & Ham Sandwich

These meals usually come with a drink.  I got a red bean grass jelly drink and the hubby got a milk tea.  Our drinks didn't come while we were eating, which we thought could be because they normally bring it over near the end of the meal.  We finished our food, and still nothing.  We asked a total of 3 times.  The third time I asked if i could just get a take out cup, so I didn't have to sit there anymore.  Even though they kept forgetting my drink, they had the audacity to tell me I would have to pay extra for a take out cup.

I would say, forget Yiu's, price point is good, but not only is their food bad, their service is even worse.  The waitresses are not very attentive at all.  And I know that at a Chinese restaurant, you shouldn't expect much in terms of service.  Walk a few doors over and visit B&B Cafe instead, where I've always been able to get the server's attention, and they always great us with a friendly smile.

Yiu's Chinese Cuisine
50 Bur Oak Ave,
Markham, ON

905-887-1988

Big Boys Burgers

I think I need to cringe when I hear the words "best" of anything.  I'm not sure if I end up with higher expectations for a meal at a restaurant when I hear the words "best" to describe it, or I just have weirdly different tastebuds than other people.  On my Facebook feed, someone said Big Boys Burgers makes the best burger.  I was hoping that they were right because it would be nice to have an alternative to Fresh burger, even though I still love the burgers there.  Just a change of scenery is nice every once in a while.

The website says home made burger, I don't remember it tasting home made.  I honestly can't remember about the burger.  Nothing about the burger stood out.  It was just another burger.  I have to say that the fries were fresh cut and pretty good.  But that was the only thing good about the place.  Not worth the drive up north for a burger.  You might as well stop off at any of the fast food chains.

Giant Fry

Burger

Big Boys Burgers
10626 Bayview Ave,
Richmond Hill, ON

905-737-2441

Hours: Monday - Saturday 11a - 9p
            Sunday 12p - 8p

http://bigboysburgers.com/HOME.html

Thompson Diner

After each of my annual half marathon races (not really sure why I call it a race, since there no way that I can compete with anyone else that runs because i'm too slow), I give myself a cheat meal.  This year it was at the Thompson Diner.  Any place that has the word diner in the restaurant name, would typically indicate some not so healthy choices, which is perfect for a post run meal.  And crazy ordering we did do.  The four of us ordered a full table of food!  We had an omelette with turkey sausage and mushrooms, the grilled cheeseburger, breakfast poutine, fat american and all day breakfast.

What I like most here is the sausage, so good.  I'm not a huge fan of pork, but I will eat it sometimes.  The sausage they serve here is turkey sausage.  So for once, I ordered sausage with my all day breakfast. The all day breakfast consisted of  3 eggs any way you like (looked like large eggs), choice of meats, potatoes and bread.  Nothing super special, but good diner food.

All Day Breakfast

The omelette was apparently cooked well, not overcooked.  I didn't get a chance to taste it, so I'll have to take my friend's word for it.

Omelette

We were surprised at the size of the grilled cheese burger.  It's essentially a very large burger patty sandwiched between 2 grilled cheese sandwiches.  It was huge!  Everyone that sat around us kind of stared when the burger arrived.  I had a small bite of the burger patty to try, it was juicy and flavourful.  I would never order this on my own just because of the sheer size of the burger because I could never finish it.

Grilled Cheese Burger

The hubby ordered the Fat American, 3 very large pancakes.  One of the pancakes was a plain buttermilk pancake, one was filled with turkey sausage, and the last was filled with bacon.  The pancake itself was light and fluffy.  But I wasn't a fan of this dish because I don't like the salty sweet combination.  The hubby enjoyed it though because it was an all in one dish.

Fat American

We also ordered a breakfast poutine to share.  Its basically a regular poutine with some breakfast toppings, turkey sausage, poached egg and hollandaise sauce.  Overall it was good, but I think that they messed up with the egg poaching.  The yolk was cooked all the way through.  I was expecting a runny yolk, which would have been a nice texture with the fries.

Breakfast Poutine

The Thompson Diner's food is definitely heavy, which would make for a great late night drunken meal, or hangover breakfast since they're open 24 hours.

Thompson Diner
550 Wellington St. W
Toronto, ON
M5V 2V5

416-601-3533

Hours:  24 Hours

http://www.thompsondiner.com