CriticCal

Some relatives of ours from New Zealand came for a visit and wanted to see Niagara Falls. I wanted to give them a full experience of the Niagara region and that wouldn’t be memorable without a Niagara wine tour especially when they’ve never tried ice wine before.
We dropped in on a weekday and were able to book a tour with full tastings. Brenna was our wine guide and she was fabulous - knowledgeable, patient and accommodating. We toured parts of the vineyard while doing the tastings. Then we went to the cellar where they had barrels resting. You can tell it was also setup as an event area as well. Finally we went into their ice room where we sampled one of the ice wines. Coats were supplied prior to going into the ice room so we didn’t turn into popsicles. Overall it was a fun and enjoyable tour for our visitors. I would have tried their restaurant time permitting, well next visit!
Very well done tour, I would recommend it.

Aug19/23 just passing by again and wanted to try the roast pork so I went in and ordered a roast pork & chicken on rice with soup. The owner said if I wanted free range chicken it would be a surcharge of $2, I passed. Went with the other chicken instead. Good of him to mention it though. Had it right away and the roast pork was seasoned nicely but I’d prefer a better cut of meat. But for $6 couldn’t expect much better. Worth the value.

Aug 18/23 We decided to check out their bbq meats for dinner. When we got there they had sold out most of their bbq meats except for the duck so we decided to try that just to make the drive worthwhile. The duck was just okay. Portion was a bit small since we only one item on rice plus we paid a $3 surcharge for the duck. If there is a next time I will need to try their roast pork.

We decided to get some more bbq meats for dinner since the place we went to prior was sold out. Service was a bit slow created a wait. Had the white chicken and char siu on rice. The chicken was moist with the ginger & green onion sauce it was good. But the char siu was a bit dry and lacked taste meanwhile the person chopping up the bbq meats was just telling a customer how his char siu was better than his teacher’s. Soup was too salty, hide what taste there maybe in the soup. Portions small, prefer to paid a bit more for larger portions. Overall just average taste.

We came here for summerlicous tonight but some of us ordered off the regular menu.
The appetizers shared were the grilled octopus ( tasted boiled then grill a bit dry once you cut into it) dip sampler ( portion was table spoon size) and the seared kefalograviera cheese. Our mains were the chicken souvlaki and slow roasted lamb shank. Again the chicken souvlaki did not tasted well marinated and we found that the lamb shank just did not have any flavours infused into the meat at all. The vegetables were over cooked too soggy for me.
Overall the meal was very underwhelming. Not up to par with the reviews I had read, disappointing.

We decided to try Tianjin for an early breakfast and try the northern China style foods.
Ordered fried meat buns, pork leek dumplings, fried dough, green onion pancake, jellied bean curd, crust of cooked rice and rice bean congee.
The last 3 items we ordered were more of a regional dish. The jellied bean curd was my favourite of the 3. Since I like bean curd and it’s textures. Crust of cooked rice was not what I’d expected. I was expecting the layer of rice at the bottom of a pot when cooking rice. Which is crunchy and has a charred smell and flavour. Congee was the region’s style and consistency.
There also not enough filling in the dumplings. My favourite dish was the fried meat buns. Some of the dishes requires acquiring a taste for. Next time when feeling adventurous I will come back and try other dishes to validate if I like this region’s food profiles.