牛家莊

Friday - CNY dinner and also dinner celebrations for two b-days. We went to Peking Man aka 牛家莊 on leslie & sheppard. This is not my favourite place for dinner BUT is the favourite restaurant for one of the b-day person. We of course ordered the peking duck (as seen from above). They (as in the server) know how to cut a peking duck properly. Not too often will I get to eat PK duck where the slice of meat is cut evenly w/ some fat and skin.

The Meal was OK. I was telling my BF as we were heading home that I've been spoiled with good Chinese food. On Wednesday night, I took my relatives for dinner at a private kitchen on Don Mills & Sheppard. I won't disclose the name of the place; if you want it - email me then :P (hehe)

Anyway the Private Kitchen's food was AMAZING! My aunts (including the one who came to visit us from HK) are very picky eaters. They are fabulous cooks and can probably outcook any chefs if they have a proper gas stove at home. So during dinner time, they were disecting the meals apart to figure out what are the ingredients for each of the meal.

I think this is the part which I need to explain why they had to 'disect' the meals.

Private kitchen is very unique in the sense that they don't have a fixed menu. You call ahead of time and let them know how many people are coming for dinner and how much you'd like to spend per head. Then they call you back with the menu of their choice.

OK, so i know how to read and partially write Chinese. BUT there was NO WAY in HELL was I going to know how to write all the menu items down properly. I tried but gave up after the first course. Instead, I listen to the menu tentatively and made a mental note of how they were going to cook the ingredients.

So overall I found the Peking man place ok. Here are the info if you are interested in going...

Name: Peking Man
Address: 1100 sheppard ave. east (Across from Ikea North york)
TTC: Leslie Station