Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Singaporean style buffet in Ontario

The only way to describe what a Singaporean style buffet is to someone in Canada is to go for one. The closest I've seen is at a place called Mandarin (www.mandarinbuffet.com). They have a number of locations across Ontario. I stopped by their Pickering location on the way back from Toronto. It's just behind the Petro Canada Station at the corner of Kingston Road and Brock Road, convenient if you are connecting between the 407 and the 401. Roast beef, barbecued pork, sushi, prime rib, mussels, fresh shrimps (Singaporeans read: prawns), chicken curry, deep-fried shrimps and scallops, "everything you could want" salad, your usual chinese dishes, black forest cake, cream caramel, bread pudding, ice cream. There's also the usual "Canadian" chinese food such as chicken balls, egg rolls, hot and sour soup. The wonton is not all that great but everything else was delightful.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Kitty Lake Cabin

We arrived at the Algonquin Park Shall Lake ranger station (pass office) at about noon only to be greeted by the largest number of black flies I have seen in the 4 years I've been in Canada. Apparently the ranger knew what he was doing as he was wearing a really good bug jacket. I thought I could tough it out but all my tropical jungle experience did not help this day. "You picked the peak weekend for bugs," the ranger said.

Fortunately we only had a short paddle to the Kitty Lake cabin, which is in fact before the short 90 metres portage across to Kitty Lake from Farm Lake. The cabin is amazing inside. There are four bunk beds, a picnic table, a wood burning stove (which we did not use as it was way too warm), and enough space for two small tents (not that we were going to erect any). The black flies gave way to mosquitoes at sunset. Good thing we had a cabin and the drums we brought with us to entertain ourselves. Sunday was a little better for bugs as it was a little sunnier. But one finds them swarming in the shade away from the wind, as we did on the protected side of a point on Booth Lake that morning.