HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE, Joseph and I wish you all the best! We also hope that everyone has enough heat going around, because baby it’s COLD outside. And whenever it gets really cold, I get really hungry! So in our efforts to stay warm and fuel our stomachs, we enjoyed a holiday meal with family at Momofuku Daisho…
The restaurant is connected to the beautiful Shangri-La hotel in downtown Toronto. Immediately upon entering you’re greeted with their 3-storey floor plan. Each floor has its own theme of food and entertainment: the first floor primarily serves ramen, the second floor is a lounge (Nikai) as well as a self-serve dessert shopping section (Milk bar), whereas the third floor features Chinese-influenced food (Daisho), and Japanese food (Shoto). Everything under one roof!
There are stairs and elevator access to each floor and an abundance of high ceilings. On the third floor, Daisho and Shoto are separated by the bar area. Everything at Momofuku Daisho is served family style much like a traditional Chinese restaurant, so you’re intended to share each dish. Chopsticks are present at each place setting, but I’m sure you could always ask for a fork instead. Your servers will help you assess whether you’ve ordered enough food, because it’s difficult to know whether there’s enough to go around with a large group.
Left: fish bun, Right: ham bun
Left: Tuscan kale, Right: Foie gras. Their foie is very unique and memorable because it was first prepared in Riesling wine, then made into a log and finally shaved at the table. Condiments added to the foie gras include pickled prunes and brokened pieces of candied cashews to balance the bitterness of the alcohol in the foie.
Cucumber salad
Left: dinner rolls (delicious!) and herb butter. Right: scallops with persimmon, chorizo, and cucumber
Bologna sausage
We enjoyed the chicken thighs with the shiitake mushrooms wrapped in a bibb lettuce leaf. The chicken was very succulent and well seasoned, and there was sriracha hot sauce on the side for those who like a little extra heat. Not shown here was an order of hanger steak with a side of onions, similarly presented with a side of bibb lettuce.
Whole speckled trout
Muscovy duck
Grilled bone in sirloin strip with parsnips and steak butter. Be sure to order this early on because it takes an hour to prepare! An hour! But thank goodness our server warned us ahead of time, plus that didn’t keep us from ordering it. Perhaps if the online and paper menus would have given us a heads up regarding the preparation time, then we would have certainly called ahead to order. For a large group of 8, it was enough to feed everyone very well although we were quite full from our previous dishes already. The meat was tasty but there was a lot of fat and although we understand that fat equals flavour, we would have preferred it with less. To each their own.
Left: Sirloin strip. Right: Radish and other seasonal vegetables on the house (thank you kindly)!
Dinner family style! In the middle of this table in a small round bowl is one of the best sides of the night, and I apologize for the lack of picture: NUGGET POTATOES. The potatoes were absolutely delicious, tender, with an additional spicy kick to them. You have to try them!
Dessert: chocolate cake with banana cream and barley
Tres leches (our fav dessert): caramelized pear, walnut, pear ice cream. The cake was very moist, and the pear was soft and carmelized.
Left: birthday truffles (yum, tastes like cookie dough). Right: an assortment of Momofuku Milk bar cookies that we purchased after dinner.
The infamous CRACK PIE – tasted like the filling of a butter tart, and yes highly addictive. We had to buy a few of these to take home to sample more of the goods.
Overall our dining experience was a success. Our family enjoyed the new experience and it was a great way to share our meals together. However, if we could ask for one thing then it would be for more comfortable seating, because it was difficult for our group of 8 to sit at the communal table (similar to a picnic bench). But anyway, the good news is that they do have coat check so that frees up more space. Be sure to make your reservation ahead of time because they get booked up rather quickly. Due to the many diners, however, we also found it a bit too noisy to talk to each other. Regardless, Momofuku was a fun way to spend our holiday in Toronto and we look forward to trying Shoto, Nikai, or Noodle Bar in the near future.
Momofuku Daisho
190 University Ave, 3rd Floor
Toronto, Ontario, M5H 0A3
(647) 253-8000
