Anton's Pasta Bar - Carbs on Carbs on Carbs...

I find that there are only two types of eaters at Anton's Pasta Bar. There are Lovers, and there are Haters.

The Lovers LOVEEE the fact that their portions are huge and make it a personal life goal to finish the whole plate in one sitting. The Haters don't find Anton's authentic which makes their inevitable queue even MORE unbearable. They just go because the Lovers drag them to go. 

As you can probably tell... I'm one of the Lovers. And I (along with my three Lover buddies JorJor, #ThugLife, and Stely) totally dragged my Hater friend to come... Muahaha

To read one of my first experiences at Antons, click here. They always start you off with what I think is Ciabatta Bread. It doesn't come warmed up so what Meta Knight and I usually do is save it for our saucy calamari because it goes great with sauce. It's not that great on its own.

My dear friends... this is the must get item at Anton's if you enjoy smoked salmon even slightly. It's called Smoked Salmon in Dill Cream Sauce (Linguine Con Salmone Affumicato) and it will blow your mind. I get mine with whole wheat rotini (free swap) instead of white linguine because I find it holds more sauce per inch of pasta. :P

My friend Stely recommended the Potato Dumplings in Creamy Tomato Meat Sauce (Gnocchi Cardinale) and boy was I glad we ordered this. These were little nuggets of potato carbolicious heaven.

My least favourite dish (which bee tee dubs was in no way shape or form, bad) was the Turkey Stuffed Tortellini with Alfredo Sauce and Capicola (Tortellini Alla Panna) only because the turkey was a bit dry and indistinguishable. The sauce though was da bomb. Creamy, smooth, and born to make lactose intolerant people cry.

The 'Hater' of the group, Bing, ordered a Spanish Coffee to round out the night. He loved the salt rim and actually enjoyed himself at Anton's that night. Here's hoping I turned him into a Lover.

Service Rating: 3/5
Food Rating: 4/5
Price: $$

Overall Rating: 4/5

Happy Eating!


                            the lineup at Anton's is like...

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Easy Health-fied Spaghetti Carbonara Recipe

Am I the only one who has never once ordered Carbonara at a spaghetti joint? I once heard how heavy and fatty it was and I've never dared order it, fearing of a cream, egg, bacon, and cheese overload.

One day I was watching my favourite Youtube channel, "Cooking with Dog" and they had an interesting recipe video on Japanese style Spaghetti Carbonara. It didn't look too heavy so I decided to give it a shot. It's actually super easy and I even made a few tweaks to it myself!

Here are the ingredients:
1 egg or 2 small eggs
1 tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated
1 tbsp almond milk
pinch of black pepper and salt

1/2 tbsp EVOO
3 strips of bacon
3 cloves of black garlic

1 spring onion, chopped up
Parmesan cheese, grated
Black pepper

In a small bowl, combine the first four ingredients. This will be used later for your sauce.

I try to avoid gluten most of the time so I've had to look for alternatives when it comes to my spaghetti cravings. My favourite alternative is Brown Rice Pasta because it's not grainy like whole wheat spaghetti yet healthier than plain spaghetti made with durum wheat.

I used three cloves of black garlic (made by moi!) and they are MUCH richer in antioxidants than regular garlic. I have a feeling they're the next kale so read up on it here if you want to know more about their health benefits.

Heat up the EVOO on medium heat and add your black garlic and sliced bacon.

Put a pot of water to boil with a few drops of oil and rock salt. Add the spaghetti in. The oil prevents the spaghetti from sticking to each other and the salt adds a bit of flavour to the otherwise bland pasta.

I clearly thought there was not enough bacon, and proceeded to add more.

Once the spaghetti is cooked, put it immediately in your skillet and stir around incorporating all the flavours of garlic and bacon.

I put the egg mixture from the beginning in a larger pot and put the hot pasta in it. STIR QUICKLY! Mix everything together and the heat of the spaghetti should cook the egg without coagulating it. If you need a bit more heat to cook the egg, put the pot on simmer (lowest heat setting) and keep stirring for 30 seconds or more.

Sprinkle on a big of chopped green onion, Parmesan cheese, and you're golden!

If you enjoyed this recipe, please check out my other healthy spaghetti recipes!

Japanese Masago Yakiudon


Spaghetti Alle Vongole (Clams)


Spaghetti Squash with Meatballs in Tomato Sauce


Zucchini Pasta (with Tomato Sauce)


Caulifredo Sauce with Zucchini Pasta


Happy Eating!

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Caulifredo Sauce with Zucchini Pasta Recipe

Everybody nowadays wants to eat a healthier diet with more vegetables, more lean protein, less fat, less calories, and to be frankly honest, I'm one of them. I always scrounge the internet looking for healthy recipes I can make at home for a low cost and I recently found one which seemed super interesting! 

It's a healthy take on the classic Alfredo Sauce which is typically made with butter, flour, cream, and milk, served over pasta. This healthier version is called Caulifredo Sauce which is made of.. guess what, pureed Cauliflower!! To take the health factor up a notch, I decided to serve it over zucchini pasta instead of regular wheat pasta.

Caulifredo Sauce with Zucchini Pasta  (Serves 2-4)

(low in carbohydrates, fat,and calories/ high in fiber, vitamin C, vitamin A, folate)

Ingredients:

1/2 large head of cauliflower, cut into chunks

4 small or 2 large turkey sausages

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella 

3-4 garlic cloves

1 cup of milk

1/2 tsp sea salt

2 tbsp olive oil

2 medium zucchini

1 vegetable peeler (that has the options of making twirls and spaghetti strips)

1) First, use your vegetable peeler to slice the zucchini into either long linguine style strips or thin spaghetti like strips.

My vegetable peeler had the option of making it into really thing strips so I went with that because it most resembled 'real spaghetti'.

Once you've finished peeling all the zucchini, set it aside. Doesn't it look gorgeous?!

2) Mince garlic and chop cauliflower into smaller florets.

3) In a medium saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat and throw in the garlic. Let the garlic release its aromatics and turn slightly brown.

4) Add soy milk, salt, and cauliflower. Add mozzarella and stir throughly.

5) You can omit this if you want a vegetarian dish, but I oven baked some turkey sausages and sliced it up.

6) Be careful not to overheat your milk or else it will curdle!! Cook for about 15 minutes or until cauliflower can be pierced easily with a fork.

7) To cook your 'pasta', blanch the zucchini linguine in hot boiling water for 2-3 minutes to soften it.

8) Turn off the heat and let the cauliflower mixture sit for 10 minutes to cool down. Then toss the mixture into a blender and blend away!

There you have it, Cauli-fredo sauce over zucchini pasta!

This is an extremely healthy and easy recipe to make at home with very little ingredients required. Because I only used a little bit of salt, it tasted a bit bland so for you guys I suggest throwing in some spices before blending it to give it more flavour. OR.. throw in half a cup of delicious Parmesan to make it extra CHEESYY.

All in all, worth a try if you're looking for a healthy alternative to butter based cream and white pasta. :) Let me know how yours turns out!

Happy Eating!

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Ask For Luigi - Hidden Gem

Ask For Luigi is a new Italian hole-in-the-wall that geographically replaced "Two Chefs and a Table" in downtown east side. I have to admit, you won't feel safe in this neighborhood so don't even try taking public transit here on a cold dark night. 

Ask For Luigi specializes in fresh handmade pasta (only available during dinner service) which I am a total fan of. They also don't take reservations so Meta Knight and I purposely arrived at 5:30pm (when they open for dinner). By 6pm, the entire restaurant was full.... so morale of the story: come early.

 Their dishes are meant to be shared family-style but we did not expect the appy Fried Cauliflower with Aioli, Fresh Mint, and Parmesan ($10) to be that huge! When it was brought to our table, everyone around us stared and asked us what it was. The cauliflower reminded me of Nuba's and was absolutely delicious.

One of their daily specials include Spaghetti and Clams ($17) which Meta Knight took fancy to. It came in a red sauce with fresh bottleneck clams (I think).

The fresh spaghetti was al dente and surpassed any pre-bought spaghetti we've had in the past. The clams were a little scarce so it didn't fill him up completely.

I chose the Duck Ragu & Pappardelle ($19) and it was soooooo good. I love thick pastas because I find them texturally better and does a better job of soaking up sauces such as this. At first I didn't think it would be enough food but by the end, we were both stuffed!

Yeah.. we were both full but could not leave without trying a dessert. Life of a fatty. We rarely eat prunes so their vanilla bean Panna Cotta ($7) with almond biscotti, dried prune sauce and fresh mint took us by surprise. We tested their panna cotta and... yes. They passed the jiggle test with flying colours!

Ask For Luigi is a hidden gem for me anyways because not only does it serve yummy authentic fresh pasta out of this little small house in DTES, its managed to garner such a huge following having only been opened a couple of months. That shows you how many people took notice of this affordable quaint little bistro.

Service Rating: 4.5/5
Food Rating: 4.5/5
Price: $$-$$$

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Happy Eating!

 

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Zucchini Pasta (With Tomato Meat Sauce) - Oh Yes.

Have you ever been on a low carb diet? Or tried to avoid eating any type of pasta, rice, or bread for dinner?  Me too. Here is a recipe that might make your 'healthy eating' a little easier. I stumbled upon this tip while surfing the net and I couldn't wait to try it with Meta Knight! This recipe is essentially Tomato Meat Sauce with Pasta. Except you sub the pasta for zucchini.

It sounds odd right? How can zucchini replace pasta? It doesn't even remotely taste the same. However, it surprisingly did the trick and acted like refreshing fettuccine. 

This is what the final product looks like. We forgot to squeeze the excess water from our zucchini pasta so our sauce was a little runny. 

1. First off, brown your meat in a skillet. We chose lean turkey but you can substitute it with any type of ground meat.

2. When it is 90% done, transfer the meat to a bowl and drain the oil. 

3. Cut your zucchini lengthwise in half. Using a sharp vegetable peeler, peel it into thin strips. 

4. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and throw the zucchini in there to cook for roughly 2-3 minutes. All you are doing is blanching it to make it soft. Check/taste the zucchini pasta often to avoid overcooking it. Once you have drained the zucchini pasta, squeeze it lightly to remove any excess water. 

5. Pour a jar of low sodium tomato sauce (Ragu is a pretty good option) into the skillet. Toss in fresh tomato chunks, excess zucchini (cut in chunks), and ground meat from earlier into the skillet.

6. Once the sauce is thoroughly heated and bubbles begin to surface, turn off the heat and serve over cooked zucchini pasta!

That's it! This recipe is super easy, healthy, delicious, and best of all, there is no wheat, gluten, or rice! So eat away!

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Ingredients:
1 package of ground turkey or any meat you want
2-3 medium sized zucchini
1 1/2 cups of fresh tomato (cut in chunks)
1 jar of Low Sodium Tomato Sauce
a pinch of salt (for the pot of water)

1. First off, brown your meat. in a skillet. We chose lean turkey but you can substitute it with any type of ground meat.
2. When it is 90% done, transfer the meat to a bowl and drain the oil.
3. Cut your zucchini lengthwise in half. Using a sharp vegetable peeler, peel it into thin strips. 
4. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and throw the zucchini in there to cook for roughly 2-3 minutes. All you are doing is blanching it to make it soft. Check/taste the zucchini pasta often to avoid overcooking it. Once you have drained the zucchini pasta, squeeze it lightly to remove any excess water. 
5. Pour a jar of low sodium tomato sauce (Ragu is a pretty good option) into the skillet. Toss in fresh tomato chunks, excess zucchini (cut in chunks), and ground meat from earlier into the skillet.
6. Once the sauce is thoroughly heated and bubbles begin to surface, turn off the heat and serve over cooked zucchini pasta!

Happy Eating!

courtesy of http://9gag.com/gag/4810693

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