Hotel Review: Holiday Inn Express (Mercer, PA)

 Travels have brought me abroad to our neighbors, USA in Mercer, Pennsylvania. 

The state of great "no tax" (on necessities), I travel to Grove City where the Premium Outlets take us on a fun shopping ride.

Being so close to the highway, this location, Mercer, PA, has limited lodging. I find myself heading into yet another review for Holiday Inn Express.

Compared to the HIE in Richmond Hill, Ontario, this building is older and less updated. With that said, this hotel still had great service.

The front entrance area is not as modern or updated, but it's nice that they have an area for cold lemon water

Along with the all access water anytime, they've also got me when the staff told me they also provide 24/7 free coffee, hot water and hot chocolate (photo above).

They have a range of different flavoured creamers! And hot chocolate! 

Lastly, they also have a complimentary cart of popcorn

This is the grand room where you can lounge and hang out. In the mornings, this area is used for the complimentary breakfast for all guests

Overall, I rate this 4/5

Other than the lack of modernity, this hotel was a very nice stay

Great service/friendly staff

Great complimentary services

Location was great (1 minute away from the Outlets)

Food Review: Big Moe's Burger (Scarborough)

If you know me, then you know I am a burger gal. 

So the other day, I was browsing through Groupon and my bro-in-law saw Big Moe's burger joint. It looked like a good deal, so we tried it out. Why not?

At first glance, the joint looked very ghetto. And then we walk in.

And... so is the inside.

But since we're here, let's see how they're burgers and poutine do.

Oops, sorry I was hungry and forgot to take a photo of the burger itself. However, for what I was expecting,  the burger wasn't half bad. I got a cheeseburger. The meat was not dry and the bun was just right (not too soft or hard). 

The poutine was a massive disappointment, however. The gravy sauce was horrible and the cheese was... grated?! No cheese curds, like how the MTLs do it. It was overly salty and I could not eat another bite. 

They did have a nice addition to their menu, which was the funnel cake. =0)

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Overall, I rate this 2.5/5

Location: Steeles/Kennedy (just south of Pacific Mall)

Price: $

Atmosphere: Very run down

Clean: so-so

Food Review: Fushimi (Markham)

Okay, this post is mostly about the food.... because it's buffet style and they've got it all!

It's Fushimi

Location: North of Denison on Woodbine Ave.

Price: $23.99 (dinner, weeknight) or $26.99 (Fri-Sun & holidays)

The restaurants' entrance

The hibachi area (we got there at 5:30pm)

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And here comes the throw of food products that they offered.....

Baked mussels

Tuna tartar

Salmon

Salmon Sashimi

Maki roll with tuna tartar

Udon

Christmas special: Raw oysters (2 per person only)

This was an order of 5 raw oysters (here's 10), go figure!

Salmon Rose

Kiwi on top (hmmm... that was so-so)

Seaweed Salad

Fried Ice Cream

The surprise was "green tea"

Fried milk (way too fried and milk was too solid for the liking)

Black Sesame Pudding (left), Red Bean Ice Cream (right)

The one thing that made my meal superb was it's absolute beauty in it's presentation. Although they do buffet style, every dish is presented with care and beauty. I was very impressed with that. I felt like I was eating a la carte even though it was endless.

Most disappointing thing was the sweets, which is my favorite part. The red bean ice cream was gritty and the friend ice creams' skin was way too thick which did not compliment the green tea ice cream inside (which was very good).

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Overall, I rate this 4/5

Food Court Review: First Markham Place

It's funny, I never see any food court reviews on specific restaurants. But it might be a good idea to start since every shop is different. Let's start with the food court at First Markham Place. It's not new to most of us, but I thought I'd start talking about what I'm tasting.

When I went to First Markham Place to grab some dinner one night, I was a little overwhelmed by all the restaurants' menus. There were all posted up on their walls showing every single dish possible. Not being able to read Chinese myself (jok sing), I was even more overwhelmed on how to choose. Of course they had the English subtitle underneath it, but being half Canadian and half Chinese, I still knew the Chinese names of the food I usually eat and reading them in its translation was not as clear to me. 

But, when there's no choice, you do as much as you can. I was pretty happy when I was able to see that some of them had photos of the food.

We ended up choosing WOK'S KING. Why? No idea. haha sorry! But they had what I knew I wanted and so I just ordered. If you haven't been here, it's nice to know that with every order they give you a complimentary choice of cold soy milk or soup. 

On a cold night, we decided to get soup with our meal. The so-called fast food noodles were just as good as they are at other sit down restaurants. Of course, the greasiness does help it's taste. But the noodles were cooked wonderfully and it was very enjoyable.

It was a weeknight and so there wasn't much traffic, which I always love. This food court is very spacious with lots of seating. It was pretty clean as well.

Overall, I rate WOK'S KING 4/5

It's not about the glam or the plating, but the food is decent and inexpensive.

=0)