Toronto chef known for secret pop-up supper club series starts his own virtual market
A chef who once ran an unreal pop-up supper club series has just launched his own online market selling the food he's known for.
During the pandemic, Ken Yau of k.dinners (which used to serve complex, elegantly plated seafood-centric dishes) pivoted to creating a frozen dumpling line, with flavours like pork and chive, dan dan chicken, mapo tofu and red Thai curry.
Now, he's selling them through the newly launched kmarket, an Asian grocery concept that not only stocks his handmade products, but also has pantry items and sweets, and acts as a resource for quick meal ideas.
Dumplings are $22 per 18-piece bag, and they also have pantry items like Yau's Everything Sauce and Ponzu Sauce for $7.50 and premade bagged fried rice for $10.
You may also find limited-edition items like the already-sold-out Mama Yau's Big Zongzi, described as "Big chunks of meat and flavour wrapped in bamboo leaf," a recipe Ken learned from his mom one Thanksgiving when no one wanted to make turkey. They ended up making more than 100 together.
A limited-edition salted duck egg and kumquat taiyaki for $8 sounds enticing as well.
"Asian food is beyond just dumplings. It something that is rich in culture and stretches across many generations and continents. I wanted kmarket.ca to be a place where people can go to learn more about different ingredients and also use them in their own cooking," Yau tells blogTO.
"I want to break down stigmas around ingredients like MSG and familiarize ingredients like Sichuan peppercorn. I use both in my cooking and I absolutely love it."
The market accepts orders of minimum $45 before midnight on Friday for free Sunday delivery between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. for most of Toronto, North York, Richmond Hill and Thornhill (they have a map of their delivery area online).
k.dinners
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