Reunion at Joey's

Tonite we had a surprised reunion! We got pretty lucky cos originally we were going to meet on Wednesday but ended up meeting on Thursday. All 4 of us have not been together at the same place in 2 1/2 years! Jen just recently got back from Australia and Karli was in Vancouver for just the one day / night! This meeting was meant to be and we feel so lucky to be able to all see each other to catch up! Jen and Karli are doing great and Karli is busy as ever. Jen is still looking for something but I'm sure she will find something soon with all her experience. Hopefully, she'll be in the downtown core and then we could have our lunches again!

We had dinner at the new Joey's on Burrard and Pender and it is very interesting how they set up this new restaurant. Designed a bit different from the others and I'm not sure I like where they put the washrooms cos they are far from the main dining area. Behind the main dining area and bar is another bar but a bit darker and more reserved, feels like it's set up for an older crowd, men in suits. The decor throughout the restaurant is unique and interesting plus I notice the crowd (after work) is a bit older and way more suits than I expected. I tried something different cos the menu is the same at every restaurant, I decided to go with the Ahi Tuna Club, mmm... that was pretty delish and I would order it again. After dinner, it was still early but we decided to call it a nite cos Karli, Rae and I were a bit tired from the long day. Even tho we didn't get to spend much more time together, I was happy to have the chance to catch up with both Karli and Jen! We miss them so much!

Goldfish Pacific Kitchen

Another Taste of Yaletown dining experience at Goldfish. This is another restaurant I have been meaning to go to but never had a chance. The menu for TOY was reasonably priced and there were quite a few options to choose from which impressed me. The dishes were well presented and the food was delicious and mostly local. The decor is trendy and modern and the cuisine is asian fusion. A very comfortable place to enjoy drinks and appetizers with friends after work but I probably would not go back for dinner cos the dishes are a bit pricey for asian food.

I started with the premium raw oysters (a bit small but super sweet!), entree was the oven roasted sable fish (served as Hoisin-sake glaze, caramelized onion and black bean coconut jus), and for dessert, I chose the Creme Brulee with white chocolate and jasmine shortbread cookie. All for $35 not including my drinks. I would def recommend going during TOY cos you get to sample a bit of everything at a reasonable price.

Go Canucks Go!

Rhoda had won tickets from work, yeah! She hasn't been to a hockey game in 2 years which is quite unbelievable but true. We decided to have dinner at Fat Burger since we hadn't been in a while plus it's close to GM Place. It's either White Spot or Fat Burger, only junk food at the hockey game. Thankfully, every game that I've been to, the Canucks wins the game and this time they did not disappoint. Altho, the game started off a bit slow and disorganized but in the end, they got into the groove, played like a team and won the game. Go Canucks Go!

r.tl

Taste of Yaletown

r.tl had a really nice and reasonably priced menu ($25 / person). This was my first time at this place and I have been meaning to go but never had a chance to. It was a full house tonite and our table wasn't quite ready so we were offered the "red room". The red room is a room with a white leather couch, a few cushioned stools and a coffee table, the room was equipped with a TV and iPod dock and you could have the privacy away from the noisy restaurant by closing the door. We didn't do that tho cos it made the room feel really small and claustrophobic. The room is nice if you are having appetizers and drinks but not so comfortable trying to eat your dinner. The food was well presented and delicious but I was not impressed with the dessert. Overall, it was a good meal at a reasonable price and I think I would def go back again for dinner. I loved the decor and the restaurant setting. Plus the staff was incredibly attentive which we really liked and the manager gave me another dessert cos I expressed that I didn't like the dessert I chose off the menu. After dinner, it was still early (2 hour time slots for TOY) so we decided to try and get into a lounge or bar in Yaletown but it was impossible cos it's Saturday nite and we had no reservations. We walked through Yaletown to take a chance to see if we could get into Glowbal but it was packed, even Yaletown brewery had a huge line up, we decided to stop in a Blenz to have a coffee and chat some more. It was a good nite with good friends and it seems like we hadn't seen everyone in such a long time! Next dinner, it will probably be at Shel/Kitty's or Vince/Meryl's new place.

Dim Sum and Shopping

Today Kay and I met up with Clare and Cass for dim sum at Victoria Restaurant in downtown to catch up on each other since there have been many changes since we've last saw each other. Clare and Cass moved downtown and being downtown means you don't need a car but since Clare had another appointment in downtown, we decided to stick in the downtown core (Kay and I usually don't have dim sum downtown since there are so many less expensive and yummier places closer to home). We ordered a bit of everything from the menu and Clare ordered a couple of glasses of white wine to go with her dim sum. After catching up and getting full from all the dim sum, Clare had to head over to her next appointment while Kay, Cass and I decided to walk around downtown to burn off the meal. I ended up picking a couple of items like a cute silver sparkle shrug from H&M and a pair of tights from Urban Outfitters. It was nice to be outside in the sunshine as we won't be getting much more of it. After shopping, it was time to head home cos I had dinner plans for the night. It was interesting catching up with Clare, a lot has changed since I've last spoken with her.

Jay Z | N.E.R.D

Jas got tickets for this concert for half price and even though these were not the best seats in the house, Jay Z is awesome! Not huge fans of N.E.R.D tho esp their new stuff (not yet released) but did enjoy the 3 songs that I was familiar with. Jay Z is an amazing performer and def worth the money, he even spent 15 minutes looking into the crowd and thanking the fans for coming out. I have a lot of awesome photos and videos but just don't have the time to edit and go thru them so here are a few of my fave shots!

Thanksgiving Dinner

Tonite, we celebrated Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends. We had quite a meal, there was so much food and I was in charge of mash potatoes and cranberry sauce. I had picked up some purple potatoes at the last Trout Lake Farmers' Market with Kay and was very excited to surprise everyone with purple mash! The turkey was almost cooked perfectly, we should have left it in the oven a bit longer but we managed to slice the top part and enjoy some turkey before the second helping (turkey back in the oven)! Gosh, we have lots of leftovers cos mom picked up a 18 lb turkey! We love this time of the year cos we get turkey and spent quality time with the family and it's even more special cos my mom dos this for us, she and grams aren't huge fans of turkey like we are! :) (more photos on my flickr)

Hello Kitty 35th Anniversary Hoodie

Kay and I went down to Super Bored to check out the Hello Kitty LE hoodie and it was so cute that I had to have it! I felt bad that she didn't have any money to purchase a cap so I bought her a SuperBored cap as well but she's paying for half which I will be docking off her allowance. My hoodie came with a free phone strap also LE and celebrating Hello Kitty's 35th anniversary! After SuperBored, we headed over to Granville Street so I could pick up a body butter for my eczema at Rocky Mountain Soap cos the body butter works awesome and with the drier air and the office heating, I'm pretty sure I'm going to need a lot of body butter! Once we finished, we headed home cos tonite is out Thanksgiving Dinner! Mmmm....turkey, mama's stuffing and spaghetti, butter corn, purple mash potatoes and so much more!

Cooking Mama II

Sex and the City - The Movie

Wow, what a great movie! I am so in love with the ladies of Sex and The City .... must must visit New York, New York... can't wait for the next one......

Taking away the mid week blues....

with shopping ... how else do you get rid of the blues? Hehehe...

After work, Kay and I headed over to Holt Renfrew's Louis Vuitton boutique cos I had a LV limited edition book called "Louis Vuitton: Art, Fashion and Architecture" on hold for me. This is a large format book that explores 80 collaborations with the likes of Takashi Murakami and Stephen Sprouse. It is def. a collector's item and something every Louis Vuitton fan should have. The book is priced at $130USD or $160CDN and I had a few HR gift cards so I only had to pay $20.29! Gosh, the book is HEAVY and we still had quite a bit more to do so we took turns carrying the bag with the heavy book. After HR, we headed over to H&M cos Kay wanted a boyfriend blazer which she found for only $39.95, I found a cute sparkly silver shrug for $24.95 and it's perfect for my silk Kenzie dress which I want to wear during the fall/winter but need a little something to make it more wearable in the cooler months. After H&M, we walked through Browns and I found the perfect blue silver (SW colour: bluebird) shoes, this colour I have been eyeing for the past couple months but HR did not have my size and I am not in love with the style. At Browns, the style is more mine and it's dressier than HR's style plus it's a bit less expensive than the ones at HR! I will try them on when I'm ready to make the purchase :) Still on the shoe theme, Kay and I headed over to Payless cos they were having BOGO (buy one, get one 1/2 off!) and Kay really needed to replace a pair of grey flats that I threw out cos they were completely wrecked! She got a pair of black flats with a button detail (very pretty) and a pair of pink summer sandals for only $8 cos they were half off! After Payless, we headed over to the Main Street Farmer's market cos we are getting close to the end before the Winter market starts, we picked up some more candy tomatoes, romaine lettuce, apples and had a snack of bison smokie and an elephant ear (?). It was nice spending some quality time with Kay and we got a lot done this evening!

World's Oldest Hotel

Houshi

Wow, this place looks amazing and I think one of these days, HonHon and I should def stop by to enjoy their hot springs, this place looks so romantic, peaceful and relaxing. Apparently this is the world's oldest hotel and has been operated by the same family for 46 generations!

Earls

Tonite, I met up for dinner with Charly, we had dinner plans at Earls Restaurant on Lougheed Hwy in Burnaby. Usually, Tuesday is reserved for the Grouse Grind but he had bruised a muscle last week and is unable to hike up the trail. This was fine with me since I had thought our last time was the the last time cos last week, I was on holidays and he was moving out of his condo. It is so hard to get back into the Grind after skipping it a week and half and I wasn't too upset that we were not doing it. So we planned for a dinner cos I had something for his trip up to the Okanagan and we wanted to catch up before he left. Jas and I were suppose to head up to the Okanagan with them but I had to cancel since I do not have enough funds to go on this trip. I hadn't been to Earls in a long time and I wondered why, now I know why I haven't gone in so long. The quality (and quantity) in the food has gone down and I was disappointed with my salad which is suppose to be my meal but it wasn't a meal size! For $15, I expected a much larger portion and they forgot to add the cheese! I asked our server about it and she says it doesn't come with cheese but she did end up bringing me some from the kitchen. Also in my salad, they were not generous with the fruit (strawberries) or the candied nuts but added a whole lot of Quinoa!! I ordered a Bellini (Bellini Tuesdays $4) but was also disappointed with that, it was not that tasty and with only 1 oz of alcohol, I had to order another drink so I ended up with a glass of red wine. We did order a dessert which was pretty good but I don't think you can really screw up dessert. Overall, the experience was just ok and I will not be going back.

*Note: I am comparing the salad plate size to Milestones which are huge portions. For $15 I do expect much more than what was served by Earls*

Mystic River

I just finished reading Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. I am now addicted to his novels cos I love his writing style and he's really a good story teller, throwing ideas into your head and you think you've got the story but really it's not what you think. I read Shutter Island cos the movie is coming out and I wanted to know the story before watching the movie. I am really excited about the movie now and I cannot wait to watch it. Now that I've ready Mystic River, I will go and rent the movie this weekend. He is an amazing and talented writer, must go to the library and borrow a few more of his novels.

Tearful Farewells

We dropped HonHon off at the YVR around 11.30pm and for the first time, there were many many tears from all three of us. I think this time it's harder than any other time cos we had not seen him in such a long time plus our time together was cut short by a couple days due to his next business trip to China. I was clearly disappointed that he arrived late and left as scheduled (instead of delaying his departure by a couple of days) but I understand this is his business/company and he is working over there cos he wants to provide a better future and life for us. Even as we know this, It's still very hard and the distance takes a toll on a very strong and stable relationship. There is only so much time and distance a person can take and it's starting to break oneself. Tho I was well aware of this situation and what it would take, I didn't realize it would be for this long and it looks like we have a couple of more years to go. It's incredibly hard and I do not ever recommend that anyone put themselves into a long distance relationship. Even with a history (and foundation) like ours (we've know each other since we were 15 or 16 and have been together since we were 17) it is still very difficult and takes a lot out of a person, imagine a family going thru this. Kay and I have always been pretty strong and I usually keep a very strong front when it comes time to drop HonHon off at the airport but this time, we could not hold back the tears. We miss him very much and I hope the distance/time between us will get shorter and visits will become longer. We can only hope that one day, he will be here more often if not permanent but until then, we must deal with this as best we can. After dropping him off at the airport and trying to get ourselves back to schedule, I only cried about 10 more minutes in bed before falling asleep. Miss him so much......

100 mile diet

Tonite, everything on our plate (with exception of a couple of the ingredients in my Caesar salad dressing) are local and organic! Since HonHon is here, we like to cook him dinner and tonite, he got a chance to see and taste what we eat daily. He couldn't believe how delicious our pork chops (no animal meat by products vegetable diet, no antibiotic treatments, no growth hormones, freedom to run and root) from Gelderman Farms were and we had only used cracked pepper and sea salt to season as we grilled it in the wrought iron pan. We also fried the shallots in the pan after the pork chops were done and that made the shallots super tasty. Our 100 mile dinner was super delish and sooo yummy!

Homemade Whole Wheat Pasta

Tonite, I tested our bread machine's function for pasta. It didn't turn out too bad altho, I think the next time, I'm gonna mix the eggs and the flour first before putting it in the machine for kneading. Also after making the pasta, we were finally able to use our pasta maker that my mom bought us last Xmas! I think I need to practice rolling out the dough cos the pasta was a bit thicker than I wanted it. But overall, it was a big hit with HonHon and Kay! Yeah!!

Pizza Pizza Pizza!

Tonite, we made homemade pizza and of course, I used our new Zojirushi Bread Maker which I finally received! We have been waiting for 2 weeks for this bread maker to arrive and we were so excited to use it that we had to use it to make pizza dough :) Wow, the dough turned out perfect and it's already paying for itself. It's an amazing little bread machine and altho it was a bit on the expensive side, it's def worth every single cent! Our dough came out perfect, I rolled it out and put it on our pizza stone, in the oven it went, crust was perfect. We used our leftover pasta sauce and added a bunch of veggies from the farmer's market on Wednesday. Basil, brown button mushrooms, garlic, onions and lotsa cheese! Sooooo yummy, pictures speak for itself!