TD were in town for their Thanksgiving holiday, and after their hospitality while we were in Toronto, H and I had to take them around town. We decided to drop by Parallel 49 for some beer, but little did we know, they had actually renovated with a full food truck inside the warehouse, so we had a truffle poutine to share: 

We also had deep fried cauliflower that were too delicious to resist, and thus I couldn't stop myself in time to take a photo. The cauliflower was coated in a pretty ridiculous sauce that tasted like a soy sauce mix that usually I would find on a Chinese fried dish sauce, but worked amazingly with the cauliflower. It had leeks, green onions... Beer was the usual top notch quality. I'll be back with more out of town tourists, one day.

People say that the grass is greener on the other side, but what if like Demi Lovato, my grass is technicolor no matter where I go?

Life ain’t fair, and in a world like today’s, when it feels like the end of the world almost everyday, I’ll just do my best to enjoy what I can and help as many people enjoy their day as best I can. For example, I will go and eat some really great food. 

C and I went to Heritage Asian Eatery a few weeks ago, and I came across these photos on my phone, which reminded me of how awesome that little shop was. One of these was the duck bowl and the other was the pork bowl:

3 bao’s to go for H, stuffed with meat and fresh veggies:


I thought these had the right amount of sauce/meat to rice (or bao) ratio. The eggs were cooked perfectly (by that, I mean the yolks were runny enough but the whites were not too soft). I want to come back to try the brunch one day, but I have too many other places on my list right now.



I am sort of trying to save money, so eating at home more is on my list of goals for the next 2 months. This is proving to be quite difficult. I already knew that this year would not be a good year for saving money from reading Your Chinese Horoscope 2017 by Neil Somerville. I’m pretty much ready for next year to start, I’m getting tired of typing “2017”.

PS: I'm so super tired today. I think I'm letting the unfairness of this whole situation bring me down, because I just don't know how to let this go without some sort of... admonishment. When somebody does something wrong, they should own up to it and not waste all of our limited time here, arguing that it was something else that caused the glitch. Either that, or get bitched out when we find out it really wasn't the fault of anything else. It's frustrating to me that I can't just let this go...

PPS: The Queen of the Night in our basement started blooming last night! It was spectacular. This is what life should be about.

 
Visited Olive Garden at Langley on the way to run some other errands with the girls:



We each ordered the BOGO pasta option, where we eat one dish in the restaurant and bring home a 2nd pasta of your choice to heat up at home later for under $20. I had the smoked chicken mozarella dish (add $7.50), and it wasn’t that worth it because the chicken was small and dry. The fettuccini alfredo and spaghetti with meat sauce (marinara? I don’t remember, P ordered it) were quite tasety. The best part of Olive Garden is the unlimited breadsticks, soup, and salad:



I could come here more often, it’s great quality for the amount and the price, so I’m going to try to forget that the chicken was dry and just order the fettucini next time.



Meanwhile… I’ve found another Netflix series to watch – Friends from College. This is my way to save money, because I actually want to stay home and be a hermit.

No, that’s a joke. I really just am too tired after a busy day at work, where I’m doing the job of 2 people. Save me. H tried to take me to a surprise lunch today, but I had to tell him to bring me back to work after we drove out of the parking lot. Poor guy looked so defeated - I ruin all his surprises, including the time we went to watch the Canucks and last weekend when he wanted to surprise me with a visit to the new Cafe La Foret but I'd already made plans to go. Must be tough to have such a smart girlfriend!

Dinner with H and some of his mum’s friends the other night at Suhang Restaurant, close to Pricesmart in Richmond. I was too hungry and got too excited by the food to take photos, but luckily snapped this one of the meat buns:

A glimpse of the dish with egg whites is on my dirty plate in the bottom left corner. Usually, the egg whites and broccoli dish comes with seafood, but we held off on that for the vegetarians. Even without meat, it was delicious! A few other places do this dish, but this is the best one I’ve tried so far because the egg whites were just so smooth.

I’m glad I have easy access to good hearty meals like the above. Sometimes, I think about all the folks who don’t get 3 full meals a day (let alone free lunch with snacks in between, sponsored by my workplace). Also, I think about the folks who don’t have views like this within a 30 minute drive from home (basically my backyard):

Hopefully I can keep documenting these moments on this platform for the next few years to come.

Met up with M to do some last minute Christmas shopping and catch up since she’d just come back from Ireland. She’s staying in Surrey right now, and I really would not venture out for very many people, but she’s a special one and brings much joy to my life so I agreed to pick her up to go to Guildford Mall.  The hunger hit us after having only a Nespresso shot earlier on. I mentioned pho to her, and she knew immediately which place to bring me to. It was the same that J, another Surrey native, had recommended earlier on that week. Is it because Pho Tam might be the only safe place for pho in Surrey? I had to find out if it lived up to the hype.

I had the Special A – any large beef noodle with a spring roll for TEN DOLLARS. How can you go wrong?! Look at all the beef. It was steaming hot, and the spring roll was fresh and crispy. Stomach’s growling now, just thinking about it. I’m sort of curious about the rest of Surrey now… What else is in this supposedly dark, dangerous land?

Parking lot in front of the place is teeny tiny. Be careful! (Always be careful in Surrey.)

Steamworks for A and G’s going away dinner afterwards. Breakfast and extremely last minute Christmas shopping/Boxing Day shopping (the sales have started already…) this morning. The schedule for the rest of this week is packed with eating. I’m planning for January to be a recovery month.

The final day of this trip was intended for the drive home. We went straight from Hood River to Feast, which we’d heard about from P, who’d heard about it from V. 

This place is amazing. The photos don’t do it justice, and there was so much food, I couldn’t try everything.

The food wasn’t perfect, as you can tell from the rib that had all the extra gunk left on it. Still, I’d definitely come back for the sheer volume and variety. You can make your own soup noodle! There’s a stir fry station! There are delicious mussels, clams, crab, cray fish, LOTS Of cocktail shrimp… And we were only there for lunch ($14)! Dinner would be a whole new ball game!

H didn’t want to leave, but everything good or bad must come to an end. Back to good old Vancouver…

CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO DAY 1

1. Eating too much. For example, last Saturday from the Yolk’s food truck, I had the following pile of poached eggs, goat cheese, garlic potatoes, and portabello mushrooms with spicy ketchup:

But also eating too little.

2. Not being able to hike anymore/not having people to hike with. P&M were kind enough to take me, so I 3rd wheeled to Dog Mountain:

Cute Couple Award – P&M

Easy hike except for the mud. I'd go again because it's close by and quick. 

3. Being left behind in general… Huge FOMO, like when one of my high school friends get married and I'm not invited... Guess I wasn't a good enough friend... WHAT COULD I HAVE DONE?! Should I have said that or not said this? 

4. Security. My car got broken into today and nothing was taken (I think…), except my sense of safety in my neighborhood. I’ve never believed this neighborhood to be very safe, but it’s really disappointing that this happened. At least nothing was damaged.

5. Money. I can always use more…

This post is inspired by: http://elitedaily.com/wellness/signs-under-more-stress-realize
I don't want to go out, I'm constantly drowsy because sleep eludes me, my jaw was hurting from grinding at night for a while, and I am losing interest in general activities... Or maybe I'm just overanalyzing. WHO KNOWS. Just suck it up and move along... There are worse things that could happen than not being invited or missing a hike or gaining/losing a bit of weight or not closing that deal.

Also had a strong coffee today that left me jittery, so I won't be sleeping for a while tonight! Woo!

Again… Who knew vegetarian food could be so delicious?

Winter Melon Soup.

Our dishes.

The best rice on earth. Baked Portuguese brown rice.

Sweet and sour fried bean curd.

Vegetarian spicy wonton.

Fried spicy mushroom.

It’s one of those places where you could eat forever, and not realize you’re stuffed until you get up to go. I had to hold myself back to make sure I fit in the bridesmaid’s dress the next day. H’s family knows the owner and go there pretty regularly now, so I’m really looking forward to more visits to this little Chinese restaurant.

The moment after you keep going even though you’re ready to give up, and you realize that it was worth the pain because it got you where you are right now.

I believe that everybody’s got to put in their time. Then you can enjoy what you worked for.

Very honestly though, kayaking is not my thing. H has been whining to go though, so I finally gave in and planned a trip with a couple other pals this Sunday. What a grey day, rained a bit. I treated myself to some Honey Doughnuts after we reached Cates Park:

 

It was not as good as I recall! Maybe because they were stuffed in the kayak in a dry bag for a good 2 hours. Not the soft, fluffy fried dough that I recall. Maybe I’ll stick to the waffles at Cafe Orso on future trips to Deep Cove.

How do I make tofu look exciting?

Pretty delicious. H is on a no carb diet (it’s working), so for dinner, we opted for some low carb options at Sushiholic. Actual sushi was out of the question for him, so we ordered some tofu and salmon sashimi. Raw fish craving satisfied. Their food was fresh and delicious, and the restaurant is always packed during dinner time.

Started YYoga. Impossible to go everyday this week though… So much going on at work and in real life. I went to the 6AM class on Tuesday, and it was amazing – so energized for the whole day and it even lasted through to today. $40 for 1st timers at Yyoga.

Will go back again to both places.