I'm currently going through a phase where my body does not want to literally roll out of bed in the mornings, and I am numbing my brain with endless episodes of Grey's Anatomy where they're either performing a laparotomy or removing a hernia and/or a brain tumor. Then, a pregnant woman comes along, and there's a complication with the fetus, usually with her water breaking during a critical moment during an environmental crisis, so that the trauma center is also overloaded with patients... I have also acquired a new habit of staying in bed or lying on the sofa until the middle of the day, either playing Animal Crossing or scrolling through what appears to be endless Instagram posts of the gourmet meals people have been whipping up while restaurants are shut down, the screenshots of Zoom parties, and socially distant lounge at home inspired OOTD's. 

That's when I came across Elephant Garden Creamery's post about their new R&B Remix flavor, a red bean and black sesame combo, two of my favourite dessert ingredients. This flavor was actually released in March, but I guess I've been so in my own world of baby preparations and Netflix that I haven't been paying much attention to anything else. 

Since the COVID-19 restrictions have slightly loosened up, H and I felt like we could do a quick stop by Commercial Drive to visit Elephant Garden Creamery.  While the pints of the R&B Remix flavor weren't available, we did get a pint of their vegan mango coconut sticky rice ice cream, which is another one of my all time favourites from their shop. Who would've thought that I could enjoy vegan ice cream? 

This is a scoop of the R&B Remix, which was smooth, creamy, and full of large red bean pieces. By using the larger whole red beans, I could actually taste a more authentic red bean flavor and have that extra texture to chew on. 

For one pint and one scoop of ice cream, the total came to $16. A bit out of our budget now, but sometimes, you just have to treat yourself to get out of a funky mood. Also, it feels like we're doing our part in supporting a local small business. Does our $16 contribution actually help? 

Elephant Garden often has other delicious Asian inspired flavors, like Hong Kong milk tea, and Vietnamese coffee. There are other great ice cream shops to explore around Vancouver for a different variety of flavor profiles, and I'm excited to try out a few new ones once my child arrives this summer.

Meanwhile, I am still trying to gather the motivation to figure out this thing: 

I'm sure I can learn it out on the job, without reading the manual... These things are meant for groggy parents who haven't slept through the night, right? No point in spending time trying it out now, who knows if I'll even have milk right? This is pretty typical of me though. I hate being over prepared.

Back to Netflix.

This week, I feel like I’ve done a lot, but accomplished nothing. Maybe more coffee will get me through to the next week:



During my last visit to Toronto, D suggested that we walk over to Neo Coffee Bar for a quick breakfast. They make beautiful Asian inspired delicacies, including mochi and cake rolls, with Asian inspired flavours, like matcha and sesame. We had the matcha red bean roll, sesame roll, and the seasonal peach flavor, which were all very good. Really good, filled with cream and paired so well with the latte.



The sesame red bean mochi was the real winner here. It’s a huge ball of soft mochi stuffed to the edges and bursting with sesame and red bean cream filling. So next time, I’m going to get a dozen of these for the plane ride home:



I haven’t found a spot like this in Vancouver yet, with a cozy industrial feel and the same desserts. Maybe La Foret, because they also have roll cake? Let me know if you find any others.

Back to this week… I really haven’t been able to focus very well, my mind keeps drifting. I’ve always been pretty good at prioritizing, but I’m at a point where nothing seems to matter anymore, because everything seems like a big life change. Life changing decisions were made and even more need to be made soon. New apartment, travelling, getting married, career… Where do I put my energy and what’s the next step?