I've been craving Duffin's Donuts since last week, but with the snow storm and traveling, it was difficult to get out that way. So, when we heard that there were amazing donuts at the Reading Terminal Market right next to our hotel, D and I jumped on it. We picked up a couple on the way to the airport from Beiler's Doughnuts:

Their selection of donuts was overwhelming - they had 2 of the above display cases, filled with beautiful donuts, including some of my favourite flavours, like strawberry jelly, maple walnut, Boston creme. There were some outrageous looking ones too, with purple sprinkles, and a blueberry fritter, which I haven't seen around before. How many donuts could we possibly eat before a flight?



I ended up choosing the Boston creme, the strawberry, and an apple fritter (safe choices overall):

Here are photos of the donuts with filling. Left side is the strawberry (obviously, since it's red), and the right side is the Boston cream: 

I would have to say that they were good, but not as amazing as I thought they were hyped up to be. The strawberry jelly could have used some work, and I thought they could have chosen a jam with a different consistency. It was too thick, and did not have that melty, gooey texture, like the ones from Duffin's.

The cream in the Boston cream was perfect, and I did not leave any leftovers, but the chocolate coating on top was quite a mess that melted off a tad too easily. Remember to grab napkins for this one.

Apple fritter was a plain old fritter.

Perhaps, this selection was too safe, and we should have branched out to try the more gimmicky flavors, but as with most things in life, the basics are important. I have no doubts that if I'm ever in the area again, I'll revisit this donut stand at the market. The Reading Terminal Market brought back strong vibes of the Borough Market in London, and I can't wait to revisit this place and explore the rest of the stalls.

The first week of 2019 is over! We went to the new Jam Café in Kitsilano for one of the first meals of the year:

Let's start with dessert. We had their special waffles of the day, which had glazed walnuts and espresso infused toast, topped off with a generous dollop of vanilla whipped cream and a gooseberry. The plate was coated with condensed milk. SO DELICIOUS. Worth the 20 - 30 minute wait to get a seat. 

Then, we had the later tater bowl – tater tot layer on the bottom, pulled pork, egg, and salsa, among other things mixed into the layers. Can’t go wrong with tots:

Finally, there was the Farmer’s Skillet. This is a pretty standard brunch option, from what I’ve seen out there, constructed with a base layer of potatoes, topped with a scramble of peppers, mushrooms, bacon and sausage and eggs. There were some average toast options too, but the one that stood out was the cranberry sourdough, which we ended up choosing. I love berries, and when there’s raisin bread in my house, it doesn’t last for very long, so it was only natural that I had 2 slices of this toast, while M & C each had one. It comes with a little side of berry jam too, another one of my faves. I would come back here, just for this toast and jam.

Other than good food, Week 1 of 2019 has not lived up to its hype. I am sure the crap of 2018 has prepared me for this year though. Here are my intentions for this year:

1. Get married.
3. Write a blog post every week.
3. Work hard, and play harder. How? I’ll travel to, or at least plan, a trip to Japan. In the meantime, before travelling, I’ll keep my apartment as clean as possible (no socks on the ground!) Actually, maybe that should be changed to work smarter, because who wants to work hard anymore?

H and I went to Crackle Crème over the weekend as a break during our walk from Revolver back to where our vehicle was parked, by Main and Broadway. Their selection of flavours has more than tripled since the first time I went, when they opened about 4 years ago. Here are the sesame (on the left, darker colored) and the Grand Marnier (on the right, more orange):

The sesame is one of the original, and still as good as I remembered it to be. It’s creamy and smooth, not too sweet, but full of sesame flavor. The Grand Marnier was a more adventurous flavor for us, and it was interesting, but not something I’d go back for. I can’t wait to revisit and try out all the other ones on the list.



Best of all, the place was completely empty when we got there, around 5PM on a Saturday. It’s so peaceful along Union Street around that time. Actually, when is Union Street really crowded, except with bikers during rush hour?

Even though I’m really enjoying myself this month, it still feels like time is crawling, slower than a snail. Right now, life feels like it’s on pause, while I’m waiting for Audien, for the completion of the apartment, for vacation, for luck to arrive (this phrase makes sense when translated to Cantonese).

My solution to drown out any anxiety and impatience is to watch lots of movies. We went to see Venom last night, great job Tom Hardy, a good mix of laughs and action. I saw Snowden on Netflix tonight, which I thought was very eye opening as it’s based on the true story of the hacker and ex-CIA agent, Edward Snowden. Please send movie recommendations to me so I can distract myself from real life. I’m thinking Ocean’s 8 next.

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?

Showed up late for a brunch date with D&M. We were going to Fraser Park Restaurant, which was located by the river in the industrial park by Marine Drive. Definitely a hole in the wall gem for brunch:


I had the English breakfast, which came with a pile of bacon, a sausage, and a deceivingly small bowl of beans (there were a lot). I wonder where they get their beans from… Not sure if they’re Heinz, but anyways, they were perfect for mixing with the egg yolk. I asked for overeasy eggs – these could’ve been “easier” because the yolk wasn’t quite runny enough. Oh well, what can  you expect for $12?


I don't even like bacon, and I ate it all.





I’m glad I had a chance to meet up with D&M, because we never really get to catch up. We all have stuff going on in our lives, for sure.

The other day, I woke up at 5:35AM to go to yoga, and arrived with 5 minutes to spare. Turns out that my pass had expired, by just one day… I did feel like giving up at that point – I put in all the effort to wake up, pack, get over to the studio, and now, it was like the universe was giving me a sign that I should go home and crawl back into bed instead of working out – but I was there already and there really was only 1 solution: pay for another pass and go to class.

It feels like I’ve been running into roadblocks with everything this week. The jacket tore in the wash. My faucet is explosively leaking in the kitchen and still has to be fixed. I have so much to do at work!
I can either give up, or just keep going, and I’ll choose to keep going. Everything is going to be OK… Just need more breakfast.

Visited D&T in Toronto a couple weeks ago (thanks for hosting!), with B, and I’m still recovering from all the food we ate. My favourite meal was at Kiin, which we stumbled upon while looking for a good dinner spot:

To start, we had the shrimp and pomelo salad (on the right in the image below), and the chor lada (the beautiful purple flower shaped dumpling on the left):

The pomelo was super fresh, not sour at all, and all the flavours of the shrimp were enhanced so well by the dressing (I’m sure there was fish sauce). The dumplings were an interesting texture – chewy exterior with bits of peanut inside. It wasn’t my favourite, because I don’t like that texture usually, but I didn’t hate it.

Next, we had the Khao Yum, which comes in a shiny brass bowl filled with the colours of the rainbow:

The server helped us mix all the different ingredients together (jasmine rice, lemongrass, turmeric, edible flowers, sunflower shoots, and more) with a tamarind and soy bean sauce. Although, I wanted to inhale this whole giant bowl of freshness, the best way to taste all the flavours was to really savor each bite. I’m a big fan of lemongrass, and I could keep eating this forever.

The last of the main courses was the sea bream, called Mieng Pla, which came wrapped up in a leaf of sorts:

I don’t have a photo of the little leaf wraps that we were supposed to eat the fish with, but the idea of this dish was to pick up a portion of fish, put it on top of a little piece of lettuce that was already topped off with herbs and vermicelli (at least that’s what I think it was), and eat it all in one bite.

We couldn’t say no to dessert. Our neighbors at the table behind us ordered it first, and who can resist ice cream? We chose the pandan ice cream (instead of the thai iced tea flavor), which was accompanied by 9 different toppings, including the green and red water chestnuts soaked in syrup, grass jelly, jack fruit, coconut shreds, toasted mung bean:

Thai food brings to mind red, green, and yellow curries, and meat grilled on satay sticks, but this place opened my eyes to a different side of this cuisine. If anybody else knows of a good place for khao yum in Vancouver, please tell me about it so that I don’t have to take a plane across the country to eat it again!

I’m trying to find more time to post, but it’s the  end of summer soon. This means that I’m trying to spend as much time as possible outdoors to soak in more vitamin D. It's good for bone density. Be back soon with another post!

This weekend, I made plans for next weekend, while sharing a few meals with a couple friends. One of those meals was at Sawasdee Thai:

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality. We had the pad thai, deep fried tofu that came with a delicious honey sauce, red curry with chicken, some more chicken and basil stir fry of sorts, and a seafood stir fry of sorts with squid. I didn’t really help out with ordering, left the others do all the work. Can’t forget to mention the coconut rice. Always get the coconut rice, because it’s just the perfect combo with the curry sauce.

The whole meal came to about $80 only for all 6 of us. Afterwards at home, I chugged a whole 2L of water, probably because of all the MSG and salt, but hey, it was delicious at the moment and I have on regrets.

Also spent the weekend reading all of Startup by Doree Shafrir instead of going out. I borrowed an eBook from the library and zoomed right through it, pretty easy read. It’s like Gossip Girl for the Tech world. I’ve never been part of a Startup, but I can totally relate to the themes of the book (ie, females in the Tech workforce, information in the Internet age, office life, etc…) Would recommend.

So about those plans for next weekend... I'm excited, and you should be too. 

H and I visited North Noodle House right before watching Black Panther:

Above is the Zhajiang Pork with Cucumber on noodles, the lamb skewer, and the pork dumplings in sour soup. Honest opinion was that this place is not worth sitting down to eat at. Get the dumplings to go, and don’t bother trying to get comfortable in the cramped sitting area. It’s not even the servers that make this place hard to eat at, but it’s just the close quarters with strangers, who may or may not be rude (they were rude that night). I’ll give it a 4 for the food.

After all that food, I fell into a food coma and slept through 90% of the movie.

That was last week. I think I’m much happier this week.

I’ve heard that everybody has a default mood, a base happiness (or sadness) level that they revert back to no matter what happens. I’m sure there are some habits that happy people have, which make them default to positive, like eating better food or getting outside more or being surrounded by certain people. For some people, their whole life might be about figuring out how to elevate their mood, and there are different formulas for different people. I can’t make you happy, that’s up to you!

After Aubade, C and I were hungry, so we fueled up at the Ramen Butcher. The owner of Aubade had mentioned this place in our conversation, and that it was opened by one of the locals from around the neighborhood (the daughter of somebody… my memory fails me, and I haven’t fact checked this). This really inspired the ramen cravings…
 

On the right, we have the Butcher Shoyu Ramen. On the left, is mine, the Black Garlic Ramen. Here’s a close up of mine, with a beautiful marinated egg and fatty pork:



Life is short, choose the fatty pork and fatty broth, because they are worth the extra calories. YUM. Maybe I was just extra hungry from my bike ride to get to Chinatown, but I think this would be one of the best ramen I’ve had the luck to try out in Vancouver. The restaurant was pretty busy for lunch, and I’m hoping it survives for the next few years, because I can’t wait to come back.



This year is starting off to be quite a doozy. Work is busy, life is busy. Trying to remind myself that there are things that I can’t control, but I can control my own reactions. Time to start making travel plans! California in February for the long weekend, anybody?

The last weekend of 2017!

We visited Backcountry Brewing post snowshoeing in the Callaghan Valley, in search of fries, but found something even better. PIZZA!!!!

There were a few brews on tap, including a really milky looking IPA (2nd from right in the paddle, perhaps called the Secret Handshake).

I didn’t like one of their stouts (I think it was the She’s a Lady that I liked), because it was too watery for my taste. Other than that, I really can’t wait to come back to try all their other beers, and have another bite of their latest pizza flavour, the Wake n Bacon (truffle, brussel sprouts, pork belly, and an egg). The Prosciutto was also fabulous, with a great tomato sauce base. This is really next level pizza. A must-go for a pit stop on the way back from Whistler.

Alexander Falls 2017:

Goodbye 2017! I suppose this would be a good time to look back, and think about the things that have happened this year. Travel and explore, eat, take photos… What will I do in 2018? 

My guess is I'll look for new highs and dig myself out of deeper lows. 

I only had coffee twice on this trip, and both times, it was a bit more expensive than Vancouver, but just as good. First coffee shop we went to was Woolloomooloo:



Decent food, friendly service, and newspapers from around the world, lined up on the wall for customers to read. I would come back, if I were homesick, because the food and coffee were very similar to what’s served in Vancouver.



The 2nd place was Rufous Coffee Roasters:


I had high expectations for this place, mainly because I usually expect coffee roasters to really know their stuff and have amazing brew. The photo above was taken in their outdoors seating area, where they had planted cute little succulents and tropicals along their fence. It was pretty much perfect coffee, from the latte art to the amount of caffeine actually extracted into that little cup. H had the pour over, and a sip of that could pull you through 24 hours of no sleep. The server greets as the door opens, helps to find you a seat and then gives you a basket for your belongings. Beware that the place was quite small with limited seating and dim lighting, and the bathroom is a bit tricky because there’s a step to get inside.


Back to present day, it’s December, which means 2 things...

1. Time to start Christmas shopping. FYI, I want all the things from Everlane.
2. Time to start birthday present shopping. My birthday is in a month, and again, I want all the things from Everlane.

After day of work and a few hours of shopping at Ikea, we were faced with finding a spot to dine at 9PM on a weekday in the Victoria Drive area. Everything closes early there, like around 9, and we were starving. Mui Garden was the only option for “good” food past 9:30PM:



I had the curry beef brisket with rice noodle in soup (left), P had the same with vermicelli, and J had the curry beef brisket with rice. Clearly, the curry is a good choice here. Mui Garden has renovated in the past few years, since I was last here in my high school days, and now it looks much cleaner! They still have the same servers that I grew up with, and although there are slight changes in the menu, it still feels like home. Looking at that photo makes me hungry…



I’m looking forward to some colourful leaves, and sweaters.



Here I am worrying about what to wear tomorrow, while there was another earthquake in Mexico today. 7.1 magnitude, and buildings were rumbling down in a cloud of dust. Disasters everywhere, but I’m determined to enjoy what I can without worrying about the world too much. Although rumors of the next Instagram updates are sort of worrisome.

The day started off with toxic glowing skies – smoke is back and so are my allergies. I haven’t slept properly in 3 days, but I knew that the best way to fix that lack of sleep was to do something fun. What is more fun than eating with a couple friends?

We went for sushi and then came to the Welcome Parlour:

There were a few creative ice cream flavours (peanut butter and jelly, baileys pecan, blueberry and raspberry TOGETHER). I had the apple pie (see photo above), which was a tad too sweet. However, there’s something about the bright cheery store front, with the 130 year old cash register at the counter that actually worked. Shiny and clean, great place to hang out with ice cream made fresh everyday. The store owner serves the ice cream, with his son helping in the shop, and he’s a whole other reason to visit again. I’ll come back to try some other flavours when I’m in the area.

I think my Instagram is broken, the world is drowning or burning, and I am choking on the wildfire smoke. On a brighter note, I’m going to Vancouver Island at the end of the month to find Nymph Falls.

PS, another bright note, Claire Marshall is doing a Vlogtember series!

Hit up the PNE because H’s mum wanted to check it out. I used to work here, and I never really understood the appeal of paying to go, but it was actually pretty interesting. There were a lot of really cool booths and sad looking farm animals. Another reason I didn’t mind was 'cause I wanted to try out some of the food options.There were some appealing options, and I went with the Praguery food truck:


Look how happy I am with my ice cream and delicious chewy cone:



I had the chocolate flavour, which came with a cute piece of chocolate on the top and a good slather of nutella in the cone. I do question whether this was worth $10, but hey, I was there already and I was hungry. Satisfied my sweet tooth, and the fresh chewy cone!!!! I would love to have these again.

H’s mum had the corn from the Corn Castle, and she said this was really sweet. I’m not really a corn on the cob type of girl, so I didn’t try it:



I also made a couple of impulse buys at the Fair. Sometimes, when I’m with H, I get suckered into things that are really gimmicky, but in the moment, I’m just convinced it will be useful. He’s a bit of an enabler. More on this later. Goodnight.