Wa's Japanese Restaurant

My, my, my , it's been a long time since I've wrote. It's been quite a busy month (anniversary, birthday, etc), so excuse me! I will be trying to put old posts up in the next little while. I kind of got lazy and fell out of schedule with blogging, buuuuuut let's go! 

Hope everyone's been well. Recently, Calgary was hit by a flood and we're slowly rebuilding our city. I won't go into much details because I'll leave that for a different post. Not to worry, my family and I weren't hit. We're much far north from the downtown area that suffered drastically. 

Last month, Lance and I got to check out a small little Japanese place just off Center Street and 17th Avenue, NW. Oh my! This place is incredibly small but it's so intimate. It's so authentic and fresh, it's definitely one of the best sushi places in Calgary. We had reservations on a Saturday for I believe 7:30 pm just for safety because usually it's quite busy. 

The reason we chose to go to this restaurant was because for years I've been reading about a few bloggers that go to Japan and eat these awesome dishes called Chirashi. Actually, I'm kind of a fool because I always skimmed over the name of the dish or either forget it and thought that you could only get it in Japan. LOL. That was totally not true.The way I found this place was through Lance's sister's Instagram. My jaw dropped when I saw the picture, I basically begged Lance to bring me here.Since then, I've found a few other restaurants that sell Chirashi, but it's never like Wa's!

Lance and I ordered a lot of food between the two of us, ooops! But oh man, we absolutely loved it. 

We had the fried eggplant and I apologize because I cannot think of the name for this dish and the next one. You should give this a try if you're a eggplant fan. It's so yummy the way they cook it with the sauce it's served with. I just can't describe the taste. I actually put the sauce on my Chirashi rice, hehe.

Next up is a sashimi appetizer, I cannot think of the name, but it's like kimchi sashimi. I believe this one is tuna with avocado and a mild spicy sauce. You don't need soy sauce with this dish. You should enjoy it the way it's served because it's already marinated for you.

We ordered a few creamy scallop sushi, a piece of toro sashimi and salmon eggs, except they mixed up my salmon eggs for uni. =( It's okay, they sent it out to me after. =D I think it's become a habit for me to try toro at almost every Japanese restaurant we go to now. It's incredibly soft and one of my favorite sashimi. If it wasn't so expensive, I could totally just have a lot of it for dinner, hehe. The creamy scallop sushi was pretty standard compared to other Japanese restaurants. Lance and I tend to order this sushi at every Japanese place we go to too, even if we're eating other dishes than sushi. 

Now the star of the meal! OMG. It was love at first sight. Chirashi always comes with a variety of sashimi (YUM) and garnishes over a warm bed of rice. It's always beautiful and artistic the way they arrange the ingredients. It's super pricey but worth it. I recommend everyone to at least try this dish if you are heading down to Wa's. I can't do these posts on an empty tummy anymore, they just make me want to eat it again! Hopefully I'll get to have some soon. *HINT HINT* Lance. ;-) 

We also had the pork ramen because it was a tad cold that day and Lance was craving it. 

For the final dish, I ordered a Chawanmushi to share. You won't believe how excited I was to find this here in Calgary. Everywhere I go, I always look for this appie but can never find it. I believe it's more common to find it in Vancouver but this is probably the only restaurant here in Calgary that makes it. My parents always ordered it for us when we ate Japanese food in Singapore and Vancouver. It's a steam savoury egg custard with different kinds of ingredients steamed into it such as mushrooms, prawns, kamaboko, etc. This particular one only had a prawn at the bottom and a few salmon eggs, green onions and ginger on top. I wished they had added kamaboko and mushrooms in it as it would have made the dish more aesthetically pleasing and delicious. Nonetheless, I would totally order it again.

Overall we had a pleasant evening with our belly filled to the rim with food. Besides our slight hiccup with the uni, everything was splendid. I can't wait to go back to Wa's as there was a bunch of other dishes Lance and I wanted to try. 

Happy Stampede to all my fellow Calgarians. Yee-haw! 

Breakfast at Monki's

A couple of weeks ago, Lance took me to Monki's for breakfast. We rarely get the chance to go for breakfast any more so whenever we get to go it's well cherished. Monki's is a small restaurant that probably holds up to 25+ people. It is located on 1301 10th Ave. SW. The interior is really homey, clean and super bright. The server was great and attentive. Personally I rather go to small little hidden gems for breakfast than the big chain restaurants as their dish tend to be more creative and different. 

Has anyone had the San Pellegrino blood orange soda? It's so good and refreshing. I actually really hate oranges but I can do blood orange. I think it's the colour of it that makes it appealing to me. I started watching Dexter over a couple of months ago and in the opening he cuts up a blood orange and juices it. It made me want to eat blood oranges after. LOL. And believe it or not, a few days later my mother bought some. YES! She read my mind.

I had the Lobster Mac & Cheese. That was so delicious. The lobster was a little fishy for Lance's taste, but then again, he hates all kinds of shellfish. Sad face. They had truffle oil on it which was delish!!  I'm craving some now. Lance, let's go back soon!

I can't recall what Lance had but it had beef and potatoes in a skillet topped with eggs. 

The brisket was super tender just the way we like it. 

Cravings: Pandan Waffles!!

Mmm, craving this little treat at the moment!!! If only they were made available over here in Canada. It would be such a sweet treat! I got this little bad boy from Bugis Street in Singapore when I was there back in November. My sisters and I tried to get it as often as we could when we were there because it is so delicious. During this trip I was pretty shocked in how hard it was to find pandan waffles because when we visited Singapore in 2004, they were everywhere. Nonetheless I enjoyed it, especially with strawberry ice cream. Yum!

Now you're probably wondering what pandan waffle is right? Well it is simply just a waffle made with pandan flavouring and coconut milk. I'm honestly dreaming of the taste right now. It's awesome. Maybe if I can find some pandan extract here I'll attempt to make it, but for now I will keep on searching!

More Burgers? More Burgers It Is!

This past month Lance and I have had the pleasure of visiting three burger places. Two of them happened to be Fatburger and South St. Burger Co.

Fatburger was so disappointing. I was excited to eat here way before it opened but unfortunately the burger patty was very thin and dry. The toppings were so-so. I don't think I would eat here again, but I would totally buy the fries again. Sooooo good! It had the perfect crispiness that you would want in fries as well it was so inside after you bit into it. What?! So yummy.

South St. Burger Co. was alright. Not the greatest. They did have a lot of interesting sauces like garlic mayo, wasabi mayo and mango chutney. Well those were the ones that I could list off the top of my head. Oh I like that they had guacamole. Nom nom.

Valentine's Celebrations

This year I was very lucky to spend my Valentine's Day with two of my very best friends, Lance and Hubert. 

It started with Lance surprising me at 7 am with two Betsey Johnson bracelets and some Lindt chocolates. These aren't just any costume jewellery but future promises to take me to visit the pandas and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Super sweet, right? I honestly don't even understand why I deserve all of this. I am so blessed.

Lance and I did our own couple-ly thing by having dinner at a Korean restaurant in China Town. We decided to keep the day very normal and small because another part of his gift to me this year was a trip to Banff for a few days the week after V-Day.

We ordered the Korean hot pot dish with spicy pork and oh my! Even though they say it's for 2 people... I bet 3 or 4 people could eat this and be full. I loved it because we knew that this place wouldn't be buzzing with couples so it was very quiet, but filled with our conversation! The food we got was the kind of comfort food I was craving and it definitely hit the spot.

Here's my arm candy for the night.

So pretty!

 After dinner, we took a stroll around down town for a bit where we saw a smart car parked along the road like this. Haha, I guess it's because he can. While walking around we also people watched. There were many couples out, obviously, and a few very cute old couples out and about, holding onto each other. It gave me such a warm and fuzzy feeling inside because I hope that will be me one day! 

At the end of our walk, we sat at the Marriott while waiting for Hubert to get off work. We then went to dinner with Hubert at the Cheesecake Company. Lance and I didn't eat but we got dessert here. The dessert here is massive. We always get the cheesecake sundae and it's delightful! Unfortunately they ran out of bananas that night so we got extra strawberries and pineapples. All in all it was a good day because I got to spend it with the best people in the world.

February 2013

Sorry for the long disappearance. I have been so busy trying to focus on life, school, etc. Not much has happened though just the first half of my midterms which were okay. Also I'm sick again, not that that's a shocker to me. 

My dad came home early one day and I was surprised with some sushi from him, hehe. Though it's not fancy sushi it's okay because we ended up getting some more that weekend. I really appreciate spending time with my father when I can. He's so easy to talk to face to face and I always appreciate his advice on life and his life stories.

Plus he spoils me once in a while like the other week I wanted to borrow his car to go shopping but his tires weren't on the right traction. He didn't think I could handle the truck as it was slippery. It is a pretty large truck after all. Unfortunately for him I started pouting and he caved in: "oh okay, here you go". Muahahahaha.

I got the Clump Crusher from Covergirl in the waterproof version. I really don't like the formula. It runs down my face and gives me that raccoon look after a few hours which I hate. It does no volume action for my lashes as it claims. It actually lengthens my lashes which is weird. When I pair this with my Maybelline Illegal Length it looks like I have fake lashes on or so Lance says. As for the clumping? It's alright, not the greatest, but the brush is pretty nice.

Nom, nom, some apple chimicheese cake from Apple Bee's. I think the last time I had this was with a friend in grade 10 and that was just ages ago. This was after a quiet dinner with Hubert and Lance.

Three Thursdays ago, Hubert, Lance and I headed to a friend's apartment to play some board games. The drive there was beautiful as the sky was peachy pink. it was breathtaking.

We got to try outa bunch of different games that we weren't exposed to. We usually play Settlers of Catan, Monopoly and Clue but this time we got to try Ticket to Ride, Small World, Pirate's Cove, and Tsuro. I won't lie, some games were a bit confusing that I sat out and watched the three of them play. I didn't win any of the games. I only came in second place when we played Ticket to Ride and Tsuro. I wanted to win so badly at Tsuro but nope, Lance kept winning. :(

Ahhhh, my lonely dinner for one when Lance worked night audit that weekend. Normally we go out on Friday with friends or cook dinner together, but nope, just some garlic butter clams. Yum.  

For Lance's birthday, we didn't really get to celebrate it between just both of us as he worked over night. However, I did get to bake a red velvet cake for him. It was pretty amateur baking and I kind of messed up making the cake part... Oops! It was still pretty delish. I surprised him with the cake in the morning when he came over and then we went out with his aunt for some dim sum. 

At night we headed to his grandma's to celebrate his birthday with his family and we had their CNY family reunion dinner. Goodness, there was so many meat dishes, Lance kept apologizing because he knew I wanted to eat veggies. I felt so sick from the amount of meat on the table, it was weird because normally I wouldn't care. Nope, I'm not a vegetarian just trying to cut down on meat, but hahaha, we'll see... I love my steaks!

Eating with his family made me miss my family reunions in SG. Speaking of SG, I miss the delicious food there. I want some pandan waffles with some ice cream, please!

Last week, Hubert, Lance, Andy and I went out for some super spicy Southern China food to celebrate Lance's birthday. It's the South Silk Restaurant. I think I was mentally prepared for the food to be super spicy so it actually wasn't that hot to me. Not trying to be cocky or anything. I think I just got to mentally prepare myself to eat hot food because many a times I have eaten spicy food (and it wasn't as hot as that night) that I didn't think I was going to have and just be in total pain. Apparently the spiciness of the food grew as they brought the dishes out one by one. The pain for each dish felt the same to me though. I am weird. I loved the cold beef/ tripe dish and the eggplant we got. I would recommend this place to the spicy food lovers. Asian spiciness are always terribly hot so if you're in the mood for it go try it. It's located on 823 14th street NW.  

Our Valentine's celebration happened to be small this year and it was memorable because I enjoyed it. I will post about it later.

This past Monday, Hubert, Thomas, Lance and I decided to meet up to go to The Keg for yet another birthday celebration for Lance. Hubert's treat. What the heck... So many celebrations, but he truly deserves it since he always give me many birthday celebrations each year. He tends to hate having lots of people at a party and rather have a more intimate dinner which was perfect and exactly what he wanted.

I had to grab Hubert's car as he didn't drive it to work that day, pick Thomas up and then pick him up after. I was having a heart attack driving that car as the brakes were so sensitive... LOL. I looked like a maniac driving it. Oh well, luckily we got there safely and in one piece and onwards to dinner it was. 

I got the prime rib for dinner. Blergh. It was alright but it could have been better. I don't think I like the down town location as much as the one in the NW. Our waiter was fantastic though. He was very on point with us. He made sure our glasses was always filled with water and that we were comfortable. He even comped our desert as he found out last minute the creme brulee wasn't done, so we got to pick out a new one. 

I will attempt to blog more this week. Promise.

We'll run where lights won't chase us

Yaaaaay, second week of school is over. Hope school or work is going well for everyone.

Anyway, here's what's been going on with my life.

Last week Lance and I got totally swamped with errands and life that we decided to kick back, rest and order in some Indian food! I was craving it for a while actually and I'm glad we were able to order in because I was dead tired and still a bit sick. We decided to look up delivery places on Urban Spoon, and chose a decent place near by and quickly ordered as it was 9pm - one hour before closing. We decided to go with Taste of India as they had pretty good reviews and neat little features such as....ORDERING ONLINE! We ordered so much food but that's okay because we ended up saving it for other days.

We had the mutton vindaloo, lamb korma, butter chicken, coconut rice, chicken samosas, beef samosas and naan bread. I was pretty happy with everything we ordered. Every dish was super flavourful and loaded with meat. I actually hate it when you order curry elsewhere and they skimp out on the meat and fill it up with other things like potatoes and veggies. The meat was sooooooo soft and juicy, I was genuinely shocked and happy when we were eating. The naan bread was really big... We actually ordered four pieces and they were probably longer than my forearm. Yup, note to self don't ever order that much naan bread again. Delivery to my place cost $5 which is pretty standard. Thanks Taste of India, we'll definitely be ordering from you again!

On Friday, Lance and Hubert had a work meeting while I went shopping at Winners and did a bit of errands at the Core, banking, etc. I managed to pick up an iPad mini case and screen protectors. I also made away with a white Steven Madden leather-esque jacket that was on sale and a pair of UGG combat boots. 

I couldn't ask for a much better case than Miss Audrey Hepburn! 

Now, I've been searching for a pair of combat boots for a while and was actually contemplating getting a pair of Dr. Martens, but I found these beauties and I am in LOVE! They're leather and waterproof on the outside, which is much needed when it snows, and lined with sheepskin, which keeps my feet nice and warm. The distress leather look is amazing because I don't have to worry about keeping my boot perfect or free of wrinkles. I can bum around in these pair of boots. And the best part? A side zipper so I don't have to lace up every time I put on my boots!

After running my errands, I headed back to the hotel, grabbed some tea and played on my ipad while waiting for the boys to be done. I was so bored that I took a picture of the ceiling... It was a pretty nice ceiling, I'll give it that.

When the boys got off, we went for a really late lunch at Hot Pointe where we had mini hot pots and bubble tea. Lance and I got the hot & sour lamb hot pot and the garlic chicken wings with fries. I really love these individual pots because they are so cheap, but I can't stand how much cabbage they put in it. Each mini hot pot comes with a bowl of rice and you can order more side ingredients to add to your soup. Eating here always gives me the sense of nostalgia because these hot pots remind me of my childhood where our hot pots was placed above a burning coal. Now my parents just have our hot pot over a hot plate. Here, they burn some gel-like coal underneath that keeps the dish nice and hot which is a huge factor for me when having soup. There's a nice mix of lamb, fish paste, tofu, and veggies. On the aesthetic side, it's fun to see the fire burn up sometimes... If you're a pyromaniac, haha. The garlic chicken wings were kind of a miss here. I didn't like the flavour at all because it didn't taste like garlic chicken wings, but the meat wasn't overcooked, so that's a plus... 

Then we headed to Chinook mall since Hubert and Andy wanted to go shopping for their late Christmas staff party.

When we got there, the boys took off while I went into the Pink store for a laptop case, towel wrap, a bangle and a yoga set, and more underwear from Victoria's Secret... Ahhh, those stores are my weaknesses, I don't even know why... Must be the extra 50% off the sale items... That's right... I got everything for about $30.  

We then left the mall and headed back to Hubert's house to wait until the movie times for Django Unchained rolled around, but Hubert crashed so hard at home because he was awake for 24 hours and we couldn't watch it. So hopefully this weekend we will. 

On Saturday, I headed to Ming's for some cocktails and food with the Le Germain staff. The interior was pretty unique. The interior of the lounge is very unique. Pictures of communist leaders' decorate the walls and there's a heavy sense of propaganda from the mid-late 90's period. Their drinks are named after famous dictators and leaders. It's hilarious. Unfortunately, I didn't get any of those drinks, but I did order the Paris and the Mona Lisa. Yum!!! I love their martinis here. They are made just the way I like drinks which is sweet and fruity. This lounge had a bit of an Asian influence to their food; which makes sense since the place is called Ming. I ordered the takoyaki and okonomiyaki, and surprisingly it wasn't bad. They could have added a better cut of squid in their takoyaki and more ingredients in the okonomiyaki. Overall the batter was pretty standard when it comes to making those kinds dishes. I've actually been watching a few okonomiyaki videos that it made me want to make one, but I didn't have the ingredients so since I was at Ming's I decided to order it. Anyway, I had a pretty relaxing night and I couldn't have asked for more.

Now onto my nerdy little corner. I have been playing Diablo 3 for the past week and oh my, I am addicted. I think it's because I love RPGs and that I can play with Lance, and occasionally Mike and Hubert, when our schedule meets. I've never played any of the Diablo games, but I know Lance was a big fan of the second one. I currently have a witch doctor and I love how she can summon different creatures to help her fight. I find it so hilarious. She has this one skill that summon's a giant toad that swallows people. HAHAHA. To be honest, I only chose her because of Witch Doctor song from Alvin and the Chipmunks, haha, I know, lame, but I liked this song as a child. Ooh eeh ooh ah ah ting tang wallawalla bingbang...

My character is super sexy.

I hope everyone's had a fabulous week and if not, I hope your weekend's even better!

A puppy to brighten your day!