Catching Up

Since I've been gone from the blogging world all summer, I've decided to share what I did this summer with a little collage. All these pictures are take off my Instagram account: ForgetfulCupid. Follow me!

(From left to right, top to bottom)

1. Made some strawberry treats for Lance. Super cute right?  Follow this simple video to make them.
2. My friend and I were waiting for another friend to sign his papers for the purchase of his car so we coloured with some crayons. Can you tell which is mine? ;-)
3. & 4. Lance got a room at the hotel he works at for our anniversary. We got some cupcakes and Moet champagne.

1. A birthday card from my mamacita 2, haha. Love this girl.
2. Birthday nails.
3. My birthday gift from Lance.
4. The lipstick I got. The red is a bit off in the picture, but rest assured it's the perfect Chanel red lippy. So proud of Lance for being able to pick a red shade that matches my skin tone.

1. Birthday makeup.
2. Birthday curly hair and dress from SG.
3. Birthday balloon as a tail on my bag from Lance.
4. All my awesome friends who were able to make it out on my Birthday. A biiiiiiig thank you. =)

1. Drinks because it was during Stampede. Possibly the best reason be drunk during those 10 days, not that I was...
2. Lance took me to a Malaysian place to eat because I missed SG. The beef rendeng was good, the laksa on the other hand didn't taste that authentic as it could. =(
3. Success is being able to take a nap and waking up with your makeup perfectly intact. Woop woop.
4. Nude nails with ombre gold glinter. 

Stay tuned for part 2!

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! 

Fairy Peacock Dress

Bonsoir mes amours.

Here are some shots of my outfit that I bought from Singapore back in November. I love the material it's so light, flow-y and satin-like. I adore the pattern because it's just like a peacock and it's ever so fairy like. I kind of feel like Tinkerbell.  I matched it with a t-shirt cardigan for that lightweight easy breezy cover up. Can you believe it? I bought this dress for $10 SGD. Amazing. I miss shopping in Singapore. 

Oh, and I had total perfect hair that day!

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!

Hubert, I dedicate this post to you. (Boxing Day 2012)

I don't know why, but I could hardly sleep the night before Boxing Day... I ran on half an hour of sleep for shopping... My day started at 7ish when the boys got off work. Hubert had to shower so Lance and I went up to the gym to wait for a bit. When he was done we met up at the breakfast room for some complimentary continental breakfast included in everyone's stay at the Germain. The danishes and croissants were super yums! I should have taken pictures of it but they were really flakey and buttery, just the way I like my pastries! The strawberry jam in the danish wasn't too tart or too sweet, it was just perfect.

Rocking some hotel slippers.

It took us about 10 minutes to get to Chinook mall, the biggest mall in Calgary, and I begged Hubert to park underground since it was super cold that day... I believe it was -26 degrees Celsius? Yeah, insane! It took us 30 minutes to get a parking spot... We finally spotted this lady walking to her parking spot which happened to be in the aisle over and we stalked her to her car..it's the only way to get a spot on this kind of day! Hubert used his awesome valet skills and reversed incredibly fast and followed her right to her spot. Yippee! That's right, Hubert, your 5 months of valet prepared you for this moment!

Anyway, it's 10:30 am and I'm just ecstatic to get my Boxing Day shopping on! I was only excited because I haven't shopped on Boxing Day in a few years. I forgot how packed the malls got, but I was actually kind of used to it, having just gotten back from Singapore. 

Lance and I were Hubert's personal shoppers for the day. Hubert forgot his normal shoes and was wearing his dressy work shoes that clashed with his jeans and hoodie. He decided he was on a mission to get a new pair of everyday casual shoes. What a hooligan. 

I was able to buy loads of things I've wanted for a while. From Forever 21, I got a pair of navy sequins shorts, a studded clutch and a mint green circle skirt. 4 candles and 3 lotions from Bath & Body Works. And lastly from Victoria's Secret's Pink, 3 yoga pants, 2 sweat pants, a hoodie (I really like gaming in lounge wear where no one can see me, hehehe) and a loaaaad of undies. Yay! Poor Hubert waited outside for an hour for me while I was in that store and Victoria's Secret. Sorry!

But don't worry! I was a good friend, Lance and I managed to dress Hubert up in a few stores. He's trying to change up his style for a more business casual look. That's right, ladies! He's changing it up. He got a couple of cardigans and a few dress shirts. What?! I'm so proud of him. He finished his degree, changed jobs, changed look! He's on a roll. Can't stop this kid! Now all he needs is a new lady friend. 2012 was big for him. Especially since he also got his appendix removed and had kidney stones a week after. What bad luck! But happy that you're all better now. :D That day, I got to see his appendix scar... Ewww!!! Definitely not something I want!

It was about 3 something when we left the mall and our mission failed terribly because Hubert couldn't find any shoes. I felt so bad for the guys, since they both worked overnight again that night so we had to rush back to the hotel, where the three of us just climbed into bed and passed out! Yup, be jealous of our friendship.

The next day, started early for me again. I waited for Lance to get off work, we grabbed some breakfast and then went shopping at The Core; a mall downtown that was just newly renovated. It's a decent mall, but the layout is all funky.  Sigh, breakfast was a real disaster that day. The waitress was such a b... I hate it when people ruin the start of my day. The other waitresses were just as useless, standing around and gossiping. Such a toxic environment, I didn't even bother having breakfast the next day because of this one particular waitress... Charcut should really look into hiring new breakfast people.

Oh well. Lance and I walked over to The Core which took about 5 minutes to walk to from the hotel. We checked out a few stores, but to be honest we were only there for H&M... I managed to grab a men's jacket for 30 bucks, scoreeee! Plus it was super warm, so I didn't care that it was a men's jacket. To be honest, when it's colder than -15 out, I don't really care whether I'm fashionable on the outside, just as long as I am warm! So far, I really love this jacket, I haven't had to wear the multiple layers of sweaters that I normally wear with my other jackets and the wine color is just beautiful! 

At the beginning of that morning, Hubert gave Lance some money to buy him a pair of shoes. He told us he was judging his friendship based on the pair of shoes Lance and I got him, whether it'd be nice and his style. It actually took us a while to find the perfect shoes which happened to be at Spring. To be honest,  I didn't even want to go to that store and when we got there Lance was looking at the guys shoes while I was looking at bags... Typical me! We were about to leave the store when I saw a pair that stood out to me and showed it to Lance. He agreed that that was a good pair of shoes for Hubert and we bought it. Shows to know how much I know my best friend... Well better than Lance anyways. ;) 

 

We grabbed some Jugo Juice before heading back to the hotel while playing 20 questions. At night, I was fortunate to have Lance take me to Murrietas for our annual Christmas dinner. We usually celebrate this before Christmas but Lance was too busy this year with work that it was done after. We had The beef tartare to start which I love! Yup, I love raw beef, I could eat lots of this, or beef tataki... Lance, my sister and I have done it... No shame. For our entrees, I always go for the lamb, while Lance had the chicken this time. And for dessert? Creme brûlée, of course! Mmmm. Such a great dinner, to end my mini staycation.

A bit overcooked (not the rack of lamb), but honestly, I love lamb. I almost always get this when I come to Murrieta's.

Lance said the chicken would probably be too salty for me and was he right! Really strong seasoning, and cooked perfectly; but he liked it. He said the corn pappardelle was very good too. Really flavorful and contrasted the chicken.

When we checked out the next morning, Lance, Hubert and I went for breakfast at Diner Deluxe because I was really in the mood for a typical breakfast instead of just the hotel's breakfast. I love it there. The interior has such a retro feel and the service is always great. I got the blackcurrant spritzer and the double bacon eggs benny with the breakfast poutine. 

Thank you, Lance for all my great Christmas presents this year. You really go above and beyond, and I really am grateful for everything. I truly am so blessed to have you in my life. You inspire me to continue having my dream of a pastry shop one day and even through just blogging. Let's have a wonderful 2013 together, with many more great memories. I have faith this year will be a great one.