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! 

Dad's Birthday Din Din 2013

Happy Birthday to best father in the world! I can't thank him enough for being there for me my entire life and giving me what I need. He's a real hard worker and an idol of mine. Even though he puts pressure on me by telling me I'm his consolation prize in why we moved to Canada, I do hope that one day I can make him proud. 

We ended up going to sushi for my dad's birthday. Haha, surprise, surprise. My family loves Japanese food. Can you tell by now?? LOL. I was able to share a large beer with both my parents which is kind of weird but cool! Actually, my mom's been giving me wine ever since I was 16, so I guess it's not weird. Yup, I have lovely parents. By now you probably know I'm not a beer person, but I will drink it if it's ordered. LOL. AND it can't be dark beer. 

Easter 2013

Hope everybody's Easter was great and just like Zach Braff's Facebook status, I hope everyone was an ambitious sperm and found all the eggs!

My Easter weekend rituals tend to revolve around the church a bit. Going to Good Friday mass and the Easter Virgil mass on Saturday. Growing up these masses were such a bore to me! But as an adult now I realize the importance of Easter and there's always such a calmness attending mass and it's really meaningful.

After Good Friday's mass, I met with Lance after he got off work as we planned to have a date that day. Oh my goodness, I can't tell you how beautiful that day was. The sun was shining and it was warm. Over 10 degrees that day, I believe. We were even sitting outside on a bench and having a chat while a nearby street performer was singing. It was perfect. I regret not taking pictures.

We grabbed some salted caramel macarons from Yann's and honestly, whenever I think of salted caramel, it's such a weird concept to me. The sweet and saltiness. It's disgusting! BUT when I bit into one it was so heavenly! We ended up buying four more.

We ended up at the hotel Lance works at to meet up with a couple of his coworkers to have a few drinks. We started off drinking at the hotel's lounge where we had some marvellous laughs with our bartender and then we worked our way to Julio's Barrio from some margaritas and appies. All in all it was a good night with these girls. 

This Easter, Lance bought 7 Kinder Surprises and hid it all around my room. Though it was pretty easy to find it was also a very thoughtful surprise. I loved Kinder Surprise growing up but I never got any cool toys from it. Just my luck I guess. BUT GUESS WHAT?! I opened the first one and I got a Barbie figurine. Oh man, I was so pysched! It was so pretty with her little black glamour dress. I know, silly right? A twenty something year old excited about a Barbie figurine, hahaha. The next day I opened another one and got another Barbie!!! Wooooooo! I was over the moon. I had to open another one but I gave the chocolate to Lance to eat. Unfortunately that one was a lame bracelet which I threw away. I was pretty upset that my luck ran out. Hopefully there's more Barbies in the last four eggs... Hahaha. One can hope right?

On Sunday, Lance and I got some takeout sushi from Misato. I love their sushi here because one of their rolls is super massive filled with a variety of sashimi. I didn't get to take a picture this time, but here's a past picture. I'm not kidding, it's the size of my palm! We also got the Chirashi sushi which is just a whole load of different sashimi on rice because I've been searching for this for years now. I actually thought I had to go to Japan just to find it. LOL

Anyone watched season premier of Game of Thrones yet? Let me know what you think!

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.

Chinese New Year 2013

Happy year of the snakes!

This year we celebrated my mother's birthday and Chinese New Year early. Since both dates were so close to each other we decide to kill 2 birds with one stone. Traditionally, the eve of Chinese New Year, families gather and have a big family reunion dinner, but since my family is scattered all over the world: 2 sisters in B.C., 1 sister in Germany, and a whole lot of aunts and uncles in Singapore, we could only celebrate it with my parents and two younger siblings. 

This year, my dad took us to Sakana in the Crowfoot area for some Japanese food. I really like this place for as a Japanese chain restaurant as I tend to find a lot of other Japanese chain restaurants plain and bland. I actually used to hate this restaurant because back when I was in high school, every so often my friends and I would go to the one in Chinatown for their sushi boat. It was alright, kind of boring and we only chose it because of our cheap budget.

But, over the last few years, my family started coming here as their go-to restaurant for Japanese food and my sister and I have been ordering their specialty rolls ever since. Let me tell you, their rolls are something! The sauces that they use are wonderful! There's different kinds of sauce that they drizzle over their rolls from avocado sauce, to kiwi sauce and mango. You would think fruit sauce with sushi is weird, but it works!

We only just converted my father to start eating their sushi approximately 2-3 visits ago. He's only used to his fancy sushi when we lived in Singapore and he's never liked eating sushi in Canada. So when he says he likes the rolls here, it's gotta be some special!

Our appetizers for this meal were the Large Assorted Tempura and the Takoyaki. They were both delicious. I mean hello? Deep fried batter food, yums. But remember now, only in small amounts. The tempura was super crunchy and the prawns weren't over cooked. And the takoyaki? Mmm, these cute little battered dumplings, with a chunk of octopus in it, topped with bonito flakes, mayo and takoyaki sauce, are exactly what I imagine I would find on the streets of Osaka.

Now here comes the stars of the meal. The salmon and tuna sashimi were fresh and at the perfect temperature to enjoy them. For the rolls, we chose the Cowboy Roll, House Roll, Philadelphia Roll, Dynamite Roll, Caterpillar roll, and some other roll with mango. All the rolls were a hit with my family. It was was delightful and fresh. They don't over fill the sushi with rice like some places do. It was the perfect amount. I think sushi has come a long ways from when I used to eat it as a child. It's just so fancy now, but it's okay with me because I still love it. 

I would personally stay away from the Caterpillar Roll as you really couldn't tell there was oysters in it. I think they tried to overcompensate with a crap load of rice in that. That one was miss, you really couldn't tell what is going on with that roll. I would not get the Cowboy Roll if you have a weak stomach to raw beef. Even though the beef is grilled lightly, it's still pretty raw. I actually love raw beef and it is probably my favorite roll out of all the rolls we order. So if you don't have a weak stomach and you're adventurous, try it! 

Top to bottom: Caterpillar Roll, Philadelphia Roll, Mango Roll, Dynamite Roll, Cowboy Roll and House Roll.

Mango Roll and Dynamite Roll

Cowboy Roll

House Roll

The service here tends to be pretty good every time that we go. Unfortunately this time we got a pretty terrible waitress who was rude. I think it's terrible when service people treat their customers with horribly, but expect to be tipped? Mmm, okay. 

I generally don't expect much from Asian waiters but she thought that we were just another typical Asian family that couldn't speak English and she would act so brash and make herself seem so high. I CANNOT stand it when we go to any type Western food and Caucasian waiters do this to us, but when another Asian does it to us... It's even more infuriating... My family may be Chinese but English is our first language. It's the only language my parents speak to me. My father was even educated in the UK. 

Anyway we survived dinner because the food was worth it. The waitress started clearing some dishes and came back with our bill to which I thought was really rude because we brought a cake in to celebrate my mother's birthday and she hadn't brought it out yet. I asked her about it and she's like 'Oh, I didn't know you were celebrating a birthday", to which she leaves to go grab it. This wasn't her fault as the hostess forgot to tell her. Generally, they're pretty on top of things like this when we bring cakes in to celebrate. 

They brought out their whole crew to sing my mother Happy Birthday in English and Japanese and took a Polaroid picture of her in their dress up clothes. LOL. I love how they celebrate big occasions here. It's fun. Afterwards, our waitress just became super nice and kept wishing my mother Happy Birthday non-stop. UM WHAT?! 

Though this time wasn't a pleasant dinner, we will DEFINITELY come back because it was 1 out of the multiple times we've been here. Plus we always get different waiters when we dine there. 

To conclude I want to wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year and some well wishing phrases. 

Gong Xi Fa Cai! 

Shen ti jian kang! - Good health

Wan shi ru yi! - May things go as you wish.

My slowly growing pile of red packets.