Autumn randoms

In November, something tragic happened to my laptop. I have this weird habit of drinking from my thermos w/ the lid off as if it's a cup.   I made myself some hot chocolate in my thermos and I put it in my backpack without realizing that the lid wasn't closed properly. My laptop was in my backpack... and.. yeah. You can probably guess the rest.  My laptop was toasted, covered in hot chocolate residue...Thankfully, I was able to recover my hard drive after several tries so I didn't end up losing any data (phew). Good bye laptop. You've served me well for 2 years... 

I ordered a new laptop but it hasn't arrived yet so I am waiting desperately for it. I am thankful that my friend has allowed me to use his till then.  It was a bittersweet decision for me to purchase the new laptop. I mean, who doesn't want a new laptop? but there was nothing wrong with my old one and I basically had to spend $700 on something that could've been spent elsewhere. It also made me realize how much of my life was dependent on my laptop. I don't know how I would be functioning without my friend's laptop at the moment. 

Anyhow, I don't think I've done a random post in a while.  My random posts are literally snippets of my life.  When I go eat,  I sometimes feel really bad for making everyone wait till I finish taking photos of everything we ordered.  If I don't get the right angle or the lighting, it takes forever and my hungry friends just sit there, waiting for me to give them the signal so they can start devouring. Even though it does make some people grumpy, I still manage to take photos and I don't think anyone can stop me from doing this! Foodies for life! I really appreciate all of you for waiting patiently though :) (you know who you are).  

I won't go into details about the restaurant or the food but I will write down the name of the restaurant below the photos. Comment/ shoot me an e-mail if you have any questions!

The Parlour @ Yaletown

Yaletown pizza on the left (Albacore Tuna, Red Onion, Green Onion, Avocado, Cilantro, Spicy Aioli) 

This pizza is my favourite so far!!!  It's a perfect combination of ingredients: Avocado, tuna, cilantro and a kick of spiciness. Om nom. 

Goldmember on the right (Caramelize Onion, Mushroom Duxelle, Yukon Gold Potato, Truffle Oil, Gruyerem, Mozza)

I am not a big fan of cream/ cheese based pizzas so I thought this was mediocre but I am biased. 

                                                                  The Parlour @ Yaletown

Hamilton Street on the left (blue Cheese, Arugula, Pear, Walnuts, Caramelized Onion, Balsamic Glaze)
This was an interesting one. I am not a big fan of blue cheese but it went really well with pear. 

Yaletown on the right (again)

Meat & Bread and Autumn in Vancouver

Just before Halloween, I finally took the time to head off to Gastown to drop by Meat & Bread.  This visit was highly anticipated because I came down about a month ago with my friends just to eat their sandwich and they were closed. It was a big disappointment for us but hurray for finally making it this time around! I've heard so many good things about this place, I was really excited.  You can visit their website by pressing here

The menu

The place was packed when we walked in, almost to the point where we didn't have a spot to stand. We thought we would have to take the sandwiches to go but the tables surprisingly cleared up quickly. 

What I really liked about their menu was its simplicity.  You have 4 choices to choose from. I've heard amazing reviews about 'the' porchetta sandwich so I ordered that one without any hesitation.

 

hello there, sir

Twix Cookie dough Cheesecake Bar

So... I am back from a long hiatus.  I honestly don't know why I haven't posted anything throughout my summer.  I guess I lost the determination to do so with full time work and school happening simultaneously.  I had a great summer this year with a lot of sun, ultimate and friends... I wish I had the chance to go away on a trip though...I am definitely saving that for next summer. This summer passed by way too quickly and now it's already October. Can you believe it!?  I have 1.5 months of school left till winter vacation.  Time just flies by way too quickly.

Autumn is my favourite season and I love walking outside with the cold breeze hitting my face and the colourful leaves everywhere I look.  Maybe I like them so much because of the warm colours of the leaves or because I get to wear my winter clothes again. UBC is gorgeous during autumn, well...it is all year around but I think it's especially beautiful during autumn so if you live in Vancouver and have never been to UBC during autumn, please, please visit this year.  I also love wearing cozy sweaters.. and pumpkin spiced latte so this season just makes me unusually happy.

This past Thanksgiving, I was debating on what to make for a potluck. I made apple dumplings for as long as I can remember but I didn't want to be known as the "Apple dumpling" girl (not that there is anything wrong with apple dumplings) so I decided to try something new.  I have a list of recipes I saved from long time ago and I found two contenders: S'mores rice krispies and Twix cookie dough cheesecake bar.  Seriously, this was one of the hardest decisions I had to make in a long time (I can be extremely indecisive when it comes to food:P).  I was so close to picking s'mores rice krispies bar but I had a lot of travelling to do to get to the potluck and I didn't want the meringue/ marshmellow to melt.  To avoid a disasterous situation, I picked the twix cookie dough cheesecake bar.  Whoever created this recipe, they are a genius.  How do you even think of putting twix, cookie, and cheesecake in one bar?  Mind blown. 

You can find this amazing recipe here 

I cheated a little and got pre-made cookie doughs 

The process

NYC Food Photos

I thought I took more photos but I guess this is it.  It seems like most of my diet consist of desserts.

Anyway, here we go...

 

Vancouverites in T dot

I've been to Toronto a couple of times but it was in elementary school & high school and I don't have much recollection of the city at all.  I do remember it being big and dirtier compared to Vancouver but as a girl who loves big cities, this notion made me have an image of Toronto as an awesmoe city.  My  recent trip did not disappoint me and it sure made Vancouver seem like tiny.  In Toronto, I met up with one of my best friend Adriana who flew in from Vancouver who came back to Montreal with me after the trip.

Girl with a huge green bow in her hair.   

We were there during the St. Patrick's weekend and we got the chance to see the parade.  The parade itself wasn't too exciting but I did really enjoy the festiveness of it.

Desserts at Mocoro chocolate in Yorkville

Peanut butter banana chocolate chip cookies

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I've been sick for awhile now so I thought it would be better to do something productive while resting at home.  So, I decided to collect a bunch of recipes to slowly work my way through them.  I found some amazing cooking blogs on bloglovin and I am excited to try making different things from different blogs.  I really want to try baking more and get familiar with different baking techniques.  For example, I would like to perfect meringues and macarons and try making desserts with mascarpone and ricotta cheese in them. OH! ALSO making some avocado chocolate pudding.  I've been obsessed with avocado these days! The combination of chocolate and avocado sounds odd but I think it will taste amazing. 

Anyway, for this weekend I decided to make something quick with the ingredients I had.  I wanted to pick between red velvet chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter banana chocolate chip cookies.  I went with peanut butter banana chocolate chip cookies after asking a lot of people (because I can't never make up my mind when it comes to food) and I had most of the ingredients to make them.  

Some of the ingredients

Snow & Donuts

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 I try to make the best out of my weekends to explore the city so every weekend I've been visiting museums, finding famous dining locations and going to festivals.  I mean.. might as well right?  I am only here for 3 months. 


This weekend, my friend and I decided to find this popular donut shop near St. Henri station.  When we got off at the station, the area seemed really sketch and deserted.  I think the snow kind of made the experience though.  With the old buildings and trees everywhere, it looked like a scene from a movie. 

 
I did bring a scarf with me but it got too warm so I took it off.  It looks super cold but surprisingly, it wasn't too cold on this day.   I am so glad I got this jacket before I came to Montreal.  It's from TNA but I found it at a consignment store on Main St. for half price off.   I got my snowboots on my first day here in Montreal because my toes were dying from the -40 weather. I seriously thought I lost them. I miss wearing my suede heels and flats... but I have a feeling that it's going to be snowing till the end of March.

After about 10 minutes of walk from the station and playing in the snow, we found the donut place called Léché Desserts.  

Banana bread

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I made some banana bread the other day. When you have overripe bananas, just  freeze it and use it later when you have time.  I prefer to mash it first and then freeze it so you don't have to deal with peeling overripe frozen bananas later on.  (Excuse my gum cases on the left)

Bonjour...je ne parle pas francais

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I love it when it's sunny outside on the weekend because I don't have to be stuck in the office till the sun goes down and I get the chance to just roam around aimlessly around the city finding secret jewels here and  there.  Also, I can sleep late for no reason.  It's been sunny every single weekend so far, so I've been going outside to explore the city a little every weekend.  I am mostly around Mcgill/ Concordia area on St.Catherines, and it's mostly shops around that area.  There are some popular restaurants such as Kazu which... I am really hoping to visit soon and also this dessert place called cacao 70.  It seems like old port is always a good place to visit and I would like to get to know the plateau better.

Several things I noticed about the city:

-People smoke a lot
-men dress well
-extreme quebecois aren't very polite when you ask a question in english on the streets (derp). I didn't even know how to say " I don't speak French" before I came here but now I can just tell them.. "Je ne parle pas francais" .. woot!
-They definitely know how to have fun (I went to the igloofest and I saw this person dancing alone.  " I don't give a shit as long as I am enjoying myself" attitude)
-music and art everywhere
-oui is pronounced as a nasally"WEH" 
-People don't know what nanaimo bars are... (say what..? I guess it's a BC thing)

I am sure I will run into things that are very "Quebecois"again before my departure.  It's like a complete different country over here. 

Anyway, moving on to my overdue photos.

mmmm Yummy cupcakes

This place is located right beside the Notre Dame cathedral.

New City

Wow.  It's already been 3 weeks since my arrival in Montreal.  The first week in Montreal was unbelievably cold and I didn't even want to leave my room.  It's warmed a little bit (even though it's still around -10) and I got more chance to walk around centre ville.  Montreal is such a gorgeous city with old buildings and art work everywhere in the city.  It's exciting to find an artwork on a street or at the metro station while randomly roaming around the city.

I am so behind on uploading photos, so this weekend I plan to upload everything I have so far.  First up is Quebec city.  My mom came to Montreal with me for the first 10 days so we rented a car and went to Quebec city on our first weekend here.  The first thing I realized upon my arrival is that I need to learn french.  I don't know any french.. so that's definitely on my list to-do.

First up in Quebec city was the Montmorency falls. It was FREEZING on this weekend.  I think it was around -30.  If you look at my photos, you can see that I am wearing 1000000000x layer of clothes.  I put on a beanie right after taking the photos because my ears were about to fall off.

 It was a sunny day but still freaking cold..

A lovely Christmas + New year with friends

 handmade cards by Alyssa

I absolutely love potlucks because it brings people together and you get to try different variety of food.  What can be better than great food and friends?  This year, my friends Ben and Olivia (a lovely couple) decided to have a potluck at their place.  We had sushi, pasta fruit and meat skewers, ratatouille, donuts, apple dumplings, fried chicken.. and a lot of booze. haha Overall, it was a great night.