One of those days...

Just one of those days. I came home after my gaming night and still felt a bit hungry (I had a donair sub from Centretown pizza). I was looking for some junk food and ended up having some ice cream. There wasn't a lot left in the container, but I guess that's a good thing, cause it meant I didn't eat a lot of it.

BBQ Time

Today I opened up the BBQ for the first time this year. The weather was really nice, the BBQ warmed up nicely and I did some burgers, yummy burgers! The smell of a BBQ really reminded me of the Spring, warmer weather and envy of nice steaks, baked potatoes, veggies, and other good stuff cooked on the BBQ. As you can see in the lower picture, the burgers were really tasty! I'm really looking forward to more BBQ'ing and nice weather.

Let's make some pasta, I got the sauce

Every once and a while, I like to do a batch of meaty red sauce. I usually do a big pot and eat some pasta throughout the week and then freeze the rest for later on. Today, I finished gathering my ingredients and went at it. Here are the results :


It made for a good meal for tonight and now I have some leftovers for tomorrow and the next few days :)













Here's what it looks like packed away with a few containers of leftovers with a little bit of pasta that cooked. I figured I'd start off with spaghetti, but will probably change it up in a few days. I actually measured my pasta portions and it seems small, but I imagine with an apple and yogurt tomorrow for my lunch, it should be all good. :)

Mmm Muffins...

My roommate Amy often spoils me. She usually makes muffins every week or so and usually offers me a muffin. I figured I would take a photo of this week's muffins: blueberry muffins. The whole apartment smells of blueberry muffins, yummy!

Chip Truck no.1

Some of my friends have made the comment that a lot of my posts are related to food. This post is not withstanding that content, I figured I'd feature a chip truck that's located just outside my office. Since I've been living in Ottawa, I've had food from a handful of chip trucks and I tend to only eat that kind of food about 3-4 times a year. This is my first chip truck adventure this year!

The chip truck couple were looking at me funny, probably cause they saw me taking photos of their truck, but I figure, I'm maybe promoting your food, depending on how good it tastes, just like any ole restaurant reviewer.

So the chip truck is usually located on the corner of Queen and O'Connor. I also find it funny how most chip trucks in town advertise best fries, or best poutine. Read below to see my comments. Here's a few shots of the chip truck:



The food:

I ordered combo no.7, which is a poutine, sausage and pop. I got a Polish sausage. The sausage was quite tasty. It was cooked nicely and opened up to make sure that it was cooked thoroughly. I appreciate it when chip trucks make sure that the food is cooked properly and allow costumers to see it from a quick view that it is properly cooked. Also, by making incisions into the sausage, it allows for the fat to drain out, and you don't get any boiling surprises when you take a bit into the meat. As for the poutine, it was decent. The sauce was quite tasty, a bit salty (but being from the east coast, I like salt in my food.) If you don't like salt, it might be too salty for you. They had a good amount of curds in the poutine, it melted nicely in the middle with the warm gravy. However, I do like squeaky curds, and this one lacked some of that squeakiness. That being said, it still had a good taste. The fries were excellent! If you're looking for good homemade fries, this is a definitely a good spot. They didn't seem to greasy, however that could have been camouflaged by the sauce, but overall, they kept some of their crunch and had a good taste to them. The portion size was good, for a medium size poutine it was definitely big enough and the price was maybe a tad higher than what I'd expect to pay for chip truck food, but overall I'd go back, but that being said, I usually only visit chip trucks about 3-4 times a year, I'd probably go for a different experience.

Il Piccolino

Tonight, I went out for dinner at a little Italian restaurant just down the street (in Little Italy) called Il Piccolino. Surprisingly the restaurant was empty, maybe it was the weather as a snowstorm was a brewin'. I had been there a few years ago during lunch and remembered that the food was good, but couldn't remember how good. I have to say that I was pleasantly impressed. I ordered the "esotica" which is a rich creamy curry linguini with shrimp and mushrooms. It was quite tasty, lots of flavour and I would definitely recommend this plate. My friend ordered the "gnocchi" which was even better if you asked me. I was a lot richer and tastier compared to my plate :) The gnocchi was made with a garganzolla cream sauce with roasted garlic and prosciutto. I would have traded plates if that had been an option. Both plates were quite scrumptious, and I would recommend this spot to others. Here's a few photos of the food and resto.

The linguini

The gnocchi

I surely will be back!

Quick and easy dinner

I decided to highlight my dinner. I got home and went right to doing some cleaning, did a load of laundry and vacuumed the apartment. I figured I had to make myself a quick dinner as I play volleyball in a few hours and supposed to meet a few friends at a bar down the street before my game. I figured I'd cook something quick and easy. Here's my dinner :)

Save some steel, ride a horse or a cowboy

Tonight I was out at the Lonestar restaurant on Fisher and Baseline and I saw this saddle in the corner. The restaurant just got a makevover and just reopened tonight. The place looks much nicer compared to before, a good upgrade. The added addition of the saddle just made me laugh, especially when I saw staff drag this metal contraption with a saddle strapped onto it. Here's a dude riding the saddle for his birthday. He seems quite content to be on the saddle. Happy that it was him and not me. Qualifies as good ole Friday entertainment. What can I say, I don't need a lot to make me laugh.

Japadog!

This is my second trip out to Vancouver and I've seen this twice, but still haven't committed. Tonight, if I had realized that it was just across the street from where I had dinner, I probably would have just tried it. Next time I visit Vancouver, I'll be trying a Japadog. How could you go wrong with a hotdog that has teryaki, seaweed and Japanese mayo? This company, which I imagine is more than just this stand, has a Twitter account, which really surprised me and added to the reason why I wanted to capture the hot dog stand. I had a good chuckle when I saw the sheet of famous people who have had Japadog and saw Steven Segal's name on there. Surely made me laugh. I was also surprised to see Ice Cube and Anthony Bourdain to the list of notables. I wish I wasn't stuffed from my dinner as I'd like to really try one of these dogs.

Stepho's Vancouver

I had some of the best Greek food I've ever had tonight! Stepho's Souvlaki Greek Taverna had some really good food. We had noticed this spot on Saturday, and by notice, I am referring to the lineup of people outside the restaurant. There was easily 12-15 people on Saturday around 2pm, waiting to get in. We wondered, could the food be that good. Tonight, we were walking around and figured we would find a good spot to eat. We ended up making our way up Davie Street, 2 blocks north of Burrard, and the lineup outside the restaurant caught our eyes again. We decided to go see what was all the fuss about! Theresa went in, and asked if the lineup would go down in a few hours and the front person said not really. We decided to wait the line. Surprisingly the line went pretty fast. It was the first time that I went into a restaurant waiting area to be moved to a secondary waiting area, almost like at the hospital where you go in, check in and then get to see the nurse and then wait again to see the Dr. Well we waited to be seated. Here's a few photos of the outside of the restaurant, the inside followed by shots of the food plates that were very generous! :)



The menu with the blue and white checkered table cloth.

We decided to start off with some tzatziki and pita. The tzatziki was nice and spicy with a good garlic flavor. Some of the tastiest tzatziki that I have ever tasted! The pita was also very special and tasted really fresh. It felt like they just came out of the oven! Really good!

As you can see, the portions for this plate were really big! I ordered the souvlaki, it was a chicken and lamb skewer. It came with rice, potatoes and greek salad. All was very tasty, the lamb was delicious! The whole plate was really good and I would definitely recommend it. The image below is the mousaka. I had never seen anything like it, as you can see from the photo, it's HUGE! Theresa said it was also tasty. There was a good amount of eggplant which she liked very much. Overall, we were both really happy with the selections, and on top of getting good and tasty food it was relatively cheap. It only cost us about $33 without tip, but that also included two soft drinks. I would definitely recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting Vancouver!

Welcome to Vancouver!

This is my second trip to Vancouver :) My first trip to Vancouver was last November, and I had a really good time. A good precedent was established with the first trip, thus giving me high expectations for this city. After touching down at the airport, I went to pick up my luggage, and I was met with a wall of carts (see photo below). When I first saw these carts, I was thinking, wow, how inviting! It reminded me of my football days when I was younger and made me think, if I want my bag on the conveyor on the other side, where's the weakest link and how can I get through! I did the more civil thing and just walked around, but at first I wasn't sure how I was going to approach it. After getting our bags, Theresa got her rental car (nice upgrade, a Volvo S40), she drove me to my hotel where I checked in and dropped off my bags. Theresa waited for me in the car and then we went to Kisha Poppo sushi. Last time I was in Vancouver, I had some pretty good sushi, but this was awesome! This was the biggest pieces of fish for the most affordable price and it was quite tasty and fresh! Check out the photo, the pieces of salmon and tuna were so big, I had a hard time eating it in one bite! Also note the IPhone in the pic, compared to the pieces, they were HUGE! I was quite impressed by this place, and since it's only about 2 blocks away from my hotel, I imagine I might drop in again, as it's well worth the short walk and a good deal on food!

Wall of carts:


In perspective with this shot, it's an IPhone in the upper right corner. Look at the size of the fish vs the IPhone! And the sushi in the photo is not just mine, Theresa ordered two of the plates and I had the plate closest to the bottom. I also had some gyoza before my sushi came :)

Savoury donair

Tonight was my normal Tuesday board game night at my old library. We continued on our game of Descent and I suggested we try a new place tonight. On the bus ride (no.85) from downtown, the bus stopped in front of Centertown Donair & Pizza (they don't seem to have a web presence). However, they advertise their donair's as being Halifax style donairs. If you've ever been to the Maritimes, or pizza corner in Halifax, you've hopefully tried out Halifax donairs and you know it's not your typical Ottawa style donairs. They come with a sweet garlic sauce, and the meat is a bit spicier compared to regular donairs. I have to say, they were TASTY! Just like I remember the donairs out east! Might not look appealing to everyone, but it all has to do with the taste! If you ever want an out of town experience in Ottawa, try out these donairs and you won't be disapointed!

Couple of donairs in the middle of our gaming set-up

Yummy Donair!

Floral illusion and Cat food?

As I was walking in Ikea, I noticed what I thought was an elephant, but it was a ginseng plant. The plant roots had been cut up and it looked like an elephant, which I thought was worth of capturing in my photo today.

For me there was a bit of irony when I saw the text underneat the plant, and figured it was appropriate that I take a second photo as it was very cute and interesting.

Then I went to Walmart and found another interesting opportunity. This was definitely a photo worthy shot. I could't believe it, to the untrained eye, it could mean a few things, but for me, being a francophone, it's sending some pretty mixed messages. Take a look and let me know what you think:

Welcome home

I'm on a road trip this week. I flew home to New Brunswick. As per usual, I usually try to get my seafood intake, and this time my dad surprised me. A short while after I got home, he said "do you feel like having some lobster rolls for dinner" and I was like, YEAH! So he said, come take look at this, and he pulled out a big bag of frozen lobster. He said, let it thaw, and then you can make lobster rolls for us. This is quite the treat!

The image is smaller than normal, trying to upload with no regular internet is not an easy or fast task. I had to re-size the image 3 times to get it uploaded. I'm currently on "Edge" internet speed tethering off my IPhone.

Mmmm onion rings

Every once and awhile, I like to get onion rings. I find it's always a gamble, never sure if I'll like them as I am fussy about my rings! Tonight's option from Gabrielle Pizza and it was a win! When I saw that they were McCain onion rings, I figured I couldn't go wrong, and I was right! I've never been a big fan of the big thick onion rings that you sometimes get a steak houses, etc, I like them lean!