Vancouver, Food Haven 0 lalalas

Following my brother's short visit, I've learned to appreciate and embrace Vancouver's wide array of good food. So I've began to try out more food in and out of campus.

 I checked out Afghan Horsemen on this Tuesday. Based on the good online ratings, I had pretty high expectation of the restaurant.

The restaurant was nicely decorated. Besides from the usual table and chairs, there is also more private rooms and a place that you take off your shoes and sit with cushions. Afghan music was played and methought it sounded like Indian music. Let's talk about the food there, I ordered Combo Kebab Plate that night which was supposed to come with a combination of chicken, beef, and lamb kebabs. It turned out that the lamb kebab was nowhere to be found. This plate comes with baked rice, salata (some kind of toasted bread) with feta cheese, batter fried potatos, and yogurt dip. The kebab tasted like any other Middle East (e.g. Lebanon) food, nothing too special. It was pretty good but not too appealing to me, not my taste I guess. I found the fired potatos extremely tasty, although it might not be very healthy. Staff was very friendly, constantly asked me if I'm doing alright and refilled my water from time and time. The food was a bit pricey, that meal cost me about $20. Oh yeah, I ordered dough, a kind of Afghan drink - a mixture of yogurt and salt. It was a very weird drink, I didn't like it.

On Wednesday, I decided to visit the restaurants in a place called "The Village" in my campus. For your information, it is a place where the banks on the campus, a Staples stationery shop, a liquor store, some privately owned restaurants, cafes, and a discounted textbook shop, etc. are located. I went to a stall named Yi Kou Xiang to taste their 杂饭. I got three dishes with 5 bucks. The food was very good, much to my surprise. I knew they have good food in the village, but I didn't expect it to be this good. The lemon chicken I had tasted like ku lo yuk, but the meat is very tender. I think this is the food with the best quality:price ratio I've tried. I'd certainly recommend it to anyone who comes to my campus.

 

On Thursday, I went to an Indian restaurant called Akbar's Own. It looks like any other high class restaurant, albeit with Indian theme and background. The service is very good, the waitress is very friendly. I ordered saffron rice and lamb tikki masala. The serving was smaller compared to other restaurants, but the taste is arguably the best I've ever experienced. You can basically feel the spices at work and the richness of the flavour lingers in your mouth. It comes with a hefty price tag though - $16

Saffron rice & lamb tikki masala

Today (or should I say last night), I had dinner at the Hon's Wun Tun House for the second time. The service was pretty good. I ordered 牛杂干捞面-dry noodle with beef and cow's "spare parts" - and also 粽子 (glutinous rice w/ yolk and pork). Again, I ate too much and nearly puked after I wiped out everything. The slices of cow's heart were pretty gross and the smell wasn't very enticing, but pretty much everything else was ok. The glutinous rice was excellent, I haven't had this since I came to Vancouver. Everything for $11. Great value. Great success.

 

Conclusions: Vancouver is a place of great food from a wide variety of cultures - Japanese, Greek, Chinese, Malaysian, Indian, and so much more. But everything's pretty expensive. If you ask me, I'd say, do away with all those ambience and atmosphere stuff and gimme cheaper prices! To me, they don't really matter: 1. You can't eat them. 2. They don't improve the taste of the food. 3. I usually forget about them after 5-10 minutes. I want the taste only, I don't even care much about the hygience as long as I don't see cockroach in my food or shit in the cook's ring. I'll have to cut down on my food tasting trips as it just cost too much. Vancouver = expensive (well, for the most part).

 

[Exeunt] 

Thanksgiving (Canadian version) 0 lalalas

Today is Thanksgiving day for Canadians, just so you know (not for Americans though, they have it somewhere in November). We (my JPA seniors, Zul, and I) were invited by a Malaysian (and fellow JPA scholar too), Kak Ayu for a thanksgiving dinner. She lives somewhere on campus too, but it's about 25 minutes away from my residence.

We had a great time there. There were good food - stuffed turkey, baked veggies, mashed potato, and later, chocolate cakes, cookies. Like a beggar who has been starving for years, I kept stuffing food into my mouth all the time. The turkey was so good. We didn't really finish the turkey, but we just left it on the table. So while we were chatting, we just couldn't resist the turkey temptation (alliteration) and carved out slices of turkey and kept eating and eating. I had more food tonight than the food I usually have for whole day. Guess I'll be putting on some significant weight.

Her husband (I forgot his name) is a friendly man and he plays good guitar. He can play piano by sight too. He even composes his own songs, and they were not bad. He's a fan of anime, just like I was back in the good old days (when girls were girls and boys were boys). He and his wife just started in Vancouver, like me. His wife, Kak Ayu is currently pursuing PhD in some kind of commerce course, while he's hunting for a job. They have 2 cute kids. And I also met a Malaysian whom I met during Gala, I still remember his email is nasirlemak. He spent a considerable time growing up in U.S. That's explains his un-Malayish accent.

It's a good Thanksgiving. I certainly look forward to a better one next year.

Cheers. (Looking at the weighing scale, "Oh no!")

Chaos 0 lalalas

Well, I've been head over heels trying to settle down. I still haven't got my blanket, mug, cutleries, water cooker, hangers and stuff. The orientation has too many interesting things that I hardly have time for other things. And I have a LOT of stuff on my list of "Things to Do", like getting my textbooks, applying for the health insurance, settling my meal plan problems, settling my award problems, getting a cellphone., getting a laptop, .. the list goes on.

Everything's so damn messy, and I feel like there's no time to finish anything. I just want to get things done as soon as possible, but for now it's impossible. Life's been topsy-turvy here, I bathe like once a day, brush my teeth like only in the morning, seldom get enough sleep. I'm still floating on a turbulent sea. Damn it, I need money to settle my fees.

Damn it!

By the way, orientation wasn't as interesting as I expected; perhaps it's because I can't participate in the more exhilarating activities; or perhaps my friend wasn't as eager as I am about this orientation; or perhaps I don't really have any friends (besides that guy and my senior) to spend my time with.

Last night, I went to Aunt Linda's house in I-forgot-where-it-is with my friend and my senior. I got to know some Malaysian and some Bruneians who have become Canadian citizens. It's pretty weird seeing Malays and Chinese like those you usually see in Malaysia speaking in accents here. But everyone was friendly and hospitable. It's was pretty pleasant, and the food was excellent too. We had nasi biryiani, ayam masak merah, beef rendang, fried noodles, and black glutinous rice porridge - the cream of the Malaysian cuisine.

p/s: Someone please pick up the phone, I'm dying of lethargy here!!

Thai Lemon Grass 0 lalalas

Last night my family and I went to the Lemon Grass restaurant to have our dinner since my mother and sister said that the food was pretty good. It's quite expensive, and the food was ok. Until something foul happened...

My mother ordered turkey ham sandwich. The waiting time was incredible. It only arrived after all of us almost finished our meal (fried rice, noodles, etc.), and that thing turned out to be a cheese sandwich. We summoned the waitress, who, after consulting with her superior, helpfully and brilliantly explained to us that "ham" in Thai means salad, so there wasn't supposed to be any ham, as we understood it, in the sandwich. Unfortunately we weren't retards, so we asked her to check with the chef again. A moment later, another waiter came to retrieve the dish, admitting (finally!) that they have made a mistake; while the waitress was so cowardly that she didn't speak to us again.

After that, we have to wait like 15-20 minutes for the replacement, already cold, to arrive. The sandwich was not bad, but heck, like any other dishes in the restaurant, it's overpriced. We asked for the bill, and it only arrived like 15 minutes later, with an excuse that the cashier was busy; then the change also took 6-7 minutes to arrive. This is what we call 5-star service.

Conclusion: I'll never eat there AGAIN

Yes! Finally got my Canadian study permit 0 lalalas

This Monday I went to KL again for some matters: receive my Euclid Math contest certificate (for scoring 64 and above), meet my junior JPA/Petronas scholars (which will take place at Taylor's an hour later).

I was surprised and really glad when I read an email from Canadian High Commission yesterday that I have to submit my passport to them. After all the hard work (which include waiting for the unhappening JPA to issue my financial afidavit, the longer than usual wait for HiCom to review my application), I finally got hold of this:

To celebrate this meaningful event, I ate the brand-new KFC Meltz at Carrefour. It's one of the nicest KFC product methinks. Perhaps because of its BBQ mayo and cheese. Nyam nyam! It's more and more difficult to lose weight nowadays!