oh my
what do i do with this?

Summerlicious #1

Restaurant: 5th Elementt
Location: Downtown
1033 Bay Street
416-923-8159
Time: Lunch
Prix Fixe: $15
Total: $60 for two with drinks
Rating:

Summerlicious, hurrah! Finally had a chance to try 5th Element on Bay. We decided to sit outside so I didn't really get a chance to see the decor. From what I did see, it looked quite nice. I thought the food was quite good but overall, everything could have been better. We thought the chicken breast was a bit dry but the butter chicken sauce was great. The slightly dried chicken could have been saved with more sauce, though! Portion sizes were good for lunch, I thought! I am not going to size these pictures because I want you to be hungry!

Starters:

Grilled Fuji Apple and Mango Salad
Masala dressing | Feta crumble


Tandoori Shrimp
South African pepper salsa | Californian greens

Main:

Cilantro Rubbed Chicken Supreme
Butter chicken sauce | Pilaf rice

Also available:
Tri Color Cheese Tortellini
Asparagus | Rose sauce

Grilled Atlantic Salmon
Mustard sauce | Pilaf rice

Dessert:

Cardamom and White Chocolate Mousse
With raspberry drizzle

Fresh Fruit Medley
With melon and mint liqueur dressing

I was not eating her dessert (though I did eat some) it was just a coincident :) We were not expecting icecream, but more of a `fresh fruit medley` *cough*fruit salad*cough* There didn't seem to have any melon in it either. I was excited for the mint liqueur dressing but that also seemed to have disappeared. She barely ate this one!

All in all, it was pretty good. I would recommend you check this out and I would definitely like to try their dinner Summerlicious specials. Also, booze at these restaurants is expensive. Really expensive.

There are a few days left for Summerlicious and I still crave for some good food! The next spot I want to hit is Fred's Not Here

long time no blog

So, it has been obvious that I have died for a long time. I don't really have a good reason as to why--I would like to say its because I traveled around the world or joined an indie pop-rock band that gained instant success due to online social connectivity networks...but nope! I didn't do much either. No going out for dinners, no photography, no concerts...I did have a chance to go through some older photos though, so I'll upload those randomly. Here's one--to the right is Janice's cat. I think its head is supposed to bob (like a Hidamari no Tami) but it didn't seem to do that...

I haven't done much, other than work. One sad thing is that I haven't even been eating (deliciously)! Its all been junk food, fast food, whatever I can get "on the go." Not very healthy but maybe I will treat myself to something tasty soon. Summerlicious has been planned for this Sunday, so I am hoping that'll be good! I think we're going to The Globe Bistro on Danforth. A few of my friends who have been to Summerlicious have left quite saddened, so I don't really know what to expect. In general, I find places that are signed up for these -licious events don't treat people equally. I always sense a lot of ageism and surprisingly for Toronto, racism. It doesn't help that sometimes we look like 12 year olds (we're actually 42!)...but it really turns me off from these events.

On a similar note, Manda told me about her experience at the "Ultra Supper Club." You know, that large mysterious door on Queen West nearing Spadina? Of course you do! She said they did not treat her very well and the service was horrible and that she was mainly ignored. Its hard disappointing Manda like that. She's a barista, so I guess she is able to take in horrible service and attitude, but it sounds like USC really turned their nose on this one. She called it "the worst date ever." Way to go, "Ultra Supper Club."

Egg tarts!

Anyways, what about work? A lot of people ask me what I do at work. I don't really have a one-word answer for that, but I'll tell you what I've been doing. I also didn't really know why I got hired, so I asked and its because I know what a tag is (sort of...not really, but I like to say its because of that). I wonder what they expect(ed) from me and if I ever deliver(ed). I try not to think of it because it makes me sad, but one can't help but wonder. I do a lot of random office-boy things like washing dishes and taking out garbage, but a few weeks ago I got to bring lots of booze to the office from a parking lot (it was surprisingly heavy!!). I've been doing a bunch of things in illustrator, like editing layouts and creating sticky notes. I have not heard of anything relating to the layouts but the sticky notes are printed and shipping, so I'll try to snap a picture when they arrive. I also had to prepare a bunch of documents that had to be handed in on a deadline. That was a stressful and long day--I left for work at 6am! This week I bought (for work) $200 of pop from grocerygateway.com, $500 in post-its from vistaprint.com and soon I will order $400 of ram from crucial.com. Nice! Sometimes work also has delicious edibles, like those portuguese (?) egg tarts seen above!

rejoice! sodas! colas! carbonated drinks! pop!

Our grocery gateway delivery arrived this morning and I refilled the pop. I should have taken a picture of the fridge before I refilled it, but it was literally empty, except for Mountain Dew. Nobody drinks Mountain Dew!! I would say Root Beer is the next on the list of lonely drinks. Someone told me that Mountain Dew has the most caffeine of all pop, which always surprises me. I ordered green tea Nestea but they substituted with Fuji apple green tea...it tastes like apple juice so I am disappointed since it costs a lot more than the green tea Nestea. Are they even allowed to do that? They also substituted diet Coke with Coke zero, which I never had. It is surprisingly tasty and doesn't have that strong aspartame flavour I dislike. Speaking of apples, I've been drinking lots of cold cider--(non-alcoholic...sadly? of course! haha) Its so good with a stick of cinnamon--must have the cinnamon stick!!

Now that I had some time to just sit in think, I really want to move downtown. I want to live on King street west, maybe above a bank or something. I also want more money, so I could buy pants and pay for school. I also want to eat everything. I wonder if I should take on another job. A lot of people are pulling two,three, even four jobs in order to pay tuition, so I think I can manage. I mean, I did work 15 hour days last summer with no overtime!

So, what have I been listening to lately? Katy Perry, "the next big thing." I've been told she's #1 on Billboard now. She reminds me muchly of Lily Allen. She even looks a lot like her (reason why I chose the single cover). I do think they're quite different in many ways though, so I will drop comparisons. I first heard "ur so gay" via the video and thought she was pretty amusing, but never thought much else about her. Her current single is "I kissed a girl" and its quite enjoyable. You should've heard it somewhere by now. (If not, you can grab it at the end). I believe her CD "One of the boys" is already out..in the States. Its catchy and fun--the next big thing, hrm?
Katy Perry - I kissed a girl

edit 1: I forgot to say that I want to travel! I want to go to Japan... I've actually never been out of the PROVINCE before. Its true and very sad. I don't mind going to the States for a tad either, New York or California seems good. I need to start making friends around the world. I can send them maple syrup and you can send me happiness in a box. Oh nom nom nom nom. Though I have a feeling I'd be poisoned. Oh nom nom nom nom.

edit 2: Wow, Danny Choo made a visit? How random! I visit his site but I don't have an account there (I think...) I could be tricked, though. How do people even find this blog? I usually don't advertise myself online....at times I think its just one person pretending to be 15. Well--according to google, you guys come here via a "gangster raccoon" search. Success!

edit 3: The raccoon thing was so amusing to m that I decided to check what else brings people here. These ones are cool too:
-download walking in sunshine banana ice doraemon (yes, thats just one search string!)
-ikea icecream ice cream frogurt frozen yogurt frozenyogurt swedish (heehee)

the jonas brothers are visiting toronto today. there must be atleast 800 girls in line outside. when they scream in unison, it sounds like sirens.


wee woo wee woo

lalala...

So my posts have been less frequent because I don't do anything interesting these days. At work on weekdays and weekends seem to just evaporate. I lost a piece of my camera, so that makes it difficult uploading pictures. Also, work = no eating out = nothing to talk about...because food = awesome to the max.

I need to do something wild before school (blech) starts again..but I did buy new glasses (frames), a Softbank cellphone (707scII--bleh) and some random Disney Japan crap (I couldn't help it XD) Now I must wait for them all to arrive...

I want to do summerlicious though! Summerlicioussss!

What is everyone up to? Come eat with me!

choco

There hasn't been much to blog about since work started. I bought a new phone and new glasses, so I'll blog about that when they arrive.

Boss bought us raisin pecan tarts from Cora's Kitchen yesterday and they were SO GOOD. Delicious, delicious tarts. Kensignton market is just swimming with tasty these days. The other day I had a chocolate zucchini cupcake and a french apple custard square from My Market Bakery. Couldn't really taste the zucchini but tiny chunks could be seen. I want to try more desserts with hidden vegetables in them...like a sweet potato cake! It was a cupcake, what can I say?

And then there was a guy with a snake! It looked rather friendly and I like it when their tongues poke out and waddle like a dog's tail...which you can slightly see in the second picture. Fun.

skill testing question 1+2+3+4

I am really tired today for some reason. I guess its the end of the week and everything has been building up throughout the week. I think I should get some rest! I've been getting 4-6 hours each night because of the weather or the fear of things biting me during my sleep. I've gotten a few bites on my legs/arms and I fear they may be bed bugs because I watched a W5 special on them. Then I researched them because they're so disgusting. This always happens, I stumble upon something disturbing yet interesting and spend a day reading up on them and I get all nervous about things. I cleaned my room again and checked everywhere but didn't find any signs of them. This is really annoying me! I hope its all psychological and there are no bugs hiding in my walls. It is now thunder storming and I can see beautiful (yet scary) flashes of purple (?) light across the sky. The storm is cooling everything down but I bet it will be unbearably hot afterwards. Hopefully that won't happen tonight because I'd like to get some sleep! I love sleeping during rain storms.

I got 4 tickets to see the Toronto premier of Get Smart but it was on a Thursday night and the theater was located somewhere in North York. I think it was yesterday but I'm not sure because I didn't pick up the tickets. I would have liked to watch it!

And by no demand at all, more mushroom house! (small to large!)


Apparently, it is a "Mushroom Studio" by Katie Bethune-Leamen. You can see a box of Prismacolour pencil crayons when you look through the window! Very cool. To the right is detailing of the underside of the mushroom cap. Very cool and textured. It looks like a nice place to sit under and read a book or eat pad thai or both! But its next to a restaurant's patio so everyone will stare at you because Toronto loves to do that. hee.




More flowers (I think they're extra pretty today):



Someone at work gave me candy today! They went to the candy store and I was going to go but didn't catch up fast enough. She gave me Pop Rocks with those hard candy sticks!

Yesterday...

So I was walking along Queen West after work and I thought I saw a cat but it turned out to be a raccoon. A raccoon! On Queen West! At Five! In the daylight! I thought that was so rare. It was more brown than gray and had a frizzled tail. It was tiny too! I followed it around to take a picture but it kept sticking its bum at the lens. It tried to climb over the fence but couldn't and then it got stuck while trying to get to the otherside through a hole. Sadly, it went into a playground but the kids were all screaming "the raccoon is back!" so maybe they're all friends.

After following the raccoon to the dead end, I went to My Market Bakery to buy a box of cookies. They're super cool and they're called "Mini Happy Friends Cookies" and I can't help but smile when I ask for them. They must think I'm 12. They're super good and not very gingerbready, which is great. It was soft compared to the usual hardness of gingerbreads. They come in cool, cool characters too! Today I got Minnie Mouse, Pink Blues Clue (?), NINJA TURTLE! and Kermit. Usually they have Arthur, Batman, Spiderman and Harry potter. I always miss out on Batman. I must say, their heads are rather hard and very sweet. I ate half of a kermit on Yonge and I put the other half on the floor. I hope something happy eats it. I went to Eatons afterwards to give one to Mandy but I was attacked by the girl she hates and assman. I couldn't find anyone else so I went home!

I couldn't find many people at home (or at home and online) to give cookies to so I ate like 4. The heads are hard to eat so I left it in grass for someone to find. Brought the pink dog to Sammy and I got a nice frozen-strawberry-popsicle-fruit bar thing but it melted way too fast. We went to Samantha's to drop off a Ninja turtle cookie but she was out. So I shoved it into her mail slot, which is oddly enough, like the 3rd time I have shoved something into her mail slot. There were so many left over and I couldn't find anymore people so I ate 3 more today while at work...except for the heads. I have one full kermit and two heads left. Ohh...

The weather was nice today. Not too hot and not too chilly.

For liz

turning off verification :)

it's too hot...

Didn't do much this week, possibly because the last few days were HOT. I wasn't expecting it and it struck me hard. It was the I-don't-want-to-move hot. Oddly enough, I did go out during the the hotter days of the week, which makes no sense. One possible explanation is that my room is HOT. It is tiny as well as cluttered. I blame it on blackbody radiation and can actually imagine heat waves coming out of anything that has a temperature greater than zero kelvins..which is...everything.. (never though I'd ever say that again...sigh, Chemistry...) Another possibility is that my computer, being as ancient as it is, is releasing most of heat. Or, as mum says, I have too much hair, which I do...so I will anticipate a haircut. The sudden heat melted my kit kat bar, which was rather sad. I threw the kitkat in the fridge in hopes that it would still be good but it just wasn't the same. I thought my M&Ms would hold up to the heat via its hard candy shell but it ended up changing shape. They look more like sea shells now... I also had a Twix bar but I don't want to imagine how that turned out...

(mmm, tasty...)

Anyways, I had lunch with Nelson again this week. We ate at Sushi Delight which is good like always, but I think we didn't order enough food! We got the lunch special bentos and a california and unagi roll combo. I would say its one our favourites as we always find ourselves back there for a quick lunch. Good value and good taste is what keeps us going back. Service and staff has always quick and nice but could be better at times. It renovated not too long ago and is much nicer and a lot darker than before. The pictures on the site makes it look a lot bigger than it is. I definitely recommend this place for its lunch specials, which is about $6-7 a combo. Also, they apply a 15% discount for take-out orders (which excludes the lunch specials, of course). They used to give out 15% dine-in coupons with their menu in the mail, but I haven't received one in a while. You can see one from 2 years ago on their website. Metric (the band) also likes them, especially their lunch specials!

Sushi Delight Japanese Restaurant
461 Danforth Avenue
Toronto, ON
M4K 1P1
(416) 406-0288

Get off at Chester station and walk towards Pape station (I think that's East?)
It is on the opposite street, before Tim Hortons.

The weather wasn't so bad that day but it was sunny with a nice breeze. We parted ways after lunch and I ended up walking from Danforth to Yonge Bloor...then to College where I bumped into Nelson again! It was kind of amusing since he took the subway. I don't think I did anything else that day but I did get some pictures! Some of these were already uploaded on Flickr. You can tell I love macro. Macro!! I wish I could set focus myself because sometimes the auto focus doesn't do what I want it to...

I also woke up one day with a tiny box of Macaroons on the table. I think they were a gift from mum's friend. They were tiny and really cute. Really tasty too! The sides had these really nice ridges that had a different texture from the buttery-coconut filling. I usually don't like coconuts in my baked goods but these were balanced well. Sadly, I only had one before they were all gone. And that, my friends, was the only highlight of that day. Haha! I was also watching Paula's home cooking that day and my, she uses a lot of butter and bacon! Bacon wrapped corn and deep friend bacon wrapped mac n' cheese. Wow.

I also got a free pack of Icebreakers "Ice Cubes" spearmint gum while walking someplace. I think its funny how people (including me) take free products from strangers standing around in the street so easily. What if they were part of an evil scheme? We check out candies during Halloween but seem to ignore the fact that these goods could be contaminated with. I would say that most people would eat them within an hour of getting them. In fact, most of the freebies downtown involve you putting it in your mouth (chocolates, candies, cereals, pops and toothpaste!) so I hope no one is evil enough to do such a thing. Anyways, assuming these candies are safe and I'm just crazy, they're kind of fun. They're shaped more like sugar-cubes that ice-cubes but I guess that would defeat the "SUGAR FREE GUM" label on the box. Seeing how its sugar free, they also stuffed it with a lot of alcohol-bases sweeteners (Xylitol, Maltitol) which aren't that great for you either. There is also aspartame, acesulfame-potassium and other artificial sweeteners. I was very disappointed to have seen these in the ingredients. Did you know one of them causes cancers? I'm sure a lot of people don't know that, but hey...its sugar free!

I also did some surveys/interviews for Rotman and Bibliocommons. The Rotman survey was on consumer products and I found it really amusing because it gave the weirdest scenario:
"You are in a furniture store and you find a desk for $175. The store also has a deli and they sell icecream for $0.25. Would you buy the desk? Do you think the icecream is affordable? Do you think the desk is good quality? Do you think the icecream is high quality?" Then they made me listen to someone sing James Blunt.... The Bibliocommons one was about libraries and I guess trying to connect users in a social and informative way. They also gave me a job and I will be starting tomorrow :) Yay.

Saw this guitar in the recycling bin one day when walking home. I wonder if it broke before it was dumped or was broken to be dumped. If it was the later I wish they didn't break it because I would've taken it and learn to play happy songs from the like of Feist and the Beatles. Mmm hmm! Also, Worldwide Developer's Conference is tomorrow! There isn't anything I'm looking for (I don't really care about the iPhone) but I do hope they surprise us all with macbook upgrades! Come on, early Nahelem PLEASE! I am heavily swayed to take up the "free iPod touch with macbook/imac purchase" plus I will get to use my student discount. Eeee! Would love to get a macbook for school and an iMac for home to replace this loveable but loud computer. I did wait out an entire year and the Penryn upgrades didn't satisfy me, so show me some goodness, Steve! Work also has a new looking iMac..ho hum..