EAT! Vancouver: Food and Wine Festival 2013

Eat! Vancouver is one of my favourite festivals to attend. It’s a food lover’s dream! I’ve been going for many years now and this year did not disappoint. Es S, SAW and I attended the festival last Friday a little bit after it opened its doors at 2pm. I wished I was able to attend the festival on Saturday because Chuck Huges (one of my favourite chefs) was cooking on the celebrity chef stage. Despite not being able to see Chuck, I had a great time seeing new products, eating, drinking and sampling. Here are some of my high lights of the festival:

Membertime, a members-only website offering discounts at partnered restaurants around Vancouver, gave out free bags with a bottle of water to people who signed up. According to the information provided, they will be launched at the end of June. It sounded intriguing so we all signed up.

This stall also intrigued me. It is a monthly tea subscription where each month, you will be mailed a number of teas. I believe the cost is around $20 a month. Great concept for those who are avid tea drinkers searching for new teas to try.

I enjoyed the sample of Mash from the stall, so I bought two to take home. They are refreshing and a good alternative to pop.

These Good Drink teas are also great tasting but I didn’t buy any.

These CheeCha Puffs are so tasty and contain significantly lower amounts of calories than chips. They also have a few gluten free varieties.

My Week in Photos: Eat Vancouver & Nightmarket

Another week, another set of photos. I haven’t been feeling well this past weekend, so I’ve been bumming around at home.

{SAW, Es S and I went to Eat! Vancouver on Friday and had a great time there. Blog post will be up soon}

{Saw these cute cat flats in the sale section of Urban Outfitters. Perfect for a cat loving person}

{Also went to the nightmarket on the same Friday. I only took a picture of my chicken karaage but I also ate other things}

Whatever You Desire Turns 2!

Yesterday marked my blog’s 2nd year anniversary. I just want to give a big thank you to all the people who read and follow my blog, it means a lot to me! Being an extremely introverted and shy person it real life, it puts a smile to my face when I get a like on my posts or a new subscriber. I’m going to be hosting a blog giveaway soon… so stay tuned for that. Once again, thanks for reading and cheers to another year of blogging!

Five Elements Cafe: Delicious Vietnamese and Thai Food

Even though I don’t live very far from Commercial Drive, I don’t frequent the area much despite the amount of restaurants located there. After visiting the Farmer’s market on a rainy Saturday, Es S and I passed by Five Elements Cafe. It had a “grand opening 10% off” banner and had the words Vietnamese submarines, gelato, frozen yogurt and coffee written on the window. Interesting mix of cuisines, but I was intrigued so we went inside to check it out.

Click for larger image 🙂

Five Elements Cafe carries an array of foods; they have vietnamese dishes such as pho and subs, Thai dishes, caffeinated beverages, tea, gelato and frozen yogurt. You can click on the picture for a bigger version of the menu. Price wise, most of the dishes are under $10 other than the sizzling plates. They have a display of their selection of teas for you to smell, which I thought was a nice touch.

You pay and order at the counter,tell the cashier where you are going to sit and the food is brought to you. Water is self serve and they have a cutlery and condiment station in the back. The interior was clean and bright and I liked the exposed brick walls.

Here’s what we ate:

Es S started with a papaya coleslaw– shrimp or tofu, vinaigrette and herbs. Along with shredded papaya, the coleslaw included shredded carrots, basil, chopped peanuts and topped off with fried onions. We thought that the coleslaw lacked tartness and needed more fish sauce. It wasn’t bad, it was quite refreshing but it needed some more flavour.

Review: Price Smart Foods Macarons

While grocery shopping at Price Smart Foods, specifically the Richmond location, I came across a 12 pack of macaraon’s. I was intrigued and decided to try them out. The price for a pack of 12 was about $9, which is fairly cheaper than many other places offering macarons for about $2 a macaron.

The macarons come in a clear container which isn’t as visually appealing as the other places, but it does the job and is expected for grocery store sold macarons.

The box includes 6 flavours: vanilla, pistachio, coffee, lemon, raspberry and chocolate. All of them are filled with butter cream except the chocolate, which is filled with ganache and the raspberry, which is filled with jam.

Here’s a rundown of the macarons:

• Size: These macarons are on the smaller size, but still a good size to eat.
• Texture: Due to the macarons being refrigerated, the shell wasn’t as delicate and crisp but instead quite soft.
• Flavour: Flavour wise, I found it to be faint. I would have liked it to be stronger but it was still enjoyable

Overall, I thought the macarons were actually not bad for supermarket quality. Flavour wise, they aren’t as good as the others, but good for those who are just looking for basic, cheap macarons. Would I purchase them again? If I’m in the mood for some macarons and so happen to be buying groceries, then yes.

 

My Week In Photos

The weather in Vancouver has been bipolar lately. Last week the weather was like summer but this week, it returned to typical rainy Vancouver. On rainy days, I like to stay home and do nothing… I wish I could do that everyday but my life would be boring and meaningless. Anyways, I bought a photo editing app on my phone and since I don’t usually buy apps, I justified my purchase by using it excessively. Here is my week in photos:

{Baked Portuguese chicken on rice from Mui Garden. The food came out incredibly slow and service was bad but this dish was not bad}

{Checked out the Target in Coquitlam and bought 2 shirts}

On Friday, SAW and I watched The Great Gatsby. I read the book last summer for an English course and I loved it, but I thought the movie was average. I did however enjoy the music in the movie, especially the Lana Del Rey song!

{My outfit for my outing with SAW}

{Before the movie, we ate Korean food for lunch. Pictured above is dduk bok gee}

How To: Dresses and Skirts for Begginers

I love wearing skirts and dresses simply because I can never find pants that fit me well. I have short legs and bulky thighs, so it’s hard finding jeans that fit me well. Inspired by S.A.W, I decided to make a post about how to style skirts and dresses for those who don’t normally do. I’m probably the only one out of all my close friends who wears dresses or skirts, so I’m going to share some of my tips and experiences. I should also include that these outfits are meant for spring/summer.

My goal of these outfits is to incorporate pieces that you might already have in your closet; t-shirts, denim shirts, cardigans, etc; and show you how to style them with skirts and dresses. I find that for most of my outfits, I can wear them with skirts or pants, but of course I prefer wearing them with skirts. 

 1. The first outfit I put together consist of a basic white tank with a basic black skirt and a cardigan. Everything is solid printed so it’s suitable for those who aren’t into prints. I find a longer cardigan goes well with skirts and dresses. I styled the outfit with blue sandals, which provides a pop of colour to the monochromatic outfit. You could also style this outfit with flats or ankle or combat boots.

2. The second outfit consist of a red polka dot dress with a denim jacket and toms. This is an outfit I would wear if I was hanging out with friends and walking for a extended period of time. This outfit is very casual and not too girly.

3. The third outfit consist of a white cropped topped paired with a blue maxi skirt. I love maxi skirts, they’re great if you don’t want to show off your legs of if your legs a bit fuzzy. Maxi skirts also create a nice silhouette for your body. I find cropped tops go great with maxi skirts because they are the perfect length tops to wear with maxi skirts.

4. The last outfit I have created consist of a triangle printed dress paired with a light wash denim shirt and combat boots. The combat boots give this look a bit more edge. If you don’t like baring your arms, layering a light denim shirt is a good way to cover them.

Here are some more outfit inspirations:

[a t-shirt paired with a pleated skirt and oxford is a great way to transition into skirts]

 [A great wear to wear a maxi skirt: pair it with a v-neck and cardigan]

[t-shirt, black skirt and a denim shirt paired with flats

[combat boots toughens up Rachel’s floral printed dress]

Life Lately: Food Diary

I hope everyone had a good weekend and Mother’s day! Both my mom’s side and dad’s side of the family had a Mother’s day celebration, so my weekend was filled with gluttony. I didn’t take any pictures from either of those celebrations, but here’s what I’ve been eating lately…

For S.A.W’s late birthday celebration, we went to Richmond Center’s Food Terrace to eat snow ice from Umi. Surprisingly, it was quite good. I’ll definitely be back for some more.

Snow ice from Umi

I went for the green tea snow ice with mango, mochi and pudding while S.A.W went for the strawberry snow ice. The green tea snow ice had a nice matcha flavour, but my only complaint would be that the mango’s were not ripe, therefore it was quite hard. This was very refreshing on the hot weather we were having that day.

After walking around a bit, both S.A.W and I were feeling thirsty from the heat, so we hit up Teavana to check out some teas. We were given a sample of this tea and ended up getting an ice version of it.

Pictures above is the youthberry wild orange blossom blend tea. It reminded me of Starbucks passion tea, but more refreshing and less sweet. This tea is great served iced on a hot summer day.

I had a craving for Vietnamese spring rolls, so Es S and I went to Bao Chau to satisfy this craving. Bau Chau is supposedly known for their spring rolls and calls themselves the “spring roll house” and I must admit, they did not disappoint.

I ordered #36, which is basically everything: vermicelli with minced pork patty, grilled pork, shredded pork and spring rolls. I love getting this at Bao Chau because I like the variety of meats it includes. This time around, the pork was not overcooked and everything was delicious. The last time I ordered this dish, the pork was way overcooked, so I was hoping it wouldn’t be the case this time around.

I had a pack of Japanese curry lying around, so I decided to make beef curry with it. I also added carrots, potato’s and onions to the curry and served it over brown rice.

Review: Ovaltine Malted Milk Ice Confection

While shopping at T&T supermarket, a new ice-cream caught my eye. It is advertised as “nutritional malted milk ice confection”, but I don’t really know if it’s that nutritional. I decided to give it a try as I enjoyed drinking Ovaltine as a child. They have two kinds, a chocolate flavour and a malted milk flavour. I went for the latter:

 

The box contains four individual servings of the ice-cream and a cute spoon to eat it with:

• Flavour: It tasted like malted milk, like I was eating Ovaltine in a solid form. It wasn’t was creamy as I expected, but I enjoyed how similar it tasted to the drink. It wasn’t overly sweet, which I like because sometimes ice-cream can be too sweet.
• Texture: One thing I found about this is that it had a gritty texture, perhaps from the Ovaltine powder. It’s not that bad though, it doesn’t deter from the eating experience but I’m assuming since it’s an ice confection, it doesn’t have the smooth texture of ice cream.
• Verdict: To sum it up, it tasted like Ovaltine with a gritty ice-cream like texture. If you enjoy drinking Ovaltine (the malted milk flavour), you’ll probably enjoy this. I like the individual serving sizes and packaging, especially the cute spoon that came with it. Would i purchase this again? Yes, most likely.

I purchased this from T&T supermarket, but I’ve seen it at Price Smart foods and I’m sure you can get it at Asian supermarkets.

 

This and That: 7 things

I’ve been slacking off from blogging lately, but now I’m back! Since my last post, I celebrated S.A.W’s birthday and been trying really hard to refrain myself from shopping. It seems like everyone is on vacation, and I’m stuck here in Vancouver. Since I don’t have anything else to say, here’s some pictures:

We celebrate S.A.W’s birthday with afternoon tea at Adonia

{Pictured above is one signature afternoon tea’s and 2 mini afternoon tea}

{Creme Brulee donut from Lucky’s Donuts}

{Went to Winner’s with my dad and he bought me these two items: [left] American Eagle lace bustier dress & [right] floral skull printed shirt}

I downloaded some editing apps on my phone, and like I mentioned in an earlier post, I like to edit my photos when I can’t sleep.. here are some of the results:

{Calamari dinner from The Slocan. Es S and I received bad service despite the place being empty. The dish wasn’t bad flavour wise but the squid was a bit chewy}