Snowy Village

After dinner at home, bf wanted to treat my sister out for dessert so we headed to a korean owned dessert place in Richmond called...yes you've guessed it...Snowy Village. Alexandra is super hard to find parking during dinner time but we were fortunate enough to find parking. There was a line up out the door when we drove passed the place. I asked how long the wait was and they said 45 mins to an hour wait. So I'm like ok might as well we drove out here. So we barely waited 45mins we got a seat in like 15 mins. So we each ordered an "Bingsoo" icy bowl. I ordered the mango one, my sister the injeolmi bingsoo which consisted of rice flour cake (the more korean traditional one), bf ordered the matcha green tea one. We also ordered a taiyaki each. The red bean, the red bean rice cake and the custard one. I'm not a big fan of the hard texture on the outside with the sugar solidified on the top. I prefer the ones you get from night market. A softer texture. Overall, a tasty experience. The ice wasn't as fine as the ones you will get in Aberdeen (my favourite place: Icy Frappe) but it really had the texture of snow. And the more you eat it the more flavorful it becomes. I love it and crave for it as of today.

Snowy Village
Address: 8571 Alexandra Drive, Richmond
Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆/5

Italian Tomato

April 21st is my youngest sibilings birthday. So she decided to have her birthday celebration at Italian Tomato in Richmond. The 2nd oldest sister ordered some appies once we were seated. She ordered the cheesy garlic bread and the Caprese salad. The garlic bread needs to be more cheesy for me but the Caprese salad was delicious. I love the fresh mozzerella. We each ordered an entree. I ordered the Puttanesca which consisted of an olive oil base with anchovies, olives, and a touch of tomato sauce.
My brother ordered the Spinach fettucine, my mom ordered the Paesana which consisted of mussels, clams, smoked salmon, shrimp in a dill sauce. Youngest ordered the Caprese pizza with added shrimp on top, 2nd oldest ordered the basic spaghetti and her bf ordered the Bolognese with meatballs. Overall, we were stuffed. The portions were large. Each of us had something to take home for lunch the next day. It was a major carb overload. We then had a fruit cake from St. Germain and cream puffs from Chewy Junior. Overall, a great time spent with family.

The aftermath

Chewy Juniors

Happy Birthday Bernice!

Italian Tomato:

Address: 8380 Bridgeport Rd, Richmond, V6X 3C7

☆☆☆☆☆/5

Deer Garden

This past weekend we decided to grab some chinese comfort food at Deer Garden. Beside congee, noodle soup is the best when bf was starting to get sick. So I order the Tom Yum soup base with vermecelli noodles and watercress and fish tofu as my toppings and for my drink I had the coconut slush. Bf ordered the century egg fish soup with beef brisket and fish slices with hot honey green milk tea. Everything about here is super fresh. The fish is never fishy, the ingredients are all very fresh. The fish soup is no msg. Overall a great place for cheap to fill our tummies. The only downfall is the line up. It is busy no matter what time of day it is. That is when you know this place is a great place. For $25 per couple you can't go wrong with a nice, hearty meal.

Deer Garden
Address: 6270 Fraser St, Vancouver, BC V5W 3A1
Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆/5

Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

Two weeks ago I had the chance to attend the Vancouver symphony orchestra presentation that was
conducted by Bramwell Tovey. That night was the 3^rd night of the SpringFest: War of the Romantics series. This night was dedicated to the conservatives: Brahms Requiem: which was a german requiem dedicated to his mother who had passed. This was one of the greatest choral masterpieces ever written. Brahms work evolved over a period of several years as early as 1854. His mother passed in 1865 and it helped him complete his requiem. He also dedicated the requiem to his dear friend, Robert Schumann who passed 10 years earlier. The requiem was sung in German by the UBC Choir. There were two solos that night sung by Tracy Dahl (soprano) and James Westman (baritone) both did exceptionally well.

Overall this was a great concert. It was quite long. The night consisted of 7 parts which was played throughout the night for about an hour and a half. I had a great night and I hope to attend more concerts in the future. 

Moulin Rouge

This past weekend we decided to grab a "snack" after tennis with friends around 2pm. We ended up at Moulin Rouge on Hastings. We were pretty much a budget trying to save money so this place had everything under $10 so we decided to give this place a try. I ordered the lasagna and bf had the black forest schnitzel with mushroom sauce. The lasagna was freshly made, super hot and cheesy. The flavours was a little weak and needed more seasoning but it was a large portion. The black forest schnitzel was well breaded and fried and the food tasted good. Overall a good meal for what you get for the price of $10.00. The place definitely needs a revamp though. I'm not very comfortable in dingy, dirty places when eating my meals.

Moulin Rouge
Address: 2828 E Hastings St, Vancouver, BC V5K 5C5

Rating: ☆☆☆/5

ManTalks

This weekend, we spent most of our days outside during the great weather of sunshine and warmth. We spent Friday after work at the mall grabbing rollerblades and padding for myself and a birthday gift for my bf's cousin.

On Saturday I went to the YMCA for a 3K run on the treadmilll, and an hour of Zumba with my mom. Afterwards, we headed over to Canada Place for the School of Greatness presentation hosted by Mantalks. I won two tickets through Vancity Buzz so I brought my bf with me. This event was definitely an experience to remember: Connor Beaton the founder of Mantalks spoke about his life experiences and explaining how important it was to be generous to others and be giving. Ryan Holmes owner of Hootsuite had a 30 mins Q&A session. He spoke about technology, how he differentiate from good and better candidates to fill his team etc. Lewis Howes spoke about being a better man to society and not being a man to prove to others. And he gave a great analogy with the audience doing a experiment for 60 secs to have each person find a person in the room they did not know and stare in their eyes for 60 secs while he narrates. He asks the room if anyone has lost someone they love to put up their hand. And some people felt compassion for the ones who put up their hand. Some even teared up. It was awkward at first, I was very tense but later on. I opened up and just let it go. My guard was down. Overall, a great experience for me to listen to inspiring people who want to better themselves for the greater good.

We headed over to Red Robins for dinner for his cousin's birthday surprise. Afterwards headed over to his house for tea and chit chat and then we went home.

On Sunday we grabbed breakfast at Tim Hortons and we stopped at the nearby park for some tennis. Afterwards we headed to False Creek for some rollerblading action. Its been a long time since I've rollerbladed so I was quite rusty. Fell 4 times on my bum. But, at the end it felt better. My ankle/calves hurt but it was fun. Afterwards we grabbed korean for dinner and then we headed over to Icy Ice on Kingsway for dessert.

We shared a mango shaved ice which consisted of fresh mango pieces, condense milk, mochi balls and mango syrup. We also ordered the Tiramisu and Durian pancake. I enjoyed the durian pancake. It was light and fluffy and they made a light mousse with an essence of fresh durian. Overall, a great way to end off our day.

Green Leaf Sushi & Seoul Doogbaegi

On Friday we decided to Green Leaf Sushi in Kitsilano. This was a place I recently found online with decent reveals of their specialty which was the Aburi Combo. The Aburi is a pressed sushi that is torched flamed on the top. So I decided to try this place out with bf. There was already a line up when we got there around 7pm. It was about an hour wait for 2 people. We also bumped into our good friends, Tony and Noreen who were celebrating their anniversary that night. Once we saw them we were thinking it would be great to share a table but the host said that he can only accomadate 2 ppl at time due to the busyness of the restaurant. So we got seated first. I ordered the Aburi Platter which turned out to be the incorrect item I wanted. The Aburi Platter consisted of 2 pieces of tempura snapper, salad, Salmon oshi sushi, tuna and wild salmon sashimi. And on the side they gave us seaweed and spinach with peanut butter on the side for our patience. The platter I wanted consisted of 65 pieces of aburi pressed sushi. I was disappointed because it took about 30 mins to get our food placed in front of us. I was already starving at that time and to not order the right item made me more “hangry” so we decided to go eat at a Korean restaurant on Kingsway called: Seoul Doogbaegi

We order the Gam Ja Tang which is the Korean spicy pork stew which consisted of onions, potatoes and vegetables. For the price of $24.95 for 2 ppl this was well worth it. We had a bowl of rice each with 4 different side dishes: Sweet potatoes, bean sprouts, spicy radish, kimchi. A delicious warm hearty meal to end our night.

Green Leaf Sushi
Address: 3416 W Broadway, Vancouver, BC V6R 2B3

Rating: ☆☆☆☆/5

 

Seoul Doogbaegi
Address: 1031 Kingsway, Vancouver, BC V5V 3C9

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆/5