Belated Towa

I have a problem with uploading pictures from my camera -- I'm lazy. (I would insert a greater-than less-than face here, but whenever I do that, it messes up the html...)

I was looking through what I do have, and I'm pretty sure I haven't put up Towa adventures, so here's a little bit =)

Someone I know used to work at Towa, and (from what I recall), I've heard pretty good things about them. One of the supposed highlights was their giant-sized rolls, which are slowly merging into average as more sushi places emerge with their own giant rolls...


I don't think it's supposed to be portrait but hey, you get the idea right? This was so long ago that I don't remember what was ordered but it was tasty. Haha. Sorry.

But what I was really there for was the tempura ice cream. Mmmm. I like ice cream, and I like tempura, and the two together is one deadly-but-delicious combo.

Vanilla on the left and green tea on the right.

Don't worry, I didn't eat it all myself (although I probably could have, but with regret as I stand on a weighing scale...)

---

Now, back to studying...

#19: Baked goodness - Lazy Loaf & Kettle and A Ladybug Bakery and Cafe

People need to name their places with shorter names.

So, when I returned from the college training, one of the first things I did was go on an adventure. My coworker took me to Lazy Loaf & Kettle, and we consumed a slice of chocolate cake. It was quite good, but very chocolatey and rich and sweet. Kind of like God, only I don't get sick of Him... and I don't know if He is chocolatey. Anyway, the cake was nice. I think I would go back and try some of their other stuff. Sadly, it's kind of steep and my wallet has definitely been taking a toll this summer.

A later adventure took me down to the SW to finally try A Ladybug (Bakery?) and Cafe after noticing it on urbanspoon a number of times. We tried a bunch of things, all over the course of doing some paper-editing.

The flexibility of this job (definitely influenced by my colleagues) has spoiled me...

Anyway, we tried a number of things. Apparently their lemon tarts were considered one of the top 25 things to try in Calgary, or something like that. I can't remember which magazine this was from, though I'm tempted to say it was in Avenue... Regardless, tried that along with something apple (which was okay but not spectacular) and something that basically tasted like a hedgehog but lighter and less sweet. I really liked the lemon tart and the hedgehog-like one.

I think the hedgehog one (top) is kind of pretty, too.

I ordered a crepe that had chicken and mushroom (no way!) because it was supposedly their most popular. Despite the mushrooms, it was delicious. I think my taste for mushrooms is slowly growing, kind of like coconut. Strange...

It was very tasty, but quite pricey. Although it was good, it would have to be a special occasion for me to go back.

It was also early enough that a latte or two was suitable. I had chai, while my buddy had almond. Later we also tried the red tea latte, which tasted quite different but good. To be honest, I was just excited about the latte art. I like it when people make it pretty.

Almond =)

Red tea latte!

Why didn't mine have art? I don't know. I decided to make my own.

Well, I think I'll have to save Diner Deluxe for another day. Getting tired and sleep awaits. Hopefully somebody out there reading this is happy ^^.

#18: Galaxie Diner

July 8 was Stampede Parade day! Being pseudo-Calgarian (I say pseudo only because I don't usually participate too much in Stampede festivities), we decided to take a couple of the grad students to see the parade.

Which may have just been an excuse to go eat food. Haha. Went to Galaxie Diner and beat the breakfast "rush".

The place, as it turned out, was tiny. The booths had their own jukeboxes, but none of them worked, which was too bad because I like flipping through their song selections (more for the sake of flipping as opposed to looking at songs...)

As usual, I asked for the waitress's recommendation (specifically, her personal favourite; I've found that a lot of servers are very dodgy when you ask for recommendations, probably because they don't want you to hate on them) and she referred me to the breakfast burrito.

I asked for just one, because we were supposed to be going out for lunch after the parade as well, and I didn't want to be full for that. (As it later turned out, I was still pretty full...) They accidentally gave me two, but charged me for just one - win!

I quite liked my food. To the point where I would order it again if I frequented the diner enough, but since I don't, I would definitely try something different (if I were to return). There are too many places out there to try...

Apparently they also offer unlimited hash browns. If I were hungrier, I totally would've gone for that -- good hash browns, plus I just like hash browns to begin with.

My other dining buddies all got different things. They all looked good, and were fairly large portions too -- good for that typical Western-style diner-esque breakfast. As if I know what that is.

Calgary Sandwich!

Montreal Smoked Meat Hash!

Calgary's Only Omelette of Choice -- complete with fork for size comparison.

Overall, a delicious breakfast experience. I still have to go to Diner Deluxe one of these days though.



I suspect that I will just barely break even this summer, given that I'm not exactly getting paid a lot and I've been spending quite a bit. XD

Also, for lunch we went to Rose Garden Thai but I wasn't overly impressed (possibly a combination of not being that hungry and the restaurant being relatively un-busy, therefore buffet food was less fresh) so I've decided I'm not going to blog about it until I revisit and give it a second chance.

#17: UNA Pizza and Wine

I'm back!

This is actually from July 4, hahaha. I am so bad at keeping up-to-date with this, I'm sorry!

Anyway, finally tried out UNA on 17th ave! Good to go on a Monday -- all the online reviews say that the line-up could take up to an hour or an hour and a half (and they don't take reservations), but there was no wait time involved. Win!

Decided to go for some of the appetizers, which were tiny but interesting. I don't remember the names exactly, but one of them had anchovy (which I am not a huge fan of). The other had some kind of stuffed date, but it kind of tasted like pumpkin and I really liked it!

Date is on left, skewer of odd-sauce-ness is on the right.

Then, of course, pizza had to be ordered. It's silly to go to a place with pizza in its name and not get pizza, right? (Okay, so we didn't order any wine. But this is with good reason, I cannot handle wine to save my life. Probably a social skill I should learn, but maybe not.)

We asked for recommendations, and the server said the mushroom pizza was the most popular. Personally I am not a mushroom person (possibly under the influence of my siblings, though potentially not...) but I usually go with whatever is recommended, so a mushroom pizza we got.

The thin crusted ness of the pizza is not evident, but it was quite thin. And surprisingly tasty, for mushroom.

Just for trying more things, we also ordered the shrimp and lime pizza. It was really tasty, in my opinion. Maybe it's because shrimp is starting to grow on me, or lime, or both. At any rate, it one-upped the mushroom.


For the record, the two pizzas were good for another few lunches following. I do not eat more than one pizza in a sitting...

Finished off with their seasonal dessert which was basically strawberry icy goodness. With random mint leaves. Refreshing on a hot day.

#16: MBA BBQ Noodle House

When I see MBA, I think of business students, not Chinese food. That may have been why I couldn't remember the name of this restaurant. (I had to look it up on urbanspoon).

I don't know if it's because I'm Chinese or because I've been to a lot of Chinese restaurants (something which is likely caused by the former), or because I'm not a huge fan of Chinese food (which is probably linked to the first two), but the idea of blogging about a Chinese restaurant is not that exciting. It's not that I don't like Chinese food, it's just that I've probably had too much of it. Almost anything else sounds more exciting.

This was your regular round table affair, with everyone having their own plate, bowl and chopsticks and sharing of food. There were two people in the group who chose to have their own dishes (one was out of necessity, as they were limited in their food choices thanks to a recent wisdom-teeth-removal) and the other eight of us split.

It was sort of awkward taking pictures of food while dining with nine others, but I did it anyway, because I am cool like that.

Most of the food was pretty typical. Tasted pretty good, was pretty oily and had lots of things in it. The most interesting for me was this dish with scallops, egg and broccoli. It looked pretty (in my opinion) and if I were me a few years ago, I wouldn't have touched it. But I'm old now (sad face) and being less picky has perks.

Isn't it cute? ^^

Apparently to eat it, you mix it with red vinegar...

It becomes less cute, in my opinion.

The rest of the food was alright. I've become an eggplant convert. And I always like noodles.

However, I was not a fan of the random, really strong stuff in my food, like huge (but unrecognizable) pieces of ginger and some other weird spice that should not be eaten. Despite the somewhat social taboo-ness, I would still pick stuff out or try to "discreetly" get rid of it.

Tofu!

Eggplant =)

Some kind of chicken and some kind of pork, I think. Lol.

Overall verdict? I don't think I would go again, unless I was going with other people who wanted to go there. It was just nice because it was open on Canada Day, and Calgary Court (another place I have not been to...) was super packed.

Whew! I think I am officially caught up now, and it's a good thing; this coming week is going to be full of adventures.

#14: Muku!

I love ramen.

I miss ramen in Japan.

Ramen is so completely win. In fact, it is the highest ranking on the win scale. (Yes, the scale goes from 1 to ramen.)

Anyway, the best place that we have found in Calgary for ramen (so far...) is Muku on 14th street NW.

I have been here several times now; the first time my experience had good and bad aspects. It was fun, but I was less-than-impressed with the noodles. However, as I continued to come with my family, it started to grow on me until all of a sudden, I was pretty much addicted.

Well not actually, but seriously, ramen cravings happen. Specifically for Muku, since other places serving up ramen offer "beef" and "chicken" ramen... but in Japan, ramen is traditionally pork, so this leads to questioning on my part.

They had a summer special going on called summer ramen, and since it was hot, my dad and I decided to try it. It looked smaller than the rest, but it was still good. I don't know if I'd order it again though - depends how hot it is outside.



My mom and Manang got tonkotsu ramen, which is probably my favourite "traditional" one.


My brother had their kuroton, which is more of a Muku thing than Japanese, I believe. Still very good.



I would recommend any of the aforementioned, as well as their sukiyaki beef and their miso ramen. Basically everything I've had there is kind of delicious.

Are you hungry yet? Seriously. Go for some ramen. And take me with you.


My brother and I were thinking that it'd be awesome to go for ramen, then walk down Kensington Road to Amato Gelato for dessert. It's probably at least 15 minutes walk, to ease the guilt a little bit. And what a delicious combo it would be...

#11: Sultan's Tent

Happy belated birthday to one of my oldest and dearest friends! (Oldest as in we've been friends for a long time...)

To celebrate, five of us went out for dinner. As one suggested we tried African food, I looked it up on the trusty old urbanspoon and filtered my search for those in the northwesterly direction.

What ended up coming up was a lovely place called Sultan's Tent in Kensington. They serve traditional Moroccan-style food.

I have never had Moroccan food in my life, so whether or not it was really Moroccan, I have no idea. I do know, however, that I am extremely full and that it was extremely delicious.

And our server had a super cute disposition.

The lighting was extremely dim. I suppose that adds a romantic touch, but for me it just made things hard to see. I got used to it, but all of the pictures came out extremely dark because I hate using flash. (Eventually I succumbed, but majority of the pictures are pretty bad -- sorry!)

Decor was awesome. It felt so... soft, for lack of a better word. Lots of fabrics, textiles, pillows; it looked like a tent. I was loving it. So comfortable.





Eating with your hands is a traditional Moroccan thing, so one of the first things our server did for us (after kindly explaining the menu to us -- honestly one of the nicest servers I've ever had.) was wash our hands.


After our hand-washing experience, the first dish that came was the "salad" that we ordered. It was basically an array of vegetables, seasoned in different ways and served with bread. You use the bread and your fingers to pick up the vegetables and eat them. They were all really good in my opinion.

It's sort of dismally dark, but the left plate was the vegetables and there were two baskets of bread.

One of my friends said that she usually takes before and after photos, which I tried doing, but I won't post them here. Mainly because I am too lazy and uploading photos onto blogger is a rather time-consuming effort.

Next up was our appetizer. It was called vegetarian briq; not quite sure what that is, but it was pretty good. And hot. There were only two, so we had a fun time splitting that up.



Afterwards, our three main dishes came. We ordered couscous vegetables, vegetable tagine and cornish game hen. (The last one we ordered in part because of its awesome name.)

The couscous vegetables came with some tomato hot sauce that was disappointingly not spicy. However, I still found it very tasty, so that was still good.

Bread was served with the food as well, mainly for dipping and to help as a "spoon". I think I licked my fingers more tonight than I have in the past few months.

The vegetable tagine was basically vegetables in a tomato sauce; it was good but not "amazing".

Our cornish game hen on the other hand... was amazing. Downright delicious. I would go back and order just that dish. (Well, probably some others to balance it out; it's pretty sweet.) But seriously, I would say it was the best dish of the evening (for me personally.) There were little apricots in there, so sweet and good. The chicken (because I'm not going to call it hen...) was cooked well, tasty, and was complemented by a really sweet but fantastic sauce.

Ordering it based on the name was more than worth it.

(I used flash! Top left is couscous, top right is hen, bottom is vegetable tagine.)

After the main course, our server asked if we were there for a special occasion. When we mentioned it was for a birthday (or two, rather), this is what came out...


We missed it with one of the cameras, so he took them back and got two new sparklers.

Seriously, such a nice guy. He would make sure things were okay but wasn't constantly bothering us.

It was a night full of good company and good food. I would definitely go back on a nice occasion, with non-germaphobic-people.

#9: Tea Time

It's Daddy's Day today! Happy Father's Day!

We went out for dinner, because I am not pro enough to cook. Although I'm starting to think (after the suggestion made by my friend) I should start learning how to cook -- not only is it a more useful skill than baking, but it would open up a huge wealth of things to learn.

Anyway, we went to Tea Time in Panorama Hills. After being introduced by my friend (another random unrelated point: to use names or not? First names only, of course... Or maybe I should follow the initial route) to this place, I've been back three times in the span of a month. I think this is somewhat remarkable, because I wouldn't say it was amazing. In fact, I'm not even really sure why I've been going so much, but anyway, it's good.

After ordering, the wait was long and staggered. I suppose we would consider this minus points for service, but it's kind of a family-owned, severely under-staffed deal, so I will cut them some slack.

First up... bubble tea!

Man, how can you say no to covers like that. My brother's (the turtle) was especially win. His flavour, pina colada, was also quite good. I got green apple green tea, a classic that I became kind of addicted to because of my friend (the same one who introduced me to this place to begin with; I should start identifying people eh? So.. vote: first names or initials? i.e. how do you want your identity revealed? or not revealed...)

As usual, hit and miss pearls (I felt like today was more of a miss, but that's because I like my pearls really squishy.) But the tea was good, as usual.

The next dish to come was a small bowl of wonton soup. Not too bad, but nothing extraordinary in my opinion.

Did I mention that they were all staggered? Cause they were. After a couple minutes with the sole bowl of wonton, my grandma's food came.

I believe that is unagi. It was also somewhat "petite" but doesn't it look pretty? Goodness, I love colourful food.

Mine was up next and I actually remembered to photograph it before messing it up! Ironically, it would have looked the same even if I did mess it up. Haha.

I think it was minced pork fried rice. Seriously huge. Easily can feed two people, which would make your money more worth it. (Two people who are me-sized appetite... not like... crazy hungry.)

Next up was the fried chicken (at least I think that's what it was). This was the main reason we came, because someone had mentioned that it was good. I would definitely agree -- next time I come, I think that is what I would get (or something related).

They also served it with kimchi-looking stuff. I thought that was kind of random, since I was under the impression that kimchi is Korean and that this place was supposed to be Taiwanese food. Anyone want to offer thoughts on this...?

My brother had beef stew and rice. It reminded me of this soup at Pebble Street near the T&T in the NE...

It was tasty. It also had kimchi on the side.

I'd like to mention that I love the fact they serve corn with their food. Corn is one of those amazing foods that anyone who doesn't like it must be crazy. (Here is where I would start singing the "don't you love corn" song from Backyardigans, but my sister isn't around...)

My dad had soup, which he was somewhat underwhelmed by. This is kind of unfortunate, seeing as it was Father's Day...

The green tea noodles were interesting, but when compared to things like ramen, udon, soba and pho (all of which I love...) it pales in comparison.

At least my grandpa's food looked like it was good. (Not sure if it was because I don't think he answered me when I asked...)

And the last dish (which took a long time; the first one was finished by the time it came) was less than impressive as well. Which was disappointing, cause it looked really good. I'm always interested in a good satay.

The final verdict is... they need more staff. Haha. But in general it's pretty nice -- not too busy, decent food, granite tables.

Of course, on the flip side, I really like trying new things. So maybe I won't go back for a while (unless someone else brings me there.)

#7: Overeasy ( and then some )

Well, ...

Why is there no strikethrough button? I wanted to write -that was- overeasy.

But now it just looks lame. Anyway, sorry. Bear with me.

So yesterday brought new and old food adventures.

After doing some exercise (which was novel in and of itself, for the record) I went with my friend to have breakfast at Overeasy.

Let me start off by saying that I am a huge fan of their decor. I thought it was really cute and colourful, but in a tasteful way. Maybe I have no eye for design (actually it's true, I don't) but it was rather happifying and adorable.

Anyway, as usual, I was having a difficult time deciding what to eat. I almost always do. And so, as I almost always do, I asked our server for her suggestions.

Almost every time I ask someone for suggestions, they ask me what I'm looking for. I can understand why they would ask that, but I must be honest -- if I knew what I was looking for, I most likely wouldn't be asking for a suggestion. When I ask for a suggestion, I want their opinion from scratch. Like what their favourite thing to order is.

So I tried to provide some direction (savoury or sweet? savoury, because as you'll see later, we made another side trip before going to school) but after that I just let her suggest a number of things.

I decided I would try "It's a Soul in a Bowl", which was basically a breakfast-style poutine. I should add here that I've never had a legit, Montreal-style poutine, so I have nothing to really compare it to. (I would not count NY Fries or A&W poutines as any grounds to compare).


I'm not sure if this looks impressive to you -- it's not particularly large-looking, nor is it that "pretty". But it was ridiculously tasty and unbelievably filling.

My dining buddy had Mount Royal Glee, which is described as follows:

Three poached eggs over a warm caramelized onion & thyme tartlet, bacon lardons, sauce Hollandaise, vegetarian caviar.

I just realized, that's what the weird blue-black dots were: vegetarian caviar. I have no idea what that really is, but I am laughing right now. (We had no idea what it was.)


Anyway, both were quite tasty and surprisingly filling (I suspect mine more so than my friend's). So full of happiness and win.


My brother was suggesting that I start rating restaurants, but I don't feel like I'm pro enough to be doing that yet. We'll see what happens in the future, I suppose.

Also, I'm starting to wonder if I should be trying to pull out the pseudo-Asian-ness in ninja-ing food bills. I'm perfectly fine with KKB-ing (KKB stands for something in Tagalog which essentially means everyone pays for themselves) but if needed, sneakiness might be in order.



So after breakfast, we dropped by Jelly Modern because it was Tuesday and Tuesday is the day with both PB&J (what I wanted to try) and Red Velvet (what my friend wanted to try). By this time I was still very full, so I just carried donuts around with me until lunchtime rolled around.



They don't look very pretty, but they were also good. My friend pointed out that the peanut butter tasted a little bit like sesame. I'm not sure if it was just the power of suggestion, but it kind of did.

At any rate, it was still tasty, and I think I have (for the most part) satisfied my doughnut cravings. I'll save the strawberry shortcake and carrot cake for other days, further into the future.


In the evening we also went to Peking Garden (ridiculous, I know, but unplanned on my part...). This is a long-standing classic with my family, so it deserve a blog -- but I forgot my camera.

So we'll have to wait for another day.


Extra note:
Thanks for the feedback on the baking! ^^ And feel free to leave comments, makes it less lonely around here.

#5: Jelly Modern Doughnuts

Ever since Jelly Modern Doughnuts popped up on Urbanspoon's "Talk of the Town", I have been inevitably rather curious. I like doughnuts. I also like cupcakes. And macarons. Actually I like almost anything that is sweet.

Anyway, Jelly's got some pretty interesting flavours. You can check them out here.

The unfortunate bit is that the different flavours are available on different days.

They also have two options for most of their filled doughnuts -- you can get regular ones or "three bite" ones.

My dining buddy and I happened to be rather curious about everything, so we decided to order a pack of 16 "three bite" doughnuts and get one of every flavour that was possible (in mini form). That totaled (I believe) 11 different flavours. And we, being the genius people that we are, split each one in half and tried all of them.

So I basically had like 5.5 doughnuts for breakfast. Feel free to judge.

I will talk about them one-by-one, because I can. They're supposed to be in the order I ate them.

1: lemon curd

Ever since sister Laurie made lemon cake and I had some, I have since fallen in love with lemon-flavoured desserts. So this one was already an automatic win for me. (It proved itself, too; I thought it was quite tasty.)

2: classic jelly

Again, one of those insta-win. I love jam. I'm usually more of a strawberry jam as opposed to raspberry, but this was still really good.

3: maple bacon

I don't even know if I need to say anything about this. Maple and bacon is the ultimate breakfast combo. Imagine that in doughnut form...

( Now I'm starting to forget what order we ate them in so I will just continue randomly. )

4: espresso... something

It's not on their menu. It was pretty good, even had a coffee bean on top. But I probably wouldn't get it again, mostly because there were other, better things.

5: valrhona chocolate

Tasted like dark chocolate, which I kind of love. They did a nice job of it and it was not too sweet, which was really good.

6: peanut butter cup

So if you know me, you probably know about my history with peanut butter. Basically, I used to say I didn't like it (because other influences in my life didn't like it). Then one day I realized that I love peanut butter and I will say it openly.

They did a nice job of this one too. Nom nom nom.

7: coconut

I usually am not a huge coconut person (see last post regarding coconut ice cream) but this was actually really good. I was pleasantly surprised.

8: vancouver canuck/nanaimo

Basically like a nanaimo bar in a doughnut. Not bad, but not particularly epic in my opinion.

9: marshmallow

Surprisingly good -- I thought it would be too sweet, but it was actually not too bad.

10: s'more

Disappointed in the "chocolate"... that is all.

11: boston cream (this and 8 are for the sake of hockey...)

Tasted... pretty much like a regular Boston cream, I think. I am not a huge fan of Boston cream so if you are, you probably don't want my opinion.

(Note the cute forks that are practically sporks!)

Anyway, still gotta go back to try my PB & J. Then I will be satisfied, for the most part.

PS Random note: I keep wanting to say modern jelly doughnuts. The name confuses me...

#4: Chili Club Thai House (17th Ave)

I have been wanting to go to Chili Club for a while now. I really like Thai food, and it's quite highly ranked on Urbanspoon.

My brother graduated a couple days ago (yeah, some important-like events going down this week) so we went out for dinner... again. Haha. We were originally going to go for Mediterranean but it didn't end up happening (reservation wasn't available until 7:30), so we went here instead (where we got a reservation at 7:15. I know, it doesn't make sense.)

The lighting was dark, so I apologize for the poor pictures.


My dad saw some people at another table with lettuce and we thought it looked good, so we decided to order it. Turns out it was an appetizer. I really liked it, but the filling was extremely runny and I wasn't sure how we were supposed to eat it. My hands ended up really messy, but it was worth it.

(the lettuce was originally in that basket. as usual, I took pictures late...)

We did it... family style.. or Chinese restaurant style... or whatever it is called when you order a bunch of dishes and everyone shares.


The next few to come out were the curries. They were kind of amazing. I would go back for the curry alone. If I was rich. Or there was a special occasion. (Not the cheapest restaurant on the block.)

The massaman beef curry was amazing. I have never had this before but I would most definitely get it again.


The yellow chicken curry was also good. (They even have pretty carrot flowers ^^).


In case you didn't notice, those bowls are not very big. And if I remember correctly, each is around $15, so it's kind of steep -- but the curry was so tasty that I would still get it.

Which is pretty good considering how cheap I tend to be.


Thai food is never complete without pad thai. Although I was not a huge fan before, pad thai has definitely grown on me, to the point where I will crave it occasionally. This was kind of one of those times.

The pad thai was a fairly generous portion (compared to the curry, anyway). But I would say that it wasn't as good in quality, so in the end, they evened out. It was a little spicy, which I really liked.


There was also a Chili Club special of some sort. To be totally honest, I don't even remember what it tasted like, so it wasn't that memorable.


Maybe it's because it wasn't spicy. Haha.

We also had some green curry fried rice. It didn't look very curry-ey to me, so I was slightly disappointed. But then I tried it, and it was spicier than the rest which made me kind of happy. Added a slightly larger variety.

But I would still take the other two curry dishes over this one.


There was some other stuff I think, but nothing especially noteworthy.

At the end of the meal, I was anticipating dessert. There was no clear dessert menu, but I had read reviews online about the "free ice cream" being a "nice touch". And then I watched other tables get served bowls at the end of their meals. So there was a lot of anticipation (no "pleasant surprises" here... I would've been extremely disappointed if we did not get our ice cream, haha.)


Then we did. And it was so, so good. Some nice fruits and really good coconut ice cream. Coming from someone who is not a huge fan of coconut ice cream, that is saying something.



I would go again, just for the curry and the ice cream. But it would probably have to be a nice occasion.