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Food for Thought

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As you have heard, spot prawns are in season! Since it was Mothers Day, we decided to indulge in those tasty creatures. We went to T&T to get enough for the dinner. They were selling for $11/pound. We got 4 pounds and it filled up a grocery bag. They wrap the prawns in wet newspaper to keep it alive till you begin cooking them.

If you don’t plan on cooking them right away, put them in the fridge so they can just chill there. It kind of puts them to sleep.

The prawns were quite big, so you might be tempted to play with them. My sisters were playing with a few of them. When they began squirming, the little sister started screaming and ran away. We didn’t do anything to the prawns before cooking. There are lots of different ways to prepare the prawns, but we just decided to boil them. That’s the only way my family likes to eat them.

When the water came to a boil, we dumped them into the pot. This was a 2 person job – one person prevented them from jumping out of the pot and the other just dumps them into it.

We tried our best, but one prawn was brave and just jumped out of the pot. These prawns are fierce! hahaha. My little sister started screaming again and ran away because she feared the prawns would attack.

They all got into the pot and we just waited till the water came to a boil again. Clearly, I was anticipating this meal.

We kept it simple with the boiled prawns, vegetables and a hot pepper infused soy sauce. We didn’t use any chopsticks or utensils for our meals. We were basically animals ripping the prawns apart and dipping them in the sauce. Since all our hands were so gross, we just used our hands to eat the vegetables. Very gross, but that’s how we did it on Mothers Day.

Since the prawns were quite big, we all finished it very fast between the 5 of us. My mother kept saying how she would have preferred getting the smaller spot prawns so she could sit at the table eating for longer.

Do you have any interesting prawn stories?

Did you know Hot Pot Restaurants from all over the Lower Mainland have hilarious names? Some of them I have to admit are pretty lame, makes no sense, and are probably bad english translations. I just had to compile a short list of Hot Pot Restaurants in Vancouver to show you guys how funny they are.

Of course this does not apply to all Hot Pot Restaurants. Some have normals ones, but I found the list above to be quite funny. Just so you know, I haven’t been to these Hot Pot restaurants, so I don’t know if they are any good. I just know, they make me giggle.

Do you know of any other Hot Pot restaurant with strange names?

At T&T, it is easy to find a variety of drinks from around the world. I often walk up and down the drink aisle and every single time I see these weird Thai drink that I am deathly afraid of.

Since I was really bored that day, I decided to buy this and try it out.

Even though I did buy it, I spent a while looking at the basil seeds suspended in the drink. It kinda reminded me of floating mould. Not very aesthetically pleasing.  It probably took me 2 days till I had the courage to drink it. Even M was quite afraid of what I had bought. I know they are edible but you have to agree they look nasty.

When I finally took a gulp of this, it tasted ok. You don’t taste the basil seeds and the flavour was just like water and honey.

I personally didn’t like the flavour of this drink since they honey or sugar was a bit too much. I think I will stick to having my basil seeds from desserts at Bubble Fruity.

M and I were shopping at Superstore since there was No Tax! You can save a few bucks here and there but hey… I am Asian so I am entitled to fight others in the name of discounts.

We were walking up and down the aisles … then up and down more aisles… then I saw it in the distance; a HUGE freeze display of Presidents Choice Ice Cream Sandwiches.

You are probably asking why I am so excited over this. When I was a kid, I would often take their cookies and scoop ice cream between to cream my own version of the ice cream sandwich. Clearly, they never ever tasted right.

The ice cream sandwiches come in 2 flavours – Vanilla and Chocolate.

I prefer vanilla, but M prefers chocolate, so I really can’t tell you which one is better since it’s all about personal preferences. Essentially, the Ice cream sandwiches are made out of 2 chocolate chunk cookies with a large amount of ice cream in the middle. I personally found this ice cream sandwich ok, it was hard to taste the ice cream when there are chocolate chunks all over the place.

My all time favorite is still the usual rectangle ice cream sandwich with the black soft cookie.

 

I love lazy days at home. Spending the days watching random TV shows and surfing the internet at the same time. I am pretty sure I sat in the same place for the whole day. Those are basically the best days and the fattest days.

M brought me some Mc Donalds with my favorite meal.  I usually get the Fish O Filet with extra side of tartar sauce.

I don’t put the tartar sauce into the sandwich, but I dip my fries into it! I love it! I am not a ketchup person, so I do prefer something creamy. You can also get extra Mc Chicken sauce as well if you don’t like tartar sauce.

There are days when I am pressed for time, so there was one day where I was dipping the fries into the tartar sauce while driving…and then I started tweeting. Super dangerous so don’t be like me. I didn’t hit anything but ya, I have since stopped stuffing my face with fries while driving.

Address:

9855 Austin Rd
Burnaby, BC

Website:
mcdonalds.ca

McDonald's on Urbanspoon

Yesterday I was at Safeway looking for some Ice Cream to accompany me during this weekend. When walking up and down the frozen foods aisle, I stumbled upon a new product Safeway is selling.

Mini Ice cream tubs!! To be exact, it is one serving of ice cream.  I was super excited because my fridge does not fit many things… well it does but my parents like to shove all the fishballs, meats, and everything in the freezer to be used later. This really doesn’t leave much room for tubs of ice cream.

I don’t eat much ice cream either, so buying a large tub would just end up sitting in the freezer for …a month… or two.. or six… or even a year. I just like to taste things and not have too much.

Even though the new smaller tubs are convenient to people like me, they do come at a price of about $2 a tub. Each one has about 120 – 150 calories.

I got myself and my sister these to share since they were just SO cute! If you can compare the size of the iphone 4, you know these are quite small.

We got 2 flavours of the Skinny Cow brand of Ice Cream – Chocolate Fudge Brownie and Cookies n’ Cream. They did have mini Häagen-Dazs but I did not like the flavours that they had in the mini size.

We both thought the cookies n cream was a bit too sweet. I loved the cookies component of this but not the cream. ( I probably should have bought a box of cookies instead… told you i’m not an ice cream person).  Then we dug into the chocolate fudge brownie. This was yummy! Good amount of brownies in it. Who doesn’t love good ol’ chocolate ice cream?

I know the mini tubs are probably just new in Canada since I saw them in Europe a few years back.

Do you like their new mini ice cream tubs? Or do you think it’s a waste of money?

 

McDonalds is continuing to crank out ‘premium’ style burgers. This week, M visited the Mc Donalds across the street and saw they were advertising their third pounder sandwiches. These are burgers that weight 1/3 a pound. So, if you eat 3, that is +1 pound to your belly.

The Angus Third Pounder burgers some in 3 styles – the Angus Deluxe, Angus Mushroom and Swiss, and Angus Bacon and Cheese.

In general, the sandwiches are way better than their regular burgers. The patties were noticeably thicker and larger, shows some nice exterior searing, had some noticeable juiciness, and were augmented with some nice-looking, good-tasting, fresh and crisp toppings. The pickles, lettuce and tomatoes are 213945843293 times better than on the usual burger.

All these items are housed in a new bun! They are larger and softer sesame seed buns. These burgers are not new to the States, but is new in Canada. After a year or so of delays, it is finally here!

These burgers put all the other ones to shame! But, this does some at a price about $5.50 a pop.

Since I wanted to give you guys a full review on each new burger, M and I both chowed down on all 3. As I write this, we are still digesting.

The Mushroom and Swiss Third Pounder comes with swiss cheese, the angus patty, mushrooms, and McChicken Sauce.

In this version at the location that we got, there was way too much McChicken Sauce and it was not spread around, so you would get a mouthful of sauce. The mushroom quality was quite low. Very thinly sliced and did not seem fresh at all. There is supposed to be 2 slices of swiss cheese, but our burgers only had one. M had this at another location and the quality was way better than the one today.

Next we had the Bacon and Cheddar Third Pounder. This is by far the BEST one of the their pounders. It has red onions, 2 slices of cheddar cheese, the patty, bacon strips, romaine lettuce, and pickles.

You get the crispness of the bacon with the ooey gooey ness of the cheese. This version beats the old version of the angus burger with bacon and cheddar (the one on the ciabatta bun). Bacon has improved a lot but it still can not beat Wendy’s Baconator!

Lastly, they also had the Deluxe Third Pounder. This was exactly like the bacon and cheddar pounder but without the bacon and one slice of cheddar.

Since they are the same price….M and I agreed that we would just get the bacon and cheddar since it has 2 extra ingredients.

On the side note, don’t you hate it when they forget your straws? M and I had to use the ones that were in my kitchen. It’s kinda cute but strange at the same time.

Words of Wisdom:

  • Expensive for a McDonalds Burger
  • Bacon and Cheddar third pounder is the best
  • Fresher ingredients
  • Tastier thicker patty

Have you tried this yet? Or will you ever try this new burger?

They were promoting this burger last week at A&W near my work, I pass by everyday, so it’s easy to notice if there are any new promotions. I kept seeing posters introducing the GrandMa Burger, which is made of Prime Rib.

As you can tell from the look, it is one of their premium burgers made with good ingredients.

I really wish I took a photo of the actual burger but I ate it up too quickly. I probably ate it in less than 1 minute. I was in a rush and really had no time to take a pause.

This burger has prime rib patty, caramelized onions, mayo all house in a nice fluffy bun! I liked the taste since it did have a bit more flavour. It does not taste like a real prime rib steak, but its really not bad tasting overall. The caramelized onions were a bit sweet and added additional flavour to the sandwich.

Even though this is called the GrandMa Burger, I wonder how many Grandmas would order this. hahaha. I’m not that old but I’m sure a lot of people would order this just for fun.

Overall, decent burger and I liked it!

A&W (BCIT Downtown) on Urbanspoon

My friend sent me an article about Fast Food Chains in the States having secret menus. You can order some very bizzare items… or even some old favorites that have been discontinued.

Coupon Sherpa of www.Couponsherpa.com wrote an article called ‘24 Secret Restaurant Menus Revealed‘, he lists 24 different fast food restaurants and the different items you can order. Looking at this list, more than half the list does not apply to Canada at all. But, it’s still pretty cool to see some of the weirdest sandwiches ever made. Perhaps I’ll take a trip to the states and go nuts by ordering the most obscure items. I can’t confirm if all of these items are available, but I am pretty sure you can order the specific ingredients to put that sandwich together. Do It Yourself type of thing.

I have been guilty of ordering a few of these items on the menus such as the McGangBang (McDonalds) and London Fog (Starbucks). I actually don’t go up to the counter to specifically order a McGangBang. If I did, I would get some pretty weird looks. They might even think I would want to rob the place. It’s pretty weird how he mentions Starbucks’s london fog since they did introduce it a while ago to their menu.  If you want a cheaper version of the London Fog, order an Earl Grey misto with 2 pumps of vanilla syrup.

If you have ordered these items that aren’t on their regular menu, let us know what your experience was.

Below is a condensed list of secret menus available in Vancouver.

Arbys

  • Chicken Cordon Bleu Sandwich – This spin on the cordon bleu is a chicken breast with a piece of ham on top of it with melted Swiss cheese.
  • Wet Fries – Hot fries smothered in cheese sauce.
  • French Dip – This is a classic Arby’s menu item that is off most menu’s but can still be ordered.

Burger King

  • Mustard Whopper – This is a normal Whopper with one difference, mustard is spread onto the sandwich instead of mayo.
  • Veggie Whopper – A great alternative for vegetarians who love the flavor of Burger King, the beef is substituted for with a veggie patty.
  • BLT – A bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich that comes in either a small or medium size.
  • Ham and Cheese – A classic sandwich option that you can have served either hot or cold.
  • Frings – An order of frings will split your French fry order with onion rings.
  • Suicide Burger – This is a large burger including four meat patties, four slices of cheese, bacon and special sauce.
  • Rodeo Burger – A burger assembled with onion rings and bbq sauce on it.
  • BK Club – This sandwich is the Original chicken sandwich with bacon, tomato, and cheese.

Dairy Queen

  • Chocolate Chip Blizzard – This blizzard sounds like your basic chocolate chip ice cream, but its not. It is made with quick to harden chocolate usually used on the dipping cones.
  • Banana Split Blizzard – All your basic banana split flavors blended together into a blizzard.
  • Jack and Jill Sundae – A classic sundae with marshmallow and hot fudge.
  • Lavender Blue Sundae – This is a blueberry sundae with marshmallow.
  • Frozen Hot Chocolate – In some places this is still on the menu seasonally, but basically it is hot chocolate blended with ice to give it a frozen crunch.
  • Peanut Buster Parfait – This is a multi level sundae combining fudge, vanilla soft serve, and peanuts.

Fat Burger

  • Hypocrite – A veggie burger topped with bacon.

KFC/A&W

  • Poutine – This is a Canadian favorite that includes French fries, fried cheese curds, and gravy layered together.

McDonalds

  • Biscuits and Gravy – This one may only be available in the South – but it’s the classic combination of gravy smothering hot biscuits.
  • McKinley Mac – A big Mac with quarter pounder patties.
  • Grilled Cheese – A bun grilled with American cheese inside.
  • Big Mac with Quarter Pounder Patties – This is great if you are looking to decrease the cost and calories of the classic Big Mac Sandwich. You get the entire flavor with less meat.
  • All American – This is a normal sized hamburger with only pickles and ketchup.
  • Big McChicken – This is a huge sandwich in which the chicken patties replace the bun.
  • Fries with Big Mac Sauce – Fries smothered in the secret and special big Mac Sauce.
  • Chicken and Waffles – This is a McGriddle sandwich with chicken in the middle.
  • Neopolitan Milk Shake – 1/3 vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice creams blended together into one shake.
  • McLeprichon – This shake is only available in March and is composed of the shamrock shake mixed with the chocolate shake making a mint chocolate shake.
  • Pie McFlurry – If you purchase a pie you can have it blended into your McFlurry.
  • McGangBang – This is a double cheeseburger with a chicken patty in between the two beef patties.
  • Land, Sea, and Air Burger – The Land, Sea, and Air burger, has a beef patty, chicken patty, and fillet-o-fish patty all piled high onto a bun.
  • Root Beer Float – You can pick any size of root beer and they will add the vanilla ice cream on top.
  • Coke Float – Any size of coke with ice cream. You can even get it with chocolate ice cream.
  • Monster Mac – A big Mac composed of 8 meat patties.
  • 2 Cheese Burger Meal Mac – Two cheese burgers, fries and a drink.

Starbucks – With the large variety of different Starbucks franchises it is important to know what’s in any hidden menu drink you order. Many should know these options however, since they are not all the same just remember the ingredients in case they do not know and they will be happy to make the drink for you.

  • Biscotti Frapuccino – This is a typical frapuccino but it has a biscotti blended inside. You will have to purchase the biscotti separate when you are checking out, but you can have it in any flavor frap.
  • Short Drink – This is a less expensive version of any Starbucks drink. It is smaller than a tall with a lower price.
  • Red Eye – This is a shot of espresso in regular drip coffee.
  • Black Eye – This drink has 2 shots of espresso in regular drip coffee.
  • Green Eye – This drink includes 3 shots of espresso in regular drip coffee.
  • Poor Mans Latte – We recommend you do not tell your Barista you are planning on creating this drink when you order. Order an iced Americano with no water and half ice, then use the free milk on the side to mix it up to your standards.
  • Poor Mans Chai Latte – Same recommendation as above applies here. Order a Chai Tea Misto with extra foam, two tea bags, and half cinnamon and half vanilla syrup.
  • French Pressed Coffee – If you want coffee served fresh from a French press you may have it with any variety in the shop.
  • Chocolate Cream Frapuccino – This is a frapuccino made with chocolate syrup and chocolate frapuccino base.
  • Cake Batter Frap – Order a vanilla frappucino and ask for both the vanilla bean and almond flavorings. It will taste just like cake batter.
  • Crunchberry Frap – Flavored like the crunchberry cereal, this is a strawberrys and cream frappucino with hazelnut flavoring.
  • Strawberry Blended Lemonade – Although this had been taken off the menu, most locations will still blend the strawberry flavoring with lemonade for you.
  • London Fog – This is made with vanilla flavoring in Earl Gray Tea.
  • Zebra Mocha (also called a Tuxedo or Penguin Mocha) – This is a mix of the white chocolate and regular chocolate mochas.
  • Red Tux Mocha (also called Bleeding Penguin) – The same mix of white chocolate and regular chocolate mocha with raspberry flavoring.

Subway

  • Pizza Sub – This sub was taken of the menu in most locations when Subway began marketing itself as healthy alternative to fast food. However, upon request you can get the Pizza Sub which combines cheese, tomato sauce, and pepperoni.

Taco Bell

  • Cheesy Gordita Crunch – This is a seasonal favorite for many, however it can be ordered year round.
  • Green Sauce – Although this sauce is still available in most South West locations, if you request it at your local restaurant usually they will have it on hand.
  • Double Grilled Quesadilla – An extra crispy quesadilla.
  • Chili Cheese Burrito – A burrito filled with chili and cheese instead of the usual mixes.
  • Enchirito – This is a enchilada of beef, beans, cheese, diced onions, and red sauce.

Wendy’s

  • Grand Slam – This burger has a total of four meat patties.
  • Big Bacon Classic – This is your classic burger with bacon.
  • Value Crispy Chicken Club – A reduced price Crispy Chicken sandwich with bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayo.
  • Jr. Cheeseburger Deluxe – This value sized burger includes lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, and ketchup.
  • Barnyard – A spicy chicken sandwich with ham, bacon and beef separated by cheese.

 

My mom came back from T&T with these really really cute buns! Instead of the plain old boring round buns, they have them shaped as pumpkins and rabbits. She told me it was for some festival. I had no idea what festival just passed, but it turns out on March 3rd, it was the Hina Matsuri Festival in Japan.

It can either be referred to Girl’s Day or Doll Festival. To celebrate this festival, families display a set of dolls in 7 tiers to protect against bad spirits.

On Hina Matsuri, people tend to consume Sake (Japanese Fermented Rice), as well as eat sweets, rice cakes, mochi and soup.

I assume T&T made all these cute buns for this holiday because there are not other holidays in asia in early March that people would consume these sweet buns.

These buns are located at T&T till the end of this weekend. They have several cute other buns as well with many many flavours.

The Pumpkin bun looks exactly like a pumpkin!! If you can probably tell, the filling is a sweet pumpkin filling.

The little white bunny has a red bean filling inside. They also have other variations such as black sesame as well…but my sister gobbled that up rather quickly.

If you want to try out these cute buns, go down to your local T&T Supermarket and pick some up!

La Taqueria had their first Tweet Up event! Since it was near work and  at a perfect time, I decided to check out the Tweet Up. Tweet Ups are fairly new to me, so this was the first Tweet Up event I have ever been to …EVER.

For the tweet up, they were giving everyone Horchata (or-CHAH-tah), which is a traditional Mexican rice beverage. It is very refreshing, sweet,  milky, nutty, and had a nice cinnamon taste.

If you have ever had the Taco Bell Cinnamon Twist, it taste like that but in a beverage form.

The tweet up started pretty slowly. It was probably 1 hour into the event and 7 people were there actively tweeting. Even though it was pretty low turn out, I had a great time talk to the people there and knowing a bit more about them. Most of the action happened near the bar. All of us squeezed into the bar and had a great time.

We then began playing Loteria, which is the Mexican equivalent to bingo. Each person starts off with their own board with pictures on it and markers. Every time a card is flipped from a deck, you remove the marker off the corresponding picture. You have to pay attention to the card that is flipped because there is no repeating what card was flipped. The first person that clears their board wins! We played 3 fun rounds of this game!

It was hard to pay attention to this game because it was really hard to tweet and focusing on playing. One thing we learned from this is that ‘La Corona’ mean Crown.

Round 1 winner: @space_cadet00 – she won $30 Gift Certificate

Round 2 winner: @floyvr – She won a La Taqueria Hat

Round 3 winner: @conner_g – He won a La Taqueria T-Shirt

For the losers + winners, we all got Mexican candy and a La Taqueria Hat. (Except for @FloYVR since she already won a hat)

Photo Credit: @FloYVR

Here were the ladies at the Tweet up – @space_cadet00, @floyvr, @arianecdesign & @kathygko

In picture 2, @FloYVR was clearly too busy tweeting

Photo Credit: @FloYVR

In this photo – @arianecdesign and @richardwolak / @vanfoodster

Photo Credit: @FloYVR

@604homesguy and @space_cadet00 eating up some Derrricious tacos!

Photo Credit: @FloYVR

@FloYVR and I sharing some tacos!

Overall, it was a slow tweet up but I really did have a great time and meeting the people in the twitterverse! I felt totally normal snapping away at pictures and looking at my phone. It is really the only time where it is socially acceptable to be twittering infront of people..and yet talking to them at the same time.

I shall be back for more Tweet Up events in the near future!

Address:

322 W Hastings
Vancouver, BC

Website:

www.lataqueria.ca

I recently have been eating a lot of Aero and I could not help but notice their slogan ” let the bubbles melt”. Honestly, I have spent many years wanting to believe it is true. Halloween after Halloween it just comes in those big packs of Nestle…or in my big sack of candy…yes, 22 and still going trick or treating! I wear a helmet to conceal my age.

When I crack open an Aero bar, I do see all the tiny tiny bubbles in the chocolate, but I don’t feel the bubbles. I have experimented by leaving the Aero in my mouth, but it just melt into a blob of chocolate and no bubbly feelings are felt. After countless times trying to figure out which way is the perfect way to to have the bubbles exposed to your tongue and just press down so it forces the air pockets to I can feel “the bubbles melt”.

I read stories where people feel the bubbles going down their throat when they swallow it…and I am left scratching my head to figure how thats possible. Perhaps people have hyped up this candy bar as a kid and I think the bubbles should feel like fizz. It has puzzled me for 20+ years. Either way, it still has a good taste. I strangely prefer the mint ones over the original one.

What are your thoughts on Aero and can you really feel the bubbles melt?

You must already be confused, isn’t Orbitz a travel agency, to answer that question it is. But, a long time ago, there was a drink with the same name.

In 1997, Clearly Canadian Beverage Corp. introduced a non carbonated fruity drink called Obitz. The unique thing about Orbitz is that they have tiny little balls floating inside. They came in several flavours such as:

  • Raspberry Citrus (introductory flavor)
  • Blueberry Melon Strawberry (introductory flavor)
  • Pineapple Banana Cherry Coconut (introductory flavor)
  • Vanilla Orange (introductory flavor)
  • Black Currant Berry (introduced later)
  • Charlie Brown Chocolate (introduced later)

When I was about 10 years old, I remember me and my sister would bother my mom at the local market to buy us Orbitz. I honestly had no idea what it was, but it was really cool shaking the bottle to see the little balls move up and down.

You could probably say it was like a lava lamp that you would never have to plug in. Even if you left it there to sit in your room, it looked super cool.

The drink did not stay in the market very long due to horrible reviews and low sales.

As a kid I only liked it because of the look. The taste on the other hand was very questionable. Reminded me of medicine. Perhaps it would have been better if it was a carbonated beverage.

As of today, if you do still have an old bottle of this drink it is now a collectors item. People have been selling there drink of Ebay for $10 – $20.

This is probably the most memorable drink I have ever had as a kid. Do you have any favorite discontinued drinks from your childhood?

Are you a Food-aholic? Do you follow most local food blogs in Vancouver? What happens when you run out of blogs to read?

When I am bored…I go on my Iphone to look at photos or read about food…twitter about food…review food…anything to do with food. This is not to say I am a food addict…I do have a social life as well. But a majority of the time it does revolve around food. Someone will say “What do you want to do”? I reply back “umm…well we could just go eat”.

Wait a minute … perhaps I am a food addict. Ok, I’ll stop denying the fact. I DesignGirl am a food-aholic / Food Addict / whatever you call it. Acceptance is the first step to recovery right? (but do I really want to be cured of this delicious disease?) No.

Well, in the meantime, I will share with you a few blogs which I absolutely adore. They are great for those days when you are just super bored and want to look at some amazing food pictures or food news.

TasteSpotting – Images with delicious food and recipes

Food Porn Daily – Images of delicious food

Food Network Humor – Articles and images making fun of Food Network personalities

Epic Meal Time – Videos of guys making crazy meals with….BACON with over 10,000 calories

This Is Why You’re Fat – Images of gross food people make

Food Gawker – Similar to FoodSpotting

Foodspotting – People share images of food around Vancouver

Today it was my first time eating cereal in a long long long LONG time. I got my bowl, milk and cereal ready. As I picked up the box I thought to myself “What do I put in first? Cereal or the milk?”.

I vaguely remember being a kid pouring in the milk first and not having enough cereal in my bowl to have a good even ratio. It really made me start wondering “how many people do put cereal first…or milk”! Everyone must have their own opinions about it and why they put that ingredient in first.

After thinking for about 30 seconds, I concluded that I should put in the cereal first so I don’t waste any milk. My love for Honey Nut Cheerios are greater than milk. If I really wanted to drink a lot of milk, I’ll pour myself a glass.

A question I pose to you all ” How do you prepare cereal? Do you put the cereal in first? or the milk?”. Any favorite cereals?

Wouldn’t it be great if someone just gave you free coffee before you go to work? (The brewed coffee at work so does not count). Yew Restaurant + Bar gives out free hot beverages in the morning if you can catch their tweet.

It all begins with a tweet. I saw this on Wednesday morning on my twitter feed. Since I usually spend $3 on a latte anyways, I thought I would just go to save a few bucks. Sure enough @floyvr and I went together! I work a block away, so I did not intentionally trek my way there for just a coffee.

If you have a twitter account, you can follow them at @FSVancouver and they usually use the hash tag #YEWyvr if it’s about Yew. They do the free hot beverages one a week, you just need to keep your eyes open.

At first I felt super super super weird just going in and getting a free drink, seriously….asian much?

Apparently a lot of people do it, so don’t feel like you are cheap by doing so. All you need to do is walk toward the bar and mention the tweet to get your free drink.

This applies to any hot drink…not just coffee.

Walking back to the office, I got my handy latte beside me!

Since I usually get a latte at Starbucks, I really got use to the taste. The latte was strong and had a bold flavour. This really reminded me of the lattes I had in Europe. Since this was stronger than what I would normally have, it definitely woke up for the majority of the day.

They also have milk and sugar to modify your drink. I probably should have added a bit too.

Website: http://www.yewrestaurant.com/

Address:

791 W Georgia St
Vancouver, BC

It has occurred to me I am oblivious when it comes to drinking hot chocolate. I always drink all the way to the bottom where most of the syrup and gunk settle. Is this really how you drink hot chocolate? I even googled, but they only tell me how to make hot chocolate.

There really shouldn’t be too much science or instruction to properly drink a hot chocolate….plus hot chocolate just looks so good to taste bad. In most of the hot chocolates I have encounter have the chocolate settle to the bottom of the cup. Powdered form of hot chocolate for sure wil have it.

The Hot Chocolate from Starbucks tasted so good until I got closer and closer to the bottom, as you can tell, there is the chocolate gunk that settles to the bottom and leave the last 1/4 of your Hot Chocolate to taste like sediments.

There are theories on the  proper way to enjoy your hot chocolate. FinanceBoy is the biggest Hot Chocolate lover…EVER. If I told you how many hot chocolates he has had in a day… you would be scared.

Here are some of his tips to enjoy the best Hot Chocolate:

  • Find Hot Chocolate made with real chocolate rather than the powdered form
  • Don’t leave it for too long or else it’ll cool down too much
  • Stirring is always an option
  • Don’t drink the whole hot chocolate, leave 1/4 left in the cup to avoid the “gunk”

Suggested places for awesome hot chocolate:

I am not a hot chocolate expert, but perhaps you know a bit more than I do. If you would like to shed some light on enjoying hot chocolate or even some other places to get hot chocolate. Post a comment below!

I am on my 15 minute break and went downstairs to get an Ice Cap at Tim Hortons. Like most  Canadians, we do love our Ice Caps.

Did you know, there is a Tim Horton’s in every Simon Fraser University (SFU) campus? True story, thats why I go to school. Of course I’m just joking. I go because I’m a UBC reject. That fact may be true, but I really do enjoy going to SFU!

Today, I ordered a medium Iced Cap … it’s always delicious and makes my day feel so much better. Surprisingly, there really isn’t a lot of coffee in it, so it’s all in my head… or it’s all the sugar.

The one problem I always find with ice caps is that annoying phase when you drank all the liquid and you are left with the slush…you then take your straw the mix it around and poke at the ice until something melts. Then, you must repeat the process over and over again. Might I add, all the splurping and the awkward noises from the straw

If you are asian, you are probably determined to not waste a drop, so you spend countless minutes staring into your cup like as if it was a television. (Guilty, thats me!)

I am lame so I googled to see if anyone else has said anything about this, but according to Google, way too many people are addicted to Ice Caps and want to find a cure. (Awkward…).

Here are a few tips to avoid an icy encounter:

  • Keep your straw in the middle and not at the bottom of the cup
  • Stir occasionally
  • If all else fails…microwave it and hope the cup doesn’t melt along with it

I probably don’t have the best advice, but maybe you can help. What do you do?

Tim Hortons (BCIT Downtown) on Urbanspoon