Walmart: Coca Cola with Coffee

 I saw this new interesting product at Walmart the other day:  Coca-Cola with Coffee.

Coca-Cola with Coffee

I bought one and tried it.  It taste good for me.  It does taste like Coca-Cola with thick scent of coffee.

First, you will taste the coke and the bubble, then a thick scent of coffee taste and smell will come along.

I know they have a lot of different variety of coke drinks in the USA, and I hope they sell more kinds of drinks here in Canada.

(We just don't have the varieties here for all kind of products....gets boring.)

Costco: Boba Milk Tea Mochi

 I saw this at Costco the other day:  Boba Milk Tea Mochi.

Boba Milk Tea Mochi

I love bubble tea, and I thought I would buy it and give it try!

It came with 60 mochis, and these taste great!!

These taste authentic and they were made in Taiwan.  I wished that Costco will keep these on the shelves permanently.

Costco: Popcorn M&M Minis

 I saw this in Costco the other day:  Popcorn M&M Minis

It looks very interesting and probably tastes good for kids.  It might be too sweet for me.

New Kumamon Country Ma'am Cookies in Suzuya

 

I saw this pack of this famous Japanese cookies "Country Ma'am" in Suzuya in Burnaby the other day.  In Japan, there are usually many kind of local food and manufacturers will make different taste of cookies in different regions.

Kumamon is a mascot from the Kumamoto prefecture in Kyushu region, Japan.  This box's taste is "Yakimaron".  I supposed that it is chestnut flavor...

Kumamon Kumamoto Country Ma'am

I did not buy it as all import cookies are double or triple priced in Canada.  It is tough to live away from Japan when you love the food there.

Canadian Tim Horton's New Tim Biebs

After our walk to Burnaby Lake today, we went to Tim Horton's for the new advertised "Tim Biebs", promoted by Justin Bieber.

Basically, it is the usual Tim Bits coated with different coatings with 3 flavors:  Birthday Cake, Chocolate Fudge and Sour Cream Chocolate.  They cost around 20 cents more per piece.

Tim Horton's Tim Biebs Box

Personally, I like Birthday Cake more because it have more impact taste wise.  However Chocolate Fudge is okay, too.  Actually, the other two chocolate taste are pretty similar.  Some people say they don't really feel too much difference.  

At least Tim Horton's exploring more ways to get new product on the market.  However, I think they should do it without inflating the price.  New products should not always mean expensive pricing...

In Asia, new products are constantly being introduced.  (Things move faster in Asia, and the menus change more often.)

BC Flood, Panic Buy and Food Shortage 2021 (Part 2)

 Today is November 25th, 2021, and it is already quite a few days after BC flood.  There is still nothing in Walmart in my area:

They say there is no supply shortage...not so sure..

There is still absolutely no meat:

There is no yogurt:

There is no milk and cheese:

There is no fries...but you see...lots of toilet paper in the reflections:

No meat still:

No chips....some chips I guess:

My favorite sauces are gone:

Even drano and cleaning supplies are out....

How long is it gonna take to restock these shelves?

November 15th, 2021 BC Historical Flood and Food Shortage (Panic Buy)

 BC had an once per 100 years, historical flood that cripple the highway and rail systems.  The supply chain system was also disrupted, and people started panic buying.  Abbotsford, Merritt, Princeton were flooded.  Many grocery shops ran out of food in BC including our area in Burnaby.

All breads, ham, meat, eggs and milk were sold out in Walmart:

This is crazy.  There is food shortage due to panic buying even though the government says there is no problems.  I guess people worry and want to prepare ahead of time.  All highways were shutdown but now, after few days, some are opening slowly.  I hope this situation improves.

First Time Seeing "Crab Apple"

 The other day, I saw this kind of apples, called "Crab Apple" in the local market.  It is the first time seeing it, so we bought some home.  It is the size of a prune, so for an apple, it is very small.

My son ate one which is kind of sour...I haven't tried yet, so I can't comment on it.

Restaurant Review: Ryu Japanese Kitchen - Richmond Outlet

 I went to the outlet mall in Richmond the other weekend, and I wanted to eat ramen, so I dropped by Ryu Japanese Kitchen to try it.

I ordered "Tonkotsu Ramen", and it looks like below.  I will provide details at the bottom:

Ramen Ryu Japanese Kitchen Richmond

Overall taste:  4/10 - edible but not great.  (If you are a ramen fan...)

Soup - They say it is Tonkotsu, but it does not taste like it.  The taste is very faint, and I don't even know what it tastes like.  Perhaps, it tastes like some Chinese noodles?  It is not tonkotsu soup or pork broth.

Menma (bamboo shoot) - It does not taste good.  It is not a Japanese one.  I can tell that it is a Chinese one.  Not authentic.

Wood Ear (Black Fungus) - Who puts that in Ramen?  Not authentic.

Chashu (Pork) - It is okay.

Ramen - noodle itself kind of taste like other asian noodle, but okay.  Maybe 5/10.

I will probably not go back again.

New Koala's March: Pokemon Collaboration

 

I found this one new Koala's March in the supermarket again.  

This time it is a Pokemon collaboration!

The box has Pikachu and Cinderace's pictures on it.  The taste is cheese cake.

Koala's March Pokemon with Cinderace

Koala's March and Pokemon

The interesting thing is that on each snack, not only it has different koalas on it, it has different Pokemon's drawing on it.

For example, it has Pikachu, Cinderace, Pinsir, Bewear, Marill, etc.

Koala's March and Pokemon collaboration

Taste-wise, I don't think it is anything special.  The characters are very cute though if you are a pokemon fan.

New Koala's March in Canada Review: "Bitter Chocolate" and "Milk and Cheese"

 Recently, I found two new Koala's March snack boxes in the nearby supermarkets.

There are two new kinds of tastes:  "Milk and Cheese" and "Bitter Chocolate".

Koala's March Milk & Cheese and Bitter Chocolate

Milk and Cheese:  It is tasty but I taste more milk than cheese.  It is good but I don't feel as much impact.

Bitter Chocolate:  I actually like this one better.  It feels like a thicker chocolate, different than the original taste.  It tastes more luxurious and mature.

Conclusion:  I think I will try the bitter chocolate again.

Restaurant Review: Miku (Downtown Vancouver)

During Canada Day weekend, I decided to bring my wife out for a good outing for an awesome meal.

We decided to try the high end restaurant, "Miku".

The presentations are absolutely beautiful, and the foods are amazing.
Even the ice creams taste so good with decorations!

2021 Update:  The prices has gone up significantly just like other Canadian restaurant.

Before, I felt it is overpriced.  Now, it is even more overpriced.

Japanese food is best in Japan.  (Too bad we are in a pandemic era in 2021)

Cooking as a Husband: My Rookie Dishes: Teriyaki Chicken and Pork Belly

My wife is a wonderful cook, and I occasionally feature her dishes on this blog.

However, I had to say that I am totally new to cooking, and I should start learning.

Here are the two pictures of the dishes I cooked for the first couple of times:

Salted Pork Belly (butabara)

The first picture features salted fried pork belly and miso soup.
If you have a good bottle of garlic salt and pepper, you can make the port belly taste wonderful.

Teriyaki Chicken and Avocado

The second one is teriyaki chicken and avocado.
Teriyaki chicken is actually extremely easy to make.
All you need is chicken and couple of spoons of soy sauce.
While frying your chicken piece (breast or not), use a little soy sauce and spread on top of chicken.
This would give you the brown color.
Then, spread the garlic salt and pepper and other spice you like.

Then, after 5 minutes, you have the teriyaki chicken bowl.

McDonald's Poutine (Canada) Review

If you are a Canadian, you will know that Canadians love poutine, a dish that originated from Eastern Canada.  It is fries covered with cheese and gravy sauce.  Recently, New York Fries has released different kinds of sauces, making the dish even more popular.

By the way, 'New York Fries' is purely a Canadian company.
It has no store in the USA.  It does have stores in Korea and Hong Kong.

McDonald's decided to cover this market niche, so they release their version recently:

McDonald's Canada's New Poutine Menu

Here is a picture for the poutine.  To be honest, for almost 4 dollars, the amount of poutine is so little.
It is not enough for a snack.  Also, it tastes awful compared to the other stores' poutine.

You can get something double the size with way better sauces from chain stores like New York Fries.
It is not worth it, so I will give it a 4 out of 10 over all.

I will not be surprised that this menu disappears in 3 months.

Olympics Oreo Cookies

My wife found a new product on the shelves in Walmart:  Olympics Oreo Cookies!

Olympics Oreo Cookies

I guess they started the marketing campaigns for the Olympics to sell products.
I think the energy in Vancouver for the Sochi Olympics is not even close to 4 years ago.
Of course, because it is not in Vancouver.  4 years has gone by so fast.
I don't know how 4 years gone by so fast.....what did I do?
Actually, the decade after I started working gone by super quickly.

Is that the way my grandparents felt??

Wedding Anniversary: Restaurant: The French Table in Vancouver

We decided to have our anniversary meal this year when the kids are in school.
Therefore, I took a Monday off in September in order to enjoy our meal together quietly.

The restaurant I picked this year is The French Table on Main Street in Vancouver.
The owner was a chef for the King of Belgium before he moved to Vancouver and opened his own restaurant.  He moved his restaurant from downtown to Main Street a couple of years ago.

The French Table Restaurant in Vancouver

The location is at an odd place beside a bunch of small shops and a famous Chinese restaurant.
Nearby, there is no beautiful parks or attractions or businesses.
However, inside, it has the subtle atmosphere of a French restaurant, with little things decorated like retro maps, wine on the wall, etc.  The restaurant is small but very quiet on a week day.

Croque Monsieur

We ordered Croque Monsieur, Mushroom soup, Moules Frites, Lemon Tart and Chocolate Profiterole.
The Croque Monsieur was so good that it blew us away.  The cheese was just perfectly merged on the toast.  Absolutely delicious.

Murshroom soup french table

The mushroom soup was thick and not like other generic mushroom soup.
It taste like they really had a lot of grind-up mushroom in the soup with olive oil.

moules frites french table

Moules Frites was nice as expected with lots of fries.  We could not finish all the fries and had to pack it home.

Lemon Tart and Chocolate Profiterole

The Lemon Tart was absolutely amazing, too.  I was so surprised that it was not sour as I expected.  Lemon tarts that I had usually are so sour that I don't find them tasty at all.
This one, it had the lemon smell and faint flavor, but with the cranberry cream sauce, it was delicious and balanced.

The Chocolate Profiterole was very interesting, too.  It had many layers.
Fresh cream, almond, Puff, ice cream, etc for 3 or four layers, and it was tasty.
Since you can't buy the taste like this in Safeway or other super market, this is worth the money.
Plus, it was not sweet like supermarket ones...

The location is a little odd but for the food, I would return to this restaurant if I had the chance.

Lots of Crab Fishing This Fall 2013: Dungeness Crab and Red Rock Crab

I have never been interested in Fishing or Crabbing before.  I know crabs are not cheap in Canada but eating crabs is a chore for me, so we do not buy it often.  Hearing stories from a friend, I started trying out crabbing and fishing.

I found couple of spots in Belcarra and Burnaby, BC.

There are two kinds of crabs you can catch in Canada:  Dungeness Crab and Red Rock Crab.

BC Dungeness Crab with baby Sea Star

Dungeness Crabs (see above) are brownish crabs range up to 25cm.  They live in the shores from BC to California.  The name dungeness is from a small town in Washington State, USA.  In BC, they have to be bigger than 16.5cm to be caught (male only).

Red Rock Crab

Red Rock Crabs are smaller with thick shells.  They don't have as much meat but the taste of meat is sweet and delicate.  They have huge arms relatively to their body.  They are quite strong fighters armed with thick claws.  (That is why they can survive within crowds of Dungeness Crabs.)

(see above) I have caught big Red Rock Crabs before....they are strong!  If you get caught in the claws, it feels like your finger is jammed by the door.  It stings for 10 minutes....

Sometimes, you will see barnacles and sea stars on the shells of crabs:

Small sea star on crab

Seals will dive into the water while we are crabbing.  They can break our crab net and eat the chicken meat in the traps.  They got us so many times:

Naughty Seals

They will just pop out of the water for a minute, and they will dive for 5 minutes to search for food.

Lots of crabs on a sunny day

On a good nice sunny warm day, we can get quite a lot of catch in the trap!

Of course, we have to release the undersize crabs.

So far, my kids love eating them, so we are trying to go catch them whenever we have couple of hours.

Restaurant: Yan's Garden in Burnaby, BC

A day before New Year's Eve, I went to Yan's Garden and ordered some Chinese food take out.

I have never tried this restaurant and thought year end is a good time to do it.

Yan's garden burnaby fried rice beef soup

They food looked very good and there were no tax for take out (and no tip either)!

All the food were really good.
The Yanjou Chaufan was amazing.  The beef gelatin soup was really good, too.
It is way better than all the food court food or T&T take out.
Of course, it has to be.

The price was not all unaffordable either.
I only paid 27 dollars for all items above and I would go back anytime....

Restaurant: Shiro Sushi Vancouver

Shiro Sushi is one of the real Japanese restaurant on Cambie.
We went there this spring before we had to Oakridge Mall  in Vancouver.

Shiro Sushi Vancouver

The sushi and Nigiri both taste very nice and authentic, not the North American taste.
Lunch set also offers good value and came with a huge "Pocky" chocolate stick.

The staff were friendly on the phone and in person, and I will go there again.

Taiwanese Tea and Tea Pot

To make tea is an art in East Asia.
Tea pots are also art objects, which cost from 1 dollar to millions.
In ancient times, it is said that one rare teapot is worth a castle.

Nice Taiwanese Teapots, tea storage, cup

Taiwanese people, like Japanese people, really appreciate good fine tea.
When my aunt came over this January, she gave us really nice tea pot set.
She is very knowledgeable in tea art and culture.  I am totally an amateur.
However, the bottom tray is made of bamboo and worth more than 100 dollars.

Taiwanese Tea pot set

This set is at last worth 500 dollars, which is amazing that anyone would gave it to us.
We really appreciate this.

She also sent us a package of extra fine tea:

High Quality Organic Oolong Tea Taiwan

The maker of this fine Oolong tea owns his own organic tea farm, and is very famous among tourists.
Depending on grades and weight, one package can easily cost over 100 dollars.