Benny and Janet came over to my place for some snacks and wine last night. I was trying to get the Jackson-Triggs White Merlot (rose) that I really enjoyed at Alice’s place last month, but then liquor store didn’t carry the regular sized bottle. There was this 1.5L version of the same wine, I pondered a little about getting it or not, while this salesperson was like “You’ll drink it up eventually”…lol. So I got this one, and another one that he recommended “Woodbridge / White Zinfandel” from California. We had fresh oyster, gravlax salmon, dessert cakes, and wine of course. The oysters was average, not too bad but wasn’t too impressive, had to eat them with tabasco where usually you can eat them without so that you could get a genuine taste of them. The gravlax was super tasty though. Benny added sesame oil to it which I thought was a great match with the gravlax itself. I’ve home-made gravlax last year too but then it wasn’t tasty at all for some reason (Here’s my post about it) Well maybe I’ll try making it again but I have a feeling that it’ll end up being the same…maybe I’ll just get them off Ikea (these guys) After the gravlax we had dessert cakes (3 different kinds I think) that Janet bought from the Capers market (that I really have to check out later since apparently they sell a lot of high-end food products and I love high-end stuff). They were pretty tasty, like I didn’t know it was a carrot cake until she told me after I finished it (I usually hate carrot cakes 99% of the time).

We played some Wii Fit after the food, and also played Left 4 Dead on Benny’s Alienware laptop (fastest laptop on earth? huge and heavy though). More photos can be found here.

Went to the Chill Winston bar/restaurant in Gastown last night with Benny. Originally we had a reservation at the Figmint Restaurant but when we got there they were closing so had to look for another place to have some chomps on.

The place was quite nice, spacious and good ambiance - perfect for a nice night out with girls. There wasn’t too many people so it was really relaxing. Most of the items on the menu were tapas, with a couple entrees and sides. We ordered the Beef Tartar for appetizer, which was some raw grounded beef mixed with seasoning and onions…etc topped with a quail egg, served with some crispy French bread. The chef made the beef into a “heart” shape, it was really awkward since it was just two of us guys but anyway the taste was good even though I wasn’t really used to eating raw beef… I ordered a tasty drink called The Devil’s Fruit, which was some Kahlua mixed with espresso vodka and topped with coffee beans - interesting and tasty. For the entree I got the Sablefish (black cod). It wasn’t bad but wasn’t good either. The skin of the fish was a little crispy which I liked, but the texture of the meat wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be (I had better ones elsewhere, like at 14981) but anyway it was totally acceptable. I think Benny had a duck breast, which IMO was just so so since it was almost fully cooked and tasted a bit plain and the meat was a bit dry; it was acceptable though, strangely. Also ordered a pizza called “Surf”, made with lemon cream sauce, smoked salmon, clams and spinach and feta cheese. This one was a yummy surprise! It’s not greasy, crust was thin and crispy, taste of the smoked salmon was great and the clams were tender (surprisingly).

Overall I think it was a good eat. The service was awesome (very attentive while not being too buggy) and the price was right. It wasn’t top-of-the-line but I would definitely come back again for the above average food and the great ambiance/location.

It’s been two years since I last went for Dine Out Vancouver’s dinner events. Tonight I went to one used to be one of my favorite restaurants - Joe Fortes Seafood and Chop House, with Benny and his friends. Turned out to be quite a disappointment.

We ordered a bottle of red wine, which was average to good. Most of us ordered the same set dinner which included the Oyster Sampler (4 oysters), Steak for the main course, and Molten chocolate cake for dessert. The Oyster was alright, it was fresh but it didn’t have the sort of yummy “oyster” taste, probably was the lack of seawater within the oysters…but it was okay. The steak, well it’s not “bad” but it was just warm, probably was cooked and been sitting there for couple minutes. The taste was okay and the quality of the meat was pretty good, it was cooked really well too, but I expected better stuff from this restaurant - I had really really tasty sockeye salmon two years ago. It came with two tiger prawns too, they were fresh but again wasn’t really that tasty…. It was actually the mash potato that I liked the best…lol. Benny’s girlfriend Janet ordered a regular fully cooked salmon and it was quite bad too.

The dessert was alright, I liked the crispy outer crust of the chocolate cake, and the inside was warm too which was nice, but it was a bit too chocolaty and sweet. Luckily it came with vanilla ice-cream so the whole thing turned out okay.

I’m not sure if I’ll be back for this restaurant. I might, as i really liked it before, so might as well give it a second chance. Overall, it was a disappointment.

Super nice day out today, and warm. I think it was 20 degrees. I drove out for a bit, took some pics of the blue sky with my new Canon SD1000 camera. It’s the smell of summer! Can’t want to do some outdoor activities. Oh I’m going to Banff next week, wish weather will be as nice as today…

Went to had dinner with Benny, Peter, and Dorothy since Dorothy came back from Hong Kong so we had a meet up at a bubble tea place. I met Dorothy last November, but she hasn’t met Benny and Peter for ages. We had a pretty good chat about basically everything. After dinner Peter and I went to place near the airport to take some night time pictures trying out his new Sony A350 DSLR camera. Actually we went to River Road to take some sunset pictures as well. I tried to use EV bracketing function to take the same picture 3 times with different EV settings, and used an application called Photomatix to generate a HDR image. Turned out to look pretty amazing!

Got a pack of black cod steak from T&T supermarket, was wondering if it’s the same kind of black cod that Benny had brought over from his restaurant. So I got it, pretty pricey ($10.x) but it’s got 3 pieces of steak cuts. Defrosted one of the pieces, made some sauces with soya sauce, minced garlic, sugar, some Japanese mirin (tastes sweet), and some white wine. Placed the fish on the pan (it’s harder than I thought), seared both sides, and started frying the skin. Cooked a bit with the sauce added in, and it’s ready~

Well the final product looks a bit… darkened, but it actually tasted great , plus I got the crispy skin that I always wanted! Finally some fish for me, after 2 months of fish cravings.

*Note: Pictures do not always resemble the actual product.*

While everyone else was having fun out with their fireworks, we chose to celebrate this special day at the comfort of my house. Benny and Janet came over around 10pm for some late night fun. Janet prepared some really surprisingly tasty ahi tuna salad. If I heard it right it’s got raw ahi tuna, avocado, chopped jalapeno / pepper / green onion, some unknown really spicy sauce (?!?!), and vinegar. She said the tuna is supposed to be “cooked” in the sauce mixture and it was overcooked when she got here, but in fact Benny and I thought it was really delicious. It was too tasty I was busy eating didn’t have a chance to take a picture of it

We played some Wii after, played this “Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz” game which was really fun. I think I played the game once or twice but apparently Janet had played it many times from seeing how pro she was in the game. Benny and I were okay, myself being the weakest of all I guess..

After some appies (gravlax salmon, naan bread with red curry sauce) and some drinks (Cranberry Martini, China White, Pinot Gris wine), we watched Silent Hill (2006) with lights switched off…8-O pretty darn scary IMO with these gross zombies wobbling around… haha… too bad my laptop froze up around 2/3 of the movie