I was craving for Japanese/Korean BBQ yesterday and I was looking it up on dinehere.ca (my standard place to look up restaurant reviews) see if there’s good BBQ restaurant in Richmond. Maruchu had a fairly good review base so I decided to give it a try. Reserved a table for two (Wendy and I), got there at 7pm, and it was fairly empty even though most tables had a reserved sign placed on the tabletop. The servers were I’d say overly attentive… they kept checking on us so much, even though we were just seated for a minute or so. It’s good and bad I guess, a bit disturbing since I wanted to take my time to check out the menu, but then it also meant that service would not be inadequate - I guess it was natural for the Japanese store owners to be extremely attentive to their customers. Oh yes the entire place was owned/operated by Japanese, and what surprised me was that, everyone that was eating there were Japanese…even the guys that came in later than us, were all Jap. Kind of neat but also weird.

The food was SUPER tasty. We ordered pork, beef, chicken, and a mixed veggie, all raw of course. What made them so tasty I guess was the quality of the ingredient and also the very distinctive spices that they used to marinate the meat. The meat were very crispy after grilling, it was a very unique experience as the ones I had in the past were never this crispy Also what I noticed was that the meat were cut very nicely, with vibrant color and texture…even the chicken strips were cut in a way that you get the skin and the meat in every piece. Presentation point +10. Everything was just so yummy~~~

Again the servers were super attentive at all time during our stay, which was great. We’ll definitely return and try their lamb and other more exotic stuff like the cow stomach, cow tongue…etc. It was a very well spent $40 for two-person.

Was sick for the whole week. I’m not sure if I’ve caught a cold or if it’s my regular pollen allergic reaction during Spring. Felt so bad for the entire week, didn’t do much except work (a whole lot), sleep, eat. My room is so messy as I didn’t have the energy to tidy it up.

Yesterday I felt a bit better so I went out and did a couple things. Went to downtown to get my Easy Park sticker as I’ve applied for the “Very Efficient Vehicle Discount Program” which gives me 50% discount at any Easy Park parking lot =D Of course the program is not available for most vehicles except for a few, and my Smart car is one of them. Got a sticker from the Easy Park office for my windshield.

I also went to Mercedes Benz to redeem a gift that was given to me free for the 10th year celebration of Smart. Nice little paper package with a notepad in it, several pins with Smart related prints on them, and a miniature 1:87 Smart car model enclosed in a display case. Smart periodically hosts events and gives away gifts for free, it’s a really nice (like this event where I won a Smart jacket.)

At night I went to the Maurya Indian Cusine restaurant with Wendy. I actually went there with Davinder last year and I recalled that it was really good, and this year they won some awards at the 2009 Dine Out Vancouver event so I thought it would be a good place to eat. On par with my expectation, the food was really good. We ordered two Starters (Kararlari Prawns, Shyam Savera), and a Main (Chicken Chettinad). All of them were very good, as well as the complimentary papadum (crispy bread) and naan bread. I liked the flavor they have in all the foods, very distinctive but not too strong. I also liked the fried herbal leaves in the Chicken Chettinad, they were so crispy and full of flavor… I will go again to try their lamb racks and dessert…

It’s a pretty boring day….nothing much happened. Just playing with my new binocular/digital camera that I got from Canadian Tire yesterday. A 8×32 binocular that has a built in 3 megapixel camera. It can take both pictures and short video clip….kinda cool. The picture quality was just so so but I think it’s quite adequate for such a small device. I’ll have to take more pictures during the day to tell whether it’s a take or a refund…lol.

Oh, and I took a picture of what I had for dinner *yesterday*…(today’s dinner was too boring to mention). It was a healthy salad with chicken strips, fruit and some egg slices…haven’t really had a salad for maybe half a year or so…

Had some cheap but tasty dinner for tonight~ Got the “3 items with rice” take out ($4.75) from the Richmond Public Market with fried squid tentacles, soya sauce chicken, and eggplants. It was huge I was only able to finish maybe 2/3 of it~ I like this place since it’s so cheap yet tasty/huge portion.

Also got my first platinum VISA card from Royal Bank today. The annual fee is waived for the first year, plus I get 15000 RBC Reward Points which is a equivalent of $340 worth of gifts~ Plus all kinds of insurance I believe. It’s kind of pro as I’ve received four separate letters about this card, like thank you letters, PIN code, benefits….etc. I feel like a VIP now for some reason. I’ll check out the benefits later on, now I should go in and check to see if I’ve gotten my 15000 extra points!

Yawn… just got up from this crazy long nap… I accidentally fell asleep on my desk (while working on this blog)! Guess I was really stressed out… hm… Benny brought me to this nice place to eat last night called “bin 941“. It’s a nice tiny little restaurant (was a little cramped inside but you can really feel the vibe) that serves Spanish tapas. It’s got a really cool trendy interior design, with eclectic colors and dimmed out lighting, and constantly LOUD electric/dance type music. I really like that place for not just the decor but the food was A-W-E-S-O-M-E!! We had the Lamb Sirloin, Roast Queen Charlotte Halibut, Moroccan Chicken, Mussels steamed with Garlic/butter/roma tomato/herbs/whitewine, Crimini Mushroom Risotto (must try! best tasting rice ever)…and something else that I couldn’t remember. The food was fresh, extremely tasty and I was like WOW. I liked the Moroccan Chicken the most, as I’ve never tried anything like this before.. juicy chicken meat with a really tasty skin possibly cooked with different kinds of herbs.
Happy Birthday Wenwen lo por, by the way ^3^! (Wendy was so happy as she received my gifts in Beijing just in time :D)