Okay, so for some crazy reason the Gravlax salmon is being sold at Ikea again..! It was totally surprising to see loads of them being sold at Ikea, cause I went there just to get some light bulbs and didn’t expect to see the fish at all. This is after like a year of waiting for the fish to come in stock again… I instantly bought 5 packs of them and finished a whole pack the first day (as seen in the pic). So tasty…~~~

Another big happy is that the Kalimba that I bought from Amazon.com arrived. I had to go to Point Roberts to pick it up, but it was well worth the effort (even though I later realized that they sent me the Huge Tracey Treble Kalimba instead of the Alto Kalimba that I ordered) I played with it for a couple hours after getting home, and a bit more the same evening - it really hurted my thumbs…lol However the sound was really nice and almost haunting. It’s hard to tell how nice or not nice a sound is but all I know is that it’s the kind of sound that I really like. Tried to play some simple song, while trying to remember which tine correspond to which musical note - it wasn’t easy at all. I have to wait for my nails to grow back in order to play it properly - you’re supposed to play it with a bit of the thumb flesh and mostly the nails. Holding the instrument on hand gives me a very magical feeling, knowing that it was made in Africa and that the African actually plays on it during rituals and stuff like that. I know I will be playing on it a lot the next couple weeks.

April 3rd…our 9th anniversary. I had received plenty of gifts from Wendy as with every other special occasions =D I got almond cookie that she baked in different shapes, also four hand-painted wooden clothes hangers with vibrant colors and shapes. Thanks wenwen~

I had also made a note/photo holder with a wooden base, painted with colorful patterns, a huge digit “9″, and a drawing of a boy sending fruits of hearts to a girl. I had also attached two cherry blossem flowers that had been drying since May last year, and I had sealed them in clear tape for protection.

We decided to have dinner at Kingyo Izakaya in Downtown Vancouver, after wandering around Denman Street in cold for approx 20 minutes couldn’t decide what to eat. We didn’t know what it was but it looked interesting from the outside so we walked in. The ambience and decor was pretty cool, food was pretty awesome as well. We ordered amaebi (raw shrimps), chawan mushi (steamed egg), salmon tataki (raw salmon), and curry hotpot w/ veggie, pork, mushroom and fried prawn. All were great, and we got really full. Service was great, very attentive. I will be back to try out some other dishes like the black cod, the pork tan tan noodle, and a couple more items…forgot what they were..

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.

Just got home from Active Network’s annual Xmas dinner held at the Renaissance Hotel. It wasn’t too bad, free food and two free drinks. When I got there I soon realized there were wayyy more people that work at Active than I thought - the reception hall was totally packed, and NOISY since everyone was trying to speak to their loudest volume in order to be louder than person next to them…etc. Well I got a free champagne and free photographs (taken by some dude that was smiling so much at us right at the entrance), and then people started to be seated so I just grabbed an empty seat and sat down. Soon my boss and his wife came and we chatted a lot about their son Zacky and some other random stuff.

The appetizer was some artichoke salad and apparatus, which was pretty sour but tasty. Then it came some regular bread and after that the main course, which was some sockeye salmon with some Risotto-like rice - it was just so so, had to put loads of salt to make them a bit tastier. Dessert was pretty good, a chocolate brownie/fudge kind of thing with creamy vanilla sauce on top.

There was a raffle at the end of the party but I didn’t stay for it as we were told that the raffle wouldn’t start in a while…actually I waited for about 30 minutes before decided to leave. Overall it’s a pretty fun dinner and … what else could have been better than a free hotel dinner~

After trying the delicious Swedish gravlax salmon from Ikea, I decided to make my own. Got a piece of salmon fillet from Benny, tried to follow the online receipe, and pray for the success. Here is the receipe:

• 3 pounds salmon fillets
• 1 bunch dill weed
• 1/4 cup kosher salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons white peppercorns

Apparently I don’t have 3 pounds of salmon so I just reduced the amount of each ingredient accordingly. Here is an article with full cooking instruction (well it’s not cooked, it’s “cured”).

It’ll be ready in 3 days, can’t wait!

Phew.. finally done all the clean ups for the party last night! Since I don’t trust my dishwisher I had to do all the clean ups with my own hand~ It was fun… we had about 3 girls (Korie/Linda/Vivian) and 5 guys (Benny/Peter/Vincent/Andy/Me). Most of the girls were playing on the Wii (Rayman Raving Rabbids, Elebits, Cooking Mama), and guys were busy helping out prepping the food. My place is kind of tiny but luckly everyone knew what they were doing and didn’t really make a mess I was busy prepping martinis and shooters with the new liquors I got yesterday, learnt a couple tricks from Benny and I was lucky enough to be able to practice with real people…lol. They liked my mixes in general, which felt great! I especially love the taste of apple sour puss and hypnotiq, they just have this irresistable great taste.

We first had this delicious smoked salmon rolls, with Benny’s secret ingredient called “capers“…then it came the ultra tasty mussels with of course another of Benny’s secret house curry sauce (the guests really liked it so much). After that we had three plates of duck breast, medium cooked. They were good, but since the oven wasn’t hot enough and also the heat didn’t dissipate equally, the duck had to be cooked longer than usual and Benny was saying that it would be much tastier if it’s cooked in a shorter period of time:roll: …anyway I still find it super tasty~!

We had wine as well, it was Benny’s restaurant’s house wine, naked, pretty tasty. I liked how it doesn’t taste too sour as I generally prefer red over white because of its sourness. He forgot to bring the molten chocolate cake for the dessert, but luckily I’ve got some dairy/fat-free icecream for the dessert craving guests After chilling out for a while the girls and couple guys left.. Benny, Peter and I stayed till something 4am to finish up the wine and drinks, and had some long missed chats.