My apartment building hallway has been a treasure trove of goods. People tend to leave things that they no longer want or need.
So far I have food things like a new game of Cranium, a relatively new rice cooker and my new bedside lamp!
I like to wonder where some of the things I have thrown away end up. I wonder if they have found new homes too.
The day is here! I am hosting my first show tonight at the Handlebar. I am nervous and excited but the support I have received from friends is overwhelming.
I have also been seeing my poster around town, including a late night Poutine stop.
I always have the paranoia that no one will show up but by the amount of friends that have messaged me in the past week I know that won’t be the case.
Today we hit up relatively new cafe + venue in our hood D-Beastro for brunch. They serve up vegan eats so what you’re about to see is 100% meat free. Yes, you’re still on the right blog. Nash and I don’t mind vegan food when it is done well.
I ordered one of the daily specials, a Mac and Cheese. Considering there wasn’t actual cheese (from a cow), it was thick and gooey as a regular mac and cheese would be. There was also an interesting pepper spice to it.
It was served with a small side salad that was liberally seasoned with a light vinaigrette.
Nash ordered the Breakfast Burrito with fries (which he supremed). Inside the burrito was a scrambled egg type thing made out of tofu and beans. The “bread” was nice and crunchy. His fries had corn, beans and sour cream. The potato themselves had a spice that reminded me of BBQ chips.
We also had some freshly squeeze juice!
D-Beatstro is a cool venue in the area and I hope to experience some shows and events soon along with more food!
The other week I was in the Distillery District and realized the Christmas market was already set up. Had another year passed by so fast already? I can’t believe I’ve almost blogged 365 days in a row. It was a feat that in previous year couldn’t even get through to the first month, but I’m almost there guys! Super proud of my best friend and I!
After a franchise contract ended, all Guu Izakayas were renamed Kinka Izakaya, explained the owner after we sampled a delicious meal on Monday. A bunch of bloggers were invited to a tasting with a guest and I was lucky enough to be one of them!
We started our meal with drinks. I had the Cassis Peach Oolong: cassis liquer, peach liquer, oolong tea.
Nash had the Sake Highball: sake, whisky, cointeau, soda and orange.
Our first dish was the Gomaae: blanched spinach with sesame sauce. It was seasoned generously.
Maguro Tataki: seared BC tuna sashimi with ponzu and garlic chips. This was super fresh and one of my favourite dishes as the sides were perfectly seared to leave a soft pink middle.
The Seaweed & Tofu salad was a refreshing palate cleansing part of the meal.
Their Karaage was nicely fried, moist in the centre and served with a garlic mayo. I liked it more without the mayo personally as the batter had a soy sauce touch.
Kaki Mayo: Baked BC oyster with spinach & garlic mayo topped with cheese.
Karubi: grilled miso marinated short ribs.
Gindara: grilled miso marinated black cod with yuzu miso sauce. This was my favourite dish. The fish was melt in your mouth and the skin was to die for!
Lastly (before dessert), in case I wasn’t already full (which I was) there was a Kinoko Bibimbap with rice, mushrooms, cheese and seaweed sauce.
Dessert was a piece of Sake Tirimisu. The alcohol was subtle but would sneak up on me! It worked will in a tirimisu.
Our delicious meal concluded with a gift bag, and they lived up to their logo of “serving people happiness”. Our night was full of fresh, delightful food and superior service.
This meal was complimentary but views are my own.
I don’t know why but for the second year in the world, as the weather got colder, ants started appearing inside my apartment. I’m not really scared of ants but they are such a stupid nuisance. Are they looking for warmth at my place? These visitors are certainly unwelcome.
Last year they came in through cracks by the door, but this year they are coming mysteriousyl from the wall. They are the exact same type of small black ants. I tried everything including sealing all cracks, but they find another one to come through!
The only thing that really works is to bait them with peanut butter poison (that you can buy pre-packaged). Liquid bait doesn’t do anything, even though people online seem to really recommend it. The process of baiting is slow though. It’s not as instant as spraying them to death, but they would just end up coming out from somewhere else.
I’m obsessively watching as they carry the poison back to the holes they are coming from, awaiting their queen’s slow death.
I’m a total addict to shopping online. It’s so convenient to pick up everything you need at one location (the post office).
The downside is that you don’t always get what you expect. For example, I thought I ordered myself a cutlery rack for my dishwasher only to find out that this wasn’t what it was for at all! I did however get some entertainment value out of the packaging.
I still try to use it for cutlery.
My November blogs posts haven’t been very good. They are a bit uninspired, with few words and mostly just pictures that I found lying about. It wasn’t that I was particularly busy (after all summer is over), but my mind has been in a dark place. November depression is a real thing.
I’m still reluctant to talk about mental health at times, it is scary and I fear that whoever reads this will judge me but it’s important to talk about it. It’s especially meaningful for those that are dealing with the same thing to know that you’re not alone.
I don’t know what particularly about November that makes it so depressing. Summer is over, the days are shorter, the weather is colder. Leaving the house gets particularly hard, even when there are so many places to go. I feel burnt out and the more I start to thing about it, the deeper I fall.
I found that offline activites like colouring and lego have helped to take my mind off things. I’ve also been spending more social time with friends (that aren’t just attending concerts). From The Bloggess I learnt that depression lies. I just have to make my good days super awesome.
Let’s get through November together and look forward to an awesome December!
It’s rare that in 2015 that a new RECORD STORE would open up but Dead Dog Records appeared in my neighbourhood. I finally ventured in to find out that they sold some records for lower prices than what I could find online.
I picked up a bunch! I’ve been eager to grow my collection ever since I bought my new record player. Dead Dog’s selection might be smaller than Sonic Boom but if you’re lucky there are some cool deals on awesome finds. Plus, since it’s small you can pretty much look through the entire place every time you go there, so you’re bound to find something you like!
I cherish physical copies of music still (but not CDs) and there is a magic I feel when pulling a record from the shelf and the warmth it brings to the music playing. This active relationship with music is so important, in a world where music is often as seamless as water with life. To keep these physical copies alive we have to support the artists that make them and our local stores that sell them.
Tiana Feng 