Tiana Feng

Beautiful and Delicious Sushi @ Jabistro

February 6, 2015February 6, 2015Food, Restaurant Reviews3 Comments

I finally had the chance to go to JaBistro, deemed one of the best sushi restaurants in Toronto. I’d been following them on Twitter since their inception and their photos were always so beautiful. Their sushi was just as much as delight to look at as it was to eat!

I wanted to try a little bit of everything so I had the Sashimi Sampler. It is a mixture of chef’s choice sashimi. I added Toro (fat tuna belly) which was not a guaranteed item on the sampler. The sampler had scallop, salmon, octopus, makarel, fried fish bone, fish eggs, and more. Everything was fresh and melted in my mouth. The fish bones were crunchy and salty to add variation in the palate.

I also ordered the Aburicious set of blowtorched sushi. It contained 2 salmon, 2 makerel, 2 tiger prawn and 2 Jabistro roll sushi pieces. Blowtorched sushi seriously will change your life. The best ones were the salmon and tiger prawn as they just melded in your mouth in perfect harmony. It had a lovely butteriness in a way that makes you forget that it’s rice at the bottom. At other sushi places the rice is always hard to get through after a while but I probably could’ve eaten 10,000 pieces of blowtorched sushi and not realized it.

My friends also ordered the Sea Bream Collar and Pork Belly which were also very tasty (I stole some bites).

Throughout the meal I sipped a Shiso Smash which was a mixture of bourbon, simple syrup, lemon and shiso (a type of Asian spice). It was kind of a play on alcoholic lemonade.

The three of us split two desserts afterwards. The first was the Matcha Parfait which was matcha spongecake, mascarpone cream, matcha chocolate sauce. I’m not always a fan of green tea flavoured things but this was very good! There were also berries and crunchy corn flakes which added a nice touch of texture

The other item was the Genmai Pudding which was a brown rice pudding, coconut milk, nigori (unfiltered) sake, maple syrup, cranberries, pumpkin seeds and almonds. It was like a rice pudding with an interesting crunch provided by the almonds.

My bill ended up being quite pricey, but my friends told me that the first time people go, they always go a bit overboard. It was totally worth it though and one of the best meals I have eaten in a while! In a matter of fact, I had to write this blog post right away. I think I will be craving blow torched sushi until the next time I set foot in these doors.

I Love Asian Snacks

February 5, 2015Candy, Food, SnacksLeave a Comment

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New desk friends

A post shared by Tiana Feng (@tianafeng) on Feb 5, 2015 at 10:56am PST

I may have grown up to be pretty Canadianized but the one thing I can’t leave behind is Asian snacks. All North American junk food cannot compare to the chocolate koala bears, flavoured Pocky sticks, ramune soft drinks, jelly cups and bizarre flavoured chips. The East was always ahead of the game in terms of adventurous snacks.

I found a Korean grocery store across from work and now my desk is stashed full of treats. What are your favourite treats as a kid (or even now)?

Hawker Bar

February 4, 2015Food, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a Comment

Singaporean influenced restaurant, Hawker Bar is located in a cozy place at Dundas and Ossington. The restaurant does their own style of Singaporean street food. To start we had the Singaporean Sweet Chili Soy wings (pictured above) which were fried with a bit of a kick. It was served with a mixture that tasted like soy sauce on hoisin sauce.
We also had Brussel Sprouts with red pepper chili which was one of the daily specials.

My main was the Braised Duck Leg with Thai Red Curry. The duck was tender and fell off the bone and the curry was very flavourful.

As I ate, I sipped a First Flight which was Gordons gin, Chartreuse, St Germain and fresh grapefruit juice.

Even though I was completely stuffed, I couldn’t help ordering fried banana for dessert!

The meal at Hawker Bar was enjoyable. We were pretty lucky to get a seat though in the small place without a reservation.

FiiO X1 MP3 Player Review

February 3, 2015Music, Shopping, Technology3 Comments

A few months ago, I left my beloved iPod Classic on the subway. I then waited way too long to buy a new one and the classics were now discountinued. This left me with not much option in terms of iPods. Spending $300 for an iPod Touch didn’t seem to make much sense since I had an iPhone, while the lower ones lacked enough space to hold my entire library. I then turned to the internet to research affordable high-end mp3 players and concluded that my best choice would be the FiiO X1 player at $99.

I bought it in gold (silver is the other option). You can watch me unbox the thing here:

Inside the tiny packaging, there were a ton of accessories that I didn’t expect it to come with: 3 screen protectors (1 of which is already on the screen); a silicone case; 2 sets of decorational stickers. Oddly enough it does not come with earphones. You also have to purchase a micro-sd in order to use it as there is no internal storage. It supports cards up to 120GB.

The player looks a lot more expensive than it’s $99 price tag. There aren’t that many instructions that come with the machine, but it’s fairly easy to use. Here are two tips for future FiiO owners:

– You must go into the system settings and hit “Storage Formatting” on your new SD card if you wish to use your own SD card reader instead of the cable to transfer songs.
– Every time you transfer songs going to “Update Media Library” in the system settings is recommended as it refreshes all the album information. Otherwise, songs only shows up in the list of all your mp3s.

Besides the above, everything is basically drag and drop. You can drag your entire iTunes library (or whatever library you use) onto the SD card and leave all folders in tact. It plays FLAC, APE, ALAC, WAV, WMA, MP3, AAC and OGG files, with up to 192-kHz/24-bit resolution. I can definitely hear the sound difference. Everything is more crisp, clear and loud sounds don’t clip. I also hear a certain warmness of each artist’s recording setting that I didn’t pay much attention to before.

Album covers display, but only if they’ve been part of the original mp3 meta data. What this means is that if you did the “Get Album Artwork” thing in iTunes, it probably didn’t embed itself in the metadata, but elsewhere.

The battery lasts very long (12 hours I think) and the system preserves it well. The screen automatically turns off after a certain time and it also turns itself off. The buttons take time to learn but really once you understand how to hit enter (centre button) and go back (top right), the rest don’t really matter. $99 is totally a steal for this thing!

Mondays…

February 2, 2015LifeLeave a Comment

#monday pic.twitter.com/zxP9mApDdW

— Tiana Feng (@tianafeng) February 2, 2015

You know those days where a series of unfortunate events happen in movies? Sometimes life is a little like that. It’s not funny when you’re in the experience. In fact I almost want to cry a little when they’re happening but when you look back at the events you can laugh a little.

Last night it actually snowed. The weather people have been warning us of snow storms all winter but have been wrong about it. But this time they were right. Without looking out the window, I unexpectedly walked out into a few snow banks.

Then I waited for my first bus in what felt like -20 temperatures. My toes were already beginning to freeze. When I got to the subway, someone pressed the emergency alarm at two consecutive stops on the same train. It stalled 10-15 minutes each time for emergency personnel to arrive. Then immediately after that all trains on same line I were held for a fire investigation at one station. In Toronto, when one train on the line stops, all of them are screwed. Our system is inefficient that way.

Anyways, after quite some time, I finally made the destination of my last bus, only to find out that we couldn’t leave the station. Cars were stuck trying to go up hills and as a result, so where some buses which led to a big traffic jam.

At that point I just wanted to yell STOP. Which was kind of funny because (after 30 minutes of sitting in freezing cold) eventually took a detour. On the detour I snapped a photo of a van with the word STOP on the windshield.

There’s not actually a point to this story. I did end up making it to work and the rest was normal.

However, I now have a fever. Maybe I’ll wake up fine and tomorrow will be a perfectly regular day. I mean it can’t go worse than today right?

Junked Food Co: Where Your Strange Food Dreams Come True

February 1, 2015Food, Restaurant ReviewsLeave a Comment

Junked Food Co finally opened it’s doors for real last night. I tried to go to their soft opening last weekend but their power unfortunately ran out. However, we received free cake that night:

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Power is out at @junkedfoodco but got a free cake!! #zomato

A post shared by Tiana Feng (@tianafeng) on Jan 22, 2015 at 6:56pm PST

I happened to be at a show at The Garrison and Junked Food Co’s opening and last night hours (8pm-4am) was perfectly time. I headed over with a couple of friends who were intrigued when I told them about the restaurant’s crazy concepts. The menu is a treasure trove of crazy things from pizza made on literal pies, grilled cheese sandwiches with donuts, smash bags, cakes in cups and other weird combinations. My friend deemed it the food of “stone dreams”.

Anyways I ordered the 416 Deep Dish with added Pepperoni. It was literally a personal pizza done on top of flakey pie crust. A thick layer of tomato paste hid the pepperoni and cheese that was embedded inside. It was delicious but quite messy!

My friend ordered the Original Junkie waffle which had avocado, chicken, bacon, and veggies. I stole a bite and enjoyed the crunch the bacon added to the mix. He found the chicken a tad bit dry but still enjoyed it.

I didn’t order this but here’s a photo of the Poutine tater tots.

This is a perfect place for a late night after show/bar snack. If you’re going for a meal, I’d suggest you order more than one thing because one item may not be filling enough. Don’t worry though, there are plenty of things you’ll definitely want to try.

One Month Of Blogging

January 31, 201530 Day Challenge, Inspiration, Life1 Comment

I did it. For the first time ever, I blogged every day for an entire month. I came close a few times (in previous Januarys) but it never happened, until now. Here’s what I accomplished so far:

To get out of my own head. A lot of the times, you are your own obstacle when blogging. Hitting publish or sitting down to write a post (because you convince yourself you are tired) is the hardest part. Thoughts like “This post isn’t perfect yet” or “This sounds dumb” frequent my mind. But this year, I decided to hit publish and leave no idea unpublished.

Write first, edit second. Typing the ideas out as they come is a priority. Sometimes I’m out in public, waiting for the train and not at a computer. However, I write whatever I’m thinking in OneNote and come back to them later. Other times, I’m at a computer and write an entire post in less than 10 minutes.

Everything is an idea. Especially on a personal blog, ideas are not a problem. Everything can be a post. The food I ate, the really random thing I bought or any art work to show off. There’s inspiration everywhere. Posts don’t have to be the same and I found that variety works with the followers.

Write for me, not anyone else. This is my journal. I stopped thinking about whether a certain post would be popular. I do this for my enjoyment first and it’s a bonus if everybody else enjoys the ride too.

I’ll continue blogging every single day and continue to learn from the experience. I’m not going to break the chain and see if I can make it to 365 posts this year!

The Red Carpet @ The Juno Nominations

January 30, 2015January 30, 2015Entertainment, Life, Music, PhotographyLeave a Comment

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I’ve never applied to go to an award show before but Ride the Tempo was on the red carpet of the Juno Nominations!

The actual announcement of the nominations went by very quickly. There was no way that you could type fast enough on a phone to live tweet everything. Names scrolled past on a screen in an instant. Before I knew it, it was all announced. Luckily, we were handed red pamphlets with all the information

Afterward, we gathered by the red carpet and stood behind the signs of our respective media outlets. It was cool having my own spot and helping out SOCAN at the same time. I learned that connections I made while blogging translated into my job, and I was an excellent wrangler at getting artist interviews and photos.

I’ll be back for the real Juno Awards ceremony in Hamilton in March but for now you can view the portraits I shot during the nominations here.

Video Round-up: Rib Time, New Couch, Peanut Butter Bars

January 29, 2015VlogsLeave a Comment

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Hey guys! It’s time for another Vlog round-up. Here’s what I’ve been up to..

I made some ribs:

I bought a new couch:

I made Reese Pieces Bars:

One Day is Better Than None

January 28, 2015January 28, 2015Health, Inspiration, Life1 Comment

Whether the corporate aspect of it bothers you or not, #BellLetsTalk day is an important one. For readers that are not Canadian, it’s a day where Bell donates 5 cents to mental health initiatives every time someone uses the hashtag. Started in January of 2011, it has become an important day also for generating conversations about mental health.

Some criticize the movement for not extending to the other 364 days of the year. However, I still think it is important. One day of the year in reflection is greater than none. Plus, it’s the responsibility of everyone to continue breaking the stigmas on mental health, not just an organization.

I vlogged last year about my own experiences with battling mental health. I still struggle with it at times but ever since social media movements like this, I was more eager to speak up. I didn’t feel like a loser. I have friends that had their own experiences and shared them in a zine.

One day is better than none. One day is a start. Today somebody could find a story that they can relate to that can change their life. So keep your damn anti-capitalist opinions to yourself.