Tiana Feng

Snakes and Lattes- A Board Game Cafe

July 16, 2012October 13, 2012Board Games, Drinks, Entertainment, Food3 Comments

Located at 600 Bloor Street West, Snakes and Lattes has become one of my favourite new discoveries. Simply put, it’s a board game cafe. A place where you can have a drink and play a game with your friends.

The place is only a few years old, but already they’ve expanded into the building next door. For now, only one side is liquor licensed so if you’re looking for some drunk board game times ask specifically for that side. When you walk in the place its usually full of people playing games of all types. I saw some pretty complicated boards with islands and giraffes.

The atmosphere is friendly and inviting. There are a couple of walls lined up with thousands of board games. According to their site they have over 2208 games. There are even really limited edition versions of the board games that you can’t even buy any more. I got really nostalgic when I visited the shelves. I love Jenga and I found the Mario version (which I later ended up buying).

I was there for a birthday party and we asked for game suggestions. The staff is pretty knowledgeable about all the games and will teach you how to play if you’re too lazy to read the instructions. We discovered a game called Cards Against Humanity which is a hilarious and dirty minded version of Apples to Apples. Definitely a great one to try if you’re there to drink.

I wish I lived beside this place, because I want try all the board games. It’s a great place to kill time and hang out with friends. For only a $5 per person charge, you can sit in the cafe all day. There is also food and drinks available so you won’t starve if you really do decide to stay the day. It’s also a great place to try out new board games before you buy them. They have a bunch of new games on site that you can purchase if you do become attached to one.

I definitely will be back to play some more games soon!

What Sisters Are For

July 12, 2012Family, Life, Relationships4 Comments

Today is my little sister’s 22nd birthday. I remember like it was yesterday when we used to pile all our stuffed animals and jump in them. I can’t believe that I have known a single a person for 22 years but I am grateful to have.

Here are some reasons why sisters are awesome:

they’ll pick you up at 3am in the morning
you can steal their candy
someone to put the blame on
someone to be retarded with
laughing at things that nobody else understands
teaming up against parents
someone to steal clothes from
they listen to you when no one else will

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIVIA!!

Interesting Burgers at the Yellow Griffin

July 9, 2012March 27, 2013Food, Restaurant Reviews3 Comments

I learned about the Yellow Griffin from their tempting ads mentioning their huge variety of burgers that they’ve had up occasionally in subway stations for the past couple of years. Last week, I finally decided to visit the joint. It’s a pub style joint, but there’s always a top floor where you can book parties. Their menu has an offering of over 35 styles of burgers which you can get with beef, chicken, lamb, bison, veggie, turkey or even salmon patties.

I ordered the New Mexican with a regular burger patty. On top of it sat guacamole, santa fe salsa, tobasco sauce, diced sweet potatoes, peanut butter, chopped coriander. I thought I’d try something other than the heart-attack inducing burgers I usually order. I chose sweet potato fries as my side.

The patty was pretty huge. The burger had a lot of flavour. The peanut butter blended really well with everything else, which was surprising because I thought it would be really strange. It was also texturely interesting with the sweet potatoes (that were almost like a mash) and the salsa. The fries were crunchy and addictive.

Nash ordered the Hold the Port, which had a giant portebello mushroom and blue cheese. These 2 ingredients both have strong flavour on their own but together they marry so well. I stole a bite and I tasted the mushroom first, but when my tongue finally touched the blue cheese it was awesome. His onion rings were also delicious, kind of wish there were more of them (it didn’t come with that many) that I could steal.

Service there was slightly awkward, but we both enjoyed our food and will definitely be back to try the other burgers!

Novo Horizonte and the X-Everything Burger

5 Ridiculous Was to Reduce Tears When Cutting An Onion

July 4, 2012Food, Life3 Comments

Are you one of those people who cry when cutting an onion? I am when the purple ones are involved. I decided to google up ways to lessen the tears when chopping onions and this is some of what I found.

1. Cut onion over an open flame.

2. Chill your onion in a freezer.

3. Wear gas tight goggles or a mask

4. Stick your tongue out

5. Whistle

These all are seemingly ridiculous. I’d like to know if you’ve tried any of these and if they work!

Dear People In Crowded Parking Lots

July 3, 2012LifeLeave a Comment

For Canada’s day I participated in the act of firework watching. We didn’t go right into the heart of city hall but watched close-by on the porches of a nearby movie theater.

It was a lovely night. That was until we had to leave the underground parking lot of Square One along with 10,000 others. It was chaos, and to everyone there (and in future crowded parking lots) I want to say the following:

Unless a)your house is on fire, b)someone is dying or c)both you aren’t entitled to get out of the parking lot any faster than anybody else
Just because your soccer(/sports) team lost (Italy) that day, it doesn’t mean you can take it out on other drivers by yelling freakishly out your car window
Don’t signal until you fully decide what direction you are going to turn.
Road markings indeed point in the right direction. Don’t imagine your own.
Unless suicide is your intention, don’t get up and walk around in the mob of cars.
Tailgating while you are stuck on a slope is a bad idea.
Circling around a parking lot with one exit won’t get you anywhere.
Just because I’m a cute little Asian girl doesn’t mean I’ll let you cut me off.

Teddy Has a House

July 2, 2012July 29, 2012Pets, Teddy1 Comment

It was a long weekend and dad brought home extra wood so we decided to build Teddy a house.

All assembled:

We decided to paint it:

Also, if you love Teddy as much as I do, he has his own tumblr now at: teddydoggy.tumblr.com.

I’m A Fruit Ninja Black Belt

June 29, 2012iOS, Technology, Video GamesLeave a Comment

When Fruit Ninja first came out, I thought it was pretty stupid. Then I got it on my iPhone and I liked how I could play quick games when I was waiting for the train.

If you don’t know, it’s a game where you simply slice the fruit that is popping up on the screen. Arcade and classic mode has bombs that either lower your score or kill you. Zen mode you just slice to a timer. It’s pretty simple. There are also bonus fruit that can be bought that raise your score.

The game would have probably been not as interesting if it weren’t for the Dojo. It is where the “unlockables” were listed. They were mainly for aesthetic values, such as different designs of blades and backgrounds but a goal is a goal and I finally unlocked them all.

Unless you care about raising your score, the game doesn’t really have too much replay value. So off in the vault of beaten games it goes.

Novo Horizonte and the X-Everything Burger

June 23, 2012March 27, 2013Food, Restaurant Reviews1 Comment

I heard of Novo Horizonte because a friend posted this Spice City link on my wall. As a burger aficionado, I had to try the place Since I was heading to the Drake for a concert it was the perfect pre-concert meal.

Located at 1430 Dundas Street West (at Gladstone), it’s a tiny little place where you’ll see a bunch of Brazilian’s hanging out and drinking. We seemed like such foreigners walking in. At first glance, it simply looks like just a bar. The waitress politely asked us what we would like to drink and we had to specifically ask for the menu.

The menu consisted of only burgers, which were very decently priced. You could get a burger of under $4, if you weren’t picky. Of course we opted for the X-Everything Burger (not the X-Challenge because we still needed to live) and I also ordered this mango orange juice thing. It was a pretty sweet nectar like juice in a mini container I probably could have drank in 2 gulps.

The X-Everything Burger was a glorious combination of things. It consisted of hamburger, chicken, bacon, ham, egg, cheese, lettuce, tomato, corn and shoestring fries (which were hickory sticks). They all combined together really nicely with some interesting textures.

It was easily devoured and this is what was left of the burger less than 10 minutes later:

We had 2 X-Everything Burgers, the mango orange drink, and a Moosehead beer and our bill only came up to $24. I don’t get it.. that would mean the beer costs close to nothing here! We’ll definitely be back, for drinks and more burgers. Perhaps, we’ll take on the X-Challenge next time.

The People Who Read This Blog (or So I Imagine)

June 21, 2012June 21, 2012Life, Social Media, TechnologyLeave a Comment

I haven’t written here in a while. I was busy attending NXNE last week and catching up on photo editing this week. However, I looked at my WordPress Dashboard today and there was a striking amount of people visiting in the past week or so. I honestly light up when I even know 10 people read this, but the past little while have been in the 400-500s.

I started to ponder, what you all must be like and came up with this list of people who I think read this blog:

Trolls
You people search the internet for random things. Some way or another, your quest to find junk landed you here.

Dog Lovers
My bichon is obviously the most adorable thing in the world. I assume 90% of you follow this just to look at cute puppy photos.

Food Lovers
Maybe you’re a food lover, and you are here for the delicious photos of food. I’m not sure if my recipes are well written enough to warrant anybody following them, but I am going on an adventure to eat all sorts of things!

Adventure Time Fans
I’ve only ever had one post about Adventure Time, but it is the top Google search of all time here.

My Best Friends
Thank you for visiting, just because we’re BFFs. I know you probably think all that on here is terrible, but you’ll come back anyway.

I Survived Woofstock [Photoset]

June 11, 2012July 29, 2012Art, Pets, Photography, Teddy3 Comments

I finally had a dog that I could bring to Woofstock, so this was my first year. People and dogs of all types showed up. Dogs in dresses, dogs in strollers, dogs in purses. It was a day for your pup to be spoiled. Booths sold everything from modern dog houses, couches and other strange things. Here are some photos I managed to snap.

This dog looks like a lion:

Teddy got really tired so we had to carry him around. Look this painting kind of looks like him!

Teddy wasn’t very impressed we made him do this:

Someone dyed their poodles hair…

This is Teddy’s potential sibling. They were born on the same day!

Man, these dog cookies and donuts look so good I want to eat them!