Marathon, My Butt

Remnants of thoughts from the Richmond opening still cross my mind periodically and remind me how busy it is to do a broker reception. This time around, I was expecting a very busy opening (of course not to the extent of the Richmond one) but boy was I disappointed!! I haven't had a need to stay late at all...not even an hour after closing! Guess I should be happy?

Tomorrow sees Day 11 of my working streak (and I suppose the end of Round 1 of the workathon as I'll probably get Friday off) before starting all over again on Saturday. This weekend better be super busy so I can justify working...sigh...

Here's to the Start of a Month-Long Marathon

Working marathon that is.

Day 1 - 11am to 11pm (12hrs)
Day 2 - 11am to 1am (14hrs)

Day 3 will hopefully be no longer than 14 hours... but the days will only get longer starting with Day 4.

Here's to a new condo opening, haha~!

On another note, I'm glad I came home before the light show came on. Wobbling street lamps aren't exactly my kinda thing, ya know? Especially since you have to have it as a combo: lions and dingos coming down in sheets, wobbling street lamps, laser light show, flying cows... well not quite the cows but it sure looked like it could have picked up a few of them! I was pretty fascinated (and happy) at the fact that I'm in the comfort of my home watching this show when I noticed a small leak in the balcony door (crap!) and then a power surge that shut down my comp (doh!). I'm kinda glad it's over.

JP inspired!

Last night I finally got my act together and finished scrapping my Tokyo trip from July. I thought, with my opening coming up next week, 現在唔完成等到幾時? Done! I'll give myself a pat on the back since I finished the page in record time, haha~

Funny, people tell me once you come back from Japan, local JP food just doesn't taste the same so you'd end up having less of it since you have no comparison. Sigh... all I've been wanting (except the odd poutine craving, of course) is JP cuisine!! Had sushi more than enough times in the last 6 weeks, including 2 visits to Inatei in 8 days (hefty!).

Last week, I decided I wanted to make 銀だら西京焼き but didn't realize I had to marinate the cod for 3 days! The damn piece of frozen fillet cost me $12 (not even a pound of fish) and the sake I bought to marinate it was $10! Sigh...anything for good food I guess, keke. I finally yaki'd it on Saturday. It was a tad salty (over marinated at 4 days, haha) but tasted yummy! Polished off every little bit of it!

Sunday rolls along and I go out with Mar Mar, leaving 文生 at home to study, and I remembered that live scallops are on sale at T&T @ $5.99/lb! Being disappointed last time that T&T had a $5.99 scallop sale and all I saw in the damn tank was water, my hopes weren't exactly high as I marched up to the fish section. WAH! The tank was FULL! Kwaakakakka! I secretly tsk'd at the guy that was hogging the tank, but patiently waited (with an impatient look on my face) as he finished weighing his stupid scallops. Then there was this lady that was taking her sweet little time picking what, like 6 of them?!? Picked one up with tongs, gingerly handled it with 2 fingers, shook out water, decides it's not big enough, repeat the above... sigh. I thought to myself: 揀女婿咩! I went right up against the tank and decided, the hell with the tongs! Dove right into the water with bare hands and picked up 6 huge lively scallops (ah yes, they were clammed shut alright) and by the time I was done weighing, that lady was still picking!!! Sheesh! $20.01 for 6. Huge they are. Just as big as the ones I had way back when.

Kinda big eh? Filled up the all the space on my cutting board.

Miso ホタテ焼き was what became of these monsters. Boy I was a happy camper last night. Even the hour long cleaning (ya, for the 6 damn things) wasn't that bad. Had to double up on one of the shells during yaki-ing since all of them didn't fit on the pan, LOL!

Now I'm thinking about the green tea and lychee panna cottas I had at Inatei. I think I'll make them tomorrow...keke.

The Great Poutine Taste-Off!

I finally had the chance to satisfy my 2-month-long poutine craving by sinking my teeth into mounds off crispy Yukon Gold fries smothered in beefy gravy piled high with squeaky cheese curds. We're not talking some crappy New York Fries, Harvey's or KFC poutine here but da real thing!!! To make satisfying my craving totally worthwhile, I got not one, not two but THREE poutines from 3 different places for the ULTIMATE POUTINE TASTE-OFF! To my dismay, all the raved about poutineries are all downtown (which is the reason why my craving lasted 2 months) so it only made sense to try all of them at once, huh!

To start off, I drove 24km from work to my first destination: Poutini's House of Poutine (while I was there, I got myself a Grande decaf mocha frappucino with two pumps of raspberry syrup with whipped cream from the Starbucks next door. Yes, I can feeeel the fat forming already, LOL).

Poutini's $6.99 + tax = $7.90

Next, was a 5km drive through downtown TO on Dundas which to me, transformed into something I can hardly recognize anymore to my next stop: Smoke's Poutinerie (which happens to be just across the street from Filmore's, heh).

Smoke's $6.99 + tax = $7.90

Meishan and Tinlop went to pick up the last of the 3 poutines from Great Burger Kitchen conveniently located next to my former high school.

Great Burger Kitchen $5.25 + tax = $5.93

The result? A LOT of poutine.

Now let's get on with tasting notes.

Poutini's was unfortunately sitting out for over an hour by the time we were ready to eat it so I'm not sure if it's the lack of gravy to begin with or it magically evaporated but it was dry. Cheese curds were definitely the squeaky type (win!) and the fries were as expected. I grade it a 2/5. The gravy lost.

Smoke's was OMG salty! The fries were nicely seasoned and generously drenched in gravy, cheese curds were squeaky but the gravy! OMG the gravy was soooo salty my tongue must have stopped working! If it was 40% less salty this would have been the win. I give it 3.5/5.

Lastly, Great Burger Kitchen. Sadly, my tongue is now broken so the gravy (as generous as they are with it) is pretty much tasteless to me at this point. Cheese curds were lacking (I'm guessing they just use plain old mozzarella) so no squeakiness here. Sigh... only a measly 2/5. The cheese lost.

Conclusions: 文生 decided his arteries were being clogged as he chowed down the CHO; Tinlop likes Great Burger Kitchen; Cindy doesn't want anything to do with poutine in a loooooong time; Meishan and I both like Smoke's IF it wasn't so salty. I think I'm pretty much done with poutine for a while too. Or, back to KFC...