A Damn Cold Day

With the constant fluctuation of temperatures, there wasn't a lot to look forward to until...

Fancy some food trucks?

After months of eating the same old on campus, I was elated to hear that 4 food trucks would be making their way to UTSC. Oh, how I've dreamed of finally being able to savour various tasty morsels of pure gold that I've only been able to witness on TV (We don't get food trucks much, or even at all where I live; they only frequent downtown).
For those that aren't local, we've had flucuating temperatures like you wouldn't believe. Yesterday, it was 20c+, today was only 4c, and this didn't help me on the day the trucks were visiting. Needless to say, I wasn't the only one tired of our food choices, so it was no surprise that the line ups were going to be long, but I should've known it would take some time for food to actually get out of the trucks.

You know you want some sammies

I think I lined up for just over 1 hour to place and receive my order. Was it worth it?

Behold, BBQ Brisket sammy and...wait, what is that?

And here we have Beef-Bacon Maple Doughnuts

First, with the BBQ brisket sammy. The slaw was a nice and acidic contrast to the smokey beef, but the beef itself, once you get deeper into the sandwich, was very dry. I also think the brisket was not tender enough. At first, I thought these beef-bacon doughnuts were something special; what a letdown. These doughnuts had a nice crispy shell, and a nice doughy centre with bacon bits spread about. I feel that these are very comparable to fried Timbits with bacon bits stuffed inside.

So was it worth it? Well, definitely not for the 1hr wait in the cold, but would I visit them again, given what we have on campus. Maybe

Have you tasted any fares from your food trucks? Anything special you've seen on food trucks that you've tried, or have been dying to try? Let me know in the comments below!

More Goodies - Round 2

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Week 3 - Winter Semester + Goodies

So a semester and 3 weeks into university, I finally seem to be finding my groove.

Stocked up for winter

Everything seems to be going well so far. I'm keeping up with readings, doing practice questions every now and again, but most importantly, I've finally found time for anime. Being able to watch 2 episodes almost every day during my commute has really helped me in catching up with a bunch of series that were on my backlog (including: Witch Hunter Robin, Ore no Imouto, Highschool of the Dead, Gosick, TTGL...).

Recently, I finished Witch Hunter Robin (as you've seen in a previous post), HOTD and I'm working my way through Gosick, so expect a review pretty soon. 

     Another thing I've been doing is finding and gathering all the goodies I can get to last me at least a few weeks though this semester as picture above. My inventory includes:

4 x ValNature Roasted Amond Bars

9 x Small Pocky Packets

1 x Reg. Pocky

1 x Empty Pringles Can =P

3 x Biscotti dipped in cholocate

1 x Milk Chocolate Candy

1 x Lotte Fruito Gum

1 x Atkins Adv. Bar

4 x NutriGrain Bar

1 x PreSk8 Energy Drink

1 x Nestle Instant Coffee

8 x Stride Gum

2 x Trident Splash Gum

A lengthy list, but I'll probably have to restock soon as I'm munching on Pocky like crazy.

For this post, I'm going to bring back something I did way back when I started the blog in May/June, which were reviews on foreign confectionery goods, mainly Japanese goodies. (You can ready them by clicking the links below)

Japanese Treats (1 of 3) - Kompeito

Japanese Treats (2 of 3) - Lotte Black Black Gum

Japanese Treats (3 of 3) - Melty Kiss Chocolate

This time, I review a Japanese Milk Coffee Candy from Tokuno. I picked up this piece from a local Asian market instead of ordering from J-list this time.

How can you go wrong with anything coffee for university students?

Well apparently, you can. The flavour and aroma of the candy is nothing mind blowing; it taste like any other coffee candy I've tried before. The "milk" aspect on the candy didn't really add or take away from the candy either. But my biggest pet peeve about this candy was the texture of it when it starts to dissolve. From the picture above, it's basically a puck shaped candy, but once it starts dissolving, cracks develop on it and the texture of the candy becomes awkward. For the Asian readers, it feels like dried scallops (pictured below). 

Anyways, this is not one I can recommend, so I'll just suggest people to stick with whatever coffee candy you regularly buy, and stay away from this one.

What did you crave during your university/college studies? Do you like coffee candy? Any preference to a brand? Let me know in the comments below, and I'll see you guys soon!

Happy New Years!

Meri Kurisumasu and a Happy New Year!

Well I know it might not be New Years yet for some of you (at least not for me) but I'm making this post a few hours in advance since I'll be bogged down by school, which is right around the corner.

Now this post won't be anime related (as I promised last time) nor will it be a rant; just a good, plain old blog entry.

Ever since university started, I never really got the chance to really converse with my group of friends from elementary school (the same bunch mentioned in older posts) and a few days ago was really the first time we've actually met up again.

We'd usually make our usual rounds in the Markham area (sushi, gaming, movies...etc) but the VIVA (the transit system in the York/Markham area) has been still on strikes (been on strikes for a few months now). So we made our way downtown. By coincidence, we ended up doing what we once did a few months ago when we were also in downtown; movies, visit a few places, Eatons then dinner at Milestones.

Prime Rib Roast at Milestones...mmm

Hogtown Poutine at Smoke's Poutinerie on Dundas

All in all, a great way to end off the year; an outing with my best friends and with my family.

Anyways, it has been a great year and I wish all my readers and fellow blog colleagues the best next year.

How are you guys spending New Years Eve? Any New Years Resolution?

Summer Feast

In lieu of marking the end of summer, we marked it as a pre-celebration for a friend's birthday.

Hot Pot!

 My friends and I went out again, this time to celebrate an upcoming birthday. This outing, we visited two restaurants, the first being "I Cook Buffet".

Contrary to the namesake, there is no buffet during lunch time. Instead, they offer you a set combo in which you can customize things such as the soup base and meat.

The food was nothing special, thinly sliced pieces of meat plus random greens and a few more random fish balls. And of course, our favourite condiment, some weird salty peanut sauce. /sarcasm.

Peanut Sauce?

So you may ask yourself, why is the peanut sauce gone? Did we use it all? Yes we did, but we didn't consume it. Instead, we decided to pour all the sauce into one pot and boil it. Boy was that a bad idea, the fumes that emitted from the pot was deadly and could be sniffed from miles.

Service was mediocre at best. No,  for where I live, most restaurants are Chinese owned/operated so their English may not be perfect. This one is no different. Not only was their English poor, the employees seemed clueless about the menu as if they were new to the job (maybe they were).

Anyways, we decided to head back into familiar territory for dinner, Sushi on 7.

We ordered the usual: salmon & hokkigai & butterfish sashimi and a few maki rolls. Most of the sashimi seemed fresh, but some of it wasn't thawed out enough.

But we also got something different this time, the spider roll. The spider roll consists of avocado, roe, imitation crab stick and deep fried soft shell crab.

The spider roll

Dragon roll and sashimi

In general, Japanese AYCE in our area are decent, but not spectacular in any way. We've gone to a few AYCE, but this one seems the be one with consistent quality.

How is your experience with AYCE places? Have you tried hot pots (or shabu shabu) before?

Night it Up

As some of you may know, my friends and I attended "Night it Up" a few days back. For us, the event was a flop.

If you live within the city, there are many similar events that showcase Asian foods. Sadly, it is always the same vendors, so to my friends and I, this was nothing new. To someone new to town, this can be an amazing experience.

The event also featured various games, make-shift carnival games that is, such as throwing balls into a bucket and throwing darts into a target held by duct tape.

A festival game

Long line-ups for stinky tofu

From left to right, Spicy Salmon Pizza, Salmon and  Butterfish Sashimi and Beef Teriyaki.

At the very least, dinner was decent. An AYCE at a Japanese restaurant.







 How's everyone else's summer holidays going?

Japanese Treats! Meltykiss Chocolate (Part 3 of 3)

Mmm chocolate

Well this is going to be my last post in regards to the goodies that were shipped from Japan.
This last item is probably one of my favourites, Meltykiss. Meltykiss is a type of chocolate that has many flavour/varieties, such as creamy, strawberries, extra fudge...and the list goes on. Some of the flavours are only available as per seasons! I personally got creamy milk chocolate. I've had Meltykiss before, but that was a few years ago, so what a nice time to reacquaint myself with it.
When my package of goodies first arrived, I noticed that the Metlykiss box was actually opened! Customs probably broke into my package and saw Meltykiss and stole some from me.

Anyways, the overall quality of the chocolate itself is splendid. Each piece has light chocolate powder dusted around it, and the center is soft and velvety chocolate.

If you want to check out some Meltykiss or related treats, check out Jbox by clicking on the link below.

I'll probably post again on Sunday about university as I'll be heading to University of Toronto today to check some stuff out. So stay tuned for some university realted posts!

Any good chocolates you want to recommend? How was your experience with Meltykiss or Japanese treats?

For more Japanese goodies, apparel, supplies, anime and manga visit JBOX.com

Japanese Treats! Lotte Black Black Gum (Part 2 of 3)

Caffeine filled gum!

   Continuing my series of reviews on my confectionery purchase, Lotte Black Black Gum is next on my list.
This type of gum was available in two sizes, in the rectgular 9-stick pack, or in the plastic bottle.
What makes this gum unique is that it is caffeinated.







Check out a Japanese commercial of  of Black Black Gum featuring Duke Toko/Golgo 13.

Whenever I still feel that I haven't woken up yet, and I need to get to class, I just pop one of these. Do they actually work? Well, I can't really vouch for it, but I do feel more awake (even by the intense mint taste of it alone, could also be a placebo effect).

There is an additional feature for the plastic container one. You can see in my pic that there is what looks like green post-it notes inside the container. They're actually little pieces of paper that you can spit your gum into and throw out! How convenient.

Anyways, if you want to check this gum out visit the Jbox link towards the bottom of this post.

I do not own or take credit for the video above.

How to you stay awake for the day or get away from the 2:30 feeling? A cup of coffee? A slap in the face? Any interesting gum out there you'd like to introduce?

For more Japanese goodies, apparel, supplies, anime and manga visit JBOX.com

Japanese Treats! Konpeito (Part 1 of 3)

Sugary Sweets. Yum

   I made an order on jbox a while back and received my package (a few days after the earthquake too!). Jbox is a company located in Japan that ships out Japanese goods. This includes everything from office supplies, hobby/anime items, mangas, apparel and much more.

So I ordered a few things to try out (this is my first time ordering). I ordered some konpeito, melty kiss chocolate and some lotte black black gum. I'll be reviewing these treats all day long.

So the first thing is the konpeito. (In the picture, its the green bag to the left, I would have a better picture, but I ate it all already) It's actually not really special. It's just like coloured rock candy. I was told that they are different flavored, but they all tasted just sweet to me.
To give just a little history on it, konpeito was actually introduced by the Portugese and called it confeito. It was been adapted to become a traditional Japanese sweet candy. I've actually had similar rock candy before. Really reminds me of elementary school science where we put a string in a cup of dissolved sugar and see sugar crystals form. YUM.

You can get these treats and other goodies by clicking the pic to the right side bar or at the link below.

Are there any types of candy you recommend? Any wacky Japanese confectioneries you can think of?

For more Japanese goodies, apparel, supplies, anime and manga visit JBOX.com