Glaicers

So this has absolutely nothing to do with food, but I thought I would take the opportunity to share just a few pictures of the Rockies I took from my trip. Enjoy! CATHEDRAL

MOUNTAIN GOATS
BOW FALLS (MARILYN MONROE FILMED RIVER OF NO RETURN HERE) ATHABASKA GLACIERS IN JASPER NATIONAL PARK

Lake Louise Buffet

Finally, the Lake Louise Buffet. The meal that I've been waiting for since day one of this trip.

To my disappointment, the selection was limited, not as expansive as say... the Wynn in Las Vegas.

Knowing me, I made an effort to try a bit of everything: the potato salad, the shrimp cocktail, the deviled eggs, the roast pork with apple sauce from the carving station, the lox (of course...it's Canada), the chicken, and the snapper; but my favorite of all were the king crab legs (o...but this was all before I hit the desert table by storm of course). They were a bit difficult to crack open since, to my surprise, they weren't pre-crack nor was a nut cracker or shears provided. One can really chip a tooth or two trying to use man power to crack those legs open.

When I arrived back at my seat after filling my plate with a small selection of food, the waiter came around to our table and asked us what we wanted to drink: orange juice or cranberry juice. And being somewhat of an adventurous young lady, I daring asked for half oj and half cran.
"Can i get half and half please?"
"Sure! Of course!" the waiter delightedly replied, "That's a very good choice!"

Now, the meal was okay, not the BEST buffet I've ever eaten (The Wynn in Vegas still remains number one), I'd give it 3.5 stars out of 5. But the most memorable part was the passion fruit mousse. To die for. Tangy, tart, and deliciously sweet passion fruit mousse topped with vanilla bean whipped cream, toasted coconut flakes, and a dot of raspberry coolie in a mini champagne flute. Say what?! Crazy right! This was the single most memorable part of the entire meal. My mouth waters just thinking about it!

Braeburn and Ambrosia and Apple Juice at the Kelowna Land and Orchard

Iced apple wine. A sweet and pungent desert wine.

At the Kelowna Land and Orchard I had a tour on a tracktor drawn cart through the fields of fruit. It was a very interesting experience, but it was the wine tasting and the FRESH squeezed apple juice tasting that I was looking forward to at the end of the tour.

Apple juice is the orchard's main staple product in addition to peaches, blueberrie, pears, plums and cherries and a variety of dried fruits as well. Thier fresh apple juice is the main attraction and a public favorite and I can see why. Its pure and deep brown color suggests that it has not been fully filtered like the apple juice that you see on your store shelves. And because there are absolutely no preservatives added, you must drink fast, because it is extremely perishable. Trust me, you won't have any trouble drinking this juice quickly because it's sweet and rich apple taste is absolutely addictive, the only trouble you'll be having, is trying to stop yourself from purchasing another bottle.

This juice is thicker than your ordinary run of the mill supermarket apple juice, and definitely has a more full-bodied apple flavor thats "of the earth" and to be enjoyed by an all-natural kind of person.

I also took the liberty of trying two types of apple ice wine to compare with that of the grape. The two that I tried were the Ambrosia and the Braeburn. The Ambrosia is a lighter but still sweet wine with a drier taste than the Braeburn. The Braeburn is sweeter more syrupy and more amber in color than the Ambrosia. It has a more pungent apple flavor and is the one that stole my heart. So, it's the one I purchased. (Plus it was MUCH MUCH more affordable than the grape ice wine, but is made in a similar process)

Okanagan Ice Wine

Wine tasting in Canada! I have just had the honor, being of drinking age in Canada, of tasting Canadian ice wine. Canada is only one of three (the others being Germany and Austria) countries capable of producing ice wine due to its winter climate.

In these ice wine producing vineyards, they allow the ripened grapes in teh fall to remain on thier vines and await the tremendously cold weather to freeze the sweet grapes.

During teh winter months, from December to February, when the weather is incredibly cold the sweet and ripened grapes are allowed to freeze on their vines. (Red grapes freeze at -14C and white grapes freeze at -10C). This produces a very concentrated syrupy sweet desert wine known as ice wine.

The red ice wine is a, let's say, delicacy. Each bottle of red ice wine is about 300ml (much smaller than your average wine bottle) costs $108 Canadian here at Okanagan.

But let me tell you, it's well worth it. It's sweet and very tasty; almost like a syrupy grape juice with a little kick. I personally prefered the red ice wine over the white, it was much sweeter and is also more rare.

Let's face it, because of it's unique process and rareness of this product, it's no wonder why the price per bottle is so high. Salute!

On The Road Again: Day 2

Scheduled to board the tour bus at 6:40 a.m. I rushed to get ready in time. I showered, got dressed, took two sips of my hotel provided coffee with one cream and one sugar (and we all know how great that coffee is...even in this four star Raddisson) and headed out the door with my enormous roaring red suitcase.

My tummy is still lingering on the togo Chinese food I shared with my mom last night (this was in addition to my curry). It was actually pretty good. But with the four layered tuna sandwhich (ham, egg, tuna, and cucumber fitting nice and neatly in between flive slices of white decrusted bread) and the 21 fruits and 5 veggies juice I bought yesterday at the Yaohan market awaiting me in a plastic baggy, I'm ready to head towards the Rockies!

A Taste of Hong Kong in Vancouver

Vancouver is known to be one of the hot spots for many Hong Kong immigrants. Home to over 580,000 East and South East Asians (which is roughly 28% of the over all population in vancouver), it's no wonder why the food here is so reminiscent of that in Hong Kong.

Tonight im enjoying just a small piece of it.

As I walked into the shopping plaza call Yaohan, a well-known shopping center in Hong Kong, it brought back nostalgic memories of my past trips to Hong Kong as a child. There was a Chinese supermarket when I first entered on my left hand side, little kiosk stands selling sweat pants, house slippers and other miscellanious items, and to my right was the food court.

I made a trip to the supermarket first to buy some breakfast for tomorrow, and to take a look at what they had. It's always fun to explore new supermarkets.
After buying some food for tomorrow's breakfast and road trip, I made my way out to the food court wehre there were a handful of Chinese food stands.

As i made my way around the food court, one stand in particular caught my eye; a curry stand. Well, you ask, how can something so simple as a Chinese curry stand catch my eye? My answer would be, because they were selling curry fish balls with pork skin. Mmm Mmm delicious.
It's a quiet little stand in one corner of the food court. Discrete, white; nothing flashy nothing fancy, just a stand with tubs of fish ball and pork skin curry. One wiff of that mouth watering curry made me salivate like crazy.
White bouncy fish balls and crunchy pig skin soaked through and through with a liquidy curry sauce waiting on a hungry passer-by to stop for a taste.
I asked the lady behind the counter how the curry was sold, she replied in Chinese "one dollar for three fish balls adn one dollar for five pieces of pork skin. What a steal! (Pretty good deal considering the exchange rate is 1 dollar US for 90 cents Canadian, since the US dollar isn't worth anything these days). And it turns out that when they put the fish balls and pork skin in a bowl for customers, they drain off the liquidy curry and pour on a more viscous and more pungent (and SPICY) curry on top. I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into this dish!

When I got back to my hotel room, the first thing I busted out of its plastic bag was the curry fish balls and pork skin, and let me tell you, you really have to try it yourself because words can't even begin to describe how good this was. Very similar to that of Hong Kong. Who knew that I would be taking a culinary trip to Hong Kong in Vancouver.

Tacoma International Airport

LAND! Finally. After claiming my baggage --(I'm a small girl about 5'3" and I made the mistake of packing a months worth of things for a six day trip, imagine my trife when I had to literally haul my enormous red suitcase off the carousel. What a site that must have been for on-lookers.) --and grabbing a blueberry bagel with cream cheese and a disappointingly over sweetened spiced chai latte, I settle down upstairs in a brightly lit area near the Hudson News Stand with my mediocre breakfast and what else but my favorite book, "The Nasty Bits" and relax as i wait for the arrival of my tour guide. FYI: I arrived at 9a.m. my tour guide's scheduled arrival is 11:45a.m. You do the math.

Seattle

So I land here in Seattle after waking up at 3a.m. and a two hour flight on Virgin America. I must admit that aside from the posche magenta and purple lighting adn the personal entertainment screen, the flight was far from ideal. The wait for take off post boarding must have broken a record for longest "not in motion on a plane time", the attendants were less than friendly, and talked way too much, despite having announced that there would be no further interruptions. But overall I guess it wasn't too bad, as i kept myself occupied with my personal entertainment monitor. I played games, watched cooking shows (of course), watched music videos, and stared out the window from my middle seat at the dense clouds below.

(picture still to come)

Back From Canada

So the reason why I haven't been posting anything lately is because I had just recently returned from a trip to Canada. The rockies, more specifically. I have not come back empty handed though. I had been keeping up with a mini journal on my Blackberry of some of my more significant food adventures. I haven't had the time to upload them onto my computer yet, but when I do, I'll be sure to post them (there are quite a few).

sweets

Here's a website that a friend of mine found and thought I might enjoy. If you know me, then well, you know that I have a small sweet tooth. Okay, so I have a HUGE sweet tooth but hey who can really blame me when all that sugary goodness is out there in the vast open world just begging me to take a bite. It's a wonder why I don't weigh as much as an elephant, considering the fact that I can never quite stay away from anything that's made from more than 10% sugar.

So here's the website: http://www.vanillabakeshop.com/cake_menu.html

As the link suggests, this quaint little cake shop is called Vanilla Bake Shop and is located in Santa Monica. I haven't tried it yet but my friend says that in his opinion, it's better than Sprinkles (a high-end cupcake shop). GASP! I know, impossible right? I don't know I guess I'm going to have to find out. I'll let you know once i've tried it.