Hot Chocolate Adventures (HCA) Part 1: Sugar Rush

Diet-wise, this week is probably the absolute worst for me, lol. There was free pizza, more pizza due to convenience, and then a ton of sweets because of the Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival. If I continue to eat at this rate, I'll probably get diabetes and some serious health issues, haha. The following week, I decided  to plan carefully during the week with healthy and nutritious meals, and then have a cheat day on Saturday where I can go ham with hot chocolate stuff :P ayeee

I forgot to bring my lunch -__- so I stopped by Seedlings to grab something quick...then I saw a brownie >___> wellllll I haven't had these in forever, lol. I got green tea and a brownie :) It was dirt cheap too, all of this costs less than $2 CAD

To slightly redeem myself (but not my wallet, sob), I went to Liquid Nutrition and ordered the Decadent. For this drink, it's $9? CAD for 24 oz in comparison to other drinks that cost up to $12. In my opinion, the ingredients they use in Liquid Nutrition compared to places like Booster Juice are better just because the ingredients seem to be more authentic. I also speculate that Booster Juice puts added sugar and sometimes too much dairy (it depends on what you order). In other words, it sometimes seems too heavy and rich. Liquid Nutrition adds seeds and other protein sources to make sure the drinks are reasonable well-balanced.

During my HCA, I stumbled across a food truck party <3 My immediate thought was to find Kaboom Box, because I've been dying to try their veggie burger.

The service was super fast; I only had to wait for 2 minutes :D The patty's edges are super crispy, which keeps it from falling apart. Usually, veggie patties are made with a lot of soft ingredients like beans and lentils, and sometimes grains and seeds. This one had rice; although rice is usually soft, it's a good ingredient for patties because they're sticky and they turn crispy when fried. Moreover, they're pretty good at staying crispy even when there's sauce. The rice is mainly responsible for keeping the patty in tact.
The bread was also not too soft. As you can tell, I like crispy stuff :P The sauce wasn't too rich (if I recall, McDonald's sauces are disgustingly rich. I haven't been here there a long time though). I usually don't think about how to eat a burger, but for some reason I pondered about it before I ate this one. I decided to eat this upside-down just so I could take cleaner bites. The difference is moderately subtle; usually it's cleaner to bite into a patty than the small crunchy vegetables, which can easily fall out due to their size. Since the vegetables were on top, usually my bottom teeth cleared the patty before picking out the cabbage. I just found it more natural for my upper teeth to cleave through the patty, and then meet with my bottom teeth to deal with the vegetables.

The beginning of my HCA started at Lucky's Doughnuts. They had three options, and I ordered the Bees Knees because I saw the word lavender, lol. I didn't realize my order was ready for the longest time, but at least that allowed my hot chocolate to cool down :) I actually wished there was a little more balance, because everything tasted pretty sweet (especially the marshmallow). The hot chocolate wasn't as sweet as the lavender biscotti and marshmallow, but it wasn't bitter enough to contradict them. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed this :P

My next stop was Bel Cafe, which had the Onyx. Just so I wouldn't have to deal with change, I ordered a London Fog macaron. This hot chocolate was mostly sweet sweet sweet x___x There was an inch thick helping of cool chocolate mousse over the hot chocolate, which was an interesting contrast of temperature. The crunchy and bitter cacao nibs were also a nice contrast from the sweet and smooth mousse. I wanted more of those nibs. 

Thierry's flavors were a mystery this year, so I couldn't exactly pinpoint what was in the hot chocolate. I think they put a marshmallow in it? What surprised me when I took the first sip was the drink's similarity to coffee; it was rich in bitterness (but no overpowering) and not too powdery. I'm not sure if they put coffee in it, but sometimes it's difficult to tell coffee and cacao apart. Usually coffee gives me terrible breath, so I speculated that it must have been some high percentage of dark chocolate. I got the order to go and took the mousse home because to be honest...I was dying from all this sugar, hahah.

American Buds: Baodown, To Dine For

Some American buddies decided to watch the Apink concert...such dedicated fans.

I took these noobs to some of the best places. Ever. 

Bao Dowwwnnn is super awesome. For some reason, the order took really long to come, so we got extra baos and extra fries :O Free food always makes up for late food.

One of my friends ordered the Flipside with Kung Fu fries. I tried her fries...it has bok choi with garlic mayo, some sweet soy sauce, and chili. This is why I love fusion restaurants; people can get so creative. This is how perfection is born (just like halfie children). 

This is the YVR with sweet potato fries (they call them Kumote).

Here is the order that came late. Since my friend owed me, he paid for all of this. I think the whole thing costs $25 CAD? We weren't supposed to get an extra bao or extra fries. We weren't complaining :)
From right to left, clockwise: Japoyaki fries, VeVo, and another Flipside. I had the VeVo, since I think that was the only vegetarian bao, lol. It has very typical ingredients for a vegetarian dish; it reminded me of rice bowls served at the Naam and at Green Moustache. It comes with kale, sprouts, beets, and carrots, but the peanut sauce and shiitake mushrooms make it stand out. I guess those two ingredients are the "Asian" influence. The filling was crunchy and fresh, just the way I like my veggies :)

They also serve street sandwiches. I got the Vancity Fresh (which is the only vegetarian sub). I think the best part about this sandwich was the sauces and the avocado. It has edamame hummus and ginger sesame sauce, which makes it quite addictive (sesame oil and hummus make vegetables taste amazing. The avocado was just an added plus). The bread was crispy, and the insides were smooth and crunchy. Texture was an A+.

To Dine For is another fusion restaurant. This place is well known for their burgers; I saw an article that called this place the best burger place in 2014. I loved this place.

I think my friend got Bob's burger. which has bacon, cheese, mushrooms, onions, pickles, tomatoes, lettuce and their "special" sauce.

I got the only vegetarian burger, called Ravi's burger. It's like Bob's, but the beef patty and bacon is replaced with avocado slices. The mushrooms were quite juicy; I think the mushrooms and the special house sauce made this burger shine. The buns are also crispy and not too soft.
The fries remind me of the ones at the Tipsy Cow in Redmond; they're not too skinny or thick, and they're super crispy. Don't pack the fries, because otherwise they'll get soggy. With fries as good as these, do your best to finish them because they'll never be the same if you bring them home.

My friend's snapchat. Noob.

This is him at the concert. I couldn't believe it was at the Orpheum Theatre...just think of all the litter from those fan boys in such a classy place .___.

I actually wanted to have the rice bowl, but it wasn't going to be available until January 11th :/ However, I'm glad I got the burger. It sounds like this rice bowl is just bibimbap, but I'm not sure. I bet they had their own way of Westernizing it.

Free Food and Konbinya

This post of from a looong time ago, when my school's orchestra went to perform at Surrey. Somehow this got lost :P But, well here it is.

There was so much leftover food. Our TA ordered a massive amount of food from Subway and a nearby grocery store, so of course I had to take advantage of free food <3 

I may have taken one of the boxes of brownies >__> A close locker mate kept asking me for brownies every day, lol. (ahemsunnyahem).

I haven't been to Kobinya, so...I'm back :P Kobinya is simply the Japanese abbreviation for "Convenience", which refers to convenience store. The onigiris and small food items are super cheap; it's the epitome of college food/cheap eats in Asia, lol. The prices were even cheaper because there was a 2 for $3 deal. Not that much of a discount, but every cent counts.

Perilla is a kind of leaf that Asians eat. The leaf was shredded and mixed with the rice.

This is just an omelet with rice inside.

These are my favorite to unwrap, because it's really fun to do. It's designed like this to preserve the crispiness of the seaweed (because otherwise the rice will make the seaweed soggy and chewy, and it'll be difficult to take clean bites).

There's a small tab at the top of the triangle that you pull down, and then you pull apart the two halves. What this does is it removes the plastic that separates the seaweed and rice. Man, Japanese people have the coolest ideas :P

Going Back to Vancouver: Chinese Food in Bellevue and Main Street

Usually, I stay away from Chinese food because I always ate it so often when I was young...but you miss it once in a while.

Actually wait, dumplings are great, I'm okay with having dumplings for life.

Din Tai Fung updated their menu and style :) I've been here every since...I think before my high school years. A lot has changed.

This is the bean curd that has really nice sauce. The sesame oil makes it super addictive.

Their vegetarian dumplings are now colored green! So cool.

I'm glad they didn't take this off the menu (actually, I don't think they took any items off). These are Shanghai rice cakes. They're like ddukbokki :P it's so satisfying to chew on these.

They now have vegetarian buns! Yay

They used to only serve taro and red bean dessert dumplings, but now they've included black sesame buns. I like the nutty taste of them, but they're super rich and sweet.

I don't remember what this one was called. It's basically a Chinese cake that's not overly sweet.

My parents and I went to Sun Sui Wah restaurant on Main Street. I believe there's one in Richmond too. It's basically dim sum.

I liked these taro cakes. They're pan-fried, so the outside tastes kind of like french fries.

This is my mom's favorite. They're just rolled up noodles in soy sauce, and you can dip them in sesame seed sauce (it's kind of like a runny nut butter) and hoisin.

This was something I've never seen before; it's salmon and fish cake and cucumbers wrapped in seaweed and them deep fried. It came with sweet and sour sauce.

Fried tofu, yum.

 Xiao Long Bao (obviously not as good as Din Tai Fung, just saying).

Classic chow mein, (which is always spelled in 99 different ways)

I actually don't really know what this is. :D The white stuff is Chinese bread that they use for buns, but the filling is kind of a mystery..I'm pretty sure there's egg yolk.

Ha chong, but without the "ha" (I believe is shrimp? I tried). It has mushrooms and vegetables inside.

Aaannnnd durian mochi!! They're pretty tiny...not a lot of durian. :(