A few weeks ago the good people at Nairn’s sent me a bunch of oatcakes for me to try and review. After much consideration, here are my thoughts.

There were four types of savoury oatcakes. My first impression was that they were very dry. But putting a piece of cheese on them made them palatable. And then they started to grow on me and I started liking them more and more. My coworker told me that she used to eat oatcakes with butter on them when she was young.

The organic ones and the roughly milled were the most plain. The cheese flavoured one had a slight cheesy taste, mostly at the end. And the sunflower ones were slightly thinner and very nice. The sunflower ones were the most like traditional crackers we eat in Canada.

I liked that the list of ingredients was very short with simple things like oats and baking soda and sunflower oil. They aren’t gluten or nut free though, unfortunately.

The sweet oatcakes were way easier to eat. They taste delicious! Just the right amount of sugar so they’re not too sweet or too bland.

Scott and I liked the mixed berries one a lot (chewy raisin type bits) and the chocolate chip ones tasted like Dad’s cookies. Yum. The ginger ones were a bit too gingery for me but Scott and Rosemarie enjoyed them.

You cannot deny that they do slightly resemble a coaster though. Haha.

I ended up eating a lot of oatcakes in the past few weeks. The absolute best part about them in my opinion is that they keep you feeling full for a really long time. I had two chocolate chip ones before my skeleton tryouts and felt energized and not hungry the whole time. And a couple oatcakes before going into the angiography department for a few hours keeps the tummy rumbles away when I used to have troubles with that before. The oats have tons of staying power and I’m glad I got to try them!

Disclaimer: I was not compensated for this post other than the free product, and all opinions are my own.

Hangover Helper – poached egg, back bacon, hollandaise, green onion

Abba – avocado, bacon, brie, apple, balsamic reduction

Scott and I went out for breakfast on the weekend. We ordered these two waffles and then traded halves. The waffles were really nice, crunchy and chewy, delicious. The toppings were good but had a few flaws, the poached eggs were poached hard, which is unfortunate in my opinion, and the Abba waffle needed three times as much brie and some kind of sauce to stop it from being a little dry. However, the hollandaise was nice and tangy and the bacon was plentiful.

I would like to go back and try some of their sweet waffles some time.

Scandilicious Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Lauren came to visit a little while ago. My Lauren, not Rosemarie’s Lauren, haha. So confusing. She stayed with us a few days. Scott and I were working every day but it was fun hanging out in the evenings. We went to the fireworks one night, and she took us out for a nice dinner too. We picked Sushi Oyama because I’ve always heard good things about it but hadn’t been yet. It did not disappoint!

Tataki Roll (deep fried prawn, cucumber, avocado, tuna tataki, house special dressing).

This roll was really nice, it was light and refreshing. It didn’t taste like any sushi roll I have tried before. The dressing/sauce was yum. What a pretty roll too.

Green Dragon (eel, cucumber, avocado, three types of tobiko, bonito, mayo).

This roll was also awesome. I love the presentation. I’ve never had different types of tobiko before, although I couldn’t really taste the difference between them. Creamy avocado and bbq eel is always great.

Yam Tempura Roll & Vegetable Roll.

The yam one was decent but the vegetable roll was pretty boring to be honest. Definitely overshadowed by all the special rolls.

Las Vegas Roll (5 kinds of sauce, cream cheese, spicy salmon, crab, cucumber, tobiko, bonito).

Now this one was ridiculous. And I pretty much had to eat the whole thing because SOME PEOPLE don’t like mayo, hehe. The whole thing was deep fried and slathered in sauces. I enjoyed it.

I loved Sushi Oyama and would definitely go back. I think it’s so cool that the restaurant is in a big house too, so many different sections! I’ve heard it can get really busy but we had no problem at dinner time on a weekday.

Thanks for the great dinner Lauren!!

Sushi Oyama Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

minami

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Scott and I celebrated our 4 year (!!) anniversary at Minami this year. It was excellent. We sat at the sushi bar so we could watch the chefs prepare food. Very cool.

We started with tuna tartare with lotus root chips, and chicken and foie gras gyozas. The tartare looked and tasted beautiful and the consommé with the gyozas was superb.

The sushi roll was the Minami Roll, which comes wrapped in short rib. Definitely no soy sauce necessary, this roll had bags of flavour (heh, I think I have been watching too much Masterchef AUS).

We also split an aburi platter of a whole bunch of beautiful nigiri. Each one comes with a different sauce or garnish that compliments the fish very well. My favourite was the tuna nigiri because it melted in my mouth like avocado. Scott liked the mackerel one and the scallop one a lot as well.

And then because you don’t stop eating when you’re full (you stop when you hate yourself), we also got some of their special flame-seared aburi oshi sushi. We had half salmon and half mackerel which our chef torched right before our eyes. Super tasty. I loved the flavour of the mackerel.

Overall we were very pleased with our meal. We had been to Miku before, but I enjoyed myself more at Minami, I guess because the atmosphere is slightly more casual and because we got to sit at the sushi bar. A big thanks to Jessie for a helpful voucher and thanks to Scott for deciding to share it with me. :)

Minami Restaurant Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

A million years ago I had a birthday party. I hope everyone else enjoyed themselves as much as I did, because I had tons of fun.

We had a hotdog bar. There were several types of hotdogs and sausages, plus TONS O’ TOPPINGS. We had: guacamole, mashed potatoes, corn salsa, mustards, hummus, various cheeses, caramelized onions, beer mushrooms, sour cream, basil mayonnaise, bacon, salsa…. and probably more that I’m forgetting. IT WAS AMAZING.

Brian had a great idea of passing his hotdog around and letting everyone put toppings on for him. It ended up with a little of everything, plus a lot of sriracha, and a strip of watermelon. Haha. He still ate it.

Rosemarie and Lauren made me an awesome taco piñata. It looked sooooo cool!!!! Only problem was it was TOO DURABLE! We broke our mop handle and broom handle in the process of bashing the piñata open. But it was worth it for the amount of entertainment gained. I’m glad we didn’t get evicted for Rob being on the roof, especially considering we were being so loud we had a lot of witnesses from the other building. :D

We also played games. PS the above picture shows our answers for “How many acres is Central Park in NYC?”. Apparently Rosemarie thinks that Central Park is only slightly bigger than our cottage property, hehehehehehheeeee. Wits & Wagers and Cards Against Humanity are always fun times.

We really need to have people over more often.