foodstuff | Grated Expectations

The Past Week and the Week Ahead

October 3, 2013 by Katrina·0 Comments

Working at the data centre has been fine. It’s very boring and repetitive but it’s also very easy and low stress. My audiobooks get me through the day.

I already finished:

Gulp by Mary Roach, a book about the entire alimentary canal, from eating to pooping. It was interesting, and at times gross.
The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom, a book set in 1790 about slavery and stuff.
Freakanomics by Steven Levitt, a book using economics to explain random stuff. It was interesting I guess but I can’t trust anything anyone says if it’s only based on one person’s research.
Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris, another one of his usual books. Entertaining.

and I started Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn today.

I seriously love love LOVE that part of the job. Who else can say they finished four books in four days?! If any of you readers have boring jobs I highly recommend audiobooks.

Although fingers crossed I get a nuc med job soon…

Until that happens I will continue to paint my nails multiple neon colours. Those awesome food nail decals are from my internet friend Sara M Lyon’s Etsy shop, btw. They were pretty easy to apply and are super cute! I love everything that she makes.

The week ahead:

I’m going to the Fraser Valley Food Show this weekend, as a food blogger. I get to be driven there by a car service. FANCY. Hopefully we make it in time for the sausage making competition. I haven’t been to this food show before but it sounds pretty similar to Eat! Vancouver and Eat! Vancouver is AWESOME. So I’m excited.

I also need to figure out how to accomplish things around a 10AM-6PM shift. I meant to go to the gym in the morning before work but I’ve been semi-sick all week and it’s only happened once. I love sleeping in! Problem is, by the time I get home from work and eat dinner and check my internets things it’s dark and late and I’ve wasted away the whole day. Hopefully next week is more productive. I woke up before my alarm today so that’s a good sign.

Richmond Night Market, Still Open!

September 26, 2013 by Katrina·0 Comments

The Richmond Night Market is still open for another few weekends. Scott and I went last weekend and had a great time! It wasn’t as crowded as in the summer and we made excellent food decisions and ended up with a really awesome meal.

The first thing we had was chicken karaage. It was MEGA DELICIOUS! It was sweet and spicy and super juicy! Perfection. $5 for 3 pieces.

Lobster something or other. This was our least favourite thing we got. It was a little overcooked. $5.95.

While eating the lobster I noticed this stand and got REALLY SUPER EXCITED. IT’S JIAN BING!!!! AKA something I ate every week in Beijing and have not been able to find since leaving Beijing (except for a weird version in Box Hill mall in Melbourne). It cost 10x as much as I used to pay in Beijing but WHO CARES!

Look how happy I am!! It tasted just like I remembered. Basically it’s a thin pancake with an egg cracked and cooked on top of it, with green onions and cilantro sprinkled on one side. Then you flip it over, brush a couple sauces on it, add a strange crunchy thing and then fold it up! I missed jian bing so much, and this one was great. $5 (I probably would have paid $20 for one, haha.)

We got a couple bbq pork buns too. They were fine, not much to say about them. $3.75 for 2.

Then it was dessert time!! This monstrosity is a deep fried smores cheesecake. I had low expectations for this (because of our sad PNE deep fried Mars bar experience) but it was FREAKING AWESOME! It was ginormous, bursting with warm cheesecake goo, with tons and tons of graham cereal, marshmallows, oreo crumbs, and chocolate on top. Very tasty. Very nutritious. $6

I got a passion fruit lemonade on the way out too. Then we stopped by the casino on the way home but didn’t stay long because casinos seriously weird me out. I want to pull the people away from the tables/machines and tell them STOP THAT YOU’RE WASTING YOUR MONEY!!!! All I can think about is how fast the casino is raking in cash every second. Crazy.

Anyway I’m super glad we went to the market before it closed for the year. The Richmond Night Market is way better than the Summer Night Market, I know that for certain now. I highly recommend going!

Baked Goods Are Good

September 24, 2013 by Katrina·1 Comment

Scott made these sweet cupcake burgers for his work bake sale. Everyone loved them and they were the first things to sell out! That’s a brownie “beef patty” in between vanilla cupcake “buns” with icing “lettuce” and “ketchup”, with heart sprinkles cut in half “sesame seeds”!

I made M&M cookies for me and Reese’s Pieces cookies for Scott. They turned out tasty but SO flat. Then I realized that our baking powder expired in 2011. That MIGHT have something do with it, haha!

This Crepes of Wrath focaccia turned out awesome. I really enjoyed my cheese sandwich for breakfast this morning! Making bread is kinda cool but I certainly miss my mom’s KitchenAid mixer with dough hook for sure. Especially for this one because the dough was suuuuuper sticky!

Sushi By Yuji

September 23, 2013 by Katrina·0 Comments

Last week we tried out a new sushi restaurant near our house called Sushi by Yuji. It’s much nicer and more authentic than the sushi places we usually go to. A nice treat after writing my certification exam last week.

The sushi was great, but the service wasn’t. The fish was all fresh and good but we waited 5ever for our food. We were sitting at the sushi bar so I could see the chef making roll after roll after roll for the other two tables. He didn’t start on our order until he had completely finished the other two tables. I feel like he should have made us something in the middle of that! They also forgot to make the big sushi platter we asked for, and then tried to charge us twice for it when we did get it.

These negitoro with egg thingies were cool. First time trying sushi with raw egg in it! It was squishy and tasty and also very hard to fit in my mouth!

We also got a spicy salmon roll that was decent. I watched him make it and now I know how to make spicy rolls at home! (Sriracha, mayo, green onion… why did we never think of that…)

Overall it was good but I’m not in a big rush to go back because the extra cost doesn’t seem worth it when you can get pretty decent sushi faster and easier at other places.

Daily Dinners Post #19 of 26

September 23, 2013 by Katrina·0 Comments

Back again with another daily dinners post. There’s a few restaurant meals in the mix but I didn’t talk about them much because I think I’ll make separate review posts later.

september 8th, 2013 – pesto pasta with sausage and peppers

september 9th, 2013 – pulled pork sandwich with green beans

september 10th, 2013 – alaska roll and spicy tuna roll from Sushi Garden

We picked up sushi before going to a movie… accidentally carried it sideways in Scott’s bag. Oops!! SUSHI SCRAMBLE! Still tasted delicious though. I think Sushi Garden is my new favourite cheapo sushi restaurant.