Red Bean Around Vancouver #1

So my boyfriend and one of my friends have this obsession regarding finding the best red bean dessert in Vancouver.  Specifically red bean topped with shaved ice, milk (hopefully condensed), and maybe a scoop of ice cream.  If you ask me though, it’s pretty tough to find something really authentic.  Your best bet for finding red bean here in town is at a Chinese café or a Vietnamese restaurant.

Years ago we used to frequent Gold Train Express for a quick bite and there we would often get the red bean drink and orange milk shake (this was the best I’d had).  However, the place has gone downhill.  We’ve been to a number of places since then, but my boyfriend and friend have yet to actually blog about any of this, lol.  Not that it’s a very big or popular topic to blog about.  But I will include this in my food section anyway. 

Tonight we went to Tropika in Richmond for a late snack.  I went there a few months ago with my family and would definitely recommend the coconutty drink they have.  But our goal was red bean.

First up was the simplified Cendol which comprised of red bean, green pandan noodles, condensed milk and shaved ice.  I thought it was quite tasty, though not as good as the first time I had it at this restaurant.  The beans were soft enough, the noodles were good, and it was definitely sweet.  My biggest complaint about this was that there weren’t enough beans or noodles.  I would however like to add that home-made cendol is always tastier. 

The second red bean treat was the red bean with coconut milk, shaved ice and ice cream.  I didn’t have too much of a taste since it was my boyfriend’s order and I’m a little sick at the moment.  The bites that I did have though were very coconutty, again the red bean was also of a good softness.  But could’ve used more beans.  I believe my boyfriend rated this to be one of the better red bean drinks he’s had.

There was a third red bean item on Tropika’s menu, the Ice Kachang, but none of us gave it a shot. Overall, I would say Tropika’s take on the red bean desserts was quite decent and slightly better than what you would find in a café.

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: 30-Second Food Reviews 4 Comments » February 2008

Uhh…

I have never received this much spam before.  And I’d been checking my hotmail a few times throughout the day, emptying it out everytime (in the mornings there might be a page of spam, but throughout the rest of the day, maybe a few here and there since I’m checking more often).  But 1059????

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Random Life Tales, Teh Intrawebs No Comments » February 2008

More Bad Drivers #2

Two bad drivers while I was heading home from work tonight….

#1 - I waited for a car to make a right turn before I made my left turn following them.  It was a pretty small street, as in room enough for two directions of traffic.  The car decided to slow down and come to a stop ahead of me without signaling or anything.  I thought maybe he was going to parallel park, but there wasn’t a spot.  They just decided it was a good place to stop while someone was right behind them.  Thanks for putting on your flashers 10 seconds too late when I now know that your plan was to block the road.  And right before a stop sign at that.

#2 - Just a few minutes later, I’m at a red light at a small one-way street that leads me across a major street.  Light goes green, I start to go.  Idiot in the oncoming left-hand-turn lane decides he wants to keep on moving and pretty much could’ve almost have driven right into me.  Fucktard.

I need to learn to use the horn more.

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Random Life Tales No Comments » February 2008

Industrial-ly

A couple of photos I took on a camera club field trip to North Vancouver.

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Artsy Fartsy No Comments » February 2008

Fish On Rice Sushi: The Worst Maybe.

Back during my college days, a group of us would often go out for all-you-can-eat sushi as it provided a lot of food for a set price.  Plus the group was mostly guys with big appetites.  It was fun times.

Over the last few years though I’ve grown more weary of going to AYCE restaurants.  Vancouver is filled with these places, and even though we are all aware that the quality of the food is usually on the lower end, we still go for a getogether once in a while.  Last night, nine of us decided to return to Fish On Rice in Burnaby.  I was fairly reluctant, as its quality and service has greatly diminished since its opening, but it’s close-by and could accomodate that many of us.

It was quite the dinner…  Four of us got there first so we put in an order.  It took probably 15 minutes though to find a server to pass the order to though.  No one had come to check on us after we were seated.  As the rest of our party arrived, it probably took about 30 minutes to start getting our food.  We didn’t even get our drinks first, those came much later.  Trying to get extra order forms also took a while, and the second round of drinks was also slow.  In the past they’d give us pitchers of pop, but for some reason this time they didn’t.  I also never got my oyster motoyaki.

However, the worst part was soon to come.  A round of miso soups arrived and the first bowl the server placed on the table, he spilled some onto one of the girls’ knees.  Apparently it was quite hot, but she didn’t make a fuss about it.  But right after that, a round of pop came and as the server placed the tray down by the seats, he spilled one of the glasses all over the seat and got one of the guys’ pants wet.  Not good.  Our friend left to get cleaned up (his shoe was also filled with pop, and phased by it, when he poured out the pop from his shoe, he poured it right into two other friends’ shoes, lol) while the employees came to wipe up the mess.

It seems to be a running thing within Vancouver regarding Asian restaurants…  None of the servers are properly trained in good customer service.  They don’t greet you that warmly, they don’t often check on you…  They just get you your food.  I guess maybe that’s how we are just like, haha.  But it probably shouldn’t be an excuse for shoddy service.

When our bill came, we noticed that they left the 10% gratuity charge on, and no discount or any form of compensation was given to us our even our two friends who were mostly affected.  We had to get them to remove the gratuity, but didn’t demand that our friends’ meals be paid for or anything.  We’re pretty passive that way.  Anyway, I don’t think we’ll be going back there again anymore.

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: 30-Second Food Reviews 5 Comments » February 2008

Indiana Jones 4

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/indianajones.html?showVideo=1

Sweet.  I think the trailer’s editing could’ve been a tad tighter, but overall it looks like it’ll retain the same kind of humour the old films did, with a little more unbelievable action which seems to be the thing nowadays.

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Movies, Music, & TV No Comments » February 2008

The Wilhelm Scream

At work, someone puts on a monthly art challenge. It’s usually a single topic and you get a month to create any form of art based on that topic. I haven’t entered any of them in the past, but Tuesday was a rather unproductive day as the network had some issues. So I took about half an hour at the end of the day and came up with a little animated gif for the topic of the “Wilhelm Scream.” I think I should’ve added an extra pose at the beginning as he’s entering the frame, and straightened out the final pose since it kinda makes him look like he wiggles during the fall.  I was also probably also feeling like the stick figure since the network problems made it retardedly slow to work on my PC.

Wednesday, the network was back up and I was more productive so I was happier. I also got to go snowboarding after work, which was pretty fun. I’d say I’m pretty average at boarding, I can carve alright, don’t fall as often, and if I’m well-rested, don’t require stopping every hundred meters down the hill. The only problem is I weigh very little so I don’t get as fast as most of the people I’ve been with go. But I think playing the catch-up game does help me become more comfortable with going fast and hopefully improves my boarding overall.

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Artsy Fartsy 1 Comment » February 2008

Lego will never cease to be cool

Just got this link during work. http://www.brothers-brick.com/

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Teh Intrawebs 1 Comment » February 2008

Vancouver + Snow = Worst. Drivers. Ever.

Vancouver’s already got a bad reputation when it comes to drivers.  But, add snow to that mix and you get even worse drivers.  Everything just slows down so much, and people don’t use any common sense.  It snowed overnight again, but by morning a lot of the snow was mostly slush.  Slush is definitely still slippery.  Especially with the majority of people using all-season tires since we don’t usually get that much snow here.  But for some reason, instead of taking 7 minutes for me to get to work, it took me 50.

I normally take two major streets on my route that connect.  I think I made the mistake of staying in the left lane of the first street as there’ll be random drivers trying to turn left off of it.  Of course, turning left with snow/slush is slower with oncoming traffic being slower, and drivers not anticipating their turns.  So it took me about 25 minutes to get through that first street instead of about three.  To get to the second main street, I turn left off a left-turn signal lane from the first.  I think I had to sit through about four or five signals before it got to my turn.  During this time I saw drivers try to get through the lights when they turn orange, but again, of course, the light turns red by the time they slowly make it half-way through the intersection and therefore slowing up the next direction of cars to go through.

Onto the second main street.  When I made the turn, it was already backed up to the intersection.  So I just made it into the lane, however I had to cut to the second lane out of three instead of taking the inner lane, which I usually avoid doing ’cause I hate it when drivers automatically cut over to the middle lane without signalling or anything.  In the lane to my right there was a truck going really slow for some reason even though he didn’t have any cars in front of him for at least 50 feet or something.  Eventually when space cleared I managed to switch to the right lane and get off that main street to a smaller one which I hoped was going to have less traffic, but didn’t.

On this smaller street, again everyone was going slow.  I admit that the slush was compacted quite a bit and it was downhill, so if your tires sucked, you could’ve done some sliding.  The bus that was a few cars ahead of me was definitely sliding quite a bit.  Ironically, the quickest parts of the street to drive through (I think I hit 20 kilometers per hour) were the school zone and hospital area.  -_-  Finally, I was into work after.

Overall, I really hate Vancouver drivers.  I don’t claim to be the best driver, but I do think I’m one of the better drivers.  The following things piss me off:

1.)  Drivers running stop signs and red lights.
There have been multiple times where I’d get to a stop sign where no one else was at yet, and had I been there 5 seconds earlier and started to go, then someone going 70 kmph would definitely have t-boned me.  Regarding people running lights, I’ve seen two cars run a red light when it was definitely red while an ambulance was trying to go through the intersection with sirens on and everything.

2.) People who suck at parking.
Granted, sometimes I have my off-days and just can’t park for the life of me.  The other day I spotted an open spot a bit late as I was slowly driving and decided to try to pull in instead of backing in like I would prefer.  However I didn’t clear enough space for pulling in so after two or three attempts I gave up and ended up backing in (much easier too).  A woman who was standing at her car saw me attempting the pull in and probably thought I was one of those bad Asian drivers, and made hand motions about doing a bigger curve to pull in, but I didn’t want to reverse a whole bunch and create that curve ’cause I was lazy.  But, it wasn’t a busy lot so I wasn’t in anyone’s way, therefore what I did was only an embarrassment to myself.

I was at one of the malls in Richmond last year and the parking lot was just a horrible design.  There were spots all along the sides that are angled but if the traffic going in/out of the lot is backed up, then it’s tough for anyone to get out of their spot.  I was going up the first ramp and traffic stopped so I was stopped.  A car in a spot to the left of me (so there was me to the right, then the lane for opposing traffic, then the parking spots) was trying to back out.  He started to go, turning the car to the right, but then wouuld think he had no more room to continue to back out (he had at least a meter before hitting me), and end up pulling his car back into the spot to try again.  But instead of straightening his car out as he pulled back in to make for more space to back out, he’d pull back in the same angle he had pulled out.  His passenger in the back then rolled down her window and waved at me to move, but where the hell was I going to move to when traffic wasn’t going anywhere?

3.) People who don’t signal.
Like Clive Owen’s character ranted in Shoot ‘Em Up:  “I move my finger one inch to use my turn signal. Why are these assholes so lazy they can’t move their finger one fucking measly inch to drive more safely?”

4.) People who cut to the further lanes after a left turn.

5.) Slow drivers in the fast lane.

6.) Being a passenger when the driver isn’t very good…  Makes me nervous.

7.) Drivers who do something wrong, but have the audacity to think you’re the one who was wrong and honk at you.
The fact that they don’t realize that they did something wrong is what really annoys me because this means they won’t correct for the future.

8.) Drivers who use the horn excessively.
I wish there was a “quiet” horn though, ’cause sometimes you want to let the person in front of you know that they can go or something, but blasting a loud horn isn’t really polite.

9.) Drivers who block intersections.
Seriously, GTFO of the damn intersection. If you see the stop light for the pedestrian blinking, it means your light is going to turn orange soon, so don’t speed up! Or if traffic looks to be backed up at the other side of the intersection, stop and wait!

10.) And I also hate bicyclists who can’t decide whether they’re drivers or pedestrians.  It sucks getting to a 4-way stop and you think the cyclist who’s just getting there is going to stop at the line like a car, but instead he goes straight through as though he’s a pedestrian.  Make up your mind!

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Random Life Tales No Comments » February 2008

Thanks for eating our roast, buddy!

I rarely ever hear, “My roommate is awesome!”  Normally I hear of the inconsiderate things roommates do.  Last week, my boyfriend and I bought a roast to cook later on, so we stuck it in his freezer.  Yesterday, he woke up to see that his roommate had taken it out of the freezer to thaw on the countertop and had left for the day.  We double checked the freezer to make sure maybe he did buy his own roast, but there wasn’t a second one in there.  So the only conclusion was that he assumed it was his own roast and was planning a decent meal for himself that evening.

I’d have loved to have stuck it back into the freezer, but you’re not supposed to re-freeze meats that have been thawing for a while.  So all my boyfriend could do was wait til his roommate got back to ask him about it.  That didn’t happen ’til pretty late in the day.  He asked him if he thought the roast was his, he answered yes.  He then informed him that the roast was actually ours.  No comment.  Then he added that he should pay him back so that we could go buy another roast.  “Uhhh, I guess…”  No apology, no money yet.  How does it really compute in someone’s head that eating food that isn’t yours is a good idea?  And if someone tells you that it wasn’t yours, why wouldn’t you apologize for the mistake and try to correct it.  Seriously!  WTF?

Posted by tastethehappy Posted in: Uncategorized 2 Comments » February 2008

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