Live in the moment: January 2013

1.28.2013

Winterlicious 3

Cafe la Gaffe

I'm keeping today's "report" brief

(coz I have to start my revision << good student !_!)

We used hours and hours to plan out today's event -_-

(it's so hard to organize an even and get everyone agreed on the time and place! I had NO idea that it could be SO hard! Any professional event planners out there? I adore you.)

Participants: Wendy, Nicole, Me, Alice, Janice, Felix

sorry for those who couldn't come >_<

This French restaurant is one of the three that are located near campus, this is one of the reasons that we chose it.

It's a small restaurant and the place was packed :/

They changed the menu a lot, the options for main course were no longer those I saw on the website lol

Salad

Soup (a little spicy)

Pate (my plate), the pate tasted like rabbit's meat (but the last and only time I had rabbit was when I was ~7 years old, in French lol)

Chicken breast + pasta

I think the sauce was nice :)

Grilled salmon + pasta

Didn't choose this coz I already have a few pieces of salmon fillets sitting in my fridge lol but this looks so yum! (love pasta to death!)

My risotto Fav plate of the meal!

with scallops (very tender) :)

However there were pieces of beef/pork (not sure what -_-) mixed in that were dry, tough and chewy :S

Desserts:

Belgium chocolate cake, baked with rum and banana

If I were to choose again, I'd go for a lighter dessert ._.

Another choice.

No one chose lemon cheesecake, which I wanted to try lol

Regret!

For my overall 2013 Winterlicious experience (pretend to be a pro -_-)
I'd rank Horizons Restaurant as 1st!
Oliver & B and Cafe la Gaffe both take the 2nd place :)
coz Oliver & B has a great dessert (impressive bread pudding) while Cafe la Gaffe has a nice main course (Risotto) :]

My aunt and I have already come up with some "strategies" that we should use for next time's Winterlicious/Summerlicious,
For example:
1) Never order salads coz preparing salads doesn't require much cooking skills lol
2) Go for Winterlicious on alternative days (I just did 3 days in a row), so we could enjoy every experience to the fullest. :)

Next thing to do:
Go burn all that extra fat off!!! lol

1.27.2013

Winterlicious 2

Horizons Restaurant in CN Tower

Spectacular view from the restaurant's window :)

The first time I heard about Winterlicious was when Jon told me he dined in Horizon Restaurant (last year), and I was so jealous :P

This year, it's my turn to try out!

(Aunt caught me taking pictures of Everything lol)

(Aunt's friend came in the restaurant and said that the restaurant would rotate later [she thought we were dining in the 360 restaurant which is located on another floor of CN Tower, and that restaurant is constantly rotating so customers get to see a 360-degrees-view from the windows], then we told her that we were in Horizons, not 360 -_-)

[side-story: Something annoyed me...

When we got into the elevator that took us up the Tower, there was this group of kids and their parents, taking the elevator with us.

And one of the kids (boy, around 8 years old) talked to the CN Tower staff, who's responsible for taking the guests up the tower.

He said "I'm soooo sorry for you, having to travel up and down the tower so many times a day without doing anything." (SO rude!)

That staff was a little embarassed, and gave him a "standard" answer "No, I love this job, I get to meet amazing people everyday, and admire the gorgeous view from the elevator (the door of the elevator is a clear glass)."

The boy went on "And I hate your manager! he makes you stay here in the elevator and do nothing! I hope you'd get promoted, so that you could do something! Do something for your life!"

I almost shouted out "Shut up KID!"

You know Nothing about this job, you know Nothing about how hard it is to find a job.

Neither do you know this person's plan!

I HATE people who judge/comment/look down on others while they really know NOTHING.

Pissed off :(

Hope that staff didn't get too upset.

(This reminded me of my other aunt, who used to give me so much advice, e.g. "you should go to XYZ professional school, or ABC grad school, you should be a XXX in the future, good pay... blah blah blah."

Hey you know nothing about what I wanna do with my life.

Thanks for your concern but I don't need your advice. -_-

(P/S but I still love her.) ]

First time to have lunch beside a breath-taking view.

Could see Lake Ontario, Center Island and a small airport from here!

(The lighting wasn't perfect for taking pics... the sun's shining bright outside ^^)

(dining in the air! As if we're on a plane! because of this, I felt like some of the foods tasted like those provided on planes lol MUCH better versions of those of course.

This could be a romantic place to dine in (if I have the special someone with me lol).

THE FOOD:

Pumpkin soup

(I was about to order a salad but my aunt didn't allow me to lol she said eating salad is just like eating grass -_-)

The amazing main course! stuffed chicken :)

so tender (glad that it wasn't chicken breast), and it's stuffed with my favourite mushrooms!

Close-up of the stuffing:

Although it looks kind of like trash in this photo lol, I swear it's really good!

Another main course:

Not sure what this is called... there were two kinds of fish, in a cream sauce.

but there's no carbs lol (just like eating a pasta sauce alone -v-) But my aunt loved it so much.

(pieces of fish)

Best dessert:

Chocolate Lava cake :) yum...

Although I only had one bite of it (coz it's aunt's plate), I call it the most delicious plate of the meal!!

*missing the Lava cakes my sister and I made last summer >_< they were equally tasty!

pumpkin cheesecake

Really good too!

Overall, this restaurant's very impressive, we shall return :')

The view:

The surface of the lake's so sparkly <3

(Center Island covered with snow)

Glass floor:

Not too interesting as I had already been here before :)

(The daddy was holding his tiny baby over the glass floor lol I can't handle this kind of cuteness >v<

No offence, but why are white babies the cutest (in my eyes)?

They have those big, bright-coloured eyes and long, curled lashes that win everyone's heart <3 omg)

Hope that tomorrow's lunch would be as good as today's, or even better!

Can't wait!
(NEED to go to the gym this week to burn off all that fat!

I usually don't eat till I'm 100% full for each meal, but I just did :S)

P/S wore make-up today and my aunt asked me whether fake lashes can be used more than once, I told her "Sure, but I'm not wearing fake lashes now."

And she's surprised as she found my lashes looked so much longer today!

Thanks to kiss me mascara! I have never got any comliments on my lashes and I just did because of this awesome product :D lol

1.26.2013

Winterlicious 1

Have been waiting for a while, today's finally "Winterlicious" :P

Dined in Oliver & Bonacini

seems that this restaurant just had a makeover :)

(blogger doesn't allow me to enlarge all my photos :( .. argh.. can't read the menu from here! annoying.)

Why are menus so hard to read?

seriously I don't know most of the words on this menu -_-

(note to myself: if you wanna learn new vocabs, go study restaurants' menus lol)

and they often use French/Italian/Spanish...etc on menus, making them even harder to understand ._.

Was a little embarrased to ask the waitress to describe the dishes -_-, ~~as if that was the first time we dined in a restaurant lol~~

We asked her what is "venison'', she was a little surprised (I think it's the same as asking what a "chicken" is lmao)

and said it's the meat of a wild animal lol

and added that it's something between a deer and a moose

okay, sounded interesting to us, and we ordered that:)

salad's great :)

since I'm loving raw veggi salads recently, this is perfect for me.

this is the dish with the "wild animal" ! lol

I have to say I regret ordering this coz it's too salty since there's no carbs in this dish... so it's like eating a sauce alone.

venison tastes like pork 0v0 not as interesting as we thought.

(aunt's dessert)

Best plate of the day! bread pudding :) so good!

(my dessert)

At first I thought that was a giant grape :P

but it's actually a scoop of chocolate mousse,

underneath that is a piece of fluffy cake + raspberry sauce

I'm inspired by how they could make a simple piece of sponge cake looked fancy!

let me make my own version of this someday :)

After lunch, we went to get the car fixed.

so worried that the car would be dropped while he was fixing it lol

Displaying the Cinderella figures in my room:)

Disney's characters melt my heart <3

so happy to be doing my work in front of them :)

Close-up:

don't know if I should put the naughty cat, Lucifer, down there being with his mom or up here watching over the mice lol

btw, I love how the personality of this cat is protraited in the movie! although he always wants to kill the two mice, which I also love, his stupidity makes him somehow lovable lol