deep fried goat cheese? lamb pasta? banana split milkshake? YES PLEASE!

This past month I've been eating out much more than usual and feeling like a total pig. But the food was so delicious and absolutely worth it (I'm sorry body, but I can't help myself). Being Asian, I take pictures of my food so I can show everyone what I ate and make them feel jealous XD (especially Alex, mwuahahahahahaha!).

I went Imadake, a Japanese-style pub with my co-worker and childhood friend, Florence during the beginning of January. We actually went on the day I got fired from the job I got last month. It sucks but I wasn't happy there anyway so I believe it was kismet. Florence had gotten a job offer from another company so needless to say, we had much to celebrate.

We decided to order a bunch of dishes and share them amongst ourselves. We started off with a drink each (which I didn't take a picture of) and some yummy grub. My first was called Hello Kitty (how could I NOT order that?) and if I remember correctly, Florence ordered a mango tango or something. My drink was meh, nothing special but I loved Flo's! Really fruity, perfect for me ;)

Enough with the blah blah's onward with the food!

Classic Tempura
The first item that arrived was the shrimp tempura and it was yummy. It was scorching hot (a good sign since it means it's straight out of the vat of boiling oil) and as hungry as I was, I had to wait for it to cool down before biting into it.

Huge Oyster Mushrooms

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otakuthon 2012

I went to Otakuthon with my friend Suzy last Saturday. I didn't even know about it until I called her and she told me that she was participating in a contest at the anime convention on Friday. Since I've never been to one before, I asked her if she'd like to go with me and she happily agreed.

Within seconds of arriving, I immediately saw a lot of cosplayers. That's obviously normal since it's an anime convention but it was soon apparent that I was going to stick out like a sore thumb. I was one of the weirdos who wasn't in costume. I felt out of place for wearing normal clothes. Crazy, non? I was immediately relieved when Suzy showed up sans costume though.

Instead of just lining up and paying for your ticket, you have to register. It seems to be a complete waste of time since you have to fill in a form with your information and then line up instead of just simply...lining up. But at least you're allowed to choose what you want to have printed on your name tag.

Naturally, I chose this.
We walked into the Exhibition Hall, which is basically where you buy all the merchandise. There were a lot of local artists and their beautiful works! Made me feel artistically challenged -_-

Since I couldn't decorate my room and my office with my own artwork, I splurged and bought a lot of prints. I didn't have time to take pictures of the prints yet since my sister and her boyfriend are visiting and have taken up lodging in my office which is where I put the prints. I'll have pictures for my next post :)

Obviously, there were a lot of plushes as well. But they were mostly pokemon and they weren't that cute and/or fake. There was only two booths that sold authentic kawaii goodies. They also happened to be my cup of tea so naturally I gravitated towards them.

Nemunekos!!!
This booth was one of the first booths that we passed by. At first glance, there doesn't seem to be anything other than Nemunekos that I liked so we just breezed by. But we came back a few hours later and I guess the owner cleaned up the booth a bit and some more kawaii plushies started to surface.

There were smaller kapibarasans (although none of them uber kawaii), some san-x plushies including Rilakkuma and Korilakkuma. I riffled through some of the not so kawaii ones and I found a tiny Rio plush that I've had my eye on forever! From what I could see, it was the last one so I clung onto it for dear life. An adorable little Chou Fleur plush also caught my eye and I brought both of them home, despite my overload of kawaii plushies (keep an eye out for a selling post, real soon. My flickr has all the newest kawaii that I'm selling).

Chou Fleur and Rio the Lion!
I also bought these two adorable Mt. Fujipon and Fujiko Chan keychains. I saw them on Strapya World and I had wanted to buy them but didn't want to pay for shipping. I grabbed the two that were cutest since not all kawaii were made with the same level of kawaiiness!

Mt. Fujipon and Fujiko Chan keychain plushes
During our second and final round of the exhibition hall, we passed by this older woman who was dressed in lolita style. She has a cute display of handmade plushies but my eye was immediately drawn to this adorable takochu. I debated for about 5 mins whether I should get it or not since I had spent quite a sum already. But she seemed like a very nice lady so I decided to get one to support her (and let's be honest, it was too cute to pass up!). It comes with an adorable little matching pin.

Video Game and Movie Glasses

Game of Thrones!

Pokemon & Zelda
I was tempted to get one (or two) of these glasses or at least split with Suzy, since one was $12 and two was $20. But instead I bought a different cup.

Chocobo!
I was tempted to buy a chocobo plush as well but at $25 each, it was too expensive, especially since I'm trying to save money until I get a job (or until I sell a lot of my kawaii away).

During the middle of the afternoon, we decided to check out the Cosplay Café, as it was called. It was basically the cafeteria and they had a "Japanese" menu which consisted of sushi, takoyaki and taiyaki. We both opted for a good ol' artery-clogging tradition Quebecois dish, poutine. With a Japanese twist.

POUTINE WITH SQUID SAUSAGES!!
It was good (because how can poutine not be good), but it'd have to considered a bad poutine since it's served just about every where and there are so many other places that make it way better. I don't know if you understand what I'm trying to say...

As I mentioned there were a lot of cosplays but I didn't take as many pictures as I should've since I was more into enjoying the sights. But I did manage to take a few that I thought were pretty cool.

Belle & Cinderella

Tonberry from the FF series.

Dantes from Devil May Cry

I don't know who she's supposed to be but I thought it was a really nice cosplay

A Geisha

Sailor Scouts & Tuxedo Mask

Naruto Team

Not 100% sure who they're supposed to be but the guy one the left looks like a Persona from Persona 4 and the one on the right looks like Gilgamesh possibly?

Elizabeth & Margaret from Persona 3 & 4
Check out Suzy's instragram, suzysweet57, for some more pictures! Tomorrow is Matsuri, the Japanese festival, first time I'll be attending that too!

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Deliciousness at every turn

My March break is over, and the week went by so quickly. I think it's the first time in a long time that I've actually taken a real break. For the past two and a half years, I've either been in school or I've been working full-time, or both.

But today's post is going to be about the most amazing Japanese izakaya in Montreal (at least that I know of). Ok, to be honest, I didn't even know what an izakaya was until I googled it on Wikipedia just now. According to Wikipedia, it's a Japanese bar that also serves food. That strikes me as surprising since it looks much more like a restaurant to me. Sure, it serves saké and Sappuro but other than that, it's all about the food.

Anyway, I went with my boyfriend last Saturday because I had tried it one other time with a friend for lunch. It was so delicious! The first time I went, I had the curry and it blew my mind. Not only was the food wonderful, it was very cheap, $7. The staff is extremely attentive and polite. They seem to genuinely love their job and were willing to help you with anything.

When I went with my boyfriend last Saturday, we didn't have to wait in line, which was surprising. That place is always packed unless you're there before they open. Within 5 mins of it opening, the place is full. But the place itself is very small, it can maybe seat about 30 people. I had ordered chicken meatballs for starters and the 48-hour pork rice as a main course. The reason it's called 48-hour pork rice is because it's been marinated for 48 hours and it was worth it! The pork was soft and very flavourful. The rice was fluffy and the portions, generous.

The chicken meatballs

48-Hour Pork Rice

My boyfriend and I loved the restaurant so much, that we went back yesterday. We invited another friend to try it with us. Unfortunately, this time we weren't so lucky with the line-up. We waited for about half an hour before they were able to accommodate us. We ended up sitting at the bar in the exact same place as last time. I actually prefer sitting at the bar since you get to watch the chefs in action.

I ordered the Pork Cheeks with Baguettes as an appetizer and the Teriyaki Burger as the main course. The pork cheeks were good but they weren't amazing, as my boyfriend's starter was. The baguettes weren't actually baguettes but more like a pita. The pita was placed in the middle of the dish and what you do is you take a piece of the pita and put some of the pork, which is located around the dish and put some of the pork on it. It's basically a little sandwich. There was also some hot sauce and sweet sauce on the side. I preferred the sweet sauce than the hot sauce. I found that the hot sauce didn't complement the pork.

The Pork Cheeks

The main course, however, was fantastic. It was chicken meat instead of beef but it was so juicy. It was a pretty big portion, and I managed to finish it, even though I was pretty full afterwards. There was thin slices of lettuce in it and some very good sauce. I wasn't sure what it was, but it tasted a bit like mayonnaise. It might've been mixed with ketchup because it was a pink-ish hue. That burger was just fantastic. I can still taste it on my palette.

Teriyaki Burger

My boyfriend has the shrimp pancake as a starter and the pork neck. The shrimp pancake was really good. There was salad placed on top of it and it added a nice crisp to the whole flavour. The shrimp was very nice, not burnt or anything. But it was the pancake that made the whole dish. It was very creamy, surprisingly enough, and it was practically melted on your tongue the moment you put it in your mouth.

Shrimp Pancake

The pork neck was also very good. It was a bit tricky to eat since it was mostly bone but for whatever lack of meat there was on the pork, they up for it by giving you more pieces. It's pretty messy when you're eating this because you're basically using your hands. The waiter did give him extra napkins though. It was very tender and a bit sweet thanks to the sauce that they put on it. It wasn't burnt at all either.

Pork Neck

Even though I was stuffed, I had to order the Earl Grey ice cream. I know it sounds weird, because it's a type of tea. But waitress assured me that it was the best flavour and that I wouldn't regret it. I decided to be adventurous and go for it. Besides, I like Earl Grey so why not. Their ice cream is homemade and you can tell the difference. It wasn't as sweet as the ice cream you normally buy from the store. But it was creamy. There was Earl Grey powder sprinkled all on the surface of my ice cream and the waitress told me that it was real tea. It tasted great! I don't know how, but they made it work. It was a little expensive though, it was $4 and it was a small size but enough for me to really enjoy myself.

My boyfriend has the Saké ice cream, it's the exact same ice cream except they placed some saké under the bowl of ice cream in another bowl. You can pour as much saké as you can on your ice cream, so that gives you a bit of flexibility on how much you want. I tried it and it was good, but not as good as my Early Grey.

I'm going back next week for lunch with the same friend who introduced me to this fab restaurant. I'm definitely going to try something new even though I'm really tempted to get the Teriyaki burger again but honestly, everything they make there looks so good. And so far, I haven't been proven wrong.

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