Nom Nom NOm

I went to the Downtown Farmers Market yesterday and look what I got...

Eva Sweets waffle with whip cream and raspberry sauce

Too Cute

I was home Home Sense the other day and came across this adorable cake mold.

My sister features something like this on her blog, check it out: http://fordaloveof.blogspot.com/2011/05/so-hot-right-now.html

Pampa

Location: 109th St Edmonton

I finally went to Papma today for lunch! Yey, I'm so happy. I've been meaning to check out this place since it opened but could never find a decent time to fit it in. I booked a lunch reservation just in case since I knew it was Friday and lunch hour downtown. Lunch is 21$ per person and is all you can eat.

Anyways, I'm just going to post up my pictures first and comment a little more at a later date about this great place. I took the picture with my phone so the quality is not very good, my apologies. And I totally forgot to take a picture of my plate before I ate everything from the salad bar :(

The coaster things you flip if you want them to
come around with meat

Such a blurry picture. But its pretty embarrassing walking up to the salad bar and whipping your phone out
to take a picture :p

Extensive wine collection

This look gross, but its all the juices from the meat that they slice right at your table

Salad bar is on the left

Sirloin

Home Made Salmon Dinner

Another one of my home made dinners. Lemon baked salmon with buttered potatoes and asparagus and egg plant. For dessert there was warm cinnamon rolls with hot cream cheese frosting for dip.

Palenque Mexican Restaurant

See, there is a burrito under all that salad

Overlooking a nice golf course

Green golf course, dead brown hill

El Ranchito - Davenport, WA



San Francisco Sourdough Eatery - Wenatchee

While in Wenatchee, WA I was immediately drawn into a place called the San Francisco Sourdough Eatery. Sourdough bread and I have a bit of a love affair going and so I could not resit picking myself up a chewy sourdough sandwich. The eatery offered a verity of sourdough subs with different meat fillings. I opted for the pesto turkey while Coel had the plain turkey. It was divine.

Sonic - Washington, USA

One of the things I promised myself to do while in the States was to only eat food that I could not get back home. Thankfully, I actually manged to just that, with a slight exception to Denny's (but I did order a burger that they don't have in Canada!)

Sonic, the fast food chain we up here in Canada have seen on TV adds on American channels was one fast food joint I manged to try out during my trip. Coel and I both ordered their hot dogs, his a 'chili dog' and mine a 'Baja dog' (1.50$). We also ordered their cherry lemonade and a side of mozzarella sticks. My Baja dog was actually really good, my favorite part, oddly, being the poppy seed bun. The bun was very soft and moist and chewy just how I like it. The hot dog itself was a typically hot dog but the jalapeno, jack cheese, and tomato made it a little different than your average dog.

Welcome to the U-S of A

On my recent mini road trip to the state of Washington I most certainly made an effort to document some of my restaurant meals for my blog. Unfortunately however, a whole bunch of yummy food made its way into my stomach before I remembered to take photos. Oh well, here are the ones I did manage to capture.

The new, the fabulous..

Hey guys, as I'm sure you can all see, I am currently playing around with new looks for my blog. Bare with me while I go on a bit of creative blit trying to figure out what new look I like best for my blog.

-Maiya

High Voltage

Location: Calgary Trail
My smallGreek donair   (6.50$) with tatziki and Coels West Coast Donair with sweet sauce. High Voltage makes great donairs. One thing that makes them special is that they panini grill their donairs and sprinkle some sort of herb and sea salt mixture on it that tastes wonderful.

Flirt Cupcakes

I purchased a Flash Deals coupon for 4 Flirt Cupcakes for 5$ the other month and finally used it today.

Home Made Dinner

I just wanted to post a picture of the dinner Coel and I made the other night that featured Cajun spiced basa, buttered asparagus, roasted herbed potatoes, and salad (organic lettuce mix, cucumber, baby boccocini, tomato) and balsamic vinaigrette.

The Red Piano

Location: West Edmonton Mall

Coel and I were at WEM earlier this week and decided to check out the Red Piano for lunch. I've walked past the restaurant several times before but have never been inside and was pleasantly surprised by the unique decor inside. The restaurant is decorated and black, white and red and features a large piano as the restaurant centerpiece.

Because we were there on a Tuesday, all sandwiches were 10$ with the purchase of a drink. The sandwich menu was a little limited but that was expected for an inexpensive lunch menu. They offered the "Cubano" (pulled pork, Swiss, mustard, onions, torpedo panini grilled bun), tuna sandwich (tuna tartar, nori), steak sandwich, blackened chicken sandwich, as well as one other sandwich I cant remember.

I ordered the Cubano with a side of fries and Coel ordered the tuna sandwich. I quite enjoyed the Cubano and was pleasantly surprised with its large serving. I had also expected to get just normal french fries but was delighted that they served french fries that was dipped in some sort of nice crunch batter, sort of like what is on the sweet potato fries at DaDeo's.

Coel's tuna sandwich was also very good and was a twist on the classical tuna sandwich. It featured tuna tartare mixed with some sort of creamy dressing and was topped with nori seaweed. He opted for the grapefruit salad with fennel dressing. The salad was fantastic and the fennel dressing was very unique. The salad was topped with fresh raspberries and grapefruit segments and a small scoop or raspberry sorbet.

Add caption

Based on our experience I would be willing to try out The Red Piano again, possibly for dinner next time. I was a little apprehensive at first because the restaurant was dead empty when we were there, but hopefully that's not a reflection on the quality or reputation of the place. They also have lots of weekday specials so perhaps I will try one of those out.

Home Made Pizza

This post is a little overdue but I decided to throw it in here anyways. A couple months back Coel and I decided to make our own homemade pizza. This pizza however had a bit of a twist because instead of the traditional tomato sauce, we used guacamole. We baked the crust, added freshly made guacamole, added shrimp, fresh tomato's, cheese, black olives, and drizzled it with tatziki. Interesting combination indeed. We put it under the broiler just long enough to make the cheese melt but yet keep everything fresh.

Chinese Night Market - Richmond

One of the things I was most excited for during my trip to Vancouver was the Chinese Night Market in Richmond. The market is filled with tons of cell phone accessory tents, underwear and socks tents, purses, random knickknacks and gadgets and most importantly...food stalls!!

The market features Chinese, Taiwanese as well as Japanese food stalls. There are a couple small 'western' stalls that served the typical mini donuts as well.

The most popular foods included BBQ quid, Chinese custard cakes, spiral fried potato's, bubble tea, as well as some small Asian treats such as spring rolls, noodles, curry fish balls etc.

Coel and I had some coconut bubble tea, BBQ Squid, and a nutella and a custard cake. We regrettably made the mistake of having an early dinner at Aberdeen Mall ahead of time so our stomachs couldn't take as much food in as we would have liked.

I Am "Sushi-d" Out

Vancouver, as many of you probably know has some of the best selection of Japanese restaurants in the country. Having limited options for good Japanese food and sushi in Edmonton, I always make it my goal to get as much sushi in me as I can while visiting Vancouver. During this summer trip, Coel and I ate sushi almost every day as well as ventured out to a good all you can eat sushi join on Broadway for lunch.

Today's sushi meal was at a casual Japanese restaurant on Broadway Street. We both ordered the bento boxes,  mine with beef teriyaki and Coel's with chicken (for an amazing 6.75$ each). The bento boxes came with six massive rolls of California rolls, three pieces of veggie tempura, salad, and rice and teriyaki. We weren't sure if that would be enough to satisfy us so we ordered veggie maki, which we soon realized was a big mistake as the bento boxes were huge!

Hananoki Japanese Restaurant and Cafe - Richmond

Coel and I visited a little Japanese restaurant in the Tera Nova Shopping Center right by my grandparents place for a little lunch. Whenever I come here I typically order the bento box but being here with Coel I decided to order something else.

Along with bubble tea, Coel has also developed a love for sashimi, which of course we had to order. I've always wanted to try takoyaki but never have had to opportunity to get good takoyaki in Edmonton so I jumped at the chance at ordering it here. We also ordered a serving a California rolls.

I have never had takoyaki before so it was exciting to finally try it. I wasn't so fond of the sauce they put over it, but I did like the texture of the takoyaki itself. I was expecting it to be firmer in texture, but it actaully was like mashed potato in texture.

Mix sashimi