Yes I've been off again. But have I got a massive update for whoever actually reads this. I would also like to say Happy New Years to everyone and for the holidays I was busy going to all sorts of places because Hunnie's older brother finally decided to come back from New Zealand.

Looking back at all the images that I took, I only have New Year's pic, no Christmas. But oh well, I only went out and ate on that day. Christmas Day I went out with hunnie's family out to Sun Sun in Mississauga for dinner. The next day, we went back out there again to have dinner with his aunt and uncle. Yeah, I felt kind of awkward. Same place, same people, same waiter. Good thing we didn't order the same meal. Shame though since I did not take any pictures on both days. This time around though, the food was real good. I guess they decided to step up their game for the holidays.

Now for New Year's, the plan was to go to a club called Dragonfly up in Niagara Falls, but we started out late and had to pick a friend up in Toronto. So it was a massive detour of going up to Toronto and then coming back down to head up to Niagara. The plan was to go watch fireworks there, but from past experience, fireworks for New Year's at Niagara is a very big disappointment. We got stuck in massive traffic close to Cliffton Hill as well. So we ended up watching the fireworks in the middle of traffic. I didn't mind as much since it meant we could get out of there much faster. From past experiences, we had parked in the parking lot close to the ferris wheel and it took us over 2 hours trying to get out of that darn lot.

So countdown was over and we had to meet up with hunnie's godbrother and sister for something you can call a late night snack. lol We met up at the Fallsview Casino and ate at a place I believe called Golden Lotus. Food was mediocre but oh my so expensive.


The table setting.


Classic fish maw soup. I liked how it was presented to us in what I call a creme brulee bowl. The soup came individually for each person instead of a big bowl.


I do not remember what this beef dish was called but oh my it was so tender. The mushrooms weren't cooked at all though.


Half a cold chicken. It was good.


I love this dish. My new favourite. The inside of sea cucumbers with snow peas. I was never fond of the actual sea cucumbers but its inside is so much different from the latter part. The texture is somewhat chewy and just tastes oh so yummy.


Snow pea leaves and prince or king mushroom I believe. Honestly out of all the stir fry vegetable dishes, I love snow pea leaves the best. We also ordered a regular steamed fish and two plates of house special fried rice. The also had a special dish that was supposed to be called Phuc Kien fried rice but apparently the person who wrote the menu could not spell. So instead it was called Phucking Fried Rice. lol

That was all we ordered for 8 people and guess what the bill came up to. A whopping $400 bill. The meal was definitely not worth it. Due to its location the menu was very pricey. At any other restaurant it would only be around $100 - $200 mark. Yay for it being in a Casino.

So after our late night snack, hunnie's brother still wanted to go to Dragonfly but sadly it was closed since by the time we finished our meal it was 2AM. What better thing to do then go play poker to start off the new year. Most of the men went off to play poker, while the girls and hunnie went off to attempt slots. Hunnie wanted to keep me and his godsister company. Plus there were a bunch of unruly people there. About $80 later, we all decided that slots sucks and its very boring, so we left and went off to the bar.

We chatted till 5AM and sometime during the chit chat, I nodded to sleep for a short 2 minutes. lol But the end of the night, hunnie's brother was up $1000 but lost his last hand so only came out with $30 and he tipped the cash lady $5 so he came home with $25. lol Their godbrother however, came out with quite a bit. I forgot how much but it was an impressive amount. He announced that dinner tonight was free. lol

We did not get home till 8AM that day/night and we all snoozed till 3. Once awoke, I threw a tantrum cause I said I didn't want to spend the first day of the year in bed. Sigh, to compensate, hunnie took me out to sushi. lol We also went out with Linda that day since she was in town. We arrived pretty late; around 9:30PM so we didn't eat the AYCE menu and chose from menu instead.

Hockey Sushi
There's really no info I can grab from it online, except it can be considered as a franchise or something along that line. There's one up in Thornhill as well. Anyways, for this one, its located in a part of Guelph that I don't often go to. Before it was Hockey Sushi, it was called Fu Sushi and Yo Shi Sushi. I went there once when it was Yo Shi from readin reviews on how 'Oh wow! the AYCE lunch menu is so good!" But when I went, it was a major major MAJOR disappointment. Their lunch menu was the size of any other AYCE joint's appetizer menu. For the price; $14.99, do they think I'm an idiot? So in the end, the friend I made go with. we ordered off the menu instead. So that was my experience of the place in the past.

So on this night, we felt kind of bad for coming in when they were going to close in about 45 minutes. Since with sushi, its one of those things that you want to sit and eat slowly and have small chitchats. Well actually all meals are like that so what am I talking about. LOL





Doesn't look much but we couldn't finish. From what I can remember, we ordered a 20-30 piece platter of a mix of sushi and sashimi, Dragon rolls, spicy salmon, unagi roll and seaweed salad. It wasn't too bad but I question the spicy salmon roll. Normally I can taste the salmon in it or at least know that I am eating salmon just from the texture alone. This one, it felt more like I'm eating a spicy crispy roll or salmon puree.

Hunnie didn't mind this place and a good thing since I don't not want to go far if I'm craving sushi. He doesn't like the Fuji Sushi that was in downtown because they ticked him off the last time we went. We ordered a spider roll that one time and insterad of a decent looking roll they brought us out 4 pieces that were the sizes of Futo maki and looked like it was thrown on the plate. I did feel kind of embarassed at that time during the confrontation, but he was in the right. I'm just not a confrontational type so I would most likely just have shrugged it off but complain in my mind. So here's what he said:

Hunnie: Excuse me, what is this?
Waiter: Uh...a spider roll.
Hunnie: What is this? Would you pay $8 for this? Does this look like it's worth $8?
Waiter: Uh...no...I wouldn't pay $8 for it.
Hunnie: So why would you serve me something like this?

Hunnie can be very fierce at times that I hate arguing with him. I'm just not as articulate as him. Sigh...the waiter did bring back another spider roll that was very well decorated. Hunnie swore that he was never going to go back there though.

Now how do I know how a spicy crispy roll taste like? Personally I would never ever consider of ordering this since its basically tempure flakes in a mix of mayo and hot sauce. I ate it once with a friend since it was one of his favourite and afterwards I gave him a talk. lol When it comes to food, I want something decent. The guy can eat raw so its not like he can't handle something like Spicy tuna or salmon.

So after sushi, I really wanted to go and get a haircut. So the very next day I made hunnie take me up to Pacific for it. The sad thing was that we left at the same time as I woke up yesterday. So I could have just dragged him out of bed the day before and take me. Sigh...oh well, I made Andy come and get a hair cut as well. Since I haven't got anything done to my hair for a year, it has gotten incredibly long and gross. Tangles and split ends galore. I decided to go to Arts Inn on the third floor again since I was really satisfied with my last cut. I was hoping to get Ben but since he's a top stylist and I had no appointment, I got a guy named Dickson instead. I did hear compliments about him on Soompi so he wasn't totally an unknown person. Plus I am not all that picky.

I gave him two photos to go by:




I wanted to go short...well correction, I wanted a change so I decided to be daring for a short few hours. I warned him in advance that I might cry afterwards seeing how short my hair was going to be. lol



Two shots I snapped with my new Blackberry Curve. I will talk about that sometime later. I honestly did not like Dickson's hair at all but then hey, who am I to judge. I'm not hardcore fob.




End result. As I don't take much pictures of myself, I don't really have any recent before pics. Yeah too bad. lol These were actually taken on Saturday before I went out for a birthday dinner and again later on that later on in the post or a whole new post altogether....I really do miss hunnie's camera.

Andy's cut came out very nice. They even gave him a perm. lol All he told his stylist was to give him whatever looks good with little maintenance. I honestly thought he was going to come out in a poodle's perm or something.





I made him do a full 360

Now fastforward to the 8th, hunnie's brother, hunnie and I went up and visited their godbrother and sister. They own a nail shop right up in Koreatown on Yonge/Finch. We were hungry so we cross the street over to Owl of Minerva for a quick bite. Crossing the street with his godbrother made me understand the difference in Toronto pedestrians and smaller cities like Guelph. They simply do not care about oncoming cars! Everyone knows how hectic traffic can be up on Yonge, his godbrother just crossed the street like it was a stroll in the park, even though there were a whole line of cars coming right at us. Sigh....brave people that I can never be like.

Anyways, I did not take any pictures here and honestly, I didn't even enjoy it. Either than 'their' bbq meat, I am actually not a fan of korean food. We ordered a big pork bone soup and a plate of kalbi enough for 3 people. We finished the kalbi but we barely touched the pork bone soup at all. I found the taste to be very bland. Compared to Vietnamese cuisine and Thai, I find korean cuisine to be far more bland for my preference. I do enjoy their side dishes and bbq meat though. But really, can you really claim that its really korean? The concept of bbqing meat came from Mongolia and Korea started to pick it up and it slowly became a part of their culture. Yeah, I think I just offended some people right there.

After the small meal we headed back over to the nail shop and the guys went of to shoot some billiards and left us two girls at the shop for a few hours; since their shop was not closing till 8PM. I had a really nice chat with his godsister and her son Cardin is so friggin adorable!!!

We went to:

Fortune Seafood Restaurant
3833 Midland Avenue,
Scarborough, ON M1V 5L6(

416) 292-4953‎

Its very close to Pacific Mall. What makes this restaurant oh so special according to hunnie's brother is that it has turtle hot pot as a part of their regular menu. In vietname its called Lau Baba. I am not sure if this is just regular turtle or it would be called soft shelled turle but either way, its hunnie's brother's favourite all time meal. Turtle and Black chicken hot pot.

I am not very fond of it.





The black chicken.




The dipping sauce and extra green onions to add in on preference.



That's the turtle



The veggies. Snow pea leaves. I ate a lot of it that night.



My favourite and godbrother's favourite dish as well. The inside of the sea cucumbers stir frited with veggies. This came out very fast and I really liked the veggies that came with it. The sea cucumbers tasted a bit raw to me as the texture tasted somewhat odd. There wasn't enough chewiness to it. The chef made this in too much of a hurry.



Our steamed fish. This was my first time eating this type of fish. It was very fat and the meat on it was somewhat chewy but firm. It tasted real good.

That was my meal for the night and I barely touched the black chicken and turtle. I was really hoping for sushi that night but sadly did not get it. Sigh...disappointment. The broth at the end was very good though. I really like drinking it and it is very healthy. One of the things why I do not like this type of hot pot is because it uses all herbal ingredients. I am already not that big on hot pot so this type of dish still doesn't appeal to me. It is good for once in a while though.

Afterwards we said goodbye to his godbrother's family and we went across the street to the newly opened Go For Tea with hunnie's brother's friend. He felt bad for calling her up to eat with us but she already ate. The decor for Go For Tea was very nice. Compared to the one on Highway 7, this one is more of a lounge and the ceiling is very high. For decor and atmosphere I would rate this as 10+. The bubble tea and dessert not so much. I ordered my usual taro and it really tasted nothing like it and my raspberry mango mousse cake was very sour.


Taken with my BB. No one else liked what they ordered and we left half an hour of being in the place. I didn't know until we left, his godbrother's friend is part owner of this one. Nice to know.

The next day I spent the whole day going up to a travel agency in Mississauga with hunnie's family for them to book their flights to China. Yup, my hunnie is off in China and then Vietnam for 2 months while I'm stuck in Canada. Very unfair. Anyways, afterwards we went to Yorkdale so they can buy suits, ties and whatnot for their trip. We didn't have time to have dinner with his parents since we had to go pick up a friend from the airport. His girlfriend then suggested to go eat at Fortune. Oh whoopie doo...hunnie's brother was about to order the exact same food again but thankfully the friend didn't want to eat. We had an eel dinner that night. No pics sadly. Afterwards, we went to Nhi Nhi on Keele or something like that for a karaoke party. Well more like drinking.

The next day was my younger brother's birthday. He decided to eat Japanese for his special day. We had to meet up with my mom up in Mississauga so we picked Sushi Tei. It is not an AYCE place but I heard good reviews of the place so lets give it a shot.

Sushi Tei
4040 Creditview Road
Mississauga, ON L5C

(905) 306-9060



The decor I found pretty nice. Too bad we couldn't be seated in the nice rooms they had. Booo...


Hunnie loves his edamame. These ones weren't as great. Felt soggy.



Apparently this place is also partly korean so we got some side dishes. We barely touched them and it more or less took up space.



My expensive seaweed salad. Around $3-4 for this and compared to the one I got at Hockey Sushi or any other places, this was not worth the price.





Free mackeral on the house. Andy liked it. I thought it was ok. Hunnie didn't touch it. It came with a very pretty butterfly decoration.


Andy got his special box again


Voila!






Sashimi platter. Somewhere between 20-40 pieces. I've come to realize that even though I like to order sashimi, the only thing I like to eat is the salmon.


My mom's tempure and teriyaki salmon.



Dragon roll and a special roll called Ocean maki. It looked real nice on the menu. Taste-wise, I didn't get to taste it but according to Jonathan, it was like a mix of blood and water. Here's some more pics. The dragon roll was pretty good. There was even scallop in it.







Rainbow roll and spicy salmon.

The bill came to around $140. Not bad since everyone was very stuffed.

This ends the dining part of my holiday. Next update will be about the more materialistic thing. Hopefully won't be long. Tah tah~

Labels: dine, dining, food, japanese