Casey’s Grill Bar

I think this is the first time I have been to Casey’s. I don’t know if it was because there was a concert here tonight that there were this many people for dinner on a Thursday night or this is just how it is here in downtown restaurants after work. My friends were already there waiting there for 45 minutes before they got a table, I left work late so once I got there, they just got the table.

We needed something quick so I got a Bison burger – with brie cheese, fried apple, onions, apple beer BBQ sauce and lettuce. The fries were so good, crispy hot, so hard to stop. The burger was good, though honestly I can’t tell between bison vs beef. But it was filling… could hardly finish at the end and we didn’t even had any appetizers.

Casey’s Grill Bar
123 Front Street West
Toronto, ON M5J 2M2

When is this extreme cold weather going to stop ???

Ok, at first in January when they said it is going to be -30C with windchill, it was damn cold outside. But as this became frequent, it feels like every week, there is one day that is at least -20C, I got used to it and it just feels like normal winter days. It’s end of February and still, today, with another windchill alert, feels like -25C. It’s so cold the air hurts my face. This winter has been the worst since I have been living here in Toronto.

My coffee is broken

Lately, working day and night shifts, sleeping late, getting up to go to work is a struggle. When I do get to the office, I’m so tired and exhausted … no matter how many cups of coffee I drink. I think my coffee is broken!

McDonalds – Free coffee week

Free coffee week @ McDonald’s. It seems like it always coincide with the roll up the rim @ Tim Hortons to get people to get coffee from McDonald’s instead. Well, it does work for me but the problem is I’m closer to a Tim Hortons at work than McDonald’s. And unfortunately with the freezing cold weather, I’m unwilling to walk the extra 10 minutes to get the free coffee. 😦

Ramen Isshin

Another new ramen place opened up in Toronto, this time in the Kensington Market area. We picked to go on a snowy / rainy day hoping that the other people will be too lazy to go out so there will be less people. We got there around 7pm on a weeknight and we go a seat right away. There were people already dining away and as it got later, more people came. The menu had a lot of new different soup base that is unique.

After reading through the menu, I decided to try the Isshin spicy black tan-tan ramen – thick wavy noodle in miso broth with wok fried ground pork, black sesame, pork belly cha-shu and chilli oil. What is unique is that they give you a mortar of black sesame and a pestle for you to grind your own sesame to add to the noodles. That part was fun, you can smell the fresh sesame. The noodles was chewy, the broth was amazing, miso with black sesame, it wasn’t too spicy but you can add more chilly oil if you prefer more kick to it. It was too bad that it didn’t come with a soft boiled egg, have to add it for extra $$. I will definitely return to try another bowl.

Ramen Isshin
421 College Street
Toronto, ON M5T 1T1

Sochi 2014 – Day 16

Last day of the Olympics game. The big event is the Gold medal match of the Men’s hockey game – Canada vs. Sweden. The game starts at 7am local time so I actually got up at 6am on a Sunday morning to watch the game. Yes, the sacrifice made for Team Canada. It was a good game, we had the procession of the puck most of the game so it was exciting to watch. We scored a goal in each period. Our goalie Carey Price played another shut out game to keep us with the lead of 3-0. With the insurance 3rd goal in the 3rd period, I was more relief and able to enjoy watching the game. The game went by pretty quickly, I was multi-tasking with other things and when I look up at the clock, we were already down to 3 minutes to the game, and then there was only 50 seconds left and then the last 5 seconds. YAH!! Both our men and women’s team won GOLD medals. That’s right, we rule in hockey. At least this time the Finland was more accepting that they got silver, not pissed off faces when they received their medals. It was glad to hear O Canada one more time. We ended up the games with 25 medals (10 golds, 10 silver, 5 bronze), just one medal shy from the 2010 Vancouver Olympic games.

What am I going to do now with no Olympics to watch??

Outbound Love 單戀雙城

This series was pretty good, I liked it a lot, probably it is because of 陳展鵬. His acting has improved so much these past few years, every series is an improvement. Love watching his shows now. So good that TVB is going to air another series of his in April. Honestly, at least with an series that I like, I have something to look forward to watch after work. The theme song he sang – 差半步 – it’s on my playlist ever since I heard it, such a good song. Sadly, I have lost faith in HK music business and the only new Chinese songs I listen to is theme songs like his.

This series, he plays a tour guide in Malaysia and then comes back to HK to go back to being a song writer. Love it when they showed Malaysia – they filmed in Kuala Lumpur and mostly in Penang. I haven’t been to Penang but after watching this, I want to now.

Sochi 2014 – Day 15

I haven’t been updating the Olympic highlights for a few days, because there has been just too many action happening. So hard to catch up on all the games and races after work. But today was especially a spectacular day.

First, early in the morning on the slopes, the final run for the ski cross had 2 Canadians, with 4 women racing. 3 medals given out so we are bound to have a medal. We were leading first and second throughout the entire race and we took Gold and Silver – Marielle Thompson and Kelsey Serwa respectively. Another 1st & 2nd finish for us on the podium. We are doing well on the slopes at these games.

Then, it was the Gold medal match for the men’s curling – Canada vs. Great Britain. I never really watch curling, still learning the rules but I think I’m starting to get it. But this game was fun to watch, I actually re-watched it later in the night as well when they did the re-run.  We were leading way ahead so it was impossible to catch up to us. We finished with a 9-3 score and only had to play until the end of 8 (vs. regular game has 10 ends). Our Canadian women won the gold yesterday in the curling match against Sweden. We made history to be the first Olympics to have both the men and women win gold in curling in the same Olympics.

And then, the main event where the entire Canada was waiting for was the semi-final men’s hockey match between Canada and USA. This is only the semi-final game but it feels like the gold medal match. There has been many talks between these two rivalry teams and it is the showdown. Our Prime Minister Stephen Harper and US President Obama has made a bet with a case of beer. There were also bets that the losing team gets to keep Justin Bieber. I’m sure all the bars in Canada were packed and everyone was somewhere watching the game from 12pm – 3pm. It was like the shut down of the nation as no one was working! All eyes were on the game. The first period went by fast, no score, not much action. Second period, we scored the first goal from Jamie Benn 2 minutes into the period.  And for the rest of the game, there were many close chances but no score. Countdown to the last minute of the 3rd period was intense. US took the goalie out, with the extra player is intimidating. Our goalie was amazing, with a shutout. We survived, everyone was able to breathe and cheer when the horn went off and the game was finish. We beat USA 1-0 and we are going to the Gold medal match against Sweden. YEAH!! USA is not going to get over it… from losing to our Canadian Women’s hockey team to for the Gold medal yesterday and now we beat them in the semi-final. Oh Yeah, that’s right, CANADA is powerful in hockey.

While the hockey game was going on, the Men’s 500m speed skate was happening at the same time. And we had one Canadian in the final race – Charle Cournoyer. The other competitors are strong – China, Russia yet Charle is just in his first Olympics. But he had a great jump start in the beginning of the race and was staying in 2nd, 3rd position during the laps. And luck came our way when one of the Chinese skater fell so it was only 3 left to finish the race. Russian came back in the last lap and took first and Canada finished with a bronze. Not bad, not bad!

Today with 4 medals, our medal standing is now back with 24 medals (9 Gold, 10 Silver, 5 Bronze) and we are back in the #3 spot vs #7 in the standings from yesterday. Let’s see if we can match our 26 medals count from the 2010 Olympic games in Vancouver.

Sochi 2014 – Day 14

Today, the women top the medal board. 2 Gold medals, both from women’s event. First, gold medal from our Women’s curling team. The team was undefeated for all the 9 Olympic games in the tournament and to the final game against Sweden, we beat them 6-3 for the Gold medal.

The next Gold medal is the Women’s hockey against the USA. This was an exciting one. I couldn’t stream it at work so I was only able to see the live scores. We were down 2-0 up to the 3rd period. I was giving up hope and wasn’t really concentrating on the scores anymore, but then 56 minutes into the game, Brianne Jenner scored to close the gap to 2-1. Then 2 minutes later, Marie-Phillip Poulin scored to tie the game 2-2. OMG, I couldn’t believe it. We are going to overtime, life & death game. 8 minutes into the OT game, Marie-Phillip Poulin score her second goal of the game and won the gold medal for Canada.

What a comeback!!! And to see the disappointing and frustrating faces of the American team, it was pretty entertaining. Who would have thought that they were leading 2-0 and with 4 minutes left to the game, Canada came back to tie the game. Amazing!! When they were handing out the silver medal, no one on the team gave a smile, all grumpy and mad faces. And then when the gold was handed out, the happiest faces on everyone’s face. We defended our gold medal, it’s been 4 straight Olympics that we got the gold.

Sochi 2014 – Day 13

Defending Gold medal for the Women’s 2 person bobsled. Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse was trailing from the USA team after 3 runs. On the 4th run, they land down an amazing run and with mistakes from Team USA’s 4th run, we were first place overall and defended the title.

Go CANADA.