Here with Andrew

Over the Olympic break, my sister and I wanted to try out some new food on one of the Sundays. This was the same day as one of the Canada hockey games so we didn’t want to head downtown (my sister ended up going to Ebisu afterwards anyways). Off we went to West 4th! (I brought my camera this time)

Trattoria Italian Kitchen is a little place near Burrard and 4th. It belongs to Glowbal Group, which is pretty well known for having some classy restaurants in Yaletown that attracts celebrities.

Service was pretty mediocre on an overall basis; it was slower than I would have expected and we weren’t even addressed when we first walked into the restaurant. I think the staff was very engaged with what was going on with the Olympics which is probably why it didn’t meet my expectations as much.

It seems like the place is pretty popular for breakfast as most of the tables around us were having breakfast.

For starters, we were offered complementary scones. These are probably the best scones I have ever tasted. They were very soft and went well with the lemon cream dipping that came with it. I would definitely make sure to try this out if you ever visit this restaurant.

For our starter, we ordered the Beef Carpaccio. This was better than the ones i’ve had at other restaurants and the portions were quite satisfying (but at $13 it better be)! It was cut thin and there was a creamy sauce that went with it.

Time for an entree! I first heard about this place when my sister mentioned their downtown location. One night, she brought home Kobe Beef meatballs, which were pretty good. This dish was the Spaghetti with Kobe Beef Meatballs and it was served with this truffle type cream sauce. Although the portions are not as large as I would have liked, it definitely met my expectations for this type of restaurant.

My sister went for the BC Salmon (?) Eggs Benedict. It looked good; I just tried a bit of the salmon and it was pretty good. Still would prefer having pasta over this though.

Our total bill was approximately $40 after tip, which is on the pricier side for a lunch meal (at least for me). I would recommend this place for smaller parties/a date if you want to try some good quality food though.

Food – 4
Ambiance –  3.5
Service – 3.5
Overall – 3.7

I sort of lagged on the blogging again so sorry for those who were frequent visitors of my site. At the same time though, I don’t necessarily regret it because I can comfortably say that i’m not forcing myself to shoot entries that are meaningless just for the sake of blogging as a chore. Blogging is a hobby, and I intend to keep it that way. Chores just have too much of a negative connotation associated with it. Although the sense of accomplishment that comes up with finishing a chore can be quite nice…

What does the title of this blog entry mean? Here’s some background.

Ever since I was a kid, I loved McDonalds. Having it for lunch on Wedns was a highlight of a child’s day. Having it for lunch while at school was even better. As years progressed, I began to eat it less and less but frequently enough that the golden taste of their fries kept tempting me all the time. I still remember the first time I dipped fries into the ice cream. It tasted so good.

Twice in my life have I had birthdays at McDonalds. Once was when I was younger. We were all sitting at the mock bar and my dad was ordering food for all of us. We had a great time; I wish I could find some pictures to show everyone of it. Even till today that McDonalds is still standing and i’ve seen it go through many renovations. Does anyone still remember the playplaces in McDonalds?

The second time was when I had a mock post birthday one month later event with some close friends from elementary and high school. I worded it as a get together but it was not as “epic”, if you will, as I had planned.. It was very different; we had all driven there and not everyone even ate much. It still amazes me how much time has passed since our childhood.

Now we fast forward to now. Last week I went to see a doctor and she recommended that I stop having junk food altogether. This was a huge lifestyle decision I had to make. I have been exercising fairly frequently the past few years; this really started to be a regular habit probably closer to grade 8. She also recommended that I cut out a bunch of other things but I doubt i’ll be able to keep up with that (beef included). My heart has been very healthy the past few years and i’m proud of it.

Today, my mom decided not to cook and wanted me to buy McDonalds. I have been sick the past few days and didn’t really want it, but I couldn’t think of much else. So I drove off to pick up lunch for both of us.

The quality of the meal wasn’t much different. 10 piece chicken mcnugget meal with large fries, medium Coke, and McDouble (basically a double cheeseburger with no double cheese but two patties) without mustard or pickles. All with Barbeque and McChicken Sauce.

The feeling wasn’t the same though. These past two years, I have started to feel really uncomfortable after having some food from McDonalds. The feeling is great when you are really craving it and you want it really badly. But today, not feeling up to McDonalds plus the after feeling was the deal breaker for me.

I will not have food from McDonalds  anymore unless there are no other good alternatives given the circumstances.

As a company, I think McDonalds is excellent at what it does no doubt about it. My loyalty towards it as a customer for the past 14+ years must mean something. If I had the money, I might invest in the company and buy some shares. Even after watching Supersize Me, I continued to have Mc Donalds. But it’s time to make a lifestyle choice if i’m going to hit my health goal.

I think this is a good decision for me, for now, isn’t it?

Edit: McDonalds is giving out free Coffee March 1 – March 14. Just a heads up for you guys

I bet that if anyone was to ask any of my friends what one of my New Years Resolutions were for the past 10 years, 95% of them would say that losing weight is one of them. Even till today, this happens to be one of my biggest goals. I put in time to exercise (once a day with a break every few days) yet I still continue to gain weight consistently. What am I doing wrong?

I’ve made a move towards the “eat smaller meals but more often throughout the day” lifestyle. Everyone throws this idea around but I don’t think everyone knows the reasoning behind it. Smaller meals are better because this technique keeps your metabolism and digestion working throughout the day and allowing you to burn more calories in that process. Plus, you address that whole hungry feeling that you get that psychologically convinces you that you can eat an entire cow. Unfortunately, this probably leads you into eating more than you should and feeling bloated and terrible afterwards.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to eat big meals; i’m guilty and still have been guilty of doing it quite often. The satisfying feeling that comes with having these large meals comes with a trade off (feeling overwhelmed and nauseous for some people).

However, I do not believe that society on average encourages us to “eat healthier” which in this case would mean smaller meals. Take for example my experience at Subway. Jared’s story did great things for Subway not just for attracting customers but for building it’s image. Before hearing about Jared, I never had Subway because I was turned off by the smell of one store that I went into when I was younger. The idea simply didn’t appeal to me either; when I was younger my mom would make sandwiches all the time so subs just seemed boring to me.

I ordered a 6 inch turkey breast on italian today. No add-ons, no bacon (the story about when I went to Subway at 1:40 am and was offered extra bacon by the sandwich master for unproperly moulding the bread thus making it more like a 9″ instead of a foot long still makes me shiver), no nothing. The total cost without making an additional meal was around $5. I could have made it into a footlong for another $2 more. Financially, this was very disappointing for me.

Credit to Google Images

Although i’m making a huge generalization with the following calculation (assumes I eat Subway 3 meals a day plus doesn’t take into consideration tax etc), I would have to incur…

$7.50 * 3 meals a day = $22.50

$5.00 * 6 meals a day = $30.00

That’s a 33.3% percent increase in my costs/expenses because I decided to split my meals up (I hope I never have that much bread in one day). I know this isn’t the likely scenario that anyone faces, but if you pay attention to how much you pay to opt for a smaller meal but more meals, it ends up being quite costly. Not to mention I was pretty disappointed the time I decided to go fruit healthy and ended up spending around $6 on a small plastic box container of cherry tomatoes. (I also realized that you can buy a foot long sub and save half of it, but not everyone likes to do that especially if they don’t have a fridge nearby).

What is your preference and why?

In addition to checking out the Sheraton Wall Centre today in Downtown (Enterprize 2010!!!) I also spent a couple of extra hours in Downtown. In about two hours, I came to the conclusion that:

1. The Mondo Gelato on Robson and Bute has fun chairs; very amusing for the young and the old.
2. The Blenz on Robson and Bute is a great spot for people watching and getting some work done.

After that, I went to try the infamous unofficially named #1 Japanese Ramen place in Vancouver, which is Kintaro Ramen on Denman and Robson.

My friend and I walked there from the Blenz; it took us about 10 minutes maybe with it being downhill. Downtown’s really beautiful at night. I really understand why so many people love the vibe of Downtown. It’s so lively and there’s so much to see just about anywhere you go.

Anyways, after searching around for it a bit, we managed to get ourselves across the street from it and watch the line get even longer. Originally, I had called earlier in the day to book a reservation but was told that Kintaro does not take reservations. Then I asked how busy it would be around 6 pm and the person on the phone said it’s usually not too bad on Sundays and there would be no line.

Once we got there, we were probably #11 or 12 in line. The place is particularly small and was very cramped. However, looking at it from the outside makes you wonder what’s so special about the experience. I was pretty excited about trying this place so the line didn’t bother me too much. Even when you’re in line, you can hear chitter-chatter from other folks in line raving about the food in this place. It’s really awesome.

What’s even better was that we were a group of two so we got to skip the group of 5 in front of us. The total time we spent in the restaurant couldn’t have been more than 15 minutes (we checked the receipt, 6:47pm for our order to go in and by 6:58pm we had finished eating).

Credits to Dinehere for the Photo

We were offered water off the bat and had both taken a look at the menu outside to get an advanced look. It’s so busy that there are groups who stand inside, order their food, and their food comes right when a table leaves so they just sit down and eat right away. We both had the Miso Ramen with medium soup and lean BBQ pork. You can choose between light, medium, or rich soup and lean or fat pork. We were both cutting back so obviously we chose the healthier alternative. They also have a cheese ramen there which sounds really neat. I also asked what the difference was between the Miso Ramen and the BBQ Pork Ramen with Miso and the 2nd has more Pork, just in case anyone was wondering.

Other than the ramen and pork, there’s also bean sprouts, green onions, corn, and other miscellaneous sides in the bowl. The soup was very good but seemed to be pretty layered with oil too. I believe that the soup’s made of pork stock…

All in all, the food was pretty good. Our bill came out to about $16 (we didn’t get any appetizers). I would definitely recommend this place to other people. Although it’s a bit cramped, the ambiance/experience felt pretty legit and the service was very to the point; we were given our receipt before we my friend finished her ramen.  I think this place is much better than the other Ramen place i’ve been to, which is in Richmond near Parker Place (Ajisen?)

If you’re ever in the area, do check it out! The walk back to the Canada Line helps with the meal which is actually quite filling…