Of earthquake & burger

Earthquake

August 24th, 2014.  3.20am.
The bed was vibrating violently. Was the bed possessed by ghost or supernatural beings? Did that mean ghosts were real? Was I hallucinating from the unbearable insomnia? The world was still trembling. Not just the bed. The curtains were moving with the invisible force as well. Oh no, it's an earthquake!

That were the thoughts going on in my mind during the seemingly long one minute. My first earthquake experience! A quick Google search showed newsfeeds that a 6.1 magnitude earthquake just occurred at Vallejo, a city 40 miles away from Davis. A strong one indeed.


Umami Burger

I was going to pick up a friend from the airport. The initial plan was to meet up with an old friend in San Francisco before going to the airport. Too bad, the friend cancelled this morning at the last minute. Since doing the 3-hour roundtrip drive just to the airport seemed uneconomical, I decided to go get some nice food to reward myself. Usually, I'd pick some sort Asian cuisine, but I was kind of craving for something American today. It just happened I remembered a burger joint I have always wanted to try - Umami Burger.

I think I read about it in an article in a food magazine, and the review was raving. There were 2 joints in san Francisco, and each joint has the same menus except for the one exclusive burger. The joint I picked was located on Union St. It was my first time venturing into that part of the city. There're many restaurants and bistros on that street. I like the modern yet relaxing vibe of the street, away from the hustle bustle of the touristy San Francisco. It wasn't that hard to find a parking spot since it's 8.30pm on a Sunday night, and I parked right across from the Umami Burger.

The restaurant was not even half full when I entered. I grabbed a seat at the bar. The bartender was very friendly. Knowing I'm a first timer at the restaurant, he quickly explained the concept of the restaurant and Umami, and recommended a few burgers to me. Well, I did research on the menu back at home. I already eyeing for the exclusive burger served that particular joint - the Bacon-wrapped Scallop Burger. I like seafood! And, come on, who can resist bacon-wrapped anything! So, I got my order in.

The wait was kind of awkward. I was sitting at the bar, and usually the bartender like to have a friendly chat with the customer when they're free, but I wasn't in good in chatting. So, I kept watching the news at TV and tried my best to avoid eye contact. Luckily, the burger came quite promptly, within 10 minutes of ordering. Time to dig in!

I must say the burger was surprisingly good! The flavor profiles were quite unique, it's not the ordinary burger flavor that I have expected. I still couldn't find a word to describe it. I did taste some Asian flavor in the burger sauce, something like soy or Worcestershire sauce or Ramly burger sauce, maybe it's Umami flavor! It was quite interesting and surprising good!

Halfway through my gobbling down the burger, a young lady customer  approached me and asked if I've paid for the burger. As I replied 'no', she gave me a coupon for a free burger! Wow, a yummy burger for free! It must be my lucky day!

The Mid-start

Wow! It's been more than 1.5 years since my last post. I was going through my old pictures in my hard disk, suddenly, I felt grateful to have taken all those pictures, especially the ones that documented my journey when I first stepped on this country. It might seems silly to take pictures of the mundane life, but flipping through the albums brought me down to the memory lane and reminded me of who I am when I was lost. I used to have a blog too, but too bad Friendster lost its steam and all my blog with the site was lost into the thin cyber space. So, here I am, decided to start writing!

A lot happened last year. Some were good, some were bad, and some were worse. I have been thinking a lot about a dear friend who left us last year for these past few days. Until now, I still couldn't comprehend his early departure. Maybe it's better for him to be released from all the sufferings. I have always thought I would meet him again if I ever visited east coast. I couldn't help but feel sorry for not being able bid him a proper farewell. Hope you're all well...

It's 8pm now, still in office, not working, but don't feel like going back to the apartment either. Nothing much is happening the summer. Maybe I should head to the downtown for some sweet desserts :)

Ciao!

Vancouver - night TWO

This will be a short post (relatively~)..

So we reached Vancouver from Victoria at around 6pm, checked into the same hostel (the one we stayed on the 1st night in Vancourver), then we went to shop.. shopping for FOOD!

Sarah did some research on where to eat before the trip, and found out that there are a couple of nice eateries in Gastown (one of the neighborhoods/sections/boroughs in Vancouver), which is located only 2 blocks away from our hostel.

The first stop, Rogue, famous for its seafood mac and cheese and of course we tried it! Since I was quite full and we planned to go to other places for different food, we only get one dish. 

Ambience was very nice. Decoration was very modern. Yet, the price of food was not that expensive compared to other places. (But, still expensive compared to dining in U.S XP)

We got the house special cocktail, something like bloody mary, can't remember the name anymore. It tasted salty instead of sweet, a little bit like sauce for Mexican food because they used tabasco sauce and Worcestershire sauce as the main ingredients. I gave 4/10 since I like sweet cocktail more *sweet tooth*.

The famous seafood Mac n Cheese! Portion was quite small but loaded with seafood like prawn and lobster *i think* meat. Yum!

A very elegent entrance for a restaurant that has a quite upbeat feel and has mainly young adults as customers.It's actually located inside an old train station building (now is the Waterfront Skytrain station, something like MRT/LRT/subway station).

After Rogue, we walked around Gastown, seeking another eatery, this time for a cafe famous for its cheesecake. Unfortunately, we're a little bit late, and the cafe was closed half an hour ago. Well, we'd be back! On the way, we saw the steam clock, one of the historical attractions in Gastown since steam clocks are rarely used/seen in other places. Albeit really old (more than 100 years?), the clock is actually still functional! It whistles on the hour and releases steam every 15 minutes! Quite cool!

Trying to take postcard view of Gastown. The building/intersection was always depicted in prints like brochures and postcards that talked about Gastown  :)

 Saw Canada Place from afar, couldn't resist taking the picture tho blocked by the fence :P

 Reaching my hand through the fence to capture this! Not bad ba?

The tower with red Xmas tree is Vancouver Look Out where you can go up and get a bird eye view of Vancouver. It was closed that time, so we didn't get to go up.

 The left buiding is the Waterfront station where we had mac n Cheese

Japadog! One of the popular street food in Vancouver! It sells hotdogs but in Japanese style. The poster said there were more than 100 people queuing up for it during 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic!

Menu. I had #1 Kurobuta Terimayo -- Pork sausage with special mayo sauce with some seaweed as toppings. Quite yummy! No wonder it's one of the most popular choices :) 

Sarah had #2 Okonomi dog, which was the same pork sausage but with Okonomi ingredients like fish flakes and teriyaki sauce as toppings. 

The hotdog marked the end of the food-hunting night for us. We walked back to our hostel from there. It took us around 20 minutes since the cart was located at Robson street, around 5 blocks north and 3 blocks west from the St Clair hostel. I found most part of the Vancouver downtown were quite quiet, with the exception of the shopping area i.e Robson St. I actually didn't feel very secured walking on the streets at night since there was not many people or tourists. Well, maybe winter is the off peak vacation season in Vancouver. Anyhow, we managed to get back to our cozy room without any troubles :) It's was fun and stomach-full night!

Excursion to Victoria Day TWO

SECOND day at Victoria, woke up early again, but this time was for breakfast at a highly reviewed Blue Fox Cafe (http://www.thebluefoxcafe.com/) in Victoria. We tried to be first customers so we didn't have to wait in-line for too long. The cafe opened at 8am. We arrived at around 7.45am, yet, there were already 2 groups of customers in front of us! After the cafe opens, we were led to a table next to a huge glass window. The decor of the cafe was very nice, with colorful dishes on the tables and red brick walls. Too bad I was charging my camera in the hostel and so didn't take any pictures. The servers were very friendly and upbeat! They started us off with house coffee. It took us a while to make up our minds on what to order since everything sounded so yummy! In the end, Sarah had smoked salmon egg benedict/Eggs Delmonico ($13), a savory dish, while I got Oranges del Sol, which was French toast with cinnamon, vanilla velvet sour cream sauce, fresh orange segments, toasted pecan and syrups ($12)! I'd say it's the BEST french toast I had in the life yet! It was so orangy that it made the whole dish tasted so refreshing even though it was a sweet dish! Besides, the vanilla cream so creamy but not to overwhelming! The whole dish is really a piece of art! Wish I know how to make it!! I was so satisfied with the meal that I was in real good mood the rest of the day. See, breakfast is really the most important meal of the day!

Eggs Delmonico

Oranges del Sol

After the meal, we went back to hostel since we needed to check out by 11am. Then, we started exploring Victoria downtown. The first destination was the Miniature World museum ($13), which held many displays of historical events or random story characters with tiny little figurines and building models. I actually learned some history about Vancouver and Victoria through the exhibition.

British VS US armies during the Revolutionary War

Tiny figures VS thumb!

Castles around the world

 

 

Jack and Jill

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall..

London Bridge

Interior of a model castle

Circus is coming to town!

So, after spending 1.5 hour in the museum, we went to walk around Victoria harbor waterfront. The weather was still gloomy as yesterday.

The Empress hotel, one of the oldest hotel in Victoria, also where the Miniature World located.

The Capital Building.. gloomy weather..

Canada has many nice postbox, all painted in red! So festive!

Sarah sending postcard! Greetings from Victoria :)

Roger's Ice Cream was all around Canada. But 1st store is in Victoria.

 

We basically walked around downtown, visiting several souvenir store the rest of the day.

Pink building!

The Christmas Village that sells Christmas products all year round. We went there around Xmas so didn't really get the feel XD

Nice little bakery opposite the hostel

Victoria City Hall & a cool sport card

 

 

 

 

We catched bus 70 at around 2.40pm to the ferry terminal and managed to board the 4pm Ferry back to Vancover. At first,we planned to take 5pm ferry but the bus trip was shorter then we thought :) Though the ferry was a little different from the one from yesterday, it still has cafe and such.. We spent 1hour in cafe eating and sleep for the rest of the trip.. tired..

 

Poutine, fries with gravy and cheese, Canadian traditional dishes

The car deck inside the ferry, not that diffirent from the Penang ferries

We reached Vancouver early evening. So, we went to explore Vancouver downtown since we're not that tired anymore.. Stay tuned for the next update!