Category Archives: Recreation

I was going through some old (now private) posts on my other blog, and found this one I’d written back in June of this year.

The pictures remind me of delicious times, so I decided to move it here.

Enjoy!

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I had dinner with a friend at Charcoal Sushi and BBQ Restaurant today.

Located on the second floor of London Plaza, Richmond, this little food nook seems pretty popular despite being tucked away — upon entering, we were told we could wait five minutes to sit at the bar, or forty-five for a table. Most of the tables are actually two counters put together and seem to be for larger groups; naturally, we said we’d just sit at the bar, since we were pretty hungry. The unforeseen advantage of this was that we got to watch the sushi chefs preparing our food in front of us, so that pleased me.

Charcoal offers two kinds of menus: the regular, text-based kind that you get in most restaurants, and another menu with large-size photographs of select items from their menu (mostly their different kinds of sashimi and their specialty rolls). It’s a great way of seeing what you’re going to get before you even get it.

Although Charcoal does offer both Japanese and Korean food, we went for the sushi and sashimi:

In descending order: salmon, scallops and hamachi sashimi; specialty roll called ‘Submarine Roll’ with fresh seaweed on top; specialty ‘Big Roller’ including avocado and scallops, with spice. The sashimi were sweet and tender, and the rolls were really very good, with about twelve pieces per plate. I preferred the Big Roller myself, as I had never tried fresh seaweed before and wasn’t sure how I felt about the texture. Plus I love scallops.

(We also ordered agadashi tofu but that unfortunately did not make it to the photo shoot. There were two to three times as many pieces of tofu as I usually expect as an appetizer, and were really quite delicious, so they made a hasty exit from the outside world and into my stomach.)

The only dessert available—which wasn’t listed—was black sesame ice-cream for $3 or $4 (I forget). Either way, we decided to go somewhere else for dessert and ended up at the gelato store around the corner.

All in all a pretty good restaurant for fusion rolls and quality sashimi!

Charcoal Sushi & BBQ Restaurant
250-7997 Westminster Hwy
Richmond BC V6X 1A4
(778) 297-7255

I made up my mind when I was a young girl / I’ve been given this one world / I won’t worry it away…
— Sara Bareilles, “Many the Miles”

The last few days have been hot, but there’s a refreshingly cool breeze blowing today. The textbook list for September should have been posted up on the UBC Bookstore site on Monday, but it’s still mysteriously MIA, so I’m taking this opportunity to enjoy my freedom from academia.

And summer is good. I got to go to the beach for the first time in three years (!!!) after my exam on Saturday, and soaked up the sun to my heart’s content. I’ve also been going out with my girlfriends, practising promenading Jane Austen-style around a park, having lunch with a Groupon coupon at La Brasserie (a Franco-German restaurant), and watching movies.

This year has been lovely to me for the movies I actually wanted to watch:

Toy Story 3 was probably my favourite one of the lot—it was surprisingly funny and touching; my eyes actually stung a little bit near the end.

For those who have never seen the first two movies, you probably don’t have to: suffice to say, Andy is off to college and his childhood toys are accidentally donated to the local daycare centre. The movie is about their attempt to return home. It’s beautifully animated, as all of Pixar’s works are, and is definitely a summer highlight.

I watched this in 3D at Tinseltown for $15.75, because I returned to Vancouver quite late and there were very few places showing it at the time. The cinema has large, comfortable seats, but the area is a little dodgy at night and I’m not a fan of being there after dark. The movie was totally worth it, though!

And how could anyone miss out on Inception after all the hype? I’d never seen the trailers or paid attention to the posters, but one of my friends told me it’s about stealing information from your dreams. Now that’s a concept that caught my attention.

I procured two friends to join me at Dunbar, which shows movies at $7 on Tuesdays. (Happily, this is one of those movies it’s easy to procure friends who want to rewatch it.) The movie was fine; I enjoyed it, but didn’t have my mind blown. Actually, I caught myself reflecting on another movie I’d watched with a friend before I left Hong Kong while watching Inception — Mr Nobody, directed by Jaco van Dormael, did blow my mind.

The last movie I saw yesterday at Oakridge (in 2D for $5.99 on Tuesdays, which can include popcorn and a soft drink) was Despicable Me — and I am so disappointed! All my favourite parts of the movie were what I’d already seen from the trailer, and apart from one ‘aww’ moment at the end, the whole thing was remarkably mediocre and requiring more suspension of disbelief than usual. I’m so sad, because I love Agnes; she’s easily my favourite character and exactly what I think my little sister would be like if I had one. Thank goodness I didn’t pay more for a 3D version — I probably should have waited for it come out on DVD.

Ah well.

Another thing I’m loving about my free time now is being able to catch up on all my emails. I do my best to keep up with emails, but I currently owe a lot of friends a lot of typing. They’ve been steadily sending me some fantastic goodies, such as Sin Titulo (which means “Without a Title”), an amazing and suspenseful webcomic I wait for updates like a hawk, and this fantastic commencement speech Ellen DeGeneres gave at Tulane in 2009:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e8ToRVOtRo]
(Her speech starts about one and a half minutes into the video.)

On that cheerful note, I am off to continue cleaning my house and prepare to make kimchi fried rice and pancakes with a friend tonight!

Armed with a bottle of water and a tube of sunscreen, I brought my books out to a bench today to study in preparation for my exam tomorrow. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m terrible when it comes to studying indoors on a sunny day, so I thought I might as well be productive while sitting in the sun.

And I was.

Honestly, I can’t wait until this exam is over and I can be free to do all the summery things I want to do in the next two weeks:

• go to Lonsdale Quay
• visit the UBC Farm Market
• cycle in Stanley Park
• walk home from UBC
• sit and read on Granville Island
• walk up and down Granville Street
• attend a slam poetry session at Cafe Deux Soleils
• go to the beach — and the list goes on.

That list doesn’t cover the things I need to do as well, such as sort out a banking problem, prepare to move back into rez, and deal with The Return of the Wasps — we had a wasp nest by our chimney and pest control dealt with them, but they have come back and I am infuriated at this invasion of my territory. I’m actually petrified of them, but there are unfortunately three waiting to be killed, so I’m off to do that now.

(Oh yes, and the title of this post is in reference to Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge, which I don’t actually care all that much about, but he is the author of the wonderful All My Sons and The Crucible, which is one of my favourite plays. Ever.)

Kintaro's store front

Oh Kintaro, the most famous ramen store in Vancouver—(in)famous also for its incredibly long lines. Expect the line to stream far out of the store during peak hours; people have been known to wait for an hour or more to get a seat in this little store.

And it is a small place—don’t come here expecting fancy decoration. There are only a few tables around which patrons sit together; it’s a ‘sit down, eat up, and get out’ sort of place when the lines are long, but it’s a great place to get a quick, good meal.

I was working downtown the other day and got off early, so decided to take my chance and grab a bowl of ramen while it was early afternoon. As I expected, there were only a couple of people in line in front of me, and it wasn’t long before I had a seat at the kitchen bar.

Say hello to my promptly-served cheese ramen:

Cheese ramen

I ordered this because my brother swears he’s taken me to Kintaro for cheese ramen years ago when I was visiting him, but I can’t remember it, so thought I should try it again. I was actually a little taken aback by the portions—for about $1 or $2 more than Benkei, you get literally twice the amount of food. The bowls are huge and that heaping amount of cheese really does border on the obscene. Definitely not for the health-conscious eater.

The cheese itself (once you get over the amount) is quite decent: it melts in the steaming soup quickly, so you get to eat cheese strings along with your ramen, and adds a sort of milky flavour to an already delicious broth without overwhelming it. The pork slices were also quite tasty, and I liked the noodles better than the ones they serve in Benkei. Heck, I like the whole thing more than Benkei, and for the price you get those portions at? A far better deal and one worth returning for.

And most importantly? I found out that bamboo does not have to stink! The bamboo shoots at Kintaro are perfectly unobjectionable in smell and were also sweet-tasting, which added to my joy of rediscovering decent bamboo.

The cheese really was too much, however, and I ended up not eating all of it. I don’t think I’ll ever have this particular ramen again, but I will definitely drop by to try some other flavours the next time there’s hardly anyone in line.

At least I finally satisfied my ramen craving!

Kintaro Ramen
788 Denman St
Vancouver BC

(No credit cards)