Pajo's Fish & Chips: Free birthday meal and for winter babies

Pajo's Fish & Chips

One of my mom's fondest memories during her early days in Canada is having fish and chips. Apparently that's the only thing she had no problem ordering. Fish and chips - easy to pronounce and simple to the point.

Pajo's Fish & Chips has 4 locations and I went to the one at Fisherman's Wharf, the best location in my opinion. Why? Because it's their very first location (original location is always better!) and near the water on the dockside wharf!

Steveston Fisherman's Wharf is absolutely a stunning place even on a not-so sunny day, like today. It's very easy to commute to too. I just took the 401 bus from Richmond Centre and in about 20 minutes, bam, I'm there! Yay for transit! Yay for the dockside,  beautiful views, fish boats, and fresh seafood!

Steveston Fisherman's Wharf

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Matsuyama Japanese Restaurant

Japanese night! We went to Matsuyama Japanese Restaurant in Richmond on Alexandra Road (where many, many restaurants are located). We chose Matsuyama because we had a relatively large group and the place seemed to be able to handle large groups.

I wasn't that hungry, so one of my friends and I decided to share a bento box and a roll. We settled for the dragon roll and obento box C. The dragon roll came with only 4 pieces, but I guess they were relatively big.

Dragon Roll $4.95

Box C $12.99

Box C came with miso soup (not pictured), salad, tempura, 6 California rolls, 4 pieces of sashimi (tuna and salmon), chicken karaage, and rice. I think this bento box

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Kam Do Restaurant & Bakery 金都餐廳餅店

I love bakeries and freshly baked goods. Among the abundant Chinese bakeries here in Vancouver and Richmond, Kam Do is my favourite for winter melon cakes (alternatively called sweetheart cake). In Chinese, they're called 老婆饼, which directly translates to "wife's cookie". Why such a name for a pastry? There are a few legends that describes the origin of this pastry. One legend says that winter melon cakes were invented by a man and dedicated them to his wife. His wife had sold herself in return for money that was needed for medicine for her father-in-law.

I've tried many winter melon cakes from many different Chinese bakeries here, and I have to say that I fell in love with Kam Do's after the first bite. Be gentle with them as the outside is flaky and delicate, but the inside is filled with a paste that makes it chewy. I think Kam Do does an excellent job of making the outside flaky as well as the taste of the paste and the degree of chewiness. And as you may know, I love chewy food! 

老婆饼 Winter melon cake

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New Richmond IKEA



Chocolate covered marshmallow
from Ikea

 April 25th was the grand opening of the new IKEA store in Richmond. That day, Ikea gave out a range of prizes from hot dog vouchers to gift cards of values up to $250 to the first 1000 people in line. Unfortunately, I couldn't attend their grand opening day, but I visited their new store last weekend. It is located next to the old store and upon entering the new one, I was surprised that I was greeted with food sampling! So while you're shopping for furniture, home decorations, and storage ideas, you can do some grocery shopping too thanks to IkeaFood.

I've always loved going to Ikea as it gives me inspiration to rearrange my room in a better way as well as innovative ideas for storage. I actually really like looking at the different show rooms, similar to how I like touring my friends' houses. The new Ikea is definitely bigger, with more show rooms and a bigger restaurant too.

One thing I especially notice during this visit is shown in the picture below. You can take all your light bulbs and batteries for recycling at Ikea. I've always wanted to recycle my dead batteries as they are classified as hazardous waste, but I did not know where to recycle them. So while you're shopping for new items for your home, you can also clear out old light bulbs and batteries.

Later that day, I met with my friends and they had a bar of giant Toblerone. I had to use a real hammer to get a piece. Sugar overload that day!

Giant Toblerone

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T&T Green Tea Cake Pastry

As I've mentioned in my previous post about Bon Crepe, green tea is one of my all-time favourite flavours. My mom surprised me with a green tea cake pastry from T&T today! I think this is one of their rather newer products as I've never seen it before. I have definitely noticed that T&T have been constantly creative with their products and developing new products for consumers.

T&T Green Tea Cake with
pastry surrounding

I don't think I've had cake with a pastry surrounding it before, so I was very excited when I first saw this. It looked extremely good to me and I do really like how its wrapped in a crust-like pastry, which adds a twist to typical cakes. Indeed, this was very good, but I wouldn't say extremely good. Inside, the cake is soft and moist at just the right level of sweetness and a tasty green tea flavour.

The outside of the cake makes the cake more interesting to eat as it adds a bit of crispiness to it. However, I think I would enjoy just the green tea itself without the pastry just as much as the pastry is more on the oily side. I try to limit my consumption of things that make my fingers oily as that adds extra calories. Nevertheless, a slice of green tea cake with pastry once in a while is nice for a change.

Bon Appetit! 

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