Dessert By Candy

Travelogue April 2-3, 2007

It was a rather uneventful day of traveling. The flight from Toronto to London was full of people with British accents who were eager to go home. As for me, I experienced for the first time what it's like to order a special meal (low calorie) for my flight. It was rather strange to be served before everyone else every time.

As soon as I arrived at Gatwick, I made a beeline to Marks & Spencer. All the prepared food were very enticingly displayed that I had a hard time deciding what to get for lunch (see, novelty can surely affect a person's judgement)! I chose a box of Mini Scotch Eggs (mmm....breaded meatballs with eggs & mayo filling), Giant Couscous Wheatberry Salad With Roasted Butternut Squash (it was alright), Greek-Style Yogurt With Cherry Compote (yum!), and Feast Selection Sandwich. I also saw a really cute 4"-size birthday fruit cake frosted with marzipan. It looked so adorable that I was tempted to get one home...I will definitely make a stop at Marks & Spencer on the last day of my trip to get some goodies.

While I was waiting around in the airport killing time, I saw some funny/scary stuff. There's a juice store with a questionable name which made me chuckle out loud. I mean, really, "Lovejuice" just doesn't evoke a healthy lifestyle image...alright, time to get your minds out of the gutters. I didn't know that Krispy Kreme Donuts have invaded England until I saw people around me toting around boxes of that familiar white and green. On closer investigation, I found out that the Krispy Kreme store was giving away their donuts by the dozen and of course people were quick to sweep them up! Apparently, it was not some promotional schtick. Rather, the store was due for some renovation and they just wanted to get rid of all the donuts so the contractors can do their work. Somehow, the image of all these people walking around with boxes of Krispy Kreme was very scary to me. Think of all the calories!!!!

The Owl Of Minerva

I'm a wimp when it comes to spicy food yet I still crave Korean food once in a while, especially when I'm in the mood for comfort food. A popular type of cooking in Korean cuisine is a hearty soup served with rice. After a hard day of training, I sometimes lose my appetite yet I'm starving to fuel up. For such occasions, a steaming bowl of pork bone soup with potatoes (mildly spicy) or beef bone soup with bean sprouts and vegetables definitely hit the spot. I know that my Mom would probably frown upon it, but I do like to mix spoonfuls of the flavourful broth into rice to moisten it. I really enjoyed both types of soup at The Owl Of Minerva. The pork bone soup was rich thus more suitable for colder weather. The beef bone soup, on the other hand, suits my summer palate. I especially like the blood jello and the bean sprouts in the beef bone soup.

On an interesting note, The Owl Of Minerva is open 24hr. This is particularly useful to know for those times when I get the munchies late at night.

The Owl Of Minerva

5324 Yonge Street, North York, Ontario, Canada

+1 416 221 7275

New Addition To The Family

For those of you who read the description of my travel pictures, you may already know that my beloved Sony DSC-T9 camera was the unfortunate victim of a minor spill at the Ice Hotel which left me with a big bruise on my thigh. Other than a broken LCD, the camera was functioning fine. However, as it does not have a viewfinder, I was left with shooting blind for the remainder of my trip. Heck, I was surprise that most of my pictures turned out alright after all because I took "point-and-shoot" quite literally.

Ever since I came back to Toronto, I've been on the look out of a new compact camera. Being a satisfied user of both the T3 and T9, I had my eye on the T10 and T20. As luck would have it, I spotted a sale of the T10 at only 75% of what I paid for my T9 less than a year ago. I knew for sure that I would come home with a new camera today. Now, the question remained was colour. It was a decision between the black and the pink because I don't want a silver camera. Both my old cameras were black and I really wanted to continue this family tradition. However, considering that both met an early demise (my T3 got stolen in the most flamboyant manner), I got a little superstitious...perhaps I should stay away from getting yet another black camera. I made a few phone calls to check for availability and well, I would need to travel far to get the black one anyway. I think fate is telling me to get a pink camera.

When the store clerk took the camera out of the box, I muttered under my breath "oh gawd....so pink". He mistook my dismay for excitement which I quickly pointed out. I'm actually a little embarrassed about owning yet another piece of pink electronic device. You see, all I need now is a pink mobile phone to complete my collection of pink iPod and pink camera, the holy trinity of a modern girl survival kit. I can't help but to feel like a poster girl for female-consumer-who-knows-squat-about-tech-but-would-spend-money-on-a-pink-gadget.

On the bright side, I'm quite certain none of my male friends would even consider borrowing my camera. Ha!

Junk Food From Afar

Shopping for junk food is always a fun activity when traveling abroad. During my recent trip, I was in such a hurry going from place to place that I really didn't have much time to shop for clothes and shoes. However, I couldnt' possibly let all these precious empty spaces in my suitcase go to waste. As a result, my brilliant plan of filling up my suitcase with junk food was hatched.

My all-time favourite chocolate bar is Jacob Chocolate Orange Biscuits. Unfortunatey, I just couldn't find them anywhere during my brief 24hr stint in London. My original plan was to get at least a dozen of these. Luckily, in their absence, I had lots of room for goodies from Marks & Spencer. Here is a run down of what I ended up getting:

• Nestle BreakAway: this chocolate bar is remarkably similar to Jacob except that it doesn't have the orangey flavour. It is really tasty.
• Marks & Spencer Dark Chocolate Ginger Biscuits: a little light on the ginger flavour but definitely loads of dark chocolate. Not bad at all.
• Marks & Spencer Extremely Chocolatey Orange Biscuits: I was hoping for extremely orangey but instead I got extremely chocolatey. Each piece of biscuit is thickly coated with milk chocolate. My friends like it a lot but I'm diappointed.
• Marks & Spencer Chocolate Refrigerator Cakes: dark rich Belgium chocolate with digestive biscuit pieces, sultanas, and golden syrup. I have yet to try them.
• Marks & Spencer All Butter Flapjack Squares: chewy all butter flapjacks made with oats and golden syrup. I have yet to try them.
• Marks & Spencer Mini Cake: luxury mini fruit cake topped with marzipan, soft icing, and a silver bauble. At first I was going to get one of those mini round birthdays that look so....shelf-stable. However, seeing how bulky they are, I decided to get a petit-four size mini cake instead. I wonder how it tastes?
• Yauatcha Dark Chocolate with Sesame
• Yauatcha White Chocolate with Black Sesame
• Yauatcha Assorted Macarons: the kumquat flavour is the best. Most of the flavours were very bland and too heavy. It centainly doesn't measure up to my favourite macarons from Laduree or Mulot at all but thumbs up for their flavour combinations.
• Minamoto Kitchoan Spring Wagashi: it's a little strange to admit that I shopped at the London, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Hawaii, and New York locations of Minamoto. I always love sakura flavour wagashi and of course spring time is sakura time! I bought a few sakura gelee as well as a strawberry gelee wagashi.
• Konditor & Cook Fruitcake: One of my guilty pleasures is high-quality fruitcake. I just love the rum/brandy-soaked raisins and nuts. The version by Konditor & Cook is delicious without being too rich. The proportion of cake to fruit is just right.
• Konditor & Cook Magic Cake: Such adorable petit fours! The cake base was a very moist citrus-flavour butter cake. I expected this cake to be all looks and no flavour but I was pleasantly surprised to bite into a deliciously well-made cake.

Home At Last!

Oh, I do hope that some of you still come back to my blog...it's been an awful long time since my last post. In my absence, I was traveling in London, Sweden, and Morocco for my best friend's wedding which of course involved lots of good eating. I will update with highlights in the next week or so. However, in the mean time, you can check out my travel pictures here. Traveling from the subzero temperature of the Arctics to the balmy weather in Africa within the span of one week was certainly a memorable experience!