Playoffs...

... YAY! We got seats for the NBA playoffs, Toronto Raptors vs. New Jersey Nets. The last time we watched them go against each other Jason Kidd wasn't there so I'm really looking forward to seeing him! Also, it's fun when Vince Carter is at the dome cause the Canadians love booing him cause of how he was when he used to be with the Raptors!

WEDDING UPDATE: Church Change!

For the past few weeks I've been trying to sort out a minor hiccup in the wedding planning. Our church is getting renovated! So we've been on a hunt to find another available Church that was downtown, available on June 2nd and that we liked. We actually spent one day just driving around churches that I had Googled to see if they looked nice. And with the help of Fr. Mick we are now all set to be married at St. Paul's Basilica (instead of St. Patrick's Church). For details on our new Church, please go to our site: www.mehra-castaneda.com!

Singapore Lah!

It started with hawker-like Chinese food yesterday and now the weekend is turning into a Singapore-like weekend. To be honest though, it's mostly about the food than any other experience.
After the dinner at Pacific Mall yesterday, Vineet was craving dimsum. I had saved an article about the top 10 dimsum places in Ontario so we decided to visit the top-rated place. Lai Wah Heen is supposedly the best dimsum in North America. We had been to the restaurant before and loved it (you should try the moo shu... to die for!) - but we had gone at dinner time so dimsum was not available. We decided to go to their sister restaurant Lai Toh Heen since it was in the Mt. Pleasant area, where there were other nice shops to visit.
The dimsum was amazing!!!!!!!!! They had the "typical" hakaw and siew mai which was really good quality but it was their specials which you order by the piece which made it really unforgettable. Two that we particularly liked: Stuffed Tofu Brick fried in Spicy Sea Salt and Bacon-wrapped Shrimp in Strawberry Wasabi sauce.
The food was so good that I'd definitely come back even though the service wasn't all that great. In fact we joked that it completed the "Singapore experience"! ;-)

The Real Chinatown!

What is recognized as Chinatown is actually just 10 minutes away from where I live. Today though, I found the real Chinatown -- MARKHAM!Looking at the people in the cars in Markham, about 70% of the passengers were Chinese (and the remaining 30% were mostly other Asians - Indians, Filipinos, etc.). And as you gradually kept on going on the road, there was an increasing number of signs in Chinese.

We went inside Pacific Mall - which was less of a mall and more like a giant building with row after row of stall-like stores typical of those in Asia. Upstairs there was a section selling Chinese cheongsams, trinkets, decor, it remineded me of our shopping adventures at the Silk Market in Beijing!

Then we hit the foodcourt. YUMMY and very affordable Chinese food to satisfy Vineet. He ordered food enough for 4 people even though it was just the two of us. I took a picture of the foodcourt cause it reminded us of Newton Circus or the other hawkers centre in Singapore.

Looking around me it was pretty hard to remember I was actually still in Canada.

YUM!

Buttery Apple Tort...

...is in the oven, let's see how it turns out! =) Got the recipe from my sister Del's blog which is full of yummy recipes. Showed the recipes to Vineet and he already wants to try the pork chops with black currant jelly and dijon mustard!
On a related topic (it's related to food!), my refrigerator looks like it needs to get repaired... and the guy can only come in next Tuesday! So much food will go to waste.. maybe we should just have people over for lunch tom and cook everything?

Happy Birthday Pat!

Happy Birthday Mr. James Patrick Santos! =) Wish I could've been there for your "surprise" 12am greeting with the Family. Instead, I'll just reminisce and remember last year when we almost surprised you while you were in the.... never mind! =)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! - From me, Vineet and Joey.

Boubker Ait El Caid

Just finished Babel. Really interesting movie (and significantly better than my last 2 movies this week - Marie Antoinette and Rocky Balboa). But what impressed me a lot was the casting of Boubker Ait El Caid as Yussef - the Moroccan kid who accidentally shot the American tourist, played by Cate Blanchett. Among the characters, he was one of those that really stood out for me.
I just look back at the Oscars and all the acclaim given to Abigail and just feel that some of that should been thrown the way of Boubker Ait El Caid. I mean I do think that Abigail is a great little actress and she was great in Little Miss Sunshine (a movie I enjoyed immensely) but I think that Boubker's performance was so much more deeper and was still as a very critical supporting role in the story. And it's just a shame that you can hardly find pictures of him on the site, and I don't think he was even mentioned in the Ensemble cast winners (where the Japanese cop and dad were included - if you ask me, he played a much more important role than they did!).
Oh well. Just thought I'd write about him.

Sunday Brunch

Sunday brunches are one of my favorite things. It's always laid-back, relaxed and for some reason, EVERYTHING seems to taste great at Sunday brunch places.
Today though I started off with higher expectations than normal because the restaurant we were going to was tauted as one of the best brunch places in Toronto. True enough, the food was fantastic! It's a place on King West called Bistro & Bakery Thuet. It's a French restaurant (with a bakery) owned and operated by Chef Mark Thuet. The place was packed and we were happy to have only a 5-minute wait for a table for two.
I ordered the "Seared smoked pork loin, Quebec maple syrup, Thuet brioche French toast", which was heavenly. I haven't ordered French toast for myself in over 2 years now (although I have been known to occasionally pick off other people's plates) because the quality is so erratic. There are some places it turns out too rubbery or too soggy or too something. But this one was heavenly! It was so light and fluffy (probably cause bread was always freshly made since they were a bakery), the maple syrup was just right (not too sweet, not too maple-y), and the smoked porkloin made it all filling enough for brunch. Vineet ordered "Omelette au jambon, fromage et fines herbs". An omellete with ham, cheese and fine herbs is relatively simple right? But this one just had the right balance of taste and was nice and moist inside.
To make this a fair review though, I do have to say that the service was so-so. The hostess was very nice and acommodating but the waitstaff seemed so harrassed and left much to be desired. But the food was definitely good enough to make us come back and give it another go!

Conehead.

Poor little 5-lb Joey! Had not been fed for 21 consecutive hours, had blood work done, was under general anesthesia, was neutered (ouch!), was micro-chipped in between the shoulder blades, had 2 baby teeth pulled which required 2 stitches on his gums... and on top of that he has to be a conehead for 5 days so he doesn't lick and infect his wounds.

It's not the same...

Joey is at the vet for the whole day for surgery. He is getting "fixed" The house is really not the same without him =(

Spring is here!

March 21. Spring officially starts today!! And the high and low forecasts for the next ten days are all above zero! =)

Kuya Cheech!

While Vineet and I were in Alberta, Payal and her dog Cheech kindly took on the task of pampering Joey for 6 days. This was the week that Joey realized he was a dog. He came back home a changed man... I swear, he looks bored to be with me now and just looks forward to his walks when he can play with other doggies. Here he is pictured with Cheech, who I think he sees as a kuya (older brother) cause he just kept following whatever he did (including learning to pee with one leg up!)

Alberta Mini-Vacation

A friend had told us that if we were going to Alberta, we just HAD to stay at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise. I'm definitely glad we did!

The lake was perfectly positioned against a backdrop of 2 mountains, meeting in the middle of the lake. And from the opposite side, the Fairmont was perfectly perched on the edge of the lake. The lake was frozen over and the effect of the snow on the frozen lake, mountains and trees was amazing -- and we enjoyed it even more with a sleigh ride around the lake! I am definitely looking forward to seeing it again in a different light in summer... maybe next year =)

The next day we went to Banff, which is a nice, relatively quiet ski town. It was amazing though how much variety of cuisines was available in such a small strip! The highlight of that stay though was a trip to Banff Upper Hot Springs! It was cool to be out while there was snow all around, but it appears that hot springs and/or hot tub outdoors is a very critical part of the skiing lifestyle =)

V-Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!!! =)

Got a call from the concierge that there were flowers waiting at the front desk so I just put on jeans and a jacket over my PJs and went right away.

These roses look so elegant! I have to go look for a vase that will do these flowers justice now. Unfortunately, I don't think I have anything long enough for these roses... and I don't want to cut their stems too much cause they're so nice and long!

55 pins...

This is what 55 bobby pins look like. That's right, it took 55 pins to hold up my hair. This was part of the trial wedding hairdo that I had last Friday at the salon.

SuperBowl Squares

My first time to watch a whole football game... well, almost whole cause Vineet and I came late to Thad's place.

Vineet and his friends have a Super Bowl tradition of playing Snow Football before watching the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, this year was uncannily cold at -30 degrees (without wind chill) that they had to forego their game and ended up playing basketball at the condo. The rest of the tradition continued on though when we went to Thad's place to watch the game.

The picture attached is part of the traditional betting on the last digit of the by-quarter scores. We didn't walk away with anything but at least we got food and drink =) Matty K was the big winner, getting 3 out of the 4 quarters... I figure he deserved it since he had the longest drive to join in the tradition. He came all the way from Kitchener just for this!
It must be noted though that I fell asleep in the last 15 minutes of the game. It doesn't really reflect the quality of the game or my interest level, I was just plain tired!

Joey Speaks...

WinterCity Festival

Toronto must be the city of Festivals. Although it's not at its craziest (that usually comes in the summer), there is still something happening on most weekends. This past weekend the WinterCity Festival opened so Vineet and I spent our Saturday at Nathan Philips Square. Yes, the weather's been below zero for the past 2 weeks and people still go out.. oh well.









We went through the American Express Gallery where they featured "Paintings Below Zero", abstract paintings made of ice (and gave away free coffee / hot chocolate from Starbucks), watched the skaters on the ice rink (but didn't go cause we weren't sure if Vineet could keep me up given he's been out of practice and I have zero skills on ice - except for the 2 or 3 times I went to the SM Megamall rinkin high school!), saw the world's largest SnowGlobe, took in the free concert (we were able to hear the Jon Levine Band - really liked their song HAPPY - listen to it on Jon Levine Band Home Page) and the free side shows (see Gustavo the Impossibilist in the pic).

Move over Martha Stewart...

... well, not quite. But thought I'd share the "Stepford Wife"-ly things I've done the past week.
First, I made blueberry cheesecake which was a hit with Vineet. It was almost from scratch - except I used pie filling for the topping =) He claims it's the 2nd best cheesecake he's had... unfortunately, the one we had in Boracay still topped it. But hey, not bad for a first attempt!


Second, I crocheted a sweater for Joey! It's been cold here and I couldn't find a sweater for Joey that I liked so I made him one. Vineet now calls me Granny Leila =)