Nails: Essie LUXEFFECTS

AHHHH!! Anyone who knows me knows how much I LOVE nail polish and on top of that, my favourite brand is Essie! I'm working on building my collection... and when the luxeffects collection came out, I just had to have it. The only downside is that Essie is $11.99 + GST here, or $8.99 when on sale, and I didn't want to buy them all at one go. For V-day my BF actually bought all 5 of them for me!!

Shine of the Times, A Cut Above, Pure Pearlfection, Set in Stones, As Gold as it Gets

I tried to get one on each finger (without any base under). I did 2 coats each. Ugh my camera sucks ... better pictures in future posts, I promise!

Pinky-Shine of the Times; Ring-A Cut Above; Middle-Pure Pearlfection; Index-Set in Stones; Thumb-As Gold as it Gets

I think the Pearlfection one would look great over a bright polish colour. I haven't thought much about the others though. I did decide to make my manicure black with the "A Cut Above" over top.

with flash

without flash

I shall post more manicures if I can :) I'm having a lot of fun blogging right now haha and since my BF is here for the week, I've been eating out so much.... hence all the food blogs!!! I should really start to pace myself..

Thanks for reading!! 

B Bim Baab

Tonight, I went to eat with the BF at B Bim Baab (9543 - 42 ave) because I bought a teambuy the other day. It was for $40 worth of food and I only spent $9 on it !!

It was a cute place.. pretty dim lit but was very red-toned in there... good luck maybe?

Kim chi and Bean sprouts (came with meal)

I didn't quite care for this Kim Chi, something was off about it, however the bean sprouts were delicious! Refills were free !

B Bim Baab - $11.99 (+$2 for beef and +$2 for chicken)

This was the BF's dish. They actually forgot the egg so we had to ask them to put it on top (and hence why it's not in the picture). You could add a variety of meats into it for additional charges (which I guess was better than Lee House, since there was no option to do so). There was a bunch of stuff in this as you can see, cucumbers, seaweed, carrots, sprouts, turnip I believe... I can't even remember them all, nor could I even really pick out them all! This came with a gigantic bottle of the gochujang sauce. There was actually SO little rice in this, mainly consisting of veggies. I don't think I'd have this again just because of that... I mean according to Wiki.. "Bibimbap is a signature Korean dish. The world literally means "mixed meal" or "mixed rice". So where's the rice B Bim Baab?! haha! 

Chaa Jang Myun - $9.50

This was mine! Yummy! This came with black bean sauce, pork, onion, eggplants?, cucumber and onions. It was really good, almost as good as Lee House. However, my one concern was that the noodles were kind of stuck together, making it harder to mix. I did manage to mix it in the end and it was awesome! Defs worth the price.

DDuk Mandu Kook - $10.00 (full order)

This was a soup that we ordered. It was 6 wontons in a beef broth with rice cakes and egg, seaweed and onions. I quite liked the soup itself and the rice cakes but I didn't like the wonton. Maybe I'm too used to the Chinese ones but I didn't like it. 

We ended up packing up everything because the portions were pretty big! I also had an Ice Tea which was free refills ($2.79) and my BF had a can of root beer ($1.89).

In total we spent: $40.17 before tax! hahah Pretty close to the $40 worth of the voucher! Then they suggest you tip 15% of the bill, so they added it onto the bill for us in which it came to $48.16. minus our $40 = $8.16 so we just gave them $9.00. The service was pretty good, especially since there were only 1 waiter and 1 waitress. 

I probably won't go back there just because it is quite far from my house ( I live in the North side).

Thanks for reading!

Lee House & Brewsters & ESO Concert

Hello readers! This will be a long long post because it's basically my day. I went to eat at Lee House with my parents for lunch, then I went to an ESO concert with my orchestra and ate at Brewsters afterwards. Let's get going!

Lee House is a Korean restaurant off of Whyte ave (7904 104 st). I've eaten here a couple of times before and I absolutely love it! I've never been to Korea so I can't say if it's authentic or not but it's good!

Here's the plate settings with my water and tea.

The tea came complimentary (like most Asian places), I wasn't sure what kind of tea it was. It had a neat aroma to it, however it just tasted like water. The chopsticks were hard to use!

Kimchi, Bean Sprouts, Turnip?

This was complimentary! I love kimchi and I definitely love this one! I think the top left are turnips or daikons or something.. not sure what exact vegetable it was but it's my fave. Plus, we got free refills of these!!

Bi Bim Bap - $9.95

I absolutely love Bi Bim Bap! It's what I always get at Korean restaurants. It consists of rice with veggies, overeasy egg and beef. I was very disappointed in this one ... not because it was gross or anything but because it had no BEEF! OR MEAT of any sort. I know they used to because I ate it before but now the 'beef' is blacked out with a permanent marker on their menu. Sad... it was still good, but WTF without beef, I'm not having it!

Jja Jang Myun - $10.95

Another favourite of mine. It is handmade noodles with black bean sauce, potatoes, beef cubes, onions and cucumbers. My dad had mixed it before I could take a pic though, so hence the cucumbers placed weird LOL! I love this stuff and it's so good. I highly recommend this dish! Also a plus is that it is handmade noodles!

Half fried chicken - $18.00

Most expensive of the three, but yet again another of my favourites (as you can see... I told my parents to order everything I liked eating LOL!). This is seriously the best fried chicken EVER. I don't know HOW they get the skin so crispy and not like KFC where the skin is peeling off the chicken. The skin just stays on as if there were no skin at all... It's so so good, and the sauce is delicious! A slightly tangy sweet sauce with a bit of heat. SO GOOD. Not sure it's worth the price, but if I'm only eating here once in a while, this is definitely something I would order.

Total we spent $40 and change. The waitress was okay. She wasn't the greatest but I mean she was the only one working. They also have a TV in there which is a bonus if you wanted to watch say a sports game on a certain day.

I went to eat at Brewsters (Oliver Square - 11620 104 ave) after the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra: Disney in Concert. I forgot to take a picture before I took a bite so sorry :( Here's the nasty pic of it half eaten.

Aussie Lamb - $14.99 with house salad

YUM. That is all. This is SO good. It was a lamb patty with some goat cheese, onion, lettuce, bow valley BBQ sauce and mint mayo, all on an onion bread. The crispiness of the bread was a nice contrast to the soft and juicy burger! This was delicious and I will definitely re-order it again! The side salad had some sort of mustard dressing which I didn't really care for. Should've gotten the fries instead!

Shaughnessy Stout - $6.75

I love beer. That's a fact, but only if it tastes good to me of course. I am kind of picky and the ones I like don't really make sense. I like Canadian or Bud Light Lime, but I hate Kokanee and Budweiser. I also like beers like Guinness. So anyways, I usually get the Raspberry Ale at Brewsters but I wanted to try something new. I've had the Blueberry Ale once and found it really gross. It was weird since it's the same beer as the Raspberry one, they only changed the raspberry to blueberry. SO I asked the waitress for advice on the beer and she said she could give me some samples to try! How kind of her (not sure if they do this on a regular basis). I tried this stout and I also tried their Fruit Hog (which is where they make a new fruit flavour of beer every time that tap runs out of the previous). This fruit hog was the Wild Berry Wheat Ale. It tasted like fruit water. Not good, so I got this one! It's delicious. It has a coffee, chocolate-y taste to it and I barely tasted the alcohol which is a plus for me! I think this may be my new favourite beer!

BONUS PIC!

I went to the ESO concert with my lovely orchestra friends. We have a group picture with some of the Disney princesses, however our group pictures turned out quite blurry. Me and 3 of my other friends decided we would go off on our own and take one with the princesses. So now I actually have a clear shot of us with them! It was an amazing performance and I'm really glad I got to see it! All I want to do is pull out my Disney music and play it now.. he he he.

Cinderella, Snow White, Gwen, Me, Ariel, Robyn, Belle, Jeremy

Hope you enjoyed reading it!

East Restaurant (東)

On Feb 4th, I went to eat lunch with my parents at the new (ish) restaurant East (16049 97st). I actually thought it was a Malaysian restaurant (something similar to Tropika) but on their site, it says that they are authentic modern Chinese with a Malaysian twist. Anyways... here are the pictures. (I used my cellphone, so sorry about the crappy pics, as my blog progresses, it'll probably get better! haha)

"Old Town" Chicken Satay 6 pieces - $12.95

This was pretty good! The chicken was a little bit dry but the peanut sauce was sooo good! I would definitely eat this again. I didn't care for the diced pineapples since they were kinda sour.. but the cucumbers were great to cut the spice of the peanut sauce.

Hainanese Chicken Rice - $11.95

I didn't actually try this, so sorry no review for this, but I thought the triangle shape was pretty cool!! I did try the soup and it wasn't too salty (like most Asian restaurants). My parents liked it though, since they finished the whole plate (which is pretty much indicative that they like it)

Curry Laksa - $9.95

This was my dish. I have been craving curry laksa for the LONGEST time and I haven't found a good place for it yet (other than at my friend's house.. LOL!!) and this ............ was good. It wasn't the best I've had in my life, but it's definitely a lot better than any restaurant in Edmonton. It had prawns, chicken, eggs, tofu, bean sprouts and......... BBQ PORK!?!?! Okay that part was ODD, and the pork was WAY too fatty that I didn't even try to eat it. I guess this is a Malaysian dish with a Chinese twist? Regardless, other than that BBQ pork, it was delicious! I would probably go order it again since it's pretty cheap and I actually had a bunch leftover, enough for Sunday lunch!

Penang Char Keuy Teow - $11.95

I forgot to take this picture before my parents dug into it! I was pretty full from my laksa by then but I still tasted some of it! It was sort of greasy and I was overpowered by the sauce it was cooked in. In this stir fry, there was pork sausage, egg, prawns, clam meat, bean sprout, xo sauce and soy sauce. The noodles were the thick, flat rice noodles. I probably wouldn't get this again, but my parents really liked it.

I also forgot to take picture of drinks... but they weren't really anything special. My dad and I shared a pot of ginger tea (I think it was $3.95 for a pot) which tasted okay to me. My parents also really liked it (is my palette Westernized?!?!) but to me, I didn't like it that much because it reminded me of the ginger syrup in tofu custard (豆腐花). My mom also got a white coffee cold. It legit tasted like watered down cappuccino... I can't recall the price but I think it was something like $3.95 as well.

In total, we spent about $60 with tips included (15%) so maybe I overestimated the price of the drinks. We also had most of the CharKeuyTeow leftover and half the Laksa. That pricing for a meal is decent to me.

Overall, I'd probably go back again, but only for my laksa craving. Oh, they also give you a frequent customer card. I believe it was if you ate 9 times there for lunch, you get the 10th one free (probably up to a certain value).. I think. I'm going to ask my parents about the card when they get home to confirm for you readers!

Okay, that is all! I hope you enjoyed reading this. This is something new I'm trying out, so if you guys have any suggestions on how I can make this better and more enjoyable, please leave me a comment!

So.. here goes my first post.

I've decided to make a blog about random stuff... like stuff I buy, things I've tried out etc. Maybe even post some reviews. I'm following quite a few of bloggers, and I'm not trying to make a name for myself out there or anything, but I think it'd be nice to not talk about my feelings for once! Besides, some people think its inappropriate for me to blog my feelings.. MEH, all good. At least I have them. (oh shit.. here I go talking about feelings again!!) Anyways... this is the first post and I have to be studying for my BIOL201 midterm tomorrow, so I won't put anything up until then... I think I will make my first "actual" post about my dining experience at the restaurant East.

STAY TUNED!