Richmond 365

Have you heard about the latest food blogging stint in Vancouver? Tourism Richmond is looking for a foodie to eat at Richmond's 800+ restaurants every day for a whole year -- 365 days -- and blog about it and communicate via social media like Twitter and Facebook. They are not looking for a food critic but more of a person who can document the stories behind the food.

The successful candidate will receive:

• annual contract salary of $50,000


• daily stipend for restaurant meals


• apartment and living costs compensation for a period of one


• 1 year gym membership at the Richmond Olympic Oval

I mean, this sounds like an absolutely fantastic idea! Imagine, getting paid to eat and blog all day long for a year! 

Here's why I would totally do this:

1. The annual salary is practically twice as much as what my job pays me!


2. Free accomodation for a whole year!


3. I love food, I love photography -- no better way to do this than having to do it for a living!


4. It'll be like living abroad for a whole year without the extensive travelling! 


5. Getting paid to eat? Sure, why not!


6. Opportunity to do many fun things that I probably will never encounter in my lifetime!


7. I speak Cantonese and Mandarin; a great skill to have when ordering Chinese food or reading Chinese menus!

Here's why I would NOT do it:

1.  I still have my job... What would happen after one year?


2. How about my boyfriend? I can't live in Richmond all by myself and still have time to see him...


3. Seriously? 365 days of blogging? I can't foresee that happening.. I already procrastinate enough that I can't even keep up with one post a week...


4. 365 days of eating out? I'll probably become a giant. Even though there IS a gym membership.. But I don't LIKE the gym!


5. Who will have the patience to read the blog every single day for a year?!


6. No car, no talk! Besides, I can't drive.. And we all know Richmond is hard to get around without a car.


7. I don't see myself giving up everything I have for a year and eat my heart out..

Same number of reasons, but I really don't see myself doing it.. It would be a more feasible thing if it was blogging every week for a year.. Then I would so do it! But nah, this would be too much work!!

Nevertheless, very interesting way of promoting tourism! I'm excited to see how this will turn out!

♥ Nikki

Novo Pizzeria and Wine Bar on Burrard St

Guess who's in town! My friend from university, Anna! We both took economics at UBC and haven't seen each other since graduation in 2010! She's visiting Vancouver for a couple weeks and we met up with some other friends from school. One of them suggested Novo Pizzeria and Wine Bar and there we were!



Located along Burrard Street between West 5th and 6th Ave, Novo did not appear to stand out in the quiet neighbourhood. The movie theatre next door had a much more enticing popcorn aroma which caught my attention :P Frankly, I've never been in this neighbourhood as I usually travel along 4th Ave.

We went in and it was a good thing one of our friends arrived early and got a table. After we sat down, we saw numerous people standing by the door waiting for a table, so I guess we were lucky to have made reservations.



The layout of the restaurant was very interesting, with the kitchen along the walls and most of the space was dining tables surrounding a downward staircase leading to the washrooms.



There were a variety of booth seats, high tables with bar stools and regular dining tables. I kind of like this shot of happy diners that show the bar at the other side of the restaurant as well.



The bar looked like a relaxing place, with two big screens showing sports. The restaurant had some upbeat music and everyone was chattering over the noise. It was a casual setting despite the fancy tableware with candles and the low-light atmosphere.

We quickly decided on an appetizer, a pizza and a pasta to share. The food was super fast and came within 10 minutes!



We got the proscuitto and arugula pizza as one of our mains. The crust was thin and fluffy, and resembled the texture of naan, very well done. The tomato sauce base had an amazingly fresh taste of tomatoes but was not too sour and overpowering like some others. There was excellent-quality mozarella, thin silky proscuitto, shavings of parmesan cheese and crisp arugula topping the already-wonderful crust.



For another main, we got the Sausage Orecchiette. Topped with Swiss chard, fennel pollen, toasted bread crumbs and parmesan cheese, this dish was an absolute delight! The orecchiette (which means 'little ears' in Italian) were carefully handcrafted and cooked to perfection, a little more than al dente which gave it a nice chewy texture to it. The sausage was juicy and flavourful and the saltiness of the Swiss chard went well with it. I would have liked a little more sauce to this dish as the little ears pasta had such good potential to soak up more sauce.



A closer look at the serving of pasta and pizza I had.. This was before the appetizer came. Honestly, it didn't matter that the appetizer came last, since the pasta and pizza came so quickly we all dug right in.



We ordered the calamari (fried squid) from the appetizer menu as a snack. When the dish came, I was a little disappointed to see the some of the batter falling off the squid. But when I took a bite, I was taken aback by how fresh the squid was! Tender and juicy, not tough to chew at all. I would have liked this dish to be a little less greasy even though it IS a fried dish after all.



A generous dish of tartar sauce sat beside the calamari, waiting to be dipped into. The tartar sauce was also homemade, I could taste the fresh lemon, dill and parsley that cut the richness of the sauce. It was creamy yet refreshing.

An interesting incident happened while we were munching on the calamari. I noticed a strand of dark red string/fluff amongst the pieces of calamari. Knowing it was not a human hair, I picked it up nonchalantly and flicked it away. A few minutes later, I saw another piece of fluff and it was bigger this time. My friend noticed me picking away at the dish and asked what was going on, and I told her, it's just fluff. She said we should tell the waiter, but there wasn't anymore fluff I could find.

Just as we were reaching the last bits of the calamari, I noticed another piece of fluff. So when a server came to take away our plates, I pointed it out to her. She professionally said that she will go to get our waiter. Our waiter, a lovely chap, came by and we explained to him about the fluff. He took away the plate and said he will look into it.

A few minutes later, he returned with a red cloth in his hand and 1) reassured us it was not human hair, 2) explained that the chef had used the red cloth to clean the side of the plate after plating and 3) said that he had taken the calamari off our bill.

I was truly impressed. This is the top-notch service that I wish more places have. Very professional and polite, our waiter did everything on the checklist: Made menu recommendations, filled our water glasses, checked in with us after we started eating, investigated the tiniest strand of fluff on our calamari dish, and took a lovely picture of us even though the restaurant was bustling at its peak. Here's a shoutout to JACOB, one of the best waiters I have encountered!

Here's the picture he took for us!



Novo has everything I want in a restaurant: quality food, amazing service, great staff! It was pretty busy around dinnertime when we were there, so I'd suggest you make reservations before you go! They also have a Monday date night deal where a couple can enjoy a three-course dinner meal and a pair of movie tickets (for the movie theatre next door) for just $49!

Two thumbs up for this lovely restaurant hidden in a quiet neighbourhood away from the busy 4th Ave! Definitely going there again someday!

♥ Nikki

Cookie Zoo!

Today, I have a zoo of cookies at home!

"Wait a minute, shouldn't it be a BATCH of cookies?" you say.



This is what I'm talking about!

Last month, I went on a cookie cutter craze! I bought some cute mini cookie cutters at Michaels after Christmastime in 2011 and they were so adorable! The price was more than half off since Christmas was over, and I paid $1.99 for them. I never got around to using them; just looking at them made me happy :D After Valentine's Day, I saw a "romance" cookie cutter set at Michaels! With a 50% discount coupon in hand, I bought it right away!



When I got the romance set, I saw a set of Noah's Ark cookie cutters too, which was part of the series of cookie cutters Wilton has. In my mind, I was thinking, "I really don't NEED animal cookie cutters..." But when I got home and saw my two sets side by side, I knew I had to get my hands on that Noah's Ark set to complete the collection. I went back the next day and got it with ANOTHER 50% discount coupon :D



Finally, such a long time after I have bought them, I am putting them to use! The cookie cutter sets come with a super simple sugar cookie recipe that was so hard to go wrong!

Sugar Cookies

• 1/2 cup butter


• 1 cup sugar (you can easily reduce to half a cup, I used 3/4 cup and still found it too sweet)


• 1 egg


• 1 teaspoon baking powder


• 1-3/4 cups flour


• 1 tablespoon milk (I didn't find this necessary)


• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla


• 1/4 teaspoon salt

With my new sieve my aunt got me, I can now sift my flour when I bake! Things will turn out much smoother now, I believe! *I have not been using a sieve since this year since I moved from my last place.*



Step 1: Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl (excuse my pot!).



Step 2: Cream butter (which should be softened to room temperature -- I cheated, I microwaved it for 15 seconds..).



Step 3: Cream butter and sugar together with electric mixer.



This is what it should look like. The butter should not be melting and the sugar should disappear. At this point, my butter/sugar mixture was flying everywhere because the lowest speed on my hand mixer is still too fast and flinging everything around!



 

 

Step 4: Add egg and vanilla extract, mix well.



Step 5: Add the flour mixture slowly in a few additions and continue to mix. At this point, I sifted the flour again because I just can't get enough of my new sieve! Also, cookie dough was flying everywhere with my silly too-fast hand mixer, but I didn't want to use my hands to risk melting the butter too much.



Step 6: Gather the crumbly dough together with a wooden spoon and then finally your hands to shape it into a ball and wrap it in plastic wrap. Put the dough into the fridge to chill and rest for a couple of hours.

I did this early in the morning and went out to buy groceries. By the time I came back, the dough had firmed up nicely.



All set and ready for rolling and cutting! *No pictures of the cutting process as my hands were greasy, but perhaps next time! When I have my lovely photographer assistant with me ;)

But I shall tell you about how much fun I had. I found it important to sprinkle flour on the working surface as well as the rolling pin to prevent sticking. I pulled off about 1/3 of the dough and worked with it while putting the rest of it back in the fridge.

For the first batch, I made 4 of each of the shapes in the romance set.



Tulip, bell, heart, butterfly, crinkle heart and flower shapes! :) Bake them at 375 F if using a light-coloured pan, and 350 F if using a dark-coloured pan. I took the easy way out and used parchment paper, baking them for 8 minutes at 375 F!



After baking, these puffed up a little and got a little brown on the sides. I love how the surface is so big and you can dress them up with icing to make them look even prettier! I should make these as wedding favours sometime (if I have the chance to go to one!).

For the second batch, I used the Noah's Ark set and jazzed things up a little. I read about black sesame cookies one day and suddenly remembered I have a tiny jar of the seeds. I put about 1 tablespoon of black sesame seeds in a bowl and pounded away at it for a few minutes with the end of my rolling pin. Then I mixed it well into another 1/3 of the dough and ended up with a lovely specked ball.



I think the black sesame worked really well with the animal cutters, since animals have all sorts of spots on their bodies! Bear, elephant, Noah's Ark, giraffe, dog, lion! My favourite has got to be the giraffe with the spots!



This is how they came out! All chubby little animals! Aren't they the cutest?



These two were joined at the butt! Haha, it cracked me up...



All cooling down on a plate! Don't they look so lovely?





A close-up shot of the cutters.. I still have to try out the Christmas set! And last month, my aunt gave me another set of animal cutters which had 9 different shapes! I also got some nesting cookie cutters so I foresee making a lot more cookies in future! I must also get some cute little bags or boxes so I can pack them up and give them away! :)



And there you have it, simple delicious cookies! These taste and look amazing by themselves without icing, but I'm sure you can go all out for special occasions by decorating them! I shall be on the hunt for more festive cookie cutters! *My house will turn into a cookie cutter museum very soon!*

♥ Nikki