curiouslycarmen, Author at Curiously Carmen

Peqish – Healthy fast food sandwiches

June 10, 2015

Hi everyone!

I first noticed Peqish in January after our office had moved closer to this area. My coworkers came here one morning, and arrived back at the office with piping hot, melt in your mouth, freshly made chocolate cookies. We decided to try this place out for lunch a few months ago in February.
As you can see, Peqish is pretty small. The concept behind Peqish was to provide people with healthy fast food on the go. Each of their items are made fresh daily. With emphasis on the express, the place has a mere 5 bar seats which is pretty narrow. You also order your coffee/drinks on the computer and pay there, similar to restaurants that I’ve seen in Tokyo with the same system.
The shelves are filled with healthy sandwiches, wraps, mini salads, and smoothies. This is a picture of their hot food section, while 3/4 of the other items are stored in a fridge. There were so many to pick from and took us all awhile to decide on what to order. So many decisions.
I settled on the “bohemian wrapsody” – shwarma beef, hummus, tahini sauce, peppers, and carrots enveloped in a Middle Eastern style flatbread. I also got one of their “protein booster” chicken snacks and the green smoothie made with kale, coconut, and pineapple. This was a lunch combo for $10.

I found both the meat in the wrap and protein snack to be extremely dry. It took me awhile to finish because it was so dry, which was disappointing. Aside from that, the vegetables were fresh and sauces were flavourful. There is a lot of potential in the wrap, but sadly the meat was just too dry to be edible.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed the smoothie and think I’ll be back in the future to get this. The coconut and pineapple were really strong, and it tasted refreshing! Much healthier and cheaper than going to Starbucks, haha.

My coworker ordered the 5 spice pulled pork wrap from the hot shelf (mine was from the fridge shelf). Like my meat, the pulled pork was extremely dry.

For her side, she chose the orzo pasta salad cup which was really good. It had a good amount of herbs and the vegetables tasted fresh.

She ordered the berry smoothie, but said it was disappointing because all she could taste was the banana. It tasted exactly like a pure banana smoothie but berry coloured… but bananas are easily over powering in smoothies so it’s important to get the ratio right!

This is a close up of my coworker’s pulled pork wrap, since the previous picture is just covered in condensation.

Overall, we were disappointed with the wraps since the meat was so dry and inedible, but I liked the green smoothie and she enjoyed her pasta salad cup. I’m not sure if we will be back for the sandwiches, but I did enjoy the smoothie and wouldn’t mind having another one!

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

EAT! Vancouver Festival 2015 Event Recap

June 6, 2015

Hi everyone!

About a month ago, I attended the EAT! Vancouver Festival at BC Place. It was an afternoon filled with being introduced to lots of different food trends, food supplies, healthy alternative food – basically, everything to do with food!

From their website: EAT! Vancouver attracts Canada’s culinary stars, food producers and restaurants, from Vancouver, North America and beyond. Consumers, from across North America, will come to the EAT! Vancouver Food + Cooking Festival to participate in Vancouver’s vibrant food culture and experience great food from around the world.

After getting our tickets, we headed down to the main floor of BC Place. What usually holds football games and concerts was transformed into a food lover’s paradise. As this was our first time coming here, we were really surprised at how many stands and how big the festival was.

Instead of purchasing products by cash or card, guests purchase tickets which they can then use to pay for things they want. We decided to walk around once and purchase tickets afterwards.

The first stand that caught my eye was the vendor, Tea Sparrow. Each month, Tea Sparrow will deliver four teas to your door, which have been tested and approved by their staff before delivery. I sampled some of their rooibos tea, which was delicious!
There was also a cheese seminar presented by the Dairy Farmers of Canada happening. Unfortunately, all of the seats were already full but it looked like an interesting show. For all you cheese lovers, this one is for you.
In front of the cheese seminar, was a long lineup where you can sample many different types of cheese. I don’t think I’ve had that many different types of cheese in one sitting before. I’m no cheese connoisseur, but I think that cheese lovers would really love this!

I certainly enjoyed all the different sorts of cheese and it was nice to sample them all. You normally don’t get to sample all these types of cheese, so it’s good to keep in mind what you may want to buy when you are grocery shopping in the future.
Some free dark chocolate samples from Urge Chocolates. Some samples required tickets, which was up to the individual booth. Since we didn’t buy tickets yet, we were only able to sample the freebies.

More chocolate from President’s Choice. I believe they were giving these bars out for free when you sign up for a President’s Choice MasterCard.

I normally avoid tea that has caffeine but I’ve always wanted to try Pure Leaf. They had a few flavours to choose from that day – raspberry, lemon, regular, and unsweetened.

I didn’t find the sweetened flavours to be overly sweet or sugary, which is a plus.
Apart from all the different vendors, there was also a ‘food’ area for visitors to eat and featured different eateries in Vancouver. A food area within a food festival!

We ordered an oreo BeaverTail and poutine, which were both very good.

We also tried the Montreal smoked meat sandwich from Dunn’s. I’ve never been there before, but I think it would have been better at the actual restaurant and not a mobile stand. Some parts of the smoked meat were cold, while other parts were slightly warm.

The worker there was also not wearing any gloves and handled the bread and toppings with her bare hands. She was also the one that was taking care of the ticket payments from customers…so touching all of the customer tickets (where you don’t know where it has been?!) AND then touching the food with your bare hands?

After all our samples of food, we decided to check out the alcohol section. We didn’t know this at first, but you exchange a ticket for a wine/beer glass and will receive the ticket back after you return the glass.

This was slightly annoying as we were left with one single ticket that we didn’t know what to do with in the end, we wished that we could have applied that ticket to one of our wine tastings but not a big deal.

The carpeted floor was also very static-y that day, and everyone would get zapped when accidentally brushing shoulders. At first, I thought it was only me who kept zapping everyone but I heard a lot of other people complaining, and one of the staff members told us that it was due to the carpeted floor. =(

One of my favourite gelato places, Bella Gelateria, was serving gelato martinis!
Scotch served with freshly grounded espresso beans and Bella Gelataria’s salted caramel gelato in a shot glass. It was very creamy and rich, but wasn’t very strong. This stand was definitely one of the most popular stands at the festival.
There were also a lot of BC-based craft breweries at the festival! The craft beer samples were pretty cheap, at $1 a sample and they were also a pretty generous size too!
Originally, we planned on staying no more than 1.5 hours, but were shocked when we checked our phones and saw that 3 hours had passed by! We were also given a goodie bag filled with some samples at the end of our visit.

There was definitely tons to discover at EAT! Vancouver, and lots of new food to try. The festival is held each year around the end of April/beginning of May so I recommend that you check this out if you love trying or learning about food!

Did you go to Eat! Vancouver 2015 as well? How did you like it?

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

Hapa Izakaya (Coal Harbour) –

June 4, 2015

Hi everyone!

In May, some friends and I met up to chat over some happy hour appies. I’ve heard great things about Hapa hour, so we decided to go to the Coal Harbour location. Although our conversations were great, we all left slightly disappointed with the food.

With my horrific experience at the Kits location in January in mind, Coal Harbour was not as bad. Actually, my experience at Hapa Beach was probably the worst restaurant experience I’ve had in the past year or more. When I think of bad food and bad service, my mind automatically goes to Hapa Beach. You can read about it here…
We ordered the grilled squid, which came with a garlic soy marinade. I didn’t really taste the marinade, and found it to be very bland and overly chewy. The only flavour the squid had was a slight smoky flavour from the grill.
Next up was the spicy tuna roll. This was also very bland and the quality of the ahi tuna was very poor. It lacked flavour, and didn’t taste fresh.

This was probably the worst spicy tuna roll I’ve had. For a higher end Japanese restaurant, I expected a lot more as I can go to a cheaper place for better tasting rolls.
Continuing along with the disappointment, came the beef tataki. Again, the beef lacked any flavour and was very dry. Although the menu said ‘lightly seared’, the edges of the beef were seared so much that it was chewy and rubbery.

The beef was also shriveled up due to how poorly it was seared.
The hapa hot wings were perhaps the worst of all. Seriously, this dish was a huge mess and we all weren’t sure what they were trying to make. To start, the only good thing about the wings was that they were crispy and fresh. There was no flavour at all in the wings.

It also came sprinkled with some sort of chopped tomato/salsa mix which made us really confused??? Like why? It did not go with the chicken wings at all!

Then, the side dipping sauce was even weirder and did not go with the already weird salsa mix/bland chicken wing combo. We weren’t even sure what it was, it tasted like a cold puree slop of some kind????

LOL. As well, the menu had said they were ‘hot wings’, yet there was no hint of spice or even traces of pepper. Did the kitchen staff blindfold themselves and chuck whatever was available into the chicken, and not bother to season it? This dish was just so weird, tasteless, and random… we really weren’t sure what was going on here.
The only thing that we liked that day was the ebi mayo. The prawns were big and fresh, and had a nice snap to them. They were also nice and crispy and the sauce was flavourful as well.

Safe to say that we will not be coming back to hapa hour and we were all really disappointed with the food. In fact, I’m not sure if I want to go back to the Hapa Izakaya chain in general as it seems the food quality has diminished at a fast rate. Two years ago, I really enjoyed my dinner at Hapa but I’m not sure what was happened recently.

In a city like Vancouver where there are LOTS of competitors for Japanese cuisine, Hapa needs to step up their game or they will become lost in the sea of Japanese restaurants.

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

Estée Lauder Nutritious Vitality8 Overnight Cream

June 2, 2015

Hi everyone!

Can’t believe it’s June now! Summer is finally here =)

Anyways, I have been using this Estee Lauder Nutritious overnight cream for the past two weeks now, and decided it was time to finally write a post on my thoughts about it.

Prior to this night cream, I used the same The Body Shop seaweed mattifying moisturizer in the day and evening. But my recent trip to Kelowna really dried out my skin, as I don’t think it was used to the drier, interior BC climate. When I came back, I spent the first couple of days trying to repair by skin. It was flaking badly around my lip and nose area, something which has never happened!

I received this as a gift from the Estee Lauder media preview event in March, and had used it a couple of times here and there. Looking back, I should have brought this on my trip if I knew how dry my skin was going to get!
Here is the description from The Bay’s website:

This rich overnight moisture creme restores skin’s balance and infuses deep hydration and nourishment. Helps re-activate skin’s natural moisture defenses.Can also be used as a nightly mask for intense nutrient infusion. Awaken to skin that looks rested, renewed, radiant. In just 8 days, 96% of women felt their skin look more nourished and supple.

My cousins tried the cream, and the first thing they noticed was how amazing this smells! Seriously, this cream smells absolutely wonderful – clean and fresh.

Normally, I dab this cream around different areas of my face – cheeks, around my lip (this was the flaky area after I came back from Kelowna), and forehead.
I love this cream because my skin feels great after I put it on. My skin feels deeply hydrated, supple, and healthy. I feel that my complexion has improved and my skin feels a lot more radiant and bright when waking up in the morning.

This cream has quickly became one of my favourites and I have incorporated it into my daily routine. I honestly look forward to putting this on each night because it smells so great and my skin absolutely loves this stuff!

This cream is so nutrient rich and moisturizing for me that I don’t really need to apply moisturizer in the day. I used to wake up with dry skin, but I haven’t had a problem with that after using this everyday. I’m so glad that I discovered this product!

What’s your favourite night cream?

Thanks for reading!

-Carmen

Press product featured, all opinions are my own.

Nero Belgian Waffle Bar

May 31, 2015

Hi everyone!

After a satisfying brunch a few months ago, Naomi from Constant Cravings and I decided to go grab dessert at Nero! No, we weren’t hungry still… but I told her that Nero has been on my dining list for probably 2 years now, and I still haven’t gotten the opportunity. Since Forage was a mere few blocks away, we decided to walk there after and share a waffle.

Naomi had already been here before, so she led the way. To be honest, I was a bit surprised when we got there as I was not expecting their design and branding to look like this! Judging from the pictures I saw, the place looked a lot brighter and less rustic/wooden than it actually was. Not that I minded though, but that was just my first opinion=)

It’s smart that they have their menu on a chalkboard outside. Naomi told me that it lines up pretty quickly here during the summer, so this is an efficient way to speed up the wait!

Yep, I was still surprised at how wooden and cozy it was inside Nero. I honestly thought it would look like a bubble tea or Asian dessert cafe, LOL!

Nonetheless, I did like the interior and here is a picture of a bicycle on their wall. The seating area is quite small and there is no way that all their customers are able to get a seat right away. Which is unfortunate, because their specialty waffles aren’t something that can be easily packed and taken to go.

Since I was the newbie, I let Naomi decide for the both of us. We shared the liege au chocolat waffle, which came with a dark chocolate drizzle, fresh raspberries, and a big ol’ scoop of vanilla ice cream.

The waffle was nice and light, with a sweetness to it and served warm. The dark chocolate and tart raspberries counterbalanced the sweetness of the waffle and vanilla ice cream.

I would love to come back and try more of their different flavours, but I especially hate standing and waiting in lines for restaurants.. that’s a big pet peeve for me and probably one of the biggest reasons I haven’t tried a couple of well known, yummy establishments. I should also mention Nero was empty when we came in around 2pm on a Saturday, but as we got ready to leave, we saw a line that was already out the door!

I saw another customer with a huge fruit assortment on her waffle, I am definitely trying that one next time I come back!

Is Nero worth the hype? For me personally, yes!

-Carmen