THE OPEN BETA WAS SUPPOSED TO PREPARE YOU FOR THE SHITSTORM OF DIABLO3 LOGINS.
Goddamn it, Blizzard
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Haroo: Best Korean restaurant in Richmond?
Urbanspoon’s highest rated Korean restaurant in Richmond is Haroo. While I am not really a fan or Korean food (mainly due to the price), it is Ah Gill’s favourite so one day we decided to go try it out.
It ended up being so good we made two visits before I had this post written up!
My problem with Korean food is that an entree at a Korean place is almost always mroe than $15 and it really doesn’t matter what you order. Something that’s all veggies will be $15, and then something that’s all meat will also be $15, and then maybe they’ll have something really fancy that’s like $20+. Value is generally poor in most Korean restaurants in the lower mainland. Haroo, however, has some decent deals with their personal meals and their quality/taste is excellent! Here’s what we had:
Korean Congee: This is complimentary with any meal at Haroo. It was surprisingly good: very well seasoned and a reasonable amount of meat as well. We had this on both visits.
Salad: This was complimentary as well. The salad tasted like something you’d get at a Japanese restaurant, especially with that red/orangey dressing on the lettuce that tastes sweet/sour. Not bad, nothing special. Had this on both visits as well.
Side dishes: This comes if you order most of the items on the menu. I think there are very few items that do not come with all side dishes. The star of the show here are the potatoes in the sweet syrup. These are soft, sweet, and the syrup/sauce is very very well done. The kimchi is not bad either and the rest was pretty forgettable.
Short Ribs: This is one of the entrees we ordered on our first visit, it was a must order since Ah Gill is a shortribs monster. Ironically, I liked this dish more than Ah Gill did – she found the meat a little too fatty for her tastes. I thought the flavour was very done well and the fat was not the big blobs of fat you find on cheap short ribs. Rather, the meat tissue is moist and surrounded by very thin layers of fat. I would equate it to a nice marbling on steaks. The ribs were served on a sizzling hot plate and the onions/mushrooms on it were really well caramelized. My objection to this dish is that it is $18, which is a bit expensive (though to be fair, you get the congee, salad, side dishes, and rice).
Spicy Rice Cake: I ordered this as my entree ($13). It was very tasty – but I am extremely partial to rice cakes. It is very difficult to make rice cake that I dislike. The meat was a ground beef or pork that was pretty good. There wasn’t a lot of meat but the flavour of the dish was really good. In addition to the rice cake and meat there were some fish cakes, veggies, onions/green onions.
Bulgogi fried rice: This was a “personal meal” which was only $10. We ordered this on our second visit and we both thought this was a very good value. The portion is good, the meat is plentiful and the flavour was well done. I think the only complaint is that it is a bit oily for fried rice but fried rice from outside restaurants all tend to be pretty oily.
“Royal Rice cake”: This is what I ordered the second time around… yes, a different type of rice cake. I did say I really like rice cake, right? This one is more expensive than the spicy rice cake: $18. For your extra $5 you get a slightly larger portion, a sweet/spicy sauce instead of red spicy sauce and thinly sliced meat instead of ground meat. I thought I would not like this as much as the spicy rice cake but the sauce on this one is really something. I usually am a big fan of spicy rice cake but this sweet/spicy sauce as won me over. The rice cake was very soft and chewy and just… *drools.
I think overall Haroo has pretty average prices for a Korean restaurant. Below average prices if you count the $10 personal meals. Their quality and the comfortable environment though makes me overcome my usual bias against Korean restaurants. We will definitely be back!
Pungent tea…
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That's probably not what I would have chosen to name it...
He is the IT guy that CMMT deserves… but not the one it needs right now…
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26th
Yes it has happened again, my 26th April 17 on this earth and I decided this time I would take the day off to compensate for the fact that the 17th falls inauspiciously on a Tuesday. Like seriously… a Tuesday?
Ah Gill told me to report to her house when I woke up so I did and I saw this:
Captain, set a course for deliciousness.
Yours truly about to dig in
The “light lunch” included:
- Pan fried udon with kimchi and mentaiko
- stuffed scallop served on seashells
- sauteed prawns
- korean rice cake
- random veggies
- Custard pudding for dessert
Needless to say… I was stuffed and dinner had to be delayed. I had planned for my usual birthday dinner of L.A Chicken but we took a detour to superstore to pick up some Orangina to buy time to digest.
The cucumbers are just for decoration
My parents and Ah Gill both offered much fancier dinner options like Boathouse or Miku but I find for my birthday I enjoy keeping it simple with L.A Chicken. Unfortunately because they changed to a single box for both the fries and the chicken we were unable to air out the fries on the way home so they got a bit soggy. Oh well still very good – I think L.A Chicken has the best fries because they are unsalted. I strongly prefer my fries to be lightly salted or completely unsalted.
Afterwards, we watched a movie I’ve been meaning to watch for a while, Tin Tin:
both Ah Gill and I liked the movie, but I felt the super obvious sequel-baiting at the end a little disappointing. I guess I was enjoying the movie so much I wanted to see the rest of Red Rackham’s treasure… hehe.
And of course, no birthday would be complete without CAKE:
The Diplomat Cake, from The Diplomat Bakery:
Standard issue cake for all Jonathan birthdays and hands down my favourite cake. It’s like a napoleon pie but much, much more tasty. Several layers of flaky pastries alternating with fresh cream and a little bit of cake on top and bottom… *drools.
The spoils:
Yonex Voltric 70 and Yonex Hong Kong Open shoes 
A super duc yi card that comes with a monkey finger puppet! hohoho… looks like Ah Gill 
What a great day <3
5 hour energy
Today, I will be trying out the 5 Hour Energy I bought. I was curious about this product because sometimes I like a coffee or something to wake me up but there are times when I feel a coffee is just too much in terms of volume. The small size (60ml) of the 5 hour energy seems like a good solution in that you can just swallow it real quick and be done with it rather than a cup of coffee which you might have to nurse for half an hour.
10:30 AM: I took a small sip since the instructions say “for moderate energy, drink half or less”. It doesn’t taste very good… kind of like drinking lemon juice. However, I think it is tolerable due to its small volume. The effect is noticeable but small but I only drank a tiny sip. I am saving most of it for the toughest part of the day for me: 2~5pm.
14:30 PM: I gulp down the remainder of the bottle. It doesn’t taste very good and the fact that I drank more this time certainly does not help. The amount is still small enough to be more easily tolerated than something like Red Bull or other beverages though. I don’t feel as much of an immediate effect as I do with other energy drinks (Monster, Red Bull, Red Rave etc.) We will see how this works out as the day goes on.
15:30 PM: So far I think the effect is rather disappointing. I do not feel very alert or awake but on the plus side I don’t feel jittery either. I would say it provides a very level and modest amount of energy over a sustained period of time. I guess it’s fair to say that there is no crash after using 5 hour energy since there is not much of a high.
Final Impression: After several hours, I would say that 5 hour energy works, sort of. There is indeed very little crash, and I did feel a bit more alert during my worst hours (3:30~5:30) but the effect is pretty subtle. When I have a can of Monster or other energy drinks I am immediately hyper-alert for the next hour or so, and then I enter this “tired but not sleepy” state for several hours afterwards. With 5 hour energy, I just get the “tired but not sleepy” state for the entire duration. I guess this is still somewhat useful, but honestly I think the hyper-alert phase is one of the main reasons to have an energy drink so I’m not a big fan. I think at the end of the day, 5 hour energy is okay if you just don’t want to drink something big (a lot of energy drinks are 500ml or bigger). If you need a “jolt” of energy though… look elsewhere.
Trine 2
Yes! It is the return of a favourite of both Ah Gill and myself: Trine 2!
We both greatly enjoyed the 1st one, it was a great co-op adventure/puzzler that both looked and played amazing. I ended up sharing my Trine game with as many people as I could on PSN (since you are allowed to share with 4 other people upon purchase).
We finished the second one (the post is a bit late) and it is even better than the first one, except for a few quibbles.
First the bad: the amazing music from the first is a bit less amazing this time. It’s a lot less memorable for some reason. The most memorable song in Trine 2 is a remix of Crystal Caverns in Trine 1. To be fair, Trine 1 had some of the most amazing music I’ve heard in a long time and that’s high praise for a video game.
Another bad thing I felt was that they nerfed the Thief from the first game. The thief was perhaps far too powerful in the first game. She was the character that could solve most puzzles solo and was a decent combatant and her speed made her crucial in the final level. This time around they greatly weakened her health (dies in 2 hits) and lowered her damage and made her freeze ability have a “bombo” with the Knight’s fire sword.
And now the good:
- Amazing graphics, even more lush than the first Trine. Instead of just forests and caves this time you get beaches, water, caves, castles and it’s just a beautiful game.
- The wizard: no longers needs limited energy. This was a no-brainer to begin with. Sometimes you would try to solve a puzzle with the wizard, try a few solutions and run out of energy and you are stuck forever. FAIL.
- Wizard can fight now! He can pick up monsters and throw them into pits!
- The knight is a bit more useful, but this is mostly because the Thief is a lot less useful.
- The final level actually feels like a part of the game, unlike Trine 1 where the final level fundamentally changed the game you felt like you were suddenly playing a racing game.
Overall I loved Trine 2 and I would highly recommend it if you have someone to play it with. $15, and well worth it.
Nooch Snack n’ Chill
Nooch is located across from the Richmond City Hall, near where Pho Lan is in what I like to call “The Corner of Death”. It is called The Corner of Death because almost any establishment that opens up there folds and goes out of business within a year. A gelato place, a restaurant, and several cafes have come and gone in the past few years and now Nooch is here to try to break the unlucky streak. I really hope they do manage to stick around because their food as surprisingly good.
The inside looked clean and modern when we stepped in but interestingly there was no staff. We seated ourselves and a guy came out to apologize for “leaving us hanging”. We helped ourselves to the menu and ordered a few things:
Green Apple Iced Tea: $3.5
Pretty excellent iced tea, the flavour is subtle so if you are looking for super sweet/super chemical-tasting in your face apple flavour… you should go to Estea/Pearl Castle. I really liked this: the serving was large and the drink was refreshing. I didn’t feel like I needed a water to go with my drink as I often do at bubble tea places.
Pork Tenderloin Sandwich: $10?
This was really large and really good. The tenderloin was indeed tender and it was stacked high on the sandwich with honey mustard sauce and some veggies. The pork was tender and the sauce went well with the sandwich but it was pretty messy to eat. Served with forgettable chips/salad, but it was a nice thought.
Roast Chicken Panini: $8
Ah Gill ordered this, although I ended up liking this more and she liked my pork sandwich more. On a whole though they were both excellent… the chicken was tender and the cheese was gooey and not processed. It was a lot less messy to eat and I felt the size was good for one person. Also served with the same forgettable chips/salad.
Raincoast Crisps: $4?
This was on the house as we chatted with the waiter at the checkout. The exchange was pretty funny:
Ah Gill: “Oh what are these?”
Guy: “oh they are like… biscuits, they are $4. You can also get them at Shoppers.
*awkward silence as Guy realizes what he just did*
Guy: “…but it will probably be the same price… … … you know what, here why don’t you have one?”
LOL. Turns out they are almost expiring (May 18th) and they do taste a little stale. I didn’t like them but Ah Gill says she had this before (non stale) and they were really good.
Yes I caved
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After much resistance that resulted in my returning of the rat9 batman mouse, I broke down and bought a mousepad: QCK medium, $10 at NCIX.com
I feel like the surface is somewhat helpful… it is noticably more consistent than my desk surface and I think that for $10 it was worth the money. Though this mousepad may have saved the RAT9 from returning, it still had the problem where the battery was an incredible pain to remove. The G700 I have now just plugs in via USB cable if I need to charge it or I can just quickly pop in an AA… so I have no regrets about ditching the batman mouse, even if this mousepad would have made its terrible tracking tolerable…
Saboten at Aberdeen
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Tenderloin katsodon
EDIT: Alright, because Cat is apparently dissatisfied with my short post here is what I thinka bout this:
The pictured set is about $9 as you can see from the receipt, and the katsudon was reasonably tender and the egg was decently seasoned. However because this was a don, the egg covered the pork chop and dampened the crispiness of the pork… I think maybe getting a regular set (non egg) don might be a better choice.
I didn’t think it was worth the line up/wait (~20 minutes) and quite frankly you can have pork chop rice at Mambo cafe in the exact same food court except the portion will easily feed two people, maybe three. The portion here was pretty small. I think that their porkchop sandwich might have potential since it’s only $4.75.