Tag: Food & Drink Posts

One of the hardest parts of traveling to remote countries is that it is not always easy to find some of the foods you enjoy the most back home. That in itself presents a great opportunity for exploring new foods, but let’s face it: sometimes it’s nice to have some tried and true comfort food. A good example of that for me is mexican food. It’s probably my favourite cuisine, and it was pretty rare that we didn’t have tacos at least weekly in my household growing up. Unfortunately in many parts of the world I’ve been in, finding mexican salsa can be a real pain. Even if you can find it (like here in Brazil), it’s an imported item that can easily cost $10 for a small container’s worth. Thankfully making fresh salsa at home is a pretty easy task, and one that I’ve performed a few times over […]

So last night I was really craving a kick ass steak dinner. I generally eat pretty healthy during the week, which means I look forward to indulging a bit more on the weekends. I did a quick Google search and ended up deciding that I wanted to visit La Cabrera, which is a very well known steak house and also the #3 restaurant (out of about 770 or so) in all of Buenos Aires on TripAdvisor. So I was definitely looking forward to it. Jump ahead about 15 minutes and I found myself outside of the restaurant, just south of Plaza Serrano. It looks like a nice enough place, and there are a few people standing outside having a smoke. There’s a patio with about 10 tables, and they are all empty. Looking inside I notice that there are about 3 or 4 tables with people at them, and another […]

As the title says, I’ve been in Buenos Aires now for 37 days. After next week, I will have officially crossed the half-way mark here, at which point I’ll be winding down and starting to get in my last sight seeing before leaving. I still have almost seven weeks here though, which is still quite a bit of time. This last week was mostly uneventful, other than a very late night out at the pub last Saturday night. Unlike North America, most people don’t even go out on the weekends here until midnight, and often later. I was in a little pub at around 5am and they were still serving drinks to a packed establishment. Last call was shortly before 6am, at which point we all walked outside and saw the sun coming out. I got to meet a few people from Ireland that night, as well as a few […]

I’ve managed to do a weekly update on the past two Fridays of the month, so I think going forward that’s going to by my goal for the rest of the trip. First off, I’ve been here a little over two weeks now. The total length of my time in Buenos Aires is about 12 weeks, so that means I have around 10 left I think. My first week here was a bit challenging, mostly for the language barrier. I spent a bit of time brushing up on my spanish, and week 2 definitely was a bit easier. Spanish This week I finally found a private spanish teacher and have been meeting her for two hours a night on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so that’s an extra six hours a week. We’ve mostly been reviewing old content, so I wouldn’t say I’ve learned too much new during lessons, but I […]

Given that I’m hitting the open skies in a matter of months, I’ve been trying to spend more time with the family. For easter of this year I went out and bought a pretty nice organic turkey from JD Farms in Langley, but never got around to cooking it. Since I’ve always been an eater of turkey and never a cooker of it, I offered to do thanksgiving dinner for my mom’s side of the family this year. I have to say, I can cook a pretty mean chicken these days. So I’m hoping I can pull off a turkey. If anyone has any suggestions, then by all means, drop them here. I’m hoping to turn the awesome knob up a bit and maybe cook a few other things during the day, but I haven’t quite decided on what. Since my family is Ukrainian, thanksgiving dinner for me doesn’t feel […]

For those people that know me, I’m pretty serious about nachos. I’m the only person I know with a complete lack of a sweet tooth. Chocolate, pies, cakes, candy, gummy bears, sugar — you could starve me for a week and put that stuff in front of me and I wouldn’t crave it at all. But put a plate of gooey, cheesy nachos in front of me and that’s a different story. I’ve slowly honed my nacho-making ability over the years to the point where I’m pretty much a nacho snob now. When I was down in Portland I went out of my way to find some nachos, only to be served a batch where the cheese was microwaved. Horrible. In fact, I’m always amazed when a pub or a restaurant fucks up nachos. I mean, how hard is it to put cheese on some tortilla chips and make it […]

A while ago I was approached by a Vancouver public relations company and asked if I wanted to be a guest of the Delta Grand Okanagan hotel in Kelowna for a weekend. The offer came right at a period of time where I was feeling a bit burnt out, so I gladly accepted and started packing my bags. The route from Chilliwack to Kelowna involves taking a highway through the mountains. Depending on the weather conditions, often you’ll find snowy conditions near the summit. Just in case I encountered those types of conditions I packed my chains for the car and also left early in the afternoon so I’d pass the summit while it was still bright outside. I rolled into Kelowna at around 5pm, and immediately headed to the hotel. The Delta Grand Okanagan hotel is located right on lake Okanagan and offers an amazing view of the surrounding […]

I bought a new BBQ a few weeks ago, and have pretty much used it everyday since. My favourite food to cook on the BBQ are peppers roasted in a bit of olive oil. Second favourite thing would be a good steak. I don’t eat a lot of potatoes, but I’m thinking about doing up some nice little potatoes in some type of dill sauce or something. Anyways, I’m looking for awesome new BBQ recipes. So, please drop a comment with your favourite thing to cook on the BBQ, and possible include some information on how to make it! Thanks.

When I moved back to Chilliwack, one of the first things that changed was my diet. I typically worked long hours in Vancouver, and that naturally led to me eating a lot of restaurant food. I’d normally want to sleep in as long as possible in the mornings, so I usually skipped breakfast in exchange for a few more minutes of zzzz’s. Lunch was normally something I’d eat down in the Food Court in the Bentall Center. There weren’t a lot of food options, but I’d typically switch between Subway or sushi. Dinners were a bit more varied — a lot of times I went out with friends after work, and other times I’d just grab a wrap or something while walking home. Out here, I tend to have a lot more time available in my evenings, which means I can actually cook a normal dinner and make sure I […]

One of the major initiatives I’ve taken upon myself since moving back home is to actually eat at home for all of my meals. The last time I think I consistently ate three meals a day that I actually made for myself was probably back in high school. Since moving out here, I’m happy to say that I’ve been fairly successful eating at home. It does take a lot of effort though, and I find I have to hit a grocery store every second day or so just to top up produce and what-not. The nice thing about being out here though is that it’s easy to bounce between various specialty stores in the same trip. In Vancouver, most of my grocery shopping was done at the Urban Fare in Vancouver. Out in Chilliwack, I’m bouncing between three places routinely: a little gourmet meat shop near my house, Price Smart, […]