Chan's Personal Blog

The conclusion of my Master's degree has kicked off a delicious week of celebrating and feasting which means that I'm no longer a starving grad student, but a well-fed one. Last Saturday, my parents took me out to Yoshi Sushi. I ordered the weekend boat special which had Chicken Yakitori, California Roll, Dynamite Roll, Shrimp and Vegetable Tempura, and a Robata Oyster.

The next day, Adam, Bethany, and Sarah treated me to a second round of Yoshi Sushi. We ordered the following: Chicken Yakitori, California Roll, Dynamite Roll, Prawn Tempura Roll, Spicy Tuna Roll, BC Salmon Skin Roll, and a Yam Tempura Roll. We finished the evening with an ice cream cake from Dairy Cream. Drool.

On Monday, I was at a birthday dinner at the Keg, and I had a caesar salad, garlic mashed potatoes, and a medium rare prime rib with beef jus. One of my favourite things about the Keg is actually their horseradish sauce that they serve with their prime rib. It's very hot and creamy, and it tastes a lot like wasabi. The heat from the sauce hits you and then it disappears, it doesn't linger which is nice.

The week of feasting hasn't finished yet though. On Thursday, I'm going to Cafe Brio with Natalie. This restaurant is part of of the Dine Around town event that's going on where you can get a three course meal for $25-$35, so this is a great opportunity to try out new restaurants. On top of that, I have a pending dinner with Myron at Sen Zushi, a dinner with Patrick at Eugene's Greek Restaurant, and a lunch at Japanese Village with Carmen.

It's nice actually being able to attend social events because I actually have time these days. Stay tuned as restaurant reviews will surely follow.

After this weekend, I have to say that it's good to be a ravenous carnivore. I cooked a total of three roasts on the weekend. It all started on Saturday when my mom asked me to prepare a leg of lamb for dinner. So, I seasoned the hunk of meat, injected it with a crapload of garlic, and 100 minutes later, we had a lovely oven roast lamb.

The next day at church, I was telling Sarah about the roast lamb that I made, and she immediately suggested that we have roast venison for dinner that night, because she had one sitting in the freezer. This is when things snowballed. We were expecting six people for dinner, so the venison wasn't big enough to feed everyone, so I was asked to go pickup a roast from the grocery store.

So, I hit up the grocery store, and when I got to the meat section, I was unsure what cut of beef to get. We asked the butcher for a recommendation for a really good cut of meat, and she suggested the top sirloin cut. I picked a 1.3kg piece, and we were on our way. The roast didn't look too big until I opened it up, and removed the butcher string. This thing expanded into a massive piece of meat; it could easily feed 6-8 people.

Anyway, that afternoon I prepared both pieces of meat and got them seasoned. My goodness was the top sirloin tender though! I was poking holes in the meat with a knife, and the knife cut through it like butter. Later that evening, I discovered that instead of six guests for dinner, we were going to have eleven guests. Good thing I picked up extra groceries and a big hunk o' beef. When the extra dinner guests arrived, I introduced myself as the executive chef of the establishment.

It was interesting cooking roasts without a meat thermometer though. It's like cooking blind. But it worked out fairly well. I pulled the top sirloin out of the oven and checked it, and it was medium rare which was perfect. Unfortunately, other parts of our dinner wasn't finished yet, so we had to keep the meat warm. By the time we served dinner, the meat was medium to medium well. It was still super tender though. The venison surprised me too because it was quite tender, and it wasn't tough or gamey at all.

So, this was the menu for the evening:


I cooked from 3:30pm to 8:00pm that night, but I enjoy cooking so it's all good. So, I ended up making three roasts on the weekend. That's probably a new record.

Meat.... good. Grunt.