A and W Lansdowne

I was reading Gavin's post over at  Good Eat and was tempted to the dark side by him.  He mentioned there was this awesome new burger called the Grandma Prime Rib Burger over at A and W.  I was skeptical, but curious because he mentioned Prime Rib and Horseradish sauce.

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The onion rings had loads of coating, and managed to stay crispy. These were essentially the filler where the burger came up short.

The horseradish sauce was the only thing new to fast food that I noticed. It was a good addition, and adds a sense of class to fast food. Good on A and W to do this.

The onions were large and greasy, like eating a whole onion that had been sitting in oil for too long.

As you can tell by my thumb, the burger is tiny.

The patty was moist and tasty - basically the same as the Prime Rib patties you can get at Costco, except a tad smaller.  The bun was cheap and fell apart.  I think if A and W wanted to make a spectacular burger, they should have at least gotten better buns, but that would probably drive the price up and people would end up either going to a real burger place or other fast food places. 

Overall this new Grandma burger was small....tiny in fact, but once you stuff yourself with the onion rings and a medium soft drink, the meal itself can be filling.  For $3.99 you get the burger only, and $6.99 gets you the combo.  For $7, I think I can find a better meal at some HK Cafe.  $4 just for the burger isn't too bad I suppose, but it really is tiny for $4.00  Not too sure if I'd get another.

Hanami

A couple of weeks ago, the cherry blossoms were in bloom.  It was pretty much raining during the entire length of the bloom except for one particular weekend where it cleared up and not a single cloud was in the sky.  Hanami literally means flower viewing and in Japan, it can be a pretty big thing.  Families, friends, co-workers all gather under the cherry trees and have sort of a picnic.  Haha, I've heard stories of junior sarariman (salary men) holding spots for hours until their seniors arrive.  It's kind of hard to do on this side of the water because it rains so much, but this one day, me and a few fellow iaidoka got lucky.

The trees in Queen Elizabeth Park were probably the last ones to bloom in Vancouver, and although they look pretty pink in the pictures, they were starting to fall and the leaves were just starting to come out. 

We had an assortment of typical Japanese picnic food like onigiri, pickles, karage, beef skewers, fruits, tako weiner and a bunch of other stuff.

Sake cups

I know this is a food blog, and there's not a whole lot of food in this post, but I figured it's a nice change.  Besides, with all the gloomy weather we've had all winter, it's nice to see some blue skies accented with pink sakura.

My Attempt at Fusili de State - Avacado Cream Sauce with Shrimp Pasta

Fusili de State is a dish I often get at one of my favourite pasta joints - Anton's.  It's a creamy avacado sauce topped with shrimp on fusili pasta, and although it will probably shorten your life expectancy, it's really, really good.  The menu states that it's not always available, but all the times I've ordered it, I've been happy.  My attempt didn't get it exactly right, it came out pretty close I think.  

I started off my crushing some garlic....why am I using this?  I have a huge jug of chopped garlic that I got at Costco and it's taking me forever to get through it.  But it's not crushed finely enough for me so I decided to do it this way.

The menu says they used an entire avacado per dish....I love avacados.  Make sure it's really ripe so that when you crush it, it basically turns to cream. 

This was actually the second time I made this, however the avacado I used for this picture wasn't as ripe as it should have been.  As a result, I ended up with a couple of chucks of avacado that didn't crush easily.

I found a recipe for avacado cream sauce that says use a 1/4 cup of butter.....okay!

I added onions to the recipe, even though I don't think Anton's uses any onions....just my personal thing.  Try it without first, and see if it's better.

So, once the butter's nice and melted and the crushed garlic is infused in the butter, pour in 1/2 cup of fresh creme, or whipping cream.  When it comes to a simmer, add your avacado.

It doesn't look so smooth in this picture because of the onions and because the avacado I used wasn't quite ripe enough, but if you do it right, you get a smooth, rich and creamy avacado sauce.

I used fusili just like Anton's but I suppose you could swap it out for just about any pasta.

I added in the shrimp afterwards because I didn't want to overcook the shrimp. 

I tasted it first without the shrimp, then again after, and the shrimp really changes the flavour of the dish.  I mean, it's pretty damn good without, but add some shrimp, and you really have an amazing dish.  Sprinkle some freshly grated parmesan cheese and you've got home-made Anton's.

Red Tuna Sushi and Noodle Cafe

Hi everyone, long time no post.  I've been all kinds of busy lately, with classes, with work, with trying to get my car back on the road and almost no time (haha, and no money!) to go out to eat so nothing really exciting to post in the last few weeks.    I did manage to get out to this one little place last week called Red Tuna.  I had a buddy from out of town come in and I wanted to take him someplace he probably would never experience in Whitehorse - Sushi King, but they were just closing up.  It was kind of late and our options were limited, we twiddled our thumbs for a bit, then looked across the street to see Red Tuna's 'Open' sign lit up so we ran across the street and popped in. 

 Sushi King is kind of a regular hang out for my iaido group after class on Friday nights.  My sensei is Japanese but he has no qualms about eating at a place that's not "authentic".  As long as it tastes good, he doesn't care.  He'd been to Red Tuna a couple of times when Sushi King was full, and he told me that Red Tuna wasn't that bad.  My buddy and I figured why not? 

 The place was empty and obviously preparing to close but the staff were very friendly and greeted us with a welcoming smile and invited us in. 

 My friend ordered a bento box that came with a couple of nigiri sushi, California rolls, and some teriyaki beef on rice.  The negi sprinkled on the beef was a nice touch. 

My buddy Mike from Whitehorse.  We met during a two week training course in Regina back in February.  The selection for sushi in Regina was limited, and according to my buddy, options aren't so plentiful  in Whitehorse either.

I got a varitety of nigiri sushi and my current favourite roll - spicy tuna roll.  It was actually quite good, the rice wasn't packed on, wasn't overly spicy, with some chili mayo drizzle on it (reminded me of Tokyo Joe's spicy tuna roll).  I ordered two peices of toro which was very fresh, nice and fat, just the way I like it.  It didn't taste greasy or anything, just good fat (haha, if there is such a thing!).  The ikura was very fresh, each one popped as if it was fresh out of a salmon, nice portions.  The saba was of a different variety.  It was very lean, and the taste was slightly different than I was used to.  It was still good though, just different.  I also ordered amaebi which was not the tiny slivers of shrimp that many other restaurants serve.  This was more like botan ebi, which our server told us usually comes with the heads deep-fried.  My latest thing is to have the heads not deep-fried, but served raw.  The miso in the heads is kind of my latest favourite at sushi restaurants.  For those that aren't familiar with sushi, this may sound really gross.  For those that know, it's similar to kani miso, another delicacy not often found in North American sushi restaurants.

Red Tuna's prices are decent for what you get, the service was very, very friendly and the sushi was pretty damn good.  Would I go back?  Definitely.  And next time, I will go back with something more than my crappy phone camera.