Last Weekend: Food

Last weekend was one full of delicious meals and baking adventures. I shall summarize below:

Marble Swirl Chocochip Banana Bread (CCK Recipe) - baked
with AA while we caught up on life and drank tea.

A sushi-filled double date with the sister and our novios!
Sushi Topia is captained by a pleasant man who makes
very delicious food - even for us veggie-heads!

It was Waffle Gone Wild!'s 1-year anniversary event -
we just happened to stop by for brunch on the right day!

We were allowed to burst a balloon to find a giveaway
inside - we ended up with free ice cream.

J and M both ordered the Banana
Nutella waffles - mmmm, chocolate.

Delicious Bombay Chai tea.

 

I went for the Cinnamon Apple option!

(Not quite the weekend...) On Monday, I baked vegan cookies for my council meeting! Which was followed by my first full staff meeting as a future advisor - I got to meet my future team! It was very exciting, and all of my future colleagues seem like fun and kind people. The cookies were also great - adopted from a CCK recipe with added Ener-G Egg Replacer to see if they would fluff up. They did!

A tour around campus to take some
photos the other day led me to what
I consider a sure sign of impending
Spring - blooming daffodils! =D

HoCho Fest Day 23: Monkey's Uncle

Happy B.C. Family Day!

To celebrate the day, some of the folks I love came out to my end and we all went for "Italian soul food" at the restaurant Incendio. My pasta was delectable, and the crusts of my family members' pizzas were as well.

S and N's pizza.

My rotini pomodoro pasta.

Mom and J's pizza.

 












After our lunch, we made the journey over to the hot chocolate location for the day - the second trip to Bella Gelatería! I thought it would be a good spot to showcase some of the festival's creativity and unique locations to my family.

Monkey's Uncle: gBAR made from banana liquer and swirls of "To Die For"
banana bread crumb. Served with a slice of Erin Ireland's "To Die For"
Banana Bread.

The gelato gBAR for this drink tasted SO GOOD! It tasted exactly like banana bread, except it was in a popcicle form. S and N tried this as well, but tried it instead in a cone and dipped it in their white hot chocolate (with moderate success). 

Dipping our banana bread gBAR into the dark almond milk hot chocolate made it melt, and the oozing flavours tasted oh-so-yummy. The hot chocolate was dark and nutty from the almond milk, and was quite filling. Similarly to my last experience at BG, the gBAR did not flavour the hot chocolate very strongly, and the flavours of it were hardly present until the last quarter of the drink, where it became thicker with the gelato and hints of banana crept up.

As was the case last time, the "To Die For" banana bread was delectable, and I think that everyone enjoyed their hot chocolate experiences as well. 



I personally think that last year's hot chocolate at BG was superior because of how strong the flavours were. However, this year's is very unique in how you come to have the specialty drinks - to make this year's top last year's, I think the drinks should be smaller so that the gBARs can flavour the hot chocolate more effectively (maybe 12oz drink cups instead of what appear to be 16oz ones would help).

HoCho Fest Day 18: Banana Split

It should be evident that today's festival item holds great promise to be delicious based solely on its name.
After taking part in an exercise study downtown, I took the opportunity to take a second peek inside Bel Cafe. 
My first visit had been met with the information that I could not order my drink with a dairy alternative, so I decided to try again later.

The cafe has a very modern and "chic" feel to it; dark wood and brown furnishings, very soft blue walls with simple polka dot designs darting across them. This is also the first cafe I've really encountered where a sign tells me to wait to be seated! So I did wait, and I was seated, and I was handed a menu and spotted the hot chocolate festival item, the Banana Split. The description differed from the one on the City Food festival's page, but I was there for a purpose and this alternative sounded equally as delicious! I inquired as to whether it was possible to get this one with a dairy alternative, and the kind waiter recommended almond milk; of course I went with his suggestion.

36% Valrhona Caramelia chocolate, topped with vanilla bean marshmallow,
served with banana bread.
($7.10)

 First sip: WOW! Yum! The caramalia chocolate and vanilla made the drink so very beautifully sweet - I believe the vanilla bean flavour crept purely from the marshmallow (which was melting into the drink), but regardless... My tastebuds were having a sweet and tasty party.

 I believe that soy milk would have made this a more rich drink, and I am very content with having lightened the sweetness and thickness of flavour by choosing almond milk - I really do love that milk so much! It complemented the caramel and vanilla flavours very well. 

The drink was not the only item presented in the lovely display of the festival combo, however! Beside the hot chocolate (in what I thought was a beautifully simple and elegant glass), was a slice of banana bread. The bread was nutty and moist and full of texture from all of the extras that were baked into it. I made good use of the spoon that was supplied by dropping chunks of bread into the drink, only to scoop them up covered in sweet chocolate, caramel, and vanilla flavours; each of which took its turn in making its presence strong throughout my drinking experience (caramel, almond, vanilla, rotate).

 Aside from the lovely experience I had with the Banana Split, the menu had a multitude of other items that looked like they would be great for a midday snack or light lunch. I tried not to stare too much at those around me, but the friends sitting to my left had lattes with intricate latte art atop them and the cutest of cakes to go with their drinks - about the size of a small fist! In my opinion, the perfect size for enjoying a dessert.

I hope this will be a spot I return to soon - I would recommend going as a duo if you wish to go with company - I did not get to explore any more of the space (if there was any beyond the glass door in the back), but what space I had was very limited and filled up quickly! Perfect for one-on-one conversation, but three would require finding enough seats in the center table which allowed for larger groups (but was full of singles and duos anyways).

HoCho Fest Day 8: The Evita

Ah, the beautiful day arrived when it came time to go to Bella Gelatería! This was probably my favourite stop from last year's hot chocolate festival, and this year it seems they somehow stepped up their game.. In a couple of ways.

gBAR flavoured with salted caramel - Argentina style. 
Served with Erin Ireland's "To Die For" Banana Bread. 

(~$8.50)

The "gBAR" mentioned in the description is the frozen gelato bar; this is where the specific flavours of each of the 6 available hot chocolate festival items come from. The beverage comes as a more-or-less basic hot chocolate of varying darkness with soy and almond milk options available, and the gBAR is then stirred into the hot chocolate. My company and I each chose a different beverage flavour - Mine, the Evita; hers, Monkey's Uncle; his, the London Foggy.

The gBAR reminded me of a Fudgsicle in its texture - perfectly frozen and creamy and biteable without hurting the teeth! It was smooth with caramelly flavour, and it melted easily into the hot chocolate as I began to stir.

As for the almond milk hot chocolate on its own, it was not particularly smooth. This was not bad, though, as it was "rough" with almond, nutty flavour and dark chocolate. After I mixed in the gBAR, it seemed there was too much hot chocolate for the flavour to be strongly mixed - and part of my bar fell into the bottom! I figured this may serve me well later, but in the mean time I could not continue stirring it with my tiny gBAR stick. There was a subtle caramel flavour at this point, however.

3/4 of the way through the beverage, the lost and unstirrable chunk of gelato could be swirled into the hot chocolate with a couple swooshes of the cup. The caramel now became evident and cancelled the rough dark chocolate texture and the drink became smooth and creamy.

The hot chocolate was delectable, and my company seems to have similar sentiments - we were VERY satisfied when leaving! Partially due to satiation as well, I would recommend going without being too full beforehand (but have something nutritious to absorb the chocolate blow!).

There seemed to be a majority vote to return for gelato (a particularly strong vote from M to return for lavender gelato), so I imagine those photos will crop up one day. We ended our day with sushi and then headed back for football to make use of the deliciousness (it worked, we won).

For more information about the "To Die For" Banana Braed, check this link.

A Baking Break

Today is a busy day, and to alleviate any potential stress on my mind (and my chocolate-infused blood) I have taken to stay closer to campus today and attend a couple different career workshops (which I imagine I will have something to say about later).

However, without wanting to shock my system by having no chocolate, I will indulge in a bit of homemade chocolate chip banana bread (vegan), adopted from Chocolate Covered Katie's "Polka Dot Banana Bread" recipe.

I added almond's on top and a thin layer of granola in the middle for some texture here and there.

Vegan chocolate chip banana bread with almonds and granola.

It is glorious when warmed up and covered in some sort of buttery spread (I use Becel's vegan margarine), and I imagine it would also be good with something like peanut butter or perhaps jam if you're feeling more adventurous (I like jam so it tastes good with anything to me).

Hopefully my next post will contain some insight into future career or educational paths - be it a better idea of what I want to do or a better idea of what I do NOT want to do (both would be helpful). As a side note, I also think I'll be switching to this font for a while.