Thursday, January 31, 2013

Birthday Post

I never thought this day would have came but I've began to dread my birthdays. Turning older no longer was something I looked forward to.

At first I felt a bit down turning 24. I felt like at 24 I haven't accomplished everything. However after sharing this with many people (that are older) they reassured me that life really doesn't begin until.. some age beyond 24.

Generally I make a little blog post every year on my birthday. Looking back at last years post (found on the old one, here if you are interested) I am so pleased with myself. I think I did stay true to my promise. 23 really was amazing.


For my birthday celebrations I held a joint birthday party with Irene at Ceilis. I booked a room at the Four Seasons Vancouver so we had a place to get ready and crash at the end of the night. First time staying at Four Seasons here. Great location, good service, albeit the front desk had the most superficial girl I'd ever met. The room itself was kind of disappointing, the furnishings have become outdated and you can tell the age of the hotel and rooms. Perhaps they are due for a renovation soon. Its hard to keep a hotel modern and relevant to the times!  I had booked a deluxe room with city views, except the city view was a bit of a lie. I wish I took more pictures. Perhaps I'll start doing hotel reviews!

Birthday Cupcakes & Macarons!
Ceilis was great fun. We had such a great turn out! So many of our friends came out, it felt great walking around knowing everyone and being in presence of such fine company. This is what being popular must feel like. So thank you again for everyone that took the time out of their busy schedules to celebrate my birthday with me! I hope everyone had as much fun as as I did (if that's even possible) I wish I could say more, but the night kind of goes fuzzy. Whats most important though is that I remained standing at the end of the night and had a ridiculously good time.


You really have to believe me when I say I have amazing friends. My triple layered chocolate cake with rum ganache was hand made by my dear friend Melissa. Yes. It did taste amazing. I hauled that baby home the next morning as I was suffering from the worst hangover of my life, She is so talented, you can find her blog (and my cake being featured) here. The cupcakes were also made by my friend Aaron. He works at Swiss Bakery, personally I've never visited (but I am due for one!) but I've had a chance to taste a couple creations and he's yet to disappoint. Talk about making the right friends in right places eh? I have the sweetest ones. (Ha!)


The birthday celebrations had continued at work. My coworkers went on ahead and set up a small surprise for me and decorated a corner of the office. I really appreciated the gesture, being new and all, it really did make me feel included! They had set it up after I had gone off on my break so I come back, rounded the corner and I actually jumped from the "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" they shouted. I work with some pretty awesome folks too.


I've made a tradition of having birthday breakfast on my actual birthday. This year Sam brought me to Tomahawk Restaurant in North Vancouver. I've seen it featured on food network before and heard good things about it. The place had some pretty cool native decor and served up a pretty good breakfast. I had the Florentine eggs benedict and he had.. I don't remember. However it was covered in bacon. It was a decent breakfast so if you are in the neighborhood its worth a visit.


That evening I celebrated my birthday at The Reef on Commercial Street. They had a dine out menu so most of us had ordered that. I guess that's the good thing about having a birthday in January, many restaurants have a dine out menu featured. The food ranged from mediocre to awful. Had one more birthday cake, coincidentally it also had macarons on it as well!

Quite the week of celebrations I must say. Its awesome. Thank you everyone for making me oh so special. I don't mind getting older when Birthdays are this awesome. I rocked out 23. Its only going to get better from here, 24 here we go!

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Save on Meats

I had the chance to try a couple of new restaurants over the weekend. Remember what I had said previously about wanting to lose weight for my birthday? Yeah okay, that's gone to hell.

For lunch Sam brought me to a much anticipated diner. I'm sure many have driven past it without a second thought. I would not have expected to find a good burger in this part of the neighborhood. But we found ourselves walking along one of the most impoverished areas of Hastings Street to Save on Meats. 

Source: insidevancouver.com
Save on Meats is half butcher shop and half diner. I remember reading an article on how the original owner was closing it down after many years of operation and a new owner stepped forward to revamp and take it over. Walking inside I was surprised to find myself in a very clean, old fashion styled diner. The service was quick and attentive. I noticed they had a hipster dresscode going between most of the servers. 

I enjoyed going through the menu immensely as it was obviously written by someone that had a lot of spunk. I was tempted to settle for a big ol' breakfast, since breakfast is what we usually do. However I was there on a mission. And that mission was the burger. Sam and I both ordered the burger.


It came with a choice of variety of sides, Sam stuck with the good old burgers and fries and I settled with mashed potatoes. The beef from the burger is hand ground and brought over from the butcher shop right next to us. It was a solid burger, figuratively and literally. It was not overloaded with ingredients but had just the right amount and had a well seasoned patty. Turns out Sam is not a picklish person, more for me, all the better. The burger looks a bit small in size but it pretty much decimated us. The bread was a bit dense so it did pack a punch of carbs. Next time I think I will settle for a salad as a side, or something more green to balance it out. We ordered a slice of daily pie as well but we had to cancel it as we could no longer carry on after our burgers. 

Overall, I'd give it a 3/5 burger score. But for $6.95 you can't really go wrong.

Save On Meats on Urbanspoon
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