Year of the Fire Pig is upon us! Wish everyone a healthy and prosperous new year! For the ladies - marry into a rich, famous family. For the gents - promotions and BIG gambling winnings. :):)
Aside from having dinners with family and friends, and eating lots of festive foods, I managed to catch the CNY-eve show from the folks at Toronto's First Radio (AM770/1540). Got to Pacific Mall at 9pm, to make sure we got the best standing room (only VIPs got seats, aye). The official show didn't start until 10pm, but the Dynasty Music Group was here to entertain with some live music. The band was pretty good. Their lead singer, Noella Choi (蔡瑋瑜), was the winner of 1999 Toronto New Talent Singing awards. With impressive command of her voice, she performed great renditions of My Heart Will Go On, 童話, 風繼續吹 and one of those K-mix of pop songs. The group finished off their show by performing an arrangement of 最好的時光 (The best times), one of the mood melodies from the TVB series 火舞黃沙 (Fire dance, yellow sand). Apparently, Noella WAS the singer for that song in the series. I couldn't remember that particular song from the series when she mentioned it, but memories flooded back as she performed.
Next up were some kids performing Shaolin karate. They were a disgrace to Shaolin arts. Enough said.
The show was sponsored by Telus, so the games they played were all Telus-related. In one event, they had volunteers from the crowd play a verbal form of Pictionary/Charades. One person had to give verbal clues to the other person to guess a certain phrase/term. The first pair got a bunch of Chinese New Year words, but the guy giving the clues was so bad that they only managed 3 correct answers. However, the second pair got totally owned, not by the first team, but by the Telus cell-phone related words that came up. How do you give clues for "Call Display", "Unlimited Calling"?!?
Another event was one of those read-the-paragraph-as-fast-as-possible (急口令) games. Despite asking for volunteers who can read Chinese, some kid managed to get selected to go on stage. After realizing what the game required, he was a good sport and decided to give it a try. He was good to go after a couple quick Chinese lessons on stage. Performance was much laughter fodder for the crowd. :)
The highlights of the show were the singing performances of the AM1540 DJ's. 小麗couldn't sing, but her dancing and arse-wagging brought down the house. 廖主輝 sang 張開眼晴 - very beautiful lyrics for the new year, whether you have good or not so good fortunes. Everyone's favouritest DJ, 劉建民 (aka 阿牛），sang three songs representing different eras of his love experience, much to the joy of the crowd. Everyone couldn't stop making wise-cracks after the fung-shui master said that people of Year of the Cow should match someone from a Year of Chicken. 阿牛, only "find" a chicken, don't "call" a chicken (hooker). Anyways, 阿牛 put on his shades and performed 兩隻蝴蝶 representing his first love at 16. Then he followed up with 你怎麼捨得我難過representing his feelings when his girlfriend complained about his fatness, big head, lack of life goals, etc. and decided to break up. Now at his "old" age, all he can do is cry alone with 淚的小雨. (These oldies took me a while to find!)
After 阿牛's performance, it was time for the countdown. 3...2...1....bang, lots of confetti (too bad no firecrackers) and lion dance ensued. I managed to land a red pocket from the "God of Fortune" after the show, so I'm all SET for this new year now.
Cheers to the Year of the pig!
Season's biggest storm hit the Northeast on Valentine's Day. Toronto, once again, got spared much of the blunt of the storm. Total accumulation was only around 15-20cm. Much better than the feet of snow in other nearby areas. Still, to my dismay, there was a fortified bank of snow around my house courtesy of the City of Markham.
Ithaca, on the other hand, supposedly got more snow, forcing Cornell to declare a state of Snow emergency for the first time in 14 years, shutting down classes, buildings, gyms, oakenshields, etc. However, the national guard of students with their trays (both Oakies and Jansen's) and sleds were mobilized to perform rescue duties for those who have trouble getting down Libe slope. That pathway across the middle of the slope is still as deadly as I remembered. Some nice jumps off that near the end of the video. See the action for yourself:
Every few weeks, you'd hear some freaky news of dangerous and cancer-inducing fake foods coming from China. Today's news was just disgusting. Dried fish air bladder (花膠) is one of the traditional Chinese dried seafood delicacies. With Chinese new year coming up, this stuff is selling like hot cakes. According to Mingpao, some ingenious people came up with the idea of using rabbit ears to substitute for the much pricier air bladder. Apparently, after you dry the ears, they turn into the yellowish color. The article emphasizes several times that, at least, these rabbit ears are not harmful to health. Big comfort, eh? I'd puke if I knew I was eating rabbit ears.
Anyway, five tips to tell whether you have the real stuff or some bunny parts.
- If it has fur, it's definitely not fish.
- Has soft bones - only parts like ears have soft bones.
- Can see the ear tunnel.
- Can find holes that you believe might be where the rabbits eyes were.
- No seafood smell...
On related news, they recently studied some Peking ducks from Beijing. All the ducks passed the tests, but the sauce failed miserably. Some banned chemical sweetener was found in the about half the sauce, which can be harmful to your liver and nervous systems. My friends, just eat the duck plain.
Draining week it has been. Tired mentally and physically... anyway, some random tidbits..
Caught up on the much acclaimed Heroes. Easy to see why Hiro-san is so lovable, as he has the best lines and "special power" (aside from Peter's mimic abilities) in the series. Love how the seemingly unrelated characters and lives are really starting to mix in with one another's now. I have a tough time telling which characters are good or bad in this series, except for Sylar. Plot seems to be really picking up too and speeding towards the explosive climax. Looking forward to both 24 (2hrs of Somebody set Jack up the bomb.) and Heroes on Monday. :)
Continued my Wii hunting quest. Been slacking lately, but Toys'R'Us advertised in their flyers that there would be at least 20 Wii's at each store location on Saturday morning. My local store opened at 9:30 am, so I grudgingly got to the store at 8 am in the morning. As I drove into the parking lot, there were only four people in front of the store. Yes! Tochi's Wii is waiting inside to be claimed! Unfortunately, after I put on my winter battle gear and went to the camping spot, I found out that they handed out all 20 "wii tickets" at 7am. WTF. Then I overheard some guy saying he has a Wii already, but just wanted to get an extra wii-mote. Grrr.. Just not my day. Later at Future Shop, I saw a young family with two 7-10 year old kids, buying a PS3, extra controllers, and several games. The salesman carrying their toys was smiling from ear to ear. Nice commission. :)
I totally missed the Vista Ice House and Tux. Went to Dundas Square earlier in the week to check if the house had melted yet, and only found a giant tent for the Aussie showcase that starts this week. Would have loved to see the house, and win the free Bill Gates autographed copy of Vista... -_-;;; Now, I'd settle for a free copy of Vista Ultimate with RC238's autograph. Don't disappoint me, M$!
Truffles. Winterlicious 2007 stop. Rated as one of the few CAA/AAA Five Diamond Restaurants in Canada, I had high expectations for Four Season's Truffles. The restaurant was very small, much smaller than I expected - at most 25 tables. They had the lights dimmed, with a mini stepping tower of candles on each table. Very romantic. I was most impressed by the heavy drapery-like table clothes. Feels very classy, for some reason, when the cloth pushes back on your legs as you move in your chair. The acclaimed service was awesome, as they seriously had a waiter for every two tables. There were always two waiters standing by the kitchen doorway on "standby". The trademark of good service is whether the waiters comb the bread crumbs from the table, and they did!
Tochi's french cuisine for the night was:
- Winter Greens with Beet Croutons - Blue Benedictine, Horseradish Vinaigrette
- Braised Lamb Shanks - Truffled White Bean, Baby Vegetable, Natural Jus
- Blood Orange Cheesecake - Dark Chocolate Sorbet
I was really looking forward to the main entrée, the lamb shanks. When the dish came, I was a little taken aback by its plain and half gruesome looks. Not the fancy presentation I was expecting. Despite its looks, the dish came through big time in other ways. Definitely much different than any other lamb shank I've ever had in my life. The meat was very tender and moist, and just literally fell apart in my mouth. They didn't remove any of the fats from the meat when they cooked it, and compensated for the extra fats by adjusting the sauce perfectly to give the soft texture a very hearty feel. If the sauce was any heavier, the combination with the fat would have just made the dish disgusting, but the chefs somehow managed to make it just right. I had a glass of 2000 R H Phillips Merlot to help revive my taste buds. A slightly more astringent pick would have went better with the shanks. Cheers (for the puzzle fans)!
The cheesecake had a tough act to follow, but didn't disappoint! Orange flavoured cheesecake is so indescribably awesome! The dark chocolate sorbet was also a welcome relief, as my face was a little warm from the wine. I overheard some lady at another table asking for another serving of the dessert. :)
All in all, this meal was a definitely eye-opener. As a five-star restaurant, I was expecting very small, fancy dishes. However, what I got were very simple, common ingredients prepared to offer the most luxurious of tastes. I really want to try Truffle's signature dish - spaghettini with Perigord Black Gold served with a light truffle sauce- someday, even if it costs me an arm and a leg. Tochi Meter reads a definite 5 out of 5.