We took my mom out to dinner for her birthday last weekend.
I’ve been meaning to go to Il Nido for a while now; I haven’t been since the summer of 2005.
I remember this because the cast of a new Fox show (Reunion) were also there that night, and by winter Fox had cancelled the show.
I wrote about it here.
I remember my dinning experiences there fondly; the food was consistently good and I always had an amazing time there.
So why has it taken me so long to go back? It’s just a silly case of ‘out with the old’

This restaurant is truly a hidden gem, tucked away in a quiet plaza just a few steps away from the hustle and bustle of Robson Street.
I knew my mom would enjoy the food, and the quiet, cozy and simple ambience.
I ordered the soup of the day; a fresh and delicious minestrone to start, it was loaded with hearty vegetables, and quite comforting – I pretended my mom made it!
My mom asked the owner (Franco) for the recipe and he gracefully gave her his card and asked her to call him, when she’s ready to make it.
For the main, I chose a simple penne with artichoke hearts tossed in broccoli pesto, and it was perfect.
The pesto was so good… I used the foccacia from the table to sop up the sauce at the bottom.
My mom had ossobuco with risotto and greens – she loved it!
She said the meat (lamb) was succulent and divine! and she loved the wine sauce.
Dessert was a trio of tiramisu, panna cotta and blood orange gelato which we shared, our waiter called the gelato ‘revitalizing’ and I agree, it was quite refreshing.
The tiramisu was wonderful and my favourite was the panna cotta.

The best part though, was spending time with my mom.
I don’t always have time to do things with my mom, so having moments like this with her is nice.

I had dessert every night when I was on vacation.
Every.  Single. Night!
I also had a glass of rosé with every meal (except breakfast) but that’s a story for another day.
Desserts are like rainbows and perfect sunny days, they make everything better.
We settled on Boulangerie Julien after several days of boulangerie hopping in search of the perfect bread.
Apparently the baguettes here are award winning. The croissant and pain au chocolat has won awards too.

The location in Beaubourg was half a block from where we stayed, and they have the best baguettes I’ve ever tasted.

The shopkeepers were amazingly nice and accommodating (Aren’t French people supposed to be rude?).
We went by later in the day once, in search of dessert; I was intimidated by the sheer awesomeness and variety of pastries.

It all looked so good and colourful, like art pieces.

I chose the prettiest piece that caught my eye; a slice of raspberry mille-feuille.

It was amazing! I don’t have the right food-description vocabulary to describe how marvellous it was.
It had layers of light flaky puff pastry, tart raspberry sauce, pastry cream, and real fresh raspberries.

It’s one of the best desserts I’ve had.
It was definitely the perfect way to end a perfect day.
I still dream about that dessert sometimes.

I almost want to say that I can’t live without my phone but that would be ridiculous. Of course, I can live without my phone. I just wouldn’t feel complete. Two Mondays past, I exposed my phone to the elements; rain, slush and cold, for about 2 hours.

It flickered on and off for a while and later died; faced with the prospect of losing my phone I had a mini panic attack. Surely, I can live without my phone but do I want to?

I once read that no one loves their phone completely, there’s always something you’d like to change or add to your phone. This is true; my phone is far from perfect but it brought me so much joy, convenience and ease I feel it’s perfect enough.

I’ve had my I-mate Jamin (aka HTP Prophet, Qtek S200) for almost a year now. It’s my first ever pocket PC.

Prior to this, I had an Innostream 55, a very cute little phone, great conversation piece… but not so great phone. It shipped with an application called Lady Scheduler and a slew of other wacky stuff. The battery got wonky on me and I got tired of carrying a cell phone, MP3 player and a PDA.

I did a little research and opted for Jamin (ok, I liked the name!)

I won’t bore you with the details, there’re lots of reviews on the internets.

First thing I did was to get a 2GB SD card; I have so much awesome crap on there it’s daunting.

The Good:
• My songs, podcasts and videos on the go
• WIFI
• EDGE
• Word, Excel, PDF viewer
• Outlook with calendar, contacts etc.
• MSN Messenger, Skype and any other IM type compatible with WM5
• 2 Mega pixel camera – Most of the pictures on this blog were taken with the phone’s camera
• Bluetooth
• Voice dialing for contacts and applications
• A slew of downloadable third party applications
• Charging via USB cable
• OK battery life considering all it does

The Bad:
• Sluggish (200 MHz CPU), not as fast as I’d like it to be, although you get used to it
• Poor quality speakers, I barely use this, I normally hook it up to my Bose computer speakers
• 2.5MM headset jack, I have a 3.5MM converter, tragedy averted.
• Camera lag and not so great night time pictures
• Requires frequent resets to keep it sane

That Monday, I took out the battery and the SD card, and laid it out to dry overnight. I put it back together in the morning and… viola! Like magic it worked.

I appreciate my phone now more than ever, I wonder if there’re other people out there who feel the same way about their phones.

del.icio.us tags: i-mate jamin, htc prophet, mobile phones

CBC’s much hyped and much anticipated “Little Mosque on the Prairie“ premiered last night.

I’d been looking forward to this show for months and especially after the minor attention it’s gotten.

I was ready and open to like this show and although I didn’t hate it, this first episode didn’t blow me away. I felt there could have been a bit more substance to it, plus it felt a bit rushed to me.

I don’t know, maybe I was expecting too much from a thirty minute sitcom (with no laugh tracks).

It’s a comedy about a small Muslim community in a small prairie town in Canada, their new mosque, Imam, and the neighbours’ perception of and reaction to them in this post September 11 world.

While this makes for a great premise, the first 10 minutes threw in every stereotypical Muslims-are-terrorist joke in the book. Which makes me wonder what they’ll do for the remaining episodes, they can’t repeat the same jokes over and over, can they?

A couple of jokes and/or situations garnered a smile or chuckle from me, but there wasn’t anything laugh-out-funny to me, probably because it seemed a tad ridiculous to be funny.

This show has the potential to be what it’s supposed to be, it could be humorous, satirical and insightful. Depends on what direction the show takes and how characters are developed.

Overall, it’s a great concept; the first episode was a ‘weak-good’ because I was expecting something more along the lines of the great immigrant/assimilation comedy.

I’ll have to watch at least three more episodes to form a solid opinion, but it’s fresh, interesting, and different, unlike anything on TV right now. Plus it’s got buzz…

Technorati tags: little mosque on the prairie, tv review, cbc, canadian television