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Suanne and Ben’s Food and Travel Adventures from Vancouver, BC

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10

Mar

Zen Fine Chinese Cuisine - Best Chinese Food Outside China

Posted by ben  Published in Uncategorized

Hey … did any of you guys see that headline article in The Vancouver Sun on Friday last week? I mean, this one below?

Zen Fine Chinese Cuisine

Well, it is a big deal to be called by a New York Times critic as having the best Chinese food outside of China. Suanne and I knew there is this place called Zen but did not give a second glance at this because it is located in upstairs of a very small strip mall at the end of Alexandra Rd.

The article makes very interesting read … see the entire article called “Could a great review save a dining room on the brink?“.

So, Suanne and I are definitely going to check this place out. According to the article, they have a $35 tasting menu. We are planning on going on Friday this week (14-Mar). It would be great if some of you would care to join us. If you are interested, just pop us an email at ben.and.suanne@gmail.com. If that date does not work for you and you are definitely interested, let us know too … we’ll see what we can do.

Suanne and Ben

7 comments

28

Feb

Any Tips For Vacation To Seattle?

Posted by ben  Published in Uncategorized

Hey All:

We’re all set. Spring break vacation this year is going to be a short one to Seattle. We’ll be there for 6 days and we’ll want to do the normal touristy places and especially also check out eating places. Here are some ideas we have shortlisted so far:

  • Argosy Cruise
  • Museum of Flight
  • Pacific Science Center
  • Woodland Park Zoo
  • Boeing tour
  • Microsoft tour
  • Pike Place Market
  • Pioneer Square

For food, we are a bit lost. So far we can only think of:

  • The Crab Pot
  • Starbucks

Soooo … any advice, suggestions?

Ben and Suanne

44 comments

16

Feb

Did You Subscribe to Chowtimes’ Feed?

Posted by ben  Published in Uncategorized

Hey All:

If you had been reading chowtimes.com via a feed reader, could you please remove your old subscription and resubscribe again? I am going to discontinue the old URL address and use a new one which is this: http://chowtimes.com/feed/

Thanks, Ben

1 comment

28

Jan

Migration to WordPress Completed!

Posted by ben  Published in Uncategorized

Whew! It took us an entire weekend to migrate chowtimes to Wordpress. We know it is still rough around the edges but the good thing is we’re back in business. We will take the next few weeks to cleanup the odds and ends.

If you had bookmarked any of our internal pages, please note that they will not work anymore. This is because WordPress names pages different from MovableType and we decided that it is best adopting fully what WordPress does.

Oh … ignore the corvette on the header page. We’ll fix that later on to something more foody.

Enjoy!
Suanne and Ben

9 comments

25

Jan

Migrating From MovableType To WordPress and a New Blog

Posted by ben  Published in Uncategorized
Update 27Jan 7pm: Alright … I think we got it all figured out now. Chowtimes.com will start to go dark anytime soon. The go-dark period will likely be 24-72 hours. The site is temporarily up at http://chowtimes.26miler.com. When you see a “corvette” you will know that the migration to WordPress had been completed. (blowing a bye kiss to MovableType!)

Update 26Jan 5pm: We got going again. We have created an interim site here if you want to have a sneak peak. Migrating all our photos will take a long time … estimated 7 hrs. We’ve got more pictures than we thought we had!

Update 26Jan 5am: Sigh … this is going to take longer than I thought! Am utterly stuck at this and working out the steps with my new hosting’s support. Stay tuned.

Hi All:

Suanne and I will start migrating chowtimes.com from MovableType to WordPress starting tonight. If all goes well, you will not notice any difference except that when we are done, you will see a new look and feel of the site.

It’s a complex move for us because we had not done it before. However, we felt that we must migrate it sooner or later because we were so impressed with what WordPress could do better and easier than what we can do on MovableType. We should be be done by end of day Saturday. Wish us luck!

So, to tide you guys over for the next little while, I want to announce to chowtimes reader my new blog … http://26miler.com. I hope you will enjoy it as much as you had on chowtimes. It is a chronicle of my attempt to complete (notice that I did not say run) the marathon this year.

Ben and Suanne

4 comments

9

Jan

chowtimes.com Turns Two

Posted by ben  Published in Uncategorized

Well … we’re a few days late but it’s better late than never. Chowtimes.com turned two a few days ago and just in the nick of time too … our little visits counter hit 200,000. For Suanne and I, it’s a milestone that we had been hoping to reach before the blog turns two.

IMG_3072_3_4.jpg

Suanne and I actually drove around Richmond looking for a cake to celebrate at 8:45PM. We wanted to look for one of those fluffy fruity cakes from Chinese bakeries. We went to quite a few places — most bakeries were closed at the hour of the day. We eventually remembered that the Osaka Supermarket at the Yaohan Mall had a bakery.

IMG_3066.jpg

We simply love fruit black forest cakes like these … lots of freshly cut colourful fruits on top. These cakes are very airy and fluffy. Does anyone know how these kind of cakes are made … especially how they are made so airy and light?

IMG_3070.jpg

Not sure about you, but for us, we don’t feel guilty eating such fruity black forest cake. After all, fruits are healthy food. Agree.

24 comments

30

Dec

New York CityPass Contest Results

Posted by ben  Published in Uncategorized

bow_home_ny.jpgCongratulations to Christine Duncan for being the first entry with an all correct answer to chowtimes’ first (and hopefully not last) contest. Christine wins a pair of Winter Special New York CityPass.

Christine, I will send you an email later on today on claiming your prize.

A total 13 responses were recorded, which is pretty good for a start. As a matter of fact, the questions are so easy, everyone got it correct. So, it actually boiled down to who responded first. Christine’s response was received just 5 minutes after the questions were posted. In case you are wondering who responded when, here it is:

ContestResults.jpg

Anyway, I wanted to thank Susan Wilson from CityPass for sponsoring the contest tickets.

I think it’s kind of fun doing contests. So, I was doing a little thinking over the past couple of days. Here is what I am proposing but not sure if any sponsor will bite. I could do food reviews or restaurant reviews for any Richmond or Vancouver area restaurants. In return for a review on this blog, the restaurant or food sponsor will sponsor something in return for a contest. For example, I do a review of the restaurant, the restaurant will donate a dinner for two or something. Anyone interested to have chowtimes do a review? Just email us at chowtimes@gmail.com

no comment

24

Dec

Merry Christmas

Posted by ben  Published in Uncategorized

Hi All:

Here is wishing all of you a Christmas that is filled with Joy, Peace and Hope. As you spend time with your family and loved ones, remember the Reason for the Season.

With warmest love from
Marcus, Norman, Suanne and Ben

Christmas.jpg

10 comments

9

May

North California Road Trip: Any Advice?

Posted by ben  Published in Uncategorized

Hi All … the weather is getting warmer and spring is now in the air. Time to start planning for summer vacation!! The last time I asked for advice from the readers before my trip to Europe, there were so many responses and advice that proved so useful to me. So, this time, am gonna ask you all again for tips.

Our plan is to take a loooong road trip with major stop at the Redwood National Park, San Francisco, Yosemite and Lake Tahoe. We have two weeks … well,maximum of 16 days … to cover this all. So, what do you think?

Here is the basic plan. We had covered both Washington and Oregon before and will not plan to make any stop until we get to the southern border of Oregon. Our first major stop is at the Redwood National Park before heading off too San Francisco. We plan to stay at least 4 full days in San Francisco and do the tourist sights plus a day at Six Flags. We will also spend at least 2 days in Yosemite and 1 day in Lake Tahoe. Where we stop in between these places is still to be determined.

I used MS Streets and Trips to plot this trip. The total distance will be at least 2400 miles and total driving time 44hrs! Seems like a lot of distance to cover. We had never tried these kind of distances before — the longest we had covered were 1900 miles (Banff and Oregon).

CaliforniaMap.jpg

So my question is basically:

  • What are the must-see and must-do places in San Francisco, Yosemite, Redwood NP and Lake Tahoe?
  • What are the must-try food local to these areas?
  • Any recommended places to stay in these places?
  • Any other tips or advice?
  • Oh … any food blogger want to meet up? This will be sometime mid July.
11 comments

9

Mar

Chowtimes.com Reaches 100,000 Visits

Posted by ben  Published in Uncategorized

He he he …

OK, OK, OK …

I admit … I am a stats watcher. It’s a big deal to me, so bear with me, OK? :-)

Just this morning, this site had hit 100,000 visits. Here is the proof:

100K.jpg

I know, I know … I am weird. I actually dreamt of this day when we hit that magical 100K visits. Suanne and I started this blog just for fun — we are still having fun. We’ll get at this for the next little while. I am sure one day, we will gonna get so bored with this that we’ll stop blogging altogether.

Visitor #100,000 was from Singapore on 8:04AM. At this rate, we’ll perhaps hit 1,000,000 visit by November 26th, 2015 at 8:40AM. Seriously, I calculated this on Microsoft Excel. :-)

Thank you all for bearing with us throughout all the 100K visits.

* getting off my soapbox *

14 comments

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Recent Comments

  • monkey on Seattle: The First Starbucks Store: I am enjoying your documentation of the family’s Seattle adventures. Thanks for this, as I know your experiences will come in handy when I organize a trip there. I prefer Timmy’s coffee over Starbucks. Starbuck’s coffee tastes burnt to me and needs to be more mellow in flavour.
  • SexyMalayGirl on Longan Jelly: I love this recipe!!! We get agar-agar and longans at Marina Foods-my family loves it. Whenever I throw a party-these make nice deserts. [= Except if I;m making it for a large group I pour them in ice cube trays w/ one longan in each cube.
  • seaghost on Seattle: The First Starbucks Store: Ever since you started the Seattle blogs, I have been hoping you would do something on Starbucks as I am a barista there. :D RobynT is correct. It’s named after the character in Moby Dick, Starbuck.
  • Eat-Snap-Repeat on Seattle: Piroshky, Piroshky in Pike Place Market: I love this place. Went there during my last trip to Seattle and had a savory pastry containing salmon and cream sauce (forget the name). It was delicious. A bit on the expensive side though (maybe I’m too accustomed to Chinese bakeries).
  • RobynT on Seattle: The First Starbucks Store: Starbuck is a character in Moby Dick. I heard that’s where the name came from and that’s why their logo is a mermaid. I also heard that the guy who came up with this either left or was squeezed out of the company before it got big. I think I read it in the latest Mental Floss (trivia magazine). I prefer Seattle’s Best to Starbucks, but I admit I often go to Starbucks since they are everywhere! I’ve been meaning to try Tim Horton’s but haven’t got around to it yet.
  • Jessica on Seattle: The First Starbucks Store: The sizes at Starbucks are Short (child size), Tall, Grande and Venti. I have boycotted Tim Horton’s over the timbit issue www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008 /05/08/timbit-lilliman.html?re f=rss the fact that the woman had children shouldn’t matter though. I find plain Starbucks coffee tastes burnt so I have to get a vanilla latte to cut the burnt taste.
  • Style Dish on Seattle: The First Starbucks Store: I use to be a frappucino addict and then when I read a grande frapp with whipped cream has the same amount of calories as a big mac…I stopped. I also started to go to the local coffee shops and found good ones like JJ Beans and love Cafe Artigiano. Also Starbucks isn’t doing so well. Maybe it’s the effect of the US economy downturn but in its history, the last 2-3 quarters they’ve started to see a drop in their sales.
  • carla on Seattle: The First Starbucks Store: The name “Starbucks” was developed by an ad agency which the company hired. They asked for a “catchy” name that would be easy to remember.
  • Chris on Seattle: The First Starbucks Store: I vote for Timmy’s anytime though had a bit of concern when they fired that poor single mom for giving away a 16c timbit! Glad to see she got rehired but hope the overzealous manager got reprimanded as well for, er, having his knickers in a knot!
  • MoMo on Seattle: The First Starbucks Store: I like Starbucks the most because it is the strongest coffee I can find so far. I am guess that’s one of the reasons why Starbucks is the king of the hill in the world of coffee. I drink coffee not for waking myself up besides taste, just like most adults. I did the test. I find that Starbucks can last me 4 to 5 hours of high energy. I don’t feel sleepy until night. Other brands? 2 to 3 hours if I am lucky. Usually 1 hour of being awake. I tried to switch before. I failed miserably. I would have a cup of non Starbucks in the morning and then ran to Starbucks for a cup of coffee hours later because I simply couldn’t stay awake. Especially there’s no sunlight during winter in Vancouver,I really need strong coffee to make me sober all day. If anyone knows any brand even stronger than Starbucks, please let me know. It doesn’t have to have retail stores. It can be just a brand of coffee beans or ground coffee on...

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