Reese's White

Merry Christmas!

Recently when I was in the US, I tried Reese's White chocolate. I haven't seen this in Canada anywhere, and I love both regular Reese'rs Cups and white chocolate so I decided to give this a spin, hoping it'd become one of my US-only-favorites (like the Flaming Hot Cheetos for example).

The packaging is the same as normal Reese's chocolate but white in color, and the actual cups are held in black paper also like regular Reese's Cups. The smell was AMAZING; the cups smelt strongly of white chocolate! Unfortunately, unlike the smell, the taste disappointed big time. Unlike milk chocolate and peanut butter, the white chocolate-peanut butter combination does not bode well with my taste buds at all. I gave the second one to my brother I think.

3 Stars out of 5.

Categories: Reviews    

Tags: Christmas, Reeses, US, USA, America, Chocolate, Reviews

Comments: 2 so far

Review: Packaged Sushi

A few days ago, I was so hungry at night and there was nothing in the fridge. After dismissing the twenty or so packets of instant noodles in the pantry, I decided to go to Metro supermarket and try their pre-packaged sushi.

Of course I hadn't even the faintest hope of this tasting remotely decent or authentic; I was just hoping it would curb my hunger till the morning.

Turns out, packaged sushi is not that bad after all. They had five flavors:

1. California rolls
2. Vegetarian
3. Salmon rolls
4. Non-raw

All of these were going for $6.95 + tax. I got the California rolls, because I don't like cooked fish in sushi, and I had had Salmon rolls at a sushi restaurant last time.

★★ (out of ★★★★).

Categories: Reviews    

Tags: Snapshot, Sushi, Food, Late Night, Metro, Packaged, Review

Comments: 0 so far

Restaurant Review: Double Double Pizza

Double Double Pizza & Wings (doubledouble.ca)
Burgers, pizza, wings, chicken

3095 Hurontario Street, Mississauga, ON L5A Open till 3:00 AM; Open 7 Days a Week

My brother and I got hungry at 3:00 AM a couple weeks ago, so we decided to find something to eat. I was really craving sushi, but unfortunately no sushi place was open at that time in the night. Our search took us all the way to the center of Mississauga, where we found this place, which was open.

Food Taste:

The pizza was OK; we got the deal with two medium pizzas with three toppings and wings and garlic bread. To be honest, I probably wouldn't feed the garlic bread to even my dog (if I had one). It tasted pretty bland/hard and maybe it was undercooked or just plain old.

As for the pizza, I got the chicken, hot peppers and olives pizza, while my brother got pepperoni. Technically, chicken counts as two toppings, but the guy was nice to us and gave it to me anyway. Wings were REALLY good, at 3:00 AM, and even the day after. Topping selection for the pizzas was really thorough, especially with regards to the meats (pepperoni, salami, ham, sausage, hot sausage, beef, chicken, turkey bacon, etc).

Wait time was moderate for our order size and time of day.

Cost:

$$$$ out of $$$$
For the crappy tasting pizza, this place was pretty expensive.

Stars:

★★ (only because it was open late and buffalo wings were decent)

Visit Again:

There are many other places open at 3:00 AM in the morning. If I have to drive to the middle of Mississauga anyway, then I might as well go to a pizza place which tastes better...

So the verdict is NO

Categories: Reviews    

Tags: Double Double, Pizza, Wings, Chicken, Food, Review, Midnight Snack

Comments: 0 so far

Restaurant Reviews: Abdul's BBQ

Abdul's BBQ
Middle Eastern ('Authentic Syrian Shawarma') الشورمة السورية

1691-4500 Kingsway, Burnaby BC (Google Map)
Unknown Hours; Open 7 Days a Week

Food Taste:

Honestly, I hadn't had Syrian shawarma before this, so I had no clue how it's supposed to taste. Unfortunately, I went in assuming that it was going to taste the same as Lebanese shawarma, and as it turned out, Syrian food is a little different. Generally speaking, it is spicier and drier than Lebanese shawarma. They also rely more on hot sauce than hummus.

All food comes with a choice of three different spiciness levels, both for the bread and the meat. I tried medium for both meat and pita bread, and found it a little spicy. Mild probably would have been too bland, so I think perfection is somewhere between mild and medium.

I tried the special one time (Beef and Chicken Special Mini Combo), which came with rice, beef and chicken and a pita bread. Unfortunately there was no salad to accompany the meal, so it tasted a little dry. The next time, I tried the beef shawarma, and while it wasn't like Lebanese shawarma, it was still respectable (although a little spicy!).

Decor:

Dine-in

It's not a five-star restaurant, and it doesn't try to be.
You walk in, order what you want, eat it, order more if needed, pay at the end, and walk out.
Poor quality chairs and tables (probably capacity is around 20ish). Both times I went, it was only about half-full.

Service:

The store is owned by Abdul (obviously!), a nice gentleman from Syria (obviously). He is talkative and friendly, even during the working-week rush-hour, which is when I went. Service is very quick (food is made in less than 5 minutes if you order the common items)

Cost:

$$$ out of $$$$ (taking taste into account)

Times Visited: Twice, both in February 2009.

Waiter service:Non existent; walk-in and dine-in, or takeout.

Restrooms: Standard small restaurant rest rooms.

Delivery: Unknown (probably not)

Stars

★★★

Visit Again:

If in the close vicinity and really hungry, I might visit again.

Otherwise, I will choose another restaurant (even for shawarma)

Categories: Reviews    

Tags: Vancouver, British Columbia, Restaurant Review, Abdul's, Shawarma

Comments: 0 so far

Registrar

This post is probably going to read something like one of CaptainChaos's posts, but I'll try anyway.

---

So today I was at the registrar's office (after forgetting to pay them a visit for two consecutive days), and as expected, was waiting in line. This post, is thus going to be about the Registrar's Office, and not be the post I was planning on making earlier - that will come on a later date.

The registrar's office today was extremely inefficient as usual, because of the general incompetence of the staff working there. The Office is staffed by two ladies, who, regrettably for the students needing the Registrar's services, are good friends. For example, after serving every student, the lady went to her colleague and talked for about a minute. Add up the time required to walk to the co-worker's desk (15 seconds), talking (one minute), getting a refill on her coffee (30 seconds), and then proceeding to walk back (15 seconds) - an average of two minutes are wasted for each customer served. Moreover, after having served one student, she would wait about ten seconds seemingly staring into the empty abyss that is the wall of the Office of the Registrar. Unsurprisingly, at this time of the year, most students are only picking up transcript requests (which require matching a number on the student card to one printed on the envelope containing said transcripts). Such transcript requests therefore take only about a minute to fill, so wasting two minutes after doing one minute of work means they waste about 66% of their day. Nice work, Office of the Registrar. Nice work.

As further proof of their inefficiency, during the time I was there (about 40 minutes to serve 9 students), one of the ladies working there went on her coffee break, only to come back and declare that she is now going on her lunch break. Sure, it is noon and everyone is hungry, but couldn't you have taken your coffee break at some other time, lady? Do it when the between-class rush is gone; do it in the morning when there is no students there; do it in the afternoon when the line is shorter. In fact, do you really even need a coffee break when you work from 9AM-4PM and manage to somehow take a two hour lunch in that period, also?

Thankfully, the registrar learned this year that instead of having simultaneous breaks for all workers and closing the entire office down for two hours at noon every day (and thereby having truckloads of bored and disgruntled students waiting after they all returned from their lunch break), they can have their employees take spread-out-breaks (like every other business in the rest of the world), and not have as many students complain.

Unfortunately, this post was going to be about something COMPLETELY different (and which I was considering password-protecting). But because my rant on the registrar turned out to be long enough to merit a single post, the other stuff (which actually WILL read like CaptainChaos's blog, will come as a password protected post later on).

Categories: Reviews    

Tags: Registrar, Mac, McMaster, Inefficiency, Time, Management, Coffee Break

Comments: 0 so far