Gastro Monkey // 美食家

Hi, Friends! Looks like it's been almost a year again since the last time I tried to update my blog! I have so much to catch up on, and it's overwhelming to think about all of the 2018 Japan/Taiwan posts, let alone the past few years. My last two posts were an attempt to catch up on the trip out to Hawaii January of 2020, while this and the upcoming ones are dining during a pandemic. At the time, we were torn on going out to eat (selfish), and if we should just keep staying home (paranoid). We really couldn't win. In the end, we decided that we should try to eat out and support the restaurants we want to see come out of the pandemic. To do this, we wore masks, and actually kept them on when we were not actively eating. In following various restaurants on Instagram, it is disheartening to see how people refuse to be considerate of others.   In deciding where to go, I took into account how much risk we were willing to take (this was just after having the first dose of Moderna...

About a year and a half ago, one of my friends got married in Victoria, B.C. Being so close to Seattle (yes, a few hours including a ferry ride is close especially considering I am now a solid twelve to thirteen hour drive away from Seattle), I have been to Victoria a few times. What can I say? People love flowers. Well, not me. I liked going to Victoria because we always went to Vancouver, and Vancouver meant food! No trip to Vancouver was complete without some Goldilocks (before they made it to Seattle or Sacramento - which incidentally has already closed), bola-bola, dim sum (seriously, puts the dim sum in Seattle to shame), and hot pot (the first time I had live shrimp in my hot pot was in 1994 at a hot pot place in Richmond I don't know the name of, but my Godmother was horrified that they were alive and flapping - she said they were too cute to eat). I am a fan of destination weddings though, and when he told me that it was going to be at the X-Mansion , of course I just h...