Simon Lau

Tomorrow’s Gas Price, Today (Canada)

You probably heard about this MP in the news and today I finally took the time to google him and find his website. MP Dan McTeague is able to predict tomorrow’ gas price at the end of today by considering the market conditions. He claims it’s pretty simple but I sure as heck don’t know how to do it, and I work for a major gas company!

Anyways, check out his webpage if you want to figure out if you should fill up today or hold off until tomorrow:

http://www.mcteague.ca

Dan has calculated gas prices for the following area:

Toronto/GTA/London
Ottawa
Montreal
Calgary
Kamloops/Kelowna

I’m down to a quarter tank so I’ll be filling up tomorrow, what about you?

Tags: gasoline, oil, price

. 16 Sep 08 | Economy | Comment (1)

Cottage Trip Aug 15th to 17th

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted anything mainly because I’ve been pre-occupied. I won’t say too much in this post but will share a few pictures. Two weekends ago I was invited to my friend’s fiancés cottage near Minden, Ontario. It’s about a 2.5 hour north-east drive from central Toronto. In total there were 15 people up at the cottage and it was an amazing weekend. Lounging around by the lake, drinking, bonfire and lots and lots of water sports.

Here’s the view from the dock, breathtaking is all I will add.

Here’s a picture of the cottage with a few people on the docks. This was taken around noon on Saturday. There were a few of us on the boat and a couple more somewhere else doing something else.

Kevin and I riding “Bob”. Basically you sit and hold on while the driver does sharp turns and tries to throw you off.

Usually you end up in the water….

After dinner on Saturday, we headed into town for ice cream. If you ever pass by a Kawartha Dairy, stop in to get some ice cream. They give you massive scoops for next to nothing. Way cheaper than Ben & Jerry’s or Baskin Robbins and much better in taste.

After ice cream, we had a bonfire by the cabin until the wee hours of the day. Nothing like some good cold beer and s’mores!

Sunday was departure day but the weather was too nice to leave right away. So instead everyone went back into the water. “Tubing” sounds like a leisure sport….

but when you hit those waves at a good pace, the water stings! Regardless, it was a ton of fun!

I can’t wait for the next time we all go back up!

Tags: cottage, ice cream, kawartha dairy, Minden

. 26 Aug 08 | Photography, Travel | Comment (1)

Summerlicious at Café Moroc

Twice a year many of Toronto’s top restaurants participate in winterlicious and summerlicious. This year there were 130 establishments offering a special 3-course prix fixe menu to give you the opportunity of sampling their delicious food. You can go for either a lunch or dinner with some places just offering dinner seating.
This summer Karen and I decided to go to Café Moroc, an establishment at 49 Front Street East. They have a $15 lunch and $25 dollar dinner. You can spend upwards of $35 for dinner at some places.
Café Moroc is one of two restaurants inside a single store, they are also known as the Sultan’s Tent. The difference is ambiance. Café Moroc is a little more casual and Sultan’s Tent is a little more private. At the Sultan’s Tent, the staff will teach you how to belly dance. The food is the same but the prices are more expensive at the Sultan’s Tent. They were not on the summerlicious menu.
Arriving for a 5:30 dinner, here were our options for ordering:
Appetizer:
Harira: A hearty tomato based broth, with chickpeas, kidney beans, lentils and a blend of Moroccan spices
or
Sliced Smoked Duck Breast Salad: Baby lettuces, dressed with a Champagne pomegranate vinaigrette, tossed with fresh fine cut vegetables, cherry tomatoes and sliced mango, finished with parmesan, asiago and romano cheese
or
Maftoul: Hand rolled “Moroccan Cigars”, hot crispy pastry stuffed with a mixture of mildly spiced beef, cashews and raisins, topped with chipotle aioli
Main
Moroccan Beef Ribs
Tender fall off the bone beef seasoned and glazed with Moroccan spices, served with sweet potato and carrot purée and roast garlic mashed mini reds, accompanied by grilled vegetables
or
Keskesu Casablanca: Moroccan seasoned couscous and tagine sauce* topped with oven roast fresh carrot, parsnip, zucchini, summer squash, tomato, red onion and sweet peppers
or
Mango Glazed Salmon: A pan seared 8-ounce fillet of salmon, glazed with mango chutney coulis, served with saffron basmati rice and traditional Moroccan root vegetables
or
Chicken Marrakesh: Supreme of chicken stuffed with chorizo sausage and Herbes de Provence, served with sweet potato and carrot purée and roast garlic mashed mini reds, finished with roast chicken demi glace, Accompanied by traditional Moroccan root vegetables
or
Braised Lamb Feast: Slow braised lamb shank served with tagine* seasoned couscous with a rich prune demi glace, topped with preserved lemon and toasted almonds
Dessert
Moroccan Treats: Traditionally made Moroccan cookie and pastry accompanied with Latshin, a light and refreshing traditional dessert of fresh orange slices sprinkle with powdered sugar and cinnamon
or
Creme Brulée: A rich and flavourful crème brulée

I ordered the Maftoul, Moroccan Beef Ribs and crème brulée. Karen had the Sliced Smoked Duck Breast Salad, Braised Lamb Feast and crème brulée.

The appetizers were delicious. The maftoul had a good spicy kick to it and was thoroughly enjoyed. I would have definitely enjoyed an extra cigar with my appetizers but it is only a starter.The duck breast was tender and the mango’s complimented it very well as part of the salad.

Coming quickly after we finished our appetizer was our main course. The ribs were no small order. There were four pieces of meat packed ribs and just looking at the picture makes me hungry again. The meat fell off the bone and the glaze and spice gave it a sweet taste. The sweetness of the sweet potato and carrot puree matched the flavour of the ribs and the roasted garlic mashed mini reds and grilled vegetables rounded off a very filling meal.

The braised lamb was made to the same quality as the beef. The meat fell off the bone and had a distinct but delicious lamb taste. Despite being a summerlcious meals where some restaurants often serve slightly smaller portions to keep costs down, the dinner at Café Moroc certainly filled us both.

To round off our meal, we both had crème brulée. The sweet light custard was a good change to the heavy meat dishes we just had. There was a good golden crust on the brulée clearly created by a torch.

While the service can be flaky at times, the dining experience at Café Moroc was one that won’t be easily forgotten. It took a while to get the bill after dinner and we had to ask for refills of water. However, the food was great, the ambiance while more casual than Sultan’s Tent was still very nice and well kept.

If you have the opportunity to visit there for summerlicious or winterlicious, I’d definitely give it a try. At $50 + tax and tip, it’s definitely a good deal.

Tags: appetizer, beef ribs, cafe moroc, creme brulee, dessert, dinner, lamb shank, summerlicious, winterlicious

. 31 Jul 08 | Reviews, Toronto, fine dining | Comment (1)

Europe Trip 2008 Photo Collection

Here’s a handy little post with a list of all the photo albums I’ve uploaded for my 2008 Europe Trip.

Panoroama – Self Stitched
Panoroama – Adobe Photoshop Photomerge
London
Vence
Milan
Florence
Pisa
Rome
Paris

Tags: Europe 2008, Florence, London, Milan, Paris, Pisa, Rome, Venice

. 28 Jul 08 | Photography, Travel | Comments (2)

Paris Travel Pictures

It’s almost been two months since I’ve returned from my Europe Trip and I’m finally at the last travel picture post! After leaving Rome, the next 12 nights were spent in Paris before flying back to Toronto.

The first six nights were spent at IBIS and the last six in an apartment. Both had their advantages but I preferred the apartment living style over the hotel. That said, the hotel does have nicer perks than an apartment.

On our first full day in Paris we participated in a walking tour with New Europe. Our guide was an American who decided to stay in Paris after his running gig went south. We started at St. Michel’s square and visit the top sites of Paris.

The walking tour also covered the famous Pont Neuf. If you look at each sculpture on the bridge, they are all different. The story is that King Louis XIV got all his friends drunk and hired someone to sculptures to cast onto the bridge. It was his way of saying Thanks.

After a 5 hour walking tour, of which we stopped taking photos since we were going to revisit all the sites, we went to the Louvre. It’s free on Friday evenings from 6PM to 10PM for those under the age of 29.

Not to far from the IBIS hotel is a park were we had a couple of picnics before starting our day. It was pretty relaxing and quite the thing to do in Paris. Each day there were bigger and bigger crowds of people having a picnic. I think the largest was in the order of 30 people.

We didn’t visit too many bars or clubs during our trip but while in Paris we meet up with a couple UofT Engineers and we embarked in a Paris pub crawl which included free screwdriver shots.

By the end of the night (3 hrs), I think I had something in the range of 5 shots, a beer and two glasses of wine.

The true way to drink in Paris of course in style. On one night my dad treated Karen and I on a cruise down river Seine. We got to wine and dine while seeing all the Parisian sites. It was quite nice and definitely worth doing. I believe it was 120 Euros for the two of us. Champagne was the started and we also had a bottle wine to drink. To eat, I had a foie gras appetizers, seared perch and a fruit crepe. Karen had a seafood casserole, steak and fresh fruit in a raspberry milkshake. Delicious is the only was to state that meal.

From our cruise, we got a great view of the Eiffel Tower and the mini Statue of Liberty.

After the tour, we made our first visit to the Eiffel Tower. It was around 9PM and the sky was overcast. It was actually overcast for most of our stay in Paris. We had good weather on the last two days and the odd period.

Another major site in Paris is the Notre Dame, everyone has heard of the Hunchback of Notre Dame and it was that story that kept this church from being taken down.

We had to make two trips to the Air and Space Museum because it was closed the first day we went. So if you ever want to visit the Air and Space Museum, don’t go on a Monday! However, once we did get to go, it was definitely neat to walk around and check out some of the old planes, including a 747, concord and a few fighter jets.

A less popular site is Sacre Coeur which is a church at the just north of the downtown area. The church is situated on a large hill which allows visitors to get a great view of the city. It’s also free to go to which is perfect for the budget traveler.

Speaking of great views, there’s the obvious in Paris: the view from the Eiffel Tower. It is indeed spectacular. We arrived at the top just before sunset and got to watch the sky light up red.

In addition to the Louvre, we visited the military museum that holds Napoleon’s Tomb. The story is that Hitler once came to visit the Tomb but because Napoleon was buried in such a manner you have to bow down to him to actually see his tomb. Hitler of course did not want to bow down to Napolean so he ordered his troops to set up an array of mirrors for him to look at. Upon Hitler’s arrival, the mirrors were out of place which prevented him from seeing Napoleon’s tomb. While backup to leave, Hitler bumped into one of his troops and knocked his hat off his head. In bending down to pick up his hat, he was said to have bowed to Napoleon.

His tomb is under the gold dome in the picture above. Another muesume we visited was Museum D’Orsay.

One of my favourite gardens/parks in Paris was the Gardens of Versailles. This park is absolutely gigantic. It stretches about 4 kilometers, There are fountains scattered throughout the main park area. Something in the range of 3600 cubic meters of water is used during the water festival which we attended.

Given the option to just visit the garden for the day, visit the chateau or both, I would have just visit the garden. You can easily spend a day wandering through it all.

Taking the advice from another couple on the boat cruise, we went for a walk along River Seine towards the Eiffel Tower to get a really nice picture of the tower. On the way we also passed by Princess Diana’s memorial.

In Parisian style, we had one night picnic by the Eiffel Tower with champagne and dessert.

On our final day, we wandered around visiting the Paris Pantheon and watched the sunset by Notre Dame while enjoying a Parisian favourite: the crepe.

On June 10th 2008, our trip came to an end as we boarded our Air Canada flight back to Toronto.

Those who say a grad trip is an eye opening experience is definitely correct. The trip went by so fast and every second was memorable. If you have the opportunity, I definitely recommend you take a few weeks off and travel Europe. You can bet I’ll be back, maybe not soon but I’ll definitely be returning!

Tags: Air Canada, Champagne, Chateau of Versailles, EIffel Tower, Europe 2008, Gardens of Versailles, Grad Trip, Hitler, IBIS, Louvre, Museum D'Orsay, Napoleon, Napoleon's Tomb, Notre Dame, Pantheon, Paris, Princess Diana, River Seine, Rome, Sacre Coeur, Statue of Liberty

. 27 Jul 08 | Photography, Travel | Comments (0)

Thermaltake Contest Winner at Overclockers Online

Did you remember to enter in July’s Overclockers Online contest? I was giving away a Thermaltake eSATA + USB 2.0 BlacX. If you didn’t enter, it’s not too late to enter in the Cyber Snipa contest where two lucky winners will each take home a mouse, game pad and headset. That contest requires a simple RSS feed subscription with bonus entries when questions are answered correctly. Contest closes Aug 3rd, 2008.

This morning I selected the winner for the Thermaltake eSATA + USB BlacX and his name is T. Kracinski. Mr. Kracinski has 48 hours to confirm his mailing address so Thermaltake can get the prize out to him. If you know Mr. Kracinski tell him to check his email!

Good luck to those who entered in the Cyber Snipa contest. You can bet we’ll have another contest soon!

Tags: contest winner, cyber snipa, Overclockers Online, Thermaltake

. 27 Jul 08 | Contests | Comments (0)

Rome Travel Pictures

Rome was the last city in our Italy leg before flying to Paris for 12 nights. The city has a ton of things to see and do, definitely a must visit for anyone thinking about heading to Italy.
After checking into our apartment in the early afternoon we headed to the Spanish Steps. The area was packed with people and not nearly as nice as what the postcards show the steps to be. Moving on, we stopped by a Ferrari store for a quick photo before making our way to Trevi Fountain.

The story is that if you throw one coin into the fountain it’s for good luck. Another coin if you want to get married and a third if you want to come back in the near future. Whether it’s true or not, I have no idea!

Not to far from Trevi Fountain is the Pantheon. It’s quite massive on the inside and is even bigger when you get inside.

While strolling through the city was also went to Piazza Navona where I took this picture of a church.

No trip to Rome is complete without making a stop at the Vatican City. We went into St. Peters and to the top of the cupola. We didn’t go to the Vatican Museum. I hear it’s really good, but by the time we got into Rome, I was pretty much ready for a break from museums as Paris has a ton for us to check out.

Getting to the top of the cupola requires climbing just under 540 steps, 537 comes to mind. You can take the elevator for the first 200 steps at a cost of 2 extra Euro’s per person. It is definitely not worth paying for. We walked up and the first 200 steps are the easy ones. It’s more like walking up a ramp with half steps. The last three hundred is more challenging, requiring you to lean with the curve of the cupola and hold onto ropes up winding staircases.

The other most important place to visit in Rome is the Coliseum. The best way to get in is to buy your ticket at Palentine Hills. The same ticket is used to get into both places and there is no line up to get into the Palentine Hills.

The hills are great to walk through if you like checking out ancient ruins. The last picture was taken outside Palentine Hills but shows what some of the ruins look like. However, nothing beats the Coliseum.

Another great thing to do in Rome and all of Italy is to eat Gelato!

The last gelato picture actually has a store in Toronto – Mount Pleasant and Eglinton. The shopkeeper in Rome said they use the same recipes as their store. You can bet I’ll be checking out that place sometime soon!

Since our flight to Paris was at 6:45AM, we skipped out on 1 nights stay and hung around at McDonald’s until 3AM before taking a cab to the airport. After a long wait, it was time to board the plane and fly to Paris!