Lisa and I have lunch breaks together every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The Asian in her LOVES to eat, but she has a preference for Korean food! I love eating with this girl cause she's just like me!

She's been craving Korean lately, actually, she craves it frequently, haha. To make her happy, we headed over to one of the Korean restaurants nearby Campus, called GaYa. I'm quite familiar with this place since I've been here a couple times, whether for lunch or dinner with friends, and it's always nice to visit because it's a cute, cozy family run restaurant.

In the past they had a small selection of items to choose from, maybe 10 different dishes. But in the recent months they have added various traditional dishes to the menu, and it's nice to see that they're trying to expand the amount of variety and change things up for their loyal customers.

bibim bab!

Lisa ordered the bibim bab for lunch, which is a rice bowl topped with cucumbers, carrots, shiitake mushrooms, beanspouts and a friend egg, sprinkled with a generous amount of sesame seeds on top, and finished with strips of dried seaweed. For you carnivores out there, usually this would also come with beef, but Lisa is a vegetarian so she gets it without the meat. To this dish you can add hot sauce prior to stirring it all up! It tastes great here at Ga Ya, but I'm more partial to dol sot bibim bab which is served in a sizzling hot stone bowl. I love eating the crunchy rice that gets stuck to the bottom of the bowl - really changes up the texture & keeps the dish nice & hot from beginning to end!


jap chae bab

I ordered the jap chae bab for lunch - which is basically the regular jap chae noodles served with a side of rice. I don't know how Koreans do it, eating so many carbs in one sitting, but I definitely felt the side effects of eating it all after... I didn't eat for the next six hours cuz I was so full! Jap chae here is vegetarian, loaded with vegetables such as lettuce, carrots, onions, spinach, and wood ear fungus, giving each bite a slightly different texture. But at this restaurant, the dish has a very strong sesame oil flavour to it, which I'm not very fond of. The noodles were, however, not clumped together which is nice when trying to pick up smaller bundles of the noodles to eat.

Overall, this place is a great restaurant, and the service is always great! The food comes out promptly, and the waitress (shes actually the manager...!) is very friendly and is always ready to bring you whatever you need, be it more kimchi, or water to wash down the delicious, spicy food!

GaYa Korean Restaurant
11147 87 Avenue
Edmonton AB

I always love when the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival comes around because it means that I get to see my relatives and have a nice sit down meal with them.

When I woke up yesterday morning, I was so happy to see blue skies, sunshine, and not a cloud in the sky. To make things even better? 14 degree weather, whoo whoo!! Definitely a big contrast to the cold weather we have been experiencing lately.

This year, my parents invited a couple of our relatives over for dinner at our house. I love when my parents cook because I know that it's not filled with MSG! This year the cooked up a storm, but three dishes really topped them all:

jellyfish, cuttlefish, braised beef slices & BBQ pork


hand pulled chicken topped with sesame seeds, on a bed of sweet&sour cabbage & carrots

And the star of the meal...


shitake mushrooms, sea cucumber & abalone on a bed of lettuce

Family time is the best. Hope you guys were able to spend some time with your family and eat some moon cake! Happy Mid Autumn Festival!

Being Asian, the radar goes off when you see a good deal, or even better, FREE THINGS! That's exactly what went off in my dad's mind when he saw an ad in the paper yesterday..

To celebrate the opening of the new Denny's in Sherwood Park, the restaurant was offering free original grand slams from 7am - 2pm at just that location. Okay, so let's do some math. I live in the South end of the city, and driving all the way to Sherwood Park takes about 20-25 minutes. If my dad brought my mom, my aunt, me, and himself all the way to the restaurant, was the trip worth it? HAHA, just kidding. I would say I guess it was worth it, since we had some valuable family time! That time included me glaring at him for being so cheap ass and trying to get him to drive me quickly all the way to campus to make it in time for lecture.

Anyway, we headed out around 9:30, because my dad thought that it wouldn't be too busy. According to him, everyone will be at their jobs by 10 and the restaurant should be pretty dead, and I should be able to get to class on time by 11. Okay, so I trusted him, and when we got there, the parking lot was FULL. Heading into the restaurant, there was a long, long line up to get to the front where the hostess was! So much for being a quiet restaurant around 10, he forgot to account for all the elderly Edmontonians that love breakfast and taking their time!

We were seated by 10:05, and knew we needed to order fast! Our waitress was so sweet and friendly, she was perfect for the job! Each of us ordered our grand slams, and they arrived so fast, likely because they were being mass produced! Drinks had to be purchased on the side, so it was a pretty good deal to be getting a breakfast worth $9 for your $2 coffee.

Breakfast for the day!

The grand slam was surprisingly delicious! I've never had one.. Pancakes were soft and warm, the eggs scrambled to a perfect consistency, bacon was crisp and sausages lean! Good breakfast to get my day started and keep me awake during lectures!

I've been to Denny's before, but the service at this location was exceptional. Maybe because it was opening day.. but I hope for the sake of this location that the service remains the same! People are very friendly, and prompt to fulfill your requests. This particular location is what I would call a truck stop - there's lots of gas stations and industrial companies in this area, and it's equipped with a Tim Hortons! When people are too tired to drive in the night, it will be nice to make this a stop and be greeted by the workers here, willing to help you out with anything!

Denny's
975 Broadmoor Blvd.
Sherwood Park, AB