Dynamite Hot Sauce

Lunch today -> Potluck.
Becky had the great idea to have a potluck today.  Good participation and tons of food.

Alot of dessert selection too.  I worked from home in the morning to make fresh Monkey Bread.

Useless Food News:
Saw this at Walmart and couldn't believe they got away will selling this, when there was this whole big fiasco about the "Cut the Wire" game.

It's 3 hot sauces packaged like dynamite, including shoestring laces to simulate fuses.  I had to buy it.  (I also bought Cut the Wire.)

Weekend Report -> 3 Day Boardgaming

Food this weekend ->
Made a salad for dinner on Friday.  It had lettuce, grape tomatoes, red onions, corn, a boiled egg, ham, and avocado.  Dressed it with Caesar dressing.

Salad.

Went to a Potluck/games night at Jeff's house on Saturday night.  I forgot to take a pic of the food, but I got a shot of dessert.  We tried out the Chocolats Favoris' "dulce de leche" fondue can by dipping strawberries in it and I put some on my apple pie slice.  It was really delicious.

Chocolate Fondue in a Can.

Made spaghetti with meat sauce for dinner on Sunday night.  Sauce is just chopped onions, garlic, ground beef, Bravo tomato sauce, and tomato paste.

Spaghetti and Meat Sauce.

Snack today -> McDonalds.
Ed and I went to McDonalds for coffee break.  We got coffee and a FREE medium fry each.  They were free using the McDonalds app because the Raptors scored 12 3-pointers last night.

Break Time.

 
Dinner today -> Big Bone BBQ. 
I got the Monday special.  Ate it at my parent's house.  It was very good, but I should have asked for the ribs to be extra saucy.  It would have been better that way.

Mmmm... Ribs and Wings.

Useless Food News:
Tried out the Limited Edition Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie Oreos from the US.  It's good.  It has a graham cracker cookie and matches to peanut butter and chocolate filling.  It could use some more peanut butter flavour, it was peanut butterier than the Butter Nutter cookies.

Good Oreos.

I tried a new flavour of Green Tea: Honey Lemon Ginseng, and I really like it.  It tastes and smells like "Fruit Loops"!  It's on sale at Loblaws this week at $1 off, so I got a couple more cans.

Fruit Loop Green Tea.

Useless Gaming News:
Impromptu gaming at Anthony's place late Friday night.  We played some Splendor and Web of Spies.
On Saturday night, we played more games because Cindy was in town.  We played Sushi Go, King of Tokyo, Pictomania, and Camel Up ver2.0.  It was lots of fun (see below).
Then on Sunday, James, Sheridan and I played Scythe and Terra Mystica. 

This is what Cindy drew for one of her controversial pictures in Pictomania.

Cindy's Drawing

This is the list of words to guess what she drew.  Which one do you think it is?

List of Words.

Jeff and I guessed "FORK" instantly, but then we realized later that it couldn't be Word 1 because of a pic Ben drew.  This is what Cindy meant to draw.  Do you see the difference!

Word 5.

Pitiful Double Leg Meal

Dinner today -> Swiss Chalet (Kanata)
Got Swiss Chalet for dinner today.  I got a "Double Leg Meal", as I wanted to compare to Scores and Benny & Co.  I was so surprised when I opened up the meal.  It was the most pitiful chicken legs I've ever seen!  They were so small!  The thigh part was on the small side, but the leg part was tucked under and wasn't even as long as the thigh!  I didn't think it was going to score under Benny & Co, but Swiss Chalet did, and did so spectacularly.

Pitiful Chicken.

This was from the Kanata Swiss Chalet location.  This was my second chance for them, and now I'm never going back to the Kanata location.  The first chance was when I got the limited fried chicken.  It was also a disappointment.  Small pieces and wasn't fried well. 
The Barrhaven Swiss Chalet is 100 times better.  The chicken is bigger, and my fried chicken experience there was amazing.  Ben, Brian, and I had ordered half fried chicken (5 pieces) each.  We were planning on taking some piece home, but we all ate the whole thing because it was so good.

My Chicken Ranking:
1. The Fry (Barrhaven) - Half-Half Special: Soy Garlic Fried Chicken & Chicken with Sauce
2. Swiss Chalet (Barrhaven) - Limited Fried Chicken
3. Scores (Cote Vertu) - 2 Leg Meal

4. KFC
5. St.Hubert
6. Popeye's
7. Loblaws - Fried Chicken that is coated in a thin batter, best value when it's 50% off at end of the day.

10. Benny & Co (Kanata) - Flavourless Chicken and the Gravy tasting like strong celery

?. Mary Browns (Kanata) - Not tried yet

99. Swiss Chalet (Kanata)

Useless Food News:
The new McDonalds by Tanger Outlets has some specials on Sat Jan 26 to Thurs Jan 31, for their grand opening.  Small print says limit of 2.  Sounds like 2 Big Macs, 2 Happy Meals, and 1 Cone to go :)

McDonald Tanger Grand Opening.

Weekend Report -> Gluten Balls in Congee

Food this weekend ->
Made congee on Friday.  Boiled the rice with a soup base of chicken broth and dashi.  Added a 25 pack of mini gluten balls to absorb some of the liquid.  Finished it with green onions and preserved duck eggs.

Congee.

The gluten balls make an excellent addition to the congee.  It makes it really smooth and adds nice chewy ingredient.

Plans fell through on Sunday, so I took some time and made some super tasty mini-potatoes topped with cheese, slivered maple bacon, and caramelized onions.  The cheese I used was a raclette cheese from Switzerland.  It melts better and is "gooey".

Bacon Topped Spuds.

Useless Gaming News:
4 Player gaming at Brian's house on Friday night with Ben and Gordon.  We played DC Spyfall and Batman: Animated Series boardgame.
Then on Saturday Jeff, Derek and I gamed at Anthony's place.  We played Splendor and a long game of Castles of Burgundy.  Anthony won both games.

Castles Burgundy.

10 Years and 2.5 Months

Useless Car News:
My car wouldn't start last night and Ed had to give me a jump.  It started fine on the weekend at -25C, but Monday night was only -8C and the car wouldn't start.
Then this morning it didn't start again, and my dad figured I needed a new battery.  We took out my battery and went to Canadian Tire to get a new battery.  The clerk told us that my battery was the original one from the car.  That meant my battery was working for 10 years and 2.5 months!  That is a super long time, as the average is 5 years.  Anyways, after $150, I got a new battery and a working car.

Lunch today -> Franks.
The clerk told me to drive the car for 20mins with a speed over 80km/hr, so I drove to Franks and picked up same sandwiches.  The bread was smaller and seemed like a pretzel-like bread.  I had asked for white bread.  There was still a ton of meat, but the bread wasn't chewy like I wanted.

Frank's #1.

Benny & Co - 2 Leg Meal.

Food this weekend ->
Went to dim sum with the family at Sea King on Merivale.  It's pretty good.  We got the standard dim sum stuff.

Dim Sum.

I went to the new Benny & Co chicken restaurant in Kanata last week.  I got the 2 leg meal.

New Benny & Co.

It's alright, but definitely not as good as Scores.  The chicken was not flavourful at all.  I did enjoy the coleslaw.  BUT the gravy!  Way, way too much celery in it.  I'm not going back.  Too bad as it's right by Toys R Us too.

2 Leg Meal.

Chinese Lay's Chips

Dinner today -> Sushi
Went to Bayshore at 8pm and I got what I was looking for: Discount sushi.  I got a couple boxes at BOGO Free.  I got a big Bento D box that was all salmon pieces and a Lovely Combo box.

BOGO Free Sushi.

My phone battery is dying.  I can't take any pics with the flash without the phone turning off.  I need to get a new phone soon.

Useless Food News:
Susanna found some new Lay's chips flavours at T&T.  They are Chinese Lay's.  She bought 3 different kinds but she said there were more flavours.  She got Grilled Shrimp, Roast Pork, and BBQ Pork Ribs flavours.  We didn't try any yet, but we will before the weekend.

Chinese Lay's Chips.

Cool Touch Tissues

I've been sick since Thursday.  It's not the flu as I'm not aching.  It's just a cold and cough.  I think I caught it either from:
a) cousin Kyle during our belated Christmas party (probably during Telestrations when he passed me his germ covered sketch book); or
b) someone at the Bumblebee movie/Yakiniku One; but I didn't sit beside anyone other than Julie and she wasn't sick.

Grilling Meat at Yakiniku One.

Semi-trying to spread it to Steve, Marc, and Ed at work >:\ mmwha hahaha They can use some more time off :)

Picked up some new Kleenex that was on sale and some more medicine after work today. 

Kleenex and Advil.

I opened the "cool touch" Kleenex first.  It is actually does feel cool to the touch.  There is coconut oil and aloe embedded in the tissues.

Happy New Year 2019!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Watch Japan's Kouhaku (NHK's Red and White Year-end Song Festival) at 5:15am this morning.  I only went to bed at 3:30am, so I was half-asleep watching it. 
AKB48's performance wasn't that great.  They sang "Koisuru Fortune Cookie". 
TWICE's performance was good.  They sang "I want you back" (which I thought was a weird song choice), and I think "Yes or Yes", "Cheer Up", or "TT" would have been better.