The Golden City (Part 1)

'FRISCO <3

Our trip to San Francisco flew by just as quickly as it came. Sameer and I had booked our tickets back in April for $290/person (including taxes) round trip with Air Canada. However, any savings we might have reaped from the relatively cheap plane tickets were cancelled out completely by the stupidly expensive rates we paid for the hotel. I know hotels are expensive in San Fran, but still ...

Travel Tip: If you Google the name of an airline (works for most major airlines), you will be able to search for flight prices through Google. You can click through the price calendar to see what average flight prices are for departure on a specific day. Lower than usual flight prices will be highlighted in green on the calendar.

DAY 1

We had a 6:15 am flight from Vancouver to San Fran. It was pouring like crazy that morning, so I couldn't wait to get away from the rainy weather. The flight was only 2.5 hours (but felt more like 2.5 minutes considering we both slept the whole way through). From the airport, we decided to take the quickest, cheapest, and most direct route to our hotel using BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). It took us about 35 min to get to our hotel.

We stayed at the Pickwick Hotel, which was conveniently located by Market & 5th Street by Union Square (right by the Powell BART station). Considering that we would be using public transit for most of our trip, the location of our hotel was key. Our room wasn't ready yet when we got there, so we left our luggage with the concierge and decided to do some exploring.

Before we got too carried away, we stopped at Cafe Venue (on 5th Street) for some quick breakfast. I forgot to take pictures because I was too hungry and tired. We each ordered a plate of the Eye Opener and a cup of their organic Guatemalan coffee. Once our bellies were filled, we continued our self-guided tour of the busy streets of San Francisco ...

 Market Street & 5th Street.

Union Square.

We were so excited to be in sunny San Francisco and away from rainy Vancouver.

Initially, the idea was to take a picture of every heart that I came across. I gave up on that fairly quickly.

Since we were both recovering from a cold (AND since we woke up at 3:50 am that morning), we took it easy the first day and spent the majority of the day checking out the stores around Union Square. I must say, Union Square has to be one of the most centralized shopping areas in the world. From Macy's to Bloomingdales to Saks to Barneys to the individual stores around the Square ... you could probably find any label you're looking for, all within a couple of blocks. Sadly, we had to exercise some self-restrain as the currency exchange was not exactly optimal. 

The Cajun lobster roll and Lobster Mac & Cheese at Lobster ME.

Earlier in the day, we came across woman in an elevator who was holding a delicious-looking (I am purposely emphasizing word "looking" here) lobster sandwich. Me being me, I needed to know where she got it from. She pointed us in the direction of Westfield Mall ... and off we went. We ordered The Cajun lobster roll and the Lobster Mac & Cheese (obviously). I didn't notice the price until the cashier rang it up ... $33.60 ... yes, that's USD... and yes, WTF! Needless to say, I was a bit surprised considering we were at the food court of the mall. My only justification on their behalf was that there were some fairly large chunks of lobster. Aside from that, it was pretty disappointing overall. Neither the lobster roll or the mac and cheese tasted that great. To think of it, I don't even think there was any cheese in the mac and cheese; just cream and butter. As appealing as the picture may look ... NOT worth it.

Skip to a bit later (after a power nap and a couple more hours of walking around aimlessly) ... we had a casual dinner at our hotel's restaurant, SOMA Restaurant & Bar. To avoid getting any sicker, we called it an early night so we could be well-rested for the next several days.

On a side note, we discovered really quickly that 6th Street (south of Market St) is veryyy different than 5th Street (in a bad way). We discovered this by accident as we were looking around for a restaurant on Natoma Street. I will spare you the details...  but let's just say that we avoided going anywhere close to there at all costs for the remainder of our trip.

DAY 2 

To start off the day, we hopped on the F line streetcar and headed over to the piers. 

Seated comfortably at the very back of the F line streetcar.

We got off at the Fisherman's Wharf stop and walked a couple of blocks south to have breakfast at Hollywood Cafe. This place had amazing reviews on Yelp, so it was on the top of my list of restaurants to try. 

Stay tuned for my post about Hollywood Cafe on my food blog!

After breakfast, we walked over to Pier 39 for the bay cruise that we had tickets for. The Bay Cruise is operated by Blue & Gold Fleet and runs almost every hour from 10:45 am to 6:30 pm/7:00 pm, depending on the day. We couldn't get tickets to Alcatraz, so we decided to take the Bay Cruise instead. The cruise was both better and worse than I expected.

Better because: 1) the views of the city's skyline was amazing; 2) cruising underneath the Golden Gate Bridge was a lot more exciting than I anticipated; and 3) we spotted a number of humpback whales in the water.

Worse because: 1) the narration describing the city's landmarks the stories of Alcatraz were completely pre-recorded; and 2) it was very hard to hear the narration from the open top floor of the ferry.

One of a gazillion selfies that we took on the ferry.

Travel tip: The Bay Cruise tickets are usually $30/person, but we got ours for $25 at the San Francisco Information Center. The Information Center is located below ground level, right next to the Powell BART station. They have a bunch of other discounts and coupons there for various activities.

The ferry ride was followed by a visit to the famous sea lions at Pier 39. To our dismay, there weren't too many sea lions sunbathing on the day that we went. I recall the entire docking area being filled with them the last time I was at Pier 39 (about 3 years ago). Regardless, we spent a good amount of time there observing their hilarious antics. 

Next, we went for a 7D Experience!!! A theatre/ride-type experience where you wear 3D goggles to watch the screen and shoot targets. I was perusing through San Fran Groupons online before our trip and thought that this one sounded interesting enough to try. There were 4 different ones for us to choose from: Zombies, Gigamon, Los Banditos, and Road Fighters. Despite my reluctance, we went with the Zombies ride. 

The whole ride lasted approximately 10 minutes. To paint a better picture, that's 10 min of me tensing my whole entire body while screaming. I like the show The Walking Dead, but I'm not a fan of half torn-up zombies popping up suddenly in my face and yelling. At one point, I legitimately had tears in my eyes. It was a bit comforting to hear that the kids next to me were screaming too (granted they were probably 5 years old). Like a typical amusement ride, they took pictures of the riders and displayed them on screens at the end of the ride. I wish I had time to take a picture of mine. The ridiculous look of terror on my face would've helped to cheer me up on a sad day.

To celebrate our survival through a zombie apocalypse, we went to eat ...

Boudin Clam Chowder in their sourdough bread bowl.

... and eat ...

My first time trying In-N-Out Burger! It was okay.......

... and eat some more...

Dreyer's Waffle Cone ice cream - a scoop of Cookie Dough on top and a scoop of Dulce de Leche on the bottom.

We spent quite some time walking up and down Jefferson Street. We stumbled upon a really cool store that specializes in selling hot sauce - Pepper Palace. They let you sample the sauces ... which was part of the reason why I liked the store so much. I found one called The Butt Pucker - doesn't sound like one I'd want to try.

As the day went by, we noticed more and more "fancy" (obnoxious, in my opinion) cars rolling down Jefferson Street. This being one of them ...

And every time a bouncing car drove by, I couldn't help but think of the song California Love. 

Once we had enough of Jefferson Street, we walked down Leavenworth Street to check out the famous crooked street. When we reached the bottom of Lombard Street, we were greeted by a huge crowd of tourists who were all trying to get a picture in front of the street. We joined in and tried for maybe 10 min to get a good picture. After failing over and over again, we called it quits and walked back over to Fisherman's Wharf to catch the streetcar back to our hotel. Sameer had been meaning to try this spot called zpizza by our hotel. It was fairly late in the evening by the time we got on the streetcar, so we were on a mission to get to the pizza joint before it closed at 8:30 pm. We managed to get there just in time to order a pizza to-go. The pizza was so good! We were both disappointed that we didn't have time to go back and try some of their other pizzas. 

Initially, we were planning on going to Bourbon & Branch that night, but we couldn't get a reservation. Bourbon & Branch is said to be one of the most authentic speakeasy bars in the city. I've heard that you can buzz their intercom and ask to be put on the wait list, but we didn't want to walk all the way there to take the chance (especially since it was the weekend). Instead, we headed downstairs to the bar at SOMA and ended off the night there with a couple of drinks. The convenience of a hotel bar can never be beat.

... Coming soon ... The Golden City (Part 2)!

Portlandia

Portland - "a great place to visit!"; "Oregon's largest city"; "RIP CITY"; "Portland has awesome food".

We passed by this cool wall during our hunt for food and (being the tourists that we were) ensued to take loads of pictures of it and in front of it.

Over the years, I've heard so many good things about the city, but never had the chance to visit it ... until two weeks ago! Yes, I know this post is long overdue. Portland is about a six hour drive from Vancouver. A few friends and I decided to plan a road trip down to Portland to watch the NBA playoff game (LA Clippers vs. Portland Trail Blazers) at the Moda Center. Aside from being a little intimidated by the prospect of being crammed in a car for six hours with four other guys, I was totally down.

Initially, we had bought tickets to see Game 4 of Round 1 because we had anticipated that it would fall either on the Saturday or Sunday. To our dismay, game four ended up being scheduled for Monday, April 25th. Long story short, we sold our Game 4 tickets and bought tickets to see Game 3 (on Saturday, April 23rd).

Mike graciously offered to drive.

Our first stop on the trip was at a McDonald's in Bellingham. Now I know this is not the most exciting event to document, but I thought it was noteworthy to mention that: 1) they sell mozzarella sticks (which actually tasted pretty decent); and 2) their prices are so cheap! The prices at Mickey Dees in the States shock me every time.

Fortunately for my body, the McValue menu does not exist in Canada.

... skip forward several hours and a number of mini naps later ... we arrived in Portland!!! 

We opted to stay at the Quality Inn that was a six minute walk away from the Moda Center. It was nothing fancy, but it served its purpose. Immediately after we checked in and dropped off our stuff, we decided to go on a hunt for food.

The area that we were staying in was pretty deserted and not a lot of places were open. Since the Moda Center was so close by, we wandered in that direction and ended up at a restaurant/bar right next to it called Dr. Jack's. As we were there, we noticed the bar filling up more and more with Blazers fans (and some Clippers fans). You could almost feel a buzz of excitement in the air. 

You can read my review on Dr. Jack's on Yelp :)

To celebrate the playoffs, they had a makeshift stage set up outside of the stadium with live performances. They also added a large "RIP CITY" sign in the open area in front of the stadium, along with columns that emitted flames (so cool!). Blazers fans have earned the reputation of being very loyal and incredibly enthusiastic. I was unbelievably excited to experience it for myself.

We went back to our hotel for some quick "pre-gaming" (ha!) before returning to the stadium.

Side note: Unlike other states, Oregon only allows liquor to be sold in state-run liquor stores. We discovered this first-hand after a disappointing visit to Walgreens.  


The atmosphere inside the stadium was e-lec-tric. They definitely didn't skimp on the freebies. Every one was given a free t-shirt, a hat, noisemakers, and a red lightsaber-ish rod that glowed red when you turned it on. I clearly remember the moment when we first sat down -  I looked around and was in admiration of the sea of white-shirted fans. We sat down not too long before the game was scheduled to start. They turned off the lights in the stadium for the player intros and asked everyone to turn on their "lightsabers". The entire stadium glowed red and it was really an amazing sight.

LIGHTS ON.

LIGHTS PARTLY OFF.

LIGHTS OFF!!!

We had a fantastic time at the game! It was easily the best basketball game I've ever been to. The Blazers played well (and won!), it was a close game the entire way through, the atmosphere was insane, and the fans did not disappoint. I even gained a new found respect for Mason Plumlee (believe it or not), who finished with 21 rebounds that night. The win was just the cherry on top. The Blazers fans were continuing to chant, "LET'S GO BLAZERS" all the way out of the stadium and even on the street. The original plan was to go downtown later that night. Since we were famished, we decided to make a late night food stop first at Red Robbins ... which actually ended up killing our momentum. We were all so drained from the game that the food actually put us over the edge (and eventually to bed).

We woke up bright and early the next day, ready to explore more of Portland. Harveer suggested that we try out this biscuit place (Pine State Biscuits) that had been recommended to us by a friend. It was only a 10 minute walk from our hotel. 

You can read more about our full meal experience at Pine State on my food blog :) 

If you are travelling to Portland, I would highly recommend that you try their biscuits at one of their four locations.

We didn't have anything special planned for Sunday. After breakfast, we headed across the bridge to Portland's downtown core. Sameer and Mike waited in line at Voodoo Doughnuts (I hate that spelling of "donuts"), while Deli, Harveer and I did some exploring.

We stumbled upon Portland's Saturday Market that's located in the city's historic Old Town / Chinatown neighbourhood. The Market was established in 1974 and and runs every Saturday and Sunday from the beginning of March through Christmas Eve. The open-air marketplace consists of a number of booths that are constantly changing. I learned that they currently have a membership of over 350 artisans and vendors! I loved the atmosphere of the marketplace - there were live musicians, fresh produce, hot food, and cute retail stands.

My favourite booth (unfortunately, not pictured) was one that sold soap in the shape of cupcakes and gourmet chocolate. On one end of the Market, a street musician was playing saxophone renditions of popular top 40 songs. I noticed that all the locals walking past him would casually bob to the beat and give him a smile; some even stopped and danced for a bit. After about half an hour, we headed back to Voodoo Doughnuts to check on the status of the line. Lucky for me, Mike and Sameer were just about to enter the store as we got back. I managed to slip into the line inconspicuously. 

I should've captured the line up outside that wrapped around the corner and down the street.

The inside of the store was very eclectic and colourful. I actually found the image of the man on the boxes to be quite terrifying. They had a sign up that said due to popular demand, each customer was limited to only one Raspberry Beret donut. So, being the follower that I am, I knew I needed to have a Raspberry Beret donut. Mike ordered a Cock-N-Balls donut to bring back to his co-workers (yes, you read that correctly) and two Voodoo Dozens for us to share. The Voodoo Dozen is a dozen donuts that they randomly choose for you.

Self-explanatory.

Two Voodoo Dozens and my purple Raspberry Beret.

I later discovered that the Raspberry Beret donut was created in commemoration of Prince and that part of the proceeds would go towards a "Prince-inspired charity".

I'm sorry if this offends any Voodoo fans ... but, my verdict is that the donuts are overrated. They taste fairly similar to Tim Hortons donuts. I do have to give them two thumbs up for creative design.

After having satisfied our donut craving, we hopped back into the car to continue our food adventures. Our next stop was SW Alder and SW 10th, where a collection of food trucks were parked all around the block. I think we probably looped around twice, before any of us ordered anything. Sameer and I decided to go with some Thai food at Sawasdee Thai and Egyption food at Gyro House. We couldn't find anywhere close by to sit down, so we just hovered over the front counter of a nearby truck that was closed and wolfed it all down.

You can read my review of Sawasdee Thai and Gyro House on Yelp :) 

The drive back to Vancouver seemed much shorter! That always seems to happen on trips when you're heading back home. On the ride back, Harveer noted that he's had Mexican food every time he's been to the States ... except this time. In attempts to not break his streak, we looked avidly for a good Mexican spot to try. After passing Seattle, we spotted a sign along the highway that pointed to a Mexican restaurant called Amigo (in Stanwood, WA). No brainer as to what we did next. The restaurant actually turned out to be much better than we expected. The place was family-owned and was connected to a miniature plaza that also housed a very vintage-looking movie theatre. My favourite part were the murals on the walls inside the plaza.

The indoor "patio" area where we were seated.

Yo can read my review on Amigo on Yelp :)

Even before we got back to Vancouver, we were discussing plans for our next trip to Portland. We all had a blast. Portland is truly a city of good vibes, great people, and awesome food. As expected, there was no shortage of plaid shirts and beanie hats either. Fortunately for us, Portland is not that far of a car ride away. Hopefully, we'll be able to make another trip this summer!

Road Trip to Seattle

Sameer and I made a spontaneous road trip to Seattle this Easter long weekend. I've actually never been to Seattle before, so I was very excited. I've always heard that Seattle was a less-scenic version of Vancouver with a cool fish market (as bad as that sounds). For me, I'm conditioned to think of Grey's Anatomy or Sleepless in Seattle.

Aside from our plans to eat a lot, we didn't have much else planned. This "going with the flow" style of trip is largely new to us. We usually have a pretty specific itinerary planned whenever we go somewhere, so that we can maximize our time by hitting up everything (or close to everything) we want to see. I think knowing that Seattle is so close and the fact that we didn't have to fly there took a lot of the pressure off.

Vancouver is about 2.5 hours away from Seattle (half an hour less if you drive fast and don't make any stops). On the way there, we made 3 pit stops - one for food, one for gas ... but really all three for me and my borderline overactive bladder (TMI?).

We managed to snag an awesome hotel deal on Hotwire the night before for a four star hotel right next to the Safeco Field - Silver Cloud - Stadium, Seattle.

Trip tip: book last minute if the circumstances allow for it because hotels often offer rooms for up to 60% off their original price.

A baseball fan being a baseball fan.

I read online that there are tours available to the public for both the CenturyLink Stadium and the Safeco Field. I think we can all guess which one of us was more excited about this prospect. So, our first order of business was to find out when the tours were running and get tickets. The concierge told us that tickets were being sold in the Mariners Store ... and that's where we headed.

Unfortunately for us, the last tour that day was at 12:30 pm (we got there around 1:30 pm) and no tours were running on Sunday because of Easter. After wallowing in a bit (a lot) of disappointment, we accepted it and moved on to check out the famous Pike Place Market. Our hotel offered a complimentary shuttle service that dropped us off right across the market, which was SUPER convenient. This was a plus because I had no idea they even offered this service when we first booked the hotel. It saved us a lot of time and probably frustration that would've ensued if we had to navigate our car through the crowded streets surrounding the marketplace. 

Yes, it was very crowded indeed. 

We headed straight to the much talked about Pike Place Fish Co. stand. This open air fish market was founded way back in 1930 and apparently generates the most amount of money per square foot of retail space in all of America. It's world-renowned for its "flying fish" performances. We didn't stand there for too long because of the crowd, but I'm happy to say that I did witness a "flying" fish!

Our next stop was on Post Alley for some yummy chowder at Pike Place Chowder (click to read about what we ordered and what we thought!). 

A belly full of chowder later, we wandered over to the Market Theater Gum Wall to make our mark. The wall was closed down this past November for a total cleaning for the first time in 20 years. Wikipedia tells me that it took a total of 130 hours to clean and over 2,350 pounds of gum was removed from the wall. Knowing that the wall was completely cleaned merely four months ago, I was shocked to see that the wall was entirely covered with gum already. Nevertheless, I loved all the colours! The whole thing is actually quite artistic :) 

We made sure to keep a safe distance.

Post-Gum Wall, we made our way back onto 1st Avenue to check out the schedule for the Underground Tours of the city. My sister visited Seattle last summer, and recommended that we go on the tour because she thought it was really eye-opening. 

Going into it, we really didn't know what to expect. I knew close to nothing about the history of Seattle. Little did we know, the tour actually turned out to be the highlight of our trip! It was definitely eye-opening, informative, and actually helped us gain a new-found appreciation for the city. 

A little bit a history lesson here ...

In 1889, Seattle experienced a huge fire that nearly took out all of its then downtown core. This fire has since been named the "Great Seattle Fire". The fire started out small and was caused accidentally by an assistant in a woodworking shop that was heating glue over a gas fire. The glue had boiled over the pot, caught fire, spread over the wooden floors of the building. The severity of the fire quickly escalated and became out of control as a result of contact with nearby explosives, major water supply issues, and the fact that all of Seattle's first buildings were made out of wood. The fire burned for 13 hours until it naturally died down. Approximately 120 acres, amounting to 25 blocks of the city, were destroyed as a result of the raging fire. 

As an aftermath of the fire, the city leaders decided to make two major strategic changes: 1) all new buildings would be made out of stone or brick, instead of wood, to prevent a repeat of history; and 2) the existing streets would be regraded to stand at least one story higher than the existing street level. 

I know the next part may be hard to imagine without an elaborate visual, but work with me.

Concrete walls that ranged from 12 to 30 feet in height were erected around the buildings, creating small borders around each building. There would be a wider gap between buildings that were across the street from each other, so that the street would be situated along the wide gap. 

The arches on the right are part of the original exterior of a building. The wall on the left side is a concrete wall that was constructed to elevate the street onto the second story of the building. The space between the exterior of the building and the concrete wall is the "border" that ran around the outside of the building that would eventually be underground.

Now, if you've pictured what I've described properly, then you'll likely be wondering how people got over the concrete walls to make it from one building to the next.

In order to allow citizens to make their way along the street from one building to another, ladders were placed along the sides of the concrete walls. As you can imagine, this made it exceptionally tedious and physically demanding for pedestrians to get from one place to the next. Further, it was bad for business from the perspective of merchants because the idea of having to climb an endless amount of ladders was a serious deterrent for ladies shopping in heels and petticoats. Eventually, the city came to an agreement with the building owners that they would pay for the construction of half of the sidewalk if the owner of the building would pay for the construction of the other half. Even with this 50/50 split, there was still a gap between the two sides of the sidewalk that was later turned into skylights for the underground pathway. Although the city has since removed a lot of these skylights, several still remain (as can be seen below).

The skylights are made up of squared glass prisms. 

Prior to going on the tour, I recalled stepping over these squares when we were strolling along the sidewalk. I thought the squares were just tiles that the city had put in for decoration. It was really cool to be able to see it from underground because it was an entirely new perspective.

This is what the squares look like from above, on street level: 

The tour also talked about Seattle's underground "red light district" that the city leaders were well-aware of. This was first discovered by a census of the city that uncovered over 2,000 women prostitutes who were self-acclaimed "seamstresses". The puzzling part was that these seamstresses seemed to be carrying on business without ever owning a sewing machine. Soon after, the city leaders caught on and decided to go along with the euphemism -  a $10/month "sewing machine tax" was imposed such that all the seamstresses had to pay the tax in order for them to carry on "business". This tax ended up generating a significant amount of money that greatly contributed to the city's improved economic status.  

The tour was about an hour and 15 minutes. After all the walking, we were pretty famished. We headed back to Pike Place Market and stopped by The Pink Door on Post Alley (click to read about the best lasagna I've ever had!) for an early dinner. Luckily, we were seated right away and the eating ensued.

After dinner, we decided to check out how long the line was outside the original Starbucks. We had walked by earlier on in the day and didn't feel like lining up outside for 30 minutes for a coffee. By the time we got there, it was around 7:15 pm and the line was pretty short (we probably waited for 5 min). 

I'm sure most of you already know this, but fun fact for those of you who don't - this is the location of the very first Starbucks that opened in 1971.

Sadly, I didn't quite feel like having a coffee ... because I just had beer. I did end up buying a pack of their Pike Place Special Reserve for my parents. Truthfully, I'm not a huge fan of Starbucks' Pike Place roast (I usually order their Veranda Blend blonde roast).

..... skip a bit to the next morning .... 

(We basically went back to the hotel, made some friends from Portland who were chilling with us in the rooftop hot tub, ordered a couple of drinks at the bar downstairs - Jimmy's on First, had some microwavable KD, and called it a night.)

We were starving and desperately wanted to find a place with some solid brunch food. Our initial plan was to try Portage Bay Cafe. We called and found out that it was closed for Easter Sunday. After doing a bit of research, we decided on Tilikum Place Cafe (click to read my full review!). 

Our trip to Seattle was short, but sweet - the perfect place to go for one night over the weekend! I definitely can't wait to go back to try out more restaurants, watch a Mariners (vs. Blue Jays) game, and finally do the Safeco Field tour.

Monday to Friday Food Game

Disclaimer: I don't eat this healthy every day, but this is just a sneak peek into my good days for those of you who might be looking for some meal ideas.

I know it can be hard for someone working full-time 5-7 days a week to fill their belly with healthy food ... but it can be done! For me, I think the key is to: 1) have a routine and 2) do a bit of prep in advance.

Although I do like to throw in some variety here and there, below are examples of what I would eat for work on a typical day:

1. Breakfast.

Prep time: 5 minutes.

Ingredients: Several spoons strawberry yogurt, 1 banana, 1 packet of Quaker Harvest's cranberry and almond granola.

I like to eat my breakfast (with my cup of coffee) while I go through my emails in the morning, so I pack everything and bring it to work with me.

2. Lunch.

Prep: 15 minutes the night before and 5 minutes in the morning.

Ingredients: Quinoa, cucumber, tomatoes, mixed beans, red onions, shredded cheese, lemon juice, garlic seasoning, salt, and pepper.

The key here is to do a bit of prep the night before. I usually cook the quinoa and cut all the veggies the night before, so that all I have to do in the morning is put everything together. To avoid having to do timely prep during the week, I usually cut up a bunch of veggies on Sunday and keep them in separate containers in my fridge.

3. Snack

Prep time: nil.

Aside from the granola bar and tangerines (which are self-explanatory), I usually have a handful of this "Power Mix" (I think you can get it from Costco) that consists of edamame, cranberries, pumpkin seed kernels, and almonds.

I usually snack on the Power Mix throughout the day, have the tangerines at some point between my breakfast and lunch, and save the granola bar for sometime in the afternoon after my lunch.

4. Post-Work/Pre-Dinner Snack.

Fruit smoothies!!!

Note: I will add in a scoop of protein powder if I'm feeling extra hungry.

Prep time: 5 minutes.
Ingredients: Baby kale, strawberries, tangerines + water and honey.

Prep time: 5 minutes.
Ingredients: Baby kale, 1/2 of a chopped apple, 1/2 of a chopped pear + water and honey.

Prep time: 5 minutes.

Ingredients: 1/2 a slice banana, strawberries, blueberries + milk.

5. Dinner.

Prep time: 20-25 minutes.

Ingredients: Kale, quinoa, garlic, tomatoes, white onions, mushrooms, and chicken breast, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

Dinner tends to be the most unpredictable meal of the day for me. It's also my favourite meal of the day and I look forward to it the most ... so I try to mix is up as much as I can. This is just what I happened to have for dinner tonight. As with my lunch, I cooked the quinoa and chopped the veggies the night before. Most of the prep time had to do with cooking the chicken. I only throw in the kale at the very end, so that it's barely cooked. While the chicken is cooking, I mix the chopped up kale in a separate boil with some olive oil and salt.