Food porn: A Retrospective

Poppy and I will be in New York City next weekend. I ♥ NY. Who doesn't? I have the luxury of having family who live there, so I visit as much as I can. I have no shame in only visiting places where I have a free place to stay. Thankfully, I have friends and fam that (sometimes) live in fancy places! But hell, if they lived in Idaho, I'd be sharing my hot pics of potatoes.

In honour of our mini-break, I begin my food and travel retrospective (well you saw the first one yesterday):

2006 - *ah* it was good year for travel and food. Poppy and I took an impromptu trip to Alberta. Don't ask. We've never been, why not? Nous allons!

Our first stop, Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada - The Fairmont Lake Louise:

It's funny because the lasagna and Shepard's pie we ordered are no longer on the menu. C'est bien dommage. Lake Louise has clearly moved on to more shi-shi menu items like salmon on naan bread and nasi goreng. But what we had was super yummy. During our stay, Poppy and I felt like JLo (when she was still relevant). So in JLo style, we ordered room service and ate it wearing our plush hotel bathrobes. And in JLo style, we paid mega bucks for it! But when in Rome...or er, the mountains of Alberta...

We also ended up in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada - again shameless visits to family with free couches to sleep on: This is take-out from La Shish:

Don't let all the bad reviews fool you - yes agreed, the Jasper Avenue location is better than the dine-in location. But who cares, you're not there for the bloody romance. You ♥ the fucking garlic sauce on roasted potatoes! (top right) Sheesh, people can be so finicky. This styrofoam-encased-full-of-Lebanese-love is the platter - bursting with delicious chicken, beef, rice, tabouli salad, tomato and cucumber salad, pickled somethings, pita bread, hummus, more garlic sauce, and you can eat it for days. I often ask for it to be flown in when my Edmontonian visits chez moi. Yeah that's right, JLo style...

I also went international and visited Shanghai, China. There was so much eating going on at so many places during this trip, but I loved this cafe:

I can't remember exactly the name of the cafe (mainly because I was bummed to discover that the grand opening of the Shanghai Flagship Uniqlo was not ready for my arrival) but it was surprisingly luscious - enoki mushrooms wrapped in fatty beef, just begging to be dunked into a juicy, spicy, curried paper hot pot to cook. Who knew that mall food could be so good.