Le Cafe Michi omakase dinner

Le Cafe Michi is one of my favourite Japanese Restaurant in town since it's within reasonable driving distance for a weeknight dinner. I go there often but this was my first time trying out their omakase menu. I normally enjoy having control over my own food. most of the food in the omakase menu were good but I just prefer ordering my own food.  Every time I go to this restaurant it's always packed so it's necessary to make reservations if you're going on a weekend.

Appetizers. Something I hate about omakase is their appetizers. Most of them aren't that good. The only good appetizers I've tried at a omakase were from Kaji Sushi. Others all failed to impress me.

This was good. I love the walnuts in the salad. But a salad is a salad so it's nothing special.

Assorted sashimi plate. You have saba, ika, tobiko, salmon, hamachi, amaebi and tuna. As usual the quality of the sashimi was great. This is one of the few places where I will eat their tunas as most places don't offer fresh tuna sashimi. The best part is they give you good quality wasabi not the ones that come straight from a tube.

Japanese style steamed egg

Steamed egg with assorted mushroom and leek. This is offered most of the time if you have omakase at a Japanese restaurant in Toronto. 

simmered fish as one of the hot dishes

assorted sushi. They have great futomaki here. The uni are also good. I've had my best uni don at this place. They gave me 3 different batches of uni on my uni don. 

For dessert, they have lots of choices. They normally have around 6-7 kinds of dessert you can choose from. This time I chose their sugarless chocolate mousse cake. It's not too sweet so it was good but I do prefer their other cakes over the mousse cake. 

For the other dessert we chose the regular cream brûlée.  I didn't try it so I don't know how it tasted. 

Address: 1802 Pharmacy Avenue, Toronto

History of Whoo Nok Yong Pack

History of Whoo is a brand I've been trying out. I love Korean skincare brands as I find a lot of products suitable for my skin. There are lots of Korean brands but I'm leaned towards using the herbal lines. I've tried a few products from Whoo and they are amazing products. I'm impressed with the results I see so I will try out more products from History of Whoo once I finish using up my regular skin care products. I will probably try out their whitening line first as I've heard amazing results from their whitening products.

History of Whoo Nok Yong Pack is a wash off massage mask. I've been using this product for a while now. This is an all-in-one mask. It cleans your pores, provides hydration, brightens your complexion. It also leaves your skin silky smooth after using it.  The mask is formulated with Nok Yong (鹿茸 Deer antler) and royal jelly. As this is a heating massage pack, it helps improve the blood circulation on your face and it helps the active ingredients penetrate into your skin.

To use this mask properly, you're supposed to use it after your toner and essence. Let's just say if you're using Korean skin care, it should be used after your first step serum, toner and emulsion. I don't use any other products from Whoo so I've been incorporating it into my Sulwhasoo skincare regime.

For the pack, you should use Bichup serum under the mask. I believe that First care serum from Sulwhasoo is similar to the Bichup serum so I've been using the first care serum in place of the Bichup serum.

The texture of the pack is thick and sticky. Without using the three steps before it, I find it quite hard to spread around evenly. 

After spreading it out, it will look oily and greasy so this is very rich mask.

Once you wash off the mask, your skin will feel hydrated and silky soft. For the cleansing effect, you wouldn't notice it after using it once, but if you use it on a regular basis, you will notice there is less blackheads and your skin is always soft and smooth. 

Do you use any products from Whoo?

Fuji instax film comparison

I love taking instant pictures. Ever since I got my first fuji instant camera two and a half years ago I've been using it constantly. Well I have both the wide and the mini but the wide is just too big to carry around so I normally only use the mini. They are the only film pictures I take as I stopped developing pictures since I got my first digital camera. Not counting ugly passport pictures, graduation portraits, the last pictures I actually developed are 10 years ago.

Both cameras I have are the Hello Kitty versions. I got the Hello Kitty versions because they were the nicest limited editions available when I bought them.

For the mini I had a choice between the mini 7s or the mini 25s. I chose the mini 25s because it is smaller than the 7s, there is also a small mirror next to the lens making it easy to take self portraits. A that time the 25s only cam in the regular white edition or the Hello Kitty edition. All the other special editions wer made for the 7s.

For the instax wide it wasn't something I should get as my boyfriend already owns the black version but once they came out with the Hello Kitty edition I chose to get it.

Throughout the years I've used boxes of film and it never occured to me that the quality of the film are that different. I don't normally go through films very quickly so I don't normally use different films at the same place.

This time I happened to try three different batches of films on the same day and there are differences. I know there are differences in the film but I always blame it in the lighting since I never did a direct comparison on the different films and I thought it was the lightings that caused the differences in the pictures.

Left above: Film made in Japan for domestic market

Right above: Film made in Korea

Below: Made in Japan sold in American market

From the pictures you can tell the color in the Japanese made films being the best. The color is just more vibrant. Every aspect is just better than the other films. The color is vibrant but it's still very natural.

The Korean made ones. Everything is just too bright in the picture. I've tried using these films outdoor and the colors are just alright. If you like very bright pictures, then you wouldn't mind using these films.

The Japanese made for foreign market ones. I find the colors not as vibrant but it's still looks natural. I prefer these over the Korean made ones.

The problem with the Korean made ones are they have lots of different special edition film and I am always buying them. But after seeing the difference in the film quality and color, I will avoid the Korean made films and stick to the Japanese ones. The colors in those films are just so much nicer.

FO: Cabled Cowl

I know this is not the weather for knitted objects but I was looking through my stash of knitted items to get an idea of what to make for a friend and I found a cabled cowl I made some time ago.



This is still one of my favourite cowls. This is a pattern taken from Vogue Knitting 2009 Holiday issue. When I saw this from the magazine I knew I had to make it since the sample was in pink and I love pink and I do have the perfect yarn for the project. I just happened to have several skeins of cascade 220 lying around the house. I got them at 70% their original price and the cowl seemed like the pefect project. Since I had enough yarn so I chose to make it a little bigger than the pattern. I knitted the pattern repeat for 4 times before I did the ribbing.

The cables were fun to knit but the ribbings killed me. It was super boring to do the 1x1 twisted ribbings. It tooked several hours to finish the ribbing.

The cascade 220 was the perfect yarn for the cables. They are stiff but not too stiff and helped the cables and cowl hold its shape. This is not the softest yarn in the market but I always find it doing an amazing job when it comes to knitting cables or when you need the knitwear to maintain its shape. The yarn is a bargain when it's on sale. Even at its regular price, it's still worth using. It's cheaper than a lot of yarns on the market.

I don't exactly remember the colorway of the yarn but all I remember is it's from the pink family. For the cowl, I knitted more of the cabled pattern but I didn't knit as many ribbing rows as the pattern indicated since I found it too boring and I think that the cabled pattern is more important than the side ribbing in a cowl. I used US size 8 needles for the ribbing and I went up a size to US size 9 for the cabled pattern. I used right under two skeins of yarn for this cowl. I still had around 20 yards left once I was done.

Talika Light duo

Ever since I saw this in January I know I wanted one. I get attracted to beauty gadgets easily. I love buying beauty gadgets and I do own a lot of beauty gadgets. My next gadget purchase will probably be a at home rf machine.

Normally when I buy a beauty gadget I do intensive researches and look at reviews before I buy them. This time I didn't do any research as I'm familiar with LED lights beauty treatments. I own two other LED beauty treatment gadgets and they work fairly well so once I found out this beauty gadget is for reducing dark spots I know I need to get it. The only thing I looked for was a place to buy it and the price.

This is not a price-friendly gadget. Or I would say none of the beauty gadgets are price-friendly. The MSRP in Canada is $395 plus tax but the cheapest price I can find in Canada is $335 plus tax from an online beauty store. I planned on getting it from Hong Kong since it was cheaper. I can say I got a very good deal from my friend and it was very sweet of her for bringing it back to Canada for me!

It came with an international warranty card, user manual written in different languages.

It came with a usb charging cable with ac adaptors and a dust bag. It also came with a Talika Sheet Mask. I heard that these are one of the best paper masks on the market. The results are comparable to SKII masks! 

So this is a double sided LED treatment machine. The white side remits green LED lights that are for reducing dark spots on your skin. Once you turn it on, you hold it 2-3 cm away from your skin and it will turn off automatically after 1 minute. The silver side remits amber light that is for anti wrinkle. Again you hold it 2-3cm away from your skin and it will turn off automatically after 45 seconds. This is also a collagen booster that helps stimulate the collagen production under your skin and thus improves your skin elasticity. You need to use it 2 times a day. What makes this different from other LED treatment machines on the market. This one you can use it anywhere even if you have make up or cream on. As you do not need to put it directly on your face and the treatment time is definitely shorter. 

Tanda Luxe ( Red head)- 3 minutes per treatment area
Baby Quasar (Red)- 3 minutes per treatment area.

Do you own any beauty gadgets? Which one do you use?

Paper Masks review 2

Left to right: Maskeraide Detox Diva, Tony Moly Pearl Mask, Beautymate Nano Eye Mask

Maskeraide Detox Diva mask. I think I might be the only one that doesn't rave about this paper mask. May I say this is not worth the hype. I've tried a lot of paper masks and this one is just average. It is not worth its price tag of $5 plus tax. To me this mask is only worth at most $2. The fitting is bad, when I say bad, I mean it. The mask doesn't fit my face at all. The eye hole is opened too wide. I can almost fit my fist through the eye hole. This is just bad fitting. The mouth is opened too wide. I also had problem keeping the mask on. It kept on falling off. I don't believe in paper masks that helps with cleansing and exfoliating your skin. It doesn't adhere to your skin and I didn't notice it help with my congested skin. When I need a cleansing mask I prefer using mud mask or a peeling mask. For $5 a mask I would expect more than a thin piece of paper that doesn't have too much serum in it. For that price I expect to get a piece of gel mask or high quality paper mask.

Tony Moly Pearl mask. This is my first time trying a Tony Moly mask. It is a thin paper mask with lots of serum in it. the mask was dripping with serum when I put it on so I had enough serum for my hands and feet. I love masks with lots of serum as I can use them on my hands and legs! The fitting of this mask is quite good, it isn't too big or too small. It is a mask with pearl extract so it's supposed to brighten your complexion. I didn't notice it brightening my skin but it did a good job in moisturizing my skin. I would love to try other masks from Tony Moly if I can find them in Canada.

Beautymate Nano Eye Mask is a decent eye mask. It does brighten up your eyes temporarily but the whitening effect doesn't last. It only last for a day so it's good on those days when you need extra help with your dark circles. for the moisturizing effect, I couldn't really feel any difference. But given the price, it's worth repurchasing for instant fixes.