Cozy Day off with Cheerio

Things have been really hectic for me for the past couple of week. With meetings, new clients, new projects and Topshop on top of everything else, I feet like I barely had a chance to breathe.

But today I get the day off, and I'm really relishing the moment to just take some time for myself. Grabbing a tea and cozying up with my pet bunny Cheerio to catch up on my news and blog reading.

 



I'm wearing my new chunky knit sweater from Topshop.

I just love the colors, and it's so comfy! Perfect for a cozy and chill day like today.



I have a few errands to run and a nail appointment, but I'm planning on coming home and watching last night Oscar's in it's full entirety. I love love love the Oscar's, and was really disappointed that I couldn't catch the live version last night, but I guess I can always just pretend it's happening now hah.

Too bad today can't last forever.

Cause tomorrow it's back to work, ad I have a big deadline for Friday and still an insane amount of work to do.

But hopefully I'll still get a chance to blog and update.

But until next time :) hope you're all having a happy Monday!

My Valentine (night)

So this is a continuation of my Valentine's day post.

After work I wanted to change for dinner as I thought my day outfit was a little too cute/girly for where we were going.I wore my floral crop top with a high waisted red skirt and topped it off with my black chevalier blazer and my new thick gold necklace. I thought this would be more appropriate for nighttime, having a bit more edge but still having some feminine/Valentine aspects.





I had put off making reservations for the longest time, so by the time I finally got around to it most places were all booked up for February 14th.

Coast, however still had some room and we managed to get a late table.



One of my favourite things at Coast is their Caesars.

They have the best ones in town. With just the right amount of a spicy kick, and actually comes with a jumbo prawn as a garnish!

It's like a meal in a glass.



We started off with the Seafood Tower, which included jumbo prawns, shucked local oysters, dungeness crab, marinated mussels and salmon nigiri.



The presentation was beautiful as it came flowing in a mist of dry ice.



They no longer offered their lobster mac & cheese so I decided to try their Crab Poutine instead. It's served with smoked bacon and a sunny side up egg.

Was great, and had a decent amount of crab inside.



This is one of my favorite flatbreads ever. Truffled Brie with roasted portobello, truffle oil, arugula, ricotta and farm egg.

The combo is crazy good, and even though it's completely vegetarian, you don't notice at all since the the protobello mushroom is so meaty.



Ah the main event. Lobster Stuffed with Dungeness Crab served with garlic greens and tobasco hollandaise.

This thing was massive.





Felt so indulgent eating this hah. The hollandaise was very rich, and the amount of butter in this dish is ridiculous. Good thing calories on holidays don't count (Lucy's rules).

We were very full after this feast, but since it was Valentine's Day I felt like we had to get some kind of a sweet treat.

This is the Mocha Hazelnut Torte with caramelized nuts and mocha cream. It was a pretty standard cake. Not my favourite, as the texture was a bit dry (I like my cakes moist!).



Also had the Bruleed Lemon Cello Tarte, over a shortbread crust and served with sweet basil puree and goat cheese cream.

I used to hate all lemon desserts. Like loathed them. But I've just recently grown to enjoy them, and decided to chance it on this experimental dish.

Well it turned out well, because I loved this. It went really well with the goat cheese cream. Suprisingly! As goat cheese cream sounds kind of disgusting, but this was actually really yummy. And the presentation of the plate is gorgeous with the colors and spun sugar.

So anyways, hope you all had a great Valentine's night (as well as day) and thanks for reading! :)

My Valentine (day)

I know this is late, but here's my Valentine post (finally).

I split it into two parts, for day and night.

So here's the daytime section:



I wore my heart neck dress with a thick pink sash, and my thin cream cardigan.

Paired it off with my ballet flats and a pearl drop headband.

I wanted to go for a pretty romantic look for the day, giving a nod to St. Valentine without going too over the top.



We decided to go for dim sum before I had to work.

I had heard good things about New Town Bakery & Restaurant, and really wanted to try their award winning buns and pastries.



They have a big steamer of buns on top of the building!



This is their award winning Chicken Deluxe Bun. It was packed with a variety of ingredients, and had great flavor. I couldn't really make out the chicken though.. tasted more like pork to me hah.



This is another award winner; the Apple Tart. I loved this. It was like a normal strudel, but with super buttery/flaky pastry and nice gooey filling WITHOUT cinnamon. I hate cinnamon. Which is why I usually don't like apple-y desserts. But this was just to die for.



The pork filled turnover is a Chinese bakery staple, but I had never heard of or tried the Prawn Turnover.

What. Have I been missing? This is like 100x better than the pork version. I really don't know why it's not more prevalent in Asian bakeries/supermarkets.

Delicious.

So I hope you all had a great Valentine's Day, and tune in for my part 2!

Camo & Crop Tops

Wearing my camo military jacket with my shiny disco pants!



Had the best bagel sandwich the other day from Siegel's Bagels. I ordered the Lox & Cream Cheese, which has wild sockeye salmon, cream cheese, red onion & capers.

It was ah.mazing. The salmon was melt in your mouth, the cream cheese a great compliment, and just the right touch of capers (not adding too much salt).

It doesn't hurt that they're open 24hours either.



Bagels any time of the day/night???

YES.

 

Camo Jacket: Topshop

Leather Crop Top: Forever 21

Disco Pant: Topshop

Military Boots: Urban

Simple Neutrals

My outfit for a quick coffee date with a gf.



Cream Romper: Urban Outfitters

Crepe Blazer: Aritzia

Rose Rope Belt: H&M

Lucyloohoo in Edmonton

I'm finally back in Vancouver!
It feels like forever ago that I last posted.

For those of you that don't know, I recently went on a trip to Edmonton. I didn't get a chance to go during Christmas like I usually do, so went for end of January instead.
And I had such a good time. It was so nice to just relax and have some down time. Got to catch up with a lot of my friends that I barely get to see, and spend some quality time with the fam.

Being busy, I didn't take too many pictures (good ones at least) but did end up getting quite a few on my iPhone.

So I apologize for the poor quality or heavy filtering (blame Instagram!), but here's some clips and snippets of my week away.

An outfit I wore on one of the warmer days.

One of my best friends, Belinda recently just got engaged! So exciting :D she's the first one out of my close girlfriends to take this step, so we're all super excited and happy for her.

She has also invited me to be one of her bridesmaids for her special day! This will be my first time, and only the 2nd wedding I've ever even been to, so I'm a little nervous.. but mostly just excited. We're now officially on the lookout for pretty/appropriate bridesmaid dresses that will compliment B.

When we exchanged our belated Christmas gifts, she presented us all with a small package filled with goodies and homemade lemon drop cookies as a formal invitation. Inside was also a card with a personalized photo. How adorable!

We accompanied her to a couple boutiques around town to try out wedding dresses, and I must say; choosing just one dress is so hard! There's so many different styles/designers/cuts that it can be extremely overwhelming. But I'm sure that no matter what dress she chooses, Belinda will be a beautiful bride. :)

A quick lunch at Wing Chicx in between appointments.

Korean food is one of my favorites.

For my birthday, I decided to do dinner at MRKT. It's a wine bar downtown that serves sharing plates and tapas.

The food was great, and I loved the atmosphere. Even though we shared these plates between the 7 of us, we were all surprising very full.

It was a shame we couldn't take our time to enjoy our orders because we had to be at Set Nightclub before 11PM for my guest list.

This is the birthday dress I ended up wearing. It has the most beautiful and intricate beading work in the back. I instantly fell in love as soon as I saw it, as I don't own anything like it.

I had originally tried to have my bday dinner at Canteen, but they were booked solid for the whole week! So decided to go with some gf's to see what they had to offer for lunch instead.

My friend Tina had the Lamb Burger, which replaced the lamb chops for the day. She is a huge lamb enthusiast, and declared this Canteen version worthy.

The yam fries were crispy and coated in some kind of Parmesan mixture. Delicious.

I had the Sausage Stuffed Chicken with roast tomato vinaigrette, fennel salad and olive oil potatoes. The flavors were a bit mild, but complimented very well with the salad and vinaigrette.

My other friend Jen ordered the Almond Crusted Arctic Char with pork belly, carrot orange butter sauce, green beans and grilled escarole. I didn't get a picture, but this was a definite hit. The fish was very tender and flaky and had a great exterior texture. I don't usually go for fish, but this tasted amazing.

We decided to stop by Duchess Bake Shop for a sweet treat as it was only a couple blocks away. I love this place. Never been disappointed with their desserts, and they have such friendly and approachable staff.

My parents deal with home decor and furniture, so they often have interesting new pieces for me to discover whenever I visit.

I am currently obsessed with this vintage style telephone that is in the living room. So beautiful, and it actually works as a real phone too!

So overall, it was a great trip! It's so nice to reconnect with friends and have that time to just wind down once in a while.

If everything goes according to plan, I'll be going back for B's wedding in the fall.

Until then, it's back to Vancouver, work, and blogging!