An Invitation to a Good Appetite....

Are you salivating yet? I am, although we just finished with our breakfast a few minutes ago and it's almost lunch time now. Anyways, Sunday is here, hmmm.... Here I am sitting in my comfort zone where I can imagine all the good things and just enjoy what I can. Meanwhile, my honey has been out and about, thinking of things to do for me to stay away from this little comfort world of mine. I'm not about to give up yet until I post this idea and before I forget and loose the inspiration. Here it goes, while having our eggs benedict which my honey makes best of all his breakfast recipes, I came up with an idea. Ding!!!! What do you think of my title? I bet you guys can guess what it is about; oh, and thanks to my brother in law who inspired me to write this one. This is for you Ken and I will wait for your feedback, ASAP! Ok, so this might be a series so bear with me here..... As part of the Welcome to the Island Feature I have here, I also thought I'd post some good restaurants that you can go to, with really good and authentic food from around the globe, and still spend economically, and end up with full satisfaction and a smile that you can bring home and dream about the next day. How about that?

Like this photo here of my honey while enjoying every minute of the taste of India here in Parksville. Not a good photo of him but it shows total satisfaction.... So, I will be posting these photos of places we've been this summer and if you have any input, please share, would you? Ok, first stop and the most favorite place we go to for comfort food would be none other than Japan. And by that I meant, SUSHI ICHI. Kindly click on that because once you see it highlighted on my blog, that means you can go to a site that tells you more about the subject ok. The first time my honey introduced me to NOBU, the owner, I knew right away that this will be as good as the sushi I had in downtown Vancouver or better yet, my own sushi that became famous once in Argentina. I still remember how we walked the short walk he referred to but apparently, it was quite a long one from the beach house, where he was staying at the time, to downtown Parksville.  

It was winter back then and after that, I was ready to eat as much as I could. That was the day we also discovered this secret dish that wasn’t on the menu and still remains a mystery to those who don’t know NOBU. See below picture. Easy to find ha! And right behind that wooden sign is a little garden that Nobu put together, full of Bamboo plants and other exotic plants. Nice outdoor atmosphere to eat and relax...... 

“Parksville Maki Roll”. This is highly recommended most esp to you who won’t eat anything raw. Hot red sauce combination and you can choose either salmon, tuna or eel. Yummmm! is all I can say.....

 

So if you decide to eat there, at the bar is the best place. Nobu or his sous chefs with their sweet smiles are ready to serve. Mitsiko is actually the nephew of Nobu and he looks very much like him and this other guy beside him is another helper who may compete with Nobu one day once he learns all the tricks. Nobu had a long time sous chef who owns his own Sushi restaurant now in French Creek, but we are such loyal customers that we haven't really been into his restaurant although we heard, he makes good veggie salad, Japan style. Next stop is INDIA. Who likes good exotic curry with aromatic flavors of fresh condiments from Bombay? Meeeh!

We discovered AMRIKKO first time at Departure Bay in Nanaimo and my honey fell in love with their authentic Indian food right then and there. Later, they opened here in Parksville last year or two, we were both excited to see how it's like. They have the Belly Dancers on Fridays like they have in Nanaimo and in fact, our host was the same host who greeted us the first time in Nanaimo. So we were happy to see familiar faces and things although the space is smaller. I wasn't that much impressed as I was this last visit with the food though. I guess because I'm used to Indian food way back from my Hongkong days, when I used to grind my own condiments fresh from Bombay with mortar and pestle right before toasting. There's something about the process of starting from scratch and it always makes food tastes fresh and more tasty. I have the habit of guessing every single bit of  condiments added to food and I could even name the right ones maybe 9 out of 10. Picky but yup, trust me, when I say it's good, it's really good and DE--LI--CIO--SO!!!!!

"Lamb Vindaloo" is my all time fave dish at AMRIKKO, with dahl, flavored rice, naan bread (papadams if they have), cauliflower curried with potatoes, mango chutney and my honey ordered this big half bone in chicken tandoori that had a strong barbeque flavor for $10.00 CAN! Can't get any better than that.

Until then folks, this is making me hungry already. Hope that helps and see you on the next food adventure.