Tea Time at Chatime Bubble Tea Shop

First founded in Taiwan, Chatime is a popular bubbletea shop located in 80 cities worldwide, with almost 1200 stores in four continents. Two locations recently opened in Vancouver - 1545 Broadway and 1274 Robson St.

I was invited by ChineseBites to try out some of their drinks. Chatime boasts a variety of drinks on their menu, from milk teas, juices to smoothies and more dessert-like mousse drinks. You are able to customize your drinks with different sugar and ice levels. Eight toppings are available: pearls, grass jelly, coconut jelly, red bean, coffee jelly, aloe vera, rainbow jelly and pudding. Pearls are made fresh throughout the day and had a very soft and chewy texture. They use fresh fruit and fruit juices for their fruity drinks and I particularly enjoyed the mango smoothie, which is in their top 10 list of drinks. It had a rich mango flavour and was very sweet. Others in my group opted for some classic drinks also on the top 10 list: Pearl Milk Tea, Matcha Red Bean Milk Tea and Red Bean Pearl Milk Tea.

We also tried the Taiwan Mango QQ, which had pearls and coconut jelly, Tieguanyin Tea Latte and Kumquat Lemon Juice, which was very sweet - I'll try asking for half sweet next time!

Chatime is located in a great shopping area, so it's easy to pop in for an afternoon drink. I definitely will be back to try some of their other drinks!

Disclaimer: The products mentioned above was provided by ChineseBites and Chatime for review. The opinions expressed in this post are those of Savvy Shopping, Deals and Reviews and have not been influenced in any other way.

Spot Prawn Festival 2015

It was the 9th annual Spot Prawn Festival at the Fisherman's Wharf at False Creek last Sunday and of course I had to go. Spot prawns are one of my favourite seafoods! As usual, there were lots of cooking demos and a few vendors in addition to the spot prawn lunch you have to buy tickets for. Guests could also buy fresh spot prawns from the boats!

I only caught one cooking demonstration, by Chef Sean Blancard from The Beach House Restaurant. He was preparing an aburi sushi tower. One of the layers was spot prawns, lightly torched. 

I went to grab my plate of food afterwards. Everyone got 3 spot prawns, with 5 sides.

Clockwise from top: 3 spot prawns, southwestern tomato & avocado salad, terra breads, pickled cucumbers, roasted vegetables & lentil salad, herb grits and remoulade in the centre.

The prawns were delicious. Three wasn't enough so J ended up buying 2 pounds the next day at T&T for the family to devour! Go get your spot prawns now, the season won't last very long!

Bellingham Brick and Toy Fair - LEGO galore!

I headed down south last weekend to check out the Brick and Toy Fair that was happening at Ferndale. I've never really been to a toy fair before (I'm fairly new to the scene!) so wasn't sure what to expect. The focus this year was LEGO, my personal favourite, so I forked up the $8USD admission to take a look.

The Ferndale Events Centre was a pretty small place but it was pretty busy with families and collectors all flocking there to get some toys for themselves.  There were Funko POP! toys, board games, lego and action figures. I was salivating over the wall of Funko toys, to be honest!

There were lots of minifigures on sale.

Some vintage toys.

$10 per Pop! Those Disney Funko Pops were calling my name...

 In another room, the LUG had many Lego creations on display. The pictures don't even do it justice - it is awe inspiring when you see it for yourself! It makes me want to take out all of my LEGO and start building.

The Hobbit Laketown scene. This model was a lot larger but I couldn't fit the rest in because I wanted to capture the tower where Bard shoots Smaug in the movie.

The Batcave. Even the frame was made out of LEGO. Some parts were motorized, so the Batmobile would turn, as well as Batman's wall of armour and weapons.

Huge castle! Must have taken a while to collect all those grey bricks.

A build based off of the comic Mouse Guard.

Train and city.

I had fun looking all the toys but didn't end up getting anything. It was a good place to go if you're looking for custom bricks and capes, as a lot of the custom LEGO printers were vendors there (They had a Jon Snow, Ygritte and Whitewalker custom printed minifigure that I wanted, but had no price tag).

The Tenors Performing at Chapters Robson (May 9)

The Tenors will be having a special live performance at Chapters Robson in downtown Vancouver On Saturday, May 9th to celebrate their new CD, Under One Sky. You can meet the musicians and get an autographed copy of the CD or new book. Perfect for a Mother's Day weekend! The performace will be at 2pm.