Toronto: Harbin BBQ Restaurant Review

Was out in Toronto for a short trip and ended up trying a place called Harbin BBQ. Pretty casual place, something that I don't think is available in Montreal.

BBQ squid #chinese #restaurant #foodporn #food #scarborough #toronto

A photo posted by Montreal Chronicles (@montrealchronicles) on Apr 22, 2016 at 3:19pm PDT

Montreal: Bistro Isakaya Restaurant Review

Went to Bistro Isakaya recently for dinner, and it's not the same vibe or menu that you'd get at other popular isakaya places like Kinka Izakaya, Imadake or Kazu. It has a "mom and pop" type of feel and doesn't feel as cramped as some of the other popular isakaya options. Of course I took as many pictures as I could, trying to minimize the leaning over people, snapping pictures of other people's food (the things I do for this blog).

We all went for dinner plates and as the pictures imply...The food was great! Although if you are hungry, you'd definitely need to order an appetizer (or two, or three) and dessert to get your fill..Or maybe I felt that way because the food was good.

Miso soup #bistroizakaya #montreal #foodporn #food #japanesefood #japanese

A photo posted by Montreal Chronicles (@montrealchronicles) on Mar 4, 2016 at 4:17pm PST

Costco Product Review: Pinty's Crispy Chicken Wings

This is the first in a new series of Costco product review posts that I will write about. I figure that there are other people like me are curious about trying out various Costco products but don't always want to risk buying a large quantity of food that they end up hating, and have to force themselves to eat over the course of a month. As usual, with food it's somewhat personal but you can generally get most people to agree if some food item is good or bad.

Tastes Good, Disappointing Amount of Chicken Wings

The first thing I have to say up front is that opening up the box was a disappointing experience. The box reads 1.75kg, so you might expect 1.75kg of chicken wings...But you'd be wrong. With three different sauces in four packs, about 20% of the weight is just sauce. I'm sure most people like me, are buying this for the chicken wings with the sauce just an extra. The chicken wings are larger than what you might get with other brands though. You might literally only get 24 chicken wings (12 in each pack) in the entire box. So that was a let down for me. I ended up BBQ-ing them on a grill, and they did taste pretty good. Some were pretty thick and I had to throw them into the oven to be sure they were cooked properly. There are better deals out there, but these are fine if you are really in the mood for chicken wings.

Pinty's Crispy Chicken Wings Photos

Pinty's Crispy Chicken Wings box

Only 2 bags of wings and lots of sauce

D-Link DIR-822 AC1200 Wireless Router Review

Picked up the D-Link DIR-822 AC1200 Wireless Router up during Boxing week for 50% off (normally $90), and at that price I can say that the range and signal strength is pretty solid for a 1 bedroom apartment. It does make it easier to get a stronger signal from another room versus the last entry-level D-Link router I purchased. It's great to be able to just plug it in and start to use it right out of the box with a network name and password ready to use. The real test is to see how long this will last, but no complaints so far.

Router Specs:

• Fast transfer speeds of up to 300Mbps (2.4GHz) + 867Mbps (5GHz)
• 4 High-Gain Antennas and MIMO technology combine for enhanced Wi-Fi coverage in and around your home
• 4 Fast Ethernet ports deliver fast wired performance
• Simultaneous dual band makes your HD streaming and online gaming smoother with less interference

Samsung USB 3.0 Flash Drive

Slow Boxing Day deals this year as usual, but I did pick up a solid and cool looking Samsung USB drive (64GB) for just $20, which is marked down from $80. It's physically quite small and has a metallic-based design and has key ring hole if you want to carry it around with you. It also has a 5-year warranty, and 5-proof technology (meaning it's water proof, shock proof, temp proof, magnetic proof, and X-Ray proof...who knew we needed all that protection!).

Last but not least, speed is also an important feature to have and it says that it can theoretically transfer up to 130MB/s. I haven't seen it go that high (just a spike hitting 70MB/s when writing to it) but it seems fast enough for my needs.

Samsung USB 3.0 Flash Drive Photos

Attached the official Samsung photo and my photos of it in real life, along and a size comparison with a nickel.