Vietnamese Drip Coffee

I went out for lunch with my mom today at Pho88 on Spadina. Before we ordered real food, I asked for two drip coffees, one hot and one cold, because i know they take forever to drip. The hot one comes in a small cappuccino coffee cup with a bit of condensed/evaporated milk at the bottom and the cold one is the same but with a lot more milk and comes in a glass. What happens with the cold is that they give you a bucket of ice to make the coffee cold.

This isn't my first time drinking Viet coffee but every time I order it, I'm always a little dumbfounded. No one has ever told me whether the ice goes into the coffee after it's done dripping or before. The problem with the drip coffee is that by the time the coffee is done dripping, it gets cold (which is what happened with the hot one I ordered).

Last time I ordered the cold, I added the ice in after, but it took FOREVER for the ice to actually melt so this time i added the ice in while it was dripping. The problem now is that even though the ice was melting right away, the condensed milk was having trouble dissolving.

So the iced coffee ended up being half dissolved and the hot coffee ended up cold and so i added ice to the luke warm coffee to make it slightly better. The only reason why I still order it every time is because it tastes so damn good.

I seriously think Pho88 should consider doing what they do in Taiwan. In coffee shops in taiwan that offer this type of drip coffee, they have these HUGE dripping machines that like sits in the centre of the store, and you can watch it drip while you sit there. The mechanism actually traps heat though, so when you ordered the coffee, they give it to you pre-dripped and the waiting time is completely eliminated. If you want it iced, they have ways to ice it for you.

There are a lot of things North Americans can learn from Asians...

Albert the Alpaca

Almost done for term #1

One more 20pg research paper that's been eating up all my time attention and then i can:
1. go back to toronto for work on fri
2. pick up furniture and move on sat and/or sun
3. go to boston on monday

nts: also, call hydro and tax

AsianAvenue

I found the old layout codes in my external and fixed all the links and put it on my website.
I bet some of you will remember this:

http://www.lynnchien.com/AA

Define: Home

In January, I moved downtown. I found a beautiful unit in the condos 5 minute walk from my work, across from the distillery. The place is beautifully furnished, I have the master bedroom with an ensuite bathroom, the apartment has an ensuite washer and dryer, and the rent is $850 all inclusive (internet and cable). I can't tell you how much i love the place...but now I'm moving again.

With my part-time schedule and me being at waterloo everyday, there's really no reason for me to spend $850/month; I'm only there about one or two days a week, a wknd at most. I recently signed a lease in Waterloo, at the Westcourt Estates. It's an unfurnished townhouse and I'll be sharing the place with a 2-3 other people I know, depending on the term.

It's a bit scary to know that i'll be spending the next 12 months in this dumpy town that i've always hated. In the past, the most i've ever spent in Waterloo was 8 months consecutively, most of the time it was 4 months due to coop, but I'd be back in Toronto every weekend and it never feels like Waterloo was "my home". home was in Toronto, with the fam. But when I moved out in January, home for me was my apartment downtown and now Waterloo will be my "home", at least for the next year. I'll be back in Toronto at least once a week to be in the office, and i'll probably stay in the GTA with my family on most wknds if school work permits, but the feeling is still the same. As much as I hate the thought, home will be Waterloo because it will be my own place with all my clothes and whatnot there.

No, I probably won't relocate to Waterloo permanently after I graduate, but where will i be? I have no idea. That's probably the even scarier thought.