Date Night at Sensei Bar

In lieu of the mountains, the missus and I went on a date night and we checked out the newly opened Sensei Bar, just off 17th Ave. They served up an interesting mix of cocktails and asian inspired share plates.

The place was small and cozy, and they had us seated beside a couple of dudes. We weren’t intentionally eavesdropping, but they were loud so it was hard to drown out the one dude constantly peppering his partner with questions about the food. “What’s a kohlrabi?” “What’s char siu?” “What’s gochujang?” "What's matcha?" “Is this the bison?”

Now if you haven’t eaten much asian cuisine, I’d get why you might not know what char siu or gochujang are. But isn’t kohlrabi a fairly standard item at the local grocery store? Has this guy legit never wandered through a produce department before?

Time for a poll: do you know what kohlrabi is (eg: is this guy in the minority), or am I just expecting too much produce knowledge of others?

Muddle Plum cocktail - Sloe Gin, Brandy, Hibiscus, Aperol, Lemon, Egg White


White Grape Mojito - Pisco, Rose Water, Honey, Lime, Mint, with some infused citrus smoke.







This was the aforementioned kohlrabi. It was diced into cubes, lightly picked/ marinated, and served alongside some sweet purple yam puree and a light bit of soy sauce.


Potato crusted miso cod served with snap peas, tartar sauce, and crispy coconut polenta and cilantro oil. The purple dollops were described as pomme puree, but I think they were just purple yam puree again.


Pork and Shrimp Truffle Dumplings served with chilli oil and anise shoyu


Two Baos - Tempura maitake mushrooms (with miso pineapple mayo, kimchi, tarragon carrot, and cilantro) and Ebi Prawn (with kohlrabi, anise sweet soy, scallion, and sesame)


Cucumbers served in a gochuchang type sauce, with black and white sesame seeds. I don't remember the exact details, but it was yummy.


For dessert, we had the 'lollipops', which were lychee cheesecake lollis coated with pop rocks, served alongside matcha coated sponge toffee, a dollop of tapioca, and then some gooseberries. This dish was supposed to be whimsical, but it felt more non-sensical than anything as the flavours didn't really pair well or complement each other. But pop rocks are always fun.

Thunder Mountain

After losing an hour's sleep, Anita and I headed out bright and early on Sunday morning to the Crowsnest Pass area, and scrambled up the long and beautiful ridge of Thunder Mountain. With the bright blue skies, warm sun, and generally mild wind, everything about the adventure felt invigorating, and the views were epic. But if you asked Anita, she might have used some other choice four letter words to describe the outing. She was tired, grumpy, and disinterested most of the day... but still soldiered on all the way to the summit.

Summit Brew: Rural Routes Brewing It's Prounounced Chow-dah New England IPA. Delicious thirst quencher for a long day in the sun.


Mr. Tubby gets to see the summit too. Miss you tons, buddy.

Blue skies, beers, and ... a buttplug

This weekend's summit adventure featured bright blue skies, beers, and ... a buttplug? More on that in a second. We took advantage of the still relatively snow-free conditions, and headed up Porcupine Ridge in Kananaskis. The approach to the summit was a relatively straight forward, but interesting hike with some minor bits of scrambling. Once at the summit, there was an interesting looking extension off to the south, that involved crossing a really narrow exposed ridge. Naturally, I couldn't help myself, so went to investigate. Thinking about the most difficult scrambles we've done over the years, this ridge was probably the most exposed one I've crossed yet. See the photos, and decide for yourself whether you'd have the cajones to cross it.

Anyways, back to the buttplug story. A dude we follow on Instagram has been putting up unofficial summit register containers on various peaks in the Rockies, and they usually contain a notebook, a mickey of Fireball cinammon whisky, a magnum condom, and some other random odds and sods. Well this particular summit box had those, plus a tube of pre-rolls (joints), and what appeared to be a gently used buttplug. Call me immature, but we guffawed for a lot longer than we should have. All in all, this was an awesome outing.

That little red dot in the middle of the spine is me, gingerly making my way back down. (photo taken by Keith)


This is what the ridge looked like from a highpoint to the east of the summit.


The ridge was thin, with steep drop offs to either side. With the intermittent wind gusts, I sat to take in the views before slowly making my way back across to safety. (photo taken by Keith)


This is what it looked like from my vantage point, as I was making my way back across.


The low winter sun created some beautiful flaring around Keith.




Looking towards the summit.










Summit brew: Snake Lake Brewing Company's Brighter Horizons Tropical Pale Ale.










We saw one other character decide to climb the tower. He made it to the top, which is more than I could say. I opted to turn around just below where he is in this photo, knowing that ascending this section would mean having to downclimb it after.








And finally... here's the aforementioned butt plug. Pro hiking tip: always bring sanitizer for mountain adventures. You never know what you may end up coming into contact with.

Peer Pressure Printing

During a recent video call, a colleague pointed out that for a person who takes as many photos as I do, I surprisingly had a blank wall behind me. And my rationale for this was that I don't look at the wall behind me in the office... but I succumbed to the commentary, and selected a bunch of photos to print anyways. Because there's no motivator quite like peer pressure and judgement.

So a couple hours, and 30 odd bucks later, I picked up these 8x12 enlargements, and all I can say is... print some of your photos. There's nothing quite like holding large physical prints, and collectively displayed as a set, they can look pretty awesome together. Even if you did get them done at Costco, and the quality is as mediocre as a Michelob Ultra.

For those that are interested, this random assortment of photos includes scenes from: Ottawa, Zanzibar, Taiwan, Uzbekistan, Japan, Beijing, Newfoundland, Chile, Tibet, and the Canadian Rockies.

And this is how the images look as a set, hung on the wall.