Travels With Miranda

We hit plus 12 today. I keep writing “June” instead of “January” on my letters!

We’re going down to minus 8 on Wednesday, then creeping back up. Minus 8 is still balmy for January!

This is my fourth winter on the road and my fourth winter that the locals tell me “This isn’t an average winter for us.” At least, I finally lucked out with the abnormality being positive!

We are well into the end of December and thus far a Lethbridge winter has been about a gazillion times more pleasant than were any of my winters in British Columbia

We did have one cold snap of a few days, but every B.C. winter has had at least one of those. Thus far, I haven’t experienced anything that would have made me unduly comfortable in a properly prepared rig in the right place. I would have needed to be in an RV park with 30A power plus an extra 15A circuit where Miranda could have been skirted as well as sheltered from the wind.

The major difference here is that there is SUN, so the rig would have warmed up considerably inside even on the coldest of days. I went into Miranda during the cold snap where we hit about minus fifteen during the day and even with just one heater running, Miranda’s interior was well above the freezing mark so I don’t think I would have spent any more on heating here than I have in BC where I had to fight the damp.

Of course, it’s only December, but I landed here in late March last year when the weather was already much better than that on the western side of the Rockies, even with that April 1st snow storm. So we really are getting over the hump towards spring.

I frequently have to run between my buildings and not having to put on a coat is great. I just keep the heat down in the office so that I don’t experience a shock when I step outside. I wear fleece or wool and if the wind is particularly biting I’ll add a pashmina shawl. This is so much less cumbersome than what I expected; having to pull on boots and full winter gear each time I have to go outside!

As for snow, it has been negligible and has kept on melting. I decided to not get snow tires for the car and have avoided going out during inclement weather. The four season tires  I bought in Whitehorse have been more than adequate so far. I really agonized over this decision, but as the weeks marched on and I saw no need for them, I decided to spare myself the expense. If I had to drive every day regardless of the weather, then, of course, the tires would have been purchased.

I was dismayed to see this week that another sushi restaurant had opened up in Lethbridge, with this one being just around the corner from The Apartment! EEP! However, it is of the ‘all you can eat’ variety, so my expectations were low.  The ‘dinner buffet’, as they call it, is $26.99 plus tax. There is a huge assortment of things you can order, and you can place multiple orders. I took a fair sample of the menu, pleased that almost all portions were tiny. I ordered a mountain of food, but did not come anywhere near stuffing myself.

The offerings were really hit or miss. Let’s see if I can remember everything. 🙂

Terrible

The salmon nigiri tasted old.

The eel nigiri tasted like an aquarium. Eep!

Bad

The chicken teriyaki was icky. The flavour was good but the meat was gristly.

So-So

Presentation was a bit sloppy, but that’s par for the course for an all you can eat that goes through great volumes.

The shrimp tempura was a bit slimy.

The miso soup was bland and it had mushrooms in it.

The tuna handroll was bland. I had ordered spicy tuna, which would have been delicious, but they brought the wrong topping. The nigiri and rice were good though. With the right topping it would have fit in the next category.

The gyoza (dumplings) tasted more oily than anything else.

Green tea ice cream was okay, but I had ordered one scoop each of the red bean and mango!

Service was very slow an inattentive (I didn’t want to be there all night, so I didn’t reorder the mistakes).

Good/Delicious

I asked for more pickled ginger and got a mountain of it.

Once I was able to get someone’s attention, my water refill came quickly.

The yam and brocoli tempura were flawless.

The octopus nigiri was so awesome I ordered two pieces.

The ‘Toyko’ roll with salmon and mango was great; a very plain roll with the mango giving it a little something extra. Really glad I tried this.

The spicy salmon and spicy tuna were each delectable. I ordered tuna in the first round and it was so good I got both tuna and salmon in the second round!

The masago (roe) nigiri had perfect flavour and texture.

Awesome

I had given up on my ‘tuna pizza’ but am so glad it came and that I finished with it. It was a thick fluffy rice cake encased in fried panko topped with thin slices of tuna sashimi and drizzled with the sweet sauce that usually comes on eel rolls. Totally worth the wait!

I really got my money’s worth at Makisu. That said, I’ve decided that with sushi I prefer quality over quantity, so I am more likely to go to O-sho or Dono if I want to spend $30 on dinner, or Umi if I want something quick. I can’t believe how many sushi options there are in Lethbridge and that I still have one left to try!

The table next to mine had a group of sushi novices and they quickly figured out that, hey, the gal at the next table knows her way around the menu! And could you help us figure out these chopsticks? They wound up being rather unadventurous, but provided quite a bit of amusement.

I’ve been remiss in my Japanese studies, but I had one incredible moment tonight. I was gazing at the bowl that held the sweet dipping sauce for the tempura and thought “Oh, isn’t that cute! It says oishii!” It took a moment for me to realise that a) I had read the word  the way I read a word in English, that is as a word rather than individual letters and that b) I didn’t translate it into English. It means ‘delicious.’

Well, I sure hadn’t planned on spending three hours on dinner (although the time away from home did me some good), but I have work to finish for tomorrow, so back to the grindstone I go.