Rosso Bruno the black tomatoes

Has anyone seen this black tomatoes at grocery stores?

It's one of the many varities that BC greenhouse growers produce. It's called Rosso Bruno and to my knowledge, they're available at Safeway. Perhaps other chains too.

The colour of my picture didn't turn out so well. Let's take a closer look at what they really look like:

The nutritional values of this black tomato is pretty much the same as other tomatoes. I've personally tried it and I found it a bit sweeter than regular tomatoes, and I couldn't taste the sourness that tomatoes usually have. I certainly find it unique and different from regular red tomatoes.

Aqua Riva

Returning to Aqua Riva for the Best of BC event. It's similar to Dine Out Vancouver but featured local products. With the passion for local production (thanks to my job), I was there to give it a try.

Some dishes I tried:

Roasted Wild B.C. Salmon with shrimp & spinach risotto, local summer berry salsa and lime butter sauce (I especially liked the berry salsa)

Wood Grilled Salt Spring Island Lamb Sirloin with grilled new red potato & arugula salad summer vegetables, Salt Spring Island blue cheese & walnut jus

The only thing missing was a window seat.

Aqua Riva
Food: 8
Presentation: 8.5
Environment: 8.5
View: 7 (the window seat was missing this time)
Service: 7.5
Overall: 7.9

More about peppers

Did you know...

...that green peppers are actually unriped coloured peppers?

For the green peppers you see in grocery stores, they're picked before they ripe. If you leave them on the plant, they will eventually turn into colours. It can be red, yellow, orange, purple, lilac, brown, etc. Sometimes even the picked ones may ripe and turn into a spotted pepper of green and another colour.

There're no riped peppers in green. However, there is a purple variety that actually starts purple, then turn green, then turn into a dark purple as its final form.

And because green peppers are unriped peppers, it's lacking the sweetness of coloured peppers.

Just some facts about your peppers. =)

Chocolate & Coffee

Well, most people have drunk coffee at one point, but have you ever eaten coffee beans?

Recently I have tried the imported chocolate from Brazil. To be exact, it's coffee beans coated with chocolate.

How was it? errmmm...bitter.

Yeah, it says "Chocolate & Coffee" on the box. Literally, chocolate and coffee (beans).

Aqua Riva

Just tried Aqua Riva at Waterfront, part of the Dine Out Vancouver experience. Maybe my previous experience at Joe Fortes wasn't so good , this time around I was really happy with its food and service. To start off, we were given a window seat, and you know, dine while looking at Canada Place and the waterfront is pretty good. It only got sorta depressing when it started to rain, but it's all good. Then the waitress Sonia (yeah, this time I looked up her name) was really friendly and always said "thanks". Food wasn't bad either, for the price of $25 - a regular main course costs at least $27. I actually think its food was better than Joe Fortes' (which cost $35 per head). This time, we also ordered fresh oysters and drinks on the side.

See, Joe Fortes, we are willing to pay more but you just didn't deserve it. Sucker!







window seat - pretty good view



Aqua Riva
Food: 8.5
Presentation: 8.5
Environment: 8
View: 9 (the window seat was great)
Service: 7.5
Overall: 8.3