Katie is a Teacher

In the summers I work at the part-time job I held during my Undergrad degree, which is great because it keeps me from getting bored and it’s still super flexible. However, sometimes I feel like I might have too much flexibility. I can’t be trusted with too much time off because, instead of energizing or rejuvinating me, I get bored and simply become inexplicably lethargic rather than finding something productive and exciting to do.

I’m basically on-call, so this week I discovered I had four days off in a row. FOUR DAYS! That’s quite simply too much free time for me to handle, I’m not responsible enough to handle that time effectively.

It didn’t quite strike me how horrifically disgusting I had become until two days into my television stupor (also please note that I’m still on my two week meat and dairy binge I’ve allowed myself since abandoning veganism, you can get up to date here if you so feel the need) when I recieved a text message from a friend simply asking “What are you doing?” Except it was a text message, so basic grammar and spelling had been carelessly abandoned and the message (or should I say “msg”) was more like “Wat r u doin?”. That’s not important though. What’s important is that I looked at my phone, then looked at myself. I was sitting in front of mycomputer in pajamas, eating all of the meat out of a bowl of leftovers and leaving the vegetables and pasta, watching old episodes of Battlestar Galactica, and reading really bad Harry Potter fan fiction. I mean worse fan fiction than regular fan fiction. The kind of fan fiction that is accompanied by lyrics to a Celine Dion power ballad.

So I decided to become less of a hermit and more of a social butterfly. Apparently my definition of social butterfly means inviting one friend over to my place to sit in the sun, make crafts, and drink coolers like 18 year olds. No big deal. It’s less shameful when you’re not alone. By the time we had basically given ourselves melanoma from sun exposure and no sunscreen we decided that we were hungry and needed food, so we decided to hit up Kinjo on Macleod Trail for sushi. I’ve yet to have actual fish sushi since losing all of my I-care-about-animals-ethics, and I had never been to Kinjo before, so it was a win-win.

When we arrived, our server brought us some various sushi from the kitchen to try. None of them were fresh, or good, but we went with it because we like free things. We only wanted a couple rolls as I had dinner plans and obviously did not want to be too full for that and my friend had plans to go to the gym (by “plans” I mean she talked quite a bit about considering going and never actually did, of course) and didn’t want to vomit all over the exercise equipment. I ordered a tuna roll and mixed tuna and salmon sashimi (my favourite!) and my friend ordered California rolls and a dynamite roll. My tuna roll was boring (no wasabi, really?) and dry, and the tuna didn’t reach entirely through the roll to all of the pieces. Meanwhile, my sashimi was cut inexplicably and grotesquely large. The salmon was mediocre, while the quality of the tuna was extremely subpar and a major disappointment considering tuna sashimi is my favourite. My friend’s rolls were also all dry and she said she thought the California rolls in particular were definitely not fresh.

Overall, Kinjo was a major disappointment and I would definitely not recommend going there. Apparently they occassionally hold events in which people can come in to learn how to make sushi, which I can imagine would be fun but definitely not very informative, since they really don’t seem to know themselves.

After my late lunch, I was not overly hungry, but I was relishing in being away from the television and in the real world and I had dinner plans with my cousin at The Yellow Nectarine Lounge. It’s a new restaurant on Stephen Ave. where Rush Hour used to be and an Aussie bar before that. The location is absolutely terrible and pretty sketchy. My cousin and I arrived from different directions and were both yelled at by two separate groups of homeless people. I really don’t know why homeless people ask for phone numbers. If, by some chance, they find a phone to call me on, where do they expect to take me on a date? Always so confusing.

Anyway, the interior of TYN was nice, though perhaps it tried just a bit too hard. We were literally the only people in the entire lounge for 15 minutes or so until a couple came in. No one else came in for the entire time we were there. We really did not expect much on account of how empty the place was. I was torn between the pulled pork, the portobello panini and one of the specials that night, which was a beef brisket sandwich. I decided to keep with my meat-devouring theme as of late and finally ordered the beef brisket while my cousin ordered the other special of the night, which was a fish dish (yay for rhymes!).

The food was awesome! We were literally expecting it to be mediocre at best, but it was delicious. Also, it was very reasonably priced. My sandwich was only $13 while I believe the fish was $21.  I would have liked to be able to choose my side with a sandwich as I would have ordered a salad as opposed to their chips, but the chips were fine. Additionally, our server was great. Not overly friendly or in your face, but helpful and attentive.

          Overall, I highly recommend The Nectarine Lounge. It’s a shame it wasn’t busier because it’s always a little bit awkward to be almost alone in a restaurant. Hopefully the sketch location doesn’t work against it (though I’m sure it will) because the food really is good. Definitely better than that Kinjo, which was inexplicably busy mid-afternoon.