Today I'll be doing a quick review on a small little cafe called Cafe Joie located in South Burnaby. My boyfriend found this place while browsing Instagram and they have the most delicious looking waffles I have ever seen! So we decided to go sometime this week and let me tell you the experience was 100 times better than the website.

Cafe Joie is not too far from the Metrotown SkyTrain station. I believe if you walk through Metropolis it's only a 10 minute walk. The cafe is located just off of Kingsway and Sussex. When you first walk in it has a very modern feel to it. The walls are painted an off white I believe, and they have unique lighting. Lots of little touches to the restaurant. I didn't take any pictures of it but there's plenty on the website that you can view.

It was so hard to choose what to eat. I decided to get the green tea waffles and my boyfriend got a roast beef panini and an iced coffee. We shared the rainbow cake.

The iced coffee was good. The coffee wasn't strong and it wasn't watered down, which I find is common with independent coffee shops like this. It had just the right amount of flavour with it not being too bitter or too sweet. I'm not a coffee drinker and I even liked it, so I would order myself one.

Next was the roast beef panini. Not sure what was in it as I didn't order it or what kind of salad it was ahah, but was it ever DELICIOUS!!! The bread was crisp, the meat and cheese was toasty warm so the cheese just melted in your mouth. I didn't get the chance to try the salad but the dressing was really good. I would definitely get this again, it was amazing!

The waffle was the most amazing waffle I have ever seen. I am a very big breakfast eater, so pancakes and waffles are my absolute favourite way to start the day. The waffle looks bigger than it does on the plate. It had a green tea and vanilla macroon on top (which was OMG AMAZING!), green tea ice cream, whipped cream, kiwi, strawberries, almonds, drizzled with green tea sauce, powdered with sugar and matcha. It was seriously the best thing ever. The waffle was so warm, that pairing it with the ice cream was absolutely the best thing that they have done. It was filling too! I would've ordered another one but I was pretty full after that one, plus I still had cake to devour. I highly recommend getting the green tea waffle!!!!

The rainbow cake was visually appealing, but wasn't much. The lemon frosting was delicious. I felt like it needed something else, some kind of other flavour to make it really POP but I'm not sure what it is.

Other than that, it has the visual wow factor but the taste was okay. Would have again though.

Pros

• Visually pleasing dishes
• Delicious - nothing was tasteless or bland
• Variety of selections to choose from even though the menu itself is quite small
• Does not need syrup to make these waffles amazing (which I'm into lately because we haven't had maple syrup in the house lately)
• Lots of desserts including cake in a jar, macroons, cakes, waffles, ice cream... I believe some other things
• Close to the mall
• Great atmosphere

Cons

• When you walk in, the menu is quite small. I have glasses and even I had a hard time reading it
• A little expensive. I think this was almost around $30.00 for the both of us, which isn't bad but this is a cafe. My waffle alone was $10.00. They just opened up though, so maybe their prices will go down eventually.
• Their website is horrible. They have a link to their 'menu' but it's just pictures and not even half of what they have in the cafe itself. No prices on it either. You just have to go in and trust that you're going to have a great experience (and you will).

Overall, my experience blew me out of the water. Definitely a place to check out if you're ever in the Metrotown area.

9/10 would come again.

Hello PYMUO followers! Today will not be a beauty review but a recipe on the infamous banana and egg pancakes. They're fairly simple to make, and I added in a few extra ingredients.

 Ingredients:

1 Ripe Banana
2 Large Eggs
1 Scoop of Chocolate Protein Powder
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
3 Teaspoon Olive Oil

Instructions

• Chop up one rip banana.
• Add in the two eggs and mush it all together!
• Add in the baking powder and vanilla extract. Mix it together.
• Mix in one scoop of your favourite chocolate protein powder. You can also substitute or add any other flavours. Sometimes I use fresh blueberries or chocolate chips, and sometimes cinnamon or nutmeg.

• Add the three teaspoons of olive oil in the pan. Heat the pan just below medium heat.
• After a couple of minutes, scoop out three tablespoons of your pancake mix on the pan. Each pancake is three tablespoons.
• Let sit for one to two minutes. Be gentle with these pancakes as they can fall apart easily. 
• Once the pancakes move around quit easily, flip them! Let the other side cook for another minute.
• The bottom two pancakes is what they should look like just put on the pan, and the top three is what it should look like cooked. They may turn out darker depending on the type of protein powder you use!

And that's it! These are fairly thin pancakes as you can see on the left picture.

These pancakes are VERY sweet, I didn't really need to put maple syrup on them! I use either honey or 100% maple syrup, and for a substitute for whipped cream I use vanilla greek yogurt (not shown).

I really hope you guys enjoy these. They're really easy to make and you can't really go wrong with them.

I was actually inspired by Beejuboxes for this box and did most if not all of my research on her blog in deciding which box I should purchase.  Because I'm so into the Asian fashion, I decided to go with an Asian box for starters, oh and the price was right as well!

So basically this box is a monthly subscription service that allows you to have a one time trial box for a lower price than normal.   You have three selections on which size box you would prefer to get. I decided to opt for the trial box at $15.00 because I haven't really tried Asian snacks before and didn't know what to expect!
Oh, before I forget and get into the box overview, I had thought I got jipped by this company as it had been about 2 months after I purchased before I even seen this box.  Apparently they are having troubles keeping up with the demand.  Must be a decent box.

 So this is the first thing I see when opening the box! Could this be the pamphlet of what's inside??

Well, sort of.. Guess I'll just try my best to guess what is what.

Honestly, I was shocked at how much was in here and didn't expect so much just from what I could see in this picture.

This snack had the texture like a rice cake but melted in your mouth almost instantly.  The outside is hard that makes a crunch like a cookie and tastes sweet and salty, yum!

 This is another cracker type snack.  Turns out this has a spice to it, something that you would put on a BBQ'd steak or hamburger.  Definitely a distinct taste.

Gummy oranges, nothing too special about this snack.  There's only 5 in the entire package? That's not really a whole lot.

OH MY GOD!! These are not only the cutest but so delicious!  It is a graham based treat with a milk chocolate coating.  Don't be deceived either, the chocolate definitely overweighs the graham part.  Where can I get a ton of these?!! They're amazing!!

Honestly scared to eat this!  With not being a huge fan of beef jerky, this is what it reminded me of.  This was super sticky and extremely hard to bite off, the texture was like a hard plastic, and it was spicy too!  I didn't plan on finishing it but did anyway because it was giving my senses a run for their money.

This snack I was excited to eat but didn't really end up being anything special.  It reminds me of one of those treats you would get around Christmas time because of its fancy looks.  The top layer is coated in thin chocolate and the inside is like a wafer.  This didn't have much taste either.

Next up we have a powder drink and I think some noodles you put in boiling water and eat that way?  Neither of which I am going to try right now as I don't need a meal at this moment!

Yet again another rice cake type snack.  This one is hard and with not much taste.  It doesn't do much for me so I didn't finish it.

Next we have a whole lot of small snacks!

I could tell how rich this was just from the smell, delicious! All chocolate.

 Japanese version of our Rockets? Nope! They're fizzy candy with a very odd taste.  Not sure what to think of these, probably something I need to get used to.

I expected these to be just coated in chocolate with a wafer cookie inside. It's more like a rice krispy snack, but rice krispies to suit ants.  I liked this snack.

Japanese version of Smarties?  The chocolate isn't as good as Nestle!

No idea what this is!  Strawberry flavored Gobstobbers? No, wait, bubblegum? OH MY GOD IT'S BUBBLEGUM!! lol Strawberry flavored bubblegum.  This reminds me of hubba bubba.

Also got a chocolate covered bite sized almond square.  That was really good as well.

So, for $15.00 I would say that is a great deal!  Considering it is coming straight from Japan you add in the shipping costs, it's pretty much a steal in my books. Most of these snacks were a hit with a few duds, but hey that's what you're going to get in foreign food anyway.  I really enjoyed this box nonetheless!

I had been meaning to make pancakes for a while, but every time I wake up my brain doesn't want to function, and I forget the night before all my thoughts about pancakes.

I have to tell you, breakfast is my favourite thing to cook. It's so easy. I have cooked every kind of breakfast from foreign to healthy to super junky, everything in between and more. But I usually just stick with the basics.
Because like I said, it's so easy.

Last week I whipped up these AMAZING, THICK, FLUFFY, FILLING PANCAKES.

I honestly could go on and on and on about these pancakes but I'll just give you the recipe instead and let you try them out yourself.

THE WORLDS MOST AMAZING PANCAKES:

• 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1 tablespoon of baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1 1/4 cups of almond milk
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• cinnamon

Mix the dry and wet ingredients in two separate bowls. Add as much cinnamon as you'd like (I like my cinnamon so I put a lot in). Add in extra vanilla extract as you wish.
Separate dry ingredients and slowly pour the wet in. 

Mix it together - it's okay if it's chunky and super thick. You WANT it this way.
Heat up a pan on medium heat and pour in olive oil. Wait until the pan is hot.
Using a 1/3 cup, scoop up the pancake batter and place it on the pan. You may spread it out a bit as you'd like, depending how thick you want your pancakes to be.
Place a clear lid on top of your pancake so it will cook evenly. Wait two minutes.
Flip your pancake over to the other side. Again, put the lid on and wait another one or two minutes.

Cook the rest of the pancake batter. 

And there you go! Thick AMAZING, scrumptious pancakes! :)
Hope you guys enjoy, let me know how yours turn out!

Raelene xox