Happy birthday Chelsea!

Fridays for me usually sucks since I end class at 5. On this particular Friday however, it was Chelsea's birthday and a whole bunch of us celebrated at Fin Izakaya.

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Fin Izakaya is a Japanese restaurant that serves tapas style dishes to be shared with a few friends. Their main draw is the amount of imported Japanese alcohol that goes along with the dishes and the atmosphere of the place.  Check out the amount of alcohol they've got lying around:

The alcohol bottle display by the window.

The alcohol menu was long and extensive.

Beer Posters were everywhere and they added to the feel of the place.

The Bar Area.

This was on the wall beside me, I'm going to guess it's a calendar?

I ended up teaming up with Michelle, Sophie and Esther to share more things. To be more organized, good ol' Sophie pulled out an old receipt as scrap paper and marked down our choices. 

Can you tell that we're in engineering?

For four people, we ordered 7 dishes and everything came relatively quickly. Thank God we were organized since ordering from a huge menu can be quite time consuming. 

You eat in little dishes like this with chopsticks. 

The first dish was a squid sashimi with a wasabi sauce, which was quite unfortunate since it was possibly my most un-favourite dish of the night. I learned something new last night, I might like squid, but I can only eat it cooked.  The texture was quite gooey and chewy at the same time. It was also too fishy for my liking. 

Look at the gooey-ness!

The next dish was a clam soup which was like a breath of fresh air after the first dish. The clams were small, but quite flavourful. 

We also ordered Takoyaki or the ever so popular octopus balls. It was my first time trying them after years of watching them in anime. The texture was unexpectedly squishy but it wasn't bad and I would definitely get them again. 

The balls were the size of golf balls which made them very filling.

Sophie showing off her amazing chopsticks skills.

Then came my most favourite meal of the night, another type of sashimi dish (forgot the name). I'm not sure what types of fish it was made with but the chef achieved the impossible by it being tender and not gooey. 

Look! Esther likes it too :D

The final dishes were a grilled lamb, a hotpot with beef, soup, tofu and mushrooms and roast duck. 

The lamb dish, nothing super special.

Serving things up Asian style

The duck, I liked it more then the lamb.

After we got our stuff, we noticed the waiter playing with the blowtorch for another table.

Laura was kind enough to bring Macacroons for everyone and they were so good!

And what's a birthday without some chocolate cake and presents?

Our gift to Chelsea :D

Extra goofing off pictures before Dinner:

Sophie played with my camera and wanted me to do this. 

Butter Chicken from Veda

My phone's knitted case and phone charm

Dioramic view from Esther's 16th floor apartment on College Street