Make New Friends In Manchester With Meetup!

If you have recently moved to Manchester, you might have a hard time making new friends. While there are a ton of dating apps available, the only one that I have found very useful for making friends is Meetup.com which is a website where you can find social events to meet people.

The Meetup scene in Manchester is very active and you will find groups with different interests. Whether you are into sports, drinking, dancing or languages, you will find a meetup group in Manchester that suits your interests.

How does the Meetup app work? You find events around your area and if you are interested, all you would need to do is RSVP. I have found that most events on Meetup are free however a handful might be paid.

It would be hard for me to say if you would make friends the first time itself you go to a meetup, but it can take a few months so go easy on yourself if you felt that you didn’t connect with anyone the first time! Also keep trying different groups as there are just so many activities happening on Meetup.

I have been to a couple of meetups in Manchester and my overall experience has been great! Some of the events attract a large crowd that it’s hard to meetup with everyone! And I have made a bunch of contacts with time that I keep in touch with, and make plans whenever I am in Manchester.

Tom Mehra

Tom Mehra, an Ottawa-based Software Engineer with a Masters in Information Systems from the University of Texas at Dallas, shares insights on local food spots and top attractions in Canada and the US. He’s also a former resident of the US, UK, and India, and in 2023, his blog was nominated for an Ottawa Award by Faces Magazine. He is also a cat sitter.

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Hot Duck Wings And Indoor Golf At Mulligans Golf Bar!

Whether it’s too hot, raining, or snowing, you can still play Golf in Ottawa whenever you want really! Mulligans Golf Bar offers Indoor Golf Simulators where you can rent a bay and play golf in a very comfortable, air conditioned area! The bar is located right in the downtown Ottawa area on Queen Street.

Each Bay has an Indoor golf simulator that has a big flat screen, a small floor where you put your golf ball and hit it using an actual Golf Club! Using the cameras in the Bay, the simulator is able to detect the speed, and direction of the ball and is able show you on the screen where the ball went!

While the Bays are usually used for playing indoor Golf, you can also watch movies or play videos as well! This might be useful if you are having a private event for work related purposes or want to watch some special sports event.

While it’s fun playing Golf at this place, I wasn’t impressed with the food. I had ordered Hot Duck Wings and while they were cooked properly, I didn’t find the flavor that enjoyable. So my recommendation would be to eat at another place and then head to Mulligans!

If you have your own Golf Club at home, then you should bring it as the place charges you extra for renting Golf Clubs! You can save quite a bit of money if you plan to go to play regularly at this place!

Address: 201 Queen St, Ottawa, ON K1P 5C9, Canada

Rating: 8/10

Business website: https://mulligansgolfbar.com/

Tom Mehra

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Seoul Chikin Restaurant In Manchester Reviewed!

Looks can be deceiving! Atleast that’s how my experience was with my latest order from Seoul Chikin was! I had ordered their Buffalo Seoul Chicken Burger and Sriracha Gold Wings.

The Buffalo Seoul Chicken consisted of a fried chicken patty with buffalo sauce, lettuce and spicy mayonnaise. As soon I held onto the burger, I felt that the bun was soggy. While their patty size is much bigger than other places that I have ordered from or eaten at, their patty tasted quite salty. Most importantly, there was something wrong with the patty. It felt like it was not cooked properly since it had a rubbery texture. I am guessing that maybe the chicken was frozen when cooked but I am not sure.

Their Sriracha Gold Wings were not impressive either. The Chicken Wings had been tossed into Sriracha sauce and topped with spring onions and chilies. While there is flavor on the outside, it felt a bit raw eating them. Also it would have been good if the wings had been wrapped in a foil maybe so that they are hot when delivered.

I think Seoul Chikin might be onto something but they need some serious improvement. The extra salt in the chicken patties and the chicken quality can ruin the whole experience.

Address: 609 Wilbraham Rd, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 9AN

Rating: 5/10

Tom Mehra

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Delicious Tantanmen Noodles At I-Tea Ramen Kingston

Went in to grab bubble tea at I Tea in Kingston and it turns out they had ramen noodles as well! So I decided to get myself some noodles as well. I went with Tantanmen which is what they call their Dandan noodles and it consists of a spicy chicken based soup, spicy ground pork, bokchoy and bean sprout.

I also ordered a Large Signature Milk Tea with the following

Normal Sugar
Normal Ice
Pearl

I think their ramen noodles are spicy and delicious. If you are looking for a reasonably priced meal then definitely head down to I-Tea. Their Signature Milk Tea was alright though, I would expect a bit more since the place is supposed to be a bubble tea destination as their name suggests.

Address: 296 Princess St, Kingston, ON K7L 1B5

Business website: https://itea-kingston.com/

Rating – 8.5/10

Tom Mehra

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Spicy Rice Noodles In Ottawa At Yunshang Rice Noodle!

I think I have found another restaurant that I will be visiting often in Ottawa! The restaurant is called Yunshang Rice Noodle and it’s a Yunan (Chinese) cuisine restaurant. It’s a small chain of restaurants founded in Toronto but now has a restaurant in Ottawa as well!

Spicy Rice Noodles at Yunshang Rice Noodle

I was specifically attracted by their special for the day where they were offering their Signature Rice Noodles for only $6 when they are usually priced at $14. I also ordered some additional slices of Beef that I wanted to have with my rice noodle.

Service is quite fast here and my order came within 5-10 minutes. My order of Spicy Rice Noodles consisted of a boiling pot of broth, rice noodles as well as a plate consisting of assorted seafood, vegetables, as well as meat sauce.

How to eat rice noodles?

People have different approaches to eating rice noodles but here is one way –

Put all the vegetables/seafood/meat except meat sauce in the boiling broth.
Put the rice noodles afterwards
Wait a few minutes till everything in the pot is cooked.
Using fork/chopsticks, take some of the cooked stuff out in another bowl.
Take a little bit of meat sauce and eat it with your meal!

I think the Spicy Rice Noodles turned out to be great and is probably one of the best Chinese noodles I have had in Ottawa! If you are not into spice, they do have an original (non-spicy) as well as tomato flavored broth!

This place is really good and would be something I would recommend anyone to go to!

Address: 275 Bank St Unit 101, Ottawa, ON K2P 2L6

Rating – 9/10

Business website: https://yunshang.ca/

Tom Mehra

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Classic Milk Tea At Meow Tea

Meow Tea is a small cat themed bubble tea store that is located on Elgin Street. I found about this place through AMEX Small Shop which lets you explore small businesses around your area and also AMEX sometimes gives you discount if you shop through them.

I ordered a Classic Bubble Tea with the following –

Normal Ice
100% Sugar
Tapioca Pearl

I also ordered a Mango Slush with cheese cream to try out something different.

I think both of the Bubble Teas were below my expectations. The Classic Bubble Tea seemed to have less flavor despite having 100% Sugar. Also, the Mango Slush didn’t seem to taste that great. Despite being one of their most expensive offerings. Between the Classic Bubble Tea and Orange Slush, I think the Classic Bubble Tea tasted a bit better.

Address: 279 Elgin St, Ottawa, ON K2P 1M1

Business website: https://meowtea.ca/

Rating – 6/10

Tom Mehra

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Webber Naturals Super Sleep Tablets Review!

I have been dealing with anxiety for more than a year now and I have noticed that for some reason, it gets worse just when I am about to sleep. Sometimes it keeps me awake for more than an hour or two and there have been some days where I was barely able to get any sleep. I think this had an impact on my productivity during weekdays as I often end up feeling more tired due to lack of sleep.

While Ashwagandha and B Complex have helped me control my stress, they still take some time work so I decided to try Super Sleep tablets that I saw in Costco. As per the manufacturer, the tablets can help promote temporary relaxation, help increase sleep time, help reduce the effect of jetlag, as well reduce the time it takes to go to sleep.

Here are the three main ingredients of the tablets as per the label –

L-Theanine – 100 mg
L-5-Hydroxytryptophan – 15mg
Melatonin – 1.5 mg

While the recommended dose is two tablets before sleeping, I only tried to have one or sometimes even half of the tablet depending on my situation, and found that it was quite effective in putting me to sleep early. Most of the time, I went to sleep within minutes of going to bed. I have also noticed that whenever I have taken the tablet, I have a much more deep fulfilling sleep and feel great waking up!

The tablets are chewable and have a nice sweet flavor and it does not feel like you are taking medicine. Also, so far using the tablets I have not had any kind of harmful side effects. The supplements do mention not to take it with alcohol or if you are planning to drive.

If you are having issues with your sleep, it’s definitely worth adding this dietary supplement to your nightly routine and see if it works for you!

Update: I had a mild headache and increased heart rate after using Super Sleep recently. So I have decided to discontinue its use. Make sure to check if this supplement interacts with any of the products that you are already using. Also it might good to try with a small amount instead of going with the full dose.

Rating – 10/10

Tom Mehra

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Fiery Malaysian Food At Chahaya Malaysia!

My love for Spicy Food took me to Chahaya Malaysia in Ottawa! While the name suggests it’s a Malaysian restaurant, they do have a number of Indonesian as well as vegetarian options. The restaurant was a bit of a drive for me since it’s in Gloucester (a suburb of Ottawa).

Here’s what I ordered from their menu –

Shrimp rolls (appetizer)
Chef’s Special Chicken (main item)
Basmati Rice (side item)

The shrimp rolls (4 pieces) came with ketchup and while I have seen a number of restaurants serve spring rolls with chicken/beef/vegetarian, this is the first time I was going to try shrimp rolls at a restaurant. The rolls come with ketchup dipping sauce and makes them even more enjoyable to eat.

My main item was the Chef’s Special Chicken which is also called Ayam Istimewa in Malaysia. It’s their most popular item and consists of fried chicken with carrots, pepper, mushroom, broccoli and chili. It’s recommended that you go with a side item like rice with your main item. The chicken turned out to be hot and spicy. I think it has just the right amount of spice and the rice went well along with it!

Food portions for the menu item are decent; and the service was reasonably fast. I didn’t have to wait too long to get the item. Overall very happy with the food, and I would like to try more Malaysian/Indonesian food items off their menu!

Address: 1690 Montréal Rd, Gloucester, ON K1J 6N5

Rating: 9/10

Business website: https://chahayamalaysia.ca/

Tom Mehra

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I Tried Pepper Palace’s Hot And Spicy Chicken Rub And Here Is My Review!

Not too long back, on my visit to the Pepper Palace in San Francisco, I ended up getting their Nashville Hot and Spicy Chicken dry rub. I finally got to try it out on the chicken wings this week!

All I had to do was sprinkle a little bit of the dry rub on the chicken wings, rub it with my fingers and I only let them marinade for about 15 minutes since I was quite hungry. Tossed them into the air fryer for about 20-25 minutes and voila they were cooked!

I must say that this dry seasoning is prolly one of the better ones I have bought so far for chicken. It also works pretty well with steak, which I also ended up trying out with! My steak turned out to be quite hot and spicy!

This one does pack quite a bit of heat so try it out with a smaller amount first before putting more on your meat! If you are looking to gift someone dry rub, this would be a good one!

Main Ingredients: salt, sugar, garlic, black pepper, paprika, onion, habanero pepper, lemon oil, spices.

Rating – 9/10

Tom Mehra

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How To Prepare For Citizenship Test Canada?

If you have applied for Canadian Citizenship then at some point you are going to receive an email from from the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada with a “Notice To Appear” for your Canadian Citizenship Test.

The Canadian Citizenship Test is to show that you know some basic stuff about Canada including rights/responsibilities of Canadian Citizens as well as Canada’s history, politics, economy, laws, demographics, and symbols.

The test is 30 minutes ; can be given either in French or English ; and requires a score of atleast 15/20. You can give the test online/in-person but in certain cases, you might be required to give the test orally.

Here is how I prepared for the test and you can too –

Read the Official Study Guide – All the questions that you are going to get in your test are going to be from the official study guide. You might want to go through the study guide more than once as there are a lot of dates/names of people that you will need to remember.

Official study guide is accessible here – https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/discover-canada.html

Memorize your representatives – Few questions in the test are going to be regarding political representatives from your city/province/country so you should know important figures like the Prime Minister, Premier, Lieutenant Governor, Mayor. Also you should know about the political parties of your Province/Country and the leaders.

The official study guide has a page that covers what representatives you are expected to know and most likely they will test your knowledge on one of them.

Practice the Citizenship Test – It is recommended that you go through the question bank which will help you prepare better for the test. A lot of the questions that you are going to get in your citizenship test are going to be in the question bank as well. This will help you increase your chances of passing the citizenship test.

In my case, I went through the question bank a couple of times as well.

You will have approximately 3 weeks to give the test. If you don’t pass the test, then you will get a notice to give a second test after some period.

Once the test is completed, your status will get updated to Completed in the Citizenship Tracker. Usually people get their invite for the Citizenship ceremony within a few weeks of passing the Citizenship test.

Tom Mehra

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