udon & stilettos

i'm on schmap!

2009-05-23T22:26:00.000-07:00

a couple weeks ago i got a flickrmail from schmap - free digital destination guides. i'd never heard of them but their maps are pretty cool - all interactive and social media optimized (read: widgets/embed codes, etc). anyway, they had chosen one of my cakebread photos for their selects for their napa guide.

using my photography rights knowledge from a previous life in advertising, i figured it was okay to give them permission to potentially include me in their published digital guide. i wouldn't be getting paid, but the usage they wanted was non-exclusive, which means i was free to sell this photo to other buyers if i wanted to. i actually think it's pretty cool that they are utilizing networks like flickr to pool together images for their guides - it makes sense in this digital age. also cool that you are appropriately credited and you get your stuff out there.

anyway, i just found out that they did indeed choose my photo for one of the cakebread images. so cool! i am listed as "shoe_monster" - my flickr (and "blogosphere") name. yay shoe monster! the widget version of the guide is above, and below is the image they chose:

funny, because this was not one of the selects i chose for my cakebread post!

napa continued: cakebread

2009-04-26T20:19:00.000-07:00

after lunch we stop by luna (there's a good sangiovese there), and then we continue up the silverado trail for our last stop before french laundry: cakebread. the tasting here is by appointment only, and we had a few extra minutes to spare so we stopped at the winery next door (nickel & nickel). we didn't go in for a quick tasting; we got distracted by the horses playing outside so we all hopped out of the car for a photo op. they were obviously used to this kind of attention, because they thoroughly enjoyed taking pictures with us and being petted and fed (random grass nearby).

white picket fences outside nickel & nickel, sitting on gorgeous flowers.

finally at cakebread. the tasting is $10 i believe...there is also a reds only for $25 or something like that, which i wasn't aware of (but would have chosen if i knew). but on our way out we wanted to buy some pinot noir which wasn't part of the tasting but asked them nicely if we could taste it - we got a small pour =] (and yes! it was delicious and we bought some)

we also walked around the property for awhile, just relaxing in the sun before heading over to french laundry.

napa light lunch: ubuntu

2009-04-08T19:45:00.000-07:00

so after wine tasting we wanted to eat a super light lunch. i had received an email from open table a few weeks ago promoting various restaurants, and ubuntu was on the list. typically, i don't like to go by these types of emails, but the place looked really great and had good reviews. plus, it was vegetarian, and i wanted to ensure that none of us would somehow overeat before going to french laundry!

let me just preface everything with: this restaurant is amazing!! i love it. we were all so pleasantly surprised. the food was fresh, creative, and soooo delicious. the waiter explained to us that they food is "biodynamic" - which we had not heard of. we stared at him blankly and then he explained it nicely to us. we started with chickpea fries (above). sad that there were so few - this was gone within minutes. i would say these are more chickpea-ish than fry-ish, which i like.

what can i say about this dish?? only that it was so amazing and tasty, i just recently tried to re-create it. this is the "bowl of local yellow corn grits infused with goat’s milk whey (lots of parmesan, agretti, slow egg, trumpet chips with savory)" it was creamy but you couldn't really taste the goat milk. i think we all ate this one the second-fastest. this also comes in an awesome UFO shaped bowl (see it here).

this is the cauliflower in a cast iron pot - roast-puree-raw, vadouvan, cilantro, brown butter toast. yes that is my good friend cilantro sitting at the top, but i managed to avoid it when i tasted this little creation. YUM. (and extremely cute)

bean stew: "rustic rancho gordo ‘yellow eye’ bean stew w/ torn bread, rosemary, chili & braised swiss chard." we added an egg because eggs are awesome. the menu states that you can add a "domaine de la chance" egg to any dish. (can someone please explain this "domaine de la chance" thing?)

here is the delicious egg up close.

sauerkraut and emmental pizza. absolutely delicious and destructor - who hates sauerkraut - stuffed his face with this. the way it's prepared takes the emphasis off that sauerkraut-y taste.

the rest of the photos are here.

napa: journey to french laundry

2009-04-01T13:30:00.000-07:00

ok, i have to take a break from my beijing posts. it is obvious to me at this point that it will take me forever, so i need to move on with my life.

in march, destructor and i went with some friends to napa to achieve our ultimate life goal: EAT AT THE FRENCH LAUNDRY. we lucked out with reservations (more on that later) and snagged a table for 4 on a sunday at 5:30pm, right when their dinner service opens.

so, what to do with the rest of the day? go wine tasting in napa of course! (saturday was spent in san francisco at a hotel with horrible customer service but we did eat a burma superstar which will be posted later)

our first stop sunday morning was artesa winery. it was a beautiful sunny day, even though the weather forecast had said it was going to be cloudy and rainy. lies! we arrived right before 10am, when the winery opens. on the side of the road by the entrance, there was a flock of sheep just hanging out. i squealed and we stopped the car. they were so adorable. we all got out of the car for the photo op.

my friend kept saying, "this is what i want to eat for dinner. mmm." how?? look at them!

once we all finally left the sheep and made it inside the artesa property, we were stunned by the gorgeous landscape.

the artesa property is truly amazing. not only that, but the views were breathtaking. of course, drinking wine at 11 in the morning is always nice. the tasting was pretty good and the people were great, but my favorite part is definitely the landscape.

we found lots of fresh herb plants around the property too. mainly, a lot of rosemary which we wished we could have taken.

see the rest of the artesa photos here.

homecooked meals in beijing: part 2

2009-03-31T20:15:00.000-07:00

we had this comfort food in beijing at my (maternal) grandmother's house. i had completely forgotten about this dish until i saw it. once it was brought to the table, my eyes widened and i immediately recognized my old friend. i experienced an overwhelming sense of nostalgia...images from childhood: dusty hot streets in beijing, meals shared with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins; food stands on the street.

basically, this is chinese "bing" - pancakes. you take these flour pancakes, and you chop them up, then stir fry with any meat or veggies you'd like. typically, we use pork. the result is something like fried rice, except the chopped pancake is nice and chewy. i also like to add vinegar to this. this is how i'd always eat it growing up.

we also had some simple, yummy side dishes to go with this: pickled radishes & cabbage, salted fish, and fried lotus.

see the rest of the food here.

beijing's 798 art district: part II

2009-03-30T19:30:00.000-07:00

i recently wrote about beijing's 798 art district. i loved it so much that i went back again the following week, before i left beijing. this time, we went to several different galleries/exhibits on another part of the "campus."

old factories that are now galleries. everything was beautiful.

lots of old machinery and giant chinese characters on old brick walls.

pipes...

juxtaposed with shiny exhibits and chandeliers.

see more photos here.

homecooked meals in beijing: part 1

2009-03-25T19:15:00.000-07:00

i was really spoiled during my beijing trip because i got to eat several homecooked meals (mom, two grandmothers). this is the type of food i always dream about before a trip to beijing. this is why i will always complain to destructor (and anyone else who will hear it) whenever i eat chinese food here in the US. we'll order a dish and everyone else will be like, "mm, this is great!" and i'll be the debbie downer and say, "yea, i guess it's okay. it's not authentic enough though. it should be more x, y, less z."

i know, i'm THAT person!

anyway, what i love about the meal is not just the food. it's going back to childhood days spent in china, sitting around a small table with a big family and enjoying a meal together. i miss that.

for starters, every single person in my family (immediate and extended) knows that i MUST EAT THIS dish whenever i visit. i grew up on this dish. this is a classic, very common dish you eat at home. it's just thinly sliced/julienned potatoes, stir fried (sometimes with green bell pepper, black peppercorns, and maybe a little bit of vinegar). i could eat this whole plate by myself.

pan fried fish. soy sauce based, a little sweet, and delicious with rice.

stir fried snow peas. crispy and refreshing!

braised shrimp - also in a slightly sweet sauce. i love drizzling the juices over my rice - i can't describe the taste - it's amazing and another distinct flavor/dish i grew up with.

this is somewhat of a more contemporary dish. the soup is very familiar, with pork broth and cabbage, but my grandma added taro. i loved this soup!

see more dishes here.

shoe intermission

2009-03-24T22:38:00.000-07:00

i picked up these sweet miu mius a few months ago at a...

(drum roll please)

marshalls! in harlem!

not kidding.

the best part is that baglady and i had gone crazy there, running around with a shopping cart full of shoes (literally, running through the aisles, pulling shoes, and throwing them in the basket to try on) she first found these in a size 6.5, which is NOT MY SIZE. but i did everything i could to make myself believe that they were actually my size. i said, "no, no! i can really get those heel thingies and just put them in, and they will fit fine!!" fortunately, baglady talked me out of the this craziness, saying "DO NOT BUY THEM, they are NOT YOUR SIZE. even though they are miu miu and only $110."

i was heartbroken but finally became rational, especially after combing through the aisles again and not finding another pair.

then!

we were about to leave when...baglady gasped and pulled ANOTHER pair of these off a random shelf - and YES. they were size 6! how did this magic happen? we're not sure. even better, these shoes were marked $90!

why!!

it doesn't matter, but i was so overjoyed. needless to say i bought them...along with 3 other pairs of shoes!

clockwise starting at the top: siren boots by mark nason, nine west sling backs, tuxedo shoes by circa joan and david, and lastly of course, the miu mius.

maison boulud @ the old legation quarter in beijing

2009-03-17T18:26:00.000-07:00

yes. i am STILL on my beijing posts. not even halfway done. over the holiday season, toomuchfood and i trekked over to the old legation quarter to eat maison boulud, daniel boulud's latest restaurant (opened in july 2008).

having literally just eaten at li jia cai for lunch, i am not quite sure how i managed to eat this for dinner. luckily, pricy food means small portions. still, it was pretty rich.

my photos are horrible. i am still adjusting to the concept of pulling out a big, awkward camera and shooting wildly at food, ruining the ambiance of a restaurant. in particular, i really didn't want to ruin the experience for myself here since i had been waiting so long for this moment. so i brought my dying sony cybershot. this was the best i could do in poor lighting (without using flash, obviously).

but please take a moment to soak in the gorgeous space that is maison boulud here.

when we arrived at the legation quarter, i immediately noticed a large chloe sign posted outside. inside the compound, a beautiful building to our right had an enormous, glowing chloe logo projected on its walls. we peeked inside the tall, open window. there was some sort of fancy dinner party going on. i vowed to crash this party if it looked more open later.

the compound was beautiful at night, especially since it was decorated for the holidays.

this is the magnificent entrance to maison boulud.

the amuse bouche. skewers of smoked salmon with cream cheese and puffy bread.

this is my soup: crayfish bisque with cognac cream and chervil. mmmm. overall tasty but a little on the salty side.

this is toomuchfood's soup. i think it is something something partridge broth. you'll have to consult his blog for details. overall, the presentation was lovely, with the servers coming out together and pouring the broth over the food in our bowls.

this photo is a little blah, but i really liked my entree. it was called the "duo of partridge" with foie gras (of course!). the stuff on the left side of the plate is the thigh meat and on the right side, is the breast meat sitting on top of red cabbage, which was delicious. also on the left are delicate pieces of gingerbread and apple. overall the dish was really nicely balanced and everything just tasted great.

toomuchfood's succulent suckling pig dish! i tried a piece and really i wish i could have eaten both entrees. the skin was crispy, and paired with the nice layer of fat beneath, it just melted in my mouth. i am a sucker for crispy pork/duck skin.

and then they were like, "a basket of madeleines, please enjoy." really? now? they were warm, soft, spongy, and tasty.

and here are the rest of the mignardises - there was one that was a hazelnut cookie that was amazing.

overall the experience was phenomenal. maybe it's just a little bit of that nostalgia for old beijing + being shocked by the new beijing in me - but i felt a little hesitant about loving the experience. i think by the end of it though i had fully embraced it. dining at a place like this would have been inconceivable to me 10 years ago. things were so different then. but now that i'm older, i appreciate the new culture of fine dining in beijing. at the time they were doing this weekly happy hour where you'd get a glass of nice champagne and hor d'oeuvres. i didn't get to try that but next time i'm in town, i would love to stop by.

beijing's 798 art district: part I

2009-02-23T22:07:00.000-08:00

for awhile now i'd been hearing about the 798 art district from my sister. a warehouse? with art? and parties? sounds like the type of thing i seek in LA.

apparently, it's more than that. i expected a handful of galleries. no one explained that this was a gigantic community that just sprung up in the last few years in beijing. how i wish this had existed when i lived there 10 years ago.

these are warehouses originally built by russia/east germany in the 50s. i have some great shots of the interior with neatly stacked arcs by height and huge windows. really amazing - something i had never seen and definitely a part of beijing i never knew. these will be posted in part 2 - i just have way too many photos.

at the same time, i felt a little confused in this huge, campus-like space. i mean, the wiki even has a section on gentrification! where am i? los angeles? to me, it's almost inconceivable that i would confront this in beijing. i think part of it is the nostalgia i have for my version of old beijing, when my friends and i would buy ghetto abercrombie knock off pants on the street for $4. it was still a big, international city back then, but lately, it's beginning to lose something i can't really articulate.

the inside of one of many art galleries. (a lot of them forbid photography but oops. it happened anyway.) overall i am really glad to see such a huge contemporary art scene in china. people are finally expressing themselves.

and look - graffiti.

see the rest of the set here.

li jia cai restaurant - appropriating hutongs!

2008-12-28T01:08:00.000-08:00

i have had my eye on this restaurant ever since i heard about it from toomuchfood.

in planning my trip to beijing, i called my mom months ahead of time to ask her to make a reservation and get all the details about this place. though we didn't end up making a reservation until the last minute, we still got in easily for lunch.

li jia cai serves "chinese aristocrat cuisine." i've seen negative reviews about this place charging too much and targeting foreign tourists, but i didn't care. i marched in there fully aware of my cultural appropriation of old beijing hutongs (indeed, this was confirmed by the fact that the minute we drove into the alleys, the rickshaw drivers literally started chasing us because they were dying for business. they charge a certain price to give "hutong tours," where they take you through all the alleys and talk about all the old hutongs).

here's a pic of all the rickshaws lined up, freezing outside in hopes of getting some tourists.

after some confusion, we finally made our way to the narrow alley where the entrance was. we stepped through a brightly painted round, green doorway into a tiny courtyard. not exactly a siheyuan, which i have yet to visit, but very quaint.

once in the courtyard our server led us to a very modest room on the left. it was small and plain, with bare walls and white tablecloths. a large electronic heater hung above the table, blasting hot air in my face. throughout the course of the meal, i would see servers bustling outside this window, bringing in food continuously.

the menu here is prix fixe, with prices ranging from about 200 yuan to 2000 yuan (~30 USD to 300 USD). i thought everything kind of just got weird after about the 500 yuan set (example: shark fin something or abalone other or sea cucumbers!), so i chose the 330 yuan set. each set comes with 7 or 8 cold dishes and quite a few hot dishes (5? i lost count). everything is portioned per person (so for example, for spare ribs, we got 4 so there was 1 for each person). i like this a lot because i love being able to taste a little bit of everything without getting overwhelmingly full. still, towards the end i thought i would die if one more dish came.

cold appetizers - serving size for 4 people. starting with the green blob thing at the top and going clockwise, these are: 1) tofu - looks like avocado but it's not! this was kind of like a mushy preserved tofu, salty and seasoned nicely. called "jade tofu." yum. 2) lettuce root. i don't remember eating this because i was too busy with everything else 3) i know, this doesn't look very pleasant, but it was so delicious...another one of those tofu dishes - made from the course bits that are leftover in tofu production 4) this cute little dish is actually delicate slices of cabbage root coiled together with horseradish dressing 5) i love cold chicken dishes and this one was great - the sauce on top was kind of sweet/sour but not overwhelming 6) disgusting. i took a bite of this and had to spit it out because there was cilantro hidden inside. there's nothing special about this one anyway! just some shredded carrots. 7) in the middle we have sliced pork - what can i say? i love pork.

here's a close up of this delicious chicken.

beef fried in a light batter. really tasty and reminded me of beef jerky, except wrapped in fried yumminess.

fried dough cut into cubes. crispy when you bite into it but nice and chewy later.

i love this dish. meat and veggies are sandwiched between two pieces of lotus root and then battered and fried. you dip this in soy sauce.

this dish was beautifully presented but unfortunately cilantro struck again. it's a tiny cup of egg custard, kept warm by the large cup/device propping it up (hot water inside).

these braised pork ribs were sooo juicy and tender - i wish i had more!

lightly fried scallops. surprisingly good! the green stuff around it is salty, fried seaweed. oily and crispy - delicious. we also had chicken fried in the same batter. kind of boring so i'm not posting that one.

sea cucumber. ew. after all these years, i finally succumbed to trying one. i only took a small bite. it was crunchy, chewy, and slimy at the same time. kind of tasteless, but really not worth going through the texture for this.

this dish was one of my favorites of the meal. it's so simple but the flavors were so powerful that this is now one of the most memorable dishes of the set. first you are given a juicy piece of fatty pork sitting in light broth with cabbage. then you mix some rice into the dish, along with soy sauce to taste. i slurped this down and ate the pork practically in one bite.

another savory dish: stir fried eggplant with ground pork. this is a classic chinese dish, and it was really great here without being overwhelmingly oily.

lobster!

shrimp! (the little cubes on top are like tiny french fries, except crispier and better - i love little details like this.)

delicious lightly fried fish.

...so i didn't know we'd be getting beijing duck too. AUGH! i couldn't imagine eating this at this point. but i did. their duck is cooked differently. instead of the usual beijing duck roasting method, they first roast it and then finish it off by lightly frying the duck. this made the duck extra crispy outside but still tender inside. it was delicious!

a few "dessert" items. candied walnuts and berries.

...and then we finally rolled ourselves out of the restaurant.

digital overload

2008-12-27T18:43:00.000-08:00

when i was packing for beijing i realized that i would seem a little crazy - i was bringing 3 cameras (nikon d80, sony cybershot, and a holga), 2 phones (iphone, and global gsm motorola phone to use in beijing), along with all respective chargers and usb connection devices. of course, then there is my laptop. i had to do a photoshoot of all my electronic equipment.

can't there be 1 universal wire that does EVERYTHING???

crazy cctv building

2008-12-24T18:33:00.000-08:00

apparently, they were trying to finish this in time for the olympics but that didn't happen. cctv is china's main television network - this building is amazing!

beijing kao ya / peking duck!

2008-12-24T16:12:00.001-08:00

every time i'm in beijing, my parents take me to the beijing da dong roast duck restaurant - one of the best peking duck places here. i don't ever remember eating peking duck anywhere else.

i couldn't wait that morning to get out of bed so we could come here for lunch. to my pleasant surprise, the restaurant has evolved in the past 3 years to include a wide range of food. the menu was literally a thick hard cover book, with artistic photos for each item taking up an entire page.

it was overwhelming to think that i would have to make room for the duck AND all this great, creative food. but i did it!

salad - i don't think i even touched this

one of my favorite dishes here. i think it's called something like "duck treasure" - tender pieces of duck in a savory hoisin sauce with pine nuts and beans, cupped by a delicate crispy "nest" on lettuce!

some kind of sprout (looks like pea sprouts but apparently it's from some kind of tree?)

this was one of those amazing "new" dishes. on the left side is smoked salmon and some kind of crumbs rolled into a layer of avocados. on the left side are tiny fried dough-like objects. it was beautifully presented. when it came to the table the avocado roll had a round glass over it. inside, it was cloudy - when the server lifted the glass the smoke rose into the air and it smelled like our house when we bbq with wood chips. i wish i got a picture of it before they did that!

another one of those new inventions. it came in a huge black bowl, and when i peered over the edge, two plump birds constructed with bak choy lay next to an "egg". it actually wasn't an egg, but steamed fish shaped like an egg. inside the egg, the "yolk" was made of crab roe. this was so creative and absolutely delicious!

another staple. cabbage with chestnuts.

stir fried bean sprouts and green bell pepper.

*PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL THIS FOOD WAS BEFORE THE DUCK!!

FINALLY. here comes our whole duck. the servers stand next to your table and carve it for you.

all the duck condiments. on the top left corner, you have sliced cucumbers and turnips. to the right of that, hoisin sauce and scallions; bottom right - garlic and sugar, and the last one is 2 types of pickles.

these are the thin pancakes you use to make your little duck "burrito"

mmm duck. 1 whole duck makes about 2 plates like this, plus the head (which i stay away from)

you can dip the crispy skin in sugar and eat it that way too. really indulgent.

duck soup - just a basic broth. SOOO good and flavorful, and not at all oily/greasy. i had two bowls.

finally we get to "dessert" - this is an almond jelly/soupy like concoction.

and fruit! i looove the little clementine looking things - they have a really weird english name which i'll research later but basically they are teeny tiny oranges and you eat the skin too.

i don't think we ate dinner that night. at least, we just had some light snacks. this was worth it - i am going to try to go back again before i leave!!

dinner - (how is it possible to eat again after bellagio?)

2008-12-21T15:42:00.000-08:00

after walking around at this crazy new luxury mall (where i felt like i was either at bloomingdales or rodeo drive - which i never go to - because everything was gucci, prada, chanel, juicy couture, etc etc) we actually went to dinner.

since i was still in a food coma from lunch, i just asked for some simple, casual food...it really didn't matter to me where we went because i was so grateful to just be here. i asked for some "jia chang cai", which means basically home cooking - like the casual chinese dishes you eat everyday at home. mainly, i wanted my favorite potato dish - "tu dou si" - julienned potatoes stir fried with green pepper. see description from chungking post here.

edamame - according to my dad, this was soaked in cooking wine?

veggies! however, this was kind of salty and covered in msg. tasty, but my palate is adjusting to the strength in flavors.

a chicken soup - the broth was wonderfully thick and heavy and there were tiny shreds of coconut mixed in.

yet another delicious fatty dish i always eat in beijing: "mei cai kou rou," meaning preserved vegetable with meat. but the pork is soooo fatty (and delicious and great for my arteries!). i poked it with my chopstick and could see gooey fat coming out. the preserved vegetable stuff at the bottom is what i really love.

the best way to eat the pork dish is to stick a piece in these buns. mm! the golden colored ones you see are baked, while the white ones are steamed. you can dip the baked ones in this creamy condensed milk sauce - sounds weird but really satisfying.

finally, our potato dish arrived. sadly, my parents were extremely unhappy with the way the restaurant butchered this dish. i, however, had less discerning taste since i was just grateful to be eating practically ANYTHING here. but they cooked this in soy sauce (no!) and in oil that had chinese peppers in it (which numbs your mouth). i ate a few bites and thought it was edible, but my parents were vehemently against this dish, telling the server to tell the chef to taste it himself. hilarious!

also, upon further inspection from our takeout bag, i noticed that this restaurant is translated as "golden tripod attic." huh??

i'm off to eat "beijing kao ya" (aka peking duck) in a few hours. but first, i must eat the leftovers from these previous meals for breakfast!

the eating begins - very first lunch

2008-12-21T07:48:00.000-08:00

after i woke up from a 2 hour nap, i immediately started eating. just for fun i weighed myself so i can see just how much weight i will gain from this trip.

the first place i want to eat whenever i come back to beijing is always bellagio, a taiwanese restaurant. we ordered a feast - the waitress questioned our judgment.

my absolute must have. stewed pork with egg, over rice. fatty pork, actually.

this is called "pi dan tofu" - it's a soft, cold piece of tofu mixed with chinese pork shreds (dried - never knew what they really are), and preserved duck egg. one of my favorite appetizers.

on the menu, this is called dragon something. it's a type of vegetable i've never seen anywhere else. again, another staple of bellagio that i get every single time.

this is a tofu dish in a clay pot, cooked with pork. really rich, seasoned and flavorful.

i don't even know what this is! i just asked my mom for some kind of fish and this thing appeared. YUMMY. i think it was some sort of white fish; it's sitting over one of those heating trays.

this one is a new one for me. spare ribs dusted with cumin - i think maybe a little untraditional but i had to try it. it had a nice kick to it - i was the only one eating this! i think there may be leftovers in the fridge right now...hmmm given my jet lag it might not be such a bad snack as i write this at 7:30am!

also - did i mention i got a nikon d80 for my birthday from destructor?? (he is the best!) thanks to the new snazzy camera, i am able to shoot all this wonderful stuff on my trip.

i also ghetto-rigged it with these great close-up lenses recommended by the guy at bel-air camera when he saw my face after telling me that the macro lens was $500 (on sale!). who needs that when i can shoot close ups like this with those things?

this was the least interesting. a seafood noodle soup dish twice the size of my head, the flavors were confusing to me. the noodles were like chow mein noodles but the broth reminded me of some thai/other southeast asian dishes.

last but not least, another staple: "san bei ji" or "three cup chicken" - chopped chicken cooked with three types of sauces.

beijing

2008-12-21T05:31:00.000-08:00

today i am in beijing. it's been nearly 3 years since i was last here, and this trip is definitely going to be an interesting one. it's sunday, and i just got here this morning. i lost my saturday, and it feels like i've had one day that lasted more than 48 hours, packed with 6 meals. my brain is foggy but i did manage to eat a ton of food already!

anyway, this is the new international terminal. never seen it before but it has the same feel as the old one. when you go through customs there is a button that asks you to rate the service, marked with smiley faces (or frowning ones).

my sister and i come home to a nice, simple warm breakfast (it's 7am). our parents got us chinese donuts from kfc. yea, they have everything at kfc here. all types of chinese food.

after breakfast, i took a nap. my parents moved into a new apartment so i've never been here before, but all my old furniture from high school is here...truly disorienting.

this is the view from my window. unfamiliar, yet still comforting...

peruvian chicken noodle soup for a sick boy

2008-11-09T21:26:00.000-08:00

poor destructor was suffering from a cold, so i decided to bite the bullet and try this recipe i had been eyeing in my saveur magazine.

i had been really lazy about trying this mainly because the recipe called for simmering the chicken broth for over 3 hours. who has that kind of time? but since we were staying in all saturday, it was the perfect opportunity to make this.

the soup was amaaaaaaazing. i omitted cilantro (my arch-nemesis), and added tons of lime juice (i really like tangy flavors). the chopped green stuff you see is mint i decided to add (again, die cilantro, die die die!), which worked out really well.

you can find the recipe here.

images from an analog world

2008-10-15T19:51:00.000-07:00

headlights on hollywood blvd.

red blinds.

nikes and sichuan food.

a stroll down hollywood blvd.

shot with a holga 120cfn.

sunday breakfast: savory potato hash with smoked trout

2008-10-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

when issues of Saveur mysteriously started to show up in my mailbox addressed to my sister, i didn't complain. there is some great stuff in the mag and it's the only one i read cover to cover (sad - i'd like to claim the same for my Economist but this is simply not true)

there are so many recipes i've seen in all the issues i've gotten, but for some reason the one i spotted earlier last week needed immediate attention. it sounded simple enough and the description sounded delicious.

so i made a classic potato hash for breakfast on sunday morning. but it contains smoked trout, which was a cool twist. it was easy even though the actual cooking time was a little long, and there were pieces of potato, chives, and onions all over my kitchen after i was done. i looooove the creme fraiche that goes on top. mmmm.

i also made a nice little fried egg to go with it. we ate this while lounging around and watching real time with bill maher, where stephen moore of the wsj said some really crazy, crazy things.

smoked trout hash
4 tbsp butter
1 lb boiled and cooled russet potatoes, cut into 1/2" cubes
1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
1/4 lb boneless smoked trout flaked into 1/2" chunks
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh dill (i didn't use this)
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 clove finely chopped garlic
salt and pepper
creme fraiche
2 tsp prepared horseradish (didn't use this)
fresh chives (substituted for dill in the potatoes, and used for garnish as well)
1 lemon

heat 3 tbsp. unsalted butter in a 10" skillet over med-high heat
add the potatoes, cook, stirring, until lightly browned, 8-10 minutes
add 1 tbsp butter and the chopped yellow onion
cook until onions are soft - about 10 minutes
add the trout, heavy cream, dill, garlic, cayenne pepper, salt/pepper to taste
stir to combine
turn hash in parts every 2 minutes, until potatoes are golden brown, about 12 minutes
divide hash between plates
combine 3 tbsp creme fraiche with the horseradish
garnish hash with sauce, finely chopped chives, and squeeze of lemon
servings: 2

recipe from Saveur Magazine, October 2008

chung king restaurant, monterey park

2008-08-03T21:41:00.000-07:00

i've been wanting to try this restaurant forever. i first found it online in some reviews on a whim when i was craving spicy sichuan ("szechuan") food. i think i was always waiting for the right time to come, but today i was feeling very decisive. we wanted to get brunch and when neither jone's nor little next door sounded appetizing, i said, "let's go to chung king!!"

this is the extreme opposite of going to little next door, sitting on the sidewalk, and watching pretty people order tiny portions while sipping on a $12 mimosa like drink.

cold appetizers. i didn't realize at first but you can go right up to the counter and order this (they are all out and displayed, under heat lamps) before you order/while you're waiting for your food. we chose the beancurd skin (i don't know what it's called in english but that's what it is in chinese), pickled green beans, and roasted peanuts. the peanuts have the most amazing flavor: a little oily but very well seasoned and with a hint of sweetness. the pickled veggies are a favorite of mine. when i put this in my mouth i was whisked back in time to the days when i was a kid and my grandma would make this for us. she would pickle all the vegetables herself in her kitchen, sichuan style (both sides of my families are originally from sichuan).

this is one of my favorite sichuan dishes. whenever i was in china at a restaurant that had this, i would make my parents order it even though NO ONE ate it but me. it's basically little pieces of battered, fried chopped chicken stir-fried with a ton of red peppers. you don't eat the peppers. but my favorite thing about this dish is digging through the peppers which make a dry rustling noise in order to find the little pieces of chicken.

there's also sichuan peppercorns in here, which give the dish a unique kind of "numbing spicy" flavor (called "ma la" in chinese). eventually there wasn't much chicken left - just bits of fried batter, which i have to admit are good nonetheless.

here's a close up of the peppers. i love the homely plate that this dish was served on. at this point in the meal i started feeling really nostalgic about past years/months/weeks/days spent in china. i really wanted to be in my grandma's kitchen at that moment.

this was the dish that sent me over the edge with nostalgia. it's thinly sliced potato strips, stir fried with peppers and vinegar. this is called "tou do si" and growing up, my parents would make it for me all the time. they usually skip the chili peppers and use green bell peppers instead. this version was very tasty and it made me crave the version i used to have all the time at home.

i loved everything here and really want to come back again soon. but my stomach was complaining a little after this because i ate sooo much spicy food all at once. as far as authenticity goes, this place is one of the best i've encountered here in l.a.

chung king restaurant

206 S Garfield Ave
Monterey Park, CA 91754

(626) 280-7430
cash only!!

my first roll from my holga - success!

2008-07-22T22:09:00.000-07:00

out of 12 exposures, i got about six that i really really liked. at least now i know my holga doesn't really have light streaks. yet.

this is gloria's cafe on venice blvd. i double exposed this shot. we had yummy pupusas and pork adobado here. and the mexican chocolate. mmm. i think i have pictures; i'll post them separately.

now, on to downtown los angeles.

broadway and 4th.

shoes from blends double exposed with the building across the street. 4th and main.

zorro the cat. double exposed. he was laying down and when he noticed i was snapping pics of him with a blue flash, he jumped at at me (which is the predominant shot you see here).

overall, i was happy with my first roll but i felt the colors were a little washed out. i adjusted the color a little - mostly just increased the contrast. can't wait to see what my next roll is like!

holga = my new hobby

2008-07-21T22:33:00.000-07:00

so a couple of weeks ago, destructor and i were out for a stroll when we met holga. ok so it wasn't a stroll, but an intentional afternoon of shopping/consumerism. we found holga at turntable lab on fairfax, and it looked so curious and fascinating that we had to have it. he got it for me as a gift, and i am grateful because it now gives me a new hobby and perspective on the world.

what is a holga? i'm not sure how to explain this. it's a little plastic camera - not particularly well made - that has a long history. it has a plastic lens, and captures the essence of snapshot photography. (plus, your photos come out square. isn't that enough to love it?) to me, having this camera is like being forced to travel back in time. it is the opposite of the high tech digital canon that i have. you have to get your hands dirty.

let me back up. apparently, in 1982, the russians were inspired by a little japanese camera. they based their lomo lc-a camera (the "lomo kompakt automat"!) on it and thus a whole sub-culture was ultimately born.

then (or, simultaneously?), a plastic low-tech camera was developed in hong kong. originally, this was meant for people who wanted to partake in casual photography: this was a cheap medium-format camera with all the basic mechanisms needed. this was called "ho gwong" in chinese which meant "very bright" - of course they then put a european spin on it and thus the "holga" was born! eventually the holga ended up in the hands of artsy people and institutions, its reputation gaining momentum until it officially became a part of the lomographic society.

in the older/original models, there were some manufacturing defects that ironically became the reason why people loved this camera so much. the body was not constructed well, and would cause several light leaks. this gave shots taken with a holga a very distinct personality. the idea that you never knew what mood your holga was in was perplexing, challening, and fun. people always say, you could get only 1 good shot out of a whole roll while all the others are crap, or if you're lucky you might get lots of beautiful shots.

a common characteristic of these shots is the vignetting around the edges. i still haven't figured out what makes it stronger in some shots vs others. on my first roll, only 1 shot had this effect. why?? another fun thing you can do (and this works against you, too), is multiple exposures on one frame. like i mentioned, everything is super-manual. it took me 30 minutes to load my first roll into my camera. i felt like i had traveled back in time. i was afraid every little thing i was doing was going to ruin the film. i also had to cut a tiny piece of cardboard out of a random box to wedge underneath the film because it wasn't staying straight (the holga is notorious for this, which will give you shots that are crooked. not cool) anyway, you have to manually advance the film in order to go to the next shot. if you forget to do this, you will take your next shot on the same frame, causing either 1) a really creative/interesting/fun image or 2) ruining both your shots.

but the double exposure is why i love this camera. i can play with it and see what comes out later. the first time i took a photo, i felt really weird. living in a world of digital technology makes you take everything for granted. we are so spoiled - we go through life with digital confirmations. did that email go out? who called you on your cell? how did that last photo turn out? just look at the display on your digital camera.

with the holga, i clicked and got nothing. there i was standing on the street, holding what could have easily been a plastic toy, not knowing if my picture actually "registered" or how it would turn out. it gave me anxiety.

however, i got over this very quickly. it forced a perspective shift upon me. and that's what life is all about. you have to bring change onto yourself, so you can see things differently.

next up: photos from the holga AND how to pimp your holga.

fairfax @ oakwood ave

2008-07-14T21:53:00.000-07:00

why did it take me so long to come here? after getting ethiopian food destructor and i drove up the street to check out the shops on this block. strange, i'd been here to the dime and canter's many times, but i guess that was all at night and i completely missed the surrounding shops. this block is lined with several hot boutiques for sneakers/streetwear.

can you see turntable lab? in the middle there. inside, we found something that would change my life forever! destructor picked up a holga starter kit and we couldn't take our eyes off of it. he ended up buying it for me. it took me awhile to decide what color i wanted. there was a bright red one, and another that was yellow, blue, and hot pink - which looked totally crazy altogether but i loved it.

but wait, there's more! i walked into this thrift store and was mostly uninterested until i literally had one foot out the door and something in my peripheral vision caught my eye. the glittering bags and shoes behind the counter. i found a stash of (real, i am pretty sure!) vintage chanel bags! there was a gorgeous large boxy white one, but on sale it was still $100. however, i peeked behind it and discovered a tiny light gold baby one that had the cutest shape i'd ever seen. it was marked down from $200 to $40. sold!

merkato

2008-07-10T23:01:00.000-07:00

i love love love ethiopian food. last week destructor and i went to merkato, a favorite of ours. whenever i come in here, i instantly feel relaxed, ready to chill over a nice slow meal. maybe it's the cozy decor or the bright umbrellas.

this fish dish is amazing. the fish is lightly fried and somehow not oily at all. all the succulent flavors are sealed inside with their method of cooking. the outside is crispy and has amazing flavor. plus, you get all their vegetarian sides too.

close up of one of my favorite fish dishes in LA. it' currently #13 on the menu. get it!

spongey bread! well, this is what i call the injera, which is a staple of ethiopian cuisine. i love merkato's because it tastes just right here. (sometimes it can be a little too sour) you use this soft pancake like substance to scoop up your food - wrap it around, eat it by itself, dip it, whatever.

this is a close up of my vegetarian platter. no matter how hard i try i can't bring myself to order anything else on the menu. it comes with the following:

1. special shiro: ground peas cooked in red sauce with special spices and tomatoes
2. lentils: split lentils in red pepper sauce seasoned with assorted spices
3. collard greens: steamed and seasoned with garlic and pepper
4. yatklt alicha: steamed cabbage and potato seasoned with assorted spices
5. yekeke alicha: peas in mild sauce seasoned with spices

you'll notice the mysterious/vague reference to these secret "assorted spices". i'm not sure what they are exactly, but rest assured that it is a delicious blend of powerful, intoxicating flavors. some of the pea/lentil dishes remind me of curry. you also get a small tomato salad with this, which is basically fresh tomatoes, onions, jalapenos. really refreshing and yummy.

if you are with a group and love coffee, definitely order the ethiopian coffee. i've had it here and it's wonderful. order it in the beginning of your meal because sometimes it can take awhile (they make it fresh).

afterwards you can go up the street to the canter's area and shop at all the cool stores (next post!).

merkato ethiopian restaurant & market

1036 1/2 S Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90019

(323) 935-1775

say no to those cutters

2008-07-09T14:16:00.000-07:00

dear honda fit:

just because you get great gas mileage with your 34 mpg does not mean you can be an atrocious human being. just because you think your car projects the belief that you are doing something good for the environment does not give you the right to cut someone off at a backed up freeway exit without so much as a thank you. not only that, but you actually had the nerve to say "what the @#$% is your problem??" in your car with your rolled up window to my face when i refused to let you in for 5 minutes. while it is true that i responded with "what the @#$% is YOUR problem?!", you should not have continued to edge your way next to me because i would have in fact let you hit my car.

yea, that's right. i saw you pull OUT of line and drive up to the exit and then try to cut in front of me. why don't you wait in line like everybody else? if you are truly someone who forgot about the exit and had to jump in late, or was in a justified rush, you are to say, "please can i cut in?" and "thank you" with universal hand gestures/facial expressions. not: "what the @#$& is your problem?"

luckily, your girl in the passenger seat was nice and stayed out of it and would not look at me. if she had, this would have further antagonized me to roll down my window. also, i went spinning this morning so i was tired/starving and had a breakfast burrito waiting for me so i didn't want to be bothered with you any futher. go ahead and cut. karma will come for you.

if anyone sees a self-righteous black honda fit driving around culver city, watch out. he may randomly try to threaten you from inside his car when he cuts you off.

@ thai food again: jitlada

2008-07-07T22:09:00.000-07:00

saturday night. the next meal of the holiday weekend was to be at jitlada, our new favorite thai restaurant. i've never had a "favorite" thai restaurant since i've been in l.a., actually. dinner of course starts off with a beer. this was our third time here in the past 2 months. i can definitely now say that this is by far the best thai food i've had in the U.S. of course, nothing will ever compare to what i had in thailand, but i still get cravings for jitlada's food (especially the tom kha/coconut soup) all the time. if only they weren't so far away from me! (sunset and normandie?? that's like $5 round trip in gas money)

jitlada is known for their southern thai cuisine. i have two words to describe this regional food: deathly spicy. you must order from their southern thai menu on the very last page (beware: some menus are mysteriously missing this page. make sure to ask for it. click here for a link to a translation of that menu.)

we always start with the coconut soup (tom kha - currently #12 on the main menu). pictured above is the seemingly endless bowl of soup.

tom kha is coconut based and consists of mushrooms, bell peppers, and chicken (by default - but you can get shrimp instead). i love anything with coconut milk but what makes this my favorite is the tangyness of the soup. this is mostly why i love thai food: the tangy, basil-y, lemongrass-y, spicy flavors that come together for such a fulfilling eating experience. this soup is also really great paired with rice. i can seriously just eat this soup with rice and that's it.

destructor's fish. he orders a different whole fish everytime we go. today it was a pomfret. this is fried and topped with a rich, sweet chili basil sauce full of fresh garlic (i think i am drooling again as i write this).

southern thai curry 1 of 2! #8 on the southern thai menu: spicy curry with chicken and young jackfruit. the ingredients were nothing new but like most of their southern curries i think there was tumeric involved. probably not that much because i asked for them to make it mild. last time, i had the regular southern curry with tea leaves and was in so much pain from the spicyness i had to eat a plate of ice (which they gave me with the curry).

this is my friend's beef curry with cassia buds (#3). i had 1 bite and it was so spicy that everytime i took a bite of my milder curry i wanted to cry.

anyway, it's not as painful as it sounds. i very much enjoy eating spicy food except for the bloated feeling i get from drinking too much water to defuse the burning sensation.

fyi we also ordered the prig king but it was not good. that's the only thing we ordered that was "normal". i was craving green beans but really, you can get this dish anywhere so don't waste your time on that here.

finally, dessert. there are no words to describe this. "jazz" who is the owner of the restaurant told us she makes this herself (click here to read her story). mango sticky rice has a very special place in my heart. you sometimes see this at random food festivals, but that's like having panda express instead of real chinese food. the mango is perfectly ripened and warm. the rice is sweet in a subtle way (i hate super sugary stuff), with intoxicating coconut flavors. please eat this!

i can't wait to go back and try their rice salads and mango shrimp salads. i've heard great things about them.

jitlada thai restaurant
5233 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 663-3104

later that night: dancing @ jimmy's lounge

2008-07-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

i don't know these people but they make for a good picture.

...and so, the night ended like this.

the 4th continued: bbq at miss phd's

2008-07-06T04:00:00.000-07:00

we finally rolled out of bed at 1pm on the 4th (after a night of confusing partying at rhonda) and after talking to some drunk friends and debating what to do for 2 hours, we headed back to the eastside to bbq at miss phd's groovy multi-colored pad (i like to think of it as caesar milan's dog community)

as you can see our bbq started with sangria. please note the very high end prestige brandy we used in the background. while destructor slaved away at the grill, we contributed by chopping fruit and soaking it in alcohol.

you may think these are some sort of gourmet sausages, but actually they're from vons and they are the jennie-o brand: hot italian turkey sausage! they were amazing. i was surprised and i am still craving them. we put them in toasted hot dog buns with mayo, mustard, onions! delicious. it wasn't all dry and gross but very well seasoned and spicy.

pork burgers! a favorite. miss phd modifed our recipe and it was really yummy - i think we bought lean pork or something because they almost tasted like turkey.

pork burger recipe:
1 lb ground pork
1 tbsp minced garlic
salt and pepper to taste
about 2 tsp fennel - more if you want a stronger flavor

the fennel is what really does it!

modifications:
minced shallots
1 egg

after all the sangria, beer, and food, we hung out with all the neighbor dogs in the complex. then we all headed over to tiki ti to get more drinks. we ordered delicious (and strong) tropical drinks. i normally don't like cocktails/sugary drinks but i loooved this place. i tried everyone's . the menu is extensive and i always get overwhelmed when there is a long list of cool names without descriptions. after much thought i ordered the "top secret" (bottom right) - cream soda and rum: a delectable concoction! belvedere over there in the top left is drinking a "pain killer" - a dangerous mix of...stuff.

afterwards we went back to the house to rest before going out for more adventures. we also watched some fireworks in the street and met this nice gray kitty.

early start to the 4th: rhonda in hollywood

2008-07-06T02:31:00.000-07:00

rhonda.

when we arrived at midnight on thursday (technically friday the 4th!). the line was crazy, with impatient millenials trying to sneak around the back. my friend promised a good time, but due to the holiday weekend, it was crazier and pricier than usual: when we got to the front the guy with the cool haircut said, "$40 for the 4 of you." we stared at each other with sad eyes as we tried to count our cash. finally he said "how much do you have?" the 4 of us together had $25. he said, "ok."

we started upstairs: 70s music, young hipsters (what else but the american apparel kind?). it was sweaty, like the humidity in the middle of summer in houston. we sat under the best vent we could find and looked around at the kitschy mirrors and gaudy "greek" statues. i loved this place. if only it wasn't the 4th of july weekend.

then, the spilling. there is nothing worse than being spilled on by a girl with a bad outfit. she was wearing some sort of hot pink spaghetti strap tank top, with a black short sleeve mesh thing over it - the kind that had a heart pattern or something. this wasn't a normal spill. she had her beer in her hand with the opening pointed towards me, and was jumping around continuously, splashing beer on me repeatedly.

that's when we decided we needed to go downstairs. it was cooler and there weren't as many people. there was another dance floor, haphazardly established over a tiled floor. was this what it was like in the 80s? laser beams and fog machines, older hipsters (also with american apparel shirts). how many of those pieces did i see that night? fortunately, some felt that it was necessary to differentiate themselves from the aa masses by wearing a white v-neck style with blood red scribbling that read: "i am not god."

p.s. on the way out i saw a girl with NO pants. literally.

paru's

2008-07-05T20:07:00.000-07:00

paru's in hollywood makes you feel like you are so cool because you have to approach their white gate and get "buzzed in". thanks to miss phd who introduced me to this hidden gem.

i wish we got to sit out on the patio but it was totally booked! inside, the place is surprisingly big and cozy at the same time. it doesn't look like much from the front - just a tiny sort of ghetto building heavily armed with white gates - but when you walk in, the space is sprawling and it just keeps going.

miss phd and i split this entree. it's called the "punjab glory" on the menu and it consists of poori, papadum, raitha, and your choice of 2 vegetable curries. we chose the the spinach with lentils and the yellow split dal. i absolutely loved everything on this plate. the poori was very fresh and not too oily. the spinach was just a bit creamy but not overwhelming, and the yellow dal was perfect (i love lentils). i tried the chickpeas, cauliflower and potato, and masala dosa as well from the boys' plates and enjoyed that too. our order took awhile to come out but i think i saw a lot of people waiting. or, i'd like to think that because we requested "no cilantro" in everything, they were diligently remaking some of the stuff in the back without cilantro.

4 meals in 1 day

2008-06-30T20:20:00.001-07:00

last saturday was a day of eating. we started with cuban sandwiches from porto's (not pictured here, was too hungry). this was a late lunch, but we proceeded to meet our friends for an early dinner at 15 in silverlake. we had been wanting to hit up the $15@15 special for a long time (note! just saw on their site that it is now $19@15. lame.). between 5 and 6:30pm, you could get a nice 3 course meal for $15. so it didn't matter that we had just barely finished lunch. we had to have it.

olive tapenade. a classic and very delicious here.

tomato bisque. i liked it but i've had better. it was a good balance though - not too creamy and not too sweet. i despise sweet tomato soup. the portion was just right as well.

mac and cheese. didn't try this one but can you really mess up mac and cheese? maybe.

hearts of palm salad. beautiful, and HUGE. the four of us couldn't finish this.

destructor's pork chop - a little citrusy with really delicious corn salsa (no cilantro!), which was tangy and sweet.

i think this burger was bigger than my face.

ah, my salmon dish. i'm not a big fan of cooked salmon, but i didn't want anything heavy. the salmon was okay - nothing special, but the rice was a pleasant surprise.

it's black rice with pieces of fennel, and watermelon. i have to say the watermelon confused me. it didn't taste bad, but it didn't go with the rice. it just kind of was there, trying too hard. the blend of rice and fennel was so savory; the rice was also really moist and well seasoned. i could have just eaten that alone.

dessert! at this point i'm not sure how i managed to eat the whole piece of bread pudding. considering i'm not a big dessert person, this means a lot.

so after dinner, we went out for drinks. later that night, we had our 4th meal. you see, with gas prices being so ridiculously expensive now, we have to maximize every trip we make to the east side. otherwise it's just not worth it.

one thing on the east side we always want is thai food. so of course, we had to stop by ruen pair in thai town that night. i think i really should have stopped eating after dinner, because i felt so sick after my 4th meal.

this is our friend's duck plate. okay, that's fine...but THEN -

my friend miss phd ordered duck feet stew. yes. i grew up watching my grandmother eat chicken feet but this? the webs freaked me out. however, miss phd taunted me until i finally agreed to try one. conclusion? still gross. all i tasted was soft webby skin.

this is the egg salad. i remember thinking the whole time, "is there cilantro in this?" it was one of those weird things where i could taste something that was a little sketchy. i felt that at any moment i might vomit from full-on cilantro flavor, but that never happened. this was really delicious (except for the moments when i thought i tasted cilantro): tangy, a little spicy, and an interesting mix overall. good with rice, too.

after this we went home and i went to sleep, and i never wanted to eat again (well, just for a day).

world on wheels

2008-06-29T22:32:00.000-07:00

saturday night a group of us went to world on wheels for a friend's birthday. i was really excited to roller skate, thinking it would be as easy as getting back on a bike. when i really thought about it hard, i realized that the last time i roller skated was probably over 15 years ago.

so, it was actually kind of hard. i fell several times and have the bruises to prove it. unfortunately, there was also a bar upstairs so you can imagine how hard it was to skate after visiting the bar. that was when i tried to impress destructor by skating backwards (which he couldn't do), only to fall down after 5 seconds.

the place looked like it hadn't been updated since the 70s. saturday night was their 7th year anniversary, but they have a special disco roller skating night every last saturday of the month. one can only wonder what happens on the other weekends. people got all decked out here. topher grace showed up in a long brown wig and mustache. that one girl from heroes (the one who tried to seduce mohinder) was part of his entourage. she is a pixie: rail thin and half my height. who knew??

afterwards, i made destructor pull into a carl's jr and ordered a double western bacon burger. it was the first thing i saw on the menu and i thought, mmmm.

it wasn't until we got home and i was halfway through eating it that i realized i had ordered a double. gross! we split the burger but it was still way too much food. i decided to take out the second patty, only to eat it later after i finished my portion of the burger. and fries. and coke.

roller skating is hard work.

taverna kyclades: greek feast in astoria, ny

2008-06-15T19:58:00.001-07:00

sincere salmon and her boyfriend took us to this amazing greek place in astoria called taverna kyclades. it was by far the best greek food i've ever had. i'm drooling just looking at these pictures again. there are really no words to describe this; the photos should say it all.

we arrived on a saturday afternoon and had to wait about half an hour for our table. so when we were finally seated, we were of course all starving. this warm, toasty crusty bread welcomed us.

greek salad. fresh feta, tomatoes, olive oil, onions. seasoned perfectly.

this is the sampler appetizer plate. from left to right: skordalia, tzatziki, taramosolata. sometimes taramosolata can be really fishy and overwhelming, but theirs was just right.

i am a huge potato fan. naturally, this is my absolute favorite greek appetizer/side. the traditional roasted potatoes with lemon - i have to get these everytime. taverna's was very very lemony/tangy, and i really liked that. they were perfectly roasted and really soft; i couldn't stop eating these.

spanakopita/spinach pie. what else is there to say?? feta + spinach + filo dough + olive oil = amazing flavors.

sincere salmon had the scallops. this was very buttery and overwhelming, because i think there were seriously 50 huge scallops on her plate. we couldn't finish these.

sincere salmon's bf's lamp chops! mm. i had a little taste. very yummy.

ok, so to this day i cannot stop talking about this fish, because it made me feel really special. i love the style that the fish is typically cooked in: really clean and simple with a good dose of olive oil. i was probably pretty annoying because i asked the server to tell me all the fish they had that day and interrogated her on each fish (with destructor interjecting everytime and asking, "so is that a big fish?" because he was a hungry monster), and when she said "brazzini - a white fish from the greek isles," i was sold. why have some pedestrian snapper when you can have a fish from the greek isles?? i forgot to take a picture of it before they de-boned it for me. it was a beautiful longish skinnyish fish, but still very substantial. i loved this fish: it was such a good choice.

dandelion. actually not very good. kind of bland, bitter, unseasoned and blah! but it's okay - we had to try it.

destructor ordered the grilled quail. their portions are huge. i think there were 3 quail on his plate! isn't this picture kind of creepy?

this is the dessert the restaurant gives you at the end of your meal. so delicious, i ate all of it even though i was stuffed. it was some sort of rice pudding wrapped in a blanket of sweet doughyness.

greek dessert from sincere salmon: she bought this at the bakery down the street for us to consume after lunch!

not enough shoes

2008-05-11T21:56:00.000-07:00

i have completely neglected the "stilettos" side of this blog. therefore, i had to go on a shoe binge this past week. we were bored today and went to the most boring place available to us: westside pavillion. how was i to know that nordstrom's had just gotten these new, beautiful jeffrey campbell shoes? sorry, wallet.

while i was trying on a pair of gladiator sandals (i know, i know. do i really need to investigate what everyone else already has? still...they were really nice), i saw these shiny black things in my peripheral vision. I was barely able to pull the sandals off my feet before i grabbed the display shoe and tried it on. sold!

they are so shiny and pretty. actually comfortable too. the best part about them is that the straps close with VELCRO! yes. velcro.

no more fumbling around with buckles. thank you jeffrey campbell.

birthday feast

2008-04-30T10:59:00.001-07:00

this year for miss phd's birthday, i decided to do something different. after years of buying her purses, clothes, jewelry, and the occasional cookbook, it was time to do something creative and fun. so, i set out to present her with a home-cooked meal. with 5 courses, complete with wine pairings! (the lucky boyfriends got to come along for the ride - although destructor really did help me a lot in the kitchen)

i spent an evening earlier in the week perusing my collection of menus (from various cookbooks, NYT dining section snippings, stolen recipes from the new school of cooking's website), and then on saturday, after 4 hours of prep (plus 2 more hours of cook time), I presented the following:

1st course: seared shrimp in a mint/lemon marinade, topped with freshly made mint pesto. i loved the pesto from this recipe. i didn't like the shrimp; it wasn't my best and i should have grilled it like the recipe said, but for the sake of time i modified.

i paired the shrimp and the salad (below) with a sauvignon blanc from wally's wine. some guy recommended it when i said "shrimp". i don't really like white so i just went with whatever he suggested, and it wasn't bad at all.

this is my 2nd course. a salad with watercress, mozzarella (which i uh, made fresh that day, using organic ingredients from the farm called trader joe's), endive and pears. tossed with a simple oil and lemon vinaigrette. the recipe called for grilled peaches but of course it turned out that peaches were not in season.

this is one of my favorite dishes. for my 3rd course, i made a simple fettucine pasta with peas in a cream sauce, topped with prosciutto. it's from my wolfgang puck book. i don't think this dish needs any explaining. what doesn't taste good with cream?

now we've moved onto the red wine. woohoo! per wally's recommendation this is a bookster pinot noir. it was really good and the smell was intoxicating. it smelled really sweet - almost vanilla like/syrupy. i was really trying to look for a bottle of joseph swan's pinot noir since that is miss phd's fave but i checked bristol farms and wally's with no luck. so this had to do.

and now for the 4th course. i have to say i'm pretty happy about how these turned out. i made a meatball tasting plate. there were 2 kinds: a tuna and pancetta meatball and a pork meatball with fennel, cumin and other spices, topped with a greek yogurt/cumin dressing and a mint/lemon dressing. i served 2 of each on long skinny plates. i love presentation. destructor was so great and helped me form and cook these meatballs while everyone was finishing up the pasta. i could not have done it without him (one because of the difficulty of timing everything and two because by then i was probably on my 4th glass of wine!) however, he was not allowed to plate these. yes, i am exec chef, he is sous-chef.

here is a close up of the pork meatball. you can't see too much of the meatball itself, but really the yogurt and mint toppings were the stars of the dish. i am going to top everything with these two things now. it was so delicious. both meatballs turned out really well - perfectly salted and tasty, but i do like the pork one better. i would also add more pancetta next time to my tuna meatball.

so...this is my "5th course": dessert. everyone who knows me knows i don't do dessert. i don't really like dessert and i can't bake to save my life. actually i think i just refuse to bake, because i don't like to measure and i don't like flour. so..i cheated a little. i didn't "make" anything, but instead assembled a platter of greek yogurt topped with honey, fresh strawberries, and chocolate (ritter sport - the kind with biscuits in the middle. the best!)

dessert was paired with a delicious black muscat from kalyra winery in santa ynez. served in my vintage rose decanter circa 1930s. (i have a thing for glasses/bottles/dishes) pictured above is the result of this crazy 5-course meal. well, not really - you should have seen the kitchen!

happy birthday miss phd!

morimoto nyc

2008-03-29T22:39:00.001-07:00

destructor and i braved a windy (and cold) saturday night to eat at morimoto. we arrived by cab in front of a large white-ish (?) building front, and were greeted with warm, shiny objects when we entered. everything was bright, polished, and pretty. the space was large - really large compared to that of all my dining experiences at new york restaurants.

the hostess politely told us that our table would be ready in just a few moments, so we went downstairs to the bar area to wait. i enjoyed a nice cold "morimotini". i can't remember if this was vodka or sake, but it was really good, with just a hint of cucumber. as we waited and eyed the scenesters at the bar (this was definitely a trendy place), destructor decided he would really rather wait for a sushi bar seat than a table. so we requested this, and at least two different servers came to check up on us every 10 minutes and were extremely polite in telling us the seats weren't ready yet. to kill time, we take individual trips to the bathrooms, which we'd heard were very high tech. not only was the decor beautiful, but the toilets were definitely japanese robots. i didn't experiment with any of the 10 buttons on the panel - this kind of stuff weirds me out. but the toilet seat was really nice and toasty.

finally, we were fetched and led up to the main floor to be seated at the sushi bar. the moment we sat down our server apologized profusely for the "long wait" (about 40 minutes), even though it was really our own doing since our table was ready moments after we had arrived but we insisted on the sushi bar (best view in the house). after she went away, the manager promptly came over and apologized as well and said he would send out something for us.

at this point i felt really really nice and spoiled. the service here was amazing. i've never experienced this in LA. in LA, if you wait an extra 30 minutes at pizzeria/osteria mozza despite having made a reservation, the restaurant could care less.

anyway, so they brought out a tuna pizza for us, which was basically tuna sashimi placed over a thin, crispy wafer-like object. it was okay, but not my favorite. we ordered other appetizers: kobe beef carpaccio, rock shrimp tempura, and sushi (boring! this last item destructor's choice: he wanted to "see how good the actual sushi was here"). my favorite was the kobe beef carpaccio. beef carpaccio has always weirded me out just a little bit - because i don't eat much beef...much less eat it completely raw. but this was amazing. we watched the chefs behind the counter prepare this over and over again (very popular dish, we were told by our server), pouring hot sesame oil over the plate. unfortunately it was topped with cilantro but luckily we were able to pick around it.

the rock shrimp tempura was good; but sadly, a little bit like eating orange chicken, only with shrimp.

i ordered some sort of sake to accompany my entree but i can't remember what it was. when the server said that one of the specials that night was blowfish, i had to order it ($50?? - expensive little fish!) where else am i going to try this without feeling dicey? it was served in 3 ways: sashimi for the main part, slivers for the skin (and some other part, probably. i wasn't paying attention to what she said, but it was a little crunchy/chewy), and fried with a yummy batter for the cheeks.

destructor got the "surf and turf", which came with kobe beef, and a creative hamachi with avocado and yuzu bowl. mmmmm! also, i have to say my favorite part of his dish were his potatoes. i can't help it since potatoes are my favorite food. they were infused with something like fennel - but maybe they also added crack to them because there was some kind of flavor i just couldn't put my finger on.

for dessert (yes! we saved room) we ordered the blood orange panna cotta. it came in a cute little miso soup dish: when you open it the inside of the lid holds the panna cotta and the bowl held a curious noodle-like substance that was orange flavored. the texture was a little strange - a little bit chewy/gelatinous, but you slurp it like a noodle. to be honest, it kind of looked like a brain. on top was mango sorbet. the panna cotta itself was to die for.

overall our meal was fantastic. the restaurant is beautiful and the ambience is great. when we first arrived i was a little skeptical because it seemed really trendy and sceney (and it is) - usually i equate this to sub-par food. but here, it was not the case. it was a great dining experience.

shoes in new york

2008-03-16T22:57:00.001-07:00

stay tuned. more food to come.

cupcakes and other evil dessert items

2008-03-11T23:13:00.000-07:00

i have never been a dessert person. i just simply didn't care for it, really.

until now. i can't figure out why, but lately, i've had the strangest cravings for sweets. whenever i walk by beard papa on my way to nijiya, i devour a cream puff. i find myself buying random cookies: for example i grabbed 3 mini bags of various cookies (which cost $3 EACH!) while standing in line at beard papa. destructor has fallen into the same evil trap lately as well, buying things like panda shaped shortbread cookies on a whim.

so of course we eat dozens of cupcakes during our trip to new york this past weekend. why? whyyyy did i eat so many cupckes?

my favorite by far were the cupcakes from sugar sweet sunshine (label pictured above - obviously the photo was an afterthought post cupcake binge). not only was the frosting made with butter cream (which seems to be the default in nyc?), but there was an almond buttercream topping that is absolutely amazing.

the most memorable one out of this batch was the pistachio cupcake in the top right corner. this is one of the ones with almond butter cream. delicious!!

here is a close up of my beloved pistachio cupcake.

so what about magnolia? of course we went there. i keep hearing about it, so i had to go and find out for myself. at 10pm on a sunday, it probably wasn't busy by new york standards, but we still had to wait in line to pay for our goods, and people came in steadily as we waited.

yum. they were great, but again in my opinion, not as good as the sss cupcakes!

on a separate note, my friend b made some awesome pastries for valentine's day a few weeks ago. she made sampler boxes for all of her friends, and i was lucky enough to get one. she's awesome because i'm sure she stayed up all night making these, but still put them in a beautiful red box for everyone. the treats were so gorgeous and tasty i had to post them:

chocolate cupcakes, a pastry filled with chocolate (i tried to eat only half of this and save the other half for destructor, but i failed), and tiny little heard-shaped cream puffs! the best part was that the cream filling was almond flavored!

i want more! thanks b!

praha :: day 6 - the rest

2008-01-22T21:02:00.000-08:00

after lunch we stop by the st nicholas church right down the street. everything inside is absolutely decadent and stunning, with all walls covered covered in detailed gold statues and other details.

after that it's a brisk walk across the charles bridge (this is the first time we walk over it during the day), which is sunny for once. we then turn north and make our way towards the old jewish quarter. the museum and cemetery closes right at 4pm and it's nearly 3:30. when we get there we all realize we have only enough money to get one person inside (with all our money combined) because we had been rushing and did not stop to exchange any money! thanks to belvedere, who graciously donated his money to me so i could go inside because i was the one who really wanted to see the old cemetery.

although i walk through the cemetery fairly quickly, it is definitely worth it. i pass up the actual museum portion in the interest of time, especially since destructor and belvedere are literally sitting outside in the cold on a bench waiting for me. the windy path through the cemetery is surrounded by a heavy sort of quietness. i wish there was someone else here with me to take it all in.

after the jewish quarter we stroll to the stare mesto neighborhood next door. i look for the "house of the black madonna", allegedly a well-known architectural structure to see. we actually pass this building a few times looking for it - we finally look up to see the word "kubista". very anticlimactic.

although we are dead tired from our ambitious day, i insist on looking for the "h&m with the roberto cavalli stuff in the window". i had seen this window display almost every single day i was in praha, but i put off shopping there until the last day. we pass by two different h&m's several times but i am sure they are not the ones i'm looking for because there is no cavalli stuff in the window. anyway, the story of my despair as i realize the roberto cavalli for h&m special had just ended is enough for an entire other entry.

dinner is interesting but not that exciting. we walk around in search of restaurants nearby, but we are a big group and most places can't seat us. finally we end up at a mexican restaurant. here are some blurry pictures. my pictures turn out crappy when i am unexcited about the food. the only interesting thing is the big skewer of food one of my friends get. i think it's a prague thing. i get a veggie burrito, which is surprisingly pleasant tasting (not authentic at all of course, but decent).

after dinner we run into tesco next door and i pick up several bottles of beer to bring back with me. i grab three bottles of the vel-kozel. yay!

praha :: day 6.5 :: lunch "at the maltese knights"

2008-01-13T19:28:00.000-08:00

the rain is finally easing up as we make our way down the hill from prague castle through the little streets of mala strana to lunch.

lunch is at u maltezskych rytiru, which means "at the maltese knights". this listing jumped out at me while i was perusing my lonely planet book, mainly because of the description of being able to eat in an underground gothic cellar. unfortunately! i didn't do my research thoroughly, because when we get there, the waiter tells us that the cellar is only open during dinner!! SAD FACE. however, he is very nice and when i ask if we can just see it, he is more than happy to lead us down the steep steps, turn on the lights, and let us into the room.

this is the cellar. it's a small room. at night, they only use candlelight.

back at our table upstairs, i order my beer as we look through the menu.

we start with an appetizer of game. i don't know what it is, but it's pretty tasty.

i have the duck with pickled red cabbage and gnocchi. the gnocchi isn't that good.

destuctor's veal. poor baby cow. i have nothing to say about this (well, just a note that the weird pale green sauce thing you see is supposed to be guacamole).

my friend belvedere's wild boar.

next up: we race through the rest of the day, stopping at st. nicholas church, the charles bridge, old jewish quarter, house of the black madonna, hot dog stand, h&m (yes!), and dinner at a mexican restaurant!

praha :: day 6.33 :: prague castle

2008-01-10T21:25:00.000-08:00

from vysehrad we make our way back to the metro and take the green line to malostranska for the prague castle.

we take the old "royal way" up to the castle, which is a loooong flight of stairs. here, i stop to pick up a loose cobblestone to take home.

this is the view at the top of the steps and at the entrance to the castle grounds.

shoes on cobblestone on the castle grounds!

this is the st. vitus cathedral.

inside - there are a lot of beautiful structures but what i love most are these gold, embellished gates in front of various displays.

so, we had been forewarned about this climb but really didn't think it was going to be so bad. it was bad. There are 297 steps up the "great tower" to the top. of course it's completely narrow and claustrophobic inside but at least we are lucky and there are not that many people. every once in awhile we'd stop and press ourselves to the wall as people on their way down pass.

the view from the top is rewarding, but too bad it's not sunny. in fact it's snowing by the time we get up there. we take a break and spend 10 minutes sitting in front of the entrance to the stairs, secretly waiting for the next sucker to emerge from the 297 steps. various expressions emerge - it's really funny.

right after i sneak this photo, the guard yells at me "no photo!" this is inside the old royal palace. the entire room is covered from floor to ceiling in these intricately drawn coat of arms - i think it's a family tree of some sort.

time for a snack! destructor and i practically inhale this meat pie outside in the freezing cold. it's so delicious and satisfying.

zlata ulicka - "golden lane". this is a charming little street in the corner of the castle grounds.

unfortunately all the charming little houses have been converted into various shops catered to tourists. golden lane brings us back to where we started, and we exit and hurry through the rain to meet the rest of our group for lunch in mala strana.

praha :: day 6 :: vysehrad

2008-01-02T21:06:00.001-08:00

of course, by this point we have tons of things left to do/places to see. so what do we do? we cram it all in!

our grueling schedule on our last day begins with getting up at 7am to eat breakfast. we then head out to vysehrad, the "old castle" and the "birthplace of prague". we leave during the morning rush so we can be there by 9am.

our new thing this trip is jumping. everywhere we go we take jumping shots because posing and standing in front of the 100th building/church/museum/site is just boring. here we are at the vysehrad station. destructor is floating.

although we're not that high up, the view outside the station is beautiful.

apparently the area around the vysehrad station is where a lot of skaters hang out and play (according to lonely planet). there's a lot of interesting graffiti to check out. wherever i go, i am always drawn to the graffiti. it provides a different way of looking at the city, something visual that can't be articulated by guidebooks.

on our last day, the sun finally comes out! it had been gloomy and rainy up until that time. praha sun on the last day - i couldn't have asked for more.

as you enter the old castle - which is essentially a park now that many locals frequent on weekends - you walk through several old "gates". this is the "leopold" gate. we remain in front of this gate for nearly 30 minutes because we take many many jumping pictures.

this is the view from one of the pathways along the old wall. it's a pretty nice view of the city and the vltava river.

this is the church of st. peter and paul. beautiful, but the most beautiful thing about this church is the doors.

here i am jumping because the door is really pretty. there's another one next to it with a square pattern but the same bright, fun colors (pink, blue, gold).

pretty soon our walk takes us out the other end of the park. it probably would have been even shorter if we weren't so busy taking jumping pictures.

once outside of vysehrad we head up the street along the river to catch a tram to our next adventure. this is a photo i took while walking through an underpass. it's still pretty early in the morning, maybe 9 - 9:30am.

praha :: day 5 :: karlovy vary, u fleku aka best beer in the world

2007-12-12T23:00:00.001-08:00

monday, we get up early and wait for our tour bus to pick us up so we can make the trek out to karlovy vary, a beautiful little "spa" town 2 hours outside of praha. it is known for its "healing" mineral/spring water and famous wafers. the tour bus is very inefficient and makes several circles within the city to pick up other tourists. our tour guide is bad, explaining the old town and new town areas like this: "over here, is old town. it is oldest town. and here, is new town. it is newest."

as we get further away from praha, it starts to snow.

our first stop is the becherovka factory/museum. obviously one of those stops a tour group picks so you can spend money. we go inside and are told the history of the herbal liquor, and the guide yells "no photos!" while taking us through the cellars to see barrels where this is stored.

at the end of the museum tour we have our becherovka tasting. pictured above is the museum guide. she is very mean and yells at you to hurry up and finish your drinks so she can pour you the next one and get you the hell out of there.

while watching a short film on the history of becherovka, we sip 3 different kinds, each tasting worse than the first.
after getting liquored up in the morning we walk through town to go to lunch. it starts snowing/raining again...but the town is breathtaking!

these are some of the "springs" from which you can drink the mineral water. some are as hot as boiling water!

lunch is at the hotel thermal, and it sucks. the food is blah - i would rather have skipped it and found a local eatery. by the time we are done with lunch we only have 2 more hours of free time. we are given a ticket to the heated pool but no one actually has time to take the dip in the mineral water.

so instead we race back through the town to look at all the springs and shop. this is me sprinting.

several little stands along the road sell hundreds of these little cups. they come in all colors, shapes and sizes, but each has a little spout from which you can drink your water.

we buy boxes and boxes of these delicious wafers. they are the size of your face! the vanilla ones come toasted. it's thin, crispy and airy. the inside seems to be filled with sugar but somehow it's not overwhelming.

after a 2 hour drive back into prague, we go to dinner at this tiny fish house listed in lonely planet. of course, dinner starts with a beer.

this fried carp is very tasty but it takes nearly an hour for them to bring all our food!

after dinner we walk to the famous u fleku pub down the street. it's nearly 10:30 and the place closes at 11, but it's still packed! it's famous for a special brew that you can only get here. it's sort of a dark beer, but it tastes amaaaazing; i don't normally like dark beer either.

this is the u fleku beer, above. i am still kicking myself for not buying some to bring back. i have 2 of these in 30 minutes!

after dinner we stop by a bar on the way back to the metro and have more beer. of course!

our last stop is KFC by our house for some chicken strips and mashed potatoes. for some reason there is a bowl here called "fuller creamy". we're not sure what this means but the picture looks delicious?

praha :: day 4 :: hot dogs and pakistani food

2007-11-30T21:35:00.001-08:00

of course, i only call them "hot dogs" because i'm being american. they're not really hot dogs. that would not do them justice. they have these stands everywhere and these things are the most delicious, succulent, greasy sausage sandwich things you could ever eat. my favorite part is the "mustard" they give you. it tastes more like a sweet combination of mayonnaise (?) and mustard.

i'm not sure which one i end up eating. but it is soooo good.

eating is not the only thing we do on this day. there is also some drinking and productive sight seeing. we get up at 3:30pm because of the late night on the charles bridge, and take the metro one stop away to see the "dancing building", a famous piece of architecture in prague.

after a quick stop where we stand on the tiny island in the middle of this busy intersection taking pictures of this building in the dark, bleak, gray sky, we leave in search of food. we only end up at the sausage stand after 2 failed attempts at finding "vegetarian" restaurants listed in my lonely planet book. one had been abandoned - or maybe it moved, who knows i can't read czech, and the other i never found until too late because we walked in the wrong direction (it seems that this city does not bode well for those who dare to cater to vegetarians in a big meat-eating population).

(metro stop, namesti republicky)

by now we are completely sick of the typical heavy goulash/meat plates that when, combined with beer, induce major food coma. i must eat something different for dinner.

my friends and i end up at a pakistani restaurant called mailsi. it's a little out of the way in a neighborhood called "zizkov", which i had read was the up and coming middle class neighborhood of prague (in my mind, i equated this to silverlake/los feliz/eagle rock so i instantly gravitated towards it since the beginning of the trip) inside, the space is unassuming and warm. it's 9:30 already and there's no one else in the restaurant except a small group of 3 in the back, speaking english in low voices. ex-pats?

the owner (?) greets us; his english is great and i think we feel more at home here than we have been this entire time on the trip. a small boy runs around the restaurant helping him with our orders (his son?) we settle on our drinks (i choose the "budvar") and begin to ask him questions about the food. he graciously explains the differences in the curries. there are some on the menu i have never seen before, obviously because i've only ever had indian food.

like bread on the table: papadams accompanied by assorted pickles, yogurt, and something like chutney

we each order something a little bit different so we can all try everything.

first, we start with appetizers.

fried potato, samosa, and something like onion rings. delicious

fresh naan for the table

delicious rice, and so pretty. i like to call it christmas rice.

creamy yogurt-y curry. this one is very sweet.

curried spinach with lamb -- absolutely amazing.

similar to a beef keema sort of dish. i love anything with potatoes.

tomato-based curry with chicken. i love tomatoes also!

my absolute favorite of the evening - the "mailsi" curry recommended by the owner. very creamy and heavy but like nothing i've ever tasted before.

i love that everything is placed on these heating trays.

behold! the glory of my pakistani feast

i don't even know how but somehow we manage to order some dessert (mango ice cream and rice pudding) before dragging ourselves back to the tram and going home to finally sleep at a decent hour.

praha :: day 3 :: street food and protests, ghosts on the charles bridge

2007-11-24T21:03:00.000-08:00

due to a late night and jet lag preventing me from getting more than 3 hours of sleep, destructor and i go back to bed after breakfast and do not wake up until 4:30pm. it's already dark when i wake up, and i jump up exclaiming, "@#$%?! it's 4:30! let's go let's go let's go!!"

but go where? i didn't care as long as we didn't end up wasting the whole day. we frantically throw on all our layers, and promptly jump on the 9 tram so we can "get off somewhere random" and explore. we end up on one of the main streets by stare mesto (old town), and the first thing we do is buy a random pastry looking thing with a sausage in the middle. all i know is that it starts with a "b" and the rest of the letters are something like "zcljiewaiijklzjljfdjalslkjfd"...??

we go inside a nearby tesco so we don't have to eat in the cold. it's very greasy, and is like biting into a giant thick hash brown with a sausage in the middle. yummy.

then, we see several people waiting in line at this little stand:

so we get in line too. it turns out she's making some sort of delicious pastry.

however, while waiting in line we hear several police sirens and are alarmed by a mob of people marching down the street towards us. everyone is in heavy jackets and some are in ski masks. what is this? i try to take pictures but at this point feel a little vulnerable getting in people's faces and snapping photos when i don't even know what this protest is about.

one of them yells, "tesco!!!" and many follow and pour into tesco. we had just been in there moments ago. what was this??

it is finally our turn to order the delicious pastry. i ask the lady if she knows what they are doing, and her english is suprisingly good because she says in a very annoyed voice "they are @#$%ing anarchists"...something something "nazi".

did she say..."nazi"?

we get our pastry - i don't know why we only order one but it is sooo delicious.

we slowly head down the street but stop in our tracks when we see an entire van of police jump out and trot in single file through an alley, presumably into the next street.

hmm. we decide to figure this out later and continue our lovely evening walk, despite the apparently politically charged demonstration we just ran into.

(it turns out that this is an antifa demonstration because november 10th is the night of kristallnacht. we later piece this information together from photos of subway stickers promoting the rally and researching on wikipedia. to find out more click here and here - very interesting)

i find this amazing, quaint little nook hiding in the back of a building that is an "original souvenir" shop. the store is full of hand painted easter eggs, floor to ceiling.

eventually we go back and meet up with the rest of the group. before heading out again for dinner i ask the front desk if they know anything about what just happened near stare mesto. they give me some sugar-coated answer and say "don't worry, the police are out tonight so is okay."

that's nice.

at dinner, i have goulash that is made with completely unchewable beef. that's okay, because our beer orders make up for it. i attempt to order a half blonde half dark beer and feel pleased when the waiter actually understands and confirms "half half?". auspiciously, our beers - when placed next to each other - make up a nice spectrum of light to dark beer.

beer spectrum photo courtesy of bitesize

after dinner we go to the charles bridge for the view. this is a very famous bridge and is stunning at night. despite the cold, i can't help but be charmed by the experience of walking on this bridge, everything around me dark except for the interspersed lamps and the prague castle in the background.

before we go to lavke, a club recommended to us, we go back to the friendly bar we discovered the other night. i have a velkopopovicky kozel; i get the "cerny", a delicious dark beer. (the wikipedia entry for this is in desperate need of an update)

anyway, the club is interesting but thus far my experiences have felt like i was back in the ex-pat social scene in beijing. the night before, another club felt very international/ex-pat-ish mixed with a little bit of santa monica. not so exciting.

minnie mouse and i had planned a "charles bridge at dawn" moment a long time ago, so after clubbing and eating a second dinner, we all walk back to the bridge. it's about quarter to 6am and freezing cold, but we think the sun will rise soon. we had heard the views were beautiful. we pass the time by taking pictures of belvedere looking like a headless ghost. (he has a long coat so that if he pulls the collar above his head, it works)

i also pose like a gargoyle.

then, 2 drunk dudes show up and ask us if any of us are from prague and when we say no they ask if we would be offended if they threw this bench (which they had been dragging for some time, it appears) over the bridge. we say no and offer to take a video for them. they scream something like, "1234 woohoo new york!!" and heave the bench over the bridge into the river. what? drunk americans.

however, soon it became clear that no amount of goofing off would make the sun rise faster. i had previously thought about checking the sunrise time but the demonstration had distracted me. by 6:30, it is still dark. finally, we decide to head back to the hotel. at least by now the metro is running again. how sad! nearly an hour in the dark and cold and no payoff. but the experience was still beautiful, because there is no other time you could stand on the charles bridge like that, surrounded by only the darkness and glowing yellow light from the lamps, and no people.

back at the hotel breakfast service has already begun. we eat and then crawl into bed just as the sun finally begins to rise.

praha :: day 2 :: kutna "horror"

2007-11-21T16:08:00.000-08:00

kutna hora is a quiet small town an hour or so outside of prague. it's famous for its "bone church". actually the bone church is in small "town"/area next to kutna hora called sedlec. the church is decorated with the bones of 40,000 people, which were found at the site.

this is our little adventure on our second day in praha. and, this entry is not titled kutna "horror" because of the bones, but because of our quasi-misadventure (and also because i'm corny).

(view from our window)

we wake up to a rainy day. breakfast is included with our hotel stay, which is nice since it's more than just the typical continental breakfast. the spread includes tons of bread, various types of deli meat, strange watery scrambled eggs, soft boiled eggs, and a salad bar consisting only of cucumbers, tomatoes and bell peppers. not too bad at all.

after breakfast we figure out that we need to get to the main prague train station, so we get on the tram right next to our hotel. i love our location. it's right next to the "novy smichov" mall, which has everything anyone could possibly ever need (including the Tesco and a Vodafone where we got our SIM card so we could have a cell phone on us, and H&M, Zara...everything!) it is also right around the corner from the Andel metro station, and a tram stop. fantastic!

too bad we did not check the train schedule before we left for the train station. we get to the train station and get completely distracted by a photobooth. many of us cram into it and start putting random coins into the slot. in the end, the photobooth eats our money (for reasons we did not understand because it was in czech). still despairing over the 50 crown coin i just lost, we head towards the ticket booths to face the daunting task of How to Get to Kutna Hora.

by the time we finally purchase our tickets and figure everything out, we realize that the train we should have taken just left 10 minutes ago. had we not been sucked into the photobooth we might have made that one. the next train isn't until noon, which is 2 hours later.

(note very confusing train schedule above)

so we leave the train station and wander into nove mestro ("New Town") to explore. by "explore" i mean that we manage to find a pub that is pretty authentic/local where we kill time. the pub is called "u stare posty" or something like that, and when we see a local crowd and strange looks, we know that we're in the right place. i proceed to have my first morning beer in praha. we simply order "pivo" ("beer") since there is no menu and they bring us .5 liters of gambrinus, which is delicious. destructor and i want potato dumplings but again, there is no menu. he takes out my lonely planet book, looks up the word for "potato dumplings", and shows the waitress. they are confused and ask us, "...goulas?" somehow we manage to communicate that we want ONLY dumplings (which i guess is very strange because dumplings are always given as a side to goulash, etc), and 10 minutes later they come out, plain and simple on a white plate. these are the best i've had so far, and will become the best i have my entire time there.

eventually of course, we make it onto our 12pm train. we have to split up and join strangers in compartments like in harry potter. the ride is pleasant and quick - just a little under one hour. prior to arrival i decide i really need to check out the bathroom. it is remarkably clean.

this map is right outside the kutna hora main train station. it turns out that it is upside down; i think the south arrow is actually pointing where north should be, which is really confusing when we try to navigate around the area.

we follow signs and other tourists in the general direction of the church. it is a good 15 minute walk.

in order to take photos inside, you have to pay an additional 30 crowns (the admission is 40 crowns); i think this is sort of an honor system, because no one really checks once you're inside. i definitely get my 30 crowns worth of photos.

this is the chandelier made out of every single bone in the human body. i have not yet identified all of them but i believe it.

after the bone church, we decide to head towards town to see a church one of my friends really want to visit. supposedly, there is a bus we can take for 30 cents. since we fail to find the bus and my lonely planet book advises that the walk to town is 20 minutes, we decide to just walk. ha!! 20 minutes my @#$. the walk ends up being close to 45 minutes. although we did stop a few times to take pictures, it really was not a good idea to walk.

by the time we finally reach the town we are all close to passing out (having only had breakfast and no lunch). what they say is right. the town is not much. it is so quiet the silence is deafening.

but! we press on and endeavor to eat chinese food. we thought it would be fun to try chinese food here.

(kung pao chicken - surprisingly tasty but too saucy/salty; but exactly as an americanized version would be)

(some sort of chow mein with pork and mushrooms - really weird and just doesn't taste right)

(my friend's sweet and sour pork - this is NOT sweet and sour pork. it tastes like krispy kreme donuts with pork inside)

after "lunch" which takes nearly 2 hours (we were the only ones in the restaurant and it took them nearly 45 minutes to cook everything fresh, plus it was 3:30pm when we got there), we head towards st. barbara's church. by now it is dark outside, about 5pm.

the church is absolutely stunning but sadly, it is closed! had we done our research beforehand we would have known that it closes at 4pm. but alas, we were too busy stuffing our faces with czech chinese food.

so, after this photo op, we decide to hurry back to the train station so we don't miss our 7pm train back to prague. who knows how we would get back there? one thing for sure is that we were not going to walk.

we drag ourselves into the main "town square" passing by a museum of alchemy on the way (there are so many random museums like this all over prague/kutna hora). there's a hotel and thankfully, the kind gentleman at the front desk speaks english. he tells us to go to the train station down the street, which will take us back to the main kutna hora station.

you mean, this whole time there was an easy way to get from the main station where we arrived, into the town center???

we make our way there through the dark, silent streets (with some of us repressing the urge to mention "hostel" - which i have not seen but know what the general reference is about). i officially decide that this is really creepy.

finally we get to a tiny station shrouded in darkness; there is a "train" on the tracks. but this train is really some weird little cart. it reminds me of one of the cars from a toy train set i used to have. maybe this is what the lonely planet book meant by "bus". i need to write a complaint to them; the walk from the church to town was not 20 minutes!!! also, how come there is a secret shuttle between the main station and town?

when we get to the main station, it is only 6pm. some of us sleep, but destructor and i kill time by playing with a water bottle we have. it has one of those sport tops with a valve that squirts water. if you pump the bottle just enough, you could shoot out a drop of water fast enough to surprise someone. we're so bored we take videos of us squirting each other.

our train is scheduled to arrive at 6:59pm. on the platform, we ask a very annoyed lady, "praha?" and point to the first train we see pull up (at 6:50). i think she says "ano". (which means "yes"! but we think this means "no"). the lights in this train shut down. then, another train pulls up on the opposite platform. there are no signs anywhere. we point to the new train and ask, "praha??" she nods and prints out a mini-schedule for me showing that the praha train is at 6:59.

we get on this train. after an hour, we look outside and are puzzled when we don't see the "praha" train station sign. where are we? shouldn't we be in prague by now? we re-group, wondering out loud if something was wrong. some of us want to go back to sleep in the cozy compartments. at that moment the train conductor comes to check our tickets. he looks at the first one, frowns, and says disappointingly, "no praha."

"no praha???" we all jump up, panicking. since we are at a station, he points to a train next to ours and says, "praha.". we throw ourselves out of the train and through the underpass, racing to the other train which happens to be stopped. we get on and stare at each other in disbelief. the train conductor approaches us and we ask "praha?" and he nods. he looks at our ticket and barely suppresses a sigh/look of disgust. he rolls his eyes and uses a special hole puncher to mark our tickets. i ask desperately, "...how long?"

he pauses, then slowly reaches for a pen in his pocket. then he takes my ticket and writes: "22:00"

i have to take a fraction of a second to subtract 12 to understand the time. then i sadly wail, "10 o'clock??" by now the girl sitting in the seat next to us feels compelled to jump in and help. she and the train conductor start speaking to each other rapidly in czech. she tells us that we had been on the train going the opposite way, to brno ("bruno").

so, we had gone an hour the opposite way, but were lucky enough to hop on the train going back to prague. but from here it would be 2 more hours. we were supposed to have arrived in prague at 8pm, but now we wouldn't get there until 10pm.

this is really sad, as the time needed in kutna hora was really no more than 3 hours, but somehow we managed to spend an entire day on this trip.

at least we are well rested by the time we arrive in prague. determined not to let the day go to waste, we venture out to stare mesto ("old town"). it is midnight and everything is closed! this is the strange thing about prague. a lot of places shut down so early (mostly pubs). finally we find a friendly little bar where we warm up with beer and the local absinthe. the bartender is nice and shows us how to light it on fire.

we imitate the train conductor to amuse ourselves: "no praha!" we also hate brno now.

at the end of a long day, we manage to find a cab (although we can't find the first two we call, which kept sending text messages in czech to destructor's phone). we tip the driver 50 crowns on a 180 crown fare. (especially since he didn't try to rip us off like all the warnings say they do here) he looks at us incredulously and asks, "is for me? ...really??". we insist. when i know someone truly deserves and appreciates a gesture like that, i feel happy. the day ends well.

praha :: day 1.5 :: in search of the astronomical clock

2007-11-17T23:24:00.001-08:00

our hotel is ibis praha smichov, part of the ibis chain which provides very clean, efficient and practical lodging. it's simple and does the job, which i love.

as soon as we check in, some of us leave to search for food. across the street, we see a pilsner sign and the word "restaurant". this is where i have my first beer in praha.

yummy cheap half liter for something like $2. mmmm.

destructor and i split a goulash soup and a "czech plate", which consists of "3 meats", bread dumplings, potato dumplings, stewed cabbage (like sauerkraut but sweeter) and a sausage.

the "3 meats" turn out to be pork, ham, and beef. the pork is my favorite. the dumplings are not what i expected. i had a mental image of little round dumplings, kind of like gnocchi, but instead i get slices of potato like dough and plain bread like dough. the funny thing is, the bread dumplings remind me of chinese "man tou", which i love. overall the food is very satisfying, but probably because we're so hungry.

after re-fueling, we re-group and hop on the metro into the city center to explore.

by now we are running on pure adrenaline, wandering through all the little back streets in a daze. despite the cold and fatigue, i soak up everything around me. everything is beautiful and interesting. buildings, buildings and more buildings everywhere - each completely different from the next.

tourist information?

shoes on cobblestone!

this would become the deceptive landmark we would use to navigate. i believe this is called the Powder Tower, though i am just guessing. from this point on, we would forever walk towards this tricky building, thinking it is the Astronomical Clock (which is actually in the opposite direction)

there it is again. it looks deceptively like the top of the Astronomical Clock at all times. it's tall and pointy and we would walk towards it all the time before realizing we were going the wrong way a few blocks down.

eventually we stumble into the Old Town Square, famous for tourist traps. The sun is setting and the views are amazing.

this is the Astronomical Clock in the Old Town Square. people come stand in front of it just to watch what happens on the hour. in my Lonely Planet book, the description of what this entire structure means and does is absolutely fascinating. but when we wait with sleepy eyes for 7pm to come, the experience is disappointing. we sit at a cafe in front of this clock so we can watch, paying for overpriced hot chocolate and mulled wine while struggling to stay awake.

as 7pm nears, i stand up so i can take a video. the two little windows above the giant clock open and what appears to be a bunch of statues move past. that is all. i vaguely remember my book saying something about how Death rings a bell and inverts his hourglass (did not see this), and then 12 Apostles parade past the windows, nodding to the crowd (may have seen one of them "turn" towards me, but could have been dreaming at this point). my video captures this anti-climactic moment, with belvedere's voice saying things like: "that's it??", "that was great", and "that's ALL??"

i did not count how many there were but am still convinced after the fact that maybe something different happens at different hours. read a brief description here.

after this we cannot hold out any longer so destructor and i head back to the hotel, stopping by Tesco (dangerously located next door) to buy water (which takes what seems like an hour to find) before finally going to sleep after 30 hours of staying awake.

praha :: day 1 :: rolling luggage on cobblestone

2007-11-15T21:07:00.000-08:00

day 1 is really more like day 1-1.5, since it is 24 hours of travel and it feels like the day/night/day jumbles together. we begin our trip at 4am, crawling out of bed to take care of last minute essentials like feeding the cat (my sister would be in later that week to house/cat-sit). lucky for us Flyaway has a stop right by our place so we hop on the 6am bus directly to LAX.

at our layover in atlanta, we somehow end up eating at an awful TGI Friday's. i gulp down a really bad mojito, mainly because i'm on vacation and anything is okay. we also eat really bad steak salads and chicken tenders. the food i eat on the plane to prague is equally bad. but maybe because i don't like airplane food. i usually try a bite and give the rest away to destructor, who either eats or hoards all my food.

i can't sleep on planes unless i'm extremely tired. and i am only extremely excited on this flight, so i pass the time by watching a bad movie (the latest mr. bean - and i cannot find the english language channel). sometimes i stare out the window at the stars, which are beautiful. i even see a shooting star!

9 hours later we begin our descend into prague. i look out the window and see long stretches of trees; their different shades of green, yellow and orange make up a gorgeous color. inbetween patches of trees the signature red rooftops begin to show. i want to take a video but at this point electronics are not allowed to be on.

going through immigration and getting our baggage is a breeze. unlike other countries i'd visited, there is no paperwork to be filled out upon arrival. the 7 of us each buy a 1 week public transportation pass (approximately $15 - fantastic!) and make our way to the bus. from here it is a 20 minute ride to the subway line we need to take to get to our hotel. on the way we feel like we are at times driving through Anywhere, USA. we pass by huge sprawling shopping centers with IKEA, H&M, movie theatres, and many US stores. is this the valley?

as soon as we get on the metro we start snapping photos like typical tourists. we can't help it; we're all so excited despite the exhaustion. we get off at our stop and proceed to exit at the furthest exit from our hotel (unbeknownst to us). to get out we have to take an escalator that goes on forever (feels like 10 stories). it is also moving at what seems to be 60mph.

outside, it is gray, cold and raining but we persevere and all 7 of us loudly drag our rolling luggage down cobblestone streets to our hotel. it's a good 10 minute walk, but it feels like eternity because of the noise we are making. have you ever heard what luggage sounds like on cobblestone? 7 pieces, at the same time? all of a sudden i have a heightened awareness of us being loud americans.

playing in a bohemian meadow.

2007-11-07T05:09:00.000-08:00

annual japanese food festival/gluttony

2007-11-06T16:07:00.000-08:00

last last week (?) destructor and i and two of my friends who i shall name minnie mouse and belvedere trekked downtown to little tokyo early saturday morning to attend the annual japanese food festival at the new otani hotel.

destructor and i have been going every year for the past 3 years, and are slowly recruiting other gluttonous friends who enjoy endless sushi. every year the ticket gets more expensive - this year it was $50!! (compared to $40 last year)

but we soon found out why.

instead of giving out a limited number of food tickets per person, it was ALL YOU CAN EAT. what? all you can eat sushi?? you might immediately think of disgusting places such as todai, but no, this is not the case! here they have the freshest, best sushi ever, every year. on top of that, they have beer, and sake tasting, and tons of other foods such as my beloved okonomiyaki, yakisoba, tempura, etc etc!

here's our first meal (11am). okonomiyaki, yakisoba, tempura, chicken teriyaki.

i had a nice cold beer with this (the beer/sake was also unlimited. dangerous.)

every year they also do a tuna cutting demonstration. then they give out the pieces to those standing in the audience, including the nice cuts of toro. i got a big piece this year! i ate it before i got a chance to take a picture.

suuuuushi! that piece in the middle is toro. see this plate? they kept popping these out and putting them on the table faster than people could take them!

by noon we were stuffed. we had to take a break.

nike dunks, from champs, modeled by destructor.

vintage boots, from slow, modeled by shoe fiend.

we went back inside to eat more, and also to try and take some sushi "to go". they have a demo for this every year. this guy wraps up the sushi using this amazing contraption, and each piece is timestamped - TIME stamped (for example: "expires 10:08pm").

we ended our food, beer and sake binge with some very creative uni snacks:

uni sushi

soba chip with guacamole and uni

wasabi potatoes with uni

!!!

hello shoe

2007-10-03T22:32:00.000-07:00

dear blog,
please take this offering as a promise that you will stay alive. without you, my shoes would not be able to shine in all their glory.

dear blog

2007-09-27T13:58:00.000-07:00

please don't die. i'll be back soon to update you.

elegy for summer

2007-09-11T22:39:00.001-07:00

labor day feast

2007-09-09T22:26:00.000-07:00

d-bot, salmon, destructor and i collaborated on this much needed refreshing dinner (after a two-day diet of burgers, fries, chocolate, chips and many alocholic beverages). shrimp skewers above courtesy of destructor's previous experiments with a mint, lime, olive oil and soy sauce marinade. i skewered all of these, by the way. also, please note my expert mint chopping skills. very yummy and the mint is amazing.

d-bot and salmon created an amazing salad, consisting of tomatoes (salmon! very adept at cutting tiny grape tomatoes in half)...

strawberries and apples! (and walnuts and gorgonzola cheese)

we also had corn on the cob, brushed with olive oil, paprika, salt and pepper.

and last (but not least!) - a huge slab of seared ahi tuna. the marinade was something soy saucy which destructor made. also the grilled scallions brushed with olive oil were brilliant.

p.s. this post is dedicated to syrup who could not be there the night of the feast.

engaging in gentrification

2007-09-04T23:31:00.001-07:00

a few weeks ago destructor and i braved the eastbound traffic (on a weeknight) to visit our favorite little gentrified neighborhood: the arts district. (funny! their homepage readily provides a link called "loft info")

what were we doing there, you might ask? well...what else? to attend a loft party.

let me specify: a fashion party at a boutique (yes, of course they carry vintage) in the molino street lofts. it can't get anymore gentrified than this.

wait! it can. it gets better. it was catered by a small vegan gourmet food company called spork foods. i had very healthy, organic and vegan "mexican" that night - rice and beans and a potato burrito topped with tangy guacamole sauce. it was actually pretty good.

and free dewar's and reed's ginger ale...no picture though. it wasn't that exciting.

i loved that they had pinatas hanging everywhere. i am not sure if this was part of the theme or if the store always has them.

i used this table to eat. the photographer (squid) used it to take pictures. this was also part of the "runway" for the models.

many of them almost ate it while climbing onto the table. they look fierce, don't they? (photos by squid)

as posh would probably say, it was "MAY-jah."

i also purchased a vintage clutch by "accident" (not pictured - but here are destructor's shoes again). bye bye hip concrete floor...

quiet graffiti

2007-08-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

little tokyo, los angeles

tofu journey

2007-08-23T18:17:00.000-07:00

tofu festival 2007! we braved the blistering heat in little tokyo to come eat tofu.

here's my sister and i loving the giant tofu block outside the festival.

it was not easy getting there. first we parked at one of the free lots further away from the festival (hey, it was free). the garage was empty and the escalators weren't working.

then we emerged in some weird shopping center i never even knew existed. b dalton? i haven't seen one of these in years.

after walking through the empty courtyard, we ended up outside, completely disoriented.

temple street! that was a good sign.

los angeles mall?? what is this? i never knew this was downtown.

at last - food! by the time we finally made it inside we were parched and dying. it was unbearably hot that day. this is the tofu okonomiyaki. i am obsessed with okonomiyaki right now.

ahi poke salad with tofu. this was my favorite - i had it 2x.

these tofu sticks don't look too exciting but they were actually really good - i think it was all in the sauce.

bruschetta. boring! apparently the bread was made with tofu, so it was vegan.

after the festival we ended up in korea town at some weird deserted food court. we didn't eat there, we were just passing through.

mom's hand?? what does that mean?

it started with guns...

2007-08-21T22:39:00.000-07:00

waterguns, that is. as soon as they were brought out, we raided the pile, looking for the best weapons. some people tried to come and steal them from us.

miss phd and i engaged in a crazy battle royale. extraneous factors included destructor running around the parameter of the pool attacking both of us, as well as several other people in the group surprising us with their guns. i had a huge bruise on my knee afterwards.

eventually we moved to the dance floor (we were almost eaten alive by a woman determined to sit by the pool and eat her fries, although everyone was running around with water guns there. she screamed at us to stop. she was really paranoid that her fries would get wet)

there were many scene-sters and/or hipsters on the dance floor. here is one pictured above. i think he's wearing a red tie. at a pool party. awesome.

there's the dj. the music was great. oh, except he played that one song from The Who. yea, you know what i'm talking about. i have negative associations with that one; i took a video of me not liking it but i can't post it because i would definitely get sued.

and here's what's happening on the dance floor:

oh and they would bring out jello shots every 20 minutes or so.

here's a guy who looks like tobias from arrested development.

more hipsters.

there were lots of speedos that day.

check out the hipster dance:

back inside the notorious pod of the standard rooftop bar.

view of the buildings from inside the pod - gorgeous. but some of us were jumping around on it so i felt a little seasick (it's a water mattress)

bye bye pods...until next time.

shiny tights

2007-08-19T23:08:00.000-07:00

they got me again, those people at american apparel. i love how these tights are so shiny.

pop them in your mouth like candy

2007-08-17T23:19:00.000-07:00

see this crab? poor little guy. he is (was) part of the platter of sawagani crabs we ordered at kiriko sushi on sawtelle. they're soooo tiny and cute. they look like they're frozen in time. i'm pretty sure they just get thrown in the fryer, which is why they come out looking like they were in the middle of protesting. they're crunchy and tasty but sometimes their little legs stab you in the mouth.

here are his other friends. we ate them too.

butternut squash spring rolls

2007-08-14T22:35:00.001-07:00

i made this vietnamese-inspired appetizer for my parents when they were here. this recipe came from the NYT and i love it. if i weren't so lazy, i would make these more often. there's just a lot of parts to it, and all that rolling is kind of annoying. these delicious rolls are filled with baked butternut squash, toasted pumpkin seeds, mint and vermicelli noodles (the glassy kind).

toasted pumpkin seeds. these were so tasty it was hard not to eat them by themselves. you can also use peanuts.

i love the smell and taste of fresh mint. you can also use basil in this recipe instead. one of my other favorite herbs! i once tried to keep a basil plant, but it died after 3 days when i forgot to water it. bugs took over.

butternut squash - dice into 1/2 inch cubes, toss with olive oil, a little bit of salt and pepper and bake!

you can get these wrapper things at an asian market. all you need to do is soak them in hot/warm water for a minute and they soften up so you can put your stuff inside and roll! place a small amount of vermicelli on the bottom 1/3. pile butternut squash, pumpkin seeds and mint on top. fold bottom over pile, then wrap the left and right sides over tightly - roll up firmly. repeat a million times!

here is the dipping sauce, comprised of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, sugar and chili paste! pretty easy.

ta da! everyone ate a ton...i think i made 25 or something and we only had 4 left over.

i paid extra for diagonal straps

2007-08-08T21:56:00.001-07:00

new shoes! i love these. they are so unique. here's a picture of me breaking them in the very day i got them. yes, the amazing power of the symmetrical, diagonal straps is what really won me over.

destructor got new shoes too. he wanted a picture of our new shoes together.

FOTC - LOL/LMAO/ROFL!

2007-08-07T17:39:00.001-07:00

my new favorite show. i recently discovered flight of the conchords sitting in my HBO On Demand list, and once i started watching i couldn't stop! the humor is completely random. i'll let wikipedia do the explaining.

here's a clip from when they tried to shoot a low budget "music video" on the show. the context behind this is that murray, their "band manager" (who is actually an employee at the new zealand consulate), made robot suits from cardboard - but jemaine and bret complained that they wanted to be like daft punk.

check out their official site. also the live version of this is really funny.

lentils with cumin and apple cranberry chutney

2007-08-06T22:00:00.000-07:00

in a rare moment alone at home with no one but the cat, i made something i had been craving: NOT chinese food. i cooked some lentils with cumin, paprika, salt, pepper and chopped tomatoes. the apple cranberry chutney came from trader joe's. i also found some pita bread in the fridge so i toasted that; too bad i didn't have any naan laying around. mmm what a great combo. i was so happy with my meal.

shishito peppers

2007-08-03T23:43:00.000-07:00

one of my favorite snacks. so light and tasty. i like to brown them in the pan with some sesame oil, soy sauce and/or ponzu. top with shaved bonito flakes and they're ready to eat! oh yea, and they're also usually only $2 at nijiya or mitsuwa. easy on the budget.

capoeira practice

2007-08-03T12:37:00.000-07:00

last night i went to capoeira class with my friend, who will henceforth be named dj bitesize. today my legs are wobbly and sore.

we first started taking capoeira 2 years ago. after a few sessions, we just stopped going due to busy schedules, etc (and really, the last time when the mestre made us do back flips over a gigantic ball, it did not really motivate us to come back!).

but we both really love capoeira and last month, made an effort to go back and attend classes regularly.

capoeira is an art; it's a brazilian fighting technique/dancing that emerged as a way to resist oppression. it's about freedom, and what i love most is the community you walk into when you go to class. everyone is so laid back, so open and friendly, and they all have such a unique type of respect for the art.

another thing i love is the concept that this is a "game", played in a "roda". you do not attack the other person you are sparring; it's about demonstrating skill (without completing the move itself) and choreography/dancing. and the music/singing/drum beats create such a wonderful vibe.

now i'm beginning to learn a few of the songs they sing throughout class. there's one stuck in my head, but too bad i only know one line. i've only been in a roda once during class; it was fun but since i'm such a beginner, i didn't know what else to do except for a few cartwheels (called "roles"), and some feeble kicks. my favorite move, however, is the "esquiva" which literally means "escape"!

capoeira also influenced the breakdancing movement (i had a passing moment in high school where i really wanted to learn this but luckily i didn't pursue it). both were a form of subculture/counterculture before being adopted into the mainstream. it's a great feeling when i'm learning something new from an activity i enjoy. oh and of course the class totally kicks your butt! i will spend the weekend recovering.

addicted to AA

2007-08-01T20:54:00.000-07:00

american apparel, that is. i am currently obsessed with mixing and matching their pieces. i've always liked them, but for some inexplicable reason, lately i can't stop going into their stores/visiting their online shop.

american apparel and i first became acquainted back in college, when i randomly met dov the ceo in little tokyo while perusing a vintage store. he introduced himself and asked me to model for their catalogue (destructor was there as well; i felt him bristle next to me, but he politely shook dov's extended hand). this was way back in the day before all the negative press about him and the sketchy photos.

anyway, i did it a couple of times to make some extra money while in school (at their warehouse downtown, which was actually a really fun place mostly because the photographer had this parrot that hung out with us. and i remember the stylist ordered me food when i was hungry, except it was covered in cilantro. i saw the workspace too. it really is "sweatshop-free". they even have a cute little cafeteria, and vending machines!). got some free stuff, which was nice. that was how i first got hooked on aa.

above is a collage of items i have acquired in the last TWO weeks. it all started when we dropped by the little tokyo location before going to haru ulala. there i purchased the gray dress you see. it's so cute on. i also got a gray v neck tee (not pictured - but the one you see is what i have in RED, which i got this past weekend!!)

then, the excuse was that i needed an outfit for daft punk. so i got the gold halter bodysuit ("lame" fabric). i wanted to wear it under the navy jumper i got (as you can see from the picture, you definitely need to wear something under that). the colors worked great. i love this gold thing. check out how one magazine styled it in this photo.

then! i bought the black u-neck dress online. i want to wear tee shirts/tanks underneath. specifically, i want to get this.

basically, i need help. the problem is, everything is available in 10 million colors, which makes me a little frantic because i want to buy them all (i'm bad at choosing one). for example, i really want their fun tube socks (for what? i can't imagine where/how i'd wear them), but it's too hard to choose a color combination.

ok, my fashion post quota is complete for the time being.

cough, cough

2007-07-31T20:53:00.000-07:00

my doctor put me on antibiotics. i believe that is her answer to everything. after several days of coughing, my father was convinced that i "might have pneumonia". i finally went to the doctor and of course it was some mild form of bronchitis. i generally don't like taking antibiotics because i'm paranoid about the resistance problem.

whenever there's a problem with my cat, they put him on antibiotics too (ear infections, allergies, him tearing out his own fur on his leg, etc). when he's on antibiotics he throws up everywhere.

conclusion: antibiotics have pros and cons?

thanks Syrup for your garlicky post!

2007-07-30T12:18:00.001-07:00

i can smell you from here. =]

i heart garlic, but NOT garlic ice cream

2007-07-30T09:39:00.000-07:00

Ah, the Gilroy Garlic Festival! It is just one of those things that you have to go to atleast once if you live in the Bay Area! It was my virgin trip, yet some of the people I met have gone every year and they say it just keeps getting better. The festival is at their 29th year and it always takes place on the last weekend of July, if you're ever in town! Okay, now onto the food. There were TONS of food venders, but what we tried first, was the infamous garlic ice cream. Everyone that goes there wants to at least try it, plus it is the only free food booth there! Here is my garlic ice cream cone in all of it's glory!

The initial taste is a sweet vanilla flavor and then this intense garlic flavor fills your mouth. It was not a pleasing taste to me! After one lick, it was in the trash. It just seemed so wrong! After that unfortunate experience, I continued to fill my belly with tons of garlic food. Here is a combo plate that I got, which is worth it because you get to try a little of everything there. They had two different combo plates, I went for the chicken one.

After all of the garlicky fun, I left feeling satisfied and the smell/taste of garlic all over me!

mac & cheese ATTACK!!

2007-07-29T18:20:00.000-07:00

thursday night, i enlisted the help of destructor and my sister to prepare for the company bbq on friday. my task was to make mac and cheese for 25 people (3 people in the group were assigned the mac and cheese, for a total of 75 people).

i left the office late after staying for calls and i think that's when i started to panic a little bit. was i going to be doing this all night? also, 5 minutes after leaving i had to turn around and drive back to the office after being notified that i did not have enough butter (there was a lot of math involved when dividing up the ingredients). i came home completely flustered; destructor had already tackled the 6 lbs of macaroni since i instructed him to "start boiling water!" on the way home.

everything had to be done in batches, because my pot and saucepan were just NOT big enough! (neither is my kitchen!) so i had to do more math. for example, pictured above you can see my sister measuring out 4.5 cups of milk for one batch of the sauce.

look at all this butter! this is half of 1.5 sticks of butter, whatever that is. i also had 2 lbs of cheese to split up. yum.

the pasta had to be poured back into my pot in order to be mixed with the cheese sauce.

after mixing alllll the pasta and scrambling to find more baking trays (the 3 i had been given were not enough!), we finally got everything in the oven. well, not all at once of course.

destructor performed this magical feat of tetris in our fridge. i really didn't think all 5 trays would fit in here.

thanks to destructor and my sister for their help. otherwise i would have been madly cooking late into the night. as it turned out we had way too much mac & cheese at the bbq so i had 2 entire trays to take back home! lucky for destructor and my sister they get to eat the fruits of their labor forEVER.

daft punk and korean food

2007-07-26T23:01:00.000-07:00

saturday night, after the pool party, we went to see daft punk. there are just no words. i think this is the most amazing show i've ever seen. i want my very own pyramid and robot suit.

i think this is me looking for reception. i was probably trying to text my other friends who didn't get floor tickets. they probably had a better view though!

i danced hard that night.
especially to this song. when the best song ever came on, the cameraman (aka destructor) did not remember he was supposed to be taking a video. but hey, at least you get the full experience.

also check out this close up of the pyramid. like i said, i want my own!!!

can you see him? why is he so cool?

anyway, afterwards we walked back to my friend's place by usc because we couldn't find a cab! (destructor tried to call juan, who was our cab driver to the event, but juan was stuck in hollywood) after all that dancing and walking, we were starving.

so our group made our way to koreatown, where we had fabulous late night junk food (kalbi, bul gol gi, bibimbap, noodles, etc etc)

we demolished our food in less than half an hour. then everyone went on their separate ways to crash. i think i'm still recovering?

thursday mini adventure: part 2

2007-07-22T19:33:00.000-07:00

after the hammer museum, destructor and i went searching for a late night snack. specifically, we wanted okonomiyaki. so having read that haru ulala - an izakaya we randomly saw on the street - had this yummy snack, we headed downtown.

the place was so cozy and cute. and we completely over ordered because we were so excited.

.........................

WARNING:for those that are easily grossed out by unpleasant looking food, DO NOT look at the next picture. one of the first things we ordered was "small fish with shaved daikon radish". (i shouldn't say "we", because destructor was brilliant enough to order this actually) i thought it would be...a small fish, with some radish on top. NO! it was a big ball of shaved radish with teeny tiny microscopic white fish on top with black eyes. looked like maggots. i tried it and it was alright, but i couldn't stand to look at the thing!!

ew!!!
ok, now on to better and prettier things.

chickien yakitori, meatballs, grilled rice balls and "pechanga". this last item was soooo delicious: peppers stuffed with spicy tuna and fried in tempura batter.

at last! our okonomiyaki arrived. we really should have asked how big they were, because we made the mistake of getting one each. it is seriously the size of my head!!

so, i was only able to eat this much, but took the rest home and had it for breakfast the next day. still just as yummy.

rooftop pool party

2007-07-22T19:08:00.001-07:00

the standard downtown. despite the completely unnecessary attitude here, i have always loved the view at their rooftop bar. plus obey was throwing a party there so of course i had to go! my friend and i decided that this was the perfect pre-pre-party for daft punk. we got there around 4 and after a lot of typical hollywood b.s., we were finally given our holy wristbands so that we could ascend the oh-so-special elevator to the roof.

i was really cranky but as soon as the elevator doors opened i forgot about the snotty door girl (who spent her time eating cherries while on her cell phone chatting and ignoring everyone waiting) thanks to the awesome music and crowd.

the best part about this party was the watergun rule. everyone had to bring one. ours actually broke before we even really used it but there were plenty around for the taking. my friend and i had a 10 minute battle, and we also got caught in the crossfire between 2 girls and a guy with a supersoaker!

oh, and hit+run was there doing their shirt screening. i love them - this is the 3rd time i've seen them at a party. yay for free shirt screening. i made sure to bring 2 shirts this time. they always have really unique designs.

i posted a short video i took of the party. you can see hit+run doing their fabulous (and sometimes drunken) work at the end of the footage. too bad the shirt i got screened with an obey design has smudges on the front because the guy was drunk! ha.

thursday mini adventure: part 1

2007-07-20T21:47:00.000-07:00

we began our adventure by taking advantage of one of the many free events in LA during the summer: the "also i like to rock" concert series at the hammer museum in westwood.

i had to take a picture with audrey, of course.

the music was good, and i climbed up onto a ledge to see over everybody (and to take pictures!) but, these kept stabbing at my legs.

then! my hammer sticker got stuck in my hair so destructor had to help me extract it.

finally! i got some pictures.

ah ha! victory is mine.

2007-07-19T17:21:00.000-07:00

last friday my friends and i went to the library bar downtown. they have a fantastic selection of belgian beer, so i was pretty excited. i had had enough of my usual chimay and westmalle, so i picked the one with the highest alcoholic content in order to try something new. this was the trappistes rochefort 10. 11.3%!! so when i ordered it, i said "can i have the trah-peest rohsh-fourr 10"? and the bartender looked at me like i had 5 heads. after a long pause and a confused look she responded, "you mean the rock-furt??" and now i was confused. because this was a belgian beer. hence, my french. so i said, "yes?" i pondered over this the whole night, sure i was right because i had taken 5 years of french. but, she was the actual bartender, so how could she be wrong?? i even surveyed all my friends and a stranger, although everyone was probably drunk and totally unhelpful.

well today, victory is mine. i googled pronunciation of belgian beers and found a page where there are actual sound bytes! this is how "rochefort" is pronounced: click here to experience my victory.

ps. this is not my photo. we were too busy "reading" random books we kept grabbing off the shelves while slowly being intoxicated with our high alcohol content level beers.

it's that time again

2007-07-17T13:25:00.000-07:00

for another post about japanese snacks!

the other day while waiting in the checkout line at nijiya, destructor found this oddly enticing bag of "cubyrop".

what were these magical looking cubes of sugar? was it gummy? was it hard candy? we had to try it.

upon opening the bag we were almost blinded by the shiny inside. the cubes sparkled in the silver packaging, calling our names. "eat me destructor and shoe fiend, eat me!!"

so we did. and they were delicious! it was like a nicer version of the sour patch kid candy, but instead of sour crystals, they were sugary. also very very soft. they were gone within minutes.

i probably need to stop posting about japanese snacks because this could go on forever.