I'm Back!

It's been quite a long while since I last updated. A lot of eating had happened between then and now. I have a bunch of food adventures that took places nearby as well as somewhere on my vacations that I have yet to share.

I'm back, and I'm ready to blog again! Stay tunes!!

A Very Pink Birthday

My friend Meiling referred her cousin, Sandy to me for her daughter's very pink birthday party a few weeks ago. I had the pleasure to help Sandy bake 6 dozens mini cupcakes for her lovely pink dessert table.

Vanilla cupcakes in pink cupcake liners, and topped with pink fondant flowers.

Pink frosting with white liners and topped with white edible pearls.

Meiling, Sandy and their families are one of the most artistic and creative people I know. I always think that they should start a party decoration or hosting business, because all their decors and table settings are always beautiful and amazing!

photo taken by Sandy

Isabelle is one lucky little girl. I'm sure Sandy spent a lot of time on the birthday party!

photo taken by Sandy

Ahh! I love the pink!

It was a pleasure having Sandy as one of my first customers. Seeing her pictures from the party and hearing about her feedbacks made me so happy!

Forget the Bread!

Forget the bread in a sandwich! I figured if Denny and IHOP can stuff a waffle with strawberry and other sweets, why not stuff it with savory items? I'm going to use my leftover waffle batter to make myself a sandwich...or should I say stuffed savory waffle.

It's super duper easy. It's like making a waffle but just adding extra ingredients during cooking. I'm going to use smoked ham, tomato, spinach and cheese.

1. Prepare waffle batter and laddle it over the waffle maker.
2. Let it cook uncovered for a minute.
3. Add your sandwich ingredients of choice.

4. Spoon a thin layer of waffle batter onto the sandwich ingredients.
5. Close waffle maker lid and let it cook according to the waffle maker instruction.

Since you can't really add spread like mayo, ketchup or mustard in this sandwich, you need to really rely on the flavor of your ingredients or waffle. Or, you can dip your waffle in a sauce as you eat.

Semi-Homemade Dinner: Chicken & Waffle

On lazy nights, I don't have the energy to cook up a meal. So to make life easier, there's always take-out. And sometimes, I just want to add a personal touch to the take-out so that it seems like I made an effort or like I accomplish something for the night.

Tonight, I feel like making waffles! I bought a waffle machine three years ago, and it'd been collecting dust since then. Tonight is the night for it to shine!

Always grease the waffle maker before pouring batter 

Have you ever play a word game in which one person say a word and the other person shout out the first thing that came up in his or her mind. Well, waffle made me think of  chicken! So I told my boyfriend to go grab some fried chicken while I mix up some waffle batter at home. We are lucky to have both KFC and Popeye nearby; we're having Popeye's tonight.

I got this basic waffle recipe from one of my idols, Alton Brown. He's a genius, and his recipe are always very simple and delicious.

Top it all off with maple syrup and down it with an iced cold beer (or just water for me)!

Blue Fin Tuna from Japan

Every year in December, I look forward to my boyfriend's company holiday party. Not only do they always host it at an awesome venue, they also always cater delicious food!

This year, the company imported a 50lb Blue Fin tuna from Japan! They held the party at Ozumo, a Japanese restaurant, so they placed the whole fish by the sushi bar for display until it was time to slice it. At the party, we were free to eat as much Blue Fin tuna along with a table filled with yakitori, tempura and terriyaki. We were also free to order anything from the cocktail and sushi bar. It was a Japanese cuisine lover's dream come true!! I didn't eat any of the yakitori, tempura and terriyaki, because I was determined to fill my belly up with my favorite cocktails, the Blue Fin and some of my favorite sushi and sashimi.

When it was time to butcher the fish, everyone gathered.

The chefs carefully clean the fish, and then started removing the head by slicing at the collar of the fish.

After the head is removed, the head chef sliced the fish in twos.

The chef was careful with the fish, and he used a clean towel to keep the fish clean and sanitize.



Toro

The most expensive and delicious part of the tuna is the fatty part or toro, which is all located in its belly. I could not stop staring at it as the whole belly was placed in front of me at the sushi bar!

There are two types of toro. There is chutoro, which is the fatty part located on the side of the fish belly. It is much leaner than otoro, which is the fattiest part located at the underside of the tuna. It's so fatty that it melts in the mouth!

Joy in my belly!

Raclette

My boyfriend went to Switzerland for business for a month, and he brought with him some nice souveniors and an experience of a popular dish from Switzerland called raclette.

Raclette is a type of semi-soft cheese from Switzerland made with cow milk. It is also a dish made with the raclette cheese. The raclette cheese is usually placed on a holder and is melted near a fire or on a grill, and then scraped off the holder onto food such as potato or cured meat.

Shortly after my boyfriend returned, he ordered a raclette grill made by Swissmar on Amazon.com. The one he ordered allowed us to grill the meat on top while melting the cheese underneath, which is super convenient considering we don't have to cook our meat with a skillet beforehand. You can order the same grill here.

Materials for serving a meal of delicious raclette:
A raclette grill or a holder for holding the cheese
Raclette cheese or any semi-soft cheese like Emmentaler
Yellow potato, pre-boiled
Dry cured meat or steak
Chili powder and black pepper

Grill the cheese until it's soft and melted. Scrap the cheese onto the halved potato or meat. Sprinkle some chili powder and black pepper to taste.

I broke my bacon into pieces and placed it on top of the cheese and potato. The smokey flavor of bacon went very well with the creamy rich cheese and mild flavor of the starchy potato.

Congratuation Sister!

After six year as an undergrad, my sister finally graduated with a BS degree in Marketing Research. Finally!

Goodluck with job hunting! I'm waiting for the first paycheck dinner! =)

This post is food related since there may be a possible dinner!

Strolling Around

I woke up pretty early this morning to go into San Francisco. I got to the Ferry Building at 8am, which was perfect since all the market stands were up and running, and the area was nearly empty before the rush.

Walking toward my morning cup of Joe at Blue Bottle. I usually wait at the one outside since it's faster for the drip coffee. But since I was early, I went inside instead.

While waiting for coffee, I couldn't help but stare at Miette, wondering if I should get a piece of my favorite hazelnut macaron from there.

After much grocery shop, my friend and I departed. I walked by myself as I admired the structure of Jack London Square. I don't know why, I never get tired staring at it on a sunny day.

As I was waiting for my mom to get off, I parked my car and wandered around toward Washington Square. My cousins and I grew up around this area, and we used to go to this park all the time. It still looked the same. I ended up getting some prosciutto at one of the Italian delicatessen nearby.

Ice Cream & Sharks

One of the groups at work hired someone new, and he brought a bunch of ice creams and toppings for us. It was a really nice break on a Friday to scoop whatever flavor and toppings I want. I felt like a little kid at an ice cream shop! I ended up with two scoops of cookies-n-cream, one scoop of chocolate mint chips, and a small slice of Japanese cheesecake. And of course, I topped it off with one of my favorite ice cream toppings, almonds!

After work, I headed to the airport to pick up my boyfriend. He's finally back from his work trip! Shortly after that, we headed down to San Jose for the Sharks playoff game!

The crowd was awesomely loud! I had to use some earplugs at some point in time, and the people behind me kept sweeping their t-shirt at my head. After three exciting periods, they won! Finally! Hopefully they'll continue with the wins!

Tomato Plants

As a plant biotech researcher, my coworker invitro-ly cultivated some tomato seeds. I think I am going to try doing that with my strawberry seeds, because I had no luck growing them in a small pot of soil. Very ironic huh? I research with plants but I can't even grow strawberry in a pot.

Anyhow, he gave them out once they sprouted to a couple inches tall. My boyfriend's mom helped me planted them to the garden after I took them home. I checked on them yesterday after this rainny and sunny week. They grew so much. I can't wait until they start fruiting.

Colorful Fishes

I took my brother to an aquarium today, or should I say fish shop? My dad put up a fish tank and so, we were excited to go fish hunting!

We ended up in one that lets you catches your own in any of the reachable tanks they have! I thought it was a good idea at first, until my brother and I took an hour something just to catches 4 Skirts, 2 Pea Puffers and 1 water frog.

Nonetheless, it was fun and was good brother-sister bonding time.

My favorite one so far is this pink skirt that I got and the pea puffers. They are so poofy and tiny...like a tagpole (right fish below). They are picky eaters. We ended up picking up some frozen bloodworms for them too. Yuck!

Oh yeah, we also got a frog because my brother wants one. It looks kind of creepy.

A Morning at the Farmer's Market

I love farmer's market, especially the one at the San Francisco Ferry Building. It's a routine to get my coffee first at the market as long as it's morning! I haven't had coffee for two weeks, but when I knew I was going to be at the Ferry Building, I had to get a cup of Blue Bottle!

I like their drip coffee with a splash of soy milk.

I know there's skinny and regular asparagus, or even purple and yellow ones, but jumbo? Whoa!

I love the farmer's market because I always discover new kind of produce but I also love it because the market is filled with colors...beautiful, vibrant and natural colors.
Mountains of cheeses! I love cheeses! Today I found a really nice cheese called the Dante. It's a sheep milk cheese from Wisconsin. It's a little dry and crumbly with a perfect amount of salt! It's also quite nutty, which I love, love, and love! Nutty cheeses are great eaten with any dish and of course, by themselves!

One of my favorite stores at the Ferry Building is the Farwest Fungi. Oh mushrooms!!

My friend and I spent about 2 hours there and if I wasn't living alone right now, I would definitely stock up on more food than what I can carry. But my "harvest" today was pretty good and decent! I got exactly what I wanted.

I ended up with a rustic deli roll and a hot dog bun from Acme Bread. Two Beefsteak tomatoes and two Cherokee tomatoes, and some shiitake, king trumpet, lion's mane and shiimeji.

Stay tune on what I will be making with these lovely food!

Holy Cow Skinny Cow!

I am always amazed how Nestle came out with their Skinny Cow line of low calories ice cream bar and ice cream. The same size cup of ice cream or ice cream bar but half the calories!

Anyhow, so when I saw their new line of candy bars and candy mosels at Walgreen, I had to buy some to try!

Once I got home, I tried the Peanut & Butter crisp right away. It's like a long wafer cookies covered by thin layer of chocolate. The wafer cookie is very airy and is not as dense as Kit Kats. The chocolate layer is also pretty thin but satisfying. I love the peanut butter taste. It was pretty good, but I actually want more after that. That definitely defeats the purpose of eating low calorie food.

I also tried the milk chocolate clusters that have rice crisps and caramel in the center. It's not as creamy as I thought it would be. I prefer the crisp bar better.

As much as I prefer a real chocolate candy bar, I think this is pretty good alternative for those who just wants the taste and crunch of chocolate or peanut butter.

Beautiful Invitation

Sometime it's so dreadful to walk to the mailbox to get mail when I can just walk into the house right away and rest. But today, I was glad I went to get my mail. I received a giant silvery envelope and right away, I knew what was inside.

Congratuation Meiling and Marcus!

Look at the beautiful and thoughtful invites! My camera doesn't do justice to the beautiful sparkly plum purple paper. I also love the black leave patterns. Oh yeah, the stamps matches perfectly too--the purple flower and the orange butterfly.

There's a pocket that holds the map and R.S.V.P form. The actual invite has several layer, which adds some depth for the eyes. Very clean cut and very elegant!

Wedding invitations are expensive to make and order. I am going to keep this along with my other gorgeous invites.

Good Work Day = Good Lunch

So I have conclude that despite how hectic or tiring work can be some times, a nice lunch always makes it better!

Today I went to Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot with my coworker. It was perfect for the weather and for my cold and cough. The soup was made out of herbs and the food that comes with it are pretty healthy in general.

I'd been to Little Sheep for dinner before and tried various of their soup base. By far, I love their original. The spicy one is good too but it was too spicy for my throat. Their soup is so rich, healthy and favorful that no deeping sauce is needed for the food. I can't wait to go back.