Tuesday, July 31

*cough, cough*

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?

Monday, July 30

thanks Syrup for your garlicky post!

i can smell you from here. =]

i heart garlic, but NOT garlic ice cream


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!



Sunday, July 29

mac & cheese ATTACK!!

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.

Thursday, July 26

daft punk and korean food

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?

Sunday, July 22

thursday mini adventure: part 2

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

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.

Friday, July 20

thursday mini adventure: part 1

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.


Thursday, July 19

ah ha! victory is mine.


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.

Tuesday, July 17

it's that time again

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.

Monday, July 16

something light after eating 1,345,462,098 calories

after binge eating at mozza yesterday, i decided to make something really light for dinner. i had been wanting to try this recipe i found in the NYT: couscous salad with spinach and a creamy lemon chive dressing. i didn't really think about the fact that anything with "cream" would not be as "light" as i wanted...but it still turned out really nice. pretty simple too. we even broke out tstar's old food processor which she so graciously donated for causes such as these.

basically you cook about 1.5 cups of couscous with some salt. then, blend 2 cups parsley, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp lemon juice and some salt to taste. mix with couscous. chop 5 oz spinach into chiffonade. to make the dressing, mix 1 cup of light cream (i used half and half?) with 2 tbsp lemon juice, salt, and 1/3 cup minced chives (shake this in a container). then toss with the spinach and mix everything with the couscous. (thanks NYT!) it was very delicious and actually pretty light!

Sunday, July 15

current obsession: mozza

sunday afternoon, destructor and i took and my family to pizzeria mozza for my father's belated birthday lunch. this was my second time here and i was so excited to try something new. when we arrived, the people at "our" table were still there nursing their drinks so we didn't get seated for awhile. but! totally worth the wait.

first, i started off with a nice refreshing glass of beer (moretti on tap). normally i'd be drinking wine (red) but since this was 2pm in the afternoon, i didn't want to sit through a lecture from my parents! anyway, here comes the food.

one of our appetizers: roasted pepper with tuna. this was absolutely delicious and i would order it again. it was kind of like a fancy tuna salad on top of roasted red peppers.

cauliflower gratinate! this was creamy and yummy; i love cauliflower. however, it wasn't completely amazing - i think maybe because it was a little bland.

my favorite! we had this last time too. it's the to-die-for white bean bruschetta. see the little indentations filled with olive oil? it drips down your hand as you bite into this tasty combo of pureed white beans and crunchy bread. i could probably eat 10 of these in one sitting!

guess what this is? free! this is the pureed chickpea with mint bruschetta, which we actually tried to order but was told that they were out. apparently they were making more so our server just brought it out to us anyway (she was initially very negligent and also spilled bread crumbs all over destructor. poor destructor. one time at joan's on third our server spilled an entire cornish hen on him. so anyway, this helped her earn back her 20% tip). this was really delicious but i have to say the previously mentioned white bean bruschetta is still my absolute favorite.

ok, we are finally past the appetizers. are you ready for the pizze??

fennel sausage pizza! there was so much hype about this one we had to get it. plus my father demanded "meat!". i took a bite of this one, and it was the best little bite of pizza ever. the fennel adds a really amazing flavor and of course the whole thing was covered in delicious olive oil. one note i have to make is about their crust. it's perfect because it's bubbly and airy, not all dough-y. they also sprinkle a little bit of salt on it...mmmmm! i usually don't even eat crust but i do here!


this is the squash blossom pizza, which i've been wanting to try ever since last time. the big glob of burrata on top is what got me. plus, it looks pretty. although this was good, i sort of have an issue with this one. when you bite into it, the entire layer of squash blossoms come off so that after your first bite, you are left with the shell of the pizza.

personally, i feel that this one is not as exciting. we got this for my mother because she doesn't really like cheese. it's just the plain tomato and oregano pizza, which i'm sure is very good. i didn't eat this because i was saving all my calories for everything else!

ah, the dependable proscuitto pizza. how can you go wrong with this one?

ok - longest post ever! i will end here. yes, we did have dessert but by then i was too lazy to take pictures. i am in love with pizzeria mozza. i even doodled pictures of their food and a smiley face on their feedback card (also bumped into someone from work here who walked by and saw my doodles and joked that maybe i could make it in the creative department. ha). everyone should eat here. tstar, did you go this weekend?

Saturday, July 14

hello halo-halo


today we went to the lotus festival. i had never been before but this was mainly to entertain the family. it was a nice day but echo park was so crowded. of course there was the typical festival food (roasted corn, yum!), but the highlight was definitely the halo-halo from the filipino restaurant. i was so excited to eat it that i completely forgot to take a picture before obliterating it. hence, i had to rip some random one off the internet. halo-halo is basically a very popular filipino dessert consisting of shaved ice covered with various toppings such as taro, coconut, cream, beans, etc! see a more detailed description here.