Jennifer & Ronald

Link: http://www.epicroasthousesf.com/

I had a lovely breakfast this morning prepared by RC. He used these cute egg molds that we bought at Disney World many years ago.

In the late morning we went to the Ferry Plaza to walk around the Farmers Market before meeting up with our friends Susan & Ken for lunch. We wanted to catch up and to thank them for planning our baby shower a few weeks ago. We had lunch at Epic Roasthouse.

It was a lovely day and we had a seat near the windows. I read that this restaurant has great happy hour so I look forward to being able to enjoy that sometime as well.

I started with the lavender lemonade with green tea. The lavender flavor is obvious but the lemon and green tea is not. It was refreshing though.

Ron ordered from their "Hangover Libations", this is called "Orange". It tasted like a mimosa except that it had a bit of bitters.

At the table they offered three types of salt: pink, sea salt, black salt. We taste tested them all and I personally liked the black salt.

Their bread selection included a puff (cheese I think), cornbread-like madeleines, and a airy but chewy bread.

They had a few changes to the menu so I ordered one of their specials, the lobster quiche which was topped with potatoes and a small salad and a sauce of caviar creme fraiche. There were only a few pieces of lobster but the flavor of the quiche was good, I like the pastry and the freshness of the salad.

Ron had the steak enchiladas (one of the lunch items). I thought the wrapping was a bit too thick and the meat not seasoned enough but then I only had one bite.

We also tried their side of onion rings with the housemade ketchup (with anchovies). It was yummy.

I had a lovely day of eating then a massage at Burke Williams in the evening. This was my fourth pregnancy massage, I still have two more to use before baby is born. I look forward to taking my maternity leave in a week and a half and having some more time to prepare but also relax.

Epic Roasthouse
369 Embarcadero

Link: http://www.amazon.com/Martha-Stewarts-Baking-Handbook-Stewart/dp/0307236722

I've been baking about once a week for work. One of the nurses had requested that I bake at least one more time for them to tide them over until I come back from maternity leave but I figured I'd try to do it once a week for the fun of it.

Today's treat are cheesecake thumbprint cookies from the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook. Mine didn't turn out very pretty because I think the dough may have been a bit dry but still tasted yummy.

I couldn't find the recipe on the Martha Stewart website but you can see it at this link. For the cookie dough, I used light brown sugar and whole wheat flour. The cookie came out very much like shortbread so was a bit crumbly and very buttery. I was able to make about 25 cookies, all eaten up within 2 hours.

Link: http://www.dahukilau.com/

On this rainy day in SF, I met up with LT for dinner at Hukilau. I ordered from their loco moco specials, apparently the dish has been around 60 years! I ordered the mini moco since the regular size has way too much rice (3 scoops) and the mini only has 1 scoop.

I still only ate a bit of the rice but enjoyed the meat pattie, onions, sauce, and fried egg. It was served with a side of macaroni salad. Only $6!

I am looking forward to going back after baby is born so that I can try their saimin...

Just a few more weeks until we'll see Baby Boy Chung in person and no, we still haven't settled on a name. I guess I haven't really been updating on how the pregnancy is going so I thought I'd make a brief post.

So far I've gained about 25 lbs, less than 2 lbs since I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. I worried a bit about that but my provider says that the baby is still a good size and growing. I was doing really good with the diet for controlling my post-meal glucose levels but no matter what I did, my fasting blood glucose in the morning just wouldn't stay under 95. So a few weeks ago I started on a small 1.25mg dose of glyburide every night before bedtime. So far, so good. The good thing about starting medication is that I get to see our baby twice a week. I have to go to have "non stress tests" twice a week which involves a sonogram to check amniotic fluid levels and then have a separate monitoring session to check the baby's movement and if I'm having contractions. So I had the opportunity to see him again last week and will see him twice a week until he's really to come out.

Ron and I went to an all day childbirth preparation class which was very informative and made us a bit more comfortable. I'm sure the actual day will still be very intense but at least we have more of an idea of what to expect.

Our lovely friends planned a surprise baby shower for us a few weeks ago where a great time was had by all and we received some lovely gifts. I'll have to post some pictures soon. Thank you to our friends who planned the party and those who attended.

Now just to share a picture that was taken last week while I was at work, my co-workers really liked my top (and so do I!) which I bought at H&M (and it is NOT maternity wear so I can wear it afterwards too!). I know he's a boy but I still like Hello Kitty!

Oh, and a great book I finished reading this week: Baby Owner's Manual, which we got as a baby shower gift. It's an easy read and fun plus actually is full of good information. Ron read it first and he really enjoyed it as it really did read like an instruction manual.

Well, that's all folks (for now)...

Link: http://www.yelp.com/biz/china-bee-san-mateo

Before taking Ron to the airport, we went for brunch at China Bee in San Mateo. We've heard from friends that they have yummy Taiwanese breakfast so thought we'd finally try it out. We ordered quite a bit to sample our favorite dishes.

Sweet soy milk, rice roll, pickled spicy cucumbers, and salty soy milk. The salty soy milk was properly made (according to Ron) where the milk is curdled and filled with crunchy fried dough and green onion and preserved vegetables. The rice roll didn't have enough meat for Ron and I thought the pickled cucumbers were a bit over-pickled.

The fried stinky tofu. The sauce and vegetables were good, tofu nicely fried, but not all that stinky. Overall still good though as I liked the crunch it had.

Egg crepe. Ron thought the wrapper was machine made so not that good and there wasn't any sauce so it was a bit dry.

Oyster pancake, I thought was yummy. Ron found it too fishy flavored. I liked whatever the red sauce was on top.

Last but not least, xiao long bao. They were really good when hot but not so tasty as it started to cool down. The wrapper was a bit thick but the juice with the meat inside was pretty good.

We're not sure if we'd drive all the way to San Mateo again for breakfast since you can get similar quality at Taiwan Restaurant in SF.

China Bee Restaurant
31 South B Street
San Mateo, CA