Daily Archives: October 18, 2008

Banana Island and Spot Lounge

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So Ron planned a semi-surprise birthday dinner for my big 3-0. I knew we were going out for dinner but I didn’t know where or who would be there.

We arrived at Westlake Shopping Center in Daly City and Ron didn’t seem to know exactly where he was going since we ended up driving around the shopping center and going past the parking lot entrance. Last weekend we went to Lime Tree and Ron mentioned something in passing like “oh, this is one of the Singaporean restaurants that I found online”… so I was thinking “one of”? I guessed right that we were going to Banana Island but Ron wouldn’t admit it to me. But I told him the restaurant was behind the new parking lot so we should enter that way.

The guestlist was a bit given away because as we were driving, we saw Henry’s car parked on the street and then we saw Patsy and her hubby in the parking lot! It didn’t matter to me that it was a surprise but I was just happy that everyone had time to come out to celebrate my birthday.

When Ron and I arrived, Grace unfortunately had to leave but gave me a lovely bottle of J sparkling wine before departing to take care of her sons. I’ll let you know how it is when we crack it open.

Already there waiting were Ron’s brothers Henry and William and Patsy and her hubby. Later on, Nancy and Ryan came. Also Cathy and Tiffany.

Ron did the ordering to give everyone a taste of what we had in Singapore.

Tiger beer.

Satay chicken and beef.

Roti with curry sauce.

Hainanese chicken (missing the chicken rice though).

Stir fried Ka Kong.

Beef rendang.

Char Kuay Teow (stir fried noodles).

Pineapple fried rice.

Po piah.

Fried fish with sweet & sour sauce.

The food reminded us of being back in Singapore although more expensive…

To end the meal, Ron ordered me a very special cake…

A Hello Kitty head.

It’s a cake for kids from Citizen Cake.

I forgot to mention I got a cute Hello Kitty balloon too.

Unfortunately I had to cut the cake and there wasn’t really any other way to do it except through the middle…

The cake was really dense and hard to cut.

I felt so terrible but it would’ve been a waste not to eat it..

My friends tried to stitch her up…

Then they were just cruel…

The cake needed an accompanying cup of coffee or milk since it was really dense. I didn’t eat most of my piece so I’ll be having it for breakfast for the next few days 🙂

These aren’t all the photos so I should be posting up some more later. I took a break from taking photos today so will have to get photos from everyone else.

Afterwards, a few of us went to hang out at a soju bar called The Spot Lounge on Taraval. They serve soju cocktails ($12.95/bottle) in many different flavors: mango, lychee, pear, yogurt, etc.

Reminiscent of our younger days…

The place has food too so looking forward to going back to try their rice cake (duk bok kee).

I guess getting older isn’t so bad afterall… thanks to everyone for coming out for my birthday and all the happy birthday messages!!

Banana Island
416 Westlake Center
Daly City, CA

The Spot Lounge
2325 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA

Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival

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http://www.miramarevents.com/pumpkinfest/

We woke up at 5:30am to head our way to Half Moon Bay for the Pumpkin Festival. I read on their website that they serve a pancake breakfast starting at 7am so I figured it’d be better to get there early before the crowd started to form.

It took us about 45 minutes to get there and we got there about 5 minutes before 7am. There were maybe 10 or 15 people already there. It costs $8 for all-you-can-eat pancakes, sausages, OJ, and coffee. We had to wait about 5 minutes for them to finish up a new batch of pumpkin pancakes then sat down to eat.

Nice and fluffy buttermilk pancakes!

It was still dark out when we arrived. I’m enjoying the pumpkin pancakes. I think they were just mixing pumpkin pie filling into the buttermilk mix.

About 5 minutes after we sat down, the line started to grow. By the time we finished, around 8am, the line was already about a block long. The pancakes were the rate limiting step, they couldn’t cook them fast enough to keep up with the number of people. The sausages were aplenty and were kept on warming plates.

It was still quite early so we just took a walk down Main Street to see what the stalls were setting up.

Ron thought it was cool that BofA had set up a mobile ATM truck.

We saw the huge pumpkins.

There was a street performer called Greg Frisbee who did a little bit of juggling, joking around, and ate fire.

This kid was taken from the audience and performed a balancing act.

Eating fire.

Balancing with his hands on fire and juggling knives.

We basically just walked around a few more times to check out the crafts before heading back to San Francisco. To note, by the time we left, the line for the pancakes was about 2 blocks deep. We left around 10am so luckily there was not much traffic. Once we got back, I had a nice nap.