Spending time with family

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Today I spent some quality time with my family.

Woke up late, went to lunch with my mom at Just Koi and had fabulous won ton noodles with roast duck and some veggies. The roast duck was really delicious, but unfortunately had lots of fat, but we still managed to eat all the crispy skin and succulent meat. I believe the vegetables we had was kai lan and it was cooked in some sort of fish broth.

Afterwards, we visited the 99 Ranch in Dublin so my mom could buy some groceries for the following week. 99 Ranch is an Asian supermarket brand, mostly selling Chinese goods. It’s basically a cleaner version of Chinatown.

Then we went to one of my favorite stores, Costco Wholesale. I was on the hunt for blueberries and bagel chips. The blueberries for me and the bagel chips for Siew Woon, my boss in Singapore (she says she loves those things). I found the blueberries but unfortunately not the bagel chips, instead I picked up the next best thing, Stacy’s Pita Chips. The pita chips are great by themselves or eaten with dip.

We went home afterwards and I played with my parents’ dog Happy. I was trying out some settings on my dad’s Nikon D80 DSLR with speed shots. Happy loves to run around and around plus also fetch things. One of my favorite commercials is this Petco one where they feature one of their toys called the Loofa dog. It’s basically a “sausage” dog with a squeaker inside. I bought one for Happy and she seems to like it.

Some photos of her:

We went out to dinner at Koi Garden as a family. My dad ordered some special things for dinner.

They have this yummy snack to tide you over until dinner. I believe they’re candied peanuts and fish. May sound a bit gross but once you start eating them, it’s hard to stop.

I tried a Chinese restaurant Melon Ball which was actually quite good.

My parents say they make a great fish maw (stomach) dish with mustard greens. If you’ve not had fish maw, it has a sort of squishy texture but also a bit elastic. I’m not sure if I know how to appreciate it quite yet.

We also had some Alaskan king crab cooked two ways, stir fried and a bit breaded plus also garlic with noodles. My parents love to eat the fats inside the main shell… and so do I!

For dessert, my dad ordered ahead the coconut filled with bird’s nest. Supposed to be very healthy for you and tastes quite good as well. The coconut meat can also be scooped out which was yummy.

This is my family with my brother Tim on the right with his girlfriend.

This is also my family, my two kitties. Yes I know they’re big but it’s mostly fur I swear!

Target and Thyme to Eat

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Today was a bit of a lazy day for me. I still can’t quite get over the jet lag but I guess it’s okay because I’ll be going back to Singapore in a few days so can readjust more quickly. I slept in until 9:30, showered, then went back to sleep from 11 until 2. After I woke up, I played with the cats and dogs before heading out to my favorite store of all-time: TARGET. I can’t really tell you why I love Target but it’s probably because it has so many things and the store is very organized so it’s easy to shop for things you need and want plus things you don’t necessarily need. You could spend hours just wandering up and down the aisles seeing that they are selling.

I had a good 2 hours there stocking up on things to bring back to Singapore with me.

Then I went out to dinner with my high school friend Jerry. Actually, in high school we weren’t really friends, I think we terrorized each other along with our best friends. It’s funny to think how childish we were back then and how terrible we all were to each other… yet as adults, we forgive all those things and just laugh and remember high school as being such a great and fun time in ourlives. Whereas, during high school, we were probably under a lot of stress and were upset a lot about why there are people who bully you. It’s very interesting.

Anyways, we went to eat at this place called Thyme to Eat. The food was pretty good and so was the sangria. Unfortunately they are closing their dinner service at the end of the week and will only continue serving lunch in their restaurant. I think their primary business is catering so if you need catering, check out their website for a mneu.

As an appetizer, we had the proscuitto fruit platter which was light but very yummy. I haven’t had cantaloupe for a while so that was delicious. I think I still like cantaloupe better than the rock melon in Singapore (both orange colored melons).

I had the layered beef enchiladas. It’s layered to look like a lasagna and is served with vegetables and rice. It was really delicious but I couldn’t finish it all because I also tried a bit of Jerry’s Hawaiian skewers. It’s a teriyaki like sauce and the skewers have chicken, shrimp, pineapples, and red bell peppers. I really like the grilled pineapple and bell peppers. In the picture below, you’ll see the skewer deconstructed on the right hand side of the plate.

Boy am I atuffed. We had Baskin Robbins afterwards too.

Only 2 more days!!

But gotta sleep.. actually tired for once… must be the food and sangria…

Santa Clara and Pacific Catch

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Today I got to meet Natalie for the first time. She was born in December so since we were on the other side of the world, I hadn’t had the chance to meet her yet. She’s the daughter of my ex-boss when I was a chemistry intern. She cried the first time I held her but got better after some time.

This is the year of babies and engagements. These things seriously come in waves, I know at least 3 engagements and 6 pregnancies in the past year. The year we got married, I think we attended at least 7 weddings! But it’s good, I enjoy celebrating these happy occasions with friends.

After meeting Natalie, we went out to lunch at BJ’s in Cupertino. It’s right near one of the Apple campuses so it was a bit busy so we decided to sit outside since there was no wait.

We had the chicken potstickers, on a nicely decorated plate.. it looks a bit nicer than it tastes. I’m not sure what the carrots are there for besides garnish, they didn’t go well with the dish.

I had this huge chili angus burger. It’s basically an open face hamburger with tons of chil and cheese. It’s served with potato wedge fries and onion rings. It was way too much for me to eat so I only had about 2/3 and left most of the bread and sides. It’s what you call comfort food.

Afterwards we went to the huge mall in Santa Clara called Valley Fair. I lived in Santa Clara for a year doing my internship but I didn’t frequent this mall as much as I thought I would. I guess I was too busy studying or working or something. The mall is huge though, it’s a bit of a maze but it’s good because it has all the essential stores that I like.

I headed up to San Francisco for dinner with my friends Vicki and Joyce. This time I was craving for something a little healthier… House of Prime Rib, Zachary’s Pizza, Fried Chicken, Chili Burger.. now it’s time for raw fish and salad, so we met up at Pacific Catch on 9th Avenue near Irving. They have a location in the Marina that I’d been to a few times and I really love their poke salad or wasabi bowl (almost the same as salad except it comes with rice). Poke is a marinated raw ahi tuna and is delicious here! Oh, it’s marinated with things like soy sauce, sesame seeds, green onions, and other things that I don’t know.

Vicki and Joyce are big on sharing so that they can sample more things, so they had the appetizer sampler, the sweet potato fries are very yummy.

Plus a side order of poke.

I had the poke salad and loved it! It was very refreshing and I love the half avocado on the top.

I kept both ladies from their significant others so we called it night after chatting a bit after dinner. They have a mochi ice cream fondue which sounded really appetizing but were a bit too full to eat more. Next time…

San Francisco

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Today I visited lovely San Francisco and shared yummy meals with my friends. It was good to catch up but I wish we could have had more time…

I went to lunch with my friends Al and Jen. Since they both work at Kaiser SF, we went to a nearby restaurant called Zazang Korean Noodle. They both said their jajangmyun is good (a black bean onion pork sauce over noodles) and I wish I had listened and ordered that instead of the spicy seafood noodles. The noodles and seafood were a bit overcooked for my taste. But I tried not to waste all the expensive seafood and picked it out, leaving the noodles.

My friend Jen ordered the jajangmyun so I got to try some. It was pretty good, not to salty like it sometimes can be.

Since they both had to get to work, I went to find some way to entertain myself until my evening dinner date with my friend Tiffany. I had parked in the parking lot near Divisadero so decided to drop by my former workplace UCSF Mt. Zion Hospital and got to see a few of my friends and catch up.

I stayed a bit longer than intended and ended up paying $16 for parking! I’d forgotten how expensive SF parking can be.

I made my way to San Francisco Shopping Center since I didn’t get to visit the Sanrio store the last time I was there because it was already closed. I browsed to my heart’s content and also got myself a few things. I was tempted to buy this for my friend who is learning guitar and loves all things pink! But resisted since it was $230…

I wandered around the rest of the mall as well enjoying the familiarity of the shopping experience before heading out to meet my friend Tiff for dinner.

I wanted to go eat at San Tung Chinese Restaurant for their fabulous dried fried chicken. It’s something I only learned about in the last few years since working at UCSF. The sauce is sweet and delicious. I recommend the wings over the diced though since the diced tends to be more flour than chicken but it’s still good.

We also had the pork dumplings which were only okay for me.

The dried fried green beans is one of my favorites as well since they used the preserved vegetables to stir fry so it has this nice salty sour taste. Plus I think they use a lot of garlic.

Funny enough we also had jajang noodles but they are a bit different than the Korean one from lunch. For starters, it had fresh cucumbers, mushrooms, and seafood in it. I didn’t really like the noodles either, a bit thick. It’s sort of a Chinese version.

Here’s the dried fried chicken, diced. Look at all those yummy bite sized morsels!

I had a really nice fulfilling day…

Poor Ron is out attending his course during the days so I don’t see him at all. We may not see each other until Friday, that’s the only sad part, we’re not able to enjoy being home together.

Exploring Home and Indulging in Zachary’s Pizza

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I’m still feeling the effects of the time difference… it was really hard for me to wake up this morning even though I set an alarm to wake up by 8:30am, I didn’t get out of bed until 10:30. I just kept on hitting the snooze…

When I finally did get up and fed and played with my kitties and fed and played with the dog, it was already 1pm so a bit late to get anyone to go to lunch and I thought a bit too late to bother anyone about dinner. So I sent out a bunch of emails instead to arrange the rest of my week and dedicated today for myself.

I visited some of my favorite places:

1. Starbucks
2. Old Navy
3. Barnes & Nobles
4. Staples
5. Michael’s
6. Bed Bath & Beyond
7. Ross Dress For Less
8. Lucky (it was still Albertson’s when I left)
9. Zachary’s

But I still haven’t gotten to Target. I totally forgot since it was pretty late when I left Walnut Creek to come back to San Ramon. Oh well, no worries, I’ll get there tomorrow hopefully.

It was really nice just walking around and everything still feeling familiar. It’s really fun driving a car again although I’m getting even worse at parking, even if it’s just a regular space, I’m a poor judge of distance.

My dad got off work late tonight and since my mom is in Vegas, I brought home a Zachary’s deep dish chicken pizza for the both of us to share.

It’s pizza so you would think unhealthy but it has a lot of veggies and isn’t really greasy like most pizzas.

Before I ate, I let the dog run around, literally she ran around in circles, I think she’s part greyhound or something… then after dinner I played with the kitties. It’s so nice to have pets around again. The dog is always happy to see anyone. The kitties are warming up each day… they’ll actually approach me when I walk into their room.

Misu:

Mochi:

Also, I tried an interesting “health” drink I guess you’d call it. I went to Lucky to buy my Odwalla Protein Vanilla Soy drink but my parents have this drink called Mona-Vie. It’s a proprietary blend of the acai berry. I had an acai latte when I was in Shanghai and found it to not have much of a taste because I think it was masked by the soy milk. This Mona-Vie drink is mixed with lots of other fruits as well so I still don’t think I know what the acai berry tastes like. The drink is really thick too and has to be shaken really well to evenly disperse the sediment. My dad says it’s $55 per bottle! They sell it at their retail pharmacies so that’s why they have a few bottles at home.

I Googled some testimonials on it and people seem to think it a sort of miracle drink. If it gets rid of my jetlag, maybe I’ll start believe it. Will keep you posted.

Should try to get some beauty sleep now… these dark circles underneath my eyes are not attractive…