Category Archives: Asian

Happy 10 Months

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Day 306 = January 2, 2011

Simon is 10 months old today… WOW, how time flies!

Letting Simon explore his snack cup. He’s not sure what to make of it. He doesn’t seem to like the parts that keep the snacks inside the cup. He kind of pulls his hands away once it closes onto his hand. Maybe he just doesn’t like the particular snacks inside… we’ll have to put something more enticing inside.

Simon seems to like dim sum or any meat wrapped in noodle. Last week he had wontons and yesterday he had some siu mai. Today for breakfast I heated up some chicken cilantro wontons (from TJ’s) and he seemed to like them. When he really likes something, he will pick it up with his own hands rather than waiting for you to feed him.

Simon got a bit distracted by our cat Mochi. He’s been more interested in them now as they walk by the dining table and is curious about the sounds they make.

Misu enjoying being groomed by Mochi.

We went out to lunch to Koi Garden with my family in San Ramon. Our special dish of the afternoon, fresh lobster dumplings!

Simon Claus came out for one more encore.

ET phone home!

After lunch, we went to hang out at my parents’ house and check out their new 3D TV. We watched Despicable Me and it was pretty cool albeit a bit disorienting for the first few minutes. The glasses aren’t very comfortable though so I guess that’s why 3D movies aren’t generally very long plus the glasses use batteries which I wonder how long do they last. But a neat experience nonetheless.

Simon with grandma and grandpa Tam.

Simon needed a nap before going out to dinner and he fussed for quite a bit before finally falling asleep. Since we forgot to bring his Pooh or Zebra, he borrowed my mom’s pillow pet to keep him company during naptime.

We went to dinner at Izzy’s Steaks & Chops nearby. The restaurant lighting was dim and there was a low drone so Simon did not enjoy it inside at all. We probably woke him prematurely from his nap too so he probably was still tired. We basically had to take turns carrying Simon around the front of the restaurant since he wouldn’t let us sit down at the table and he didn’t want to sit down himself. He can be pretty fussy sometimes. But we tried to enjoy our dinner.

Wine selection for the evening.

Calamari appetizer. Nice and crisp and good dipping sauces, something was spicy (and good) and I couldn’t figure out if it was the calamari itself or the sauces.

Their entrees are served with 2 sides of your choice. This is my mom’s prime rib with sweet potato and their creamed spinach.

My entree of the special cut of the day: Cowboy cut with sweet potato and creamed spinach. It has a nice grill, very juicy, still tender, and seasoned well.

The place had the best rolls, served warm and super soft. They are baked in muffin tins so are soft inside and have that more toasty outside. It also comes apart in three pieces so perfect for buttering. Except for Simon not enjoying the atmosphere, the steaks were excellent and so was the bread. It was overall a pretty quite night as there weren’t many other diners but maybe it’s busier when they have live music.

Little Simon, Happy 10 Months!

Sucking up noodles

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Day 247

Simon likes Edison, his Alphabet Pal toy, not for learning the ABCs but playing with the wheels underneath. Oh well, he’s too young to recite his ABCs just yet so at least he is learning to use his fingers to manipulate things.

Simon can eat about one-quarter to one-half of a medium sized avocado and this is along with some other things like yogurt, fish, snacks, etc. He just really loves avocado. Can you feed your baby too much avocado?

We went to dinner with our friend Susan at San Tung Restaurant. She ordered a noodle dish and lucky for Simon she did, so that he could try having some noodles.

He sucked it right up and seemed to enjoy it.

At first I was just placing the entire piece into his mouth then thought I’d see if he could suck it in. I was so excited when he actually was able to suck it into his mouth… little milestones like these make me happy.

I can only hope this will lead to Simon eating other things besides avocado. We tried pasta a while back but he didn’t seem to like it since it was still too tough for him. We probably just have to boil the heck out of it to make it super soft. Or else try some softer Asian style noodles like egg noodles or something. It’s always exciting to find other things that Simon will eat since he’s turning out to be a bit of a picky eater. He’ll try most things but then reject it instantly if he’s not in the mood. But we try to reintroduce them later and sometimes he’ll be in the mood. This happened with spinach, he hated it the first time around but ate the entire portion the next time. Sometimes he likes bananas and sometimes he doesn’t. The one thing he hardly ever refuses though is avocado. I wonder what it is about avocado that he likes?

Halloween Tiger

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Day 243

Simon and I went to the mall today to check out if there were any stores giving away things for Halloween. He seemed unsure of his outfit…

There were a few stores giving away candy and Janie & Jack was giving away stickers but that’s about it. I remember when I was little, we went to Serramonte and did trick or treating and Sanrio used to give away stickers, pencils, and gum. I miss those days. But, Sanrio did have something cool, make your own case (for iPhone, Blackberry, etc). I’m not exactly sure how it works but it’s pretty cool to make something personalized.

When we got back home, Simon was a little happier as we headed to see Grandma and Grandpa Tam.

He was a tired little Tiger though after our outing so fell asleep in the car.

But he was excited to show off his walking skills to grandma.

We had dinner at Old Town Cafe in Dublin.

Simon was entertained at dinner with this new toy from grandma and we were also feeding him his favorite food: avocado.

We called ahead to the restaurant and brought our own crab so that they could make it Singaporean chili style. It was good but not exactly like I remember it. We had to ask it for it less spicy since my mom didn’t want to have it too spicy so that may be part of it but the recipe that I have for the chili crab also includes eggs to make a sauce for the fried buns that go along with it (to see what I mean, check out Mellben Seafood in Singapore!)

I think that Simon may be a little bit backed up or he doesn’t know when to stop eating… but does not seem uncomfortable. Part of this photo is the angle but you can see that his belly is really sticking out.

No real trick or treating for Simon’s first Halloween but hopefully next year when he can walk around by himself and carry his own treat bag.

Lunch at Red Bowl Noodles

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Day 242

This morning we took Simon to Gymboree for his second free class then we signed him up for weekly classes using a Groupon that I bought a while back. This time he didn’t have as much fun (at least not much laughing) but seemed to enjoy being free to crawl around on his hands and knees. Here he is playing ball with Ron.

After Gymboree, we had lunch at a place called Red Bowl Noodles (formerly TK Noodle). This is the beef stew rice stick. Lots of meat and lots of noodles. Yummy yum.

Ron’s combo noodles with won tons, beef balls, and various other things.

The fried egg rolls. Had a bit too much dough so kind of chewy instead of crispy. Insides were piping hot and the outer layer was very crispy.

Simon has been playing with his spoons but as you can see, he hasn’t figured out which way is the correct one to put in his mouth yet.

We spent the rest of the day at home cleaning up after ourselves. We haven’t really organized ourselves since Simon was born so our place needed a thorough cleaning. We thought it best to do it today since we finally had a free day and was tired from being away two weekends in a row. Simon seemed happy about it as he played about with his toys. He loves standing now and it’s so much easier on us since he can get himself into the standing position without our help. Although he has tipped over and knocked his head but recovers fast.

Kauai Day Two

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Day 230

After our long day of flying yesterday, we decided to take it easy today and stay around our hotel and check out the pool. Simon was up early this morning though since he still thinks we’re in California. He actually got up several times this morning and didn’t want to go back to sleep even though it was still dark. It will be hard the next few days while he readjusts (IF he readjusts).

Peacefully sleeping…

Then wide eyed and awake at 4:45am HST (7:45am PST)…

He eventually went back to sleep after 1.5 hours so I could go back to sleep then woke up wanting to eat so I fed him some breakfast of his favorite prunes and a bit of pureed banana. He will eat purees if you intermingle spoonfuls with his favorite puff snacks.

After breakfast, Simon had a change of clothes and had some quiet time to play in his crib. He seems to like this crib as he has discovered how to stand up!

Here he is in action going from sitting to standing by using the crib rails.

Kind of like in jail.

Ron and I needed to get breakfast ourselves so we walked around the back of the hotel then across the street to Market Street Diner. Along the way, we checked out the weather forecast.

I had spam with 2 eggs sunny side up, wheat toast, and hash. Standard fare.

Ron had the loco moco with 2 eggs over easy. The beef was a little over charred and the gravy lacked flavor.

On our walk back, Simon konked out and napped for a bit in his stroller. I had a nap too.

After he woke up, he and Ron had a conversation which Simon found really funny. Maybe he thought daddy was silly trying to speak baby language.

While Simon waited for us to decide what to do for lunch, he had a snack. He had his first cookie.

And made a big mess of himself so that he needed a change of clothes afterwards…

So instead, we decided we should just go to the pool and splash around. We started in the 0.5 ft pool to get him used to the water then Ron blew up his inflatable toy to let him float around in the big pool.

He didn’t like the inflatable toy much so instead we held him for a bit and let him splash around.

But then he got fussy and started to rub his eyes so we assumed he wanted to go back and take another nap. After a shower and change of clothes, he was wide awake again wanting to play. Ron put him “in jail” for a bit so that we could decide what we wanted to do.

We decided to go out to have lunch ourselves so walked to our car. There was a beautiful hibiscus plant right near our car.

As we drove to Pho Kauai, of course Simon decides to finally take a nap.

Ron had the pho.

I had an avocado shake with pearls. Although I’m pretty sure this is powder avocado flavoring, lots of ice and milky flavor instead of rich creamy avocado. Pearls weren’t bad though.

Plus the vermicelli with grilled pork and egg rolls. Best part were the egg rolls.

After lunch, we did a bit of driving which included driving through the famous Eucalyptus Tree Tunnel.

We just did a bit of walking around before heading back to our hotel. In the next few days, I hope we can hit a farmers’ market for some fresh fruits as we passed by a papaya tree that I wished had ripe fruits..

We didn’t really know what to do for dinner so asked a local and she recommended take-out from Garden Island Barbeque and Chinese Restaurant. We were intrigued by the name but the food ended up not being very good. We had the lemon chicken with teri beef combo and the crispy chicken.

It was “meh”, edible but probably not a place we would eat again. At least we still have another 5 day to find some better grub.