Archive: August, 2009

Asia Cafe

August 17th, 2009 · · Austin, new thing(s) of the week, savory 2 comments

Yesterday for dinner, Jamie and I tried out Asia Cafe. She told me she was in the mood for some Chinese greasy noodles. I remember Bing had told me about how Asia Cafe (located inside Asia Market on 183 and Spicewood Springs) has replaced his former favorite Chinese, Din Ho. So we both tried and we’re both returning. I’m already planning on taking Jennifer W. who’s visiting from Madison in October to come here as she’s my other Chinese food fanatic.

As I said, it’s located inside an Asian Market called Asia Market. (Hee.) Once you walk in the market, you just head to the back and order some yummy goodness. The lady taking our order was good about clarifying menu items. For instance, Jamie wanted to know what “Assorted Noodles” meant. It means combination lo mein. She ended up getting that and I got my usual Chinese order of Beef flat noodles. We also tried their fried dumplings which was very good. All very affordable and the portions are very generous.

It’s a nice modest set up. You place your order and you come back to the counter to pick it up when they call out your number. Utensils, water, and bowls (to facilitate family style eating) are on a self serve table behind the counter. Don’t be shy.

The food itself was pretty tasty which is is why I plan on dragging Jennifer when she comes in October. The menu is pretty expansive, can’t wait to try more dishes.

I had left my camera at home so here are some cell phone pictures to suffice.


Beef Flat Noodles


“Assorted Noodles” or Combination Lo Mein


Here’s the counter you order and pick up at. I like that the person ordering right now is throwing a deuce.

Yogurt Spot

August 17th, 2009 · · Austin, new thing(s) of the week, savory 4 comments - Tags: , ,

Yesterday for dessert, Jamie and I tried out our second new yogurt place together. She was also my try out buddy for Tomunchi. We went to The Yogurt Spot, located on 5th and Lamar. I was excited to see green tea flavor which I haven’t had since Red Mango and had my first pistachio yogurt which was tart and I prefer pistachio gelato and cupcakes. (Mmm, pistachio gelato and pistachio cupcakes!). My third flavor was my usual taro. The yogurt were pretty good and tart. I was excited to have mochi in my toppings but then ended up eating around them because they were too hard. The fruit (I had mango and strawberries) were cut extra big here which is good on their own. I had my usual chocolate chips and Fruity Pebbles.

I forgot my camera so I leave you with pictures from my cellphone.


They have a decent amount of toppings.


My yogurt cup.


Jamie’s.

Here’s my comparsion for Austin yogurt places thus far.

Swirll >> Yogurt Spot >> Tomunchi >> Yogurt Planet

That’s four yogurt places down.

Related Blog Entries:
August 11, 2009 – Yogurt Planet (Austin)
July 18, 2009 – Swirll (Austin)
April 6, 2009 – Tomunchi (Austin)
January 29, 2009 – Pistachio Gelato
April 19, 2008 – Pink Berry (NYC)
April 16, 2008 – Red Mango yogurt and Sugar Sweet Sunshine pistachio cupcake (NYC)

Fought the Break of Dawn

August 16th, 2009 · · music, the not so single life 3 comments - Tags:

So the moment I’ve been dreading (dropping off Alan at the airport and not knowing when he’ll be back) has come and gone. I cried as expected. I got home about 30 minutes ago (it’s 5am right now) and finally stopped boohooing. I have to babysit in less than 4 hours and I’m wondering if I can will myself to fall asleep. I guess the plan is for me is to keep busy. Get back to finding a new career path. Continue finding new places for good food. Read some good books. Visit BFF in Boston. (or FFB – Friend from Boston). I’ll keep busy… but I’m going to miss him terribly. I think I played this song 5 times in the last 30 minutes.

Kim is visiting this weekend from Houston. I cannot wait. She’s been a pacifier in my life since 2000 fricking 2. You can call her my binky.

Related Blog Entry:
August 14, 2009 – Just Dance

Just Dance

August 14th, 2009 · · Austin, new thing(s) of the week, still-frames, the not so single life No comments - Tags:

So Alan is leaving the country to visit his motherland in less than 2 days and promises me he’ll be back in a few months. I’ve been pretty mopey because I have that looming sense of pending doom. Saying I’m going to miss him is such an understatement. However, last night, we had a carefree night without any moping from me with his roommate from Austin and his girlfriend and his soon to be roommate in his travels. His Austin roommate is on to bigger and better things, hopefully in NYC, so they celebrated their last time hanging out in a while.


We found a nice little background for photo ops.


And inspired some strangers with our poses.


We all danced….


In fact, we danced on a glass dance floor with swimming sharks underneath.


I had a lot of fun last night.

P.S. Another new experience: I rode my first pedi cab in Austin. I’ve only had pedi cabs in my motherland.

Shooting Stars

August 12th, 2009 · · Austin, new thing(s) of the week, the not so single life No comments - Tags: ,

The Perseid Meteor Shower occured this morning. Alan and I climbed Mount Bonnell at three in the morning to catch the shower. I was pretty excited as it’s my first shower. We both laid on a ledge and stared at the quiet sky. Alan was pretty disappointed at the rate of which the meteors were showing up. He saw about five shooting stars the hour we were there and I saw three. It’s pretty crazy how easily you can miss these shooting stars at a blink of an eye. I wish they would last a little bit longer, but isn’t that how all good things go?


Alan lighting the way back down Mount Bonnell.

Yogurt Planet

August 11th, 2009 · · Austin, new thing(s) of the week, savory 5 comments - Tags: , , ,

Brandi and I tried out Yogurt Planet yesterday, located in the Triangle. So don’t even bother with the website link unless all you want is their locations (they have two). That’s literally all they have on their website. It’s .39 cents for an ounce, which is the same as Tomunchi but less than Swirll’s .43 cents. Their toppings are much more limited than Swirll. They did not have mochi as a topping which I was sad about and I don’t remember seeing mangoes. However, I may not have been looking that hard for mangoes since my yogurt game was really off and I didn’t leave hardly any room in my cup for toppings. Overall, it was an okay experience but sub par to Tomunchi and definitely to Swirll mainly because of their lack of toppings. What I do give Yogurt Planet that the other two places didn’t have is COCONUT YOGURT! It is now my new favorite yogurt flavor beating out Taro. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen it at Swirll or Tomunchi.


Yogurt Flavors all nonfat: Coconut (DELICIOUS), Cake Batter (yuck), Chocolate (yuck), Cookies and Cream (good), Peanut Butter (yum). Toppings: Again I hardly had any room. Fruity Pebbles, chocolate chips, and strawberries.


Our yogurt cups


Yogurt Planet on the inside.

Other Blog Entries:
July 18, 2009 – Swirll (Austin)
April 6, 2009 – Tomunchi (Austin)
April 19, 2008 – Pink Berry (NYC)
April 16, 2008 – Red Mango (NYC)

doodle doodle

August 10th, 2009 · · creative play 2 comments - Tags: ,

One of my things listed in my 101 things to do in 1001 days list is to draw a picture once a month. I drew something with an artist friend of mine in June. He was trying to show a slew of us how to draw contours blinded, so the point is to not look at your paper. I drew a girlfriend of mine and wish I had the picture around to show you, I made her FUGLY when in real life she’s far from it. Friday night, I realized I forgot to draw a picture in July. So I drew two for August to make up for it….

I never really had formal training and don’t know anything about technique, materials, or proportions. I used a no. 2 pencil and crayola colored pencils.


Book Review: My Sister’s Keeper

August 7th, 2009 · · on the nightstand 7 comments

So Brandi and Jess think I may be an unemotional robot because I did not cry during Marley & Me and The Notebook. Now they can add My Sister’s Keeper to their supporting evidence. Everyone I’ve talked to about this book, the sales lady at James Avery, my former colleague, etc, have admitted to bawling like a baby while reading the book. Brandi’s mom and my colleague both said they started crying within 30 minutes in. I lasted the entire book without shedding a tear.

I just wasn’t very moved which did make me feel kind of like robot. The novel if you haven’t gathered from the movie previews, is about a girl who was conceived specifically to act as a donor to her sister with leukemia. As an adolescent, she sues her parents for medical emancipation. I used to be very interested in bioethical issues and have discussed a plethora of issues, so this particular issue wasn’t very new and pretty obvious. Emancipate her!

I didn’t really connect with ANY of her characters. It was hard to be sympathetic towards anyone except maybe the sister with leukemia but Picoult didn’t write from her perspective till the very end and that kept her at an emotional arm’s length. The parents are indifferent towards two of their three children. Anna, the sister suing her parents kind of bored me. The oldest and only son, Jesse was mildly interesting in his delinquent antics but that got old fast too. I just couldn’t really get into any of the characters. The only thing curious about the lawyer representing Anna was he had a service dog and wasn’t blind. Yawn, yawn, yawn.

This was my first Picoult novel. I’ve seen her all over the best seller’s shelves and in people’s hands in a lot of waiting rooms and gate areas in airports so I’ve been curious about her stuff. My first experience of her, I don’t know about the rest of her books but she felt like she tried too hard to make me cry. She also tried too hard to be deep that it just made me want to gag. She pounded a lot of star/astronomy analogies at her readers throughout the novel that also kind of made me throw the book at someone’s head. It was depressing, yes, but in a painful when is this going to be over kind of way and not in the oh my gosh, I hurt for all these characters kind of way. It was a LONG 460 pages. Lastly, the ending was super cheap and easy and sealed my dislike for the entire book.

Well needless to say, I don’t recommend this book and I do not have any excerpts I found noteworthy.

And there you have it.

P.S. For the record, I cried reading Kite Runner and while watching Armageddon and Hope Floats. So I’m not a complete robot.

Related Blog Entry:

May 27, 2007: Book review of Kite Runner

Austin’s First Cupcake Smackdown

August 6th, 2009 · · Austin, new thing(s) of the week, savory 3 comments - Tags: , ,

Last weekend, Jamie and I trolled Austin’s First Cupcake Smackdown at One 2 One bar on Fifth and Brazos. I don’t think the event planners predicted it to be such a success in turnout because the bar ended up being WAY too crowded and hot with cupcake vendors and the public which not only included regular old adults but kids and canines as well. Upon walking in there’s a lineup of cupcakes strutting their stuff in the cupcake cuteness contest.

Upstairs on the rooftop was where are the goodies were and where I ran into Peter Tsai, food blogger, photographer, and engineer (For serious!) who was also a judge at this event. I asked him what cupcake he recommended. He pointed at the yellow cupcake from Wicked Cakes, a cupcake and cake catering company. He likened them to HEB cupcakes which prompted me add HEB cupcakes to my next HEB grocery list. I picked the chocolate with peanut butter cream icing. I don’t usually enjoy icing as most are just too starchy, thick, and too sweet for me but the peanut butter cream was light, fluffy, and HEAVENLY. I gobbled the whole thing up icing and all. It’s too bad they don’t have a storefront I can just buy a couple of cupcakes as I wish. But definitely, if you’re having an event and want cupcakes catered, call Wicked and then invite me over.


Chocolate Cupcake with Peanut Butter Cream, their best selling

Jamie had the Margarita (taste like key lime) cupcake from Cupprimos. I had already tried Cupprimos last month with Alan so I steered clear. We didn’t want to ruin dinner later that night. We mingled a bit but then it got so unbearably crowded we just left and strolled around downtown.

Maybe next year the venue will be bigger to accommodate the crowd. I loved seeing the dogs just chilling as they wait their turn for the doggy cupcake eating contest. I leave you with a photo of a cute one I saw.

Read Peter Tsai’s blog/See his amazing pics from this event.

Kenichi

August 5th, 2009 · · Austin, Birthdays, new thing(s) of the week, savory 4 comments - Tags: , , , , ,



Last weekend, for one last night of birthday festivities, some old coworkers and Neville treated me to Kenichi, a sushi restaurant that’s been holding its own in the Warehouse District of Austin for quite some time now.

We had reservations at nine but did not get seated til 9:45. A lot of people were complaining. A few points off for that. It’s a pretty bumping place, people dressed to the nines, grabbing drinks and sushi before a night of partying, I’m sure. So our dinner party was the ONLY mixed ethnic party, which we found kind of funny as we were in an Asian restaurant. Lily and I were the only two Asians.

When we were finally seated, it took a long time for us to even get our drink orders in and then much too long to receive them. Service was pretty bad. We hardly got any attention. They forgot the energy drink Neville ordered with his vodka, and also gave Lily’s order to Neville and then charged us twice for it. Luckily, we were in good spirits and were chair dancing to the music. The music was R&B and hip hop from the nineties. Perfect for our age bracket of 25-30.

We had Spicy Edamame to start and oh my goodness that was delicious. Edamame was sauteed with Sriracha, chili oil, and Japanese spices. I don’t think I can have regular old edamame again. I ordered my usual Escolar and Unagi, and tried their Hawaiian roll. Hawaiian roll: blackened Yellowtail with pineapple, asparagus and fresno pepper, rolled in edamame paper. I’ve never had sushi with pineapple nor have I tried edamamae paper. It was pretty good. I also tried Neville’s Japanese Bagel and it’s the first sushi roll I had with strawberries! The Japanese Bagel had cream cheese in it and I can’t remember what else but the strawberries and cheese did give it a very contemporary and unique taste to it that actually works, not like the white chocolate sushi I had at Imperia.

Overall, the sushi was good if you’re in the mood for something not traditional and more experimental and trendy. I am interested in coming back for maybe happy hour. It was an alright experience, Kenichi. I was just happy to be spending some time with some of my favorite people.