other weekend eats

On Friday, we went to dinner at Spruce with some friends. When I was in high school, I used to park my car at the UCSF Laurel Heights campus, so it was kind of nostalgic walking around that area before dinner.

Anyway, onto the food...

The meal started with some gougeres. They were tasty enough but I think I've had better recently. Either that or I just like cheesier gougeres:


For appetizers, we split some charcuterie, a couple plates of sweet corn and squash ravioli, and some duck fat potatoes:



The potatoes are not pictured, but they looked like fried potatoes, and were good, but I'm not sure I could tell that they were fried in duck fat, just from eating them. The ravioli was fine but I liked the charcuterie best, especially the thin sliced meats and the rabbit pate.

For my entree I ordered the "charred Berkshire pork tenderloin, crispy pork belly, shelling beans":


Surprisingly, I liked the tenderloin better than the pork belly. The tenderloin was delicately flavorful and tender, whereas the pork belly was almost too fatty for me. The crispy skin was good, though. The beans were fine but unremarkable.

D had the "honey lacquered duck breast, cinnamon spiced foie gras, radicchio & orange":


The duck breast was yummy and all of our friends thought the foie gras was amazing (just slightly crunchy on the outside) but I still liked my pork better.

One of our friends had invited us for dessert and coffee at their loft afterwards, so we skipped having dessert at the restaurant, but did have some petit fours:


I liked the raspberry gelee much more than the coconut meringues, but others at the table preferred the coconut, so we easily polished off the plate.

Overall, I liked the decor (modern and understated) and the service (subtle but attentive). The food was fairly good and I would go back if I were in the area, but I wouldn't fight traffic on a Friday night to eat there on purpose.

On Saturday, some friends and I hosted a brunch for a couple who is expecting their second baby. We thought it would be fun to do something low-key rather than a full-blown "shower" type event. We chose the Three Degrees Restaurant, inside of the Toll House Hotel in Los Gatos.

Three Degrees has a really good weekend brunch deal; $21 for three courses (breakfast pastries, appetizer, entree, and chocolate fountain for dessert), including unlimited champagne. We chose that option for the group, but substituted the cake-cutting fee for dessert. We also booked their private dining room; they have a nice one in the back of the restaurant that can probably fit up to about 25 people.

Each person could choose one of two appetizers, the "antipasto platter" or the "seafood plank":



Both were good, but I was more impressed with the serving size of the antipasto. I'd also eaten two pastries so at this point I was starting to worry I'd be too full for dessert.

There were lots of great entree choices, including: smoked salmon bruschetta, flank steak and eggs, cajun chicken omelette, corned beef hash, breakfast tacos, and more. I myself saw the first item: "blueberry white chocolate pancakes", and stopped there. The pancakes were yummy and all but I was disappointed the white chocolate wasn't in chunks; I think they had melted it and incorporated it into the batter.

D ordered the crab benedict, and those were very good indeed, with plenty of crab meat:


Another interesting dish which several people ordered was a sampler, with quail eggs benedict, toast brioche, seared pork belly, and fried potatoes:


I thought the food was quite good and the portions were extremely generous; I took home a non-trivial amount of food, even after D had some. I think if I have occasion to be in Los Gatos on a weekend morning, I will be tempted to stop by again, especially for the $21 price.

I ordered the chocolate and raspberry cake from the nearby Icing on the Cake:


The cake itself was moist and delicious, and I liked it very much, although the frosting was on the sweet side. Afterwards we stopped by the bakery again and I bought a piece of almond poppyseed loaf (okay, slightly too almond extract-y) and a piece of banana walnut loaf (delicious!), as well as a "pecan brownie chunker" cookie (also good).

Afterwards, several of us walked around downtown Los Gatos for a few hours. We browsed some high-end home & garden shops, got some gelato at Dolce Spazio (mango raspberry sorbetto, very good), watched people at the wine festival, and I bought some chocolate from Fleur de Cocoa (which I've yet to eat, but it smells delicious).

mmm...beef

Last night I finally got to try out Memphis Minnie's BBQ. I was going to see Porgy and Bess with a friend, and she and her boyfriend are big fans of Minnie's, so we decided to get some BBQ before heading to the opera house.

Meats:
- St. Louis style smoked pork ribs: I'm a big fan of pork ribs so I ordered this as one of my two meats for my "two-way combo". They were okay, but I've had better.
- Santa Maria tri-tip steak: My other meat choice; the steak was well-flavored and tender, and I enjoyed dunking bits of it in the "stupid hot" sauce.
- Texas big beef ribs: This was my favorite; I stole at least 1.5 ribs from D's plate. I'm really not used to having beef ribs at all, and the few times I've had it, it's been less than outstanding, so I was skeptical, but the beef ribs at Minnie's are amazing. I'll be getting these next time.
- Texas beef brisket: Again, I've had some dry and tasteless briskets, so I was wary of ordering these, but I should have listened to my friends; the brisket was juicy and flavorful, and I liked it better than the tri-tip.

Sides:
- cornbread: Came with the plate, and was pretty decent; not too dry, had visible bits of corn, and was sweet but not too sweet.
- beans: I chose this as one of my sides, hoping they would be sweet Texas style baked beans, but they weren't. On the bright side there were large chunks of meat interspersed with the beans.
- mac & cheese: My other chosen side, which turned out to be pretty good but nothing to write home about.
- coleslaw: I dislike mayonnaise-y coleslaw, so I was a big fan of Minnie's "tart" coleslaw, which to me tasted most like Japanese pickled vegetables. Yum! I ate nearly half of D's coleslaw.
- fries: These turned out to be shoestring fries seasoned liberally with salt, pepper, and something red, and served in generous portions. I liked these very much (and the trend continued of me liking D's plate better than my own).

Sauces:
- a South Carolina-style mustard sauce: This was my least favorite. I'm only moderately fond of mustard, though.
- a North Carolina-style vinegar sauce: This one tasted okay but very runny and I quickly gave up on it.
- a Texas tomato-based sauce: The best of the three sauces on the table, but still not really necessary since the meats were already well seasoned.
- the aforementioned "stupid hot" sauce: I like spicy food, so even though the tri-tip didn't really need it, I ended up dunking bits of it in this sauce from time to time.

Next time I'll be ordering the beef ribs and probably the beef brisket, unless I decide to try the Memphis sweet smoked pork. I'll definitely be having fries and coleslaw on the side.

eating Asian

When I got back on Sunday after eating Peruvian for a week, I was craving Asian food. Even though it was already 9:30pm, we re-heated some 粽子 for a late dinner. They still tasted delicious.

On Monday, we tried out Korean Village, the new restaurant that took over Joy Restaurant's old location. It was so-so, probably better than the one next to Marina but not significantly so.

Yesterday night, we scrutinized our fridge, discovered we had pork chops and onions, and attempted katsu-don. It actually turned out quite well despite our lack of green onions.

I haven't decided what to eat for tonight's dinner yet, but we've already made plans to eat ramen with friends at Himawari tomorrow night.

32 hours

I just got back home yesterday night after spending a week in Peru.

The trip was really fun; the 13 of us spent two days exploring Cuzco and the Sacred Valley, and then embarked on a four day trek, hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, before returning to Cuzco by train/bus. I'll post much more later, including photos (I took over 30 GB of RAW so they're likely to take some time to process).

The travel part was horrible. We were booked on American Airlines from San Francisco to Lima via Miami, and from Lima to Cuzco and back on LAN Peru.

Things that went wrong:
- The outbound flight from Miami to Lima departed over an hour late. We were supposed to arrive at 4:10am to catch our 6:00am LAN flight, but instead arrived at 5:05am. Nevertheless, we cleared immigration and got to baggage claim by 5:15am. There, we proceeded to wait 40 minutes for our bags. Hearing several "final boarding" calls for your flight while standing in baggage claim is really frustrating. We ended up taking the 7:20am to Cuzco, and barely got there in time for our 10am morning meeting with our Inca Trail tour company.
- Because we had missed the 6:00am flight on the outbound journey, when we got to the airport to take our return flight, LAN said our reservation had been cancelled, even though we had specifically asked the agent to check that our return reservation was still valid, when she was rebooking us on the 7:20am. After some heated discussion, the LAN agent grudgingly gave us seats on our original 4:45pm flight. D and I were seated separately, but thought nothing of it until we got on the airplane and discovered the flight was only half full. We easily reseated ourselves, as my entire row was empty. I'm pretty sure that was no accident; the agent was not very happy with us after our conversation.
- Upon arrival in Lima, the American Airlines desk was not yet open for check-in, since we had arrived nearly 5 hours before the departure time for our Miami flight. We were told it would open at 7pm. Some AA employees did show up around 7pm but they spent at least 10-15 minutes setting up, and then after they opened the line, we spent another 10-15 minutes doing security interviews. We then stood in line waiting for the actual check-in desk to open until about 7:45pm, while several of the desk agents stood around chatting. We finally checked in around 8pm and were told our flight was going to be 20-30 minutes late.
- We showed up at the gate at the revised boarding time, and were surprised to see that our flight was listed as "on time". However, no one was boarding. The gate agent said the flight was still 20-30 minutes late, but didn't explain why the departures board was wrong.
- After 20-30 minutes, we were told the plane had arrived but had "maintenance issues" and the flight was going to be an additional 45 minutes late. Then, after an hour, we were told the maintenance was going to take another 2 hours. At this point a massive throng of people approached the gate desk to try to get their connections rebooked. The guy sitting next to us checked his laptop and informed us that the same flight had been 6 hours late the day before, which did not make us feel better. The gate agents did give out some sandwiches after awhile (although they didn't have any options for our vegetarian friend), but no meal vouchers. We finally left Lima around 3:30am, instead of the originally scheduled 11:20pm. As an aside, the floor in the Lima airport is tiled with stone and very cold.
- When we arrived in Miami, we discovered we were rebooked on the 3:30pm flight to San Francisco. (Our original flight was 8:30am, but we were already 4 hours late, so we calculated it would only be a couple of extra hours of waiting; not too bad.) However, half of our group was booked on the later 7:00pm flight. After doing some research, they got themselves rebooked on the 1:45pm connecting through LAX. At this point we all expected to arrive back in San Francisco around 6 or 6:30pm, and D and I had managed to secure $10 meal vouchers for lunch, so we were moderately un-cranky. (As another aside, I am now much, much too familiar with the Manchu Wok in Miami's Concourse D, having also spent 3 hours there last year waiting for a delayed AA flight to Buenos Aires, since it closes the latest of all the restaurants in that terminal.)
- We boarded our flight at 3pm as scheduled, and I fell asleep while waiting on the runway. An hour later I woke up and we were still on the runway. Apparently we had been delayed an hour and 40 minutes because a runway at SFO was closed "due to weather". Conveniently, a thunderstorm rolled in as we were waiting on the runway, and at the time that we were cleared to takeoff, the thunder and lightening were in full force, and it was pouring cats and dogs. We waited another 25 minutes for the storm to clear, and finally took off 2.5 hours late.
- When we finally arrived in SFO, I checked the LAX route that the other group had taken. They had been delayed out of Miami (30 minutes) and delayed out of LAX (30 minutes) but had eventually landed at 6:20pm. I am not clear at all about why it was okay for them to land at 6:20pm but not okay for us to land at 6:30pm.

In the end, instead of getting home around noon on Sunday, I got home at 9:30pm, after 32 hours of travel. I think that may have been my longest travel day ever, in terms of absolute hours.

Proportionally, my worst-delayed trip involved getting stuck on a runway in Syracuse for 9 hours while flying from San Francisco to Boston via St. Louis, after having already seen the runway at Logan Airport. That particular flight (on the now-defunct TWA) also involved aborted detours to Hartford and JFK, and should have taken about 6 hours but ended up taking 17 hours in total.

Anyway, it's a really good thing the rest of the trip was gorgeous and delicious and exhilarating and otherwise awesome. Stay tuned...

mom's 粽子

Originally I wanted to plan a 端午節 party this year with friends, where we could wrap 粽子 together. We did that a couple of years ago and it was really fun. Things got busy what with trip planning and all, so that idea fell by the wayside. But, my mom made a bunch over the weekend and gave me a bag, so at least I could have fresh 粽子, even if I hadn't made them myself.

After eating some yesterday night, I have to say my mom's 粽子 are noticeably better than mine. They were very delicious. Must figure out what I'm doing wrong...

unnecessary guilt

Why does American society conspire to make women like this feel guilty? What's wrong with not thinking the world revolves around your kids, anyway?

She says, of loving her husband:
...I am far too busy worrying about what's wrong with me. Why, of all the women in the room, am I the only one who has not made the erotic transition a good mother is supposed to make? Why am I the only one incapable of placing her children at the center of her passionate universe?

Yet, her husband does not seem to feel the same guilt:
He seems entirely unperturbed by loving me like this. Loving me more than his children does not bother him. It does not make him feel like a bad father. He does not feel that loving me more than he loves them is a kind of infidelity.

It's tempting to chalk her thoughts up to one woman's worrying too much, but anecdotally, it does seem that friends and family of new parents act like the mothers should be able to think of nothing but their babies.

From the article:
Actually I remember very little of my Percocet- and Vicodin-fogged first few days of motherhood except for someone calling and squealing, "Aren't you just completely in love?" And of course I was. Just not with my baby.

Honestly, one of the things that makes me fear having children is that so many parents say that "it changes your whole outlook on life". I don't want to revel in sleep deprivation and go around saying things like "it's all worth it" and become a social hermit but not even care. If I do have kids, I hope that I can be at least as grounded as the author of this piece, and still maintain other priorities. (But, without the guilt complex.)

daytrip to Point Reyes

Since I'm leaving for Peru next weekend, I didn't want to make big plans for Memorial Day, but I did want to get out of the house, so I decided to plan a daytrip to Point Reyes.

We started out in Novato, and stopped briefly at the Rouge et Noir cheese factory and the Tomales Bay Oyster Farm before heading to lunch at Nick's Cove. There, we had local fresh oysters (the Preston Point was especially good), clam chowder with leeks and bacon, a fried oyster and pork po' boy for D, and a Camembert and salami sandwich for me.

After lunch we drove down to the Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes Station, where I discovered I liked their "Red Hawk" even better than their classic triple-cream "Mt. Tam". I also bought some delicious "Cave Aged Marisa", and a Spanish Fig Almond Cake.

From there we headed towards the Point Reyes Lighthouse. The road was a bit windy (WINE-dy) and the weather was very windy (WIN-dy), but we had a good time driving around, enjoying the views, and walking the short distance down to the lighthouse:


On the way back, I mostly enjoyed gawking at the fields of cows. In some places there weren't even any fences between the cows and the road. It was there that I realized they are very placid animals; our presence apparently did not bother them at all:


We did try walking along the Mount Vision trail for a bit but the day was too foggy to see much of anything, let alone a view, so we soon headed home, briefly detouring through Samuel P. Taylor Park, mostly for nostalgia's sake. I used to go there all the time as a kid, and I even remember specifically learning to jump rope there, when I was about five or six years old.

The rest of the weekend was pretty chill. There was a birthday dinner, a housewarming party (at which I tried Kopi Luwak coffee, which my cousins and I will probably forever call "poop coffee"), some board games (of course), and tonight we watched the Nuggets-Lakers game at a friend's house (beat LA!), but overall I feel quite well rested, for once. Time to start packing...

gardening

This year, we've actually started to grow some fruit and vegetable plants in our backyard. (I myself have done nothing to contribute to this process; I just sit around and take pictures.)

They're pretty small as of yet but still fun to watch. And, the tomato plants in particular have started to grow really fast recently.

Tomato plants:


Strawberry plant:


Watering the cucumber plants:

adventures in ice cream

A few months ago, I was chatting with a friend about our impressions of Bi-Rite's ice cream, and she suggested I try Humphrey Slocombe, since I have a penchant for weird flavors.

Last weekend before the Bay to Breakers, D and I went to the city to drop off a bag at a friend's house (since she was feeding us and letting us shower and hang out at her house after the race). It was a pretty hot day so it didn't take much to convince her and her boyfriend to join us for an ice cream run to Humphey Slocombe.

The store is located kind of on the edge of the Mission, at 24th and Harrison, which may explain why the line was not too bad. I tasted the Balsamic Caramel and the Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee, and decided I liked the latter much better than the former. D tasted Cinnamon Brittle and made a face, so we decided on White Miso Pear, Milk Chocolate Passionfruit, and the Vietnamese Coffee that I'd liked. I thought the Miso Pear was so-so (although D liked it) but liked the Milk Chocolate Passionfruit quite a bit, even though it sounds kind of disgusting. It tasted mostly like chocolate, with a tart-fruity aftertaste.

Overall I thought their flavors were more inconsistent than Bi-Rite, but more ambitious. There were several which we actively disliked (Balsamic Caramel, Cinnamon Brittle), but then there were the surprisingly good ones (Milk Chocolate Passionfruit for me, White Miso Pear for D) and the solid "regular" flavors (Vietnamese Coffee). I think I'll have to reserve judgment until I try a bunch more.

I'm most intrigued by the cheese flavors (Andante Chevre Strawberry Jam, Government Cheese) and the meat flavors (Foie Gras, Pistachio Bacon). Others that sound interesting include the Secret Breakfast (bourbon & corn flakes), Green Tea-Black Sesame, the Peanut Butter Curry, and maybe the McEvoy Olive Oil. I quite liked the Honey Lavender gelato I got from Gelato Classico a couple of weeks ago, so I'm also tempted by White Chocolate Lavender and Lychee Rose Petal. Sounds like I'll have to stop by multiple times...good thing it's the beginning of summer.

Dutch oven, check

A couple of months ago I tried to make bread using the popular No-Knead Bread recipe from the New York Times.

Two things went wrong:
- The recipe clearly states the bread should rest for "at least 12 hours, preferably about 18". Unfortunately, I interpreted this to mean that it was okay for the bread to rest longer, so I left it for over 24 hours. Of course, all the yeast died, so the second rise didn't work.
- The bread is supposed to bake in a "heavy covered pot". I put the dough in one of my trusty non-stick Calphalon pots, happily stuck it in the oven, and went upstairs to work on other stuff while it baked. It wasn't until twenty minutes later, when I smelled burning plastic, that I realized the pot had plastic handles. I cooled off the handles with cold water and continued to bake for the requisite 30 minutes. My poor pot will no longer be the same.

All things considered, the bread turned out surprisingly well. It smelled absolutely delicious when it came out, and although it was denser than it would have been had the second rise worked, it was still yummy enough that we polished off the loaf in two days.

After that episode, I became obsessed with the idea of buying a Dutch oven. I do subscribe to Alton Brown's theory of not buying single function kitchen tools, but I convinced myself that there are lots of other things that can be made in a Dutch oven, like stews, roasted meats, etc. I did my usual crazy internet research thing for several weeks and finally decided to splurge on a Le Creuset, courtesy of multiple BB&B gift cards and one of those ubiquitous 20% coupons.

Of course, now I'm going to be out of town the next three weekends, so I guess I won't be attempting to bake bread again for awhile. Maybe I'll make some when my brother comes to visit in July; I hear he's quite the cook these days.

eek!

My spinning instructor quit teaching my spin class! Apparently her schedule got too crazy, so she decided to only teach Pilates classes, at least at my gym. I'll miss her a lot; her teaching style is super upbeat but she's also great at motivating without resorting to yelling. Much sadness...

finished!

Several months ago, a friend convinced me to sign up for the 12k (7.46 mile) Bay to Breakers, even though I'd never run more than 5 miles before. Since then I've worked on longer distances, finally hitting the 7 mile mark last weekend.

On Saturday D and I stayed overnight at that friend's SoMa loft, as he lives walking distance from the starting line. We were up by 6am, met up with some other friends and got out the door around 7am, and were at the starting line dodging flying tortillas by 7:30am. This year there was a new "corral" system in place, and we were in Corral C (< 12-minute miles), the third of five corrals.

We spent some time zigzagging our way forward through the crowd in the beginning of the race, but were mostly clear of the slowest traffic by the time we hit the Hayes Street Hill. The hill was pretty tough, but on the bright side, we seemed to pass more people than passed us. There was a convenient water stop just over the top, where we grabbed a gulp or two of water before proceeding. At this point I'd lost everyone that I'd started with, except my running buddy who I'd been training with for the past couple of months; I guess we were more used to keeping track of each other.

During the fourth mile, we passed by another friend's house on the Panhandle, and were able to wave hello as she peeked through her second-story window in her pajamas. Soon afterwards, we entered Golden Gate Park. At first I thought it was a nice change, but by the fifth mile I was tired of the crappy asphalt, lack of shade, and increasingly warmer (maybe low 70s?) temperatures.

I perked up a bit after hitting the 6-mile marker; in my strange little mind there seems to be a large difference psychologically between being "only 1.x miles from done" as opposed to "over 2 miles from done". So, I was able to finish pretty strong, sprinting the last quarter mile down Ocean Beach.

Thanks to those expensive RFID tags, we were able to see our results almost immediately; I finished in 01:15:38.290, which made me 4182nd overall, 1044th among women, and 338th among women in my age division. It also calculates to 10:09 per mile, which means I almost hit my stretch goal of 10-minute miles.

Anyway, it feels good to be done, even if I am still dehydrated today, after having drunk at least eight bottles of water yesterday.

Next up, Machu Picchu via the Inca Trail. I think I'm just starting to realize that I'll be in Peru in less than two weeks! Time to hit the stairmaster and dig up all that camping gear...

Taiwanese orchids

One of my coworkers is obsessed with photographing flowers; he does a really good job even with the random shrubs between the buildings at work. So, when I was at the Taiwanese American Cultural Festival last Saturday in Union Square, and I saw a ton of gorgeous orchids from Taiwan, I decided to give it a shot, too. This is my favorite:

Vosges tasting

Last month when I was in Las Vegas, I discovered a Vosges store inside of the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace. I was pretty psyched about it since I thought they only had stores in Chicago and New York.

Anyway, the night before we left, I swung by and bought a ton of chocolate: two boxes of truffles (Italiana, Green), three bars (bacon, mushroom, goji), and one box of exotic caramels. The truffles and caramels are long gone, but I just started on the last bar today. I've written down my thoughts about all the different chocolates below.

Exotic Caramels
Crema: Argentinean dulce de leche + Costa Rican cashews + milk chocolate
Sunshine: tupelo honey + milk chocolate + bee pollen
Maple: Canadian maple sugar + maple syrup + walnuts + dark chocolate
Tarte: blood orange + Campari® + dark chocolate + hibiscus powder

I surprisingly did not like the blood orange, as it was too-caramel-y and definitely not orange-y enough. The maple syrup was pretty good, and the dulce de leche was not as sweet as I'd feared (having been to Argentina recently), but nothing stood out about them. Even the bee pollen was fairly bland. As you can tell, I was not a big fan of the caramels.

Collezione Italiana
Rooster: Taleggio cheese + organic walnuts + Tahitian vanilla bean + bittersweet dark chocolate
Sale del Mare: Sicilian sea salt caramel + milk chocolate + pine nut
Polline di Finocchio: Wild Tuscan fennel pollen + dark chocolate
Olio d'Oliva: First press extra virgin olive oil + white chocolate + dried kalamata olives
Balsamico: 12-year aged balsamic vinegar + dark chocolate + Sicilian hazelnuts

My favorite of this collection was the Sale del Mare. I'm not sure if it was the pine nut or what, but there was definitely something in addition to salt that I really liked. The Rooster was quite good as well; the cheese taste was subtle, although it got stronger towards the base. The Olio d'Oliva was fine, although I'm not so much a fan of white chocolate, but the Balsamico was too sour (the vinegar overwhelmed the chocolate) and the Polline di Finnochio was also too strong for my taste. Maybe I'm not a fan of fennel, either. Overall I thought the collection was more creative than the Aztec, and about on par with the Exotic, although that one has the edge of greater variety.

Green Collection
Ellateria: Indian green cardamom + dark chocolate + white poppy seeds
Kaffir: Thai kaffir lime + fresh coconut + dark chocolate
Kayoko: Japanese macha green tea + white chocolate + cherry blossom petals
Buddha's Leaf: Malaysian pandan leaves + dark chocolate + cocoa powder

For me, the standout in this group was the Kaffir, which also trumped all of the Italiana truffles. The dark chocolate was delicious, there was a refreshing lime aftertaste, and the coconut was not too sweet (as it sometimes is). The Ellateria and Kayoko were both yummy and well executed, but I'm a bit tired of cardamom in desserts, and again am not as fond of white chocolate. Also, the cherry blossom taste in the Kayoko was strong and fragrant, but there wasn't enough tea flavor for my taste. The Buddha's Leaf tasted fine too, but the pandan leaf flavor was pretty weak, so it mostly tasted like dark chocolate with cocoa powder. I liked this collection quite a lot; definitely more than the Italiana and the Aztec, about as much as Exotic. It's a shame it's a limited (spring-only) edition.

Mo's Bacon Bar: applewood smoked bacon + Alder wood smoked salt + deep milk chocolate, 41% cacao
Organic Enchanted Mushroom Bar: organic dark chocolate + reishi mushrooms + organic walnuts, 66% cacao
Goji Bar: goji berries + pink Himalayan salt + deep milk chocolate, 41% cacao

My favorite of the bars was the Goji Bar. The sea salt was delicious (I love salty chocolate) and the dried goji berries added wholesome sweetness and texture but weren't too chunky. The Bacon bar was also well done; the bacon bits made the bar slightly salty and crunchy but the overall taste remained surprisingly cohesive. The Enchanted Mushroom was so-so; I felt there wasn't enough mushroom flavor, and I couldn't find any walnut taste at all.

geography

Some friends and I have been researching possible restaurant venues for a party that we're planning for next month. We finally found a good candidate last week, but wanted to see it in person, so we decided to go and check it out today.

We met up in Mountain View for dinner, where the following conversation ensued:

her:	Okay, so meet you in Los Altos?
me:	It's in Los Gatos.
her:	What? Really?? ...long pause...
her:	Holy shit that's far!
me:	Yeah.

As it turns out the place was quite nice and we're likely to have the party there anyway. It took me nearly 40 minutes to drive home, though.

strategy

Overheard during an epic 4-on-4 battle, at our Starcraft LAN party on Friday night:
"We just have to hold out for another 15 minutes and <opposing player> will give up. He has RSI."

We're all good friends, really! (He did give up.)

mistaken identity

I have a pretty common name, so sometimes I find myself the victim of mistaken identity.

For instance, I have an alter ego (who apparently is not too clear on her own email address) living in lower Manhattan. Over time I've been sent her street address, some of her credit information, and her login credentials for several websites. One time I even got hate mail meant for her, from a woman in New Jersey. Apparently the "other me" was getting a bit too cozy with that girl's 19-year-old boyfriend.

There's another person with my name, who works for a company formerly located at my current office. I've gotten several letters intended for her over the years. Last week, I received her Wells Fargo RSA SecurID crypto keychain. I keep meaning to call Wells Fargo about it, but I've been too lazy to do so as of yet.

sigh

I must really be getting old when people younger than me are on their second marriages.

duh

Last week, after running three times in a six days, I started to have some back pain. I've actually had occasional issues with back pain since college, usually lasting a week or so, and with months and sometimes years between episodes. I tried stretching, resting (1-2 days), and ignoring the problem, but nothing worked until yesterday, when D suggested Salonpas. Only after he mentioned it did I remember that last time it was indeed Salonpas that cured me. Four hours later I was sitting upright, standing up normally, and carrying bags of groceries (okay, one bag). Chalk up another one for wacky Japanese remedies.

probably not the point

I went to the symphony yesterday to watch The Four Seasons, as well as a Mozart Divertimento (not a big fan) and Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings. It was an enjoyable performance, but I was most amused that the first viola snapped a hair in her bow three separate times, and every time she looked increasingly annoyed about it.

just do it

Last Thursday, instead of going to lunch with my coworkers, I went to get a haircut. It took 30 minutes, cost $40, and voila, I had chin-length hair, for the first time since 2007. Afterwards, I couldn't figure out why it'd taken me so long to finally do it.

PROS:
- I barely have to brush it in the morning. I pretty much just climb out of bed and shake my head.
- When I shower at the gym it takes maybe 30 seconds to blow dry it, even with the crappy gym hairdryers. (Maybe a whole minute.)
- My head feels lighter.
- I use a *lot* less shampoo and I don't really need conditioner anymore.
- I don't shed long hair all over, which means I no longer clog shower drains with my hair.
- At least five coworkers have complimented my haircut in the past week. When guy engineers start noticing your hair, that's a good haircut. (And, I'm not counting "Your hair wasn't like that this morning, was it?" as a compliment.)

CONS:
- All the rubber band-y hair things I'd bought from Safeway are sitting neglected in my bathroom drawer.
- I've had to switch to bigger hair clips for sports, although I pretty much only bother for basketball, since it doesn't matter so much for running.
- I can't actually think of any more, except that I'm probably going to have to cut my hair again in a couple of months, otherwise it won't stay short.

it's all been done

At lunch yesterday, we were talking about (what else?) swine flu, and someone mentioned Twelve Monkeys, a mid-90's movie about a future in which humans are nearly extinct due to a global pandemic. I liked the movie very much; it just missed my all-time top ten list. I'm not usually a fan of either Bruce Willis or Brad Pitt, but both were excellent in this particular film. I think it's worth a re-watch, maybe I'll go put it in my Netflix queue.

omg pink ponies!

Earlier today, I was much amused by an Easter egg on the espn.com website. If you typed in the Konami code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, enter), a bunch of silly graphics would appear. They took it down pretty quickly, but it's still reproducible in the Google cache.

Here's a screenshot:

centrally located

I love living mid-Peninsula. Typically, everything I want to do is at most half an hour away, so I hardly ever hesitate because of location.

On Thursday night, I had dinner with friends at Jade Palace, in Palo Alto. Time spent driving home: about 20 minutes.

On Friday night, I went to see Vienna Teng perform at Yoshi's, in Oakland. Time spent driving home: 30 minutes even.

On Saturday, I attended an event at Stanford, and then had dinner with friends at Zeyno Grill in Burlingame. Time spent driving between Stanford and Burlingame: about 30 minutes. Time spent driving home: less than 15 minutes.

On Sunday night, I went to the Kabuki to see Artemisia, a Taiwanese film in this years San Francisco International Film Festival. Time spent driving home: less than 30 minutes.

Tonight I'm going to Jardiniere for a delicious wine-paired prix fixe dinner; I loved the Tuscan-themed dinner a few weeks ago and couldn't resist this week's SF-themed menu. Once again, I expect it to take no more than 30 minutes to get home.

I'm headed to Emeryville in a couple weekends, which is going to be tougher, but I still think I'll be able to keep the drive time under 40 minutes on the way home. I guess we'll see!

eat your oats

I recently discovered steel-cut oats. I eat instant oatmeal from time to time (usually while camping or sick) and they taste okay and all, but steel-cut oats are like a whole different kind of food entirely; nuttier and with more texture. This morning, I ate some with a spoonful of brown sugar, some banana chips, and dried cranberries. Yum!

perfect storm

I just got home about an hour ago after watching the Rockets beat the Warriors in a surprisingly entertaining game. It was even meaningful, at least for the Rockets, since they were fighting to keep the third seed going into the playoffs.

The game was scheduled for 7:30pm, so we left San Mateo around 6:00pm. We got to the Hesperian exit around 6:30pm, so we thought we had plenty of time to stop at Panera for some sandwiches. We were back on our way in about 20 minutes. Then, about three exits before the Coliseum, the traffic became insanely bad. Only then did we realize that the A's were playing their home season opener, also at the Coliseum.

We finally arrived at the BART station (where we normally park) around 7:20pm, having gone 3 miles in 30 minutes, spent ten minutes looking for free parking, and decided to give up and pay for parking. When we got to the paid parking lot, we were turned back by the parking attendants; they were already full. By the time we found parking (in the surrounding semi-sketchy neighborhood) and got to our seats, it was nearly 8:00pm, and almost the end of the first quarter.

The after-game experience was pretty crazy too. The game ended quite early; just after 10pm. Unfortunately this meant that the end of the basketball game coincided with the end of the baseball game. We spent the next 45 minutes slogging through pedestrian traffic over the foot bridge and into the BART station. Luckily, once we got out of the station, things were mostly back to normal. (I was really happy not to have been one of those hordes of people standing on the platform, waiting for the BART.)

easily amused

This totally cracked me up just now. From Matt Maiocco's 49ers blog:

"At some point, perhaps on the second day of the draft (April 26), the 49ers will select a running back to complement Frank Gore. (Unless, they take a guy who is going to just walk around all day and tell Frank how great he is. In that case, they'll be getting a running back to compliment Frank.)"

Sports commentary with grammar/vocab jokes! How can you beat that?

completely logical

This exchange happened between me and my spinning instructor last week:

her:	Wearing glasses today?
me:	Yup, it's spring.

I swear it makes perfect sense to contact-lens-wearing pollen-allergy sufferers everywhere.

Nopa

A couple weeks ago I went to Nopa with some friends. I had a good time and all, but honestly, I don't understand all the fuss.

The dining room is spacious and casual, and the service is acceptable. The four of us ordered a lot of small plates (olives, calamari, flatbread, giant white beans, pork ribs) and added a London broil and a side of fries. I liked the giant white beans pretty well, mostly because they were satisfyingly filling; they were cooked with tomato, feta, oregano, and bread crumbs. The pork ribs were delicious and tender, and the flatbread (with fennel sausage, garlic, artichokes, and feta) was good too, but I was disappointed in both the calamari and the London broil. For dessert we tried the "honey skillet bread, whiskey-praline ice cream, and bacon brittle", as well as a trio of sorbets. My favorite part was the bacon brittle; it reminded me a bit of the time that we had caramelized bacon for dessert at work.

Anyway, Nopa is pretty good value for an SF restaurant, and there were a couple really good dishes, but overall I thought the food was a bit inconsistent and I wasn't wowed. I don't think I'd make a special effort to go back, especially given the difficulty of getting a reservation.

NBA night

I've been pretty of out of it this season with respect to the NBA. I think it was a combination of the Warriors sucking and the Rockets losing Tracy McGrady (although I guess that turned out pretty well) and the Lakers and Cavs, who I'm not that fond of, both being really good.

On Wednesday I was invited to go to the Warriors vs. Kings game at the last minute, so I went, and although it was a bit exhausting (overtime win, 143-141, free Big Macs) and meant nothing (both teams were eliminated from the playoffs ages ago) it was fun and it reminded me that I like watching basketball. (Well, NBA anyway. I've been patiently waiting for March Madness to be over.)

eating is easier than writing

I was recommending restaurants to a friend today and realized there were at least recent two food outings that I had failed to blog. I think when I take a lot of photos I get overwhelmed by the thought of uploading and writing about all of them, so I procrastinate so long that eventually I forget. Anyway, without further ado, here are some catch-up reviews...

Last December, I picked COI for my birthday dinner. They serve an eleven-course set menu with a few choices along the way:


The amuse was a milk and honey bubble, served on a silver spoon:


The first course was entitled "pink grapefruit" and it was a kind of sorbet, with a dab of perfume on the plate. The waiter explained we were supposed to put the perfume on our wrists so we could smell it while eating. Hmm.


Next up was a trio of tiny beets. I usually dislike beets but these ones were extremely well done and this was one of my favorite courses:


I chose a fromage tart as my next course. It was a bit disappointing; too gooey and not flavorful enough:


The other option was "oysters under glass". The "glass" part was made of yuzu, radish, and apple. I'm so-so about oysters (I refuse to eat cooked ones at all) which is why I chose the fromage tart, but this particular dish looked pretty interesting and I think I might have preferred it:


The soup course was a squash puree with asian pear, pomegranate, chili flakes, and mint. I actually don't remember this course that well except that I liked the hint of chili. It was rather a boring presentation, though, as you can see:


The next course offered a choice between an "abstraction of garden in early winter" and a crab melt. I chose crab, of course. The crab itself was good but whatever was on top of it was too gooey for my taste, and it didn't taste like cheese, either (which I think would have been an improvement):


I saw some people at the next table with the "garden" option and it certainly looked a lot more interesting than my dish, but I didn't ask them how it tasted.

Following that was an "earth and sea" dish which had tofu, mushrooms, and seaweed. It was very Japanese in flavor and I liked it pretty well but wasn't blown away:


I think by this time I was ready for some real meat, but no, my next dish was matsutake, "grilled on the plancha". I have no idea what that means. The matsutake was again, fine but not amazing:


The other option would have been abalone, with a caper berry vinaigrette. I had a bite, and decided I liked Chinese-style abalone better:


I finally got some beef at this point. The beef loin was cooked with marrow and wild mushroom. The chunk of marrow was huge, and really nicely cooked, and I liked the wild mushroom garnish very much as well. I guess it's not surprising that this was one of my favorites:


The cheese plate came with a single slice of cheese, watercress, persimmon, and walnut. The cheese itself was yummy but I guess I'm still not a big fan of persimmon. Also, at this point, I was kind of thinking that there hadn't been all that much food, and we were already on dessert, so I was a bit disappointed there wasn't more cheese:


The palate cleanser was cute and I vaguely remember liking it. It had melon, berry, and mint in it:


Then, on to dessert! This quince and huckleberry parfait doesn't look like much (especially because I failed to focus on it properly) but it was delicious. In fact, it was my favorite course of the evening:


The chocolate mesquite cake was quite good as well but I think it was a letdown after the parfait, and I wasn't fond of the accompanying squash sherbert:


My overall opinion was that there were a lot of creative ideas but the execution was a bit uneven and the amount of food, while okay for me, would have been definitely not enough for many people, even though there were eleven (!) courses. I am glad that I tried it once, just for the experience, but I don't think I'll make a special effort to go back.

On to even better things!

I'd been hearing great things about Cyrus for awhile now, but up until this year I'd been too lazy to make it all the way up to Healdsburg to try it. Big mistake.

About a month ago, I finally secured a Saturday reservation for dinner at 8pm. After running some errands in the city, we got on the road a little before 6pm. We actually arrived around 7:30pm, and normally I think I'd have enjoyed walking around Healdsburg a bit, but somehow the combination of running around all day and the long drive had made me feel sick. Luckily, D recognized my symptoms as dehydration, and after chugging a full bottle of water in about 30 seconds, I recovered in time to enjoy my long-anticipated meal.

The menu offered a five-course option and an eight-course option, and of course we chose the eight courses:


We started with an assortment of canapes, each representing one of the five tastes:


The sweet (cardamom custard) and sour (citrus & wasabi) were on the top, with the bitter (rutabaga & cranberry) and savory (mushroom & black sesame) in the middle, and the salty (pickled cucumber) at the bottom.

After the canapes came the amuse, which was kampachi with sakura shrimp and pickled veggies. I love kampachi (the waitress stopped explaining what it was when I exclaimed, "kampachi!!") and this preparation did not disappoint:


Following that was a lobster salad with avocado, mango, and heart of palm. We were told this was the chef's special, and it was very good, even with the avocado removed:


Next we had a choice between a foie gras and a gnocchi dish. I chose the gnocchi (served with brussel sprouts, parsley root, and black truffle):


The gnocchi was alright, but I actually liked some of the other things on the plate more, including (surprisingly) the brussel sprouts.

The foie gras was served flambe-ed, with pineapple and star anise-ginger broth. I was kind of proud of this photo:


I didn't eat any of this black bass (with bacon braised cabbage) but it looked good and crunchy:


Instead I skipped right to this delicious duck breast, served with ginger rice cake and maitake mushroom. The mushroom was yummy too, but the rice cake was a little dry:


Then, onto my favorite course of the evening, the Wagyu beef with burdock, lotus and oxtail umeshu consomme. The beef itself was practically rare and was really good that way:


The other alternative was a lamb dish with celery root, parsnip, and turnip. The lamb itself was disappointingly game-y. I only had a bite but it was still my least favorite dish:


On to dessert! We started with an amazingly generous cheese plate. I don't remember all the cheese but there were two sheep's milk cheeses, one roquefort, and one hard cheese, which I actually ended up liking best:


The person who came to remove our plate told us it was the cleanest cheese plate she'd ever seen. I'm sure she was exaggerating, but we did enjoy the cheese very much.

Next we had a verjus sorbet in blood orange riesling soup:


The sorbet reminded me a bit of the raspberry Zinfandel sorbet that we'd had at Alexander's, which I had also liked. The crunchy part was made with crystallized picholine olives. It was a little too weird for me.

Finally, we had a choice between a tiramisu and a layer cake. I chose the tiramisu because it came with a cappuccino "spoon" and espresso gelato:


It was good, but I ended up liking the cake better, partially because it came with basil-coconut milk gelato, and bits of passionfruit:


Of course, we had lots of mignardises, about which I remember nothing:


We were also sent home with a brownie apiece:


I thought the box was really cleverly constructed. The brownie (which I ate the very next day) turned out to be somewhat ordinary.

In the end, I liked Cyrus much more than Coi. Part of it was that the portions were better; although the bread at Cyrus was excellent, I tried not to eat too much of it because I was afraid of getting full. There was no such issue at Coi. And, although both menus were creative, I felt like at Cyrus I had fewer "hmm..." moments (really only once, with the lamb). Also, Cyrus seemed to have a stronger Asian flavor, which I enjoyed very much. In fact, given the choice, I think I'd rather revisit Cyrus than even French Laundry, especially given the price differential.

chocolate goes with everything!

I've written before about my obsession with spicy chocolates. I think it's evolved, and now I like all kinds of interestingly flavored chocolates.

Over the holidays, a family friend brought my mom a box of Vosges exotic truffles, and I quite enjoyed "Absinthe" (Chinese star anise, fennel, pastis), "Naga" (sweet Indian curry powder, coconut), and "Budapest" (sweet Hungarian paprika).

Last month, I discovered a box of Choxie chocolates (from Target) in my fridge. Although they were a bit pasty and/or waxy (perhaps due to age?), there were some interesting flavors, such as eggnog, peppermint, champagne, pecan pie, gingerbread (my favorite!), and others.

Last week at work, I got to taste test the four flavors of TCHO chocolates: nutty, fruity, citrus-y, and chocolate-y. I loved the texture and appreciated the concept, but decided that I only really liked the citrus-y one, flavor-wise.

Over the weekend, in belated honor of St. Patrick's Day, I made two Guinness chocolate cakes with cream cheese frosting. They turned out quite well, even though I ran out of superfine sugar and had to use the raw stuff I'd bought in Jamaica for the second one. I thought the Guinness gave the cakes a nice rich flavor, and it also kept them good and moist for several days. I hear there is a "Bittersweet Chocolate Irish Whisky Cake" recipe somewhere; maybe I'll try that next year.

On Sunday, I finally made it to Bi-Rite Creamery, where I was prepared to try their "Chai Spiced Milk Chocolate" ice cream, but they didn't have it that day, so I ended up eating "Salted Caramel" and "Coffee Toffee" instead. The "Salted Caramel" was less flavorful than I had envisioned, but the "Coffee Toffee" was delicious. In fact, I was even inspired to buy a bag of toffee chip cookies to go. Yum!

man vs nature

One of my coworkers organizes "Photo Fridays" every week, where we all bring our DSLRs and he teaches us stuff about photography. Most of the people who come are way better than me and have nicer cameras, but I like going anyway because it's fun.

Last Friday, another coworker arranged to have the group of us get into the nearby Computer History Museum after hours, to shoot some photos of the artifacts. It was harder than I expected; I took a bunch of photos but I wasn't all that happy with any of them.

Here are two of the "better" ones:



Then, on the way back, I took this photo while walking past a tree. I liked it best of all the photos I took that day:


Maybe I just like shooting outdoor photos best.

stupidity and stubbornness

I was pretty freaked out yesterday reading articles about Natasha Richardson's death. It sounds like she took a normal fall on a beginner slope and somehow that led to a brain injury causing death. How does that happen?

I had mixed feelings when I heard the report of her not wearing a helmet. On the one hand, I do have a ski helmet, and I wear it all the time now. On the other hand, I skied my whole life sans helmet up until two years ago. It felt weird to me to wear a helmet, and I generally can tell when I'm going to fall, so I've yet to hit my head falling while skiing, knock on wood. (Snowboarding is a completely different story; I quit snowboarding after a particularly bad fall involving head-to-slope impact.)

I was stupidly stubborn on the helmet issue until I got demolished by an out-of-control boarder one day while standing completely still. At that point I realized that even if I knew what I was doing, it was entirely possible for me to get screwed by someone else who didn't. Two weeks later I was at Sports Basement looking for end-of-season sales on helmets.

I still don't wear a helmet when I use the public bikes around campus at work. I think I'm too lazy to hunt down a helmet and then wear it, for just a few minutes of riding. Maybe that's stupid too. Bleah.

a very Japanese week

On Tuesday, I headed up to Japantown after work. Amazingly, I was eating dinner at Kushi Tsuru by 7:30pm (maybe the bad economy is finally affecting traffic?). I topped off my yummy katsu-don with dessert at Sophie's Crepes: half of a "Japanese" crepe (red bean w/ green tea gelato) and half of a scoop of black sesame gelato. I finished in plenty of time to get into line at the Kabuki for the 9pm showing of Gururi no koto (aka "All Around Us"), one of the films from this year's Asian American Film Festival.

Yesterday on my way home, I stopped at Nijiya to pick up groceries for dinner. In addition to the items on my list, I also bought frozen edamame (product of Japan), potato "croquettes", and Japanese salad dressing. For dinner with friends, I made udon with sliced beef, nappa, shiitake mushroom, and kamaboko (fish cake), and heated some ready-made taiyaki for dessert.

If only Japan weren't so expensive, I think I'd go more often. Sigh.

actually enjoying moguls

I learned to ski when I was about ten years old. By high school I was fine with all blue runs and the occasional black run. After college (when I didn't ski much) I became comfortable with flat black runs and the occasional double black, but I still did horribly with moguls and with ungroomed powder.

I don't know what happened, but last weekend at Northstar, it was like a switch flipped, and I all of a sudden decided that mogul runs were fun. A friend of mine had rented a ski-in ski-out condo for a few weeks (so awesome!) and a bunch of us were crashing with him for the weekend. One person (who had noticeably better technique than me) would often suggest mogul runs, while another (not quite as good technique-wise but with no fear whatsoever) would always agree to them. Somehow this setup was conducive to me agreeing to try several light mogul runs. The Rapids (down the lift line on Backside) proved to be too long for me, and I cut out to Lower Burnout, but I quite enjoyed Jiboom and the bumpier parts of the Plunge. In fact, it was me who suggested a repeat of Jiboom as the last run of the day on Sunday afternoon. Fun!

new best time!

I ran today's St. Patrick's Day Fun Run in 27:20. I was really impressed with myself at first, because the run was advertised as 3.5 miles long, which would have meant sub-8-minute miles. Unfortunately, after talking to some coworkers with foot pods, we concluded the run was actually only about 3.2 miles. Ah well, even 8:54 per mile is a new personal best for me (for distances over 2 miles).

congrats!

I heard yesterday that MIT professor Barbara Liskov won a Turing Award. Professor Liskov supervised my first undergraduate research project at MIT, the summer after my freshman year. I was totally clueless and probably useless but she was quietly encouraging and gave me a chance, and eventually I got some small amount of work done (maybe). Anyway, it was nice to hear the news.

Sunday brunch at home

Last weekend some friends came over for lunch on Sunday. I decided it had been too long since I'd had proper breakfast/brunch food, so I made some:


On the menu:
- garlic & black pepper ham
- sourdough French toast
- Jamaican festivals (not visible, made from the mix I bought in Jamaica last year)
- home fried potatoes w/ basil
- veggie scramble w/ mushrooms, peppers, onions, and tomatoes
- fresh berries

new old sweater

I was at City Hall yesterday getting some forms. The guy behind me overheard me telling the clerk my street address.

guy:	I live right next to you! I live on <nearby street>.
me:	Wow. Actually I have some friends that live even closer to you, on <another street>.
guy:	Cool. So, do your kids go to Fox Elementary?
me:	(inwardly) WTF!!!
me:	(outwardly, smiling politely) No, no kids.

I went home and decided it must have been my new Old Navy sweater making me look old, that made him ask that:


I'm now calling it my "old" sweater. (When I say this, the emphasis is totally different from when I say "old sweater".)

sufficient postage?

I just mailed a large envelope with 82 sheets of paper in it, to my CPA.

I didn't want to have to drive to the post office, and I don't have access to a letter scale in my building, so I looked online and found estimates ranging from 5.5 to 6.0 sheets of printer paper per ounce.

I then went to the USPS website and found that they charge 17 cents per ounce after the first ounce. 82 / 5.5 = 14.9 ounces, so rounding up to 15 ounces, that would seem to imply needing $3.21 worth of postage.

I looked up the current price of first class postage (turns out it's 42 cents) and calculated that I would need 8 stamps x 42 cents = $3.36 to exceed $3.21. I had exactly 8 stamps in my wallet. If only things always worked out so well!

Now I'm just hoping that all those estimates and calculations were at least good enough to get my letter to its destination. I guess we'll see!

the weekend, in short

(I spent the weekend visiting family in Houston and Galveston.)

Things that sucked:
- visiting a not-yet-repaired Hurricane Ike-damaged home and discovering a break-in
- encountering a flat tire due to demolition debris
- accidentally breaking IE while installing a Windows Update on someone else's computer
- landing at SFO in rain that was blowing sideways

Things that didn't suck:
- filing a police report for said break-in with a really sympathetic cop
- helping to celebrate a 61st birthday with food, friends, family, and ice cream cake
- hearing about $130,000 worth of poker winnings
- eating surprisingly delicious homemade gua bao
- teaching people to use Firefox and Chrome (albeit out of necessity, due to broken IE)
- catching up with a happily expecting couple over cheap and yummy Tex-Mex