Beautiful Sunday =)

Parents visited today so another super busy day! They dropped off some foods and then we headed to Sushi of Gari on the west side (the only location open for lunch on a Sunday). It was winter nice outside, i.e. 50 and not windy, so did a long walk from 90th to 77th via a farmer's market, and got to sushi sufficiently hungry. Apparently this place does simple stuff but extraordinary style? Who knows - it was fantastic. Everything melted in my mouth and was awesome =)

Also got two platters of the smaller versions of his omakase which featured the most interested sushi ever...things like salmon with tomato or fried lotus root or seared toro or mackarel or a massive fried oyster on top of something else. Regardless, it was beautiful and delicious and I seriously can't wait to go back.

After sushi, went walking through a flea market briefly and then I spotted a Wafels & Dinges cart! Woo success =) Got a soft wafel with nutella, speculoos, strawberries, and whipped cream. Split with mom and it was awesome.

Walked it off down to 53rd for the MoMA, listened to some music at Stardust, then they headed back to BR. I ran to the gym for a hot second, then pretended to eat healthy (bok choy and mushrooms) then off to Deepa's for Oscar's - red carpet etc (where I actually thought Anne was great even if James was an idiot...) and pie =) Awesome weekend.

Cajun Style

Crazy Saturday! Woke up, went to the gym, came home showered tried and failed on a phone call and headed to a LONG overdue mani/pedi with Kat...got this gorgeous metallic pink color and it was all $30 =) happy indeed. Went home, changed, and headed to the UWS for a dinner party...and walked through Columbia for the first time ever! Man, all those wood paneled pool rooms made me miss school a bunch...

Anyway, Shannon was cooking up a storm of Louisiana food. And when it was served it looked so fantastic but you'll just have to trust me because we pounced on that food ridiculously fast and finished it like starving college kids so, well, no evidence of any sort.

Feast = jambalaya!! with Andouille sausage and chicken!! and yummy cornbread and salad (to feel not as bad) and tons of beer - someone brought some UFO which was delicious. Seriously...this new beer loving me is totally catching me off guard. But excellent times, so much funniness! Definitely one of those nights where like, I wish the whole thing had been recorded or transcribed because we are just a hilarious bunch of people...best compliment (I hope) from Shannon's friend: "man...I totally get you so much better now. You guys all have the exact same sense of humor." And by that he obv meant witty and brilliant!

SCOTCH EGGS OMG

So senior year at Chicago, Alex's lovely parents came to visit for his concert in downtown Chicago where we got to hear his lovely voice. Anyway all the girls (obv) were there (obv) and we all went for dinner afterward at some place on Michigan Ave across from the Art Institute with a maroon awning but who knows the name. Ordered a bunch of delicious food I'm sure, but I remember Alex's dad was like, let's try this Scotch egg business and we ordered a bunch for the table and they were amazingness omg. Scotch egg = heart attack aka boiled egg surrounded in sausage surrounded in bread crumbs surrounded in deep-fried delicious. So I've been randomly craving these, Googled best Scotch eggs in the city and found recommendations for Wilfie & Nell in the West Village. And man, great decision.

Took us weeks of cancellations and other nonsense to finally all get together but went on Friday. Delicious beers - Ommegang White and Tetley's Cream Ale were both fantastic (who EVER thought that I'd think any beer was delicious??) and the Scotch egg = perfection. Unfortunately super tired from long week so made it a pre-1am night, but went home and slept an amazing beer-and-fried-goodness-induced sleep. Success =)

Chinese groceries = happiness

So this is my attempt at that delicious dish I had in Boston...boiled some rice noodles and stir fried until chewy, added in watercress but kept crispy, and topped with a nice runny egg and sriracha sauce. Mix it all together for awesomeness =) and so EASY.

I proceeded to eat this like, 4 times over the next week...mixed with watercress or bok choy, sometimes sesame oil or soy sauce, but ALWAYS sriracha.

The other KFC

MORE CRAZINESS AT WORK.

But I hit a stretch and did awesome kick ass work and after celebrated with awesome Korean fried chicken and fries at BonChon w Christine, Justine, Nao, and Christine's friend.

BonChon was also playing awesome music (can you tell what kind of mood I was in?) and the fooding was excellent and I def need way more Korean fried chicken in my life. Nice hump day =)

Day off =)

Love President's Day. Never heard of it until work life and I'm still not entirely sure what it's for, but it means no work so I totally support it. Woke up, went to the gym, and headed down to the Financial District with Angela to meet Christine for lunch at Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches and got myself a pork terrine sandwich. Decent, but not the best (and absolutely nothing on the Ma Peche one)...and the sriracha was obviously super necessary.

Post sandwich headed to Chinatown with Christine for some AMAZING grocery shopping at Hong Kong Supermarket. Man. I miss China like whoa. Bought all sorts of funky noodles, bok choy, watercress, sriracha, mushrooms, and other assorted random items. Love it.

After shopping, went home to drop off groceries and then met Christine and Erica at Shake Shack for (FINALLY) the salted peanut butter hot chocolate...and yes it was as ridiculous and rich as it sounds. Yummy but had to toss half of it b/c it was just ridic. Then headed to Christine's to watch Gossip Girl (finally all caught up, awesome) which was trashy as usual and for some dinner - broiled asparagus with poached egg, rice with seaweed bits, steamed veggies (tomatoes and broccoli).

Lovely no work day =)

Home Cooked Fooding

Went home for the day...got picked up in the city along with some work buddy of dad's and headed to the BR for some yummy food...ate some amazing pasta for "breakfast" and then lingered around the kitchen as the feast was prepared, snacking on garlicky shrimp:

Yes that includes fries, baked potato skins (with bacon yay), delicious medium rare steak, two pork curries, and rice with peas and bacon. Excellent eating definitely went down. Headed back to the city in the evening with bags full of food to stock the kitchen with, which is obv the best part of going home =)

However...huge train disaster on my way back to the apartment. Took NJTransit to Penn, where I normally take the E to the 6 and everything's very easy and inside. Of course, the E wasn't running, and then I got on an A which is apparently the most ridiculous express train in the world and goes from 59th street to like, 125th! Wtf. So then I had to get off and take a local down and then a bus across...ended up taking forever longer than it should have but finally got home.

END OF WEEK AND IT'S GORGEOUS OUT

OMG 60 degrees outside and of COURSE I am swamped at work and can't leave my desk for even a moment. Day ended, ran to the gym for a quick stress workout, then hop on a bus going all the way west for an open bar. Of course, there's a fire and the bus stops and I run 4 avenues (which is so frickin much) just to find a huge line and no one answering their phone...turn away to go home and mope about a hellish work week and get a "dinner?" text thank god.

So, start enjoying the gorgeousness, wandering over to meet Andrew, find sushi, and pig out. Beer, some shrimp and cold udon dish, and a spicy tuna roll yum yum.

Followed with lots of wine, m&ms, and movies - Karate Kid and Moulin Rouge. Lovely Friday =)

Lazy night in

Feeling like craaaap after a ridiculous day at work. Went from being bored out of my mind to super crazy busy and I definitely canNOT handle it...

So. Lazy night in described with lazily few words. Something alcoholic, something sweet (leftover cheesecake saving my life) and my favorite next door pizza slice ever from Little Luzzo's - potatoes and Gorgonzola cheese. Yes, it is as absolutely delicious as it sounds.

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! <3

Post-work run to the gym, and then a girly Valentine's Day with Mona and Christine and Erica (somehow the girly ones are always so much better. See...2009 late night Clueless watch haha).

First, dinner...Christine picked up a feast from Xi'an Famous Foods which was amazing. Got:

Liang pi cold skin noodles - AMAZING
Savory cumin lamb hand ripped noodles - good
Mount Qi pork hand ripped noodles - AMAZING
pork burger
cumin lamb burger

So much pigging out, so much tummy happiness.

Then, watched Valentine's Day which is actually a pretty good movie with about a gajillion actors, and ate a little of these amazing desserts (way too much on the noodle front, so couldn't even start to handle the sweet stuff sadly)

mmm my cheesecake + a legit heart shaped brownie + macarons!!! Yay sweet stuff.

CHEESECAKE

I love/hate cheesecake. I love every cheesecake I've had that was made by my mom or myself, and hate every single other cheesecake. Yes this includes you, Cheesecake Factory! Too dense, sweet, fatty, or just generally gross...

But after that veggie stew my body was like, uhm, no, make something deliciously bad for you please. So of to make cheesecake! Recipe was pretty bogus...I bought cream cheese and a pre-made crust that was too big (or I needed two cream cheese packets), but scrounged enough stuff together from the fridge for success, namely whipping cream to add fluff. Generally followed this recipe, but after it was cooked it was looking sad:

And you can see there was like a whole inch of exposed crust! So what to do? Googled around some chocolate confections and found this great recipe for a homemade chocolate "custard" which turned out to be more of an amazing ganache =)

Ended up looking gorgeous (if I do say so myself), and I'm psyched to dig into this tomorrow night!

Veggie stew

I've recently become obsessed with tofu (this will last for approximately 5 days...no worries), and decided to make a super vegetarian curry stew thing for the week:

okra (so pretty!)
green peppers
red peppers
onions
garlic
tofu
served over rice or quinoa

Cooked everything together in a massive pan with some curry mix, etc.

Definitely ridiculously healthy...which totally explains the next thing I started to work on as SOON as this was done...!!!

shoulda twittered

All my awesome Grammy thoughts, as they happen!
 dude are you watching the grammys

  andersoon cooper interviewed gaga during 60 minutes i dont recognize any of these people singing

  i know one is christina but she looks bad gaga so early?

  doing the song she copied from madonna

listen to express yourself

  she totally stole it

 whats wrong w her shoulders cbs ad??? "this valentine's day, test yourself for testicular cancer. why give a diamond when you can give the family jewels?" wow.  

ugh justin bieber. love usher. come back usher! is that willow smith?? is that her brother?? why wasn't willow nominated for best new artist?? will smith is such a cute dad! and jada's hair is so awesome!!  YES USHER. god. how can usher be so good. those dance moves. omg.omgomg.  and bieber is back. sigh. sweet move though. oh and his voice is so high! so sad.  who is this miranda lambert character? kind of awkward that her fiance made that speech about her and then she didn't thank him when she won...  well duh gaga. also. wtf are you wearing? and JOHN MAYER LOOKS TERRIBLE. and will smith! happiest human being in the entire world!!!  whitney houston? pre crack or post crack?? 
justin bieber looks so confused. hairpiece, what is that? usher gives him a little shoulder squeeze.
wow bob dylan doesn't need 50 back up singers and all those banjos...  is J-Lo back? does she have a song or something? she's everywhere! looking great though.  hmm lady antebellum is good. nice voices. guy is cute.  omg. what is that thing???? CEE LO GREEN WINS ON COSTUMES. wtf gaga, way to fail.  omg. i'm going to be a disco muppet for halloween. and gwyneth is so good! wow.  yessss nph. yay.   katy perry! i'll admit i like that skirt. and that eyeshadow.   OMG nicole kidman! so much happiness! so much emotion! that was adorable.
oh john mayer. wtf happened. why do you have a pedi-stache? what happened to your cute days???
seth rogen hilarious! oh miley. hah
rihanna great dress! and i just realized jbieber is definitely wearing a white suit b/c usher told him to...original rocker of the white suit. wooo eminem. great come back. i'm waiting for a chrysler to pull out on stage.   i wanted drake! but ok esperanza you played at the white house so fine. interesting. awesome wiki update re beating bieber. also she's gorgeous!  omg mick jagger! complete opposite of bob dylan. best jacket ever. also that solomon burke song sounded so fun. and will smith and nicole kidman continue to be super happy and awesome.  ok i want to see a mick jagger usher dance off. bieber did not bring it.
best twitter feed at http://twitter.com/tannenbaumr. best tweet from him "ke$ha: this is mick jagger? i take it all back"  will.i.am is wearing...fergie's outfit.
dang. rihanna is hot. but this performance w drake is super awk. and somewhere chris brown is getting super pissed. why is she wearing this strange ass outfit?

how did this happen? j-lo is just so gorgeous, and marc is...walking death. what a creepo.
done

OUTER BOROUGH FEAST

Been wanting to actually eat at SriPraPhai since Galen and I tried to go one snow storm day and it was closed (b/c it's closed every Wednesday and G$ didn't know! FAIL)...finally persuaded people to trek "all the way out to Queens" for the biggest pig out ever.


5 people
7 dishes
2 desserts


Fried watercress "salad" (I mean...it was fried and featured shrimp and chicken, so, my kind of salad)
BBQ pork
Soft shell crab w green mango sauce
Drunken noodles w beef
Panang curry w chicken
Spicy shrimp curry
Fried sea trout
and two servings of black sticky rice w taro in coconut milk mmmm
and tons of Thai ice tea

definitely couldn't move afterwards...

Did this matter? Nope! Went all the way to the super west side (like, me and the Hudson river), enjoyed some Chicago style waterfront wind as I rushed to the Rusty Knot to finally get pickle back shots!!! Shot of whiskey, shot of pickle juice, SO FANTASTIC. Successful pig out Saturday for sure =)

Adventures in homemade pasta

I made pasta from scratch a couple times with my common threads kids back in the Chicago days and remember it being super easy so I figured I could recreate it on my own, right, like, without 5 year old kids holding me back??

Unfortunately, I was way too hungry and way too rushed and didn't let it set enough or whatever so it remained quite...glutinous. Is that the word? Who knows, point is, some of the flour was a little not combined properly...but whatever. I'd call this a general success, plus carbs + olive oil + parmesan + white wine = guaranteed yumminess (even if not ridiculously delicious). And it looks pretty!

win for the Indian

mmm I've been wanting to go to Dhaba since Angela went and gushed about it, and tonight (a cold cold New York night, ugh winter!) was finally the time! Perfect delicious eat in bed kind of food: samosas, jasmine rice, naan, and do piaza curry with lamb (some fake British curry that involves tons and tons of peppers and onions and yum yum)

yum! And enough for delicious spicy curry rice lunch the next day. Definitely need to go home ASAP and get the parents to do some massive curry cooking for me...

and the Chinese eatin' continues...

Sunday morning breakfast before heading to the station for our bus back to the city...wanted Chinese food but of the non dim sum variety, which definitely turned out to be the right decision!

Ordered...pork soup dumplings, scrambled egg and tomatoes with beef (haven't had this since living in China and it still kind of grosses me out...but tastes good), Taiwanese rice cake with pork and greens (pretty much fat chewy round noodles of deliciousness), a huge pot of Sichuan style spicy-ass fish, and a wish-it-was-bigger platter of Chinese watercress (first time trying this and I'm totally hooked).

Perfect meal and a total reminder that I need to move back to China (especially with this pending unemployment business).

Ended the weekend at a sweet Super Bowl party (PACKERS WIN) featuring lots of chips, dips, chicken wings, brownies, etc etc etc. Can't wait to get back to the gym!

Best Potluck EVER

After a long day of listening to women talk about being women (and like, working and careers and actually relevant things like me meeting the CEO of the American Red Cross!), went home to Ting's for a Chinese New Year potluck dinner. I was originally in charge of dessert (since that's my super talent), but everything was icy, the only store nearby was 7-11, and all they had were:

marshmallows
Hershey's chocolate
some crappy cereal

and I definitely wasn't inspired by any of that, so ended up buying wine. Yes, lame. No, not my fault.

However, her friends totally pulled through. We ended up with a delicious gluttonous feast of nu ro mian w/ beef and baby bok choy, roasted duck, chicken soup rice, Chinese vegetables, these amazing pork belly bao, mmmmmmmmmmm.

Boo won't rotate...but lots of food, lots of wine, lots of happy.

Noodle success!!!

Headed to Boston this weekend w Christine for a women's thing...Chinatown bus at 6:00pm meant just enough time to duck out of work and chow down some delicious noodles!

Got to the hole in the wall (except not really) Sheng Wang for some beef peeled noodles (thicker, chewier, more delicious) and some fish balls for approximately $5...

Man I miss living in China! Doused this with Sriracha and fish sauce and soy sauce and it all made a delicious excellent broth. Perfect meal before a 5 hour bus ride =) Also, the greatest way to kick off a weekend of yummy Chinese eating!

Snow day eating

We stayed home today for a fake snow day (i.e. it was snowy outside but not so bad, but...well...being home is more fun!)

After sitting on my couch all day "working," I needed to get out, and headed to the gym for awhile, after which we headed down to get noodles at Sheng Wang after a delicious article in the Times...unfortunately, it was Chinese New Year's Eve and it was closed =(

So what to do? Well obviously...trek through the snow and ice of the LES and end up at Kat'z Deli (which has been on my list for awhile though I haven't made it until now! Food karma or something).

Hot pastrami sandwich, sour pickles, and fries:

I think the one in Boston was probably better, but this was good, and now it can be crossed off my list! Back to work tomorrow...