Tasty Garden (Alhambra)
My friend Sara came to visit a couple weeks ago (for her friend’s wedding, I believe), and I headed over to her friends’ place to have lunch. Her friends Cathy and Janie took us to Alhambra to eat at a restaurant called Tasty Garden. It was quite tasty. The above dish was sauteed fish and vegetables. I don’t recall the actual name of the dish anymore, but most of the time Chinese dishes tend to be pretty descriptively named and not too whimsical.
This was shiitake mushrooms and bok choy. Savory and juicy. I enjoyed this one.
I really liked the fried tofu dish. I think they used silken tofu instead of firm, which gave it a much smoother texture. I wish I could make stuff out of silken tofu, but it’s just so darn difficult to handle that I usually just eat it straight up with soy sauce. Whatever works, right? As long as it’s tasty, I’m happy.
There was one other dish that we ordered that was a chow mein. It was pretty generic looking, so I decided not to take a picture of it. Sara and I also split a azuki-bean slushy drink that was great. The drink was sweet and cold and a good complement to the savory, sauce-heavy foods we were eating.
Later we returned to Cathy and Janie’s place where I found a large library of Korean dramas. Oh ho ho! I left with a bagful of Korean dramas and movies. So much for studying and getting work done . . . Hahaha!
—
~As a side note, I was in Taiwan all last week for my grandfather’s funeral (ironically, he passed away on Father’s Day). I will have pictures up from my week in Taiwan soon, along with stories of my exploration of Taipei, Pingtung, and Chungli. I promise.
<3
Filed under: Eating Out, Homemade, friends, photography, restaurant | Leave a Comment
Tags: Alhambra, chinese, fish, friends, peppers, photography, shiitake, Tasty Garden, tofu
Tartine
While studying for finals last semester, I spent most of my time in the Skyroom, which is the 24th floor of my apartment building. It has an amazing view and great furniture for studying on. I would head up as soon as it opened at 10:00 a.m., and I would stay there, swaddled in my pajamas, until it closed at 10:00 p.m. In order to preserve my sanity, my friend Sara and I would go for walks when the skyroom closed, exploring the world of San Francisco through the dark lens of nighttime. If you haven’t walked through the city at night, I highly recommend it. It’s incredibly peaceful in certain areas of the city. The raucous sounds of the city are forgotten in the muffled, muted tones of the nighttime. Just remember not to walk by yourself (it’s a city, after all, and not that safe, no matter how familiar you are with the area), and to bring a light jacket – San Francisco is not known to be the most warm city, although trekking up some of those hills will definitely warm you up!
But what does all of this walking have to do with a croissant? Ah, my friends. This is not just any croissant! This is a croissant from Tartine, an absolutely amazing bakery located in the Mission. During our nighttime excursions, Sara and I wandered deep into the Mission, and I discovered that Tartine is within walking distance of my school. Dangerous news indeed. (Disclaimer: by “within walking distance,” I still mean that it’s a good 2-3 miles away; for those of you who dislike walking – aka, the non-native-San-Franciscans – you can take the J line and get off at 18th. Tartine is at 600 Guerrero St.) So the day after my Contracts final, I decided to go to the Mission on my own and treat myself to a croissant.
A group of us had gone to Tartine a week earlier and almost all of us returned with something in the nondescript paper bag they put everything in. In my bag lay one large, incredibly flakey croissant, beckoning to me. And ever since I took one bite into that crisp, buttery crust, I fell in love.
The next time – that day after my final – I bought one for myself and one for Sara. And before I committed it to the confines of my stomach, I decided to share it with all of you. May all of you be able to enjoy and partake in such deliciousness and decadance!
Filed under: bread, desserts, photography, restaurant | 2 Comments
Tags: bakery, croissant, Food, friends, san francisco, tartine, walking
I miss SF
Now don’t get me wrong. I really like it in Irvine – and, to tell the truth, I wouldn’t be half mad if I ended up in this area after law school. But I do miss my friends in San Francisco. Hope you guys are doing well in all of your respective jobs!
However, saying that I miss SF is all fine and dandy, but I am almost 100% positive that I’m going to miss being able to hit up the supermarket every single day (if necessary) and being able to drive everywhere. There aren’t that many farmers markets here that I know of, though, which makes me sad. And driving in LA traffic . . . I thought I could handle it after driving in DC traffic . . . but I was wrong. Going from Irvine to Alhambra after work in rush hour traffic can make any sane person lose it. Thankfully I was able to relieve my frustration out on the volleyball court that night. But note to self: no more rush hour drives to Alhambra!
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Tags: irvine, photography, san francisco
[Catching up on a backlog of images - please bear with me!]
One might as, “What do people do the moment they finish up their first year of law school?” Well let me tell you.
If you’re like me, then you go out to Ross, buy 12 wine glasses for $13, and the moment finals are over, you head out with a bunch of friends and buy wine! (My friend also busted out some dessert wine she had bought in France too, a Monbazillac. Reflet d’Or. Delicious!) Then you eat! And drink! And be MERRY!
Once all the fun is over, however, people start moving out. Some return home to work in their local areas (LA, OC, SD, SJ), while others migrate a little bit farther (a bunch of people are abroad this summer). What this means for the people left behind is FREE STUFF! Oh, how amazing. I managed to get some desperately needed free shoe racks plus a new place to store food. Plus free food! Kimchi, cereal, rice, canned meat, sauces . . . etc. It was pretty snazzy.
And for once, I wasn’t the one cooking! Is that astonishing? Maybe. Usually the case is like tonight: while sitting in In-N-Out with my friend Yvonne, she declared that we needed to have a potluck party . . . in which I prepare all the food. Haha. So having someone else cook for me is quite a treat.
First treat. The night before my friend, Tommy, was to fly back down to LA, he gave me a bunch of his food. He also cooked for me! (I baked a cake, too, but I have no pictures of that).
Here’s Tommy sauteeing chicken pate and diced onion.
It’s really easy to make. You add some kimchi so it’s got a kick, and then you top it over rice.
Mm!
—————-
Dinner number 2. Sara. My walking buddy and fellow foodie-slash-cook-extraordinaire. She came over to make kimichi bokeum bap (aka, kimchi fried rice) with Tommy’s donations to my kitchen.
I won’t attempt to replicate the recipe here yet. I need to make it a couple of times on my own before I’ll trust myself to replicate the recipe accurately and deliciously.
Same with the kimchi jigae (kimchi soup) she made a couple of days later. They have similar techniques, although the bap requires cutting up the kimchi into smaller, bite-sized pieces.
We also put large chunks of Tommy’s Vietnamese canned beef. I don’t actually know what it is, but it was tasty! And that’s all that matters in the end, right?
The jigae was made for a mini-potluck with my friends Liz and Yaeri. We camped out in Liz’s room and had Korean barbecue (kalbi). 
Of course, to begin, we, as future lawyers, partook in the sacred act of . . . alcohol imbibing. Ahh…
The cold sauteed peas were absolutely delicious. I don’t know what was in them (I think Liz said she got the recipe from our friend Claire’s mom). But I definitely want to snag this recipe at some point. It was fantastic!
And I also have decided that I need to get one of these grills for my own apartment. It’s SO convenient to have your own grill! We just sat around the table and grilled the barbeque right in front of ourselves plus the mushrooms, sweet potatoes, onions, etc. It was a fabulous meal.
It was wrapped up with a chocolate mousse cake that Yaeri had bought from Schubert’s Bakery in the Inner Richmond, where we had gone earlier that morning. What more could one ask for? I didn’t get to try the cake, but the cookies were pretty darn good.
——————
That being said, I am proud to say that I have successfully completed my first year of law school! It was difficult, and my grades could possibly have been better, but I’ve had so much fun and met so many great people . . . It’s been good. Thanks for the support, guys! Until next time~~~
~Jeanne
Filed under: Homemade, desserts, friends, law school, photography | Leave a Comment
Tags: alcohol, bokeum bap, chicken, chocolate mousse cake, finals, Food, friends, Homemade, jigae, kalbi, kimchi, korean barbecue, law school, pate
Hello from Irvine, CA!
Hullo hullo, dear readers!
Apologies for the dearth of posts. I recently moved to Irvine, CA for my summer internship with Allergan, and with the craziness of packing, moving, recovering from finals, and shoddy internet at home (it still isn’t working, so I’m surreptitiously posting from work) I haven’t had a spare moment to update! I don’t want you guys to think that I’ve fallen off the face of the planet (I haven’t, I swear!), so I just wanted to pop by, send a wave and promise that there WILL be posts soon! I promise!
Because I literally moved in just yesterday to my new place from my Aunt’s place in West Covina, my kitchen is completely bare. I realized that there is no salt anywhere in my kitchen. Good for low-sodium stuff, but bad if I need to season things. So tonight I will be raiding the local H-mart or Ranch99 or whatever supermarket is close by. Time to stock up!
In the meantime, cross your fingers and hope with me that my internet situation at home will be resolved soon!
Upcoming posts:
1. Kimchi Bokeum Bap (Kimchi Fried Rice, courtesy of my friend Sara)
2. Chicken Pate Rice (courtesy of my friend Tommy)
3. Pictures galore!
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Tags: irvine, law school
Bento
It’s been so long since I’ve made any bentos, hasn’t it? But when finals started and I began to study in the Skyroom (the 24th floor of my apartment building, which has an amazing 360 view of San Francisco), it was just easier to make a brief lunch and lug it upstairs where I had my papers and books spread all over all three chairs and table surrounding the one I was sitting on. I’ll admit it – I was a slob. But when one has to study, one must do what one can to shove as much information into one’s skull as possible!
I actually ate very well during finals. That coupled with sitting on my butt poring over my books for ten hours a day for three weeks does not bode well for my body mass index. I will be going to the doctor tomorrow and I dread stepping on that scale and finding out how much I weigh. If all the posts for the next couple months are suddenly super-healthy and low-cal or low-fat, you’ll know why.
That said– I am done with my first year of law school! Time to CELEBRATE!
Further news – I am moving to Irvine, CA, for the summer to work. Wish me luck, everyone!
(PS: the bento you see to your left contains chicken curry and sauteed green peas from my local farmer’s market.)
~Jeanne
Filed under: Homemade, farmer's market, law school, photography | 1 Comment
Tags: bento, chicken curry, Food, Homemade, photography, 咖哩, 便當
Oh SNAP!
Sugar snap peas are amazing. I could eat these babies forever and a day.
Sugar Snap Pea Stir Fry
I get my sugar snap peas from my local Civic Center farmer’s market. To choose good ones, look for bright green pods with firm, unmottled skins. They should not have translucence to their skin- if they do, you’ve got the kind of peas that are great for deshelling for the peas inside, but as my recipe calls for eating the outer skin as well, those don’t do so well because they tend to be a little bit harsher in taste (not as tender).
This recipe is about as simple as you can get, so I’m including it in the list of Simple College Cooking 101 recipes!
Serves 1-2
Ingredients:
- 1/2 lb sugar snap peas (more or less to your preference, really)
- salt
- cooking oil (I use grapeseed oil)
- water
Directions:
- Break off the ends of each of the sugar snap peas. If the fibers come off the middle of the pea, that’s okay. Wash them thoroughly!
- Heat a saute pan on high and add a tbsp of cooking oil.
- Add the pods to the frying pan and let them saute for approximately one minute, flipping or stirring them slightly. The colors of the peas should become a darker shade of green. (My friend Lisa and I, being our normal, chemist-minded selves, speculate that the reason behind this is because the cells are breaking down and releasing the chlorophyll, thus releasing more of the green color and allowing us to see a darker, richer shade of green).
- Add approximately half a cup of water and salt to taste.
- Let the peas simmer for another 3 minutes.
- Serve!
It’s an extremely simple (but delicious) recipe. It’s kept me going this round of finals.
Speaking of finals, tomorrow is my last one!!!! Ah, the joys of education law and statutory goodness. I just want to crank my way through it at this point. I know I’ve been somewhat MIA the past semester, but… this summer, I promise I will have much more to post about!!
Ta-ta, my loves. See you all soon!
Filed under: Homemade, Recipes, Simple College Cooking 101, farmer's market, photography, vegetarian | Leave a Comment
Tags: farmer's market, Food, Homemade, sugar snap peas, vegetarian
A Family Dinner . . . of sorts.
My friends here in California have become my surrogate family. Being three thousand miles away from my parents and brothers has not been as difficult as it could have been, I think, mainly because I have met such an amazing group of people here. Granted, part of the reason that I have not been terribly homesick might be due to the fact that law school piles on so much work that I don’t have the time to be homesick, but I think that my ability to settle in so well in San Francisco is due to the friends that I have made here. I’ve met people from all walks of life; they support me and motivate me and keep me entertained. Together, we’ve become a family, brothers and sisters pieced together and bonding over the mutually shared trauma of law school.
Back home, my family and I would eat dinner together every day. I know that some people find it strange that we find the time to sit down together every night to eat our meals, but it really is something that I find bonds a family. And here in California, I have managed to gather together my friends every now and again for similar family-style dinners.
While I haven’t been able to have group dinners every night here (doing that would be academic suicide, I think, considering how much time these dinners take out of the day). But I love it when people gather together and enjoy food and talk and good times. So we have dinners – perhaps every month or so – and usually it is some sort of potluck, with everyone bringing a different dish. The composition of the group isn’t always the same, but it definitely is always great fun.
I promised my friend Ben that I would put a picture of him cooking. He told me, after my last post, that I need to put pictures of him cooking instead of a post without any food at all, and so I obliged. He’s cooking kalbi (Korean bbq) in the above picture.
For this dinner, I made crab rangooons (see above), and baked salmon (see below):
Ben made terikaki chicken:
And Gina brought the kalbi and made salad:
Stacey brought bread and pate, and Justin brought rice. And then we had strawberries for dessert. I love strawberries. YUM! Chris ended up joining us for the dinner too, after I saw him on my way up to my room. Good times.
I’ll post up a recipe for crab rangoons at some point. 
–
Anyway– I just wanted to also take this chance to say a huge thankyou to all my friends in San Francisco. You guys have been my motivation and inspiration and source of happiness for the past six months. I have suffered and I sometimes want to beat something up in frustration, but in the end you guys have stuck by me and made sure that I haven’t gone completely insane. Thank you. I love you guys. <3
Filed under: Homemade, friends, law school, photography | 2 Comments
Tags: chicken, crab, crab rangoons, dinner, fish, Food, friends, Homemade, kalbi, salad, salmon, teriyaki chicken
Spring Break – Washington DC
It was just too bad that we had to visit DC so early. The cherry blossoms weren’t due for another three weeks (although some, like above, were starting to bud). The weather was also extremely chilly. I think Gina had fun, though, even if we did miss the cherry blossom festival (Sakura Matsuri).
I actually don’t have any food pictures from DC– I just took Gina to my favorite spots to eat in the area – Bob’s (66) Noodles, CAVA, Marathon Deli . . . We also hit up the regular touristy spots of DC – Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, WWII, Vietnam, Korean War Memorials, Washington Monument, the White House . . . It was all fine and dandy and cold!
But I will say the most amusing part of our trip was this (just keep scrolling!):
YAY! DC is full of crazies! I love it!
I had a good time at home. And I really hope that Gina did too… Regardless, I think the trip definitely wore her out:
(Note: apologies for the lack of posts– law school has not been kind to my mind, body, or soul lately… and with finals coming up in short order, I have little time for anything other than fussing over my books and wishing I could just download everything into my brain, Matrix-style…)
So to those of you in law school: GOOD LUCK ON FINALS!
Filed under: Travel, friends, law school, photography | Leave a Comment
Tags: cherry blossom, friends, photography, sakura, spring break, Travel, upside down, vacation, walking meter, washington dc
Spring Break – Cupertino style
Ahh, spring break.
A time to get away from the daily grind of school… and instead face the grind of studying every spare moment you get. At least, that’s what I had originally planned to do. But it turns out that I found that my preferred activity was taking my stress out on giant chess pieces. Chessmen, hear my ROAR!
My brother told me that school children used to get spring break in order to stay home and help their farmer parents with planting seeds. Thankfully for me, I have no such obligations. Instead, I spent my spring break split between visiting my friend, Anne, in Cupertino (south San Francisco) and returning home (Washington DC). Yay! It was good to get away, although I definitely came back exhausted and needing Spring Break Take Two. And Take Three. And maybe Four and Five while we’re at it . . .
One more thing . . . spring break was especially sweet because I got an email a couple of days earlier from my moot court professor declaring that I had passed the ten-error-rule*! That meant I could spend my spring break freely!
*note about the ten-error-rule – we had to write a brief (see previous post here), and it had to have fewer than ten mistakes in it for us to pass the class. If we failed the ten-error-rule, then we would have to rewrite our brief over spring break. Sucks, huh? But I passed! Hurrah! Time to PARTY!
Anyway, this entry is about my Cupertino trip. The DC trip will be my next entry.
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That morning, Anne, Yvonne, and I woke up super early to catch the Express CalTrain from San Francisco to Mountain View. Super bright and early. And, of course, we literally got to the train station just in time to see the train we were trying to catch pull away. Ah well. We hopped on the next one and got to Mountain View at 10:15. Anne’s mom had a cute little persimmon hanging from her rearview mirror. None of us had eaten breakfast, so we went to an Asian supermarket (ahh, how I love those!) and ate lots of good Taiwanese breakfast food, aka 甜豆漿 (sweet soy milk), 油條燒餅 (dough fritters … in… something. I have no idea how to describe it. It’s just tasty), 韭菜盒子 (chive dumpling), 蛋餅 (egg pancake)… SO GOOD. It made me miss Taiwan terribly.
After that, we stopped by Anne’s house for a while. Then we went to Santana Row where we beat up chessmen and window shopped for things wished we could afford. Went to the mall as well. Then we got bubble tea at 天仁茗茶 (Ten Ren’s). For some reason, though, I haven’t wanted to drink bubble tea with any of the boba in a long time – not since I came back from Taiwan. I guess I got tired of it there . . .
We went back to Anne’s and chilled for a while. Yvonne took a nap, and Anne and I watched the Travel Network. There are some fascinating foods in Hong Kong . . .
Oh, Anne’s backyard has a lemon tree, an orange tree, some mandarin orange trees . . . it’s crazy! Plus the fruit is actually edible! I know it sounds strange for me to say that, but the apple tree we have in my backyard is . . . not worth spending time picking past the bruises and wormy bits for the small bit of sour flesh. Haha. C’est la vie. We have apples, and they have oranges!
And then, came dinnertime…
To those of you who know what this is, stop drooling. Mike mentioned this in his post back in December. 紅燒牛肉麵!! Beef Noodle Soup! So tasty. We went to A&J’s restaurant (半畝園) for this. Strange thing is, we have an A&J’s in Maryland as well… Weird. I didn’t know it was (sort of) a chain . . .
Yum.
After that, we went over to BJ’s to drink beer and chat it up as only girls can. We stayed a while, and then headed back to Anne’s to crash. Of course, before we did that, we had to go through her yearbooks . . . Then the next morning, Yvonne and I woke up bright and early yet again to catch the CalTrain home.
Suffice to say, it was a fun trip. Thanks, Anne, for hosting us!
Filed under: Eating Out, Travel, friends, law school, photography | 2 Comments
Tags: beef noodle soup, bubble tea, cupertino, 牛肉麵, 甜豆漿, 蛋餅, 韭菜盒子, Food, friends, spring break, 半畝園, 天仁茗茶, 油條燒餅
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