Birthday Dinner w/ Family

On Sunday my mom wanted me to come home to make me .... *drumroll* SHARK FIN SOUP. There's a little story that my mom likes to tell everyone about this soup. When I was a little girl, my mom gave me a bowl of this soup and I loved it so much I asked her for more. "Mom... can I have some more noodles". Yeah, I called them noodles not understanding how much it costs for a shark fin.

Anyway, so Justyn and I drove to my mom's house where not only did she make me shark fin soup but a cornucopia of other things she had been slaving over during the day. It's one of the reasons why I love my mom. She's always going overboard. Now, I'm not trying to sound ungrateful, but one day I would love for her to cook me what she used to make. One meat and one veggie dish. That to me, is the ultimate comfort food.

Here's what she made:

Beef & Tripe in Szechuan Peppercorn Oil, Homemade Kimchee (sooo good! better than store bought), Chicken & Ham with Chinese Broccoli in a White Sauce, Rice Cakes w/ Shrimp & Kimchee, Jai (mmmm), Steamed Fish (double mm), Shrimp in Pineapple Sauce

Afterward we played with Oscar. There was this alien balloon but for some reason, it scared the crap out of him. Justyn shook it around Oscar and the head on the alien fell off! I was cracking up! Then my mom wanted to make these mochi thingies with her new hibachi grill but it wasn't getting hot enough so we packed up a bunch of leftovers and went home. I was seriously going into a food coma! Thanks mommy!