PeeBoy's Birthday Party

On Saturday we went to a friend's house to celebrate his birthday. He was unable to go to Oktoberfest so his girlfriend threw him a themed party. We could either dress up in togas or lederhosen. I didn't see that part of the invitation until the day of, so we had to rush to the costume shop. We settled on getting Greek costumes which you'll see later in the pictures.

We also bought the birthday boy a nice bottle of scotch and brought some sake & Calpico (Japanese drink between soda/juice) for mixed drinks.

We ended up getting there before everyone else as usual even though we left an hour late! Another couple pulled up just as we were getting out of the car. They were already dressed up in their togas which were pretty well done. I was a little jealous because I didn't have time to put any effort into my costume.

You know what I forgot? To take a picture of all the great food! Durnit! They had a spicy Italian sausage with fennel seeds and polish sausage as well. They were both really good simply served with Jack Daniels mustard, rye bread and some really great potato salad. Ah well, who needs pictures of food when you have pictures of all the great costumes?

It was another good time and I thank the hosts for having us over!

The funny thing about this guy was him having the same costume as Justyn. Copycat!! J/K heh.

Review: Cafe Yulong

We had walked by this place many times while eating elsewhere in Downtown Mountain View. The one thing that drew us to this place was the huge banner advertising that it won Best New Restaurant for 2007 per Wave Magazine. That's pretty prestigious considering there were other restaurants that had just opened up this year too.

I'm not even gonna go into the decor or service with this place because it's the same as what you get at the other Chinese restaurants nearby. If you don't know, it's basically bare minimum service and bland decor. Nothing really special.

The waiter sat us by the window which was pretty cool. We got some "kimchee", tea and water to start.

I kinda wanted some noodles, but Justyn didn't want to share that with me so I ordered off of their lunch menu. Twice braised pork sounds perfect! Justyn ordered their crispy fried chili fish (I don't remember the exact name). Here it is...

Justyn's main gripe was that they didn't serve it family style like the other places we had been to. I didn't find that as annoying as my pork. I mean the name of the dish was Twiced Cooked Pork. It was rock hard and hard to chew. If you twice cook something, I expect it to be tender. Stir frying the pork, battering and deep frying it was a bad idea. Justyn's fish was a little better although there was nothing memorable about it. I felt like the dishes were tailored to suit the tastebuds of non-Chinese people or something which is unfortunate. I think I'll stick with Fu Lam Mum or Chef Liu.

Cravings for Bun Bo Hue Adventures+ Review: Gunther's German Restaurant

I had a massive craving for Bun Bo Hue thanks to Oishii Eats & Wandering Chopsticks so on Tuesday night, I told Justyn that I wanted to go to Bun Bo Hue An Nam (recommended by Wandering Chopsticks). He actually said "OK"! The one time he tried this dish, was at Pho Vy, which wasn't very good so I think he might've blacklisted it. I had warned him that the drive there would not be a pleasant one based on my past experience. From my house, Mapquest tells you to make a left on Senter Ave. and turn right on Story Rd. Well, the unfortunate thing is that Senter Ave. is extremely ghetto and both the road and traffic are crap. Even worse, you have to drive all the way down it to get to Story Rd. Half way down Senter Ave., Justyn says "Wow, you weren't kidding about this being an unpleasant drive."

Finally we made the right turn down Story Rd. and into the parking lot where Bun Bo Hue An Nam is. Guess what? They're CLOSED on Tuesdays!! All that driving for nothing. Next door was Pho Ga An Nam so I suggested we go there. We sat down and waited. And waited. We knew what we both wanted but nobody came to take our order. Even after I made eye contact with the waitress letting her know we were ready. Justyn was hungry and a bit cranky from the drive, so he decided that we should leave and go somewhere else for dinner.





We drove around some more and ended up in Willow Glen. I really wanted to go to Tomato Thyme, but he said that we'd be going there later in the week with a friend. Then a light bulb went off. He suggested we go to Gunther's German Restaurant. Sure, I'm down with German food. The last time I had this type of cuisine was back in high school with my Deutsch class. I loved Deutsch eats the first time I had it so why not?



We pulled into a tiny parking lot where Gunther's was located and parked. The restaurant looked dineresque which put me off a bit. (I don't really like diner food) We went inside and found a bunch of premade food staying barely warm in metal containers. Much like what you would find at a Chinese takeout place. OK so far, not so good.



I ordered the BBQ lambshank with side salad and mashed potatoes. Justyn ordered the stuffed cabbage with the same sides as me. The meal also came with a drink and bread.

They ended up having to microwave our plates, but at this point I didn't really care. I was hungry dammit! Here are the zapped dishes.

I found the salad to be drowned in ranch dressing and a couple lettuce leaves rotting which was pretty gross, but the lamb shank was good albeit the sauce was a little too sweet. Justyn's stuffed cabbage was well, stuffed cabbage with meat. The sauce again, was a little too strong but it kinda complimented the bland mashed potatoes even though it came with its own gravy.





This place was alright at best. I was disappointed that they didn't have that sour potato salad like I had in San Francisco. If you want rich food, this is the place to come. Just don't order the salad!

My Dad's Birthday Dinner

It was such a busy weekend and after setting up everything for Justyn's party and hanging out with everyone, I was pretty pooped late Saturday night. I retired early and went to bed aka passed out. I can't sleep as much as I used to, so I woke up at around 8am Sunday morning. I played a little bit of GTA III when Justyn and Donoho went out for breakfast.

At around 11am, Justyn and I got ready to head over to my parents house to have dinner. I thought my mom was going to make paella so I thought proscuitto wrapped asparagus would go good with it. When we got into Castro Valley, we stopped at Safeway to get groceries first.

When I got to my parents house, I found out that my mom was instead making a huge seafood feast complete with lobster, crawfish, clams, prawns and crab!

As she was still cooking, Justyn and I went to the backyard to find the old wooden deck completely gone, and a new concrete and brick foundation instead. It looked really good with my mom's new patio set. Isn't the view pretty too?

We set up to eat outside overlooking the amazing view, but there were a lot of hornets buzzing around the seafood, so we had to relocate inside. We ate so much great seafood and savory sticky rice that I almost went into a food coma. We also had some great white wine and champagne to compliment the meal.

Here are before and after shots.

After dinner, we talked about life and stuff and then my sister made some fried milk. There was a little too much nutmeg in it, but it was still very good.

Too much food and too much sipping made me extremely tired. We ended up leaving my parents house around 9pm. When we got home, we tried watching the new Family Guy episode, but I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.

What a weekend!

Justyn's Birthday Party

Saturday we had some people over to celebrate Justyn's birthday. It was a really great time getting to see some friends that I haven't hung out with in a while. Angel brought over her Wii so we played some bowling and then moved onto other video games. I cooked some ham fried rice with a little grated ginger in it which makes a huge difference in flavor. I'm going to use ginger in my recipe from now on. Justyn and I marinated some chicken drumsticks and salmon from the recipe I made for the Asian Glazed Salmon. Those turned out really well and everything got devoured pretty quickly. Angel also brought over some homemade beef tamales which were spectacular. I need to get the recipe from her. Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take pictures of all the food. So instead, you guys can see pics of the party.

Review: Hunan Chili

At first glance, doesn't the name look like "Human Chili"? That's what I kept thinking whenever we drove by Castro Street to try out other restaurants in Downtown Mountain View. On Friday, we couldn't figure out what to eat for lunch, and since we had always talked about trying Hunan Chili, that's exactly what we did.

We ordered off of their lunch menu which comes with hot & sour soup and eggrolls.

The soup wasn't as good as Fu Lam Mum's, but we still enjoyed it. The eggrolls were also pretty good.

For our lunch entrees we had ma po tofu and garlic chili lamb. I wasn't really happy with the ma po tofu only because it didn't have any minced pork. Every recipe that I've seen has pork in it. The flavor was good though. Both dishes packed some heat which was nice.

We had also ordered some XLBs but these were a disappointment. First of all, they came out after we were almost done with lunch rather than before. Flavor was good, but they were bone dry. I want a ton of soup to spew out like they're supposed to. Oh well...

Overall, a pretty good place for a quick spicy lunch.

Cooking: Asian Glazed Salmon

I finally got a small break from all the workshops and meetings at work so since I haven't cooked in a bit, I started looking at recipes. Actually, what prompted tonight's dinner was a picture on tastespotting.com (http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2007/09/broiled-salmon-glazed-with-dijon-and.html). I loved the presentation style with the Sriracha dots around the salmon but I didn't feel like a dijon based glaze. So I searched for glazed salmon and found this recipe: http://lowfatcooking.about.com/od/summer/r/asiansalmon.htm. It seemed simple and I knew I could quickly get dinner on the table.

I started out making the rice first.



Then I prepped all the ingrediants for the marinade. Soy sauce, grated ginger, chopped scallion, honey and soy sauce all went into a ziplock bag. I placed the salmon and swished it around to get the fish coated with all that yummy stuff. I also chopped up some extra scallion and lime wedges for garnish.



For a little green, I decided to go with bagged salad and the infamous Angelo Pietro dressing.



The salmon took 5 minutes to broil and came out beautifully cooked. I did my garnishes and copied Chef John's Sriracha dots.



I was really happy with the flavors. Justyn devoured dinner in the same amount of time it took the salmon to cook hehe... The best thing about this recipe was that it was very fast and easy to make. It's a great weekday go to recipe!