Pre-Birthday Dinner at Asiana Bistro

After a long day of work and meetings I came home, changed and got ready for dinner with the parents.  A pre-Birthday dinner at Asiana Bistro, in Bedford.  My mom has been there for lunch with her friends and she totally loves the place.  As for me, any “asian place” that has Thai, Malaysian, Japanese, Chinese, etc… is a bit sketch.  But I’ll play along.  I just need a break from work… and some good food. PLUS, QT time with both my parents, which, lately, is far, few and rare.

Hells yeah. I know I know, I’m so freaking THUG.

So we’re looking at the menus and all of a sudden I go

“WTF?!  The bottoms of the menus have bible verses…”

My dad cracked up and my mom started reading them and translating them into the chinese versions…. I guess she memorized them.

This is only funny to people who know what is going on with my mom and church lately… haha

BIGGEST. TEAPOT. EVA.

 I got some Rose Champagne… they gave me a cute little bottle and a tiny little glass… I felt so Marie Antoinette. I need these glasses

Srsly. I want those glasses. Feel free to send some to me :] It’s still my birthday month ;]

Miss Tiffie
PO Box 803
Sudbury, MA 01776

Jellyfish Appetizer

Atop pickled carrots and daikon.  So delicious, crunchy and refreshing! I added some chili oil to it so that it’d give it a kick. I love my cold jellyfish spicy!

Scallion & Ginger Lobster

It was their last lobster and it was big and fat.  Delicious.  SO fresh, I mean come on it IS New England so it better be.  I love the chewy crust around the lobster from the stir-fry.YUM…. My favorite part is the…

Where it’s the body connected to the legs.. the most tedious and annoying part, which is great cuz no one eats it so it’s ALL FOR ME. I like to chew on the shell and the oil and crust come off with the meat, it’s SOOO decadent and gluttonous….. Which reminded me of when I was at Tony & Ashley’s wedding last year I got so sad they took my lobster away… I ended up pounding off the entire dish… hahaha

Found a fun video – Go Ming Tsai

Baby Bok Choy with Shiitake
The sauce was a bit too starchy – too much Corn Starch to make it thick but it was good.. I scrapped off the sauce and while I’m not a huge fan of Bok Choy, since every restaurant uses it to make it “Asian”, it was good. I LOVE mushrooms… so this made me uuber happy. UUUUUUUBER!!!

Salt & Pepper Spicy Soft Shell Crab
My mom LOVES soft shell crab.  This was cut into tiny pieces.. and the crab itself was tiny – LAME.  But it was tasty.  Crispy.  Spicy.. Too much fried noodles ont he bottom tho… I just like it over lettuce and bigger juicy chunks of the fried crab.

Whole Peking Duck

Wrappity wrap wrap

Nom nom nom

SOOOO GOOD.

The duck was SOOOOO juicy, fatty, and the skin was crisp to PER-FEC-TION.  It was SO freaking delicious, I was eating SOOOOO MUCH!!!  I added cucumbers and tons of raw scallions to my wrap.  Just a TOUCH of the sauce.  SOOOO FREAKING GOOD.

Fortune Cookie

I liked this fortune until Mommy had the same one. WOMP. HAHA.. no fun. We had some leftovers, but this was actually a really good meal :] I may have to try some of the other cuisines sometime.. I DID see Roti Canai on the menu <3 JOY

Spicy Night a la Mommy, Back in the Bean

After a long day of fooding… bloat bloat, we woke up early to go to the airport to fly in opposite directions. W back to Detroit and me back to Boston.

Hungry and upset stomach

I’m ready… iPad, Mags, Chicken Caesar, Coffee.. and I had a bag of snacks, hot fries and candy  and fruits.

I got home and had to do some work.. so I had some freshly picked HUGE blueberries while blogging, uploading videos, pics and doing work. I’m good at multi-tasking :]

For dinner, Mommy made 4 delicious spicy dishes that I love.

Spicy Marinated Cold Cucumbers
Crispy, fresh, crumchy with a nice spice to it. YUM – Simple and refreshing!!!!

Spicy Mung Bean Sprouts with Thai Chili

Bitter Greens, Pork Belly and Thai Chilis
One of my favorite dishes ever YUM.

Szechuan Ma La Beef in Chili OilSOOOOOOO GOOOOD and spicy, burned my throat and stomach, amazing.  My mom used rib eye so it was fatty and tender. MMMMM….

Spicy Food = Happy Tiffie

A Birthday at The Brixton

After some Korean, we headed back to food coma and relax from the hot weather in the apt.  We watched some teevee, I changed into my sparky shorts and then we decided to head over to Brixton for Nikos’ birthday party.

It took awhile for me, but I finally settled on a Riot Sling
Gordon’s London Dry Gin, Lemon, Honey, Black Tea, Ginger Beer

Delicious. I’m hooked. I got two.

Samosas
curried cauliflower, potatoes and tamarind gastrique

These were pretty good, but the flakey skin fell apart too easily, I like mine crisp and firmer. Light curry taste and the taramind and frisee was a nice touch.

Charcuterie Board

So not a real charcuterie board, just pate and fish. WTF?!.. we didn’t finish this and they ended up giving the table two fo these and none of us touched it. haha. OOPS.

After this and ordering another drink everyone was here and we sat down at the bday table.

Red Vino & White Vino for the table…

The Birthday Boy!!!

Heirloom Tomato Cucumber Salad
with mint-yogurt dressing

This was delicious and refreshing.. amazingly beautiful sweet heirloom tomatoes… with crisp crunchity cucumbers… MMMM… the dressing was light and accented the fresh veggies… MMMM

Cheddar Ale Soup
with crispy bacon and crusty breadMost of the table got this soup or the salad..MMMM so good.

And then a lot of the table also got the Fish & Chips
beer-battered haddock with mushy peas, thick cut fries and malt vinegar remoulade

B with his Fish & Chips with mashed peas.. I may have stole some ;D

And the rest of the table, along with me, got the

Roasted Half Chicken 
with roasted vegetables, and brown gravy

It was just as J described.. melted off the bone with a crispy skin.  It was a bit on the salty side but it was good.. and the roasted veggies were also delicious. YUM.

Spike and his girl got here late and ended up ordering everything else the rest of us didn’t. HAHA.  When S’s lamb shank came me and J tried to get him to eat it from the bone, hands only, BOO, he ate it with knife and fork tho. LAME.

Shot shot shot shots…..

And sometime inbetween I made friends with one of the waiters and me and B and him got in a deep convo about Pot & Shrooms.. apparently if I ever do shrooms I have to do it with him hahaha…

and then it was back home early to finish packing and help W with his clothing donations.

:] Good times. Good people. YAY.

만두 at Mandu

W and I finally met up with Brent, aside from seeing him for a brief second at Proof.  After the longest avoidance, laziness and procrastination we FINALLY decided on Mandu [K street one, I didn't know and suggested we walk there, since we always go to the one closer to W's apt] for lunch.  So off we went.  We sat down right as it started pouring and B got a beer, W got some iced tea and I got….

Aloe Sojutini

SO. ME.  It was delish with chunks of aloe on the bottom and thru-out, lightly sweetened and – what can I say I MUST be Korean on the inside cuz I love the taste of soju.  Love it more than Sake.

Banchan 반찬

Sweet Potato, Sprouts, Cucumber, Cabbage Kimchi, Spicy Mariniated Fried Tofu and Steamed Broccoli

SO good.  I loved the tofu :]  A nice chew to the skin that gave away to a soft fluffy innard and nice heat to it.

B got the Bar Special, Pint of Beer and Pan Fried Mandu and Shrimp Tacos. YUM.

I forgot what kind of dumplings they were but he loved them.  I duno how a big guy like him ate so little.. but then again I think he had like 3 or 4 beers… hahaha..

Soon Doobu
spicy seafood stew w/ soft tofu and egg
Scallops, Squid and Shrimp with Soft fluffy tofu… a poached egg in a spicy broth. SO good.  But probably a bad idea for me to be eating this on such a hot summer’s day OOPS. SOOO worth the sweat tho.

And of course W got his
Duru Jjigee
marinated and spiced pork belly sauteed w/
kimchi and rice cakes, served with steamed tofu

With dduk, rice cakes, of course. SO GOOD.

One of the owners, Danny, also one of W’s friends, came by and let us try his favorite summer dish…. With Sliced Beef, Egg, Pickled Radish & Cucumber, a few other things and you add vinegar, mustard and chili sauce to your liking/taste.  I think it’s called 물냉면, a Naengmyeon :] YUM

The three of us shared this…

And then I got another Sojutini, since I was between two flavors, I got the other one…

Grape Sojutini

This one had fresh skinless grapes on the bottom, it was sweeter than the aloe one – both were delicious.

For dessert we got mango, strawberry and green tea ice cream mochi.  The strawberry one was my favorite!!! The green tea one’s mochi skin was a bit tough and not soft and chewy like the others… it was more cookie like, weird.. maybe it thawed weird or was old?! YUM nonetheless and we gobbled it up in mere seconds.

I tried to open these.  WHY WON’T THEY OPEN?  I want to climb it as well.. TEEHEE…

You can never go wrong with Korean :]

MixTec… mexican for dinner.. why? Cuz I’m lazy

Stomach still sick from the day before. Although Pho helped…

Quite a story.. it all started with making clam chowder the day before. Or wanting to. So today I said let’s cook. W wanted pizza earlier after batman so I said let’s make it. aking pizza fresh turned into buying frozen pizza.. turned into buying roast chicken and clam chowder to buying Roast chicken from … and then maybe Gyro.. to MEXICAN! Cuz I love soup, and I’m lazy.

Sopa Azteca

tortilla soup made with tortilla strips in tomato base chicken broth with cheese and fresh avocado.

Vegetarian soup with chunks of avocado, melted cheese in a tomato broth with tortillas melted in.  I’m pretty sure the black soft rings were Pasilla peppers. MMM. – which is common ingredient in this soup.  It was delicious but the tortilla and the heavy amounts of oil from the cheese made it a bit greasy and too much for me.  I actually don’t like tortilla and bread softened and melted into my soups so I’ll probably just stick to the yummy Consomme Ranchero - freshly chopped onions, cilantro, shredded chicken and rice in a light chicken broth and ranchero salsa – that I’ve gotten a few times.

My lone Grilled Fish Taco
Came with a light mango salsa… scallions, cilantro, tomatoes.. but the fish itself was bland and a bit too fishy… def not fresh.. and I swear it wasn’t grilled.. def lightly breaded and pan fried… meh – Lime, guac and hot sauce didn’t help it.. good thing W ordered a lot.

Chicken Quesadila

Beef Quesadilla

Both served with Pico De Gallo, Guacamole, And Sour Cream :] BOTH were bigger than the size of my head – just one piece filled us up.  I was a trooper and tried to eat more too… #BURST.

We both got some Jarritos, Mexican Soda.. but they don’t have my favorite, Guava, so I got lime and W got Fruit Punch. YUM

I Love Eating Faces

I love eating things with faces.

Pho is no exceptions.

Boom!

Best Life: Bday Pool & BBQ Party

After a nice lunch of gyros at Astor… 

We headed to the triple BBQ/Pool Party…

Isn’t he the CUTEST?

SOOO MUCH SHRIMP

BBQ TIME!!! Ribs, Bacon Burgers, Sausages, etc… amaze balls

Kid totally took a shrimp as a pet

A lot of booze was consumed, oops

Ping Pong…

A lot of running around :] hahahaha… I actually have some funny photos of me with paint all over my arms floating around somewhere that Allison took of me :]

BEAUTIFUL DAY for GOOD FOOD and FUN FRIENDS

I. LOVE. MY. LIFE.