July 4th Dinner Cruise with Odyssey

Screw the Hurricane… Odyssey Cruises

Pre-gaming at Copley Square Hotel FER FREEEE… they had beers, and burgers and hot dogs… NOM

Was craving burgers.. so had a cute little slider.. NOM NOM.. usually the hotel has free wine happy hour but since it was July 4th they had specials!

All dressed up and ready to party

Yea I ordered like 3 bottles of wine/champagne… oops

Creamy salty butter… NOM

Cheese tray… prob a little too much

Cuz I also added on an extra shrimp cocktail/ceviche

Watermelon Salad
Arugula, Romaine, Goat Cheese, Watermelon, Sugared Pecans, Balsamic Vinaigrette

Screw Hurricane Arthur… still got my modeling on, on deck

Gorgeous View, even in the stormy weather

Roasted Chicken
Heirloom Potatoes, Thyme Demi-Glace, Fried Leeks

And of course I got the

Odyssey Short Ribs
Fontina Scalloped Potatoes, Roasted Brussel Sprouts, Carrots & Squash, Cabernet Demi-Glace

Desert was some of everything…

Bread Pudding, Chocolate Cake, Berry Galette and Sorbet… with more bubbly

Actually ended up taking short ribs and cheese home.. OK FINE I ordered too much… but it was delicious, fun and amazing. Probably don’t wanna spend that much on a July 4th again tho… hahahha – and we didn’t even get fireworks. BOOOOO…

國立傳統藝術中心 Natural Center for Traditional Arts, Bike Riding, & Coffee at 小熊書房 in Yilan

We wanted Goose but it didn’t open til 5pm so we headed to the National Center for Traditional Arts (國立傳統藝術中心)  Sometimes pictures speak louder than words. Or they do, and sometimes, rarely, I just don’t wanna talk that much.

Those are pointy red tomatoes. insane right?

Yilan is known for their scallions…. so we found a food booth that was made with everything scallions.. noodles, dumplings… everything. YUM.

Modeling as a 格格 aka a princess of a chinese emperor.. if only.. ;]

小熊書房 – Little Bear Cafe

Vacation on Vaction — Yilan’s Hotel Royal Chiao Hsi Spa

because pictures are worth more than a thousand words

Miami Day 3… Pool, Cigars, Bubble Bath and Blade Sushi at Fountainbleau

After a super crazy fun night… we just wanted to relax… and cover up from all our sunburns.. of course J took caution and I didn’t…

Ready to beach….

After our free breakfast!!!

That’s a pulled beef  benedict…. OMG….

We also got some cigars for later…

Adult Pool

Beach

Yep I got tanner and burn-ier….

And then it was cigar time.. the “cheaper” one so we can compare

GANGSTA YO

And then I left J to the balcony and a good book and I decided to bubble bath…. not enough bubbles….

CAW CAW CAW CAW

Ok too many bubbles…

Drowning…

UHHH…

I am now dubbed the bubble/foam Queen <3

This is After I let the water out and got out of the tub…

And awesome BF cleaning up my mess hahaha

SO MUCH BUBBLES

This is for you Steve. Stellar Revival shoutout YO. Wait what… yo… way to be so famous and have a FAN OFFICIAL FACEBOOK PAGE….

OK cleaned up and time for my last night in Miami… Mokai here I come….

So first we had dinner at Blade Sushi Bar/Lounge at Fountainbleau… yes yes remember I came here last year? Well we were supposed to go to Hakkasan… but decided that partying after dimsum and Cantonese food/dimsum [omg I’m so craving dim sum tho] would suck [food coma] more than sushi at Blade.

BLINDING menus. Unnecessary

Magical hot towels that grow…

Edamame

I love piping hot edamame… freshly steamed and large sexy sea salt flakes… :]

We couldn’t choose which sake to to buy so our waiter suggested we try a flight first and then choose what we liked most.

Sake Flight

The Sake we ended up choosing… delish! Oh and J called it… we liked #1..  the others were way too sweet…

Octopus Carpaccio
Sweet pepper, Tomato, Red Onion, Cucumber and Spicy Vinegar Dressing

AMAZING. I remember I loved it when I got it the first time and was asked if I was in the food industry/food critic – cuz I guess, people don’t REALLY get the things I do?!

Yellowtail with Yuzu Miso Glaze
Asian pear, Avocado, Micro greens, Yuzu Miso vinaigrette

Amazing… delish yellowtail… yuzu tang… and the sweetness of the asian pear and creaminess of the avocado… this literally MELTED in my mouth. SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO GOOD.

Salmon Sushi and Uni Sushi

You can never fuck up OG sushi. AMAZE.

Geisha Maki
Yellowtail, Ooba leaf, Orange, Asparagus wrapped in Soy paper,  Wasabi, Tobiko, Yuzu Miso Glaze

This was my roll choice. I loved it… jalapeno… light, refreshing.. definitely super fusian…. so Miami.. reminded me of Samba Sushi.

Bleau Maki
Tuna, Yellowtail, Salmon, Avocado, Scallion, Masago wrapped with Daikon, Soy Onion dressing

J’s choice. Also good. It was tasty but WAYYYYY over-doused in that dressing…. ugh.. drowning in it….

And dessert…

A gorgeous Key Lime Tart with pineapple and blackberries

The tart was creamy and also grainy from the sugar. Not sure how much of a fan I was… but it was quite delicious, super sweet…. hey we had a HUGE ASS bottle of sake to finish, we needed to keep on eating until it was gone… and while, yes, if you havent noticed we rarely do dessert, we did it and loved it.

Afterwards…. we decided we were old. We hit up the Lobby Bar… got some scotch, whiskey and champagne… brought it up to our balcony and had our other cigar and drank the night away in the beautiful weather and view. Life is perfect.

Miami Day 2 Beach, Yardbird & Nikki Beach Club

After a nice relaxing, semi-early, night in…. uhhhh…. actually okay, fine, not so “early” :] We woke up around 1030 for our FREE BREAKFAST

Dressed for the beach and ready to tan and swim after brekky… OFF WE GO…

How did we somehow get upgraded to an insane room AND get free brekky?!?!?!

One of our first plates of many….

And an omelette bar <3 UGH love

And then we were off to the beach. I swear we were the youngest/sexiest ones there. Check out my hot beach date.

My view for the whole day.

Is that a flying dino?

OH also decided to turn Mormon after finding this book in our hotel room….

HA. Just kidding. PS. This bikini is dedicated to Elliot Wronski :]

Our hotel.

Booze since 11am…

We later got ready, chilled on our balcony…..

 

And then headed to LUCKY STRIKE to watch the HEATS game. YAY Basketball.

J with his sexy cousin G and her fiance S [from the group Stellar Revival] 

Yeah, the band is pretty killer…. go to some shows in their next tour.. if it’s east coast I’ll probably be there :] Def any Boston or NYC shows :D

Live:

Ok i keep trying to put up the link to The Crazy Ones on here.. but it’s just the lyrics to Saving Grace…

Something about some punk and rock that just gets a girl going….

I’ll hopefully go help out at a few East Coast shows on their next tour so look out for me :D *grin* and also check out the drummer’s food blog — The Hungry Dummer .

We played a game of pool [worst game ever] but me and J won <3 WOOT. Nerds unite!!!!

G asked where I wanted to eat in Miami and I said YARDBIRD and her and S had JUST had brunch there… but then they decided to take us there after the game…. AWESOME.

Sadly no Chef Jeff McInnis here :[  HASH TAG #topchefcrush

Of course when I saw this I had to get it.  G and S warned that it was a lot of food but I was up to the challenge…

G ordered milk. I think I love her.

The cute soon-to-be-married-couple <3

Kale Salad for J and I

And our Chicken n Waffles n Watermelon!!!… we DEVOURED, DEMOLISHED, KILLLLLLED this <3 Hahahaha…… we’re fatties

Altho I did lose a watermelon in the feed fest. So I pour a little bit out to my homie watermelon…

My Feedback:

And then G and S kindly dropped us off at Nikki Beach Club…

Yeah the mojitos were overly sweet and sucked… I had lots of champagne and lots of douchebag Jersey Shore guys here….. probably never coming back to  Nikki Beach Club… but it was definitely an experience and fun..

Ended up going back and having fun enjoying Eden Roc late late night ;D

PS. Best line of my night to a guy “Catch me if you can, POKEMON” and I LITERALLY ran away”

PPS. I also had a guy ask me: “If I took you away tonight do you think your bf would mind?” UHHH YES. FUCKA.

Simon’s Prime Hamburgers, it’s like Five Guys but Canadian…

After playing on the Detroit side, we decided to go to the Canadian side for the carnival there and the fireworks…. so we packed our backpacks and off to Windsor, Ontario Canada we go..

HAHAHAHAHA

SMOOOOOOOTH… I can’t stop laughing at these ads.. google them, they’re hilarious!

We first stopped by a Tobacco shop for some cigars :] The guy seemed talkative and probably lonely? Windsor is such an empty city.  But yeah you can drink 19+ but then you can only get tobacco 19+ too. Not bad.

And while we wandered to search for our hotel, my eye caught this.. so obviously we had to get some.  We’re both Leos so we got the Leo Bubble Tea from Bubble Tea Express— Hibiscus + Litchi with tapioca pearls and we added some Mango Jelly for more texture. YUM.  This was SO delicious, not too sweet with a slight plum tart taste to it.

W sipping away. :]

Our view from the hotel room was PERFECT for the fireworks… and had a gorgeous view of Detroit.  So sad how beautiful Detroit looks from across the river… but then when you’re in it, it’s almost depressing. Womp

WE WERE STARVING.  We only had a bubble tea all day so we HAD to eat something.  We looked for a deli but ended up choosing between burgers and shwarma….  We ended up here at Simon’s PRIME Hamburgers.  Basically a Canadian rip off of Five Guys, but with poutine.

No wimpy burgers for us.

W got the Baconegg’r Double with Fried Egg, Bacon, Cheese, lettuce, Ketchup, Tomato, NO onion…

and I got the Big Greek Double with Feta Cheese, Tzatzki, lettuce, Tomato and Onion….

Double is the only way to go. W got bored of his burger half way but I loved mine, for a double patty burger it was surprisingly light, probably because all the condiments were pretty light and fluffy. The bun disappeared in your mouth and kinda demolished but I liked that it wasn’t heavy or too chewy. FLUFF FLUFF.  We didn’t realize that the burgers CAME with fries so we had a side of fries. SHAME ON YOU CASHIER! You’re supposed to warn us.

Fries overload.  They were SO tasty tho.  Perfectly crispy and fried.

Korean Brunch Plate

Still in recovery from Meat Overload the night before….

We tried waking up early to go to the Dupont Market to get pork for dinner tonight – I’m cooking – but we slept a little bit too in and hurried out the door, grabbed the pork and then walked over for Korean. Yep.  Back to Mandu for brunch. NOM

I was super curious last time to try their Korean Brunch plate, so that’s exactly what I got.  Actually, W and I both got it, I got the beef, and he got the pork – And obviously I got a tasty Soju Bloody Mary!

“[their] spin on steak & eggs– gimbap, korean omelet, chive pancakes,korean-style hash browns, and a choice of marinated beef, chicken, pork, or vegetables and tofu. served with a side of fruit”

Refreshing fruit bowl of grapes, cantalope, honeydew and strawberries on the side… everything was super savory and yummy. The beef was sooo goood.. as was the eggs and and.. okay, fine, EVERYTHING

Full and happy, we wandered back to the apt, did some grocery shopping and I prepped the pork for dinner :D WOO

Waffle Break at K’s Cafe

I needed a quick snack before I headed off to the Spa for my 2 hr full body massage, when I’m in Taiwan I get it done like twice a week – ahhhhh relaxation!!! This place was cute, tons of magazines and books to flip thru while we chatted, ate and people watched!

K’s Cafe at Kinokuniya Book Store in the Breeze Center

Brown and White Sugar Crystals for our Syphon Coffee

I got Syphon Blue Mountain Coffee, YUM!

Splendid!

We ordered two Christmas Special Dessert Plates available only during this season…

Waffle/Donut Banana/Nut Plate w/ Vanilla Ice Cream

I loved the donut… it looked buttered and tasted like a nice dense pancake! I’m usually a lover of waffles but I devoured this first and then went into the waffles! YUM

Waffles with Fruit & Vanilla Ice Cream

Fruit, jelly, whipped cream and ice cream.. YUMZERS! Fluffy piping hot waffles with crispity edges… it always reminds me of when my daddy worked at MIT and I used to make my own waffles for dinner, only there, and smother them with blueberries in syrup NOM

Acadia ME: Acadia Cafe – Goodbye Breakfast

It was time to leave….. so we took some last pics by the lake by our hotel..

And it was time to leave…. But not without a good breakfast in our bellies first… so we went to my parents’ favorite breakfast place in the area… Acadia Cafe – it’s just a little way’s down the street from our hotel… not pricey, very cozy, simple and yummy

Mommy’s Oatmeal with Brown Sugar & Raisins.. and a Fruit Plate

YUM

Daddy’s Scrambled Eggs, Home Fries and Toast

My Omelette with Green Peppers, Tomatoes, Mushrooms, Onions and a side of BACON!!!…

Where to now???

A nice long 5 hr trip/drive back home….

Jackfruit