I'm back!

We got back Wednesday night and I am so glad to be back home! It was fun being a pedestrian for a few days, but I sure feel better being able to drive myself where I want to go and not have to WALK my feet off to get there! Plus, our weather is so much nicer! The last day in NYC was in the 90's and it was so humid! Sweating sucks!

I haven't uploaded my photos yet but plan to do so over the next few days before I post. But before I do, Bert was flipping the channels while I was washing dishes tonight. Lo and behold, one of my favorite episodes of Sanford and Son , which is "A Visit from Lena Horne" !!! Oh hell yeah, I was gonna watch that! Little Lame Lamont!

Fred Sanford bets his friends that he could get Lena Horne to visit his home. He lies to her at NBC studios, telling her he has a little "lame" son. She takes pity on him and visits his place on her way to the airport and gets upset when she finds out that he's a grown man. Fred's friends (John Amos is Billy [this is the father from "Good Times" and the adult "Kunta Kinte" from 'Roots']) show up and start to pay him $15 for winning the bet, much to her disgusted exasperation. Thinking quickly, Fred explains that the money would be a donation to Operation Headstart (a charity whose function she was to attend in San Francisco later that evening). She gives Fred a big kiss and the episode ends happily. Lena Horne was super hot in her day. It's amazing that she's still alive. If she was born in 1917, that makes her 90!

Demond Wilson rules! Okay, so does Redd Foxx (Fred "G". Sanford), Whitman Mayo (Grady), and Lawanda Page (Aunt Esther)! TV Land rocks!

Quick update...

Tonight is our last night in our friends' place in Astoria. Tomorrow we go to the city in tourist hell - Herald Square. I actually chose the hotel not because it was inexpensive, but it was close to all the major "sights to see" such as the Empire State building (2 blocks away), Central park (a few subway stops away), Times Square (a few blocks by foot or it you're lazy, or 3 subway stops). We don't plan to hang out there but just sleep there. Jostling through all these tourists in Times Square (ourselves included) was a scary, claustrophobic feeling. Yesterday we did SoHo and Chinatown and hit up Jacques Torres and MarieBelle's.

We did a lot of sightseeing, shopping (me actually) and walking today. I have some very nasty tan lines on my shoulders! My feet hurt like an MF!!! But we had fun...Coney Island, Nathan's hot dogs (can't beat Takeru Kobayashi's record of 55 hotdogs, ugh!), Central Park, the Dakota building, Gray's Papaya (yes, we had to try just 1 hot dog), and more walking!

Tomorrow - the American Museum of Natural History, more of Central Park, plus some bakeries and cafe's to hit up.

Astoria & NYC

We're in Astoria (in Queens) at N & L's place. It's really cool. They live right by a subway line and there are shops and eateries all over the place. It's so convenient. The ethnic majority here are Greek so there are many Greek cafes and little mom & pop stores. The train ride yesterday was nearly 4 hours long - we passed through Rhode Island and Connecticut, before reaching Penn Station by 2 pm. That is one crowded place! Today they took us downtown to Chinatown & SoHo. Among the places we visited were Jacques Torres and Uniqlo (a Japanese version of H & M) and too many others to mention. Tomorrow we plan to go to Coney Island - hey, we can eat a hot dog at Nathan's!

Laundry and rain!

Right now Thane is showing TC and and bert the basement where he will do our 3 days worth of laundry. Thank goodness for packing light! We also plan to do our laundry at N's place in Queens.

We woke up this morning and it was blazing hot and sticky! The skies were fairly clear. We were able to ride the swan boats today because the weather was gorgeous and sunny. It rained yesterday so I bought a purple umbrella at the local Walgreens here in Cambridge. Before we went to the Boston Public Garden, we visited MIT where I was less than enthralled by their stark and sterile architecture. Downtown's Chinatown was also a disappointment so we didn't stay long.

We headed for the Science Center, where we, unfortunately, only spent 2 hours because we arrived kind of late. Their science center is also the launching site for their "Duck Tours", which we did several years ago when we last visited. Anyhow, tgheir science center kicks ass on Ruben H. Fleet which is cheesy and outdated. They need to get newer exhibits! What I liked about the science center was their Butterfly Garden exhibit (which was a few dollars more) - it was amazing to see such beautiful specimens flying around the enclosed (humid) garden/sunroom.
I saw a display of chrysalids (oooh, the plural of 'chrysalis') - there is one species of butterfly whose chrysalid resemble bats sleeping upside down. There were also several other types which had gold flecks; it was quite remarkable. Up until late this afternoon, the weather was picture perfect. Then, while we were at the Science Center, clouds rolled in and we heard the not so distant rumblings of thunder.

I just spoke to N on the phone and she also confirmed that it was raining in NYC but it was supposed to warm up later this weekend. I sure hope it does because none of us packed any cold weather or rain-type clothes! We leave tomorrow morning for the train station.

Groovy Sounds

Sorry Thane for snooping, but I found this old tape that N and I made for you back in October 1991. It was in your tape case behind where my suitcase was. Wow, you actually kept this tape after all these years. There were more compilations that N made you plus a more 'recent' one I made (circa 1999) that had a whole bunch of Carl Stalling (old Warner Bros. cartoon orchestral music) and the Raymond Young Orchestra (known for 'Powerhouse Boogie' and other cartoon background scores).

The inner notes on the tape cover even indicated that it took two hours to make this cassette mix! With the exception of the Prince song at the end of side B, pretty much everthing is old school. I must have been the one who wanted Prince since it was my record. Every song was taped from either an actual record (LP or 45) or a cassette.

Groovy Sounds
by N & Canine
Denon S-Port
High Position, Type II 100 minutes

Side A
Boogie Nights Heatwave
That's The Way (I Like It) KC & the Sunshine Band
Get Off Foxxy
Brick House The Commodores
If I Can't Have You Yvonne Elliman
Hot Stuff/Bad Girls Donna Summer
Macho Man Village People
Rock the Boat Hues Corporation
Emotion Samantha Sang
Le Freak Chic
Baby Come Back Player
I Will Survive Gloria Gaynor
Shadow Dancing Andy Gibb

Side B
Ring My Bell Anita Ward
Second Time Around Shalamar
Fantasy Earth, Wind & Fire
Sir Duke Stevie Wonder
I Want Your Love Chic
Funky Town Lipps, Inc.
Fire Pointer Sisters
Ladies Night Kool & the Gang
Rock With You Michael Jackson
I Would Die 4 U Prince (okay, this song isn't from the disco era)
We Are Family Sister Sledge
Staying Alive Bee Gees

Cambridge

So we're crashing in Thane's pad now. We arrived yesterday at 6 pm after a 1 hour delay. It was sunny and humid but not so bad while walking at night. For dinner, we went to a Korean restaurant down the street from Thane's. Those pics will be posted once we get back. We were so hungry from our long flight, which sucked because their food was NOT free. When I flew to Texas in March, my in flight meal was free. I had packed sandwiches beforehand so we snacked on those but bought TC a sandwich.

What's cool is that his place is just a few steps away from a T station, a Whole Foods, Walgreens and several other neighborhood restaurants. Quite convenient.

We plan on stopping by the Boston Commons later to ride the Swan Boats, check out the duck statues (last time we were here, TC was only 2 1/2 - we took a photo of her next to the statues) - inspired by the book, "Make Way for Ducklings". Lunch is planned at Legal Seafoods and perhaps we shall wander and explore Chinatown, Little Italy (if there's time) or downtown. We'll be buying a 7 day T pass for $15. Get this, it's $9 for 1 day and $15 for 7. Which one would you buy? Duh! We plan to check out TC's future school(s), Harvard and MIT. The math gene is definitely not from me! If she does well in school, I'll be happy if she goes to a UC!

We're here til Friday then we take the train to NYC.

Off we go!

Tomorrow we're off to Boston to visit Thane. Then Friday we're off to visit another friend in NYC. We'll be back by mid next week. I'll be taking lots of photos and am excited to play tourist as well as eat in two great cities. One famous for clam chowder and the other for just about every cuisine imaginable. We'll be playing it by ear. If I post, the pictures will come later upon my return!

Melt

Today TC and I went to Melt, which I spied last Friday after lunch at PF Chang's. This is in the Otay Ranch mall, next to American Eagle Outfitters and just a few steps away from REI. This is a crepes and sorbet cafe.
Here's their gelatos & sorbets:
Sorry for the reflective photos.

If you click on the photos of the menu, you could probably read it better.

Crepes seem to be the next hot thing here.

More crepe offerings:

I ordered the The Californian ($6.99) - a savory crepe, for me. As for TC, it was a sweet crepe - Nutella ($4.95). This is my crepe on the griddle.

Here's TC's in the making:

The worker just turned mine over - look how nicely browned it is:

This was so huge - we ended up taking the other half home for Bert to sample. TC did a good job on it though. This was a treat for her to having something like this for lunch! She did have a few bites of mine however! It was quite sweet and difficult (for TC) to cut in some places.

My Californian savory crepe was also a sizable portion. Served on a pretty white plate, the crepe glistened with butter tempting me to cut into it with abandon. The filling consisted of red onions, tomatoes, artichokes, mushrooms, avocado and cheese. It was served with a small side salad and some sort of dressing.

I really liked my crepe but wished it was a smaller more manageable portion. The fillings were fresh and I enjoyed the creaminess of the avocado with the bite of the red onion. The artichokes were also a nice touch. Next time, I want to try the Parisian crepe which is ham, butter, cheese and mushrooms.

I would go again to try a few of their other savory and sweet crepe offerings. The crepe are big enough for two people to share. I am also curious to try their gelatos - so it's on my to do list for this summer.

Bday Picnic

Yesterday my nephew had his bday party picnic at a local park. Before we went to the park, we stopped by my parents' house to pick up TC's Vans slip ons (forgotten at her last sleepover) and her Razr scooter. My mom had made some food to bring to the party. These are kutsinta, a brown sugar/rice flour based dessert served with coconut.

She also made pinakbet - what made this pinakbet somewhat more health conscious was the lack of bagoong. Now that she's having health problems, she has to lay off the salt so she's been making it this way for several years now. She sautees onion with garlic, then adds dried shrimp and then Chinese long beans, kabocha squash, Japanese eggplant, bittermelon, and okra. She also added Chinese sausage...Okay, well maybe that alone took care of the salt factor!
Although my mom didn't bring the dish shown below, I ended up having some of it. I don't know what it's called but it's sauteed bamboo shoots with alugbati, a type of leafy green vegetable my parents grow in the backyard.

Now to the party food. It was relatively simple. Just hotdogs and Polish dogs:

Pancit:

Lumpiang shanghai (the thin skinny kind):

Here's my nephew's plate:

Oh yeah, and crispy garlic chicken wings:

There were also fresh fruits (watermelon, strawberries & cherries). I saw this on the snack table (along with the chips). What the hell! I didn't try this but I found the name a bit off putting!

My parents also brought chicharrones (Mexican style) - yeah, healthy this ain't!

I got even more sunburned yesterday! It was nice chatting with my siblings and watching the kids play around. It was also Father's Day and TC and I surpised Bert with some framed photos of TC that morning.

Tropical Star

A few days ago, we decided to have lunch at Tropical Star , a Latin American restaurant located in the Balboa Crest Strip mall on Balboa. It's next to Chinese place called Noble Chef. Here's one
review and here is my favorite food blogger's take on this place. It had been awhile since we 'd been here. It's a tiny place and it was packed when we arrived. The patio tables out front were also fully occupied. Lucky for us, I had a coupon from my Entertainment Savings book. Buy 1 entree and get 1 free.

Cheapie that I am, I already had frozen waters but wanted to get a Goya raspberry soda nonetheless.
After we placed our orders, we stood outside and out of the corner of my eye, noticed that the couple in one of the front tables had left. We quickly moved in like birds of prey. Bert noticed this sign behind me, posted on the restaurant's window:
Our appetizers arrived first. We ordered the empanadas (2 for $2.50) as well as tostones ($2.50). When I saw the empanadas, I knew I made a mistake because what I meant to order were the pastelillos (Puerto Rican style empanadas). These empanadas were Colombian and the coating was cornmeal based, instead of flour. They still tasted all right, but I like the pastelillos's light flaky crust much better. Next time!We ordered this dish solely because it has arroz con gandules (rice with pigeon peas) for TC. This was called Pastel y Arroz con Gandules (Combo #6). It's of Puerto Rican origin and consists of aforementioned rice with salad and a tamal (or 'pastel') of banana leaves wrapped around grated green bananas and seasoned pork. We planned to share our entrees.

This was the other entree, Combo #9 - The Bistec Encebollada, which was pan fried beef topped with sauted onions and tomatoes with white rice and beans.

I snagged one of the pieces of beef and helped myself to a bit of the rice and beans. The beef, unfortunately was a bit too dry for my liking. It was thin and chewy in parts.

This is the unwrapped pastel - the pork was tender and it had olives, potatoes as well as shredded green bananas in the filling.

Before we left, I made a few snack purchases. They ran out of a certain brand of 'obleas' which are round, thin wafer-like discs. I didn't realize that this package contained a small contained of dulce de leche already, hence the price of $3.49. The package I used to buy had 24 small ones and was cheaper than $2.49.Here is a small jar of dulce de leche (caramel). You spread this on one of the wafer discs and top it off with another disc. A delicious snack! This was $2.99 I believe. They have other jars with 'fig' and 'coconut' flavors availabl as well as larger sized jars.

I got the last bag of plantain chips ($1.59) which are even better than potato chips. These are light and crunchy!

I couldn't resist buying this version of Oreos called 'Negrescos' by Nestle. Oreos taste better. These had a funky flavor to it. Reminds me of the cookies they put in those huge tins of 'biscuits' they sell in Asian stores.

Dessert at PF Chang's

Friday was our my last day at work. Graduation started at 9 am and we were finished by 10:15. I got sunburned through my butterfly sleeves. Luckily, I didn't have to read names like last year. Instead, one of my co-worker's read names and I helped direct the students as they waited in line to get their name(s) called. Several of us left work early and had lunch at PF Chang's at the Otay Ranch mall. The dessert we ordered was the Banana Spring Rolls.

This dessert was PF Chang's version of 'turon' (banana lumpia) - It was about 2 long pieces cut into thirds or six crispy pieceswith creamy coconut pineapple ice cream and drizzled with caramel sauce and garnished with fresh berries. My co-worker chose the restaurant and while he went to the bathroom, my other colleague and I ordered this dessert for all of us to share as his b-day dessert. It was actually decent and we all liked the coconut pineapple ice cream. I'm not much of a PF Chang's fan (whitey-fied Chinese food) but I can hang with it.

The Answer to Greenbox #3

The painted greenbox in my post dated Sunday, June 3 is located on the corner of 5th and Elm on your way to uptown San Diego.

Dr. Kuni - Best scene ever!

Hey, if you haven't seen Knocked Up yet, do it.

Unless you are a tightass prude and are easily offended.

Check out this deleted scene from Dr. Ken Jeong's (played 'Dr. Kuni' in the movie) MySpace. Scroll down to the scene "Dr. Kuni Goes Wild".

This should have been in the movie! You know that this scene will end up in the "extras" on the DVD.

By the way, the movie poster where Seth Rogen is sitting next to Katherine Heigl in the doctor's waiting room? Well, the posters have him wearing a white shirt with stripes on the shoulder. In the movie, he is actually wearing a t-shirt with that reads "Tastes Like Chicken" with a cartoon drawing of a rooster on it.

Other Specs

Okay, my specs are in...not the funky purple ones, but the black pair by Candies. This is called 'Kara' , like it's a real person or something. One thing I noticed is that the photo (taken from the web) looks like a slightly different frame than the one I have, or maybe it's the angle they took the photo. My frames are a little more squared off at the bottom (see below). That's the sucky photo I took!
This is what I have and I like the squared off look towards the bottom! I'm still debating whether to get nose pads on this one. It seems to sit too close to my face; my eyelashes can almost touch the lenses.

Taste of Italy Revisited

[Update - Closed and is now Valentino's Lounge as of 2009]

Another rarity...a night alone!
After the Philippine Independence Day Festival, we dropped off TC at my parents to spend the night. We finally watched "Knocked Up" (more on that in a later post). Now that was a pretty funny movie! I love Judd Apatow and his cast of regulars! Back to this post! Bert & I had errands to accomplish as well. We also checked out Taste of Italy (billed as "in Eastlake", but it's really in the Otay Ranch neighborhood) in eastern Chula Vista. I had already been there several times with my co-workers but only for lunch. So, dinner out was in order. Here's my green salad. I ordered it with no dressing but with two slices of lemon on the side. Do you see the lemons? Well, the server squeezed it on the salad. It was okay at first, but got too sour towards the end!
Bert had clam chowder (it was that or minestrone) for his soup starter. Now this was good! It was creamy but not heavy, with tiny diced potatoes and meaty clam piece. The fresh herbs were also a nice touch

This was our bread. I was expecting the regular bread they normally serve (I was thinking of my lunch experiences here) which looks different and comes with butter. This was what we got instead. The crust had a nice crunch, but nothing spectacular.

Being a creature of habit, I ordered the carciofi (this was in one of my previous posts) but with shrimp this time. Same pasta - linguine ($14.95 -+ $4.95 extra for the shrimp ---that makes it $1.00 a shrimp! They should put more shrimp!). Nice presentation! Bert was surprised that I liked the sauce because I'm not a fan of blue cheese (it had gorgonzola in it). I could only finish half and planned to save the rest for TC the next day. Bert got the canneloni (forgot the price) which he thoroughly enjoyed and finished!

It's nice to have Taste of Italy close by, but I would like to stop by Bacione's in Hillcrest again!