NOLA food adventures

I really should do something about my chronic procrastination... really. It's been a while since my trip to New Orleans, to the point where I look at some of the pictures and I forget exactly what I ordered. Remembering back to the trip, NOLA was a magical place, with music in the air, intricate architecture, and smells of something delicious tempting your taste buds. No wonder Walt Disney modeled his world after it.

Hash House A Go Go

Long time no food blog. Life, mostly school, has gotten in the way of... well, living. Where did my hobbies go?? *wail in the corner* Dramatic-ism aside, I really did have some amazing food around the country in the past... well however long it's been, and the "reviews" (more like oodles of food-porn), I'm hoping, I will be able to get to soon.

To be honest, the purposes of these "reviews" aren't really reviews most of the time, it's just a way for me to remember the delishiousnessness I've had so that I may come back in some distant future and actually remember something of it (because I really don't remember much in life, honestly, I don't understand how I get through daily living).

Let's start with one place that has been a bit... well, disappointing. Hash House A Go Go in Hillcrest, SD. In the 4 years of undergrad I spent at UCSD, I've heard about this place from a lot of people, and was told it's awesomeness. However, seeing as we're walled in the monkhood of La Jolla studiousness (yeah right), we never had a chance to go. So when the opportunity arisen when a few pharm school friends decided to go try it, we gladly took up the offer of a weekend brunch in February (really forgot if it was Saturday or Sunday, the only reason I know the date is because of my camera time-stamp).

Neighborhood - Burgers Burgers Burgers... and Hanger

Neighborhood, a bar/restaurant thingy in Downtown San Diego. A few friends and I trekked down there last Friday night at approximately 7pm... We made the mistake of letting me drive... hungry... and sleep-deprived. I drove in a 4 block radius around our destination for a good half-hour to 45min trying to find some goddamn parking. We finally found a easily over-looked spot on what must have been the 1000908239853iueyt989th loop. Yay! Parking! By then I was effing starving, and was ready to shove as much edible objects in my face as humanly possible. Did I mention I have road rage?? Especially when I'm hungry? So yes, I was reasonably pissed, as one may say.

Muzita Abyssinian Bistro

Finally, a food entry! Ok, long story short, last night for the boy's birthday, we went to have dinner at Muzita Abyssinian Bistro in University Heights. Best decision of the week. Food was amazing, service was amazing, ambiance was amazing. Despite the rain and difficulty in finding parking, it was an awesome night.

Summer 2010 - Cuban Cuisine in Key West

To continue with backlogging my summer foodventures, I have to admit, taking a cruise is probably one of the best and easiest ways to experience some wonderful food while doing absolutely no work (and come back several pounds heavier). Over the summer, I took a short 4-night cruise to the Bahamas. Best decision ever! Except maybe it could be longer, but who has that kind of money? Not me. I cruised Royal Caribbean because I've gone on their weekend Mexico cruise before and I remembered the food was absolutely

Little Shanghai Restaurant - San Mateo

So I'm terrible at updating this blog, although I've had quite some food adventures this summer with my vacations and all and taken a number of pictures. I'll try to get them up as soon as possible since school has started and I doubt I'll have much time to cook, post recipes, and try new places to review. Now is as good of a time as ever to wade through the loads of backlogs, even though I'm suppose to be paying attention to my lecture right now.

Over the summer, while I was in SF Bay Area visiting my mom and my grandmother, who came over to US for the summer, we went to a Shanghai restaurant in San Mateo. It's one of my mom's favorite restaurant, and understandably so, because it's one of the more authentic Chinese, particularly Shanghainess food we've found. They have weekend morning dim sum (Shanghai style), and has fairly extensive menu, of course, you'll know what to order, but isn't that the case with most ethnic cuisine?

Hal Mou Ni Grandma Soon Tofu & Korean BBQ

Geez, that's a long name!

This is one of the newer Korean restaurants on Convoy that opened up about a year ago, they recently expanded to take over the next door property so now there's two next to each other? I don't know. Anyway, the HES (my bf) found this on a blog and alerted me to this. We decided to try this since we haven't had Korean food in San Diego for a while now.

Wednesday night outing: Buca de Beppo

This shall be a short post, most because I only have one picture of the food we ate that night because we were all too hungry by the time we got food and I forgot to take picture of the things we ordered until about 1/3 way through... I'm so smart. Anyway, the HES and I met our friends and old roommates for dinner because we haven't really seen each other since we moved out. I proposed to go for something more expensive since it's been a while (and we also had a coupon). Buca de Beppo, a Italian chain restaurant of above average quality, portions, and decent prices, that is, if you go with a group. In fact, the more people you have the better, since it's all family style dinning.

Anyhow, enough blabbing, here's what we ate:

From left to right: Chicken Parmesan, Spicy Chicken Rigatoni, Chicken Carbonara. All were nicely seasoned, with great portions, and very filling. I love the prosicutto in the carbonara. The cream sauce was rich, a little heavy, but not too much. And did I mention I love prosciutto?

Tandoor-a-India

I love Indian food. If I were to ever become a vegetarian, I'd have to eat Indian food, not that all Indian food is vegetarian, they just have the best since they've been doing it the longest. A great Indian restaurant we visited while in LA is called Tandoor-A-India, located in Playa Del Rey. From the outside, it's not very striking, but once you go inside the door, the decor is breathtaking.

Ramen rampage: Yakyudori Ramen

I know, ramen again. I've been eating it a lot recently. It doesn't help that we woke up Fourth of July morning starving, lazing, and craving noodles and it's apparently the only store open. It's one of the three ramen shops we have in San Diego, on Convoy street. Its mother store is a yakitori (grilled chicken/meats) store located in Hillcrest. The yakitori version was excellent but expensive like all Japanese foods. We go there for special occasion or when we have some money to blow (which is never). Anyway, Yakyudori ramen shop opened around the beginning of this year. The menu, shown above is a one-pager. They only sell ramen and a few appetizers. Normally, they wouldn't be my first choice when it comes to ramen, but they do have the lowest price and fastest service, an exceptional advantage for busy students.

Korea Tofu House, Cupertino, CA

This is a super back-post because I went to this restaurant June 16th. My posts are all out of order. Oh well.

The Hungry Engineering Student and I were in Bay Area for about half a week post-graduation to visit my mom. It happens that HES's old suitemate, who also recently graduated, were back home in San Jose so we decided to meet up for lunch.

Located in a large Asian store complex, the restaurant is simply called Korea Tofu House. Yelp reviews seemed mediocre at only three stars, but considering the overall high quality of Asian cuisine available in the Bay Area, it's still probably better than anything we get in San Diego. It's a decent sized place, not too crowded for lunch on a Wednesday. The menu consisted of typical

Ramen rampage: Santouka San Diego

If you're a hungry college student, most of the time you'll be strapped for cash. One of my favorite student eats is a nice bowl of ramen. It's a fast, yummy, and relatively healthy choice (healthy compared to regular fast food). There are only a few (like three) ramen places in San Diego near where I live. All of them around Convoy, the "Asian" district. The region mostly cater to college kids from UCSD, which, if you don't know, is mostly Asian (like 40%), myself included. One of the "better" ramen shops is

Ramen rampage: Hakata Ramen Shinsengumi

This is a bit of back-post, which I will have a few more later, because of the places I went to during the first week after my graduation. You see, near the end of the last quarter of my undergraduate quest, I went (and still is) on a ramen rampage. For some inexplicable reason, I developed a really bad ramen craving. Going to my usual ramen shop only fueled my quest to seek out more. Knowing that there is a significant Japanese population in Gardena/Torrence area, and that I will be passing by there on my way to my boyfriend's family in LA, I yelped the best ramen places in the region. Hakata ramen Shinsengumi came on top with 41/2 stars and over 500 reviews. Logically, I had to go.

Our first visit was right after my graduation, driving from San Diego to LA, we arrived in Gardena around 7pm on a Saturday. There were already many people outside of the establishment, and despite being really starved college students,we waited around 30minutes to be finally seated. The wait was well worth it!

It's a medium-small sized shop, crowded (understandably), and charmingly noisy. The menu was