New Year’s Dinner – Grandma’s House
Alrighty, the actual day of new year’s (2/14/2010) was spent with my extended family at my Grandma’s house. My Grandma and Aunt spent hours cooking up a beautiful and delicious dinner for everyone to enjoy. Home cooked Chinese food is awesome. And yes, there were egg rolls at New Year’s dinner as well since they basically represent “fortune” because of their beautiful golden color (gold bars!). Literally, we call them “Gold Bars” in Chinese. Very funny.
New Year’s dinner lasted for about 3 hours of continuous eating. My family loves food, and they love food even more when its shared with family. To me, these family dinners often become competitions where everyone is shoving food on someone else’s plate. You will inevitably hear these phrases being shouted: “Don’t be shy, eat!” ”Have some more food!” ”Did you eat enough?” ”There’s more here, take some!” ”Hurry, eat it before it gets cold.” ”Let me get you another plate.” Oh man, I am stuffed! XD It’s almost like a war zone at the dinner table. :)
New Year’s Eve Dinner – Home
Ah, Chinese New Year. Definitely one of the BEST times of the year for food. My mom and dad cooked a delicious dinner (I helped with Egg Rolls!) that we enjoyed with just the immediate family. Unfortunately I can’t name each dish because I don’t know what they’re called in English, but pictures should offer a good illustration. :)
If anyone really wants to know what something is, feel free to contact me via the “Contact Us” page.
Palace B.B.Q Buffet – Sunnyvale, CA
Korean BBQ. NOM NOM NOM. Hahaha.
Korean BBQ is SUPER nom, definitely one of my favorites! :D Palace is pretty good (imho), their short rib marinade is awesome. I believe that BBQ should always be a fun social event, so on Friday night (2/12/2010) I invited a bunch of friends out this delicious meaty excursion. Everyone had a good time, and I spent most of the night cooking (flipping and serving) the meat. I watched my friends slowly slip into their food comas, and I helped it along by placing more meat on their plate. The only complaint I have about this excursion is that the grill was too small, and the fact that we all smelled like BBQ for hours afterwards. I think the grill was on the small side because we did have a large party (7 people!). Other than that, it was definitely good times.
Costco – Union City, CA
Yeah, I know, Costco. Haha. While it is not a common occurrence, I will eat a hot dog from Costco. I have to admit that the hot dog isn’t bad, I always add lots of onions and ketchup on top. XD
I’ve had some BAD hot dogs in my time, but the Costco one isn’t bad. :)
Shooting Star Cafe – Oakland, CA
There are a lot of these Chinese “cafes” that serve similar food and drink around the Bay Area; they are often open late for foodies that crave noms that aren’t from the grease ridden cookie cutter restaurants that dominate the night venue. For some reason I was especially craving soup that night (2/11/2010), so I ordered a Beef Soup and a ham and cheese crepe. The soup was delicious, just what I was looking for.
My sister ordered the Macaroni and Egg dish (which looks kind of strange but tasted pretty good) and a Cod Fish bake w/ pasta noodles. Milk teas were also ordered (not pictured), but if you are thinking about the sweet milk tea that you can buy from the Asian drink shop, don’t order the HK milk tea (hot). It comes unsweetened and is VERY strong (and bitter!), like a hard swift punch to the face.
