Chicken Salad

I <3 home made chicken salad.

Burnt Pork

The skin side of the burnt pork.

Other side of the burnt pork.

Okay, I guess I should just stay out of the kitchen.  So now I have this paper dry piece of pork butt.  Not even a drop of sauce left in the pan to flavor it.  Yuck.  

Happy New Year!

You can never have too many good luck New Year oranges.

Skrimps

Shrimp gumbo, shrimp scampi, shrimp sandwiches, shrimp ke-babs.... That's about it.

Shitake Mushrooms

Hmm, I wonder what he's making with these. Boy they're kind of big.

Fried Chicken

Papa Yao is makin' fried chicken. Yum!

Pulled Pork

Here it is bakin' in the oven. I can smell it already. Can't wait for dinner!

Pulled Pork

Here are the spices for the pulled pork. I didn't add the salt like PY suggested. I'll see how it comes out. I also bought a butt with the skin on. Let's see how that comes out.

Pulled Pork

Here's my pork butt... My pork butt I say. Not my porky butt. Hehe. My porky butt wouldn't fit, I would need a wide angle lens for that one. Lmao!

Bann

Dinner with Michelle and her son Lamene at Bann. A Korean fusion restaurant near my gym that I haven't gone to in months. Ahem, but that's for another blog. The food was quite good and the portions are large considering the portions in most of the restaurants these days. I had a good time. It's nice to get out once in a while.

Michelle & Lamene

(Holy shmoly, he was only 6 when I started working there! *sigh*)

Michelle had the flash fried calamari & assorted vegetables sauteed in a spicey honey chilli glaze.
My appetizer. Minced sea scallops with Korean pine mushrooms baked in a shrimp mousse.

Lamene had the slowly roasted baby pork ribs with a soy & chili glaze served over green tea crostini.

Michelle and I both ordered the same entree. Red snapper in rice paper braised in a spicey black bean sauce with soy beans, ginkgo and bamboo shoots.

Lamene's entree. Chicken breast stuffed with Korean chestnuts, dates & couscous braised in a sweet & spicey sauce.

Lamene's dessert was a traditional hot chocolate cake. Individually molded rich dark chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.

Michelle had the Yellow Mung Bean Cups. Organic mungbean custard baked in a toasted pistachio crust.

And of course I got the most fattening thing on the dessert menu. Creme brulee. I had a selection of three different flavours. Strawberry, pumpkin, and my favorate the ginger. (Grace I know you would've loved that one!)

Don't forget the tea to get those digestive juices working... We ordered a simple green tea.

I had a splendid time as well as my dinner companions. I love going out to dinner. Time for another master cleanse session!

Red Velvet Cupcake

Starbucks had red velvet cupcakes! Not as good as the PY ones but it will have to do until I go to SF again. Lol.

Microsoft Tag

I was checking my e-mail and Papa Yao had sent me this video promoting the new Microsoft Tag.  I thought it was kind of nifty so I decided to download it to my phone and test it out.

It basically reads these unique barcodes that are printed on various advertising materials and then it just brings you their website via the WAP on your phone's browser.  Only requirements are that you need to have a camera and browsing capability on your phone/smartphone.  I think a smartphone device might work better than a regular cell phone, I'll test it on my RAZR as well to see if it works as well. 

Here is shot of the barcode I created for my blog.  If you download the software on your mobile device and try it on here it will bring you to my blog page.  How cool is that?

Here's a link to the site if y'all are interested...  http://www.microsoft.com/tag/

New Color Scheme

Hey y'all!  I've decided to switch up the color scheme a bit for the new year.  Chinese New Year is coming up and I want to turn a new leaf for everything.  Home life, work life, friends, family, and relationships.  So let me know if this color fits me or not.  Please comment back!  Thanks!

Sushi Samba

Out of all the restaurants this was my favorate for food.  I've been here before with Penny and at another time with my friend Melissa.  Each time I've tried different foods, I think mainly due to the massive menu it's hard to order the same thing twice.  I think we also spent the most money for the food here but I know for sure we were the most full here!

Very festive front.  Nice and bright, can't miss it.  Hehe.

I would draw a thought bubble above Grace's head if I could but I can't so I'm thinking she's thinking, "Where are Kathleen and Audrey?  I'm hungry!"

Kodak moment.

The sushi bar.

Since Patrick didn't use the flash for any of the pics he had to adjust the shutter speed.  Not sure how this happened but this came out looking really cool.  Also the lights in the restaurant were very orange hence our pics came out that way too but at least we didn't have an annoying flash going off all night to annoy our fellow diners.

The four musketeers.

Our view from our seats.  The restaurant was still relatively empty so we had a booth in the corner which was nice.  It started to fill up by the time we left.

My appetizer, plain old skrimp tempura.  Nothin' like fried foods to start a big meal.

This was Grace's appetizer.  I forgot what she got.  I think it was squid again.  Hmm, de ja vu.

Ahh, Patrick's lobster ceviche.  Oh so yummy!  I think it might have been the most artsy dish we ordered that night.  I have to say though it was a good size portion and quite yummy.

This was the special of the night.  A special yellowtail variety.  I couldn't remember by the time she said the whole menu twice I was still confused.  So I just said I'll have the special.  Haha.

Rock shrimp tempura!  Woo hoo!

Gimme, gimme, gimme!  Wait, who's appetizer was this anyway?  Tee hee.  Oh, I think it was Pat's.  Whoops, sorry dude.

Why Miss Audrey ordered... fish!  Not the chicken that she usually gets.  It's looked good.  I didn't have any as there was so much food in front of me I think I took over the whole table with my ginormous plates.

Patrick ordered some specials too.  I don't remember what it was, lol.  Everything was so nicely presented.

Grace ordered some curry seafood dish.  I don't remember which one it was on the menu but it was good.  I was picking at it over her shoulder all night.  Look there's a teeny lobster on top.  Hmm, isn't that illegal?  

You can do it Pat!  You can do it!

I shall call it Squishy, and you shall be mine.  Here's Squishy.....

Why is that the dessert menu?

Those are my three cubes of tres leches.  Yum, so fattening.  Audrey's chocolate something or other in the UFO plate.  We all thought it was cool.

Patrick got the sorbet.  Nice touch with the orchid.  Hmm, I didn't see it at the end of the meal, did you eat it Patrick??  Hehe.  Grace had some odd dessert but it was just the right size and quite yummy.  I have to come back again soon.

All in all I think we had the most fun and the best food here at Sushi Samba.  Four thumbs up!  They are having two different restaurant weeks this winter to see if they can boost the economy a little bit here in the city.  Things are looking a little bleek for the restaurant industry here, but we four did our part in spending some serious dough on food this holiday season.  Not to bad since I didn't buy anyone any gifts this year.  Lol.  Merry Happy to me!

Buddha Bar

Second dinner of our adventures.  We were joined by Miss Audrey's bf Andres.  So there were five of us this time.  We took more pics here, so sorry if the pics aren't in order.  Lol.

This is a pic of the doorway from inside the restaurant.  Cool...

Look behind Grace's head, there's a cool looking smoking room there.  It was closed so there was noone in there smokin' but then again, when is it ever open?  I guess when the bar get's jumpin.

The large buddha in the main dining area, I'm kind of glad we didn't sit there because it seemed like the DJ was pumpin' the music in that area more for some reason.  I'm also glad we had an early reservation so that we didn't have to yell at each other across the table.  Lol.

Sorry the pics are a little out of order.  This is Patrick's dinner.  Did he have steak?  I forget but it still looked yummy.

My dinner companions.  From left to right, Andres, The Fabulous Miss Audrey, chubby ol' me, Grace, and Patrick.

Hmm, what dish was this?  I think it was Miss Audrey's chicken.  Funny her and Andres ordered the same thing.  How cute.

Me and Grace, gee nobody told me my shirt was so low.  I thought it was kind of drafty in there.

Hmm, what to order...

Our plethora of appetizers.  Those are my samosas in the background, Grace ordered the calamari.  Those were good, a bit spicy but good nonetheless.

Samosas.... yum...

These are Patrick's ribs.  I mean his appetizer.  You know what I mean!  Lol.  They were yummy as well.  Also a bit spicy.

Ahh, young love, they make such a cute couple!

Nice table shot of our appetizers!

This I believe was Grace's lobster something or other.  It looked mighty yummy but I was leaving room open for my food!

This was my dessert.  Panna cotta with some sort of cappuccino gelato.  I don't remember what those nutty things are on the end but they were good and chewy.  Lol.  I can remember the taste like I just had it 10 mins ago.  This was so delicious.  As you can see this was my favorate part of my meal.  Talk about orgasm in a cup.  Good grief, next time I come here I'll just have two of these and a cigarette, ha!

The three of them squished in the back of my leetle leetle car.  I tried to avoid the bumps.  I really did.

This restaurant was the fanciest of the three.  It was different and cool that I was able to go to a trendaurant this year with the guys.  Dressing up once in a while and going to fancy shmancy restaurants is fun.  I wish I could do this more often.