Happy Halloween!

On Halloween we spent the day relaxing and packing. I was packing up to get ready to go to Cleveland, while Phil was packing for Arkansas. We took a break in the afternoon and took my mom out to Friendly's for lunch. No costumes here, although there were plenty of little kids running around in costume.

Phil doesn't look too happy that I keep taking pictures of him eating.

We prepared for lots of kids to come by trick-or-treating. We bought 3 boxes of 30 candy bars. I thought 1 box would be enough, but Phil insisted on 3 - he wanted to make sure we had enough candy so kids would be less likely to toilet paper our house. I haven't seen many houses in this area toilet papered, but we bought the 3 boxes...and we had a total of 2 trick-or-treaters...Candy anyone?

Another halloween here and gone...

Tanger Outlet

On Sunday we headed out to the Tanger outlet in Long Island with Phil's family. I was too pre-occupied with shopping so I didn't take many pictures...I did get some pictures of our lunch at the food court though. Philly cheese steak with fries (it tasted better than it looks...)


And classic take-out Chinese style chicken with cashew and general Tso's chicken.

After a full day of shopping we headed back to NY for dinner. Doesn't the sky look beautiful?

After being stuck in traffic for over an hour we finally made it into Flushing. We decided to go to Joe Shanghai's for dinner. We ordered a ton of food...

Rice cake noodles, scallion pancake...

3 different kinds of noodle soup, fried dumplings...

And 2 steamers of soup dumplings...

Then we headed home. Bye bye NY.

I need to remember to take more pictures of people. Everything seems to be pictures of food...

Dinner in Princeton with the Cousins

We spent the afternoon on Saturday in Princeton with a few of my cousins that are in the area. This particular family of cousins is very into cooking and wine, so there's always lots of good food when we get together.

We sat and talked before dinner over some cheese and crackers, and mom's sweet meatballs. It's always nice to have some fancy cheese every now and then.

While the adults talked and my cousin prepped for dinner, the "kids" played some Wii bowling. Phil's helping my cousin's son Joseph (my second cousin? I can never remember...) with his turn. But what's that thing he's holding in his other hand?

I guess Phil got bored in between turns and started building something with Joseph's Zoo Links. It's Bugs Bunny on wheels! Looks like I might need to start buying some toys for Phil to play with at home too...

After a while people spread out around the house doing random things - playing wii, talking, playing with the kids. I started looking around for Phil and I found him in a pile of plastic food. Phil must have been so hungry. He's holding the fake hot dog bun thinking: "I know it's only plastic, but I'm so hungry...should I eat it?..." Actually I think he was trying to figure out why the 2 hot dog buns looked different, but I like my interpretation better...

I stopped in the kitchen to take a look at what my cousin William was cooking up. All I have to say is that is one huge chunk of meat.

It was time to set the table and get everyone ready for dinner. Mandy and Benjamin look like they're ready.

Group photo! This is everyone minus Phil.

After dinner we did some clean up and relaxed while the kids played more wii. I took a picture of Mandy and Tam on the couch resting. They look so relaxed and comfortable, even though Tam looks like he has her in a choke hold...


It wasn't long before someone fell into a food coma. I have to admit I was surprised when it wasn't Phil.

Although he wasn't very far behind...

After the boys woke up from their post-dinner naps we had some ice cream. Vanilla with fresh mango pieces - yum!

Isn't baby Jennifer so cute with her bowl of ice cream? I have some great videos of her singing her rendition of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat". Hopefully I'll get a chance to post that soon.

Bye bye to the cousins for now. Maybe we'll get to see them again during the holidays.

Brooklyn Birthday/Baby Shower/Apt Warming

Last Saturday we headed out to Brooklyn to visit one of my college roommates at her new apartment to celebrate her new place, her birthday and her new baby who is due in 3 weeks (well actually closer to 2 weeks now)! So much to celebrate.

I couldn't go empty handed so I put some finishing touches on the diaper cake I worked on last month. Can you tell it's for a girl?


When we arrived Le and Gabe were cooking up a storm. I'm still not sure how she managed to stay on her feet all day cooking while 8 months pregnant, but the food was delicious. And their kitchen, as well as the rest of the apartment, was surprisingly roomy and new.


Yay - ex-roomies!

One of the girls at the party who also went to school with us had these crazy shoes. I think she called them finger shoes. They're like toe socks, but they're shoes with rubbery bottoms. Crazy, uh? These shoes sparked quite a debate with lots of questions - like do they really provide enough support? or what if your toes are abnormally sized? Who knows, maybe they'll be the next big craze.

Anniversary Dinner

Before you say anything, I realize it's too soon for Phil and I to be celebrating an anniversary. This weekend I celebrated my sister and brother-in-law's wedding anniversary. Phil headed out to the city to hang out with some friends, so I spent most of the morning with my mom preparing food before we headed over to Mandy's place in Bridgewater.

My mom made salad. I know it's just salad, but she made it look so pretty! She even cut the little ridges in the cucumbers like they do at restaurants. She's so funny.


I made my signature 7 layer bean dip (which I actually stole from Mandy...), but minus the meat and the green onions. So I guess it was more of a 5 layer bean dip...Beans (I opted for honey baked instead of refried to make it a little sweet), salsa, sour cream, guacamole and cheese. It still tasted good though!

Mandy and Tam had some of their friends over to celebrate as well, and they brought even more food. One couple brought over homemade mac and cheese, and it was delicious.

And, since the weather was nice, Tam was able to use his grill again to grill up some steak. Isn't this steak huge?! It was easily twice the size of my face.

It must have taken Tam forever to cut all that steak. Mandy helped supervise and entertain the guests.

After most of the food was gone and people had time to digest it was time for cake! The venue where the wedding took place actually wrapped up the top layer of their original wedding cake. Apparently it's tradition (American tradition?) to save the top layer of your wedding cake, freeze it, and then eat it during your first anniversary. Nobody was brave enough to actually try a piece (although Mandy said she would eat some with Tam later) - who knows what 1 year's worth of freezer burn could do to a cake? But I have to say the wedding place did an excellent job of wrapping the cake. Even the little leaves sticking off the side of the cake were in tact!

But we were not without cake. Mandy and Tam had stopped by the same bakery that had done their original wedding cake to pick up an anniversary cake. The cake was obviously smaller and not the same design, but it was the same flavor as the original wedding cake - Maui Wowi. Isn't it pretty?

Here's the happy 1-year-wed couple. All togheter now - Awwww! ^__^

And, group photo! (Eunice, Dae, Cal, Jennifer, Mike, mom, Tam, Mandy and me - hopefully I spelled all those names right...) Aren't we a good looking bunch? ^__~

Happy Anniversary Mandy and Tam! <3

Mandy's Birthday Outing

My sister's birthday was last month, but her schedule is always so busy we had to plan an outing in October to take her out and celebrate. Let's just say it was a milestone birthday year that needed to be celebrated. My mom and I decided to take her out for a day in the city. Our first stop was dim sum at a place called Sunshine 27 (strange name, I know). My mom recommended it since the food is good and cheap. Here are Tam and Mandy enjoying some dim sum.



On our way back to the car we passed by the Doughnut Plant and decided to stop in since Mandy, Mom and Tam had never been before. We were still full from dim sum, so we ordered some doughnuts for later. Phil seems to be doing his best Vanna White impression with our umbrellas.

Our next stop was supposed to be a fair at Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, but we didn't end up going because it started raining pretty hard. So instead we found the nearest cinema in Brooklyn and watched "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" in 3D. Surprisingly it was the first 3D movie in a theater for most of us. Considering it was in the city and it was 3D the tickets were crazy expensive, but the movie was very cute. Phil couldn't stop yelling "Steve!" throughout the whole movie. ^__^

Doesn't Tam look sharp sporting his 3D glasses?

After the movie we headed back into Manhattan and headed to the Momo Fuku Milk Bar. We went there once with Phil's cousins, and their chocolate chip cake (with Passion fruit curd) was too good not to share with the family. We munched on some composte cookie, chocolate chip cake and a slice of candy bar pie.

Afterwards we walked a little farther uptown to a street fair by Union Square. Along the way we passed an interesting piece of art (?) that was hanging on the side of a building. I'm not quite sure what it was and it looked kind of weird with the hand sticking out into nowhere, but it seemed picture-worthy.

And random dinosaur! Extremely detailed graffiti art? Maybe not...

By the time we made it to the street fair some vendors were starting to pack up already. We did pass a cart selling candied fruit on a stick - just like they sell at the night markets in Taiwan.

Before we left the street fair Phil decided he couldn't fight the smells of grilled meat any longer, so he bought some beef on a stick from one of the Falafel/Gyro places. He looks so hungry in this picture - too bad it ended up smelling better than it tasted. Oh, and check out the new shirt he got from Mandy and Tam. It reads: "I don't wanna grow up". So fitting. ^__^

Our final stop for the day was dinner at a fancy Vietnamese restaurant called Safran. The outside looks very unassuming, but the interior is very nicely decorated.

Here I am with mom and Mandy getting ready for some good food.

Phil ordered a spicy hot and sour soup...and that's it! Can you believe all the eating machine had for dinner was soup? He did munch a little on my dinner, but still...

I shared a mango beef salad with my mom. I know mango and beef together sounds kind of weird, but it was really good.

I had the Autumn Beef, which also had mango and I think pumpkin squash.

My sister ordered the Black and White Mushroom sampler, which was basically black and white sticky rice with different kinds of mushrooms.

And my mom had the Safran duck, which was a duck wrap, sort of like those peking duck sandwiches, but in a Vietnamese spring roll wrap.

Then we all shared dessert. It was called "Exotic Bomb". It was mango, passion fruit and raspberry sorbet covered in a white chocolate egg. It was so pretty, but unfortunately I didn't get a chance to grab a picture before the waitress cut it open. It still looks pretty cut open though. Looks just like a peach! (That's Tam in the back giving the dessert bunny ears.)

Aside from the little snag in our plans because of the weather it was a successful day. Who says Mandy's the only one in the family who can plan? ^__~