From Portland to Seattle

Every year we go somewhere new (for me that is) for Thanksgiving. I've never been to Seattle and I was dying to visit the lovely place via Portland. Unfortunately, I had a mild food poisoning on my first night in Portland. I was unable to feast on the uber delicious local flavors but I was able to capture some of my favorite spots.

   

How quaint.

Little Bird, my first lunch in Portland. This meal is so affordable, a prefix menu is only at $25 and the portion is good for 2. It was so yummy, I had soup of the day, a daily special and some desserts. They change their menu often, and I can't remember what I had. It's crazy that it came up to only $53 with all the food that we had and tax free!

Andina, beautiful ambience, beautiful live music and yummy peruvian food. The scallop was amazingly yummy, I was very inspired to learn to cook my own scallops. (*Note to self: Must learn to cook scallop.)

Voodoo Donut, another spot that made famous by Food Network. There was a line even at 9pm but the  service was fast and they're relatively cheap considering, even the most expensive item is not more than $3. Our box of 3 items came up to around $5.

The next day, we drove to Seattle and ventured into Pike's Place and the public market.

The wall is filled with graffiti and gums!

I love the public market at Pike's place, there are so many things to see. Apparently the food was also very yummy, but all I could digest was only graham crackers and bananas :(

The public market was deserted because it was Thanksgiving day.

The next day, it was all business again. Cheap seafood! 

Oh beautiful flowers like this starts at only $10!

These are slightly more expensive, almost $20 a bunch.

More fresh seafood!

Of course, not to be missed clam chowder and seafood chowder. 

I love the colors and the fresh produce at this public market.

One of the many pig bronze statues scattered around the public market.

And of course, not to be missed, the very first Starbucks.

I can't wait to visit Seattle again!

Ode to Friendships

 

Dear old friend, you'll forever be missed. 

Dear friends, thank you for being so kind to me. 

Dear new friend, thank you for finding me. 

 Thank god for friends. 

Without them I would not have survived.

Happy Birthday!

It was a surprise birthday celebration. I knew I was going to be taken out, but I hadn't expected a such lovely dinner. After getting into the car my dinner companion told me that we were going to Manresa and I was shocked. I had not expected such a lavish surprise dinner for my birthday. I was extremely excited, but was also a little worried that it was way way too expensive. 

I felt so spoilt while sitting at the lounge drinking a lovely glass of cocktail waiting for our table. As we sat down, I wanted to settle with the prefix menu but my dinner companions urged me to try something different, the seasonal tasting menu. So we did.

Omg....the food was so crazily amazing. I wished I had my camera with me to take pretty pictures of the food that we had but my dinner companions were only willing to tolerate phone cameras. Hahaaa......I love my dinner companions for the lovely dinner.  Also how attentive Manresa was with the surprised birthday cake and candle. I felt so special eating a piece of chocolate cake garnished with gold leaves. Hahaha....what really warmed my heart was what my companions said, "The most important thing is YOU enjoyed it and that's all it matters..." ♥♥♥

I feel so blessed to be so spoilt.... I need to be thankful for the life and the friends that I have...Thank you! ♥

Utmost Gratitude

Happy birthday to me...

Happy birthday to me...

Happy birthday to me...

Happy birthday to me...

I am extremely grateful to all my friends whom celebrated my birthday with me. Thank you for making me feel so spoilt. I kept thinking how lucky I am to have this life and to have such wonderful friends and family. I can't ask for a better present than the friendship and kinship that I have.

Dear friends and family, you're the gold in my life...♥♥♥

City Eats Part II: Central Kitchen

This week, we tried Central Kitchen. 

OK, I have to admit, I've been slacking. Again, I had to rush out the door this morning without my camera so I used my phone. I figured, recording happy memories are more important than beautiful pictures :) 

Why a photo of the dessert to start of this post? Because we were there to celebrate my be-earlied birthday! I am very thankful for my wonderful friends and their family for having this small celebration with me. I realized that I've been focusing too much on work that I've completed neglected my love for spending time with good friends and enjoying a good meal together.  So this photo serves as a good reminder for the wonderful time that I had tonight.

It's chamomile oil cake with fennel and blackberry sorbet. For the first time I actually remembered what I ordered. The cake was very moist and yummy. The flavors were perfectly infused together and beautifully plated with flowers. I'm not so crazy about sorbet but the wafer looking thing was actually very yummy. The texture is between a wafer and a pavlova. It reminded me a lot of my childhood wafer snack but much better in terms of taste and texture. A tad chewy and lightly sweetened.

We started the dinner with liver mousse with summer truffle, mushroom and scallion. I love truffle but this time, I didn't pay attention at all to the truffle because I was too surprised with how tasty the liver pate is. I do eat liver pate occasionally but sometimes I find it way too gamey to my liking. This liver mousse was absolutely smooth and sweet. I just couldn't have enough of it, this is a good portion to split with the group. Less is more. Enough to awaken the taste buds but not too much to be sick of it.

This dish is also very interesting, it's melon, cucumber and avocado with fig yogurt and fresno chili. It looked so pretty and tasted very refreshing, like spring. The ingredient sounded simple but I wonder if I could actually replicate this at home? For sure not as pretty. :)

   

For my entree, I ordered the charred squid with tomato, peppercorn fregula & garum. What? Fregula? Garum? When I saw my plate, I thought they had served caviar with the squid. Sweet. I thought. Haha, no, it's fregula, a type of pasta. I don't know why it's black, they definitely don't taste like peppercorn, I wondered if they had used squid ink to cook the fregula to make it black. And garum? It's actually a type of fish sauce. I really love this dish because they had served the squid with different herbs. So when you're tasting the food, you get to savor the tender squid, a splash of sourness from the garum, sweetness from the cherry tomatoes, and the flavorful herbs. Although the dish looked much smaller than I had expected but by the time I finished my food, I was full and satisfied. In the end we split the dessert with the group. The ambience and food were really good, I really like this place, I'm so glad that my friend picked this place for dinner. We definitely wanted to go back for more!

So we thought being full, happy and satisfied, we have no more space for more dessert. Well no, I guess we do have a different stomach for dessert. Humphry Slocome was only 5 blocks away. I've always wanted to go to Humphry's and since we were so near, we had to go.

This place was so unpretentious, the sign was so small, I wouldn't have noticed it if I drove by. Only that I see people lining up for ice-cream. So what is so special about Humphry Slocombe? Because they have the wildest and craziest flavors out there. To name a few, kumquot poppy seed, flaiming rum and raisin, fume, guinness gingerbread.....etc. etc. etc.

They do it on a rotating basis. I was hoping to try out one of those crazy ones but today's selection was more typical and they were kind enough for you to actually taste all the flavors before deciding on which one you want. I only tried 2 - secret breakfast (vanilla ice-cream with bourbon) and brown sugar fennel. Which one did you think I choose? The latter one. I was very curious, I love fennel but in ice-cream? It was very refreshing. On the first bite, the ice-cream tasted like brown sugar but there's a hint of fennel taste after each bite, so that was very interesting. 

A scoop of Humphry Slocombe's ice-cream a day keeps the sorrow away?

I had such a beautiful day and all I can think of is how grateful I am for the people in my life.  I am a better person because of the wonderful people around me. I am so so so thankful....♥♥♥

City Eats Part 1: Mission Beach Cafe

I realized that I haven't been spending enough time in the city lately. So I've set a goal, that is to eat at at least 3 top rated restaurants in the city before the year ends. And who knew, suddenly I have 3 reservations within 1 month to eat in the city.  *How exciting*

Restaurant 1 : Mission Beach Cafe 

This cute little restaurant is highly reviewed and based on the photos we saw online the food looked absolutely delicious. I had a long day at work, and had completely forgotten about my camera before I left the house so I had to use my phone to capture this beautifully plated grilled summer squash and broccolini. They change the menu often and in a state of famished, I don't really remembered what I ordered exactly. All I know was I was eating amazingly sweet grilled vegetables with humus.

The menu was small, and what stood out for me was the pork chop so I had to try it. We ordered medium well and when it came out, it looked a tad well done. We were worried that the meat would be overcooked but no, it was so tender and juicy. It was so yummy and I had the urge to clean the bone but was too embarrassed to do so. Did you notice the strawberry/fig? How they sliced it and stacked it up alternately? The green was cream of kale with some sort of grains and caramelized onions. Yumm.. my favorite.

The food was indeed amazing. The plating was beautiful and what we noticed was not one plate was plated the same. Every plate was unique. I had a really great time and enjoyed the food tremendously. I can't wait to come again to try out their other dishes, since we also skipped dessert this time because we were very full.

What the reviewers hadn't said was parking is awful. I couldn't find a parking spot for almost an hour. How ridiculous is that? I was driving and I couldn't stop to Google for a nearby parking garage and every spot that I saw was not mine to take. Finally on the verge of giving up, there was this beautiful spot right next to me without me noticing it. I was so thankful that finally, I found a spot. I can't wait for my next restaurant next week!  Yippeee....

106°F

On my way to one of my favorite places - Bay Kids Museum on a hot summer day!



Lucky me, special occasions brought me here 3 times this summer!