Restaurant: Russo's NY Coal-Fired Pizzeria

19817 Northwest Freeway, 300
Houston, TX 77065

I've never been to any of the New York Pizzeria's around town but my aunt wanted to meet up at her favo pizza place up north and I love pizza so I was game. We went to Russo's New York Coal-Fired Pizzeria, which at the time, I did not know that it was part of the New York Pizzeria chain. I'm thinking that Russo's is better and a tad fancier. The garlic bread was heaven. I could not put the greasy carbo-load down. The pizza was ok. I think I like cheapy pizza's better, i.e. Totino's, but it was still really good. Even though I was frackin' full, we ended up ordering two biggo slices of dessert. Red velvet for the cousin who had been craving it ever since she landed, and an oreo cheesecake which always looks good to me. Unfortunately, I was so full that I only took one bite of each. Oh, in my younger days, I would have eaten both slices by myself regardless of how full my tummy was. The interior decor was pretty cool. Very pizza goth is that makes any sense. Man. I'm so hungry. I wish I could eat garlic bread everyday and not gain any weight. Or have a heart attack.

Trippin': Vancouver - Residuals

My surplus of Vancouver fotos:

We stayed at Delta Suites Hotel. The rooms are small, but the bedroom is separate from the living room.

I know this may be pretty gross, but I'm pretty sure I have a fascination with poop. We were walking to get some coffee and lo and behold, some giganto poopy on the sidewalk. I just had to take a picture! I'm sure the people passing by thot I was weird. Oh well. I like it when people think I'm weird.

Why are Vancouverans so cool? Cos when I was attempting to take a foto of this wall that had this cool painting on it, two of them jumped into the frame to vogue for me. Awesomeness!

Snow on day three.

More chestnut stands.

The crappiest club ever was the one below. The people who work there are complete idiots. Clipboards and all. I won't get into how retarded the workers here all.

I love getting boba drinks. Even though I don't like the bobas. I'm drawn to boba places. When I see a place, I suddenly crave for some. So it was no diff in Vancouver. I saw a place called Teahouse and went right in. I got a milk tea, of course. It's not as good as the one at the Teahouse here in Houston, but it still wasn't bad. It tasted close to how the milk tea tastes from Cafe 101.

These little toy machines are everywhere!

We stopped by the Urban Behavior Outlet. It looks pretty crappy inside, but the clothes are cute and cheap!

The Vancouver airport is really cute! Just how many Asian live and visit Vancouver? Enough that all the signs also translated in Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

Trippin': Vancouver - W.A.V.E.S

I won't even bother to include a link or address to w.a.v.e.s 24 hour coffee house. Why? Cos this mean worker lady chastised me for taking fotos inside. I don't understand why this is so forbidden. Was she afraid that I was going to open a beach 24 hour coffee house or a crest 24 hour coffee house or a high tide 24 hour coffee house or a sands 24 hour coffee ... you get the point. It's completely ridiculous to me. Luckily, I had already taken a slew of fotos before she noticed and literally bathed me from head to toe with her coffee breath. I know. I get immature sometimes when someone gets in my face. She even asked me to erase the fotos I had already taken. Which of course I didn't. My camera has a hide feature that hides any image I want so that people can't see them when scrolling through my fotos. When anti-fotog lady asked me to erase my pictures, the first thing I could think of to say was, "You guys are so mean here! Blenz let me take pictures!". Another prime example of how toody I can get when provoked. Blenz, of course, was this other coffee place right across the street that we went to two days earlier. The coffee here at w.a.v.e.s was pretty gross. Not good at all. How can you screw up a mocha? But the coffee place itself was really nice. Lots of tables to sit and study at. It's something I wish Houston had more of, but it'll never happen cos we got so many ghetto people who will linger and loiter and not buy anything. That's business y'all! While carousing around Vancouver, we saw quite a few w.a.v.e.s around the city.

Here's a blurry pic of the mean coffee lady.

Musik Mundi: Katie Herzig

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Weekend. I had a super fun time in Austin. I listened to Katie Herzig's most recent album while on the way back to Houston and decided to post the ones that I liked. I didn't particularly like the whole entire album but that's how it usually is anyways. A lot of her songs are pretty slow and the melody doesn't really hook me in.

*photo courtesy of amazon.com*


Katie Herzig
Album: Apple Tree (2009)
Song: Hologram
Song: Sumatra
Song: I Will Follow

Graduation: Chacco

Congrat's to my childhood friend Chacco for graduating from Pharmacy school at TSU! The ceremony was super long and boring, as expected. Mochi and I brought our DS Lite's to preoccupy ourselves. Cos we smart! Mochi even filled her purse with all kinds of goodies that I didn't take advantage of since I had just eaten breakfast. Afterwards, her family treated all her friends and family to lunch at East Wall. For dessert, they brought a tirimisu cake from Le Duc. She's completely relieved that pharmacy school is over and done with. Now, before she has to buckle down and study for her certification/and licensing exam, she's enjoying a family trip to Vietnam. So lucky!

Trippin': Vancouver - Shanghai River

7831 Westminster Highway
Richmond, BC V6X 4J4, Canada

Before our group went on our Vancouver trip, Mochi thot of the idea of trying to find a restaurant that had soup dumplings. Everyone that I know who has been to NYC always talks about going to Joe's Shanghai and having their soup dumplings. So of course I was down with that idea! I've had them here in Houston and they're mos def not rave worthy. We all looked up some places and decided to try Shanghai River based on the online reviews and then a cousin confirmed that it was pretty good there. After waiting about an hour, supposedly there's always a super long line, we got a table and Mochi shouted out our order since we had a frackin' whole hour to decide. We were so hungry and we were also kinda in a rush cos we planned on going snowboarding right after. Everything we ordered was pretty good. The pork soup dumplings were really good! Mochi thot the crab soup dumplings were better at Joe's. We also ordered black vinegar spare ribs (good!), green onion pancake (good!), rice cake something (okay), crab claws (good!) and some sesame ball dessert thing (didn't try). After eating the soup dumplings here, big poppa and I are very excited about trying them in NYC!

There was a large windowed area where you can see people make the dumplings!

Waitress lady! Leave the dumpling lady alone so she can hurry and make OUR dumplings!

Soup dumplings should come in bamboo holders and be spaced apart from each other so that none of the dumplings are touching anything else. The wrapping of the dumplings are so thin and delicate they can tear very easily, releasing the savory broth within. And then you get no broth! That's what soup dumplings are. They're dumplings with a bit of broth inside.

The proper way to eat a soup dumpling is to hold the dumpling in an Asian soup spoon. You take a small bite into the skin of the dumpling, and as the soup spills out, you quickly sip up the soup and then gobble up the rest of the dumpling. Here, my soup dumpling is bathed in bowl of dumpling sauce.

Here's a cracked open soup dumpling. So gut!

Green onion pancake. I love this stuff!

I could not stop eating these spare ribs.