Birthday: Mom

For my mom's birthday, I took her out to eat at Pho Tan Loc tonight. Her birthday's really not until tomorrow but I'm heading to Dallas for new year's eve. I think my dad wanted to go there so that's why she ended choosing that place. The lady who owns the place used to have a restaurant a loooong time ago that my dad would frequent cos he really liked the food. Something happened and she ended closing her restaurant. After twenty something years, she opened up Pho Tan Loc on Bellaire and Mary Bates in the same center as Thai Spice and my mom and dad have been going there ever since they found out. My dad likes their ca kho and canh chua. I think I still prefer com tam ban toi or thuan kieu's ca kho and canh chua. I printed out around three hundred something photos that I had of my mom and put them in an album to give to her as a gift and she loved it of course. Who doesn't like pictures of themselves! My mom actually thought she was turning 55 and my sister and I were like, uh, no. She was celebrating her 54th birthday. So this whole year she thought she was 54 going on 55 but was actually 53 going on 54. Is this what happens when you get old? Not good. Haha. Now thinking back. I should have thrown my mom a big party for her 50th birthday. I'm such a bad daughter. I really need to throw my parents some kind of big party.

My mom's so weird sometimes. Haha. I'm obviously very much so my mother's daughter. I'm like 95% exactly like her.

Trippin': Chicago - EYE

While in cab heading down State St toward downtown, we passed by Pritzker Park and right smack dab in the middle of the park was this HUGE sculpture of an eyeball. I said WOW and we MUST come back. After lunch, we walked around the shops in the area and made our way towards the eyeball. The sculpture is called EYE, by Tony Tasset. I love larger than life art! I would suggest that you stop by and give it a stare but this art installation supposedly only last until the end of October. My sister saw these EYE fotos on my laptop and said she saw this sculpture in St. Louis. I wonder where it will end up next? Houston?

Restaurant: Banana Leaf

9889 Bellaire Blvd, #311
Houston, TX 77036

We met up with mini and cooper at banana leaf one early afternoon. Big poppa and I arrived first and got a table at the back of the restaurant and stupidly decided to sit with our backs to the door. The sun was bright outside so I didn't want my fotos turning out all dark. Twenty minutes passed and there was still no sign of mini and cooper. It was really odd cos they're usually pretty punctual and would have texted or called if they were running late. I am super ANTI calling people and going WHERE U AT but it was getting to the point where that was necessary. I texted mini to let her know that we had gotten a table already. Two second later mini and cooper are standing at out table cos they had been sitting at another table this whole time! Haha. They hadn't noticed us cos we had our backs to the door. They figured that we would have been smart enough to sit facing the door. But. We weren't. Haha. We were both so hungry that each of us had ordered the roti canai. It was really good. I can't remember if Straits was better. It might have been. Everything we ordered was really good. Especially the tofu dish we had. Their tofu is made in house! Mini and cooper liked it so much that they went back that night for dinner or maybe it was the weekend after. Big poppa and I just went back again this past weekend.

Food in order of appearance:
malaysian ice coffee
roti canai
sizzling malaysian style bean curd
white rice and hainanese rice
young chow fried rice
stir-fried flat noodle
hainanese chicken

Trippin': Chicago - M Burger

One place prolly not worth trying would be M Burger. Big poppa and were walking along the magnificent mile and passed by this place that was packed with people. And all I think when I see a burger place is ooohh yuummmm I wanna try. On our last day there, we initially hoped to try out one of Rick Bayless's eateries before we left but both of his restaurants, Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, are closed on Mondays, which also happened to be our last day in Chicago. Bah! Why couldn't they be like asians and close on TUESDAYS?!? Rick Bayless, btw, was the winner of Top Chef Masters, Season 1. As we thought about what to do next, I remembered M Burger and left no room for any other option. Not remembering exactly where is was located, we trolled around town until we finally found with the help of kind Chicagoans. The place was really busy but the lines moved quick and the people at the counter were super duper nice. We made small talk. I can't remember if they gave us anything free or not. Maybe not. Sometimes my charming chatter will result in something free. Haha. The food was okay. I guess when you think about places like Shake Shack in NYC, this place really didn't stand a chance. At least my chicken was all natural.

Musik Mundi: Goldfrapp

I've got my most likely one and only snowboard trip booked for the season! Another year, another mountain. So excited but trying not to be cos we all know what happens to me when I become excited about going boarding. Anyways. So what song comes to mind as I think about waking up with the fresh mountain air and the anticipation of falling flat on my face in the snow? That would Alive by Goldfrapp. Goldfrapp is one of the first trip-pop (now referred to as electro-pop) artists I started listening to way back in college so it's awesome that they're still making musik that I actually want to put on my playlist. Okay dokay. Back to studying trail maps.

*photo courtesy of amazon.com*


Goldfrapp
Album: Head First (2010)
Song: Alive

Holiday: Christmas 2010

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! I had a pretty good one. I think I received more gifts than I thought I would. I never expect to receive anything so when I do I'm always pleasantly surprised. Below is a summary of my Christmas.


Some milk and cookies. Wait. Make that vodka/whiskey and cookies. Thanks Pillsbury! I love the smell of baking cookies.

I made the main protein: Thit nuong! There were other things that other family members brought and my mom fried some egg rolls. Bun thit nuong is one of my favo dishes so why wouldn't I make it?!?

Big poppa's extra garlicky and buttery mashed potatoes. It was some of the best mashers I've had!

My second attempt at truffle mac and cheese. It was a success! Everyone loved and I thought it was pretty good if I do say so myself. I used cavatappi pasta, just like they do at the fancy restaurants. The cheeses in my cheese sauce consisted of gruyere, creamy havarti, white sharp cheddar, mozzarella and mascarpone. I topped it off with a parmesan and panko crust. So yummy! I was more liberal with the white truffle oil this time too. Big poppa, who normally doesn't like mac and cheese cos he doesn't like cheese, actually thought my truffle six cheese mac. Yeah man!

Since we finished with our part early and the rest of the family decided that they were all going to be late, I made some vodka punch and big poppa, my sistars and I played games and drank together. It's nice that my sistars are now all of drinking age.

My super cute 50% white, 25% hispanic and 25% chinese first cousin once removed.

Now onto the gifts! As always, my sistars and I along with big poppa get a lot of those perfume/cologne packs from my family. We also get cash from my parents so that's always nice!

Tea cups from marilyn.

Sake from Anthony; Chinese opera mask trinket from squash.

Convertible gloves to fingerless mittens from emdee. Excited cos I was thinking about getting something similar from uo.

Another coinkadink gift are these vapur anti-water bottles gifted by chacco. I had read about them online and thought they were pretty cool. It has a long list of reasons of why they're a more environmentally friendly choice than water bottles, which is obvious since the vapur is reusable. And there's also a list of why it's better than regular reusable thermoses.

Chacco also got me this super adorable hand warmer that comes in this owl pouch. The hand warmer starts off a liquidy texture but once you bend the metal inside, a chemical reaction takes place and the entire thing hardens and releases heat. Isn't science amazing!

Home-baked goods from croatia. She's so talented. I'm always impressed with people who are such good bakers. I think she had the right idea and I'm thinking of giving some sort of baked goods as x-mas gifts.

Bananagrams from mochi. It's a super fun word game that I wish I were better at. I really need to start bringing this everywhere with me!

Elizabeth Arden lip glosses from jenna and ron.

Clinque gift pack from barbie.

Le sport sac pouch from squash. Middle sistar took this.

Cake pops recipe and tips book from step on me. Maybe next year's x-mas baked goods gifts will come from this very book!

A southwest giftcard from LP. She's crazy! I can't believe she got me something that big. I was reluctant at first to accept it but you know, now I have all the reason in the world to buy her starbuck's when I go get some for myself.

And of course, lots of boxes of chocolates.

Big poppa also received an awesome gift from baby grace. He was gifted some stella, guiness and these family guy glasses that are perfect for making some dirty blondes. Thanks jacques and gilles!

My gift to my lady friends this year were pashminas. Don't you just love saying the word pashmina?

So for big poppa this year, I bought him twelve gifts. Some were cheap and some were a bit pricier than the others. I wrapped them and hid them all over the house. I also put one of his face pics from his nye's bday party on it so that he would know that it was one of his gifts. I also made him wear a robe and put on a santa hat. Here he is posing with his loot!

Big poppa as santa; looking in the fridge for a present; open presents time!

old navy hat; chicago white sox cap

dark gray nike sweatpants; gap sweater; gap sweatpants

Snowboarding jacket from academy; express shirt; uo hoodie

Eye mask to wear when sleeping that looks more like a mini bra.

uo t-shirt; old navy scarf; uo t-shirt

Big poppa gave me the absolute best gift. It wasn't the actual gift that made it the best but how he presented it. I had wanted the fuji instax mini instant camera ever since I watched Yes Man. He wrapped a box, used the camera to take pics of the pets and himself and did this whole Christmas Confessions deal where each one of them made a few confessions. Right when I saw it, I think I started tearing up. Big poppa read them each to me and when he got to his, his voice began to crack as his confessions were more of declarations of his feelings for me. We both sat there hugging and weeping for a few minutes. I know. How super embarrassing. We allow ourselves to be mushy only once a year. Haha. I love my gift and can't wait for special occassions to use it. The film is EXPENSIVE!

I also have to mention that today mark's six years of me and big poppa being together. That still freaks me out that some guy could actually stand to be with me for six whole years! Haha. But that's when you know you're with the right person ... when you're willing to accept the other person for everything that they are instead of trying to change them. So happy six years big poppa. And a very merry x-mas to all my peeps!