Restaurant: Soma Sushi

With nothing at home to eat for dinner and no reservations on hand, big poppa and i decided to test our luck and head over to soma sushi to see if we could get a table for two. Luck was on our side! It wasn't super packed but we managed to score a table in the bar area. Good enough for us. Their soma ramen is one of the best in houston. I'm not sure if this is the traditional type of ramen you would expect when you think of ramen but it is still pretty darn good. The broth is good and murky and the noodles are awesome! They're not as dense as the noodles at ippudo ramen but it's still delicious in it's own way. I also like the soma roll as well as the spice yuzu tuna roll. On this occassion we also ordered the tuna and truffle roll which i prolly won't order again since it was just okay. They have this tuna nigiri on their exotic menu that comes with scallions and a truffled shoyu which is also a must order for me. So it turned out to be nice little dinner for us. There were two girls at the table next to us and i think they were having an argument. They were quiet so it wasn't too obvious but i still at times wondered if we should move one table over so they could have a little more privacy. I can't tell if they were lezzies or just two girls who happened to be friends. Since it was vday, all the ladies received a rose. Smelled nice! I love flowers. But i don't like big poppa buying them for me because i think it's such a waste of money. So if he were able to score me some free flowers for me i'd welcome them with open arms. Or better yet, maybe he could plant me a nice garden of magical flowers that don't need tending to.

Some other gifts i received that i didn't expect to: ray-ban catty clubmasters and a macaron making kit.

Restaurant: Triniti

2815 South Shepherd
Houston, Texas 77098

OMGoodness. I know there are a lot of crappy things that are happening in this world and we need to learn how to keep the small things in perspective. But i can't help but be all superficial and wallow in a funk about the fact that i wasn't thinking clearly. AGAIN! And i ended up buying these shoes on ebay. I'm constantly two thousand and late so there are always things i stumble on that are at least a year old and therefore not avail anymore. So then my only options are to find them on ebay. So i found these shoes that i really really like and before you know it, I made an offer and it was accepted and the shoes arrive and they don't FIT. No returns. I normally would try to return them anyway but i'm just so tired and don't want to go through the hassle. Maybe i'll craiglist them. I dunno. They are so freaking cute but they're too SMALL! My feet are whack. I can wear anything from 6.5 to 8. Pretty crazy range right? Why oh why didn't go with at least 7.5?!? I honestly think my feet are growing. Or maybe it's my big ole toe that keeps on growing. I could try to just squish my feet and take the pain. But it's pretty painful and with all the feet problems i've been having, I'd better not make them worse. Seriously. I hope i can get these off my hands! I'd be happy to sell them to you! I'm not even used to paying this much for shoes! Don't worry i didn't pay retail.

Enough of my venting and on to happier times. For gilles' 30th bday, her husband treated a big group of her people to dinner at Triniti. It was such a nice and classy night. I wore my new chanel purse and gilles was wearing her new chanel sandals, her bday gift from the hubs. And mascara had on some really cute shoes too! But i had some sense of practicality that night cos i told myself her heels were just too high for me. I'm not sure wuts going on with me and shoes lately. The restaurant is simply decorated. Very minimalistic. No carpet or thick curtains which meant sore throats and hoarse voices by the end of the night. It was hard to speak normally. I know i was yelling across the table. Food was good but sparse. I'm not really feeling the new trend when it comes to this new plating style. It's like abstract art. I prefer my food to sit in front of me in an organized fashion. It was a bit on the expensive side and you sure don't get a lot food for the money you pay. Or rather, jacques paid. Yay free meal! Haha. At one point, Helen had this look of dismay on her face as the server set this bowl with a couple of small chunks of protein in it. We were all like, THAT'S IT?!? But ten seconds later another server came by and poured soup into her bowl. WHY SO FANCY?!? Haha. It was a really nice meal. Just not enough of it. After dinner, we had way too many drinks at St. Genevieve. Pics to come in another post. Big poppa kept saying he was hungry the entire night.

Restaurant: Churrascos

2055 Westheimer @ Shepherd
Houston, Texas 77098

La lengua and endo took me out to Churrascos for my bday. This was eleven months ago. Omgawd. My bday is coming up around again. Geez. This year, no celebrations involved. Just me and big poppa. I'm not a big meat eater and so places like this is just okay to me. I love chimichurri sauce though and can eat that stuff with the fried plantains all day long. I don't care where i eat as long as i'm spending it with cool people that are fun to be with. As time progresses, it becomes very clear which friends are truly happy and excited for the good things that happen to you. And then there are those who just don't seem to care. And i appreciate the ones who do and am grateful to have special people who actually LIKE ME. I sometimes can't believe i actually have friends. Haha. I have to really thank la lengua and endo for helping me with that whole scooter debacle. Geez. I'm so freaking dumb sometimes.

Restaurant: E-Tao

By now, most people have either already been to E-Tao or have at least heard of it. Since the longwins and the doos have a tradition of having dinner together for each other's bdays, i picked e-tao for my bday dinner. Back then, it was one of the new places offering up soup dumplings. They're actually not that bad here. Since it is located in the galleria mall, expect to pay higher prices for the food. Overall, the food is really pretty decent and there are some items pretty spot on chinese food wise but for the price, i would make the drive out to chinatown for cheaper and ever better food.

Restaurant: Shade

250 West 19th Street
Houston Texas 77008

For the past two months or so, i think i was under some stress that i wasn't even aware i was under. I guess it's bound to happen after working 40 plus hours a week at one job and then putting in more hours helping big poppa's biz. I kinda felt burnt out. I was on edge and so was big poppa. So of course that leads to the both of us constantly snapping at each other and arguing more than usual. Even so, i know that we've got such a strong enough bond that we can weather anything together. It's rare that we have date nights alone just cos we try to squeeze in dinner and brunch with friends on the weekends but i think it was something that we really needed. We went to Shade in the heights one saturday evening. Just the two of us. It started off kinda quiet. I was a little tense. We both ordered some wine. MUCH NEEDED. As we started to drink, big poppa gave us a little toast. To seven years together. And from then on we both loosened up and great conversation followed. The food here was okay. I think the best thing was the MAC AND CHEESE. It was the reason why i wanted to come here. Super creamy mac and cheese with truffle oil. Like a lot of truffle oil. I know real foodies turn their nose at truffle oil but i love the stuff. I love when mac and cheese is creamy. It kinda made me want to go home and try to make my mac and cheese creamy. Everything else wasn't so impressive. The clam dish had some of the cleanest clams. Maybe i'm just used to dirty asian gritty clams. I'm not really into clams but i always try like one or two to get a feel for the sauce. Sauce was okay. Big poppa's scallops were too sweet. I'm guessing they added a bit of sugar to get that nice caramelized sear but it made everything too sweet. My porkchops were kinda bland. I make super bad for you super glazy porkchops so american porkchops can't realy meet my expectations. I seem to always order it anyway. Our night ended with friends at a coffee shop. Can't get any better than that!