Snack Time

When you want a snack, spring rolls are the way to go. Spring rolls are so good especially with that peanut sauce. I got these spring rolls at Nguyen Vu. It tasted pretty good, but the one thing I didn't like was how they cut it in half. Maybe I'm just used to getting the whole size and I find it easier to eat too. While I was eating this I felt like as I bite into it, the rest would fall out on the other side. Also, the peanut sauce was thick and not as sweet. So I guess I didn't think this was all that great. I should have gone to Pho Pasteur or Cam Huong for spring rolls.

Avocado-Coconut Ice Cream

My parents LOVE avocado! They love avocado snow bubble with pearls from Tapioca Express and they always ask me to go buy it for them. Anyways, we have an avocado tree in our backyard and it took at least 10 years before it started growing. We were so excited to see more than one growing on our tree. I think there's a total of 4-5 that's growing and here are the two that we picked out. They're HUGE!

After picking the avocado, we put them in our rice dispenser to ripen faster. It kind of worked, but not really. The avocado isn't as ripe as we wanted it to be, but I figured that since we're blending it and using coconut, it should be okay. So since I got my ice cream maker they have been asking me to make avocado ice cream and I found a recipe on youtube, but it's avocado-coconut flavor.

Here is the final result of the ice cream in the making. I like taking a picture of the ice cream like this because it's amazing how it works! Here's the recipe!

Recipe:

1/2 cup of whole milk
1/2 cup of coconut milk
1/2 cup of sugar
1 lemon

1. In a blender mix all of the ingredients
2. Chill in the refrigerator
3. Put into the ice cream maker

Simple as that!

Cuisinart

For my birthday, my sister and her family bought me an ice cream maker! There was this one time where I made ice cream without an ice cream maker and I guess they decided to just get me one. It made me laugh and smile so big when I got it in the mail. Anyways, this is the first recipe that I tried, salted caramel. I wanted to make gelato, but the consistency was more of an ice cream so I have to retry it. This is my third attempt to make it because I'm so impatient. You have to freeze the bowl for about 16-20 hours and I only froze it for 2...yes I'm impatient, but I left it in the freezer over night and it worked!

It's so cool to watch! It tastes good! Not to sweet and you can slightly taste the caramel and I didn't put enough sea salt because it was in this crusher that took too long to crush so I only put a little.

Recipe:

4 Egg yolks
1/2 Sugar
1 cup heavy cream
2 cups of whole milk
1/2 cup of caramel
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt

1. Heat the heavy cream, whole milk and vanilla extract on low.
2. Mix the sugar and yolk until pale yellow
3. Add the cream little by little into the eggs and sugar so that the eggs don't over cook
4. Mix it all in
5. Strain the mixture back into the pot for a couple minutes
6. Put in refrigerator to chill

Palabok

Yesterday my mom made palabok! It was so delicious! However, there's two kinds of palabok, there's also malabon and I like that one better.

Dinner's at 6

Growing up my dad would have dinner ready by 6. Now my body is trained to eat dinner at 6 sometimes 7. Anyways, I came home for dinner last night and my parents cooked pork chops and okra. I believe it's an Asian thing where we fry every thing! There's so many ways to marinate pork chops and I just like salt and pepper, that's it. I'll still eat it if it's marinated with other seasonings or soy sauce, it's just I prefer salt and pepper. They actually fried it with garlic, you'll see it in the picture. Then on the side we had okra. I used to hate okra, but I learned to love it! I just used fish sauce and vinegar to dip it in. Do you like okra?

I Can Eat Sushi ALLL DAY!

My boyfriend and I went out for dinner, again! Anyways, since I chose to go to La Penca last time (the last post) he wanted to go eat sushi. I was in Alameda, like always, and we went to this sushi restaurant that we always go too. It's called New Sushi King. I would say their sushi is pretty good, I mean we always go there when we want sushi. We shared a large bottle of Sapporo and had the Godzilla, Bay Scallop and that Crunchy roll. Half way done eating I remembered to take a picture of what was left and unfortunately I didn't get to take a picture of the Crunchy roll because it was so good we ate it all and it was my favorite!! But all were good. We tend to get the same rolls because we always enjoy it. And like always we sit at the bar where we can watch the guy make our sushi. I think I want to keep sitting there so that they recognize us. I've always wanted to go to restaurants where they know who I am, but I don't go to the same restaurant everyday so I guess it won't work. We usually stop by this place at least once a month. Alright well I leave it to the pictures, now you can start drooling.

Godzilla (deep fried yellow tail roll in house spicy sauce & tobiko)

Bay Scallop (California roll topped with spicy baked scallops)
 

*Crunchy Roll (deep fried prawn and spicy crab meat topped with tempura flakes)

Out For Dinner..Again

So today I went to Jace's house and since he didn't have food at his house, we decided to go out to eat again for dinner. When it doubt, we always go to La Penca. When you want authentic mexican food and a good house margarita, you go to La Penca. For some reason, every time I want mexican food I always want tacos. I don't order burritos because I think they're too big for me and I don't like to eat anything I know I won't be able to finish. The good thing about La Penca is that they don't close until 3pm, so it's a good spot to go to when you're drunk and you want to eat. It's located on the corner of Santa Clara and Park St. in Alameda. It's always busy and my friends boyfriends family actually own the place and there's like two of them in Alameda. Anyways, I ordered the shrimp, fish and steak tacos with a sangria. I usually get the house margarita, but I wanted to change it up a bit.

Fish Taco

Sangria w/ chips and salsa
Their salsa is amazing!

Beer

I went to Grocery Outlet with Jace and we were looking at their selection of alcohol. We didn't really recognize the wine selection and lately we've been drinking a lot of wine. I love beer and I haven't had any in a long time so we decided to buy a bottle I've never had. I'm pretty choosy when it comes to beer. I love pale ales, ales, locals and none of that weak/cheap stuff. Here's what I've never tried before and I like it. It's very light. (Btw, my bf took this picture. He's really good.)

Duvel Belgian Golden Ale

Jang Su Jang

Yesterday my boyfriend and I tried this new Korean restaurant in Milpitas. We were driving one day and I was stopped at a stop light, then I looked over to talk to him I saw a restaurant called Jang Su Jang with a big grand opening sign in the front. I thought it would be cool to try it out. So we went and found out that they have grills to bbq. We wait about an hour to get a table and as we were waiting we looked at a menu and to bbq it was pretty expensive, ranging from $20-$30 for meats and it was a minimum of two. We figured it was only good for groups so we just asked to sit at a regular table. We ordered Bulgogi with rice and seafood soup. The side dishes are my favorite!

Kimchi is so yums!

The Bulgogi was good. I love when it has the smoky taste. I forgot to take a picture of the seafood soup, it was okay. Overall this place is good, but it's just like eating at any other Korean restaurant. I was upset that we couldn't bbq our own food. We also over heard someone say as they were leaving, "it's just like the others". As for would I go back?  I guess I would go back if I had a big group.

Rice For Breakfast

I'm so Asian for this. I rather eat rice with my eggs. People may think that's gross because when you go to a breakfast spot people eat their eggs with toast. Here is what I like to eat in the morning. Eggs with mushroom and garlic rice or just regular white rice, jasmine to be exact. Filipino people eat rice throughout the day breakfast, lunch and dinner. I usually don't eat it for lunch unless its the weekend and my parents decide to cook. Every Filipino dish goes with rice, it's a must!