So Delicious!

Saigon Noodle House in Diamond Bar, CA

Priscilla — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 05:42:04 +0000

A friend and I met up for lunch here during my lunch break! Saigon Noodle House is located on the northeast corner of Diamond Bar Blvd and Grand Ave. I have wanted to eat here since I started working in Diamond Bar last year, but the opportunity never arose until now. I was so happy when my friend suggested going here for lunch! The restaurant is well-lit and clean, and the servers are really friendly. The pho bowls come in both regular and large sizes, but the regular bowl is already big enough. One of the servers was standing nearby, and he brought us extra bowls of broth when he saw that our bowls were overflowing with noodles and beef!

Pho Bowl #12 for $5.45- This bowl comes with rare beef, beef brisket, flank, tendon, and tripe! The soup wasn’t too flavorful, so I added hoisin sauce and Sriracha sauce. I’ve never added these sauces before, but they give the soup a great flavor.

Buffalo Wild Wings in City of Industry, CA

Priscilla — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 04:44:14 +0000

First post of 2012 and first meal out with friends this year! This was my first time going to Buffalo Wild Wings. This location is in the City of Industry on the outskirts of the Puente Hills Mall right off the 60 freeway and Azusa Ave. Buffalo Wild Wings is a sports bar with tv screens everywhere, but there is also an outdoor seating area with tv screens and heat lamps. They have 16 sauces that range from sweet to extremely spicy: sweet BBQ, teriyaki, mild, parmesan garlic, medium, honey BBQ, spicy garlic, chipotle BBQ, jammin’ jalapeno, Asian zing, Caribbean jerk, Thai curry, hot BBQ, hot, mango habanero, wild, and blazin’.

We went on a Tuesday night to get the traditional chicken wings for 55 cents each, and during happy hour from 4-7 pm, you can get $3 appetizers! We ordered 100 wings, 3 orders of garlic mushrooms, mini corn dogs, chips and salsa, and chips with chili con queso! Onion rings are part of the $3 appetizers, but they forgot to bring them out for us. We tried parmesan garlic, honey BBQ, buffalo, chipotle BBQ, Asian zing, Caribbean jerk, Thai curry, and mango habanero. When ordering the wings a-la-carte, you have to order at least 5 wings with the same flavor. Most of us preferred the mild flavors, and only a few dared to try the mango habanero, which is the third spiciest flavor. The mango habanero is really spicy, and it doesn’t have a strong mango flavor. It’s bearable, but I can’t imagine eating more than one of them. The parmesan garlic flavor has more parmesan than garlic. Asian zing, honey BBQ, and chipotle BBQ are my favorite flavors.

Egg Pancakes

Priscilla — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:46:09 +0000

Egg pancakes or “dan bing” as they are called in Chinese are typically served at Taiwanese breakfast places, but you can make this simplified version using eggs and corn tortillas (or flour tortillas) at home any time! I had so many leftover corn tortillas from making the green chile chicken enchilada casserole, so I decided to make a wholesome breakfast by using the tortillas to make some egg pancakes. It was nice to have as my last breakfast of 2011!

Ingredients:

2 eggs, beaten and seasoned with salt and pepper
2 corn or flour tortillas
Hot sauce or salsa (optional)

Directions:

Pour the beaten egg mixture into a medium pan. Dip both sides of the tortillas into the eggs. The tortillas can overlap.
Over medium-high heat, cook the eggs and tortillas. When the egg starts to cook through, flip the tortillas over and cook the other side. Spread the eggs over the tortillas as necessary.
Remove from heat, serve on a plate, and enjoy! For extra flavor or spice, Tapatio hot sauce or any salsa will work well.

Bruxie Gourmet Waffle Sandwiches in Brea, CA

Priscilla — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:16:39 +0000

Bruxie recently opened a location in downtown Brea next to the Edwards Theater! This was my second time trying it, and I like the sandwiches even more now. I think I could eat it once a week. The sweet sandwiches like strawberry cheesecake and lemon meringue pie sound great too. Unlike the location by Chapman University, this location has a covered ordering and seating area. The line extends out on the sidewalk, but it goes pretty fast.

Smoked Salmon and Dill Cream Cheese Bruxie for $7.95- This sandwich comes with Michel Cordon Bleu smoked salmon with herb cream cheese, cucumbers, and chives. Great for breakfast too!

Buttermilk Fried Chicken and Waffle for $6.95- This is their most popular sandwich! It comes with a large piece of fried chicken, cider slaw, and chili honey. For $1 more, you can get a side of 100% maple syrup. I think the sandwich is sticky and sweet enough with the chili honey. The waffle also gets greasy with the oil, so I wrapped a napkin around it. It also helps to catch the coleslaw if it falls out. The chicken is so crispy and tender, and I enjoyed every bite. It reminds me of Chick-Fil-A! It’s that good.

Soft serve frozen custard, regular size for $2.95. I’ve never had frozen custard before, so I wanted to try it. It’s very thick and creamy, and it has a milky flavor. Personally, I don’t like milky flavors, so I think this would have tasted better with some kind of fruit or chocolate syrup. I was only able to finish 90% of it.

Foo Foo Tei in Hacienda Heights, CA

Priscilla — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:55:41 +0000

My coworkers like Foo Foo Tei too, so it’s been fun to go there more often! We usually leave the office at 11:30 so we can get into the first seating round. We got there 5 minutes later than usual (11:45), and the parking lot was already full and we were 5th on the waiting list. We had to wait about 40 minutes before we were seated. There was a group of 6 just ahead of us.

Mini tuna bowl for $4.50- This tuna bowl is delicious! The tuna was really good with the sauce, cucumbers, seaweed, green onions, and wasabi.

Qdoba Mexican Grill in Duarte, CA

Priscilla — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:30:15 +0000

I drive by Qdoba everyday on the way to and from work, and I wanted to try it sometime. It had a cute name, and sounded like it would taste good. When one of my friends asked where I wanted to meet up for dinner, I suggested Qdoba. The Qdoba in Duarte is located off the 210 freeway at the Mountain Ave exit. Qdoba is like Chipotle but the seating area is a little nicer, and they offer signature sauces like their queso sauce with a three-cheese blend, roasted poblanos, tomatoes and jalapenos, ranchera sauce (like a salsa), ancho chile bbq sauce that’s a slighty sweet, molé inspired BBQ sauce with chiles, hickory and smoky mesquite, and poblano pesto sauce with roasted poblano peppers, jalapenos, cilantro, almonds and pine nuts. They also have shredded beef and seasoned ground beef options.

An order of 3 tacos comes with your choice of soft flour or crispy corn taco shells. I wanted to try as much as possible, so I paid $6.99 (the price for 3 steak tacos) for a chicken taco, a steak taco, and a pulled pork taco.

These were the combinations I tried:

Chicken taco with ranchera sauce and lettuce

Steak taco with pico de gallo and lettuce

Pulled pork taco with ancho chile bbq sauce, roasted corn salsa, and lettuce

The tacos didn’t come with the rice, so I ordered a side of it to try it.

Chipotle’s rice is better, but I do like Qdoba’s sauce options. The tacos are smaller since they aren’t stuffed with meat and rice, but that can be either a good or bad thing. The staff here is friendly, and I would like to come here again to try the burritos.

Pumpkin Apple Streusel Muffins

Priscilla — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 22:36:30 +0000

I had leftover canned pumpkin after making the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, so I looked through allrecipes.com for a good recipe that would help me use up the pumpkin. The pumpkin apple streusel muffin recipe looked promising, so I made two batches of it. I ended up with 2 small cakes and 30 muffins!

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 cups peeled, cored and chopped apple

For the streusel:

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 teaspoons butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease 18 muffin cups or use paper liners.

2. In a large bowl, sift together 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 cups sugar, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, pumpkin and oil. Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture; stirring just to moisten. Fold in apples. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

3. In a small bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons flour, 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle topping evenly over muffin batter.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

Notes: I reduced the white sugar amount to 1 1/2 cups for the muffins and used brown sugar for the streusel topping. These muffins taste better when warmed in the microwave for 15-20 seconds. Chopping the apples will take time regardless, but one way is to peel the apple, use an apple wedge slicer to remove the core, and dice.

The streusel is the hardest for me to make. I used a pastry blender to cut in the butter into the cinnmon, brown sugar, and flour. Use firm butter when making streusel.

38° Ale House and Grill in Alhambra, CA

Priscilla — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 22:18:19 +0000

A friend and I were going to join some other friends for hot wings in downtown Alhambra, but the hot wings place was too crowded! As we walked by 38° Ale House and Grill, I thought about how it would be nice to try that place sometime. It was great to hear the change in plans to go to 38° instead! 38° is on the corner of 1st and Main Street. There are tv screens showing different games, and there is a bar area and a regular seating area. Happy Hour is from 4-7 pm, and the plates are about $6-7 each. The main menu includes appetizers, salads, soups, sandwiches, burgers, and entrees.

These chicken wings are delicious! The sauce is spicy sweet honey chipotle, and the wings come with bleu cheese dressing for dipping. You can order 6 wings for $9 or 12 wings for $15.

A bacon, lettuce, tomato, chicken, and avocado sandwich with sweet potato fries!

Portobello mushroom sandwich and shoestring fries! This sandwich is spicy with the chiles and is served on a wheat bun!

Curry salmon cake sliders! Each slider is made with a salmon cake patty, baby arugula, and a spicy curry sauce! These were so good and I finished them really fast.

Arcadia Food Truck Music Fest

Priscilla — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 06:38:20 +0000

This food truck music fest was scheduled a few days after the huge windstorm on November 30th, so we weren’t sure if it was still happening. It was held right next to the Arco gas station on Foothill and Santa Anita Ave at Emmanuel Church. After hiking for about 5 miles around Sierra Madre, we walked to the food truck festival! It was free admission, and there were 12 trucks there, no lines, and live music! Most of the performers were middle-aged men, but they did a great job singing and playing their instruments!

This time, I got some food from Jogasaki and Krazy BBQ!

Jogasaki is a Japanese food truck that makes sushi burritos, which are really just sushi rolls wrapped in rice paper instead of seaweed and eaten with your hands! For $9, a friend and I split a burrito with fried shrimp, crab, avocado, and rice! It was delicious and a decent size. We split the burrito so we could try other foods.

Krazy BBQ- This was also a new food truck for me. This truck serves Mexican/American/Korean fusion food like tacos, sandwiches, and Kalbi plates. I ordered the krazy taco with kb steak, cabbage, cheese, cilantro, tomatoes, onions, and carrots for $2.95. The steak was sweet and tender, but the taco was kind of messy with the sauce.

Krazy Dumplings with beef and vermicelli! I was curious about Korean-style dumplings, so I ordered it too! Each order comes with 6 pieces. They’re pretty good with the sauce, and they can also be steamed. The food truck didn’t have steamed dumplings that day though.

Portuguese Flan

Priscilla — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 01:43:25 +0000

For the holidays, my department at work planned a “Sweet Treat Traditions Potluck!” Those who wanted to participate could bring a dessert typically enjoyed by their family during the holidays. For myself, I didn’t know what I could bring since my family doesn’t have any dessert traditions. Some Chinese desserts include mango pudding, almond jello, almond cookies, and 8,000 year sticky rice, but we don’t usually make any of these. Instead of something Chinese, I decided to make something Portuguese! This recipe for Portuguese flan is so delicious, and I especially enjoy the creaminess and firmness of the flan. It takes a while to make, but it’s worth it. This recipe is for 4-6 servings, but that’s only if you cut yourself a BIG piece of flan. If you choose to use an 8×8 casserole dish, it can make 25 individual-sized squares.

Ingredients:

½ cup sugar
½ cup water
2 eggs
3 egg whites
1 can (14 oz.) condensed milk
1 ½ cups milk
1 tbsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Combine sugar and water in a small pan and cook over low heat; increase heat slowly to medium-high and cook until syrup turns deep amber in color (about 5 minutes). Quickly pour the syrup into a 1-2 quart casserole dish, coating the sides by tipping the dish.

Note: Caramelizing the sugar takes longer than 5 minutes. Combine the sugar and water before cooking. This part is the hardest for me to get right. The first time came out great, but I haven’t been able to repeat it. If you boil it for too long, the water evaporates, and all you’re left with is the crystallized sugar. Try cooking the syrup without stirring it.

2. Preheat oven to 325°F.

3. Combine eggs, egg whites, condensed milk, milk, and vanilla. Pour mixture into caramel-coated casserole dish. Set it in a pan of hot water and bake for 60-70 minutes, or until set.

Note: Use an electric mixer to combine these ingredients. It makes it a lot easier to blend the condensed milk. To separate the egg whites from the yolks, crack the egg as usual over the bowl, but only make a small opening for the whites to pour out of the shell. This will allow the bulk of the egg white to go into the bowl. To get the rest of the egg white out, carefully shift the egg yolk from shell to shell and allow the egg white to drip out. You can also use egg white separator tools instead of separating the egg whites manually.

I used a smaller casserole dish for the flan and placed it in a larger casserole dish with the hot water. The outside dish only needs to be filled halfway with hot water.

4. Cool to room temperature and then refrigerate until cold. Run a knife around the inside of the casserole dish and invert on a plate. Garnish with whipped cream and toasted almonds if desired.

Note: To reduce fat, use low-fat condensed milk and nonfat milk.