melting pot

The Melting Pot- Portland, OR

Since I didn't eat out today, and I'm in a blogging mood, I'll blog about something I ate a while ago. Cheese and chocolate, I can't think of any words that starts with a 'c' that I possibly love eating more. This place was honestly heaven-- it consisted of my favorite foods in a hot pot. It's akin to the Chinese hot pot but the medium is used for dipping as opposed to the Chinese version where they are used as a soup base. My friends and I went there for happy hour so we got a generous amount of food for half the price. We had a really nice waiter. Very chatty, friendly, AND hospitable. The dude hooked us up with free drinks and free desserts (value $18 just for the desserts!).  I can't remember what we ordered, but I think we got the spinach cheese fondue, spinach and artichoke dip in a bread bowl, shrimp cocktails, salmon ball and crackers, and this other thing I can't remember its name. I would definitely go back again. For the amount of food we got and the price we paid, this place is definitely a winner during happy hour.

cheese fondue

spinach and artichokes dip

really good cocktail sauce

desserts on the kind waiter :)

want a cookie?

Cookies- Home

It's such a sad sad day when I go home to nothing to eat, and I'm way too tired to head out to dinner. Actually, that's a lie, I'm never too tired for food. For some reason my new prescription lenses are giving me the worse of headaches, so off they went and I was a blind bat for the rest of the night. Not sure if the stress from grad school applications are having any effects on my health either, but it bums me out every night knowing that I didn't hear back from my in-state school after the interview. On top of that, first day of the new quarter started today. Stress really kills, but know what debunks stress like no other? Cookies! But even better, baking cookies. I have always believed in some sort of therapeutic properties associated with baking. It's a great way for me to relieve stress, so I gathered the ingredients from scratch and decided to make chocolate chip cookies.

making the BIGGEST mess ever

all rolled up

om nom nom

Yum yum yum right? Actually, I lied. For some reason, the cookies came out plain, simple, and just okay. It's like they're missing that extra oomph. I can't remember if I forgot an ingredient in the cookies or not. I think it's probably the butter I used. Something just didn't taste right this time. Think the bf's gonna be disappointed-- he was expecting the yummy chocolate chip cookies from the past. Sorrrrrry, not this time.

la-la-la-la-sagna

Giovanni's- Beaverton, OR

My bf texted me earlier this morning telling me that he wanted to hang today and that he got something for me. When we hung out, he whipped out a $100 bill and wanted to give it to me, but I didn't take it. I've never had a guy straight up wanted to give me raw cash before. That was so weird. When I asked him why he was giving me money, he joked about finding 2 $100 bills on the ground, and he wanted to share his criminal activity (and a jail cell) together. LOL, dork. We didn't eat in at Giovanni's today, but ordered take-out instead. The pictures are of another time we had gone earlier in the month. My bf isn't much of a Italian cuisine guy, so it takes a lot for me to get him to take me out to Italian food. Somehow, probably from luck or whatever reason, he actually said yes when I asked if we could eat Italian that day. We were headed to Olive Garden, but with our luck on a Saturday night, the place was packed at the entrance. We drove off and decided to try Giovanni's instead. They were packed too, but hungry and tired of scouting for other Italian restaurants in the area, we decided to wait 15 minutes for a table to open up. Right when we walked through the door, the smell of cheese filled the entire room. It was love. 

I ordered lasagna and my bf ordered the special (lasagna and chicken parmigiana). Served with our entree is a choice of soup or salad and anti-pasta. My bf got the salad while I got the minestrone soup. The anti-pasta was a plate a selected deli meat, cheese, and vegetables. We also got a basket of garlic bread with our order. When our entree came out, I was surprised by how big the portions were. My lasagna was gigantic, and shockingly enough, my bf's special was about $3 more than my lasagna, but it came with a FULL SIZE lasagna and chicken parmigiana! That was crazy! I was so full by the time I finished 1/4 of my lasagna. That stuff was honestly SO filling. I am certain now that authentic Italian restaurants truly do their best not to let their customers leave hungry. Between my bf and I, we barely even tackled our entree-- if anything, it still looked new. It definitely made for a great midnight snack though.

my lasagna and the bf's full size lasagna+chicken parmigiana

seafood heaven

Thien Hong- Portland, OR

I seriously have been getting some shitty luck with my first-choice restaurants these past few days. My parents got off work today and wanted to take my sister and I out to dinner. Not wanting to venture far, we decided to grab all-you-can-eat at Buffet Palace, a decent buffet place in Oregon. They supposedly have lobsters on the weekends, but so far, and based entirely off of my own experience, that is more a myth than reality. I have yet to even spot a tiny piece of lobster meat in that establishment, but I still come back. There's something about all-you-can-eat and having a lot of variety of food that excites me, even if the food isn't even that great. So, being the sweet kid I am, I drove. Bad idea. I had my pupils dilated earlier in the day when I went in to my eye doctor's for a comprehensive exam. He put some eye drops in my eyes to make my pupil dilate so he can look inside my eyes better, but that stuff was potent! Five hours later and I was still dealing with blurry vision and wearing sunglasses in the house. Anyway, while driving, I started to fricken see doubles! .. and blurry doubles of everything at that. So we get to Buffet Palace and there's no parking. However, being the patient spirit I sometimes am capable of being, I circled the parking lot once with no luck, then I drove over to Wendy's and parked there and just walked over to the restaurant. So we get there, and we didn't even make it through the doors when we see hoards of people standing in the lobby waiting for a seat. When I say hoards, I mean, it looked like I was at the soup kitchen or something. WTF! Aren't we in a recession? What are all these people doing eating out like this? 

Sadness slowly engulfed me as we immediately left the place. We wait for nothing. Especially not so-so food and tackling old grandmas for that food either. We then decided to head on over to Thien Hong for some real food! Thien Hong is well known for their salted and peppered squid, but to everyone's dismay, I abhor squid. So I can't comment much on their signature dish, but I must say, their salted and peppered [insert anything aside for squid here] is delicious! Once we sat down at our table, the lady came over and took down our order without us even ordering. What amazing memory she has! I guess it's also because we always order the same thing every time we go there.. Now I know where I got that trait from. We ordered fish maw soup (devoured it before I got to take pictures), clams, fried fish, and lobster. Yum yum yum!

some sorta flat fried fish with a soy-based sauce

clams in mung bean sauce

salted and peppered lobster

a close up of the goodness :)

nakwonnie here i come!

Nakwon- Beaverton, OR

My sister and I were headed to Red Lobster today since their annual Lobsterfest is ending soon, but we barely even made it to the door when we left frustrated. Stuck in an aisle in the parking lot by a VERY rude SUV that took up BOTH lanes of the aisle waiting for this stupid convertible who was taking its sweet ass time backing out. We waited for probably 3 minutes when the car behind us reversed and we followed suit, except when we got to the end of the aisle, this STUPID Bronco like thing turns into our aisle, forcing us to return back to square one. WTF! We got sandwiched by two idiots, I mean seriously, it's one thing to wait patiently for someone to back out, but it's another to hog the whole area and not allow any other cars to pass. So after that SUV got out of our way, we circled the parking lot of open spots but there were none! Ticked off, frustrated, and hungry, we set off for Nakwon instead.

I think what sets Nakwon off from its competitors in the area is the authentic food they serve. They're not well known for their korean BBQ, but their other dishes are superb! Actually, I don't really know about "other" dishes, since I've only ever really eaten about three different dishes. After trying their spicy ribs stew, I have never tried anything else. It is the most delicious stew I have ever had! A giant red pot of ribs slow cooked and simmering along with potatoes, green onions, carrots and other veggies. Spicy is its name, but the spice is not bad at all. Also, their side dishes are really good. I keep coming back for the potato salad and kimchi. I think they have the best kimchi in the area, but that's just me. The only thing that is really unnerving about this place is the service. They set the side dishes about 5 minutes before the entrees reach the table, and after that, they never come back to check on how everything is going. Sometimes I'd like a refill of the kimchi but it's not worth the effort of trying to track the waiters down. 

yummy side dishes! and Ruby's stir fried noodles

my stew, still simmering

A big tip to myself-- never wear white when eating this. It's messy and you WILL get dirty. Whether it's dropping the bone and splashing it back in the stew or the bubbling stew splattering out of the pot, this is one messy meal.

after stuffin' my face

say cheeeeese

Tillamook Cheese Factory- Tillamook, Oregon

the place where they package their cheese

My boyfriend is quite the impulsive guy. I got a call from him around 1:49 pm on the 23rd telling me to hurry up and get dressed so we can go to the beach. Yay! The beach! I haven't seen the beach since last summer so this is a splendid surprise, and more so, because the sun is out and the weather is surprisingly warm in Oregon. By the time I had gotten ready and he came over to pick me up, the sun disappeared and the clouds started creeping in. I didn't care much for the clouds because I desperately wanted a road trip anywhere, and as he's in the mood for a beach trip, I wasn't about to let the clouds ruin my mood. An hour an a half later we arrived at Tillamook and by then it was sprinkling. We headed to the Cheese Factory and watched as the workers packaged the cheese. Those blocks in the pictures above are giant blocks of cheese, in different flavors, such as cheddar, sharp cheddar, mild cheddar, pepper jack, monterey jack, etc. We also went to the Cheese Factory because they sell Werner's jerky, and between my boyfriend and I, we bought about $100 worth of jerky. Seriously, we had driven ~70 miles to Tillamook for jerky, cheese, and ice cream. Yup, ice cream. They have 38 flavors of ice cream or so there. The bf got his favorite, cookie dough, while I got german chocolate cake. We both weren't very happy with our ice cream as it was  way too sweet for us. 

blocks and blocks of cheese!

compares how giant the blocks of cheese were to the workers

flasks and vials- old school cheese-making?

On our way home, I reflected on a thought that sort of dampened by mood. Since I've met my boyfriend, I've noticed that we'd go to the beach once a year. Just once. 

2007: Cannon Beach

2008: Tillamook 

2009: Seaside

2010: Tillamook/Rockaway

2011: Tillamook

The thought dawned on me that if this is tradition, then this would be my one and only beach trip this year! I hope that isn't the case and we do get to go to the beach again this year. Hopefully in the summer, when the weather is nicer, and I can actually enjoy the beach. For some reason, I really miss my bf right now, even though I just saw him 6 hours ago, and everyday for the past week :( The dread of not getting into OHSU is ruining me.

cupcake lollipops

Cupcakes Bouquet

I may seem like a pig, but don't get me wrong. Aside from eating, I am also well-endowed with other skills as well. Ah, what skills you ask, huh? Since there doesn't seem to be much going on aside from stalking down food joints and expanding my stomach to its maximum capacity, well let me prove you wrong.

For my friend's birthday, I wanted to bake her a cake. But the idea of baking a simple cake bored me out of my mind, so I decided to make cupcake pops. Cupcake pops are essentially cupcakes on a lollipop, but there's a lot more going on than that. I bake red velvet cake mix into two 8 inch pans and mix it with half a tub of cream cheese frosting, then I roll the mix into a cupcake shape using cookie cutters. Then I dip the finished product in two different chocolate melts colors, brown for the bottom and white on top, and add sprinkles. So pretty, so yummy, so different. The chocolate coating gives it a crunchy texture while the inside is incredibly moist and delicious! As if the cupcake pops were not good enough, I needed a way to present the final piece to my friend. I can't just shove a bunch of lollipops at her and be like, here's your cake girly.

The thought obviously crossed my mind, but as an overachiever I will not settle for last. I wanted something dramatic, something captivating and breathtaking, something that she will remember foreverrrrrr! Okay maybe not forever, but at least for a short while. So then, after holding the cupcake pops like so in my hand, I thought, hmmm.. this would look so nice as a bouquet.. And wham, I got to work and assembled my final creation.

butter, gotta get my butter

Red Lobster- Tigard, OR

Depending on the time of day, sometimes I get the strangest cravings ever. This was definitely one of those days. I was craving melted butter, and I needed something to dip in that butter! What better to have than lobster, right? Not really, I was actually craving king crab legs but where can I get that right now?!? No where, so Red Lobster it is. Luckily for us, they were having their annual Lobsterfest when we went. The menu was chocked full of lobster cooked in many different ways, but I settled on the Lobster Lover's Dream because it had not one, but two lobster tails (Maine and rock), and pasta with shrimps and more lobster. It indeed is a dream :) I tackled the entire plate in one sitting and satiated my butter craving definitely. The Maine lobster (the one on the left) was delicious because the meat was tender and soft, but nicely cooked. The rock lobster was incredibly chewy and I could barely cut through it with the knife provided. 

 lobster and crab legs combo

My sister got the rock lobster and crab legs combo with the shrimp scampi. I warned her against the snow crab as my memory vaguely reminded me of how salty that stuff was, but she went against my decrepit memory and ordered it nonetheless. It came out salty. On the scoreboard! Oddly though, the shrimps was DELICIOUS! It must have been all that butter and garlic because I absolutely loved that stuff.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Being the gluttonous piggies that my sister and I are (see the pattern here, I like hanging out with piggies like myself), we returned to Red Lobster two weeks later and their Lobsterfest promotion was still going on. Yayyy! That means more Lobster Lover's Dream for me while the sister ordered something that I forgot to take a picture of.

Lobster Lover's Dream minus the shrimp skewers I jacked from my sister's plate

This time we went, I couldn't help but wonder why my plate looked so disorganized. Where is this physical appeal this time around? Did the waitress drop my plate and hurriedly slapped the dropped food back onto the plate? I was a bit disappointed this time around. The lobster pieces from my pasta were nasty tiny pieces of lobster legs (yeah they went through the trouble of extracting every little bit of meat from the lobster). The one thing I really like about Red Lobster aside for the entrees is the all you can eat cheddar biscuits. Yumm..!

new soul? no new seoul

New Seoul Garden- Portland, OR

chilling and grilling

I woke up last Saturday hit with a massive craving for gal bi and just plain ol korean barbeque. It was an intense craving, one that left me googling for reviews of korean restaurants nearby. I was all for Sorabol before, but after having received terrible service I bid that establishment farewell and swore never to return. So, packed with a craving and no knowledge of any other good korean bbq places in the Beaverton area, I resorted to Yelp and Portland Citysearch. One conclusion I arrived at is most of the Korean restaurants do NOT have their own websites. I finally stumbled upon one that does, New Seoul, and I was sold on the photos I saw on their website. 

What I really had was a craving for marinated gal bi, and the thought of grilling raw, non-marinated meat never even occured to me. The gal bi was ridiculously expensive, $26 for maybe 3 slices of short ribs? No thank you. Posted on their wall was this combo they had for $44-- the English translation said, tender beef, pork belly, some other beef, and soybean soup. In my head, I thought wow, what a great deal, that's a lot of meat for a considerable price, so we ordered that. When our food came, they delivered raw, slightly frozen meat on a plate. There was no marinade, nothing on it. For $44, I can cut my own meat and get more out of my money than what we were given. Without a doubt, I was beyond disappointed. The meat tasted just like plain meat after grilling, so it wasn't superb cuts of meat or anything of that sort. The only things I give this establishment probs for is the rice and all you can eat banchan (kimchee side dishes). They have 8 side dishes set up buffet style and you can go up and get as much as you want. The only downside is the dishes look similar to each other, are all veggies, and they're not even that tasty. The rice is some sorta rice cooked in this claypot thing with beans. 

I like the potato side dish best. I only ate 4/8 side dishes, two of which are exactly identical except one has spicy peppers on it and the other doesn't.

The special rice with beans cooked in a clay thingy.

Our meal came out to $44 + tip. We came to a consensus that we both would probably not come back again.

cow man guy

Nong's Khao Man Gai- Portland, OR

If there's one thing I absolutely had to eat for the rest of my life, this one would definitely top the list: khao man gai. A Thai version of the famous Hainanese chicken and rice. That's exactly what it is, chicken AND rice. Not just any chicken and rice, mind you. This is especially flavorful rice, cooked in a chicken and ginger broth, fuming with flavor and delectably moist. The chicken is tender and moist just as well. 

Nong has a cart stand in between 10th and Alder in downtown Portland and serves just this one dish. You can get it in regular ($6) or a big size known as Piset ($10). I always get the piset, not because the regular isn't fulfilling, but the pig in me just can't say no to chicken rice. It is good, mad good, drives you insane late at night when you can't have it good. The best part is the chicken rice comes with this garlic, chili ginger sauce that is quoted to be liquid crack. It is addicting and mind blowing. How can something so simple be so good? For $6 chicken and rice also comes with a side of chicken and melon soup. 

Chicken rice unwrapped. Succulent white meat chicken.

You pour the sauce all over the rice, and nom nom nom

did i hear hot pot???

I try not to let anything be the center of my life. Instead, I try to balance life out as much as possible, but I come to find my endeavor to be impossible as one aspect of life is dominating and enveloping the rest of elements. Food. It's addicting. Mind-controlling. Sometimes I can't think. I can't allow myself to focus on anything because the only thing on my mind is cheese, or chocolate, or chocolate cheesecake. Whatever it is, this blog focuses on my experiences eating out at numerous different places.

Hot pot- Vancouver, BC
September 2010

This is probably the most delicious meal I've had on the western hemisphere. It's hot pot at the Landmark Hot Pot House in Vancouver, BC. My boyfriend and I had received recommendations from the staff at the hotel we were staying at, and they highly recommended this place though they warned us about the prices. And they were right. The meal pictured here came out to be $75! I wasn't sure how the tab added up to such an amount from a tomyun/veggie broth, beef, pork, meatballs, and two sides of veggies. There's gotta be something shady going on here or we were just blinded by all the varieties offered at this establishment. The food is absolutely to die for. I've heard of the ridiculous saying that some meat are such high quality that they melt in your mouth, but I could not comprehend what that meant until I ate at the Landmark. The beef literally just melted apart in my mouth after letting it sit in the spicy tomyum broth and dipping it in the house sauce. I still dream of the assorted meatballs, especially the shrimps and chives one. Their meatballs are raw and need to be cooked in the broth, which was totally new to my bf and I as we were used to hot pot with pre-cooked meatballs. Regardless, we did not regret shelling out $75 for the finest good we've ever put into our gluttonous mouths. However, keep in mind that I left this place still HUNGRY. This did nothing to satiate mine and my bf's hunger.

A close up of the pork. Don't let it deceive you. We had a thin layer of pork over a BED of lettuce.

Here is the boiling broth of yummy goodness. The tomyum was PERFECT, not too spicy, not too mild. The tomates added just the right touch to the broth.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cattle Hot Pot- Richmond, BC

December 2010

Now let's contrast Landmark to something more affordable, something more filling, something more -- all you can eat ish. At Cattle Hot Pot, you can eat as much as many different meats and veggies as you want, and as much of eat variety as you want. This is godsend for carnivorous piggies like my bf and myself who have no problem compromising quality for quantity. At Cattle Hot Pot, you sit and order all the food you want, and the waitress will come by and pick up a sheet with tallies of what you want, and they serve you your food in small (and may I emphasize on small) increments. First, we were given the meat which we ate in probably less than a minute. What's next, we though? The HOARDS, and I mean fricken insane amount of veggies came next, along with shrimps and meatballs. 

Broth isn't looking too pretty at this point.

After grazing and grazing on a ridiculous amount of veggies, a few shrimps, and some meatballs, we were curious WHY the waitress never came back for us. She never inquired if we wanted anymore meat, which we were OUT of by the time the veggies arrived. The service was definitely inadequate, but would I had care much for service if the all you can eat was self-served? Probably not. But the fact that we couldn't get what we wanted to eat (aka red meat), we were rather disappointed. The only other problem we had was the broth. When the broth was reduced to about half the pot, the waitresses sped by to fill it up with PLAIN WATER, which therefore reduced the flavor of the broth by half (hence the color of the broth in the picture). By the second time she refilled the broth, it no longer had any flavor (not like the tomyum was very good to begin with anyway). 

The meal came out to be $18 a person, with $5 broth, and a coke per person. Somehow it came out close to ~$50 with taxes. It's significantly cheaper than Landmark, but tremendously more filling. I could not move for the rest of the night.