2 years together :)

You must think im a fatty because I keep doing posts about FOOD! :) I'll start doing some beauty ones soon, I promise :)

You must've also noticed that I changed the design on my blogger.  The old design wasn't as photo friendly, and I loove photos, and so.. ta da!!! It was kind of annoying using the blogger designer function, the designs I likedd i couldnt change too much and yea...

Well anyway, on Monday, my boyfriend and I celebrated our 2 years anniversary :)

To celebrate, richard surprised me by taking me to build-a-bear!

This is what we ended up with. Isn't he cute? I named our baby bear Patrick LOL. This was my first time building a bear at build-a-bear!

After making our bear, we walked around the mall for a bit to kill time before heading off to dinner at this fancy restaurant called Le Papillon.

410 Saratoga Avenue
San Jose, CA 95129

I was afraid I wouldn't get in at first, because I didn't think I was dressy enough, but I had no troubles :)

Salmon Mousse

This was complimentary sampler that they gave to us.  I remember it having a savory taste.  Other than that, I don't remember much else about this sampler.  I mean, it was after soooo small.  I do, however, remember actually liking it lol.

Another Sampler

 I don't know what the name of this was. It's name was in French, and I didn't quite hear what the waiter said was in it, other than goose?  I think it's like a goose pate.  It was suprisingly delicious.  It's smoother, creamier, and sweeter than duck pate.

Yet Another Sampler

I thought it was pretty cool having all these complimentary samplers!! 3 in all :)  I don't remember exactly what this was other than it had elderberry and was a cold soup. It tasted like it had celery in it too I think.  This right here was NASTY X_X  It was like torture trying to finish my little shot of soup!!

Duck Salad with Green Apple and Figs

This salad is listed on their menu online, so I don't know what the salad was made of other than what was obvious. The vegetable it was made from was crunchy and sliced thinly like noodles. It was quite different. The duck, on the other hand, was reallly moist and tender, YUM!!!

Figs scare me a little after learning about how a fig is basically a disc flower that closed on itself with all the stamen on the inside and a little hole on the top for bees to come in to pollinate the stamen. Sometimes, the bee gets stuck and can't get out, so when you eat a fig, you're also eating a dead bee X_X Luckily, I also learned that figs grown in California are not pollinated by bees, it's done manually by the farmers i think. So hopefully this was a California fig I ate!

Baby Lettuce Salad with Pears, Toasted Pecans, Feta Cheese and Chambord Vinaigrette

 I liked Richard's salad better, because it actually looks like salad!! The vinaigrette in this made it very sweet and yummy :d

Roasted Berkshire Pork Tenderloin with Smoked Maple Syrup and Hibiscus-Onion Marmalade

That stick towards the bottom was like a stick of spam; it was tasty at first but reallly salty after a while.
The thing in the middle was potatoes, very interesting texture. And the clump on the side was like a wierd clump of  dried bacon, but it had no bacon flavor. But those three circles of pork tenderloin were SOOOOOO DELICIOUS!!!!

Pan Roasted Beef Tenderloin with Maitake Mushrooms, Potato Gratin and Bone Marrow

 Richard kept commenting about how his steak sounded when he sliced into it.  I've actually never heard steaks make that sound before either.  I got to try some of his, and it was veryyy yummy too.  But I didn't eat too much because I wanted to finish my dish.

Soufflé Grand Marnier with Fresh Berries

This was YUM!! Best souffle I ever had! It didn't even deflate when we poked it! It had an eggy and custardy taste. The sauce tasted a little like rum.  Apparently, this was their special.  Everyone in the restaurant ordered it!

Complimentary Truffles

Last but not least, they gave us complimentary homemade truffles when they gave us our bill.  This was really nice. Since the souflee wasn't very sweet, just flavorful, I wanted something really sweet to end with, and these truffles were complimentary!!

overall, two thumbs up for the lovely night.  thanks boyfriend <3 :)

what i have been up to lately....

I have been quite the busy bee lately!! I feel bad for neglecting this little blog, but so much has happened these past two months!  I'll just keep it simple and give you the highlights of my days that involve food :)

Weekend in Davis: 6/11 - 6/ 13

Richard and I spent a weekend in Davis for my girlfriends' graduations.  I'm sooo proud of them!!  I came up Friday morning for my friend Jenn's grad.  Coincidentally, my cousin's entire family from her mom's side was standing right next to Jenn's family while we were waiting for the graduations to finish.  I haven't seen that cousin in a long time, our families aren't close. But yea, it was nice to run into her. Then we went to my friend Kimmie's reception afterwards. After all of that, we were starving!! we decided to go into this place called Village Pizza & Grill I think.  My friends had never been there so we decided to try it.  and it was a WIN!! lol it turns out that there was a 50% off your entire meal deal there if you downloaded the coupon onto your phone.  My friend's boyfriend spend like 30mins finding free wi-fi to get that coupon lol.  Awesome.  We ordered 3 pizzas: hawaiian, chicken, and i think artichoke.  hawaiian was my fave :)  that night we went clubbing at the only club in town, Ketmoree. lol

The next morning, we ate at Fuji's sushi buffet after attending another graduation.  Yumm all you can eat sushi.  I was super hungry coming in, and super full coming out X_X

After sushi, we tried to go to Let Them Eat Cake for cupcakes, because my friends had been raving about this place for soo long.  But they were closed for the entire weekend :(  It was really hot in Davis that weekend, so we spent the day swimming.  Then it was dinner at Burgers and Brew.  Really good burgers and milkshakes!  Stuffed myself again! Sorry I was too busy eating to take pictures of my food lol  After that we went bowling.  Next morning was Kimmie's grad.  we ate at the Village Pizza &Grill again for lunch.  50% off is awesome.  I think it was only $100something to feed 20 people.  Or i think we might've had more than 20. 

Day in Berkeley: 6/25

I went to Berkeley for day.  The boyfriend wanted to visit the SASC-SI group, but he didn't actually know were they were.... so we just spent the day visiting parts of Berkeley we haven't been to.

I went to Bakesale Betty just to buy this strawberry shortcake!  I've seen soooo many pictures of this, and had been wanting to try this for sooo long!!  The last and only time I had ever been to Bakesale Betty was back in like January.  Boyfriend and I ate their crispy chicken sandwich. it was pretty yummy, but also kind of plain?  well anyway.  I sooo glad I got to try this. There were SOOO MANY strawberries on it! When I first dug into it, I was just eating strawberries, I forgot there was a shortcake in there! The shortcake was good too, its basically a big round shortcake cookie.  Really good :d 

So I didn't want to eat another Bakesale Betty sandwich, so I went to Genova Delicatessen across the street, because it one those "places I want to eat".  First off, I was soo confused as to what to order.  There was so much to choose from! and i didn't know what was good.  I thinkIwas about to just order a turkey sandwich when I saw the tri-tip a specialties menu, so I got that on dutch crutch.  Overall, it was okay, not that great.  I remember it being really messy to eat.

After lunch, the boyfriend and iT went on a small double date with my friend Ali and her bf John to Tilden Park.  We went up to the little farm, and there weren't too many animals there but it was pretty cool.  We saw a cow take a dump right in front of us, and decided it was a sign to leave lol.  Afterwords we went to the carousal.  rode on it twice.  It's a pretty cool carousal, kind of random that its in the middle of the park and the park is like a forest.. lol but yea it runs a lot faster than your average carousal, and they had more exotic "horses" and a few interesting ones, like this rocking carriage and a teacup that spins. I didn't ride the teacup, but I saw this little girl in it.  Man looking at it makes me feel sick.  Sitting in a spinning cup on a spinning carousal lol  Before we left for home, we stopped by Cheeseboard since it's been a while since I've had their pizza.  That day it was corn, and I forget what else was on it.  I've had it before, and it's just okay. It's not my fave flavor.

Obon Festival: 7/11

Richard and I went to the Obon Festival in Japantown San Jose.  This was my first Japanese festival!  I went to boiling crab with some friends earlier that day, but Richard didn't eat anything yet, so we bought some beef skewers with rice. We also ran into his cousin, who gave us these rice dumpling things, not quite sure what its called. Food was pretty expensive, i think those 3 skewers there cost $5 and rice was $2?? 

Okay well you know me and my sweet tooth,  I just HAD to get myself a strawberry shortcake, since I saw soo many people walking around with one.  This strawberry shortcake was okay.. the strawberries were really nice and fresh, not like at Bakesale Betty's where it was like all syrupy and soaked in sugar.  The only thing I didn't like about this strawberry shortcake was that it had like a spongey shortcake, rather than that cookie biscuit shortcake.  So it was basically like eating strawberries and spongecake.  i like my cakes denser.

We also stopped by the mochi store and bought some mochi. Well these two were the only actual chewy mochi.  I don't know what the rest were.  and I think they had red mung bean filling inside.  Overall, I'm not tooo big of a fan of this, I just like mochi ice cream. :).  The Obon Festival itself was pretty cool. There was a game booth section with a bunch of scouts doing fundraising.  I'm pretty bombass at the milk can toss can, because I won TWICE at that game.  With just TWO tries :)  Boyfriend sucked, he didn't win me anything LOL  We stayed to watch the Obon dances, which was cool, but boring afterawhile since they were doing the same thing over and over again.  I wish I actually knew what was going on!

Socal Trip: 7/16 - 7/18

I went socal trip with the boyfriend and friends to go to Magic Mountain. We left friday night and stayed at a hotel about 30 mins away from Magic Mountain.  My friend picked a really shady looking run-down hotel, but it was cheap.  Oh and it was SOOOO HOT that night, the AC was pretty shitty, so it soo yeaa warm night.  But really cold morning since it was left on all night lol.  Bext morning, spent the day at Magic Mountain.  I'm actually not a fan of roller coasters, I actually HATE them.  So I mostly stood in line with everyone and got out at the end. Kept everything things for them, especially when lockers were required.  I only went on Ninja, and shut my eyes and screamed the entire time! LOL  I also went on bumper cars and the swing ride.  It was also SUPPER HOT that day.  We were putting on sunscreen pretty often to keep ourselves from being sunburned and I was just sweating sooo much. Every time I went to the restroom, the paper would stick to me X_X and the misting machines didn't really help, it makes the air humid.  And at some places they were broken, so it was just spraying water instead of misting...

After six flags, we drove an hour to Pasadena to get to our next hotel.  this hotel was much nicer!!! We showered and then got ready for the night.  We went to Mi Piace for dinner.  It seemed like a really popular place because it was pretty crowded! This restaurant was in downtown Pasadena and around a bunch of bars and stuff like that, which I was quite surprised about.  I've always imagined Pasadena to be like an old-fashioned town. lol

First off, they had really really good complimentary bread with olive oil balsamic vinegar dip.  The bread was kind of like a fococcia, all nicely seasoned with herbs.  So the bread was good by itself, but of course even better with the dip!  I really liked this since most places just give you like a small loaf of bread.  Richard ordered a combo pizza, which was okay.  and I ordered pollo e sesamo. my dish was okay, I got really full reallly quickly.  My friend John ordered this salad that was absolutely delicious. It was some kind of spinach salad loaded with fruits.  yum!

The rest of the night was spent at Bar Celona  for drinks.  We had four horsemen, which I think is like 4 shots, and a silver dragon, and I forgot what was in this but it was sour.  We also stopped by our cars to drink from our handle of vodka. I just took a sip, because it was warm and nasty!!  But yea i had a good buzz for the night.  We went to Neo Masse to dance.  It was cool they just had house music, but played some actual songs towards the end of the night.  Club ended at two, so we headed back to our hotels and had a small afterparty until we started getting complaints. lol

Next morning, we heading to Glendale to go to this bakery my friend kept talking about, Porto's.  Of course, I was excited too because I LOVE bakeries! and I love pastries and desserts, and o my, this place was like heaven to me :)

Just look at all those pastries!!!  The place was pretty crowded too. So many people eating here, it looked pretty popular among the locals.  The lines moved really fast though, so that was cool :)  This place is known for their cheese rolls, so I ordered 4, plus 2 guava cream cheese pastries and a red velvet cupcake!  The red velvet was really pretty, and it had a rose petal on it, but for some reason, I didnt take a picture of it X_X

This right here collection of 5 people's orders lol.  It was pretty cheap! my order only cost my $7 :) so I went back and bought another box of pastries!! I bought 6 more cheese rolls, 4 guavas and 4 guava cream cheese.  Yum!! My friend order $20 worth of pastries, but hers got ruined because we left them in the cooler in the car and all the ice melted.. :(  Mine were okay because I left them inside the car since the cooler was full.  We didn't eat our cupcakes until like later in the day on the way home, and they were melted by then  too :(  They weren't as pretty anymore, but STILL GOOD :D

For lunch, we headed to Brodard in Westminster.   I wish I knew about this place earlier so I could've taken my parents here when we went to Little Saigon for July 4th.  Very good Vietnamese food, I don't think I've had anything like it before!!!

We ordered nem nuong goi cuons as an appetizer.  OMG they were really good.  And they came with two sauces, peanut sauce and this bomb-ass delish sauce that no one knew the name of LOL  I think the springrolls were especially good because it had fried onions in the middle. nice and crispy.  I ordered a banh cuon with shrimp, and it had nem nuong eggrolls on it.  Like basically nem nuong wrapped in eggroll wrap and fried lol  the banh cuon was pretty good.  I liked that the shrimp was ground shrimp and not like small dried shrimp.  Very yummy.  Richard ordered bun thit nuong, which I didn't try too much of because I was pretty full from eating just mine.  But I tried a piece of meat and it was good.  We also had a dish of banh hoi with nem nuong which I didnt really take a picture of, its there behind that boat of veggies and salad lol I was too full to eat more than one of those, but yea very yummy :)

Finally, we stopped by Guppy Tea House before leaving for home because i had always wanted to try this!!! We ordered two small shaved ices to share among 10 people.  Overall, I thought it was okay.I guessI had too high expectations for it, it wasn't  that great.  The ice was pretty.. icy!! lol  I imagined it to be powder like, but o well, it was still pretty good.  

Phew!! Well that concludes the highlights of life within the past 2 months.  So much fun, and soo much food! You can imagine all the weight i've been gaining! Time to exercise!!