good old Mel's

A good old American diner is Mel's Drive-in, located in several neighborhood spots in San Francisco. I LOVE their curly fries (or as the management calls it "twisty fries"). At one point in time it must have been a real drive-in because it's really just a diner, especially since parking in SF is such a b#*&h.

On this particular Memorial Day evening, The Boy ordered the BLT with curly fries, and I ordered a "Rebel Rouser," a hot dog topped with chili, onion, and chedder cheese (minus the onions and add curly fries for me).


I didn't particularly like the bread that the hot dog came in, but the chili cheese dog was pretty yummy in the tummy. The Boy even managed to finish his portion, even all his curly fries, probably because he didn't want me venturing over on his plate to eat more curly fries.

Subliminal messaging here for you to go eat curly fries? =)

eggrolls, and wontons, oh my!

I've been temporarily staying at The Boy's apartment in the city until my summer sublet is ready, and so in exchange for being so nice and letting me stay here (his roomies, not just him), I decided to make an authentic Vietnamese dinner for his peeps. Since I had a lot of time on my hands (there were no BarBri classes that day and of course I didn't feel like studying), I got ambitious and decided to make some wontons to freeze for dinner on another night.



Ingredients for my version of Vietnamese Eggrolls:

1 pound ground pork
1/2 pound ground shrimp
1 can crab meet
1 package bean threads, soaked and revived
1 small package shredded, black fungus mushroom, soaked and revived
1 shredded carrot
2 egg
salt and pepper
1 package eggroll wrapper skins.

Cooking Instructions:
Mix all ingredients (minus 1 egg and wrapper skins) together in a big bowl. Add a dash of salt and pepper for taste. With the remaining egg, separate the yolk into a bowl and save the egg whites for later consumption. Separate the eggroll skins and start wrapping the eggrolls, using the egg yolk to seal the roll towards the end of your rolling process. If you need a visual demonstration, click here (not my demonstration though). In a deep pan or pot, heat up some vegetable oil (at least an inch high of oil in the pot) on medium-high heat. Drop the eggrolls in and let fry for 7-10 minutes until golden brown. Since I am a stickler for not eating pink any kind of meat, I like to do a taste test of one eggroll to make sure it's cooked before I removing that batch from the frying pan. Eat alone as an appetizer, or add vermiccilli and salad for a meal.


Ingredients for my wonton recipe:

1/2 pound pork
1/2 pound shrimp, cut into small pieces (not necessarily grounded, but you could if you wanted to)
some scallions
a piece of ginger
dash of soy sauce
wonton skins

Cooking instructions:
mix all the ingredients together, add some soy sauce to the mixture for taste. Separate the wonton skins and put about a spoonful of filling into each wonton. Use water to seal the wontons. If eating right away, you can cook the wontons by boiling it until the wontons float to the top of the water, or steam it until the meat is cooked (again, do the taste test of one wonton to ensure the batch is ready to eat). You can also fry the wonton in inch deep oil. If not eating right away, make sure the wontons, put the plate of wontons into the freezer. After an hour or two of freezing, you can separate the wontons and put in ziplock bag for easier storage.

little dog vs. big bone

Remember our favorite little puppy, Beau? He's still sleeping on beds, but I have to tell you another story about this adorable little mutt.

Beau likes to chew on EVERYTHING and he chews it to a pulp. Give him a tennis ball and an hour later, all the threads will be off and it will also probably be flat. Give him one of those rope thingys from the pet store and an hour later there will be remnants of it hanging from his mouth. Even when we go to the pet store and ask for an indestructible chew toy for a large dog, Beau will conquer the indestructibility after three hours or so.

Louise and I like to give Beau chew treats, something that he can chew on and be able to eat it without the fear that he's swallowing some non-digestible stuff (like nylon cords). Every so often, we'll get him some pig ears to chew on, or I get him one of these mighty bones, and it'll keep him busy for at least an hour.

Well, Louise decided to give him this giant hunker of a rawhide bone hoping that he'll spend the next month chewing on it instead of chewing on our socks.

I believe Beau has finally met his match. He was very intimidated by the size of the bone, and wasn't sure what to do with it. He kept carrying it from one end of the house to the other, all the while leaning to one side as he's walking because the bone was so damn big. It made for some funny entertainment watching him carry the giant bone.

I haven't seen him since last week, and The Boy and I are about to visit his mother for the weekend. So I'll have to report again and let you know if Beau has made any progress on this massive chew toy.

random food pics

These were from more "final farewell" dinners in KC.

This onion blossom was from Texas Roadhouse. Although I don't like onions, this was just pretty to look at. I still kinda wonder how they cut the onion, batter it and still keep the onion intact upon removing it from the deep fryer.

This image is what The Boy and I ordered for dinner from Buca di Beppo - yep, that's dinner for two, TWO, people. And yep, we had leftovers - lots of it. And I didn't even take a picture of the pitcher of sangria that the two of us downed in about 15 minutes. What can I say? We were celebrating my graduation!

korean food goodness

Sorry it's been a while, but I was busy finishing up law school and graduation and moving and all. So, yeah, been kinda busy.

Anyways, I just have a moment before The Boy comes back from moving the car. So here are some pictures of my last Korean meal in KC (from Choga Restaurant):





You're right, this cheesecake isn't Korean cuisine. We had to get some dessert afterwards at the Cheesecake Factory.

healthy exam food eating

It's exam time and I haven't been eating very well. Also, since I'm moving soon, I don't want to fill my fridge with any more food. So, let's just say I've been eating out a lot.

Today, however, I needed to get some milk, so that meant I needed to go to the grocery store. I also needed to get some more packing tape and some duct tape, so I needed to get to the store eventually anyway.

I saw this very pretty flowering bush as I was walking to the grocery store. Unfortunately I only had my camera phone with me so I couldn't take a really good picture. The picture might have been prettier if I had my digital and I was able to use the macro function.

As I got closer to the grocery store, I noticed more and more people walking towards that direction. Why is this odd? Because it's Kansas City and people usually are driving everywhere, not walking. Turns out there was the annual art fair and people were parking far away and had to walk to the art fair.

So, after I finished shopping for my duct tape/packing tape and milk, and some other things I picked up along the way, I stopped by the food stands at the art fair and bought myself an Italian sausage.
It was a GIANT sausage - it was literally an inch thick. But it was good to munch on while I was waiting for the bus to take me and my groceries home.

And now back to studying.

One more exam left, and just a 20 page paper to finish up. After that, I just need to finish packing up my life, and then I'm outta here!