Bo De Tinh Tam Chay

Last week my friends and I from work decided to go to this vegetarian restaurant on Beach Blvd. My friends saw it as a featured restaurant in the LA Times.

If you haven’t been to these kind of vegetarian restaurants, they substitute “meat” with tofu. For appetizer, we ordered the spring rolls. For one order, there were four pieces of spring rolls cut in halves. It came with a peanut dipping sauce I believe.

For the main course, I ordered the Chicken Curry dish. I always wonder why would they call a pure vegetarian dish as “Chicken” dish. If you are a vegetarian, would you want to be reminded of what meat tastes like? Anyway, the order came with a small bowl of rice (no brown rice at this establishment). The curry order was actually a good portion, it would probably be good for two people to share. I was hungry that day so I finished it . I was debating if I should take the left over curry and put in real chicken meat… it would probably been good.

One thing with this restaurant that surprised me was for tap water ( I assumed it was tap ) with lemon, they charged 50 cents per glass (with free refills). So not sure if it is because of hard times or water shortage but that’s the first time I’ve been charged for tap water.

Overall, the restaurant is good. My friend went back over there a few days later and ordered the fried tofu dish. He said it was actually good. So if you have craving for some healthy vegetarian meals, but want the “meat taste” try out this restaurant.

Bo De Tinh Tam Chay

Birthday Dinner

My friends came over to the house on Saturday to celebrate my birthday and my friend Jack’s. They were gracious enough to provide the food. They ordered 10 lbs of Shrimp with “Shabang” spices at Boiling Crab. The one thing we did wrong was that when the shrimps arrived at the house, we didn’t eat it right away. The shrimps got overcooked. So if you ever buy food to go from Boiling Crab, make sure you eat it right away or at least open the bag so that the food does not get cooked more.

Peibei picked up the food from Westminster/Bolsa. Thanks for doing this Peibs.

Debbie brought the liquor, specially the jello shots.

Christine brought the delicious cake.

Sherri made some spinach dip.

Dabney and Yuewen provided the big bottle of Grey Goose. We barely finished half of it… I guess there is always next year

I woke up the day after and I thought I was fine… but I guess since Sunday and all, I had to pray to the porcelain god.. haha.. at least no one was around to take pictures like last past experience . I met up with my family for lunch. I barely ate anything at the restaurant and they ordered many good filipino dishes

The dinner was a last minute thing. Thanks for everyone who made it. I had a great time. I am blessed to have good friends. THANK YOU!

Celebrating birthday with good friends

Osteria Mozza

Last Friday, Mike and Christine took me out for dinner for my birthday at Osteria Mozza. Next door to this place is one of my favorite pizza restaurant — Pizzeria Mozza.

Osteria has good selection of cheeses. I believe they actually import them from Italy.

Here are the food we ordered:

Appetizers
Grilled Octopus with potatoes, celery & lemon	Sheep’s Milk Ricotta, trufflebert Farm Hazelnuts, lemon & garlic	Burrata with bacon, marinated escarole & caramelized shallots
Primi
	Maltagliati with wild boar ragu’
Secondi
Smoked Sturgeon	Grilled Quail wrapped in pancetta with sage & honey	Grilled Beef Tagliata, rucola and Parmigiano with aceto balsamico
Dessert
	Bombolini mountain huckleberry compote & vanilla gelato (birthday candle not always included )
	Cappuccino

Good food, good company what else can I ask for

Happy Birthday Jay

Man, how time flies. My godson/nephew is 14 years old today. I still remember the day I had to take my sister to the hospital because her water broke in the middle of the night. I was telling her that it was false alarm and to go back to sleep.

Because Jay is born a day before mine, he is actually partially named after me. Jay’s real name is Joelle Jeffrey (hence J.J. for short). Because my sister wanted to pronounce “Joel” the filipino way as “Joe-well”, she decided to spell it Joelle.

Happy Birthday Jay Jay

Canaan Taiwanese Restaurant

Have you tried “24 Lift” class at 24 hour fitness?  If you haven’t, give it a try.  It is very intense.  My friend Alpesh highly recommended it the other day.  So me, Mike and Alpesh met up at the 24 hour fitness by South Coast Plaza and man, did I get my butt kicked… I couldn’t keep up with the class.  Even with low weights, with the repetition my body was aching.  Mike and I jogged before the class so at the end of our gym workout we were beat.

After gym, I decided to tag along with Mike and Christine for dinner. Our choices were either Shabu Shabu or Taiwanese food.  We ended up going to Taiwanese restaurant in Artesia called Canaan since it has more variety than the Shabu Shabu place.  The food is good and price is reasonable.  Each dish averages about $8.

Dish on left is Taiwanese pancake (port and scallions I think) and right are watercress, fish, chicken and vegie hot pot

Asia trip

I’ve finally booked my flight to Manila for November.  I will be going with my friends Christine and Jack for the first 2 weeks out of the 4 weeks of my vacation.  We have a 13 hour layover in Seoul, so we’ve decided to take a day trip to the city before heading to Manila. 

Stay tune for more postings… for now, I need to plan for my New Zealand/Australia trip