Monday, May 21, 2007

i love d

sometimes, i am so amazed at how easy things are with d. this has been the easiest relationship i have ever been in. i mean, no doubts, no questions, no struggles. i am absolutely sure of how he feels about me and where we're going. we have been in the same place and understanding every step of the way. today marks 7 months that we've been dating. albeit long distance but it has been the happiest 7 months of my life. i think about him and my heart gets warm. i think my temperature rises a bit and my heart feels full. i know this sounds cheesy but i feel like every love song and romantic comedy was made for me and d. i know, barf, right?? we talk for hours at a time sometimes and i don't want to hang up. and as soon as i say good bye to him i want to pick up the phone and call him back. i want to talk to him while i do the most mundane things during the day because i want him to be a part of my life, in every aspect. for the rest of my life. because when i'm with him, i feel like i can get lost in him and everything disappears. i have never felt this way before. this kind of electricity, chemistry, love and happiness.

Friday, May 18, 2007

summer vacation

d and i have been thinking about doing a new england roadtrip/vacation over the 4th of july holiday. i'm thinking we should drive through newport conneticut, martha's vineyard (yes, a ferry involved), boston and making our way up to maine. i've always wanted to go to maine. it seems to epitomize what new england is and seems pure. of course, i've never been there and i hope i'm not too wrong. i've asked some of my co-workers and they all seem to recommend martha's vineyard... very highly! it's time to do some research!

parents visit

my parents are coming to visit over the memorial day weekend, which i've been planning for several weeks now. i'm very excited that they are coming to visit and also because it's been a long time since they have taken a vacation outside the state of california! they said there are few things that they must see and do. which are: statue of liberty, empire state building and the niagara falls. NIAGARA FALLS?!!?! i told them it's about 8 hours by car, which they can't afford to do because they are only in new york for about 2.5 days! after a brief discussion between me, myself and i, i decided that it's worth their happiness for me to fly there and back. so i did. i booked their trip over 2 months ago and i'm really excited that they are finally coming out next week! now, i'm debating if i should get the day pass for $65 or try to get the tix individually. with the 1-day new york pass we can go to empire state building, statue of liberty, many many museums that they're probably not interested in (they're not the museum going types), nbc studio tour, united nations tour and etc! there's no way we could do all of these in one day, and hitting 3 spots might be pushing it but it might be worth it. since d is coming back out again next weekend, it'll be a double date weekend. yay!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

hello national hamburger month!

this has to be my favorite month long celebration!! (better than "national grilled cheese sandwich month", even though i do love a good grilled cheese sandwich) a month of hamburger celebration, why didn't i think of that??

i love this hamburger blog: a hamburger blog

any website dedicated to exploring the world of hamburgers is a great website in my book.

in honor of hamburger month, here's a list of my favorite hamburgers, in no particular order:
1. mcdonald's cheeseburger
2. in & out animal style cheeseburger
3. shake shack's "shack burger"
4. cheeseburger from the burger joint

that's all i can think of right now...

but, click HERE for a list of "20 hamburgers you must eat before you die" link created by men.style.com... and a list of best of best hamburgers in NYC: the list!

Monday, May 14, 2007

*groan*

i just re-read my post from earlier this morning... my god, i really over did it this weekend. yikes.

another over-indulgent weekend

so the bf has come and gone again. this weeekend was no exception to our usual gluttony. i don't know we manage to eat so much in one weekend. and usually right around this time monday morning, i feel like i don't need to eat for a few days. that's how i feel right now but i'm sure i'll be hungry in an hour or so.


saturday - went to dinner at beppe's in grammercy park for a friend's going-away dinner. (another one moving back to the sf bay area in less than 2 months!) the decor was simple but very welcoming and so was the wait staff. the hostess and host were very friendly and sat us right away. we did have reservations but that doesn't seem like much these days. (for example, with our reservations at kittichai, my friend and i still waited over 45 minutes!) we had tuscan fries and pork belly to start... and i had their butcher's spaghetti. which promised lots of tidbits of pork. by the time the my pasta arrived, i was too full to complain about the smaller portion. (i was barely able to finish it!) but it was indeed delicious. the spaghetti was cooked just right and the meat sauce... oh how i can go on about the meat sauce! i'm a sucker for meat sauce and if i am craving for spaghetti again, beppe it shall be. i was pretty full at this point but there's always room for dessert! so we ordered the pannacotta and vanilla/chocolate chip cannoli. i loved both desserts, although i think i liked the chocolate chip cannoli the best. really enjoyed dinner. d and i were going to walk to billy's bakery but it started raining and since we didn't have an umbrella, we ended up going home instead. the rain was probably a blessing in disguise.

sunday - our full intentions yesterday was to have lunch at mary's fish camp or pearl's oyster bar for their lobster rolls but i belatedly found out that they are both closed on sunday! :-( we meandered towards midtown and after wandering about the west side and the street fair and after trying the mozzarepa snack, chocolate/chocolate cannoli, and the hot dog/sausage monstrocity, we decided to walk to billy's bakery. (mind you, that was 40+ blocks) of course, we were side tracked by a cheesecake bakery (d'auito's on 8th avenue)... so we had to try the blueberry cheesecake! granted, we only had about 2 bites each... very large bites. and after what felt like miles and miles, we finally reached our destination. billy's bakery in chelsea!! the sunny bakery was cute and totally quaint. i don't even bake but as soon as i walked into the bakery, i wanted to open my own bakery! of course, the small bakery was packed with people! after browsing every single item on display, we ordered what we came for: 1 slice of ice box cake, 1 slice of the banana cream pie, 1 daisy cupcake with chocalate frosting and 1 chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting. i have to admit the cupcakes were divine and might be better than magnolia's... but the ice box cake wasn't as good as magnolia's. although d liked it better because it wasn't as sweet but i love the ice box cake from magnolia! it's my absolute favorite. oh the banana cream pie wasn't bad, either. :-) even though we said we were only going to eat just a bite from each item, we finished our cupcakes and most of the the ice box cake and the banana cream pie. we were feeling very guilty after the sugar overload and decided to walk to union square. (to kill some time until dinner, that is.) after a few hours at the barnes and noble, feeling the ups & downs of our sugar overload, we walked over to momofuku noodle bar around 8pm-ish. i was so excited, i'd been over to the ssam bar but have been dying to come to the noodle bar for weeks! especially since i hard that the noodle bar is planning on expanding to another location! i had to go try the original momofuku noodle bar. even before i go into the meal itself, i have to say one thing: it was phenomenal!! so far, my favorite restaurant to date. i can't go on about how much i love this place. again, the decor of the restaurant is simple but warm. of course, the people waiting inside and outside to eat there gave the whole place even more excitement! we waited about half an hour before we were seated but it was worth the wait. let me list of our dinner... we started off with the berkshire pork steamed buns, roasted rice cakes, curry fried pork belly. for main entree, d and i shared the momofuku ramen, which was absolutely perfect. first, the steam buns were heavenly! the pork was juicy and tender, the pancake so soft! the curry pork belly, which was deep fried and it just melted in my mouth. the crispy skin of the pork and the belly fat. what more can you ask for?? well, i also think the roasted rice cake is one of their yummiest appetizers! the rice cakes are toasted before so it’s nice and chewy. the chili sauce is simply amazing! momofuku ramen, which is larger and had more goodies than the regular pork ramen on the menu. i was so full, i think i had to be rolled outta the restaurant.

so there you have it. i am thinking i need to go to the gym tonight for at least 3 hours to just undo some damage. that might be just enough to burn off the chocolate cupcake, though...

Friday, May 11, 2007

It's 4pm... Do you know where your Blackberry is?

I hope so. I think mine is sitting atop my bedside table, fully juiced up and ready to go... That's where I last saw it as I was rushing to get out of the house. It's one thing to leave the house with my keys (which I do on a regular basis) but to leave my precious Blackberry?? *sigh* It's been a rough day.

I've been text msg'ing with D on my regular phone, mostly one liners. It takes forever to text on those things. I'm pretty much done with my day and I can't wait to get back to my baby. (That would be my Blackberry!) I wonder how many text messages and phone calls I missed??

Thank goodness D gets in tonight. Although it says his flight is an hour delayed...

behold the new blackberry curve

i forgot my umbrella *and* my blackberry this morning. :-( without my crackberry, i feel utterly lost and feel out of touch with my world. i have another phone, that i use for work... a mere samsung flip-phone (one of the newer ones) but it's a regular cell phone with the regular number keypads. eeek, not as easy to send text msgs on these! i can't remember my life before my blackberry!

as i was looking for blackberry images on google this morning (to lament about my blackbery-less existence), i came across THIS! as a self-proclaimed gadget junkie, i couldn't help but drool over this sleek new device!! when is this new blackberry available to the general public and the most important question: WILL verizon carry this phone??

Thursday, May 10, 2007

where is the nearest kohl's around here???

apparently, vera wang is going the ways of isaac mizrahi and martha stewart! kohl's department store is bringing the bridal powerhouse designer into their mix! vera wang is launching her more economically priced clothingline to kohl's!! which is very very exciting!!

a $60 vera wang dress? hello, i'm so there!! read the blurb here!



Wednesday, May 9, 2007

bridal bar blog

bridal bar blog... what a great wedding blog, if you live in the great los angeles area!! i love the name, too. bridal bar blog. ;-) i want to know why there isn't any good wedding blogs in and around san francisco! someone please point one to me please! when i googled bridal/wedding blogs in sf, all i get are ads for photographers and wedding planning. which is great but that's not quite what i'm looking for...

away from her

i really want to go see this movie! away from her is a "beautifully moving love story that deals with memory and the circuitous, unnamable paths of a long marriage." you can read the rest of the synopsis here at moviefone.com.

what really got me was the tagline of the movie poster: sometimes you have to let go of what you can't live without.

that line really moved me. hello, why would i want to let go of something that i can't live without? and what would push me to let it go?? i get choked up just thinking about this. letting go of someone in my family, my boyfriend or who knows what else?? that got me thinking and wanting to see this movie. the husband, out of his sheer love for his wife (who's suffering from alzheimer's disease) "embarks of the greatest act of self-sacrifice of his life as a means to attaining his wife’s final happiness". wow, i'm really curious how that movie plays out. what does this "great act of self-sacrifice" look like??

i'm going to drag d go to see this move this saturday....


Tuesday, May 8, 2007

winners of james beard

hello! james beard awards have been handed out! and the winner are listed here! a good article from eater.com dishes out the 411 on the award ceremony. and according to the website, here are the new york city winners:

"New York award winners were David Chang (Rising Star), L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon (Best New Restaurant), Michael Laskonis of Le Bernardin (Outstanding Pastry Chef) and in the NYC regional best chef category, David Waltuck upset heavies Terrance Brennan, Wylie Dufresne, Floyd Cardoz, and Gabriel Kreuther."

and i'm proud to note that thomas keller from french laundry took an award home for outstanding restauranteur category. and i love momofuku!

weekend update

i went home this past weekend to support d's basketball tournament in sacramento. (very last minute booking, $200 round trip, a steal!) which meant i flew out late friday night and arrived past midnight in sfo. then, we (d, myself and his parents) got up at crack of dawn to drive up to sacramento for his two tournament games. first one was at 9:30am and the second one was at 4:30pm. since we had a big gap of time to kill, we spent some time re-visiting's d's old haunts. his alma mater was sac-state. we went to osaka-ya, first. where they had delicious japanese teacakes (manju), other japanese snacks, snow cones (shave-ice) and my favorite frozen treats called "gunther's freeze". d got a snow-cone and i got the gunther's fruit freeze (pineapple). this tiny place has all sorts of yummy treats and i wish they were closer to the bay area! sacramento is a bit out of the way from san francisco!


afterwards, we roamed around the state capitol... thank goodness the weather was so nice! but the darn pollen had my allergies going. but i was thankful for the time i got to spend with d and his family.

after the 2nd game, we went to go see the rivercats at the raley field. rivercats are apparently oakland a's minor league basketball team. the first 7 innings were boring but the last 2 inning was very exciting. on top of that we sat in the vip seating which made the first several innings much more bearable! the rivercats won and to top it off because it was cinco de mayo, they ended the night with a fabulous fireworks.

sunday, we went on a 9 mile run in the 90 degree heat and i think i was on the verge of heatstroke! after that, we drove down to san jose to have dinner with my parents! return home sunday night via red-eye really sucked, though. the funny thing about this weekend is that i didn't tell any of my friends that i was going back this weekend. considering i was home 2 weekends ago, i decided i need some uninterrupted time with d and his family. and what do you know, turns out, out of his basketball teammate's girlfriend is one of my sorority sisters from college! and she was like, oh i'm going to have to tell so-and-so that i ran into you here! i'm thinking: d'oh!

Thursday, May 3, 2007

bridesmaid's dress

my little sister is getting married in september of this year. we finally picked our bridesmaid's dress! it's a bari jay dress, made of starlet taffeta and empire a-line skirt style. the photo i posted here shows in golden brown and gold sash but my sister's sash color will be a light blue. which are her wedding colors. very fall, don't you think?


granted, it's not a dress i could wear again but at least it's flattering. this one will go in the closet with 6 other bridesmaid dresses. i should really think about donating these or something...

note to self: start dieting now!