Senbazuru - Thousand origami crane

I haven't been giving my blog much love lately, partially due to laziness, but for the most part it was because I've been making not one, but TWO Senbazuru for two different customers. If you never heard of a Senbazuru, it is according to Wikipedia: "a group of one thousand origami paper cranes held together by strings. An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury."

"The Thousand Origami Cranes has become a symbol of world peace through the story of Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese girl who contracted leukemia as a result of radiation from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during World War II."

So the past two months I've pretty much been folding paper cranes like crazy, I ate, drank, breathe, and dreamt paper cranes. Whenever I had a spare moment of time I was folding cranes. It was A LOT of work, but the end result is simply amazing! It looked so pretty that I wished I could've kept it for myself.

It's amazing what beautiful things can be made from paper, isn't it? Well, that's pretty much it, just wanted to share some pictures with you all. And if you'll excuse me, I got to stop typing and give my two hands a nice warm relaxing soak before they decide to fall off. :P

Oklahoma City - Leo's Bar-BQ

I got back from Oklahoma City last weekend and I think this was the last trip for the year. Our impression of Oklahoma City was really good, and the people are so nice there.

Since we're foodies, I had to look up some good places to eat while we were there, and my Google searches brought me to Leo's Bar-BQ. Apparently, this place has the best BBQ in town and it was even featured on Food Network's Diner's Drive-ins and Dives. You know, the show that's hosted by the guy whose name is Guy, bleached blond hair, and winner of the Food Network Star season two. With that kind of credentials, of course we had to check it out!

According to Google maps, the original store is located at 3631 N Kelley Ave, Oklahoma City, OK, but please do not go there cause when we pulled into the tiny empty parking lot, we saw an empty building and these paper posted on the side of the window:

We quickly made our way over to the other location, and fortunately for us, we got there before they ran out of food. There were a few people that came in after us got turned away cause it was near closing time and they don't have enough food left to feed new customers. We sat down at a table and we must have stared at the menu for 15 minutes before the lady came and took our order. This normally is not acceptable, however, she was the only person handling the dining room and she was quite busy running around everywhere. We decided that I will have the beef brisket dinner and my bf got the ribs dinner.

Less than 10 minutes after we put in our order, our dinners were in front of us! How fast was that!!! I guess the waiting earlier wasn't so bad after all.

My beef brisket was moist and tender; not too flavorful, but with some bbq sauce, it tasted just right! The ribs had a nice peppery rub on the skin with robust flavor! The skin was a little bit dry but the meat was quite juicy and a delight to eat. All of the side dishes were superb, and I even like the coleslaw here. I have to confess, my taste in coleslaw is probably not the best since I like the ones at KFC, and that's pretty much the only one I like. I had other coleslaw that's supposed to be really good, but they were always too bland, too dry, or not flavored to my taste. The ones at Leo's tasted kind of like the ones you get at KFC except it's really fresh and chunkier, we finished it so fast that I wish I would have ordered one just for myself.

After dinner, the lady served us each a slice of their world famous strawberry banana cake. She bakes all the cakes herself in the morning and they are REALLY good! My bf finished up his before I was halfway through my cake, and when the lady came back to check on us, he jokingly told her that the cake was really good and if he can have another one since his seem to have disappeared. Most of the time when we say things like that, the people at the restaurant understand that it's a joke, but she replied "oh yeah, honey! I'll get you another slice!" We told her that we were just joking, but she insisted on sending us home with two slices of cake. We've never been to a place that will just give us more cake without additional charges just because we asked for it, and were amazed at how friendly and sweet she was to us.

The decor of the restaurant is not the greatest and it feels like you're eating in a garage, but the show is not called Pricey, Pretty and Pretentious afterall. You get great tasting BBQ at a very affordable place with great company and a wonderful host. When we were paying our bill, she didn't even charge us the extra side dish that we got. If we ever go back to OKC, Leo's Bar-BQ will sure receive a visit from us.

If you are in the OKC area and would like to try out Leo's Bar-BQ for great ribs and have a slice of their strawberry banana cake, forget about the original store and head down to the one at Harrison Ave. (unless it was just a one night thing, if any of you know more, please feel free to comment)

7 Harrison Ave.

Oklahoma City, OK

405.236.5367

http://leosbarbque.com/

Milbrae - Zen Pinensula Dim Sum Restaurant

Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Ohmigosh! The search for our new dim sum place is officially over!!!!! Many thanks go out to my bf's co-worker who is all hooked up with the great Chinese places to eat around the area and gave him a few recommendations for us to try out. We went to the first one on the list and BAM! It just blew us away!

There are so many people dining at this restaurant that there were barely any spots left when we got there at around noon, we were lucky that we didn't have to wait for a spot or park on the street. And apparently the food is so good here that people are willing to park illegally, partially blocking the driveway and risking getting their car towed away just to eat at this establishment.

I will be consistent and use the three criterias that I judged the other dim sum places: service, taste, and value.

Service/Speed:

They definitely mean business here at Zen Pinensula, it almost feel like each of these ladies that are circuling around the restaurant have a radar to spot new customers. Before we even got our tea and warmed up our seat, three ladies with push carts filled with hot and yummy food came right to our table! I don't think they can be any faster than that, and with that said, they past my service/speed criteria with flying colors!



Taste: As our usual practice when visiting a new restaurant, we ordered a wide array of dishes so we can get a good sense of what is good and what is bad here; and I am happy to report that there was not a single dish that we did not like. Every dish was excellent, and it tasted even better than Lychee Garden.

There was a good variety of dishes. They have the standard ha gau (shrimp dumpling), siu mai (pork dumpling), and BBQ pork bun. The dumplings were light, juicy, and full of flavor!

My personal favorite is the scallop and mellon dish that you can see in the lower picture. I didn't think my bf would like this dish, cause he's a big meat eater, but after I took a bite and savored the dish, I knew my bf would love it, too.

To me this is one of those dishes that reminds me why I love food so much! The dish is so simple, but the flavors are so intricate, and the chef blended the savory scallop with the sweet taste of the mellon perfectly. It has been over a month since we visited the restaurant, and I am still thinking about that dish!

The sticky rice on the bottom is very tasty and although I did not have the sticky rice in lotus leaf on the right, my bf's dad said that it was better than the one that he used to have at Lychee Garden in San Francisco, and he enjoyed it a lot.

These last two photos I have are the fried tofu and fried pork dumpling which is the sticky mochi like thingy with groud pork in the middle. Although these dishes are deep fried, they do not taste oily at all.

Lastly, I'll talk a little about the value. We got more food than I photographed here, we were full, happy, and had leftovers to take home and for the 3 of us, I think it was a little bit over $40. All the dishes that we ordered were between $2.60 - $4.00, and in my opinion it is worth every penny.

If you would like to see their complete menu and some more photos of what the food look like, they got it on their website: http://www.zenpeninsula.com/

I am so happy to have found this dim sum restaurant, I just wish that I knew about it sooner, and one other plus is it's about 15 miles closer to home, so we'll be able to save on gas and order more food!

Zen Peninsula 采蝶軒
1180 El Camino Real, Millbrae, CA 94030
650-616-9388

Things that you may or may not know about me.

I got tagged by Kelly from Per Se and what I'm supposed to do for this meme is to list seven random things about myself and pass it on to seven other bloggers. I'll do the listing part, but I think I'm going to pass it on later.

1. I am an atheist, but if I had to choose a religion to relate to, it'll be Buddhism and Taoism. Who doesn't like having a bunny on the moon making yummy mochi?

2. My brother called me crazy when I was going around and petting bees in the garden when I was a kid; and if you never petted a bee before.... they have one of the softest fur I have ever touched! As long as you don't try to harm the bee, they don't seem to mind when you gently pet them.

3. I'm somewhat ambidextrous. I write and eat with my left hand (except calligraphy), I play sports, use the mouse with my right, and can use both hands for other various activities.

4. I don't get brain freeze, but I do have nose freeze and sometimes chest freeze when I have a slurpee.

5. I am still driving my first car which I bought during my first year in college. It's pushing 20 years old and I kept saying that I'm going to keep driving it till it dies, but since it's a Toyota that might take another 20 years or more.

6. I like doing dishes so I can hear the clean ones squeak.

7. I am allergic to peeling or removing the shells on shellfishes. I am not allergic to the meat, I love eating shellfish, just the shell. My hand would sometimes start itching when I peel shrimp or crack the crab, that's why my whole family are experts in how to eat crab, and what I mean is they really know how to remove the shells, and I'm the only one that doesn't know how to cause my mom always just feed me the meat. I guess it's not a real medical condition... but it's nice to have mommy do it for you. :P

It's an end of an era!

It has been four hours since I have came back from dinner at the original Vivoli Cafe on Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles; I have already experienced 2 of the 5 stages of grief, skipped the third stage and went right to stage number four: depression. As you can tell, the experience was less than satisfactory, in fact, it was extremely disappointing.

The meal started pretty well, our server seem to have recognized us from all the previous visits that we made, which was pretty impressive cause we live 400 miles away, but it also shows how often we come to this restaurant. However, everything seems to have gone downhill when the food hit the table. The bread was warm, but tasted different. The calamari was good, but the portion was cut in half. The gnocchi tasted exactly like the ones in the Thousand Oaks, CA branch, which is not good and you can read about it on my previous post. The lobster ravioli resembles 90% of the one that I had in the past, but the sauce tasted less refine than before.

So here were my thoughts during each of the stages:

Stage 1: Denial
OMG! I can't believe this is happening! Maybe it's just this one time, maybe if I come tomorrow at lunch everything will be fine again. Or better yet, maybe this is just a dream. Yeah, that's it, hey you! Wake up! If I just wake up, everything will be back to normal....

Stage 2: Anger
What is going on? I demand some answers!!! Did you guys change management? Change owner? What is the deal here!!!! The food is clearly not the same as before, do you think people won't notice?!?! Give me my GNOCCHI!!!!

Stage 3: Bargaining
(skipped)

Stage 4: Depression
Dinner sucks, this night sucks, it's an end of an era!!!! (sigh) I just want to climb into bed and do nothing.

After watching half an hour of The Office, I seem to feel a little better but I still can't seem to move onto the acceptance stage.

I really don't know what happened to my beloved restaurant. My best guess is change of owner/management or chef. I don't even recognize most of the servers there and the service has gone down. It almost feel like one of those cases when a new management team took over a successful restaurant and decided that they can cut cost by using inferior ingredients and give out smaller portion while charging the same price. What they don't realize is that although they might be able to save some money in the short run, they will start to lose their customer base, and world of mouth will eventually kill their business.

I don't know if I will return after tonight, maybe I'll give them another chance, but based on tonight's dining experience, I can no longer say that I will recommend anyone to Vivoli Cafe until I know for sure that tonight is just a fluke. I'm crossing my fingers that tonight was just a bad night for them, and unfortunately for me as well, and hoping that the next time I come back, I will be welcomed by the same fluffy gnocchi that I so fondly remembered.

Thousand Oaks, CA - Vivoli Cafe

Today I had a chance to visit one of the franchise branch of my beloved Vivoli Cafe that is located in Thousand Oaks, CA. We head to the restaurant early so we'll be able to return in time to catch the VP debate and Must Watch TV Thursday; since we got there before dinner time, the restaurant was pretty empty and we got seated right away.

(I did take pictures of the food that we ordered, but I did not realize that the SD card was not in the camera and I left the camera cable at home, so I won't be able to post those pictures till I get home next week, but they are coming.)

There are major differences between the original store on Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles and this franchise store in Thousand Oaks, CA; and although this restaurant is not bad, I was extremely disappointed in how different the food is from the original Vivoli Cafe. Since this is the first time we're dining here, we decided to order a few of our favorites: the calamari fritti and the gnocchi. We also ordered the Pizza margherita with mushroom and MilleFoglie di Maiale, which is pork tenderloin sliced and pounded with mozzarella, leaks, tomato in a black olive sauce.

The menu and the recipe is the same as the Sunset store, however, it is obvious that the chef makes all the difference. First of all, the free focaccia bread was cold, and that pretty much set the tone for the whole meal. I made the comment to my boyfriend saying that I have a feeling that we still need to make a trip to the Sunset restaurant, and I think at the end of the meal, my boyfriend was in agreement with me.

The calamari that I rave about did not make an appearance here tonight. The portion was smaller and the calamari was overcooked and a bit rubbery. The calamari itself was not seasoned and pretty much relied on the sauce to deliver the flavor. The pork tenderloin was cooked well, however, there were no seasoning and the entire dish was bland and boring.

My biggest disappointment was the gnocchi. If you have read my July post about Vivoli Cafe on Sunset Blvd, the gnocchi at Vivoli Cafe is my all time favorite dish; it is THE dish that I would drive 400 miles for, they are "little pillows of heaven" that melts in your mouth, or at least that was what they were suppose to be. The gnocchi at Vivoli Cafe in Thousand Oaks, CA bear no resemblance to the original dish, and I didn't have to taste it to tell that it was not the same gnocchi dish that I love. Just from looking at it, the gnocchi looked dense. I then proceeded to stick my fork into it, and it did not feel light and fluffy. I put one into my mouth and it tasted just like all the average gnocchi out there, it was the same gnocchi that my boyfriend had avoided for many many years; it was dense, chewy, and uninspiring.

The only dish that was good was the pizza. The crust was thin and crispy. The topping and sauce were flavorful and complimentary. I would prefer to have more basil on the pizza, but overall, the pizza was a delight to eat.

The upside of this place was the size of this restaurant was significantly bigger than the Sunset store, and parking was free. The service is about the same compared to an average restaurant, but it did not meet the high standard of the Sunset branch. And it definitely did not have the warm, fuzzy, friendly family restaurant feel to it.

After the meal, I have this urge to just drive down to the Vivoli Cafe on Sunset Blvd to get the bad taste out of my mouth. However, I am glad to have this experience, because now I can really appreciate how wonderful the original restaurant on Sunset is, and I can truly tell you that if you want to try Vivoli Cafe, do yourself a favor and visit the one on Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles. Sure, the restaurant is small and you have to pay for valet parking, but the food is fabulous there and the service is superb. I would not recommend anyone to the one in Thousand Oaks, but if you would like to try it out for yourself, be my guest, but don't say that I didn't warn ya! :P

Where did I go?

I didn't think that I would ever be writing a post about why my blog post has gone from a consistent 3 posts a week to coming out at a snail pace. Am I lacking materials to write about? Nope. Have I gone hungry since? Gosh no! In fact I think I gained a few pounds. :(

Then what is causing this to happen? Well, I got the highly anticipated game "Spore" a few weeks back. This was a game that I, among many others, have been waiting for for a few years. After I broke the seal on the box and installed it into my computer, my life has since come to a screeching halt. If you don't know what Spore is but you know what The Sims are, well, they were both created by the same person, Will Wright. He is a game developing genius! Although he did not design most of The Sims 2, and is not designing The Sims 3, he certainly gave birth to this extremely addicting game franchise.

Spore is a very simple game, but it sure produces a lot of entertainment for me. If you read my profile, it did say that I LOVE games!!! Unfortunately, there are too many things to do, and since Spore is a new toy, it is getting most of my attention. I will write again, just after I finish Spore. Got to go conquer the world, and be the alpha dog on my planet now!

San Francisco - Golden Gate Bakery and a little good deed

Near the corner of Grant and Jackson Street in San Francisco's Chinatown lies this marvelous little shop called the Golden Gate Bakery. Even before I was born, my family would always visit this bakery every time they were in the city, and twenty somewhat years later, I still can't keep myself away from their yummy goodies.

The Golden Gate Bakery is arguably one of the best Chinese bakery in the U.S. and although they are also famous for their lotus moon cake, I primarily go here for their other famous baked good: the Chinese egg custard tart! I can't say much about the moon cake, but they definitely have the best egg custard tart around, it's even better than the ones I had when I lived in Taiwan. So believe me, they're GOOD!

Majority of the time you'll see a bunch of people outside the bakery, shifting their feet, waiting in line for a chance to get into the bakery before the custard tarts run out. If you don't see a line then most likely they are on vacation or it's near closing time. We were lucky enough to get there before a huge line formed up so I can get my hands on some of those amazing tarts.

While we were waiting, I overheard this guy standing in front of us tell his friends that the egg custard tart here is good (which I agree), but he also said that egg custard tarts are good anywhere because they are all made from a similar recipe (He is so wrong!). I couldn't believe what I just heard! But I took a deep breath and suppressed my urge of tapping on his shoulder to ask him what is wrong with his taste buds, and why is he standing in line at this bakery instead of buying his custard tart from a bakery down the street where there is no wait

If you also share his opinion or if you had an egg custard tart at a dim sum place and didn't think much of it, then you must try the egg custard tart from Golden Gate bakery. The outside crust resembles a pastry shell and is light, flaky, not at all oily, and the filling is so soft and delicate. They come fresh from the oven and you just can't stop smiling after you bite into it. I could probably eat 6 of them in one sitting, and I would have if I didn't have to share them with my family.

The egg custard tart is $1.35/tart (if I remember correctly) which is sort of on the expensive side, but it's worth every penny! If you actually are able to make your way there, be sure you know what you want to get by the time you reach the counter, cause these ladies don't mess around; there are minimal customer service here and they want to get the line moving. They'll indulge a few questions here and there, but if you don't make up your mind soon, they might just pass you up to help the next customer till you're ready.

When we were walking back to our car, we passed by this old Chinese lady and she was going through the trash can and drinking the milk tea that someone had just threw away. The sight of that just breaks my heart and although my dad would never agree with what I did, I stopped and took out one of the tart and gave it to her. My dad would say that when you give to the needy, they will never think it is enough or they just want to get drugs and alcohol, so we're actually not helping them. I really disagree with his view, sure there are people who are into drugs and alcohol, but there are also a lot of people who are just down on their luck and need a helping hand. I wish I could've done more for the old lady, but hopefully the egg custard tart will at least fill her tummy a little bit.

Hunger Awareness

I took a photo of this hunger awareness ad when we were driving down one of the streets in San Francisco. I guess judging from my blog I can't really claim I am the 5th person huh?

I am fortunate enough that I never had to go hungry in my life so far, no matter how much of a tough time my family been through, or how little I have to live on when I was in college, I never had to go to bed hungry. I always feel really bad for those that are down on their luck, do not have a home, and just long for a warm meal every so often, so even though I don't have much, I try to do what I can: buy a meal for the homeless sometimes, donate food to food banks, and another really fun one is to go on FreeRice.com

A lot of you probably already been on FreeRice.com and if you're like me, you get addicted to it once you start playing. If you have not heard of this site, you can play vocabulary, math, chemistry, art and language games, and for each answer you get right, they donate 20 grains of rice to the UN World food program to help end world hunger.

The amount of time it took me to finish this blog post, I have donated 500 grains of rice by playing the French vocab game, and I don't even know French! I know we will probably never be able to end world hunger, but each and every one of us can do a little something to help another less fortunate person. You don't need to have a lot, just need a heart and a will, so go have fun and you can also help put some food on someone else's dinner plate!

San Francisco - Imperial Palace Restaurant

Lychee Garden on Powell Street in San Francisco's Chinatown used to be THE place that we go for our semi-weekly weekend dim sum meal, however, when they decided to stop serving dim sum a few months back and left us high and dry without our dim sum fix, our searched had once again continued for the perfect dim sum place.

If you don't know what dim sum is, the way I like to explain it is to think of it as a Chinese buffet where they bring the food to your table, or Brazilian BBQ except you can't eat till you explode for one low price. Or if you eat sushi, it's very much like a floating sushi bar but larger; the whole restaurant is the bar, the food is on a cart and people push it around the restaurant and pass by your table.

My bf saw Imperial Palace on the Travel Channel the other day and was itching to go try it; after a little research it turns out that the predecessor of this location was the Golden Dragon Restuarant where the Chinese gang shooting took place back in 1977, but since I am here to talk about food and not to give a history lesson, you can find some more info on wiki if you would like to read more about what happened to the Golden Dragon.

So in order to become our regular dim sum spot, there are only three criteria that needs to be met: service, taste, and value. Hmm... come to think of it, this is the same criteria how I judge most restaurant, I should probably elaborate a little.

At dim sum places, especially those with the push carts, the way I judge service is essentially how fast the food find our table. I don't need a five star restaurant service at a dim sum place, I don't need someone to check in on us every 5 minutes to see how we're doing, but I would like to see a food cart pass by us every 5 minutes (more or less).

In this case, Imperial Palace failed it miserably. This was truly an odd sight to see! A push cart dim sum place with no one pushing the carts full of food! There were two carts full of food at the back of the dining room just sitting there for 15 minutes! (upper picture, and that lady was not serving food yet)

I was not quite sure of the reasoning behind this; maybe they were being very considerate of their patrons and were waiting for the food to cool down so we won't burn the roof of our mouth? Or maybe this place is self-service and we just didn't know it cause we're new here. Wait, wait, I have another idea... or maybe... just maybe they are not quite organized and there was some poor management going on, cause we saw the restaurant manager go to the back and broke up a conversation between two ladies, pointing fingers, kind of upset, and then the carts started to roll out. Hmm.... well, I'll let you be the judge of that.

Ha gar and shu mai

The taste for the food is debatable. For me the shrimp dumpling (ha gaw) and the Cantonese style radish cake taste decent, it's not the best, but it's pretty good, however the rest of the dishes were a little bland to me. If you ask my bf's dad though, he thought the food was pretty good and tasty. He especially liked the spare ribs at this place, and to us that says a lot, cause most of the spare ribs at the dim sum places we go to doesn't meet his standard, not even our once upon a time favorite, Lychee Garden.

Spare ribs and radish cake

BBQ pork bun and long rice noodle stuffed with shrimp

As for the value, it was not too bad. There were a bit of variety for the dishes. Each small dish was $2.20, medium $2.80, and large dishes were $3.20. For the three of us, the bill came to be a little under $40.00 and we had some food to take back home.

The dining experience at the Imperial Palace was a bit of a hit and miss. I have to say that there were quite a bit of local Chinese patrons in the restaurant, so to a person other than myself and my bf, this place might be a pretty good place to go, but for me the quest must go on.

If you're a person who never had dim sum before and might want to try it, I would strongly recommend the shrimp dumpling (ha gaw), pork dumpling (shu mai), and "steamed" BBQ pork bun to start as those are the staples, and order anything else that interests you. Dim sum might not be for everyone, but it can definitely be a fun and unique dining experience.

I won! I won!

Just when I was a little worried that I don't have anything to blog about before the weekend, I found out I won an award! And before you get too excited, I didn't get an acadamy award or anything; I recieved an Kind Blogger Award from my blog friend JelO , which is still really cool and made my day.

There are a few rules before posting this award and here they are:

1. Only 5 people are allowed to receive this award.

2. Four (4) of them are followers of your blog.

3. One has to be new to your blog and live in another part of the world.

4. You must link back to who ever gave you the award.

Here are my lucky winners, go check them out!

1. Syarlilady

2. Jewelry Rockstar

3. Turtleann

4. Per se

5. Soyun

San Francisco - Miller's East Coast West Delicatessen

Miller's East Coast West Delicatessen in San Francisco is probably one of the closest thing you can get to a New York deli on this side of the coast. Having just been to NYC, I thought it would be fun to do a deli showdown! Are you ready to rumble?!?!?!?! East vs. West! Who makes the best bagels? The best pastrami sandwich? Matzo soup? Who will prevail? Read on and you will find out.

If you ask me, I will always root for the West coast cause I'm a California girl, but in this case East Coast wins hands down all the way because Miller's deli IS an east coast deli! The peppery, herby pastrami they have was flown in from the Bronx, and the bagels were partially boiled and baked in New York City before there were shipped to California to be finished off in Miller's oven. You can't get any more authentic than this short of flying across the country and eat it at the source like we did.

We have been to Miller's deli 3 times now and enjoyed the food each and every time. I know some of you guys who are the real deal New Yorkers might go there and think that it sucks, but to my west coast taste buds, this place is a great substitute. Beggars can't be choosers, right?

Left: Millers Right: Ess-a-Bagel

"Tender and fluffy on the inside and has a nice crispy texture on the outside" was what I read and expected from a NYC bagel but sadly did not receive during my New York trip, (read about it here) however, that line describes the bagels at Miller's exactly to the tee.

I took the photo after I took a bite out of the bagel so you can see the texture of it. It is so soft, so airy, and had a nice crunch to it. If this was the kind of bagel I got when I was in New York, I, too, would've became a believer right there and then. Miller's bagels surely redeemed NYC bagels in my eyes; now I just need to find out where they got them!

Bagel round goes to......... Miller's!

Left: Miller's Right: Katz's

Both of the hot pastrami sandwiches were great! I think it just depends on what kind of pastrami mood you're in that particular day. Miller's pastrami were thinly sliced and has a more robust pepper and herb flavor. Katz's meat are a little milder on taste, but they are thick, juicy and a little fattier.

What my boyfriend liked about Miller's is that you can choose what kind of bread you want for your sandwich, as opposed to Katz's where they only serve it on rye, which is probably the more authentic route.

Hot Pastrami round is a tie!

Left: Miller's Right: Katz's

Miller's popped both of our cherry for matzo ball soup. I didn't really know what to expect when I ordered the Chicken noodle soup with matzo ball, and when the soup came I kind of had doubts that it would taste good. Well, if you don't know what I mean, just look at it! The soup looks so clear and kind of bland. How was I suppose to know that it was full of flavor and a joy to eat? Even my boyfriend who is a super soup snob liked it, he liked it so much that I had to spoon fight him so I can get another taste.

As for the matzo ball soup at Katz's, it was decent, but not as flavorful, plus I like it that Miller's had a lot of chicken and noodles in their soup.

Matzo ball soup round goes to.......Miller's!

Miller's has a very extensive menu and serves up soup, sandwiches, salads, burgers, hot plate meals, and more. I especially like their beer battered onion rings; they are sweet and seasoned with a little bit of salt, and as you can see from the picture on the right, there is actually an onion ring inside the batter! (unlike the fast food ones)

And lastly, I just have to mention the new favorite sandwich of all time: The day after. It is roast turkey, stuffing, melted Swiss cheese, cranberry sauce and turkey gravy on toasted rye bread. This sandwich is so good! You can't be afraid to get your hands dirty if you want to eat this sandwich cause the bottom of the bread is a little wet with the sauce and gravy. Plus, you have to try and eat everything in one bite, or two if you have to, because it's the contrast of the savory and sweet, crunchy and soft that makes this sandwich so brilliant and wonderful.

As for the service, it is a little inconsistent; we always seem to arrive at the deli after their rush and it kind of puzzles me how service can be very slow when there are only 5 tables to take care of. The empty cup was sitting at our table for 20 minutes before it got refilled. However, when the deli started to fill up a little at our last trip, we actually got very decent service, hmm... shouldn't it be the other way around? Oh, our server also remembered us from our first visit and what we ordered, which was very nice.

It seems like Miller's came out on top of my comparison test, but I'm sort of partial to it, too, since I only need to drive 60 miles north to get to it, and not have to fly across the country. If and when you can, eat at the source, but if you're in the San Francisco Bay Area and you feel homesick, go try out Miller's east coast west deli and it just might make you feel a little better.

Final Big Apple post - a few more destinations

The time has finally came! This is my final post about NYC for this trip, why oh why did the trip have to end? As promised from my last post, here are some more photos from my massive photo folder.

The Fuller building, which is also known as the Flatiron building, is one of the most recognizable buildings in New York City. I took this picture when I was in the taxi so the angle is a bit off, but this building is a triangle shape and resembles a flat iron, which is where it got its name, and subsequently the area around it was named the Flatiron district.



What surprised me about the financial district in NYC is that there were still a lot of people (mostly tourists) walking around on a weekend. We barely have anyone in the San Francisco financial district at night or the weekends, but there probably isn't as many tourist destinations in the SF financial district than in NYC.

You can't tell from this picture, but there were A LOT of people around the Wall Street Charging Bull. Like most people, I also went and rubbed its horn and balls for good luck, hopefully now my stocks will go through the roof! My boyfriend did a little more than I did and caused a old Chinese woman to gasp and cover her mouth. What is it that he did you ask? Well, I'll leave it up to your imagination. The first person who guesses it wins a prize!

New York Stock Exchange

Apparently, the Charging Bull was a guerrilla art and was originally placed in front of the NYSE by the artist, Arturo Di Modica, as a Christmas gift to the people of NYC back in 1989. The police seized the sculpture which led to a public outcry and they eventually put the sculpture at Bowling Greens, which is where it stands now.

Right across the street from the NYSE is the Federal Hall with a bronze statute of George Washington. I didn't know this but this is where George Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the United States. Sweet~~~

A waterfall under the Brooklyn Bridge? Yes you saw it right, this is an art project by artist Olafur Eliasson, and there are four waterfall sculptures installed in New York City which you'll be able to visit till October 13th. If you happen to get a chance to go to NYC in the next couple of months, be sure to check it out! http://www.nycwaterfalls.org/

Bethesda Fountain

So I learned that our Golden Gate Park was modeled after Central park and it is about 174 acres larger, however, after a trip to Central Park I got to admit that I liked it much more than Golden Gate Park. (Man, I feel so dirty for saying that, I'm sorry San Francisco!)

Central park is beautiful, very people friendly, and you can probably spend a couple of days there easily. There's even a zoo there! I also saw a carousel somewhere, too bad we were only there for a weekend, otherwise I think I would really enjoy exploring the park more.

Horse carriages in the park. I love horsies!

Fountain at City Hall Park

GTA4 fans, you should recognize this fountain right? And if you don't, shame on you for saying you're an avid GTA4 fan! Shame on you, I say! (j/k) We actually made a point to track down this fountain because my boyfriend keeps seeing it in GTA4 and a few times when we were in a cab, he would point at the fountain and say "Hey! I know that fountain, it's in my game!"

I really enjoyed the short time that I spent in NYC. My boyfriend and I always talked about living in New York City for a few years, and after this trip we could really envision ourselves living there. It's a great city with diverse cultures, amazing food, beautiful scenery, and suprisingly very clean and tasty water. We shall return to you NYC, we shall return...