I was complaining to one of my World Journalism Institute teachers about the crazy deadline he set for us.

His response: “That’s the press, baby.”

He saw my blank face, so he played this YouTube clip from Deadline U.S.A (1952) for me. “This is just for Sophia,” he said, giving me the eye. Gulp.

Anyway. The truth is, even as I complain, I thrive on the high-stress situations. Today was such a day.

We have a reporting assignment almost daily during our three weeks here at WJI’s New York Convergence Course. At noon, my teacher, Les Sillars, gave us that day’s assignment: Go out into the streets. Find someone to interview and write a 500-word feature profile on him or her. It’s due 6 p.m. Sharp.

I didn’t get enough sleep last night, so I went home and napped for two hours first. High priority things out of the way first, right? At a few minutes past 2 p.m., I hopped out of bed and stalked the streets. Quite literally, actually. I was staring at every single person walking down 6th Avenue, sometimes following a particular individual I found sorta interesting.

Problem is, this was New York City. New Yorkers don’t walk. They march, with a purpose and a destination. They don’t really make eye contact, and they all have a determined, hardened face that snaps, “I need to get somewhere. Don’t bother me.” At least, that’s how I interpreted it, so I cowed away after a few seconds of trailing someone.

I entered a famous bagel store and asked to see the owner, but she had to pick up her nephews soon. I chatted up a kind-looking old lady, who turned down my request for an interview because she had to go grocery shopping. I walked up to a guy with a diamond stud earring and tattoos all over his arm, but then he glared at me and I scampered away.

The clock was ticking down. It was past 3 p.m. I was wandering aimlessly around in Chelsea. I still didn’t even get the chance to talk more than a few seconds with someone, and I had to have a 500-word article ready by 6 p.m. I was starting to freak out, just a little bit.

I decided then that I couldn’t interview any person who comes my way. I needed to come up with a strategy.

The wheels in my brain churned. What kind of situation could I manufacture so that a person would just have to talk to me? I sent a quick prayer to God. I was mid-chew on a oatmeal-and-raisin bagel with fig (!!) cream cheese when I spotted a nail salon. Ding, ding, ding.

It so happened that I’ve been in need of getting my nails trimmed. I had never gotten a manicure in my life, and here was a nail salon right in front of me. From what I’ve seen on movies like Legally Blonde, I knew that a manicure consisted of two people sitting across each other in a room, one painting, one being painted. The perfect ground for gossip, and in my case, interviewing. My manicurist would have to talk to me. Ha!

Congratulating myself for my ingenuity, I burst into the nail salon, apologized for not making a reservation, and asked for a basic manicure. I did a quick scan of the salon, and saw that all the workers were Asians. Perfect– Asians respond better to Asians. We have that inherent Asian connection. I’m an Asian. This idea was seeming smarter and smarter. I love the way my brain works, I tee-hee-ed to myself as the nail salon owner led me to my manicurist.

To be honest, I played to the stereotype and expected the nail salon team to be Vietnamese. But then the owner spoke Mandarin to my manicurist, and my ears perked up. Yes!! Peachier and peachier!

“Are you Chinese?” I asked.

My manicurist smiled. “Yes,” she said softly.

“Can you speak English?”

“A little bit,” she said.

Now that she spoke more than one syllable, I realized that her English was choppy. So I spoke to her in Mandarin, and the manicurist’s eyes– her name is Tina– brightened. Boom. Instant bond.

Unfortunately, it turned out that my manicurist wasn’t particularly chatty. During the whole 15 minutes or so she spent buffing and painting my nails, her head was cast down low and she rarely made direct eye contact. I wanted to gossip; I wanted to probe into her personal life and bond over our mutual Asianness (this is the one time I heighten my Asianness to the max). But the interview ended up with me being– you know, that annoying stranger who asks a bazillion questions and the other person just wishes she would shut the hell up.

I asked Tina if most of the customers were white. She said yes. I asked again if she talked to them. She said no.

“I guess they don’t ask you as many questions as I do, huh?” I said.

She nodded. A bit too vigorously, I thought. Aiyah!!

Time to strategize again. When she handed me my bill, I gave her a generous tip. I was dipping my desperate toe into murky journalism ethics waters. But lo and behold, she got a bit chattier after she saw my tip. She even helped me carry my stuff as I got up from my seat, and she actually asked me some questions. It’s true. Money gets you everywhere.

When I left the salon, it was 4:30 p.m. My classroom was about 20 minutes walk away. I still had to walk back and type up the article. Interview done, with just enough time to spare for me to quickly stop by Whole Foods to take advantage of the burger sale.

Beef burgers, 50 percent off for $1 each.

Sorry, just had to mention that. I get way too happy with a good sale.

So in the end, I did get my interview. It was the perfect of perfect situation– yet I didn’t exactly get the kind of profile I wanted. But at least I got my nails done for the first time.

Sparkly, glittery dark purple. The nail salon owner chose the color for me.

My professor once told me that usually, the best profile you get is also during the worst situation. And I guess the opposite works too. Sometimes, the best situation doesn’t mean you’ll get the best interview. Because– to quote Humphrey Bogart–  that’s the press, baby.

No related posts.

I’m convinced that I’ve never had such long and short days in my life.

As already mentioned, I’m here in New York City for three weeks as part of World Journalism Institute‘s summer convergence course. I’m living a block away from the Empire State Building, which also happens to be my classroom.

Such a steady stream of taxis is a common sight in NYC.

To show you how intensive the course is: From Monday to Saturday, we have more than 12 hours of classes a day. I wake up around 6 a.m. and go to bed at 2 a.m. We had about eight homework assignments due even before the course actually began.

This is a daily necessity, my start button:

Starbucks, my love. And Dunkin Donuts.

But I’m loving all my teachers and classmates. They all have wonderful testimonies and are incredibly smart and gifted. The Founding Director of World Journalism Institute, Robert (Bob) Case, is quite the character. Just check out his attire:

Quite the dapper man.

He’s always got a bright tie on, with a matching bright scarf tucked into his breast pocket. He has these grandfather glasses with really intense, expressive eyebrows. Although he can be brisk and gruff, he’s also a gentle soul with an impressive mind. In fact, he was the one who thought we deserved a Dunkin Donuts morning. He’s like the white grandpa I never had.

Even as the day seems so much longer (yay to waking up before noon!), I can’t believe it’s already Thursday. I feel so productive and motivated within this group, so I’ll be sad when this NYC course is over. Blogging will be sparse, as most of my meals are just $2 hotdogs from Papaya Dogs, bagel and cream cheese from delis and snacks from Trader Joes.

I might string together a post about what I’m learning from NYC sometime, but for now, just wanted to send a quick wave to you all!

Related posts:

1. Video: We are Young and Gluttonous
2. PR versus Journalism
3. Giveaway Winner!!

This post is dedicated to my lovely buddy, Mimi.

She just graduated last week and celebrated with foie gras at Bazaar. Unfortunately, because I was already in the East Coast, I was not able to see her strut the walk in her graduation cap and gown, nor join her and her family for duck liver served in shoes (Mimi’s words).  But Mimi, I’m so proud of you and excited for your future!

That said, I still remember when we first met. We met online first because she was my blog-stalker (okay, and vice versa) and we bonded over lengthy emails chatting about red hair, not weighing peanut butter and her idol at the time, Jillian Michaels. And then I remember her telling me that she’s waiting to hear about her application to the University of Southern California– which meant we just might be schoolmates! Both studying print journalism, no less!

In a way I feel like God put us together. We come from two very different worlds; she drawls like a Southerner and I ttok lyke diss because of my Singaporean accent. But we went through some similar struggles and shared the same curiosity and passion for writing and food. We took more than an hour’s public transportation just for burgers and Korean pizza. We ruthlessly edited each other’s work and cooked some freaking fantastic stuff together. I made fun of her chopstick skills and she made fun of my inability to eat offal.

I’ve been dreading the day she graduates because I was afraid she would fly back to her homeland of Texas and just disappear. Fortunately…though it may be too early to say…Mimi fell in love with public relations (PR). She’s been interning at the PR department for a major entertainment industry in Los Angeles, and there’s a high chance that she might score a well-paying full-time job there. Which means I won’t have to say goodbye! Yay!

I have to admit, I was non-plussed when she told me she’s doing PR. “What?” I exclaimed with an accusing glare when she told me her new internship. “Traitor,” I cried a month later when she told me she was actually enjoying. “Nooooo! Et tu, Mimi?” I moaned several months later when she said she would rather do PR than journalism.

You see, PR and journalists share a love/hate relationship. To state it grossly, Journalists sniff down on PR agents as irritating, incompetent sycophants with bad writing and PR agents scowl at journalists as arrogant, rude a-holes. These days, however, it seems like PR people are having the upper hand with better job opportunities, greater power and of course, higher pay.

So yeah, I was kinda sore.

We finally had the conversation, however. It was over gchat, and I got to ask Mimi exactly why she chose PR as her career (for now). Below is a edited copy of our gchat discussion (feel free to skip, of course):

****************************

Okay, all that professional talk was making us hungry so we started talking about food soon after. Specifically, Moles La Tia.

Moles La Tia at East Los Angeles.

I’ve been wanting to visit Moles La Tia for the longest time, and I finally got to try the food there with Mimi one day. Moles La Tia is a East Los Angeles Mexican restaurant specializing in mole. I’ve had mole before a few times, but it was Moles La Tia’s exotic menu that intrigued me.

Hello? Tia?

Mole, of course, is that inexplicably flavorful sauce blended from a complex grind of spices, nuts and fruits. Moles La Tia takes its mole very, very seriously, but it also likes to have fun with splashes of creativity here and there.They offer traditional moles like the dark, inky Oaxacan and Pueblan moles, but they also concoct less familiar blends like coffee-seeped mole, or even a white-themed mole of white chocolate, almonds, white wine and pine nuts. Amazing, huh?

The kitchen with its pots and pans.

La Tia is a cute place. You walk in and are greeted by a statue of a Mexican mama, and you see the kitchen first before you are escorted to your seat.

A family having an early dinner together.

The whole decor is kind of bright, sorta playful. There are displays of traditional pottery and posters of traditional festivities and celebrations. I think those posters show scenes from El Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Correct me if I’m wrong.

A lone diner.

The owner was really friendly, taking his time to explain the menu for us. We started out with tortilla chips served with some zippy salsa.

Chips hot off the deep-frying vat!

And then we were served what I think is a cream of vegetable and potato-leek soup.

Cream of vegetable and potato-leek soup.

I thought the color was gorgeous, and at first I was expecting it to taste pumpkiny or sweet potato-y, but it was not at all sweet, just simple and very mellow. The portion was just right, because it turned out to be quite satisfying.

The owner must have liked us because he also served us a complimentary drink.

Move over, Zico.

This is agua fresca de pepino, or a cold cucumber and lime drink.

How did they get cucumbers to be so...smooth?

It was entirely refreshing and hydrating. This is the drink you want when you’re sweating half your water content out on a humid day. The drink had just a hint of natural sweetness from the cucumbers, with an invigorating spritz of lime.

We asked the owner or manager to help us choose something from the menu, and he recommended getting the Cuatro y Cuatro, which is a huge platter of four kinds of proteins with four kinds of mole for the ultimate La Tia experience.

Fit for a Mexican King.

We got to choose the protein and the moles. We ended up choosing chicken, pork, shrimp and salmon (extra charge for seafood).

Four kinds of protein, four kinds of moles.

The meat and seafood came over a mound of broth-infused rice. The rice was SO good–seeped with some kind of meaty broth and glistening with some kind of savory fat.

Soft to touch-- nothing like tearing into a warm tortilla!

The platter also came with a basket of warm tortillas. Love that they served it wrapped in a gaudy cloth.

As for the moles, we got the pistachio (al Pistachio), the hibiscus (Mole de Rosa), the Oaxacan and the Huitlacoche, which is this paste made of corn fungus. I know it sounds disgusting, but trust me, huitlacoche will blow you over with its distinct  and delicious flavors. I’ll explain more about this crazy sauce later.

A different kind of dip.

Dining at Moles La Tia is like an edible exhibition, especially if you’re not very familiar with such Mexican cuisine. Every taste is a wonder; you keep trying to guess what is in the sauce that just looks like a color but tastes like an explosion of flavors.

Mole de Rosa (Hibiscus mole).

The hibiscus mole was slightly tangy like grapefruit; it had the kind of tang that does a little zing at the back of your throat.

Mole al Pistachio

The pistachio mole was one of the my favorite. Light and vibrant, it was actually more like salsa than a creamy paste. There was just a bit of grittiness to prove that it really was ground from pistachios.

The Mole Negro, or black Oaxacan mole, was Mimi’s favorite. It’s the only mole that had chocolate in it.

My favorite was the huitlacoche.

Corn smut.

Huitlacoche is like Mexican truffle. It’s pungent, with a deep and rich, smoky, inky flavor.  I don’t know who was the first person to think the natural fungus sticking to corn would be fun to eat, but I’m glad he or she made that first taste! I’ve had them in quesadillas too, and it’s gorgeous. Something that makes you want to lick your fingers over and over again.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area and have never tried mole before, go to Moles La Tia and get this platter. The proteins aren’t all the impressive (the chicken was sorta tough), but it’s the moles that are the shining feature in this eatery.

Thanks Mimi for letting me understand more about the differences/similarities between PR and journalism. Happy graduation and best of luck in your career! Once you get your first paycheck, you’re buying dinner.

Question of the Day:  Would you try corn fungus?

Related posts:

1. Ole Mole!
2. Dude, It’s Pal Cabron
3. Father and Son Yucatan Tamales

I was interviewing a former CEO of a visual effects company, and we somehow got to the subject of love.

“I can finally say I’m in love,” he said, all grinning and happy like a child given a huge-ass lollipop. He went through a brutal divorce a few years back, but serendipitously met a woman at a party whom he recognized as the girl from college who he “always thought was pretty.”

They’re living together now, and they will get married this year.

But anyway, when I heard that, I asked him what “being in love” means.

“When real love hits you,” he told me, “nothing about that person bothers you anymore. It becomes almost a joke. She does something that will normally bother you, but instead of getting annoyed you find yourself laughing and going, ‘Aw, isn’t that cute?’”

I won’t even pretend to understand what “real love” means in the romantic context, but when it comes to my family—whom I love the most in the world— I think the opposite is true.

I have more pet peeves towards my family than I have with other friends and acquaintances, probably because I know them the most and I’ve spent the majority of my life with them. I’ve seen them in their ratty pajamas; I’ve seen them early in the morning with morning breath and their hair all mussed up; and I’ve seen them at their weakest points.

Although it’s been a while since I’ve last seen my family, reuniting with them even for a couple days means they’ve also reignited the things that bother me about them.

Here’s just a brief list of the pet peeves I remembered about my darling family:

• They’re SO slow. We will decide to have lunch at noon, but we’ll inevitably leave the house an hour and a half later.
• Whenever we go out together as a family, someone from church will call my dad. He’ll then spend an hour or so talking to that person about church matters while we wait. Sometimes, I just wish my dad could shed his pastoral duties for just one afternoon.
• Speaking of pastoral duties, I wish my dad would stop preaching sometimes.
• My parents tend to generalize groups of people (race, age, etc.). It’s really due to their upbringing; they speak in stereotypes but don’t actually think that way (Truthfully though, I’m guilty of that too, but it’s easier to spot that in other people than in myself.).
• My mom NEVER picks up her cell phone because she never carries it around. She also doesn’t know how to use it except to speed-dial our home phone.
• My brother, on the other hand, is ALWAYS on his phone texting. Texting when we’re eating, texting when we’re driving, texting when we’re walking.
• They make random remarks and comments that serve no purpose except to irritate.

The list can go on, the longer I spend time with them. Yet, there is no doubt in my heart that I love them so, so, sooooo much. And I’m sure that they, too, can recite a never-ending list of things I do that annoy them, but they love and accept me all the same.

That’s family, I guess. You don’t always get along and there’s tons of things about them (and me) that drive each other crazy, but you’re kind of born loving them. You have no choice but to love them because you are bound for as long as you live by blood.

I’m leaving tomorrow morning to New York City. My family and I are going to have a final family worship together, and then it’ll be goodbye until months later.

We had a final lunch out together at Cafe Oggi in McLean.
Cafe Oggi is an old-style Italian restaurant. Actually, we visited this place almost exactly three years ago. It was a momentous event for me because I conquered one of my biggest fear food at the time, pasta. With four kinds of cheeses.
Funny how that just sounds delicious instead of scary to me now. How things change.

We visited this place because my dad was craving pasta (the man can eat any form of noodles every.single.day) and we remembered how much we enjoyed our last meal here.
It was so nice to break bread here together again. Both figuratively and literally.
As always, the meal started out with warm Italian bread.
Dipped in herby olive oil.

This time, we decided to be a bit less “Asian” and order an appetizer as well. My brother chose the fried calamari:
YUM. It was so good. You can’t go wrong with fried calamari. Well, actually, I guess you can since it isn’t easy to fry calamari just right so that it ain’t greasy or rubbery.
With a spritz of lemon juice and dipped liberally into marinara sauce…I’d take this over popcorn. As I was eating this, I thought I could probably make a meal out of a bucket of these tender crispies.
I knew what my dad was going to order before we even took a peek into the menu. Even though he pretends he might order something else, he always ends up ordering the same thing because he already knows what he likes: Something spicy with seafood and long slurpy noodles.

He got the Spaghetti Vongole, the same thing he ordered three years ago.
Spaghetti cooked with tomato sauce, Italian clams, garlic and olive oil.
It doesn’t come spicy, but my dad requested it to be made extra spicy.
They were very generous with the clams!

My mom ordered something similar. She got the Linguine Scoglio:
Linguine cooked with mussels, clams and calamari in tomato sauce.
She also got it made spicy. We Lee Family love our spice! In fact, we loved this dish so much we ordered another!

My brother ordered the Cannelloni al Forno:
Rolled pasta filled with veal and vegetables, covered in Fontina cheese and Aurora sauce. Aurora sauce basically means tomato cream sauce, according to the waiter. I let my brother take the above picture.

I got the Fusilli del Giorno:
It was fusilli sauteed with spinach, crabmeat and breadcrumbs.

I was at first disappointed by the visually small amount of crabmeat in my dish, but as I digged in, I realized there were plenty of fleshy crab chunks hidden inside.
Gorgeous dish, with nicely cooked pasta tossed with a simple olive oil dressing.

Okay, I’m off to spend the last hours with my family. I’ll probably be posting pretty irregularly on my blog from now on, but if I do, that just means I’m actually enjoying my classes and learning a whole lot of stuff.

I can’t wait.

Question of the Day: What’s the most adorable thing about your family?

Related posts:

1. Nothing like Family
2. Superstars
3. Now That’s MY Kind of Vacation!

I’ve been doing many, many sit-ups lately. This poster I found on Facebook will explain what I mean:
Last Tuesday (or was it Wednesday? Aiyah!), I just didn’t feel like getting up. So I stayed in bed. I lay motionless on my bed for more than 14 hours. I could feel the heat of the afternoon sun slowly fading to an evening chill, and I still refused to get up.

I finally got out of bed a quarter till 5 p.m. I had slept the whole day away, even though I was in the middle of finals week. The only reason I even got out of bed was because 1) my head was killing me; 2) my stomach was starting to growl and 3) I had a final project due at 9 p.m. that I haven’t finished. My life is so tragic.

This is the perfect time to insert the hashtag #FML and #firstworldproblems.

As you may have guessed, I’ve been pretty frazzled lately.

Several things have happened which has been chipping away my confidence and zen. Monday was the day of my last two finals (as long as I get at least a B, I think I’ll be happy), but it’s just the beginning to a long summer of work, work, work.

Tomorrow I need to get up (or not sleep) at 4 in the morning, because I’ll be flying back to the East Coast in preparation for the World Journalism Institute NYC Convergence course. I still have four articles due for one of my internships, plus several more homework assignments due before my first day of “summer class” at New York City.

As excited as I am for the summer journalism course, I wish I had at least a week to recuperate. I’ve been feeling rather weak, both physically and mentally. Actually, I’ve been feeling downright stupid and lethargic. I feel like half my brain cells have been shut down, and I’m nervous about how I’m going to perform at the upcoming intensive journalism program.

Thankfully, I recharged this Sunday. I spent the whole day at church; I went to three services from 11 a.m. till 8 p.m. and somehow, I felt revitalized and re-inspired by all the wonderful and relevant sermons I absorbed that day. I might just share them in bits and nuggets sometime in the following weeks.

Today, I need a blog to blabber about non-intellectual and frivolous things. So I decided to compile my 5 favorite places to study.
(My friend Jordan doing some “studying” at Bricks & Scones.)

My friends and I like to go on “study dates.” That term is deceiving because it’s neither a date nor do we actually study more than an hour. But trust me—within that hour, I get SO much stuff done. I’m more productive within that hour than I am three hours in my house. That’s why I always go on “study dates” when I need to cram for an exam or a paper.
(My friend Eva, working on some journalism stuff at Cafe Storygarden.)

Anyway. In no particular order, here’s my top favorite places to steal wi-fi from study.

1. Bricks & Scones
This little tower, located at the charming Larchmont neighborhood, is no longer a hidden gem. At all times of the day, it’s packed with mostly young people typing away into their laptops, highlighting their textbooks or chatting quietly by the sunlit porch.
It’s built like a long, skinny fairytale tower. You walk in and step under this enchanting chandelier laced with sheer drapes and crystals.
Bricks & Scones is a family-owned teahouse/cafe, and it exudes that kind of cozy feel. It’s like walking into a rich British family’s lounge and just chilling there for hours while being served wonderful scones and tea.

And yes, Bricks & Scones does serve amazing scones. Actually, they serve one of the best scones I’ve ever tasted; I just can’t get enough of them! I don’t care if they’re truly traditional British (though I heard that the owners base their recipe off an old British recipe), I just love how doughy and buttery they are.
The scones come in several flavors: blueberry, chocolate chip, cranberry walnut, jam & nutty and even cheese & bacon. It’s not all that crumbly as some scones are, but there is this sensational bite to the scone’s interior. I can’t explain why it’s so delicious; you just have to try it for yourself.
Bricks & Scones offer an afternoon tea set for about $8.99, which comes with a pot of refillable tea, two scones of your choice, clotted cream, lemon curd and jam. Having tried it, however, I won’t recommend this combo. If you add up the price of getting your individual drink and scone, it’s really not worth it.

I prefer to get my own cup of coffee and scone; they add up to about $4-5 anyway.
Also, I kind of found the clotted cream, lemon curd and jam lackluster. The clotted cream was straight from the fridge so it was more like chilled butter than cream; the jam and lemon curd was just…so-so. Nor did I like the fact that they came in little plastic containers; that reminded me of ketchup at McDonald’s.
Or it may also just be because I don’t find tea as exciting and satisfying as bitter, fresh-brewed coffee.
Still, their scones can’t be beat, and I really love their quaint, cozy atmosphere. Just cross your fingers that you find a seat indoors near the power plugs! Or you can also just stand over a particularly weak-looking guy and stare and stare and stare until he sheepishly scuttles away.

2. Gelato Bar
Gelato Bar at Los Feliz is right next to Mt. Hollywood, where I hike weekly with friends. I only found this place because I got an email about a deal going on there: discounted coffee prices at just $1.
So after a brief hike with my friend Jordan, we popped by one day to do an hour’s work (always the maximum, it seems) at Gelato Bar to take advantage of their free wi-fi and their discounted coffee.
I love it! The service is super friendly, and there’s plenty of sample dishes offering bites of pretty much all their baked goods, from their chocolate chunk cookies to their cranberry muffins.

The dangerous thing is that those sample dishes may be sitting right within your reach and you just start nibbling and nibbling and nibbling…you get the idea.
Although Gelato Bar is a really tight, tiny spot, it serves well to what I think is their purpose of emitting the warmth of an old-style Italian kitchen. There are little adorable trinkets from the mid-1900s placed here and there, so you can spend quite some time just observing the details of the interior decorations.
Gelato Bar does the old-fashioned pour-over coffee. They claim to serve the best coffee in Los Feliz.
Well, I haven’t been to enough coffee shops at Los Feliz to judge if it’s true, but I do know that they make a fine cup of coffee. At just $1 for this full-bodied cup of roasty brew, it was a ridiculously awesome steal!
Oh and obviously their gelato is also bomb. I didn’t want to take advantage of this cute, family-owned shop by stealing their coffee, samples and wi-fi, so both Jordan and I decided to buy a cup of gelato each.
How cute! The gelato actually came pricked with a cookie roll! I am totally blanking out on what this cookie is called…I told you I’m feeling stupid these days.

3. Mr. Coffee
This coffee shop isn’t my favorite place, but it is a great spot to study at. There’s soft music in the back to provide just the tiniest bit of background noise, and there’s always plenty of comfortable seats to cuddle into.
It’s located in Koreatown, so expect ludicrously priced drinks. But that also means my $5+ coffee comes with free refills! Not bad if you’re going to stay for hours trying to study or finish a 20-page essay.
Cons, however, is that it gets dark and crowded come evening time. But it’s perfect during the sunny afternoons. Unfortunately, I didn’t take many pictures at this place because I was way too engrossed with my studies. Ha!

4. Hwa Sun Ji
I’ve featured this place several times so I’m just gonna be lazy and add some links.
I love this place as a study room because it’s so tranquil. The owner is lovely—she’s always warm, friendly and smiling, so even when I’m at the verge of pulling my hair out from stress, her pleasant service always calms me down. Unlike many other Korean cafes, she doesn’t need me to ring the bell; she promptly swings by my table, refills my coffee, and after the second refill, warms my empty mug with barley tea.
The coffee here is nothing special, except that it’s served in this adorable heart-shaped cup so it somehow tastes better than it really does.
And when the soft, traditional Korean music starts lolling you to sleep, you can always count on a nice bowl of Korean shaved ice (patbingsoo) to refresh your senses and attention.

5. Cafe Storygarden
Cafe Storygarden is not the best coffee shop or cafe by far, to be honest. The drinks and desserts are way overpriced (well, by Koreatown standards it’s your typical $6-7 per drink price range) and they aren’t even all that great.
But danggit, the guy who works here is super hot. Like K-pop, Japanese manga-style freaking hot. Actually, I’ve noticed the common theme of hotness amongst servers, both male and female, at Korean cafes. As my previous internship boss tried to educate me, “Hotness sells.”
Other than the gorgeous guy serving you iced tea and smoothies, the setting of Cafe Storygarden is dreamy yet minimalistic. It’s a screen of pure, creamy whiteness with artfully mismatched (IKEA?) chairs and random pots of plants and birdhouses.
There’s something about the whiteness of this place that sets my creative juice going. I wrote a few blog posts and articles in this backdrop, in fact.
Again, I like coming here in the bright afternoons when it’s too hot to sit in my non-air-conditioned room. There’s a specific table I like which is set against the full-length glass windows overlooking a patio. Sometimes the sunlight falls into my direction, and it just makes my cool drink all that much sweeter.
Oh, and the patbingsoo here is gorgeous.
Look at that. Seriously, everything here is so modern artsy, down to the careful cross-hatch of chocolaty drizzle. I loved the generosity with the fresh fruits and that full drench of condensed milk and chocolate syrup.
Obviously shaved ice is easy to make at home, but at home, there ain’t a beautiful person serving you a big-ass glass bowl of this glorious thing, is there? Now that should set you off into a good mood, at least cheery enough to spend another 20 minutes working on a school assignment.

And that concludes my Top 5 “Study Date” Spots list. Probably when you read this, I’ll be busy packing and cleaning my room. See you at the East Coast!

Question of the Day: Where are you most productive?

Related posts:

1. Operation Asianfy Mimi
2. Meet me at the coffee bar
3. Let’s Meet for Drinks

Perhaps I’m too young to say this…but I feel like life has come full circle at this week’s dinner party.

When I first met my friend Tracy, it was because I was interviewing her about her first start-up business for my school’s newspaper, The Daily Trojan. As we were exchanging emails on where to meet, Tracy noticed that I signed off my name with “burpingly yours” and asked if I was a foodie, because she was one too.

“Hell yes,” I replied. And suddenly, I couldn’t wait to meet this girl.

We met at our school’s Coffee Bean. What I had expected to be a 30-minute interview lengthened over an hour-and-a-half. While I sipped an iced coffee and she an iced Moroccan Mint tea latte, we chatted over our favorite places to eat, why we eat, how we eat…basically, we hit it off over our mutual passion for food.

As I hugged Tracy goodbye, we made a promise to each other that we’ll one day dine out together, but not just yet because I needed to write a disinterested feature article on her—not that I wasn’t already biased anyway.

Unfortunately, we didn’t hold true to our promise until about two years later. I got busy, she got super busy; I got sucked into my summer internship, she got engrossed in graduating and establishing a new business concept. We met a couple of times—once for Yogurtland on my birthday, the other for a brief tour around a gang-rehabilitation institution—but we didn’t truly sit down for a proper meal together until this 10-course, 5-hour meal at Yujean Kang’s.

And the rest is history.

We’ve been traveling and eating together ever since, going as far as Santa Barbara and New York City.

Now, I’m actually working for her as a content manager at her start-up business, Chewse, an online one-stop catering service. If we weren’t such good friends, I would have once again written a feature article on her for The Daily Trojan. But now, instead of being a detached observer, I’m one of the participating members of her Chewse team. And so far, it’s been a blast.
One of the visions of Chewse is to highlight our love and enthusiasm for food. So we decided to throw frequent dinner parties celebrating our company culture and engaging the community.

This Saturday, April 28, we had our first Chewse dinner party through the generous funds of Foodbuzz. I’ve had the honor of holding Foodbuzz 24×24 events before, but this time, instead of just inviting close friends, I extended the invitation to our local community.

Chewse’s CTO, Jeff, is an avid coffee-lover.
At the Chewse office (really, Jeff’s home in Venice Beach), there’s never a short supply of excellent coffee. He’s even got all the nifty coffee equipments you’ll see at avant garde coffee shops.
As we brainstormed about which dinner party theme to pitch to Foodbuzz, we were both sipping Clever-brewed coffee. After suggesting and scratching several ideas, it finally hit us. Duh. Coffee!!!

After all, Tracy and I met at a coffee shop. I met Jeff at a coffee shop. Both Jeff and I are obsessed about coffee (though in varying degrees; I drink 7-Eleven coffee, Jeff thinks that’s heresy). Chewse, inevitably, was born out of many sleepless nights fueled by caffeine.

So. Coffee it was. We planned our menu so that it would be a multi-course meal inspired by traditional breakfast items. Every dish, however, had to have some kind of coffee in it.

One coffee inspiration led to another. We decided to invite only serious coffee-lovers. Our attendees that night, excluding Tracy, Jeff and I, were the owner of Cafe Demitasse, the LA Coffee Club guys and Jeff’s friend and fellow coffee-lover, Skot.
The whole gang, proudly pledging loyalty to good coffee. From left to right: Adam, Skot, Antone, Jeff, Tracy, Bobby.

Here’s our caffeine-inspired menu:

Foodbuzz 24×24 Caffeine-buzzed Dinner

• Espresso raspberry jam muffins
• Coffee-and-brown-sugar cranberry bread swirled thingy
• Mocha-cinnamon butter
• Coffee-rubbed pork belly ssam
• Coffee mole egg “bernaise”
• Tiramisu crepe
• Coffee shots (alcoholic)
• Regular coffee shots (non-alcoholic)

But before we dive into the culinary aspect of this dinner, let me first introduce the awesome guests.

This is Adam, co-founder of LA Coffee Club.
Just check out that beard and mustache. He actually entered a mustache competition and won fourth place. This guy is hi-freaking-larious. He’s like a Jack-in-the-box, constantly springing entertaining stories about his life. I’m trying to get him to sign a contract that states I have the right to write his biography. He’ll probably write it himself and make it twice as good.

This is Antone, the other mastermind behind LA Coffee Club.
I learned that Antone hates okra and that his mother works at a Jamaican restaurant called Naturaliart Jamaican Restaurant on W. Washington Boulevard. Again, full circle: I remembered that my driving instructor was Jamaican, and I remember him telling me to dine at Naturaliart if I wanted real Jamaican food. I’ve marked that restaurant down on my Burp List, because I don’t think I’ve ever tried Jamaican food before. Oh, and I probably shouldn’t have, but I totally did: I asked Antone if he watched Cool Runnings (he did). Hey, it is one of my favorite movies of all time and I used to watch it once every week back when I didn’t care about school. Anyway, Antone is a super cool and chill guy.
Although Antone and Adam both have day-time jobs right now, their main passion (and soon-to-be main job) is coffee. Their business right now is like a coffee subscription service in which they mail what they believe is the best coffees to your home or office. They personally engage with all the best coffee roasters in town and select the best for their menu. In short, they are coffee curators.

This is Bobby.
He’s a lawyer-turned-dish-washer of Cafe Demitasse, or so his Google-Plus account says. He’s the brave soul who gave up a stable job for a risky, hectic entrepreneurship in the coffee business. I’ve already written about Cafe Demitasse as my favorite coffee shop in Los Angeles, and that statement still stands true. I’m not a coffee gourmand by any means, so I appreciate the balance Cafe Demitasse scales between educating and befriending their sometimes ignorant customers (me).

I just realized I didn’t get an individual picture of Skot, except for this misaligned picture of him showing of his multiple shots of empty coffee cups.
Sorry, Skot! Bur here’s another full circle thing with Skot: I actually first “met” Skot at Cafe Demitasse; we were both there for a barista competition (Cafe Demitasse routinely organizes cool events like that). So it was cool that we actually got to meet for real sipping coffee and eating coffee-ed (?) food next to the owner of Cafe Demitasse.

And then, of course, there’s Tracy and Jeff.

Okay, the gang is complete. We can eat now.

Jeff and I were the designed “cooks” of this event, while Tracy handled the alcoholic drinks and the LA Coffee Club took charge of the barista duties. They set up their own station and everything. Check out the whole gear they brought:
There’s more, but it wouldn’t fit into my camera frame.

Jeff and I made a few stuff the day before; I poofed the dough for the swirly bread thingy the night before, and Jeff baked the espresso-raspberry jam muffins:
This is just your basic sweet muffin recipe but with coffee and blobs of raspberry jam.

That Saturday afternoon, we got to work with the rest of the menu items.

I left the pork belly to Jeff because I’m not good at cooking meat, and he did a terrific job. We kinda, sorta followed Closet Cooking’s recipe for coffee-rubbed pork belly, but improvised the spice mixture a bit.
Here’s the rows of awesome belly chilling on the chopping board, waiting to be chopped into pieces.

Jeff also handled the coffee mole for our egg bernaise, while I poached the eggs minutes before serving. This is our assembled product:
The idea was to completely bastardize the traditional egg bernaise, so yeah, the only thing similar is that it has a (store-bought) English muffin and the poached egg.

We spread each muffin with some sour cream that we whipped with garlic powder and chopped scallions, then plopped a poached egg on top and slathered some of the coffee mole over. Because the coffee mole ended up looking like diarrhea, at the last minute I added a dollop more of sour cream and a torn up piece of lettuce on top. Well, we do the best we can.
Oh, and the coffee mole is obviously…not “authentic” either. We roughly followed this recipe but instead of chicken broth, we used coffee. A heck lot of coffee.

For the swirly bread, I basically followed The Kitchn’s recipe for cinnamon-raisin swirl bread, except instead of raisins I used dried cranberries. And instead of the cinnamon-sugar mixture, I mixed dark brown sugar with fresh-ground coffee beans.
It was a success. The bread was soft and fluffy with a nice bite of chew, studded sparsely with dried cranberries so as not to distract the attention from the coffee-dark brown sugar filling. I used the ratio 2:1 between brown sugar and ground coffee.
If you like coffee with carbs, you’ll love it. Especially when you spread it with the mocha-cinnamon butter.
For the butter, we bought a Costco-sized Kerrygold butter, let it sit to soften for half an hour, and then whipped it up with some cocoa, ground coffee, a dash of cinnamon and a sprinkle of brown sugar. If you’ve never had Kerrygold butter before, you need to drive to Costco—right now. A small bar won’t do, you’ll want a bucket of that milky, golden crack that feels like mascarpone and tastes like…gelato in heaven.
But! For me at least, the star of the show was the pork belly.
Jeff did a freaking amazing job on this! The edges was coated thick with coffee-scented seasoning; it was bitter in a smoky, savory way, almost like dark, dark chocolate with a bit of spice that lingers on your tongue. But the best part is when you sink your teeth into the top of the glistening fat, and it almost melts and oozes in your mouth, mixing with the layer of tender meat underneath…
I swear. Pork belly is the pig’s Valentines candy to us. We ate it wrapped around Korean sesame leaves, called Gaennip, with sour cream.
I got the idea from the Korean way of eating pork belly—the ssam way. There’s no complicated trick to it—just slap a piece of pork candy onto a leaf (or two), wrap, dab a bit of sour cream, and devour. Antone does it so well.
And looks like Bobby is enjoying his too. Haha.
While we were dining, Adam constantly brewed coffee for us, using different contraptions.
The first one he used was the Siphon, because it’s just so damn cool.

How can anything with a flame not be cool, right? Well, except the Bunsen burner experiments we were forced to do in high school science class.
Using the Siphon is a little more complicated. I’ve explained the science behind it on this post, but basically, its the basic science of evaporation and condensation of gases and liquids.

Using the Chemex and the Clever, however, is more straightforward. All you need to do is measure accurately and have a bit of patience. This is what a Chemex looks like:
Pretty simple and unimpressive, right? Antone told me he likes Chemex-brewed coffee the most though. He calls Chemex the “poor man’s” coffee brewer because you don’t need any fancy schmancy equipment to brew a great cup of coffee with it, though it takes a bit more steps and work. It is very decently priced, and will keep forever unless you smash it or something.

The “science” behind the Chemex is just the hour-shaped glass and the filter that uses a precise paper formulation to keep sediments away while passing through all the desired aromatics of the coffee into the finished brew.
Adam kindly demonstrated in this 4-minute video on how to make coffee at home with a Chemex—and have fun with it.

Coffee. It’s what’s for dinner—literally in our case.

Towards the end of our dinner, Tracy got up to whip up some drinks for us.

The ingredients were Bailey’s, Whiskey, heavy cream and brewed coffee.
The coffee she used, I think, was a cold brew from Secret Squirrel.
The first shot she made was obviously for her—heavy on the Whiskey. She later wimped down her recipe for me: heavy on the cream. Basically, she made me the kid’s version, the Starbucks’ Frappuccino to Sumptown’s drip coffee.

Once we were all full and happy, Jeff and I got to work on the tiramisu crepes, because we haven’t done our jobs if our guests went home merely full. They needed to be waddling!

I had blended a batch of crepe batter (using Alton Brown’s recipe because I trust him on everything food-related). To be honest I got a bit lazy and decided the coffee component of this dish would be to add a tablespoon-ish of ground coffee into the batter.
While I cooked the crepe, Jeff melted down some bittersweet chocolate on a double-boiler. I jacked it up with a shot of rum and a drizzle of heavy cream. It turned out amazing, like the dark cousin of Cadbury’s fruit and nut chocolate.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have the right pan for the crepe so we had a tough time flipping the crepe over and sliding it onto the plate without folding over and breaking apart.

We only got it right on the third try. The secret weapon? Chopsticks. From then on I used it for everything, even to scoop mascarpone onto the crepe.
“Keep in mind, it’s only two pieces of sticks,” Jeff reminded me as I gloated about the brilliant minds of Asians. Well yes, two sticks of awesomeness!
Anyway, as you can see, the filling for the crepe was our rum-infused chocolate, scoops of mascarpone and sliced almonds. It was slightly heavy, but irresistible. Rum + coffee + mascarpone + chocolate = four demitasses of WIN.
Our guests trickled in around 6 p.m., and they slowly dispersed past 11 p.m. You know you have great guests when all you need to do is serve the food, sit back and listen to their engaging conversation. It was fascinating to listen into the discussion about the “coffee revolution” in Los Angeles, who has been a late boomer compared to San Francisco, Seattle and Portland. It gave me an idea to write something about that the business and cultural aspects of coffee in the future.

I know I want to be a journalist, so my work at Chewse is temporary. I’m really thankful to Tracy and Jeff for inviting me to be part of their team. I’m excited to keep track and play a small role in Chewse’s progress, and I’m also excited to see Cafe Demitasse and LA Coffee Club’s influence in bridging the gap between coffee-sniffers and coffee-chuggers. I really admire their chutzpah in this business, and I wish them the very best.

After our last guest hugged goodbye, Jeff, Tracy and I totally high-fived to our first Chewse dinner party success. It was a great end to hopefully the first of our many, many dinner parties to come.
A giant, bubbling heartfelt thank you to Antone, Adam, Bobby and Skot for making history with Chewse. May we all have many more wonderful stories to which we can clink glasses and coffee mugs together.

Oh, by the way…
Just had to point that out.

Question of the Day: The classic question of…If you could invite anyone, who would you invite to your dinner party?

Related posts:

1. Christmas Cookie Exchange Party
2. A Little Tokyo Day Trip
3. Yujean Kang’s: A 10-course, 5-hour gastronomical extravaganza

When SliceTruck brothers David and Chris Hanley heard about the booming food truck business in Los Angeles three years ago, they hopped right into the bandwagon– quite literally.

They bought a one-way ticket from Chicago to Los Angeles, procured a truck at a discounted price (this was months before the food truck-a-day craze), slapped it with some color, wrapped it with a “SliceTruck” logo, then started trucking around the Los Angeles streets expecting an instant line of customers clamoring for their pizza, just like the way Angelenos did for the Kogi truck.

It didn’t happen that way at all. There was no block-long line, there was no instant fan base following them by thousands on Twitter.

Operating a food truck was “not all it’s cracked up to be,” the Hanleys discovered. Instead of having fun cruising around town in a mobile tin kitchen, they were stressing out over finding parking, maintaining their truck, battling traffic and struggling to stand out among the hundreds of other food truck opportunists who shared the same idealistic dream they had. When the Hanleys first started out, there were about 25 trucks in Los Angeles. Now, there are 500—and growing every day.

Somehow, SliceTruck survived. In fact, it just opened a brick-and-mortar three weeks ago in early April. Its truck is still operating, but after three years on the road, the brothers are relieved to finally have their own permanent space.

SliceTruck isn’t a gourmet wood-fire pizzeria (which seems to be gaining huge popularity in L.A.). Nor is it a NY-style pizzeria, or a Chicago deep-dish pizzeria. SliceTruck’s menu is simple and basic; its pizza doesn’t come with fusion spins or wacky combinations or fancy-schmancy ingredients. What differentiates SliceTruck from just a regular pizza branch is its dough, which uses 100 percent Kamut flour, an ancient heirloom grain that has been protected from hybridization or cross-pollination.

“The dough is the foundation of our business,” Chris Hanley said.

Especially because their pizza is so minimalistic, their dough really needs to shine through. That’s why Chris spent 10 months experimenting and honing his pizza dough recipe. When he and his brother’s new restaurant opened, they also silently revealed a brand new recipe. They now use Kamut flour for all their baked goods, including their chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies.

Below is an edited and condensed interview with Chris Hanley, played over a slideshow of pictures of both their food truck and their brick-and-mortar. You can click on the “caption” option for some details on the pictures.

The SliceTruck Interview with Chris Hanley:

SliceTruck

2012 Sawtelle Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90025
310-444-9550
slicetruck.com

Related posts:

1. God, Are You There? It’s Me, Your Dice.
2. Korean Food Porn

Every time I tell someone that I’m a Korean living in Koreatown, they ask me whether I’m been to so-and-so barbeque joint or such-and-such galbee jips.

I’ve never been to a single Korean barbeque restaurant in Los Angeles’ Koreatown. Yes, that is the truth. Every time I respond that I’ve never been to any of Koreatown’s barbeque eateries, I meet surprised eyes that widen and then squint with a silent “Are you sure you’re Korean?”

I just never had any desire to for four reasons: 1) my mom can make bulgogi just as good (if not better, ha!); 2) Korean barbeque can lick up to $20 away from my tattered pocket; 3) I’m not a fan of barbeque and 4) Why the heck would I want to eat Korean barbeque when I know Korean cuisine is so much more interesting and delicate than grilled meats?

But a while ago, I did finally visit one barbeque joint. However, I don’t count it as a Korean barbeque house, because it’s really— technically, Chinese with Korean influences.

My friend Jingjing and I met up for dinner after our internship at Feng Mao, a small restaurant located on Olympic Boulevard, almost tipping off the western boundaries of Koreatown.
I’ve always noticed this place and wondered if it’s run by “Chosunjok” (조선족) people (Korean ethnicities living in China) because I read both Korean and Chinese characters on its sign, and I was right.
Feng Mao is run by a couple from the Jilin province, a northeastern region in China that has a huge “Chosunjok” population. My friend Joanna is from Harbin, which is very close to that province, so I remember her telling me about the mutton kebabs she grew up eating. According to her, she would stop by a mutton kebab stand every day after school and buy a round of raw lamb on skewers (for a ridiculously cheap price) and sit grilling the meat by herself on the street. What a cute image.
Feng Mao follows a similar concept, but in a more elegant seating. There’s a small rustic pit stuffed with charcoal dug into every elegant dining table. The customers select how many skewers they want, what kind of meat, and they get to grill the meats themselves.
It’s just a very simple pit, shaped and sized like a shoebox with slender iron frames for the skewered meats to rest.

The clientele is mostly Koreans, with a few Chinese. I tested both Mandarin and Korean to my server and he could speak both fluently. Yes! Chosunjok!

It’s a bit odd because we are clearly not eating traditional Korean food, yet the little touches in this place is just so nostalgically Korean. Like the iced water served in plastic bottles advertising soju:
Or the smorgasbord of Korean-style banchan (side dishes) served before our main course:
I could taste the difference between their banchan and typical Korean banchan though. It’s a little less bold, a little less spicy, a little less salty.

Oh and we also got the mandatory gaeranjjim (Korean steamed egg) bubbling and wobbling in a stone pot:
I love this dish! It always reminds me of my parents because they eat this often. Though, being modern Korean, we just take the lazy route and “steam” the egg in the microwave.

What makes Feng Mao special is not just that it serves Korean-Chinese cuisine. They are heavy on lamb, because of the huge Islamic influence in China. I’ve always found it curious that China, a somewhat anti-religion Communist country, is still home to a gigantic population of Muslim minorities.

The menu is really big and it can get a little intimidating.
There’s weird intestines like chicken hearts and kidneys and gizzards. But there’s also familiar items like sweet-and-sour pork and dumplings, but come on, you can get that at Chinatown Express. See that cute fluffy lamb on the top left of the menu? That’s what you want.

We ordered a bunch of different meats (and one vegetable).
Obviously, we just had to order many, many mutton kebabs. We also ordered chicken. And eggplant. And…bull’s penis.

When I saw “bull’s penis” on the menu, my immaturity reared its gleeful head and I just absolutely had to order it, just for the sake of being able to cry out “Bull’s penis!!” in a public setting. What? It’s fun!
There are two processes to grilling these meats. First you have to stick it on the bottom tier, and let the meats grill close to the flaming charcoal. Damn it’s hot! Do not try to stick your finger in it to test the temperature (some idiots do try that, trust me…like me.).
The fire is set in a very high temperature, so the meats cook super fast. That’s when you need to quickly remove them from the heat and let them rest on the top tier of the grill. How do you know when it’s ready? Well I’m no expert which is why I let the meat sit until it was getting too charred. The server rushed forwards and helped us move the meat up.
Look at them. Steaming in their own puffs of smoke that they created, edges blackened like the charcoals in which they cooked. You can kind of see the lamb fat dripping off, which sets sparks of flames from the glowing charcoals. What a beautiful, appetizing sight!

The meat already comes seasoned, but for people who are used to bold flavors (like us Koreans), Feng Mao prepares a plate of ground chile and cumin for you to coat the meats.
The meat tastes surprisingly lean. The exterior has a rusty, smoky taste, while the interior is meaty and tender with just a right amount of richness.
I don’t like lamb much—the gaminess turns me off—but I did enjoy these skewers for its spicy seasoning and chewy tenderness.

Jingjing, however, enjoyed every bite and swallow.
  “This tastes to me like childhood,” she said happily. She grew up in Shanghai, but she spent the early part of her life in Jilin, so she remembers these mutton kebabs as a happy taste of innocent memories.

The eggplant skewers were grilled the same way as the meats:
  I definitely preferred the eggplant. No bloody-tasting gaminess from them. But the cooking spectacle was less cool because there was no grease that dripped off to cause the flames to dance.

Okay. Bull’s penis time.
Um. When I first saw these tight, translucent curls stuck into the stick, I was really surprised. “This is bull’s penis?” I asked my server.

“Yes, of course,” he replied. “What did you think they’ll look like? Tiny balls?” And then he went away chortling.

Uh…yes? So, it was a tiny bit disappointing.
The bull’s penis ended up not tasting like anything. After being grilled, it did finally curl up into balls of crispy, chewy tendon-like cartilage.
It was like munching on seasoned, smoky plastic char. Meh. Not so cool and weird anymore. But at least I can still tell people I ate bull’s penis.

It wasn’t until I returned home and was brushing my teeth that I realized I had confused bull’s penis with another organ. Silly me.

Question of the Day: What is the “weirdest” or “coolest” thing you’ve ever eaten?

Catch the other Koreatown series posts:

• Little Oaxaca
• Little Bangladesh

Related posts:

1. A Day Trip at Koreatown
2. How a Real Woman Eats
3. Korean Stew: From Dog to Goat?

My friends and I’s New York City trip may have been over, but we still bounced into some pretty sweet adventures afterward.

We arrived midnight from NYC to Washington, D.C., and my dad picked us up on his way home from his Wednesday night service. While my friends slugged up to my room to clean up and rest, I stayed behind downstairs to chat with my parents for the last time.

I’m so grateful to my parents during this trip.

You sometimes take your parents’ kindness for granted. I think I speak for many college kids that when they pile back home after a long semester, they kick off their shoes, unload their baskets of laundry and then sit around in their beds catching up with friends through social media despite having spent the entire school year with them.

It’s not such a big deal for them when their mothers cook their favorite dishes, nor do they really notice that their parents had cleaned up the house for their arrival. Because it’s parents. You know, deep down, that your parents will always love you and do things for you because they love you. It isn’t even an assurance; it’s a taken-for-granted fact.

Not that all college kids are ungrateful slobs—it’s just that although you do appreciate your family’s caring gestures, they don’t hit you as much as they would have, had they come from your friend’s parents.

(Picture by Marilyn)

That’s why I saw my parents’ hospitality in a new light this spring trip. Having my friends there with me made me realize that there were so many minor details of their care that I had missed.

Like the little ziplock bag of snacks my mom packed for each of us so that we wouldn’t starve on the bus ride to NYC. Or the carpet floors that have been vacuumed thoroughly by my dad. Or even the fact that my brother stayed home the night I returned just so that we could all have dinner together.

My friends’ vocal appreciation for my family’s kindness made me re-think the things that they did for me, and it makes my heart feel like…little toes being warmed over a toasty fire on a chilly winter night.

My family weren’t the only ones who were kind to us. For some wonderful reason, we received random kindness from strangers everywhere we went.
On our last day in the East Coast, my friends and I woke up early so I could take them on a walk around my neighborhood. We took a trail that I used to walk often during my high school days.
It’s an obscure trail behind my townhouse; I only discovered it through my high school cross-country team.
The day was beautiful. It was warm but not stuffy nor humid; there was just the slightest breeze and buds of spring flowers and leaves were peeking out everywhere. And the sky was such a clear, crystal blue.
The trail takes us pass a little brook, through a deserted basketball court and meanders into a narrow street that hedges big high-roofed country-style houses.
After our mild walk, I had in mind two stores I wanted my friends to visit, just because they’re iconic establishments that beckon “HOME” to me in the fuzziest way. The first place we stopped by was Great Harvest Bakery:
My favorite bakery in the world! It seems to have reached a certain pop status because of a certain blogger, but allow me to whine that I’ve discovered this bakery a long, long time ago. The first thing I tried from this bakery, funny enough, is actually my least favorite item now: Challah. It’s not that Great Harvest’s Challah isn’t good, it just doesn’t really taste like “real” Challah to me.

My fondest memory of this place is going on “bread runs” with my high school track teammates. That’s because what Great Harvest is famous for (besides its AWESOME bread) is their generosity.
Do not skip the sample table. That’s where Great Harvest displays its array of breads and doles out big, fat slices of bread for you. And I don’t mean an anorexic sliver—I mean one-inch-thick hunks. They even provide you with fresh butter and honey and jam to slather on top of your carby vessel.
We tried everything on the table: Chocolate Guinness bread, Cheesy Cornbread, Whole Wheat Apple Scrapple, Honey Whole Wheat, and that brilliant green loaf is just a regular Country White bread dyed green to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day (Yeah…this post is old).
Since it was St. Patrick’s Day, they were featuring a special Irish Soda bread. Unfortunately, they weren’t selling them that day; they only sold them on certain days of the week and that day, Thursday, wasn’t it.

Tracy was very disappointed, because she had been craving good Irish soda bread ever since she tried it during her trip to Ireland. And guess what? The lady behind the counter reached down and just gave Tracy her last remaining loaf of Irish soda bread! It was bread that was a day’s old, but it was still an incredibly sweet offer. Which meant we also ended up buying more baked goods from Great Harvest than we needed. Tit for tat!

After our bread-fast, we headed next door to Nielson’s Frozen Custard, another iconic establishment in my town of Vienna.
Wow, it’s been three years, I think, since I’ve last been to this place! It’s still the same as ever.
I didn’t take a good look at the interior the last time I was here, but this time I followed my friends in observing the nooks and crannies of this place.
I’d forgotten they hung pictures of old town Vienna from the 1800s. I’ve lived in the East Coast several years so I’d forgotten what a big deal it is for some people that a town is over 200 years old.

Since we arrived so early, Nielson’s was still churning out fresh frozen custard.
Which meant we didn’t have much options in terms of flavors, but boy was our frozen treat fresh and absolutely lick-alicious! The server let us try a spoonful of frozen custard each. He actually nipped the sample off from the churning machine itself.

Why would we need fancy flavors in a place like this? Don’t mess with the classics, we say. We got the good ol’ chocolate shake, but this was of course churned with chocolate frozen custard.
I solemnly believe I prefer Nielson’s to Shake Shack. Not even bacon peanut brittle can make me think otherwise.
We were so happy. The day could have ended here and it still would have been spectacular. But it didn’t. There was more surprise treats to come.

We turned round a corner, and hey! Here’s a shop I never knew existed!
It must be new! And Virginia’s first pasty bakery?! Oooh should we? We should, huh? Yes, we freaking must!
And so we did. The shop wasn’t really a sit-in eatery. It was more a pasty kitchen, with a closet-sized space for orders and a tiny nook to squeeze into if you insist on dining in.
There is no way you won’t knock and bump into people as you wade over to the front of the house, where a charming couple took orders and served you your savory pasties.
I’ve been to so many little shops like this that were Asian-themed. You know, nostalgic Koreans and Taiwanese and Vietnamese mom-and-pop houses that sell home-style dishes and products that you can’t find in the generic supermarkets. The kind of places that make patriotic statements tied into the package of delicious food.
Well, Pure Pasty Bakery was a hearty ol’ salute to Britain’s Queen, Cornwall and its traditions. We were all delighted to hear British accents from the owners.

I loved this place. It only just opened about two years ago, right after my last trip back to Vienna. I had only just missed its opening!

So, in case you don’t know what a pasty is…the only thing I knew about pasty before visiting this place was that it was a savory pie shaped like an empanada or overlarge dumpling. I knew it had to have some kind of meat and possibly potatoes and peas in there.
The pasty-making pros at the kitchen, however, filled us in. They were so nice! Even while nimbly crimping pastries and filling in dough after dough, they joked and laughed with us. Pasties aren’t just a British food; it’s a proud traditional food that many say originated from Cornwall, a region southwest of England. They’ve since dispersed overseas, most notably to Australia, now known as Aussie pies.

That’s just the short version of pasty history, of course. But come on, let’s concentrate on the beautiful, 2-pound beauty standing in front of us right now in all its plump and golden glory.
We got the non-traditional (sob) root vegetable pasty that was stuffed with sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, potatoes and Cheddar Cheese. The marking on top (the square thingy) lets people identify what kind of filling is in the pasty. Square means veggie in our case.
It was a miracle parcel. I don’t how such a tender, delicate crust can encase such a humongous load inside it. You can hold it, twirl it, swing it on its corners, and the fillings will not tumble out. The marking of a truly well-made pasty!

Want to make your own pasty? They shared the recipe on a tea towel:
After our buttery meal, we headed out, anxious to get back home because we knew my mom had prepared some lunch for us. But…we got distracted again, this time by yet another brand new bakery right next door to Pure Pasty.

It is called Sweet City Dessert. We walked in really just to browse around, but we ended up staying longer because their desserts looked so amazing.
Just check out that sushi cake!! Tracy and Marilyn immediately proclaimed that they wanted that for their wedding.

Then we got to chatting with the pastry chef, who is Filipino American and the proud mastermind of that sushi cake above.
Yet another kind soul along the road. He just gave us free desserts to try! The first dessert he passed out to us was the Samoa Cupcake:
Inspired, of course, by the famous Girl Scouts cookie. Chewy and sticky, it’s a coconut-crowned chocolate cupcake with an intense caramel center.
Since the pastry chef has Filipino origins, of course the desserts reflected that as well. Take this ube cupcake, for example:
I thought going in that this cupcake will be ube-flavored—nope. It was ube through and through. Just look at that gorgeous color! Itstead of a cakey flavor, it really had that sweet, roasted flavor of ube, which is a purplish sweet potato popular in Filipino dishes.

Ooh. And then! He insisted we also taste his  multi-layered, hunky Vienna Crunch cake:
Freaking rich chocolate cake with some kind of crunchy cookie crust, a peanut butter mousse, milk chocolate mousse and a velvety smooth dark chocolate ganache. Better get your will ready, because you just may die of happiness eating this cake. Ooooh.
Vienna, Fairfax, Oakton, heck all of Northern Virginia residents…take note. Looks like Vienna is becoming a foodie paradise.

Before we rushed back home, I bought my brother an ube cupcake and a macadamia nut white chocolate cookie.

When we got home, of course, of course…my mom had the table decked out with food, even though I had warned her we would be stuffing our faces and thus, would not be hungry. She said, “Yes, dear, I’ll just whip something simple and light up” and look at the feast she prepared.
Pork ribs and leafy salad.

Also, Korean pajeon, or green onion pancakes:
Oh, mother. Why are you just so sweet and awesome?

Unfortunately, we really were mighty full by then and we were getting late for our flight back to Los Angeles. We scarfed down some ribs and salad, and then packed my mother’s green onion pancakes to munch on the plane.

And then off we went. Both my parents went with us to the airport to send us off.
We had one of the most beautiful moments in the car. My dad asked if he could do a concluding prayer for us. We said yes. And then he prayed for all of us out loud as he was driving. After he finished his prayer, I guess something must have touched Tracy because she asked if she could add in her prayer, too.

And so we ended up all chiming in and taking turns to pray for each other in the car. I was so touched. Words cannot describe the warm swell of joy and gratefulness I had in my heart that moment.

And yet, the kindness of people continued on. Before we boarded the plane, Tracy and I bought two mini bottle of travel wine and bar of Toblerone. It had been such a long and wonderful trip that we just felt the need to pop a bottle and toast.
But it turned out that opening a bottle from outside the plane was not allowed! A flight attendant saw us and told us the plane policy was that we could only drink from bottles purchased on the plane.

And then a while later, she appeared again and handed a bottle of white wine to each of us. “That’s on me,” she said with a wink. It was an act of generosity so unexpected and nice that we were totally caught off guard for a minute, staring stupidly at her.

Suffice to say, we became chummy pretty soon. We even asked her to join us for a drink, but of course she couldn’t drink on the job. We learned that the flight attendant is British and that she was looking forward to having Indian for dinner that night. I love how you can meet these random strangers that touch you wherever you go.

So concludes, finally, this trip. As much as we enjoyed many good eats during our travels, I think the best thing we consumed is still the kindness of people, from my parents to the flight attendant who helped us to some legal booze.
(Picture by Marilyn.)

Question of the Day: What is the kindest thing a stranger has done for you?

Related posts:

1. Luckiest Brat in the World
2. What’s Your Story? (Artisanal LA: Part I)
3. Foodbuzz Festival 2010: It Is Done

This is just a video I compiled from all the takes my friends and I shot during our NYC trip. It was shot with my little Flip Video camcorder so it’s not the best quality, but for our own purposes of reminiscing the essence of our travels, it is perfect.

I chose the song “We are Young” (the Glee version because I’m kind of an ex-Gleek) because I just felt like it captured the unbridled, youthful enthusiasm we exuded during all our eats and explorations. So here it goes:

Sorry if the song gets stuck in your head; it lodged in my brain for a couple weeks for me! It’s just so catchy and I still remember Marilyn and I belting it out in the car together. We didn’t really know the exact lyrics so we just kept chiming in during the “ai-yi-yi” part. It was so…Chinglish. Hehehehe.

The gluttons. We are carrying dozens of bagels.

Don’t resist it! Sing along!

Related posts:

1. Whoa, this is intense.
2. NYC Day 1 Snacktime: Little Italy