new year's eve lunch at café 232 - spicy squid stir fry over rice (lunch special) and a steaming pot of codfish maeuntang. so satisfying but their food always make one of us conk out after. msg overload!

breakfast at john's donut. yummy but the bacon & waffle were disappointing - bacon was pre-cooked, waffle too under done. 

banh mi dac biet and pho at nicky's. yes!!

super early breakfast at mike's as soon as they opened at 7am - i got myself 2 over-easy eggs with grits and bacon (which i rarely get, if ever) and m got a 3-stack combo with over-easy eggs and sausages. i'd obviously never had bacon with grits before, as i was blown away by the combination - i didn't have to salt the grits at all, and the flavor was so good! of course, the sausages there are the best ever. so filling and delicious.

for late night dinner, i used some of the fridge ingredients - stir-fried the left over turkey drumsticks we got from the supermarket for christmas eve, csa kale with garlic, then put it over rice with curry.

pretty dang good & warming on such a cold night!

super late christmas dinner (around 11pm) in chinatown, at the good ol' great ny noodle town - they never disappoint! pork meatball congee, soy sauce chicken over rice (with pickled greens on top), roasted pork (char siu) on rice and greens with oyster sauce.

can't go wrong with this kind of classic ny 'jewish' christmas!

our janky & random, but yummy christmas eve meal at home - we walked around the neighborhood in the rain to scope out a few places to eat late at night, but most things were closed except gross chinese takeout places. so we got some smoked/roasted turkey drumsticks from the supermarket rotisserie and cooked some mashed potatoes and mashed yams and ate away!!

too bad we didn't have gravy. merry christmas!

 a cheat of a risotto i made for dinner out of some left over brown rice in the fridge! brown rice, milk, cheese and veggies, is all really. it tasted better than we'd imagined!! yummy.

then a grocery-store (table talk brand) mini apple pie that was actually really delicious - only ¢89!

random dinner at national thai on one of the coldest nights so far this winter. we got our usual green chicken curry with brown rice, then tried one of their specials tonight, salmon with spicy noodles and vegetables. somehow when i read "spicy noodles", i imagined something like this, but it came with the fat, wide hofun noodles, which unfortunately are neither of our favorite kind. but the salmon steak was cooked perfectly, as if to be balancing out the tad over-greased noodles, and of course, the green curry was ace, as always.

yummy hearty meal at castro's - m got his regular burrito, with pork this time, and i got something called pipian de pollo - chicken stewed in green marinade. it was a very interesting flavor that i can't even describe - nothing like i've tasted - it was like a "greener" flavor (if that makes sense) of molé poblano chicken, with a slightly bitter taste at the end. somehow it was very satisfying and comforting to eat, with the perfectly cooked chicken on the bones.

burgers at choice market - for once it was not crowded inside at all!

m's beef burger and my veggie burger. beef burger was cooked perfectly medium rare, and my veggie burger was so good with plenty of beans, avocado, and other veggies and curry mayo giving it a special flavor. not to mention their size - so huge and filling.

Late night dinner - stir fried chinese style veggies (tatsoi and kale) with radish and garlic over brown rice and over-easy egg.
i used a bit a five spice and it was so good - simple and hearty and delicious! :D

 ah cong ly how i've missed you - since our weekly csa pickup season has been over, we hadn't been back here for over a month! m got his usual pho #1 and i got a new dish to try - something house special rice dish - it came with pork chop and shredded pork and something with a egg/fishcake thing all over broken rice, with a side of fish sauce thingy. oooh i loved it!!

then we decided to walk around for a change, and ended up for dessert at hiroko's place:

we tried their coffee (not shown) and parfait - though they were both good, i'm not sure if it's good enough to justify their prices. i guess that's why we hadn't been back here in ages!

cold night is good for a steaming bowl of soup - we craved something tofu and bibimbap so the order was easy. we got a bowl of soondubu and bibimbap to share (at café 232).

simple and good.

sometimes i think have no specific hankering for anything until i see the food. -_-

3 luigi's have one of the best hawaiian slices (which i never get except here) - super crispy bacon and juicy pineapples - so perfect when topped with some chili flakes.

m got his philly steak sub and a side salad which he stuffed the sub with (to balance out the meatiness).

all decent today, but my favorite was the hawaiian pizza.

so amazed and impressed with the food at sakura tokyo - i would have never imagined that i'd be frequenting a place named that (super obvious names like that tend to not have good food) but this place is so good for the price - amazingly grilled teriyaki chicken and i tried their chicken katsu curry for the first time, and it's almost just as good as other $10 dishes elsewhere!

early dinner at pequeña - m got chicken enchiladas with both green & red sauces, and i got a sautéed fish tacos. both amazingly seasoned and lighter feeling than other regular mexican joints (even lighter than normal mission style, i think). we were full but finished with their key lime pie, because it's just so good. i love its cheesecakey, creamy consistency and texture. a bit too sweet without coffee but still good to the last drop!