another cheap dinner at sakura tokyo - m's chicken ramen, and my salmon teriyaki bento box.

the chicken there is just too good - all charred, smokey and tender. salmon was good too but chicken his definitely their best deal!

then we stopped by a bakery for dessert - sweet potato pie, chocolate vanilla cupcake, and apple turnover, which we took home and didn't get to photograph. cupcake was a tad too sweet, as was the sweet potato pie, but the apple turnover was yummy!!

tried to make denjang jigae but realized that my denjang (fermented soybean paste) was old and hard - so midway i switched to japanese miso and some gochujang, and added mochi, tuna, potatoes, and carrots, and voila, here's a weird soup that was good!! awful photo but it was good, i swear!!

i ate it over rice with banchan we got recently, including my favorite, spicy squid jeot and stir fried fishcake.

not very good photos of roasted pork banh mi and classic banh mi at hanco's.

really delicious though!!

to make up for our missed attempt to eat at shanghai cafe deluxe a few weeks ago, we made sure to be there early enough this time. we got the same usual favorites of ours that we got last time : xiao long boa's (soup dumplings), broccoli in garlic sauce, and squid with pickled cabbage over rice.

ahhh food like this makes me wonder why we don't eat in chinatown everyday!

 our regular meal at nicky's - a bowl of pho, a classic banh mi and a grilled chicken banh mi.

delicious as ever!

then dessert at one girl cookie - we got their lemon olive oil cake with coffee, and dang is that cake good!!! it was crispy on top and the cake was fluffy and lemony/olive oily, just plain delicious, and light enough on our still full belly.

a big but sad meal (eaten alone). i made kimchi jigae with fishcake, and a side of gaeran-mari (rolled omelette). 

a big burger meal at clinton park café - i got a california burger (no cheese but avocado & tomatoes) and m got his usual mushroom swiss burger. i even got sweet potato fries on the side to share. this meal nearly killed us, it was so filling! 

3rd meal in a week at the new janky japanese take-out - we wanted to try their noodle bowls this time, so i ordered their chicken "soba" and m got a beef teriyaki set. the beef teriyaki was decent, though it seems that their forte lies in chicken dishes. and when i said "soba" (in quotation), it's because they meant it as in yakisoba noodle packets sold in grocery stores, not the kind of soba (made of buckwheat) i normally think of. nonetheless i would've been very content with it tasting like ramen noodles, except i ordered a regular chicken noodles and this was curry chicken noodles. still not too bad!

cold night, warm food at cafe 232. we got a big soup of tofu maeuntang and a hot dolsot bibimbap (bibimbap in hot stone bowl). they were both exceptionally good (although their banchan has been getting more miserable lately), the bibimbap with super crisped rice and delicious beef (almost tasted like bulgogi) and the soup was so perfectly seasoned with spiciness & umami flavor. just what we needed to keep ourselves warm & our spirits lifted a bit!

another meal at the good ol' (actually new) janky japanese place - this time, m got a katsu-don, and i got a bento box with kara-age (friend chicken). katsu don was good, though i thought the pork cutlet (tonkatsu) could've been a little crisper. still not bad at all! my kara-age was deeeelicious, super crispy, perfectly cooked chicken meat, and even the teriyaki sauce over it was good. all this for only $13! :D no wonder it's hard to keep away from this place.

 pre-carving turkey.

post-carving.

a lovely thanksgiving dinner at audrey's, as per last year! this year, more food, more people, more joy! i forgot to take a lot of other pictures, including the delicious triple dessert action (pumpkin cheesecake, gingerbread cookies, apple crisp) above are some photos before i started stuffing my face - huge csa turkey that m carved up to good bits, we brought some salad (regular salad greens + kale + tatsoi) & butternut squash mash, there were stuffings, mashed potatoes, roasted brussels sprouts with truffle oil (wow), squash & pasta bake, cucumber salad, cranberry sauce, amazing gravy cooked right after the turkey, broccoli & apple salad, and sweet potato bake that was also super delicious. we were even treated to some delicious mulled cider - look how pretty!

happy thanksgiving it was to us!!! so thankful - thank you, audrey!!♥♥♥

a new japanese fast-food joint, sakura tokyo II - despite the suspicious name (doesn't sound like they'll have good japanese food for real), it turned out to be a strong up-and-comer in the cheap, good-bang-for-the-buck kind of janky place. i had low expectations, but wanted to give it a try while they were still new and offering 10% off, on top of the lunch special prices - got a chicken teriyaki bento box combo and an oyaoko-don. they were both surprisingly good, especially for the price (both around $6). the rolls weren't packed with a thick layer of rice, the chicken meat were all dark and grilled perfectly.

pretty impressed and filled to the gills for $13 for 2 people. not bad!

torta and burrito dinner at castro's - m got his usual ground beef burrito, and i tried their molé poblano torta, which i swear i hadn't seen on the menu before. it was so good! usually their molé poblano dish is a bit too rich, but this torta made it work by putting fresh veggies & pickled jalapeño that broke up the richness of the molé flavor - even with the crummy bun, it was still amazing.

spicy fishcake miso soup (oden-ish) for dinner last night - with csa broccoli, kale, & eggs. maybe it was the fishcake, but the broth was so good, if i may say so myself! 

mmmm~ msg... T__T 

another meal at nicky's vietnamese (too bad they don't have stamp cards like hanco's does). 

banh mi dac biet (the special/classic), grilled chicken banh mi, beef pho.

the sandwiches were excellent this time, but the pho wasn't as good as last time we were here.