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!

sometimes we need to eat a good ol' diner breakfast in the afternoon - waffles and sausages, with a side of over-easy eggs at john's.

then m made these delicious ham/turkey/swiss sandwich later at night!

so simple looking but so so good. mmm~!

simple dinner at nicky's vietnamese - we shared a bowl of pho and a classic banh mi.

then after walking/biking and running errands, we stopped for a little sweet something at one girl cookie - coffee and espresso chocolate something something cake. it was good but not as good as their lemon olive oil cake we had last time.

yummy warm dinner at café 232 - ever-so-brothy tofu maeuntang, with its perfectly spicy umami flavor, and bulgogi, which i feel like i appreciate more now as an adult than when i was a kid (the opposite of the norm). delicious pairing, despite their scanty banchan servings as of late.

on our walk today, we decided to try the newly opened brooklyn bird - finally a super late night place around - their specialty being chicken (yes yes), i tried their 'asian thighs and fries' and a side of truffle mac n cheese. m got a roasted chicken spiedie and a chili cheese dog. the food was decent, as was the price, but i feel that their chicken was too dry. thighs are my favorite part but it tasted like breast because of the dryness. mac n cheese was good (albeit a bit too oily) as was the chili dog.

hope it'll be a fun late night place for when you're feeling too good about yourself!

oddly enough, the day after i make myself jook, i get a horrible stomach bug that i actually need some congee for - so i made another one, this time without tuna, but copious amount of ginseng, carrots, cilantro, scallions and blended up brown rice - soothing! and i think it worked since the bug worked itself out of my system. phew!

lunch at choice market - it always feels too rushed to eat in there, though their sandwiches are still decent deals and tasty. we thought that we should go eat inside pratt cafeteria (5-minute-walk) away next time. despite all that, my roasted salmon sandwich i often get there was still good (with mango chunks) as was the roast chicken panini - it's super stuffed for a panini. chicken, lettuce, avocado, tomatoes, and cripsy bacon. it's one of their best deals!

later at night, i wanted something comforting, and i made jook (can't believe how many times i had to de-autocorrect that - blogger keeps wanting me to say i ate a book!) with left over brown rice in the fridge and tinned tuna. of course, i did make some kombu broth, so made it a little deeper tasting than some watery brown rice. i threw in some little mochi for extra bites. pretty darn simple but good.

it'd probably been 5 years since we last ate at nyonya - we went their for lunch special for the first time. we got brown rice, and sambal shrimp and sweet & sour pork each, and both came with soup (clear cabbage & pork soup?). pretty good for $6.50! 

the best is their roti canai - perfectly light and chewy roti with spicy chicken curry dipping sauce.

i could have that everyday!!!!

made english muffin french toast (english toast?) for breakfast!

then m's specialty, pasta for dinner. he used dried mini shiitake's and tinned smoked oysters for this,

mixed with shredded carrots and flat leaf parsley. mmm so so good, almost brothy and perfectly spicy.

 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!