Archive for the ‘Weekly Wanderings’ Category
There are a lot of things I adore about our new house, but one of the coolest things is the garden. It had already been very nicely landscaped long before we bought the house, and came with a gardener who knew it well (and thank goodness for that – for we are not quite adult enough to not accidentally kill the entire garden if left to our own devices!)
When we moved in, it was the dead of winter (or, as winter as it gets in LA), so the garden had quite a few bare bushes at the time. But as spring has sprung, the bushes have bloomed, and we’ve discovered we have a bunch of beautiful rosebushes, each producing a different color of rose! It’s so pretty.
And then Son went and had the genius idea to make a bouquet of flowers from our garden for my mom’s birthday. He’s a good one. I think I’ll keep him for a while.
For mom, her birthday tradition is Numero Uno pizza. (The best.) For dad, it was always El Pollo Loco and hot milk cake. Which makes me wonder… what would mine be? I don’t think I have one, yet. Do you have birthday traditions?
Bagel, cream cheese, smoked salmon, capers, dill.
Have a wonderful week!
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Links I’ve loved lately:
I’m definitely not into the whole tiny house thing, but this transforming tiny apartment seems pretty darn cool.
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Things I want to eat:
I adore boba milk tea. Pretty sure I would love this bubble tea oatmeal!
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Tsujita LA is our favorite ramen place in LA, but my mom had never been there. So of course we had to change that!
Their ramen is fantastic (so is their tsukemen, but that tends to be a bit heavy for me). This time, I added a soft-boiled egg (perfect) and menma (bamboo shoots – theirs is so good!)
We also had Son’s mom visiting, and she brought a TON of food. She brought a couple of “7 course beef” (bò bảy món) dishes, and we made spring rolls. Good stuff.
Son’s spring rolls… generally end up on the overstuffed, sloppy side.
There are a lot of things I adore about our new house, but one that I’m just beginning to appreciate are the rosebushes that a previous owner had planted. Now that they’ve all started blooming, we’ve discovered that each bush has a different color of roses… and they’re all so beautiful! These orange-pink ones might be my favorite.
Son’s mom also left us with some homemade bánh ít trần (a type of dumplings) that were soooo good. They’re Son’s favorite dish… which means I’m going to have to find a way to get her to teach me!
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Links I’ve loved lately:
If you’ve ever watched one of those tiny house shows, this rant is hilarious.
We’re kind of rice cooker fanatics over here, so I found this article about rice cooker fuzzy logic pretty interesting.
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Easy, tasty dinner. The lemongrass chicken egg rolls from Trader Joe’s are pretty good (especially when you add nuoc mam), but I also think they taste like Fruit Loops? Son thinks I’m weird.
Garlic pork, curry, and mixed rice. Tasty.
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Links I’ve loved lately:
This is SO NSFW, but also freaking hilarious. Also, the butterscotch raspberry pie sounds pretty tasty. 😀
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Banh cuon (rolled rice paper filled with ground meat), with fried onions, cilantro, and fish sauce. So good.
Step by step.
Tried a new Vietnamese place. Somewhat disappointed to find the bo luc lac (shaking beef) seemed more like soggy lomo saltado…
Son got bun bo hue, of course. Again, not bad, but also not quite right. We probably won’t be returning. 🙁
Bagel with cream cheese, smoked salmon, capers, and dill. Treating myself.
I would never play with my food, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
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Links I’ve loved lately:
Such a lovely article.
This video about “Silicon Valley” stars trying to guess what real startups do based on their name is freaking hilarious.
Yes to all of these delicious places to read a book.
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Coming soon: baby hummingbirds!
We’ve been going to this com tam (broken rice) restaurant for over a decade now. Still delicious, still my favorite place to go in Little Saigon.
My favorite person in the world.
Che.
Banh mi wonderfulness.
Cozy.
Chả Cá Thăng Long – Vietnamese turmeric dill grilled fish. So good. And it seems that somehow, after more than a decade of politely declining while internally making a face, I’ve finally (!!!) developed a taste for that stinky fermented shrimp sauce. It’s like I don’t even know myself anymore. 😉
Sunset over the 405.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet
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Things I want to eat:
I really, really like potato on pizza. Especially when caramelized onions and a yummy sauce are involved.
Really want to try these curried chickpeas.
I adore boba milk tea, Son loves flan, so obviously we’d love milk tea flan with boba!
Curry pan are my weakness.
Really intrigued by this turmeric latte. I’m not sure about this whole turmeric drink trend, but at the same time this does sound like it might be really tasty. I’ll let you know if I try it!
Very much want a slice of this gigantic cinnamon toast crunch.
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