Week 32: Unsolicited Advice & Our Maternity Shoot

Unsolicited Advice

Ahh...the joys of unsolicited advice. So free and yet, so unwanted! Some of the advice I find most frustrating is around SIDS precautions (and how I should ignore them). Many of my friends have told me that it is perfectly fine to use loose blankets, stuffed animals, and crib bumpers with our baby because their children used them as infants and they're "just fine". Nothing maddens me more than that phrase. Yes, your baby was fine but what happens if my baby is not fine because I listened to your advice? Are you going to bring my baby to life? Are you guaranteeing the health and safety of my baby? Why don't we just rewind 30 years and forget about carseats because we didn't use them back them and we're all "just fine" now?

Yes, we may be overly cautious these days. But we also know better and we have more advanced technologies and education to protect us. Why would we knowingly ignore easy precautions that many parenting books and reputable health organizations strongly advocate for?

Maternity Shoot

As I mentioned earlier, we did a maternity shoot at the Hakone Gardens in Saratoga this week. While it pained me to pay a photography fee when we have so much natural outdoors beauty in the Bay Area, most of it is barren and un-photogenic at this time the year. Hakone Gardens is one of the few places that's well-maintained with some greenery and foliage in January so it was worth the $80/hour fee. I love how the pictures turned out! I don't know if I'll have the opportunity to be pregnant again so I'm glad we are documenting this special time in our lives.

Hakone Gardens, January 2016

Comfort food at Hana

We were in the mood for comfort food this weekend so we went over to Hana by Saratoga. There's really only one dish I love here, which is probably why we don't come out here more often. The menu is only available in English and Japanese, even though the food is exclusively Chinese. They disguise scallion panackes as "negi mochi". I wish they would just embrace their Chinese-ness!

I can never say no to dumplings but they make their dumpling filling a bit too sour, in my opinion. 

I don't typically find cabbage super exciting but I really like their spicy cabbage dish. Just enough kick to make this vegetable interesting and delicious.

This was my first time trying their spicy tan tan noodles - it will likely be my last time too. Way too much noodle and way too little of anything else. The flavor wasn't anything special.

This unassuming bowl of chicken and cilantro noodle soup is the star of this little restaurant. The noodles are perfectly al dente and the broth is so simple yet so amazing. This is the epitome of what I consider the perfect comfort food.

Now that the weather is getting warmer, I probably won't be craving chicken noodle soup anytime soon...so per our usual cadence, I probably won't be back for another 6-8 months. Until then, Hana!

Through the Rain

I came across this picture on my phone that I took a few weeks ago while driving in the rain. This is one of the most vivid rainbows I've ever seen in person. I hope we continue to get rain in California...we really need it!

Housing Must-Haves

Jeff and I hate watching the show House Hunters because we get too envious of how much they can buy with relatively small budgets! Understandably, the show needs to be relatable for the majority of the country and the high cost of living we deal with in NorCal is not relatable to most of them. On the flip side, I can't relate to most of them because I've only lived in high cost areas my whole life (New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and Silicon Valley).

When we think about the type of home we will need for the next 10 years, here are the must-haves:

• Mostly move-in ready - Good contractors are hard to come by in this area. With the housing boom, they're busier than ever and won't necessarily have time for renovations that aren't worth their while. Sometimes a home is perfectly move-in ready but just not quite our style - I'd find a way to deal with it, as long as it wasn't dirty, worn, or falling apart.
• Short commute to work - "Short" is rather relative but ideally less than 30 minutes in rush hour. Life is too short to spend sitting in traffic!
• Good school district - Our parents did everything they could to provide us with great education, and we hope to pass that onto our children.
• Good location - We're light sleepers so we can't live next to major streets, freeways, or under flight paths. Sadly, a lot of the more affordable, newer housing is situated in one of the aforementioned places. 

If we're being truly honest, even our "must-have" list is a stretch for the Bay Area, despite our DINK budget. Jeff and I are constantly discussing which of these items we're willing to forgo. I think the first would be commute length, followed by move-in readiness. I'm so envious of people who live in areas where affordable housing doesn't mean having to make these kind of tradeoffs. We have talked about how if/when kids happen, we will need to have some honest conversations to see if we should stay in the Bay Area or move to a more affordable city. While I'd hate to give up all the amazing things we have here, it's also exciting to think that new changes and adventures still await us. In the meantime, we'll continue to enjoy living it up in NorCal!

A view from Twin Peaks, San Francisco

Planning a Girl's Day Out

I mentioned earlier this week that I'm in the midst of planning a celebration for Katie, who's getting married later this year. She didn't want a shower or bachelorette so we had to get around it by designating this as a "Girl's Day Out" that just happened to be before the wedding. :) All kidding aside, I think this is more aligned with what she wanted, as she wasn't interested in the typical bachelorette shenanigans or shower games.

We have approximately 7-8 girls in our group, which I think is just right. A large enough group to feel fun and festive, but not so large that we're unwieldy and impossible to manage. Here's what the tentative schedule looks like:

1:00pm: Blowouts at Dry Bar 
I've been to Dry Bar with a friend before and it was awesome! It's a nice way to feel pampered while bonding with your girlfriends.

(Photo credit: Dry Bar)

3:30pm: Pedicures at La Jolie
One of the other bridesmaids recommended La Jolie. The pictures look lovely - definitely better than the usual places I go to for a quick, cheap pedicure. While those cheaper places are great, they don't quite give off the pampered, relaxed vibe we're trying to spoil Katie with. :)

(Photo credit: La Jolie)

5:30pm: Dinner at Village Pub
Village Pub is one of my favorite restaurants in the area - and the Michelin guide clearly agrees with me. :) The menu frequently changes but luckily, their delicious chocolate souffle with earl grey creme anglais is a pretty consistent staple on their dessert menu. This is a great restaurant for celebrating special occasions.

8:00pm: Cake / tea / gifts / scrapbooking

After dinner, we'll be heading to one of the girl's houses for some scrapbooking so that Katie will have a memento of the day. Truth be told, I have never scrapbooked before so I'm not sure how this will go - thank goodness someone else will be heading up this activity! We're also planning to have some tea with burnt almond cake (her favorite!) as we "shower" her with gifts to end the day. Even though she didn't want a typical shower, I wasn't going to stop her generous friends from buying her gifts. I'm thinking about getting her the awesome cake pop and donut hole maker that I got from our White Elephant - she actually brought the gift but admitted that she considered keeping it for herself! So I won't win any points for effort or originality...but at least I remembered? :)

There were tons of other good ideas we all came  up with for the day:

• Hot tub rooms: I've heard good things about the Palo Alto Watercourse Way and the rates are super reasonable. Unfortunately, we have a pregnant mom in our group and some others that aren't crazy about hot tubs.
• Group cooking classes: We tried looking for a reputable cooking class that wasn't super expensive - unfortunately, these don't seem to exist! I'm just not interested in paying $100+ to cook one meal - at that price, I'd much rather have someone else do all the cooking and cleaning for me. We did get some reasonable quotes for group cooking lessons on thumbtack.com but we weren't sure if the instructors were any good. Plus, most of these instructors don't provide the venue and none of us have houses with kitchens that are big enough for 8 of us to cook in at the same time. 
• Pole dancing class: I've heard lots of good things about these types of classes. Katie has already done that before but if she hadn't, I would have looked into this some more.
• Group yoga class: Katie enjoys yoga so this could have been a fun option. It's too bad one of our favorite yoga instructors is out on maternity leave right now! I imagine we could have practiced outdoors in the park somewhere if we couldn't find an indoor space large enough.

I'm super excited that we were able to throw this together within 3 days! Crossing my fingers that everything turns out well.

Ramen Izakaya Yu-Gen

I was excited to explore a new ramen joint that Nicole discovered this past weekend - Ramen Izakaya Yu-Gen in downtown Mountain View. I try to limit my ramen intake these days, as I don't want to over carbo-load in one sitting - but once in awhile, a bowl of hot ramen really hits the spot!

Most of us ordered a tonkotsu broth ramen. I love how they give you the option to make the broth spicy, as well as add a side of karage for $3. The broth was solid and the noodles were decently chewy.

Jeff ordered the paitan chicken broth ramen with 5 spice chicken, which actually came with a whole chicken leg. I thought this dish was really expensive, even with the extra side of chicken, which Jeff found unimpressive.

Luckily, there was no line when we arrived as a party of 6 for Sunday lunch. Perhaps they're still new so people don't know about them? If it stays that way, this could be my new go-to ramen place. I do love the customizable spice levels for all their ramen options!

MythBusters: Behind the Myths Tour

Jeff and I were lucky enough to catch the last show of the Mythbusters tour in San Jose last week. He's a huge Mythbusters fan so when I saw the tickets for 50% off on Goldstar a few weeks ago, I knew I had to snatch them up. They weren't allowed to blow anything up but they did have a lot of cool stunts and performances. Even though the Civic Center is pretty big, they managed to make it feel like a pretty intimate show with two Q&A sessions and audience participation. I love how they're so funny and down to earth. Jeff and I ran into Adam Savage at Foreign Cinema two years ago and he was super nice. So if it's an act, they manage to keep it up pretty well, even when the cameras aren't running!

While I'm not as big of a Mythbusters fan as Jeff is, I definitely want to catch next season - they're going to be tackling the final scene of Breaking Bad!

A Sweet Holiday Treat

A colorful assortment of macarons from Alexander's new patisserie for a dear friend - vanilla, lavender, peach saffron, gingerbread, and passion fruit dusted with chocolate powder. I'm obviously biased towards passion fruit - I even got 2 additional ones for Jeff and me to try. :)

Shabu House and Gong Cha

I caught up with some grad school friends over dinner at the new Shabu House in Milpitas this week. To be honest, I prefer eating hopot at home because it's so much more cost effective! But alas, I couldn't fit everyone at my dining table so Shabu House is a decent alternative for large groups. This location is pretty new and spacious so it's easy to get a table for a large party on weekdays. Not sure if that would still be the case on weekends though. 

We had 2 pots at our table of 6 people, with the option of splitting each pot into 2 types of broth. My dinner mates and I on the left side of the table opted to go for a full pot of spicy miso broth with a large order of kobe beef. I'm not convinced that the beef is better quality than what I could have gotten at the Japanese market, while the accompanying platter of spinach and yellowed cabbage was lackluster. When we make hotpot at home, we buy the good stuff in generous portions! Still, Shabu House has yummy broth and sauces.

I love how bubble tea has been winterized for the holidays! Gong Cha is one of my favorite tea shops, since it's an authentic chain from Taiwan. Jeff loves the Earl Grey Milk Tea with 3J (3J = bubbles, pudding, and grass jelly). I opt for a plain milk green tea - simple but satisfying. 

Spicy Wontons (紅油抄手)

I love spicy wontons (紅油抄手) but I have yet to find a really great rendition of them here in the Bay Area. Taikee Wonton in North San Jose has pretty good regular wontons but they don't make spicy wontons the way I like them. Luckily, I've learned to make a pretty decent rendition of these wontons via trial and error after watching my aunt in the kitchen for years. The recipe is fairly approximate, so do adjust the ingredients and flavoring to your personal taste. 

Wonton ingredients

• 1 pound of ground pork
• 3 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 3-4 pinches of white pepper
• 1-2 teaspoons of sesame oil
• 1/8 cup of chicken broth 
• 20-30 wonton wrappers (I have yet to figure out the right amount of pork for exactly one pack of wonton wrappers)

1. Mix wonton ingredients together in a large bowl (except for the wrappers). Add water until the consistency is soft but not too watery (approximately 1/8 cup of water).

2. Put 1-2 teaspoons of filling per wonton wrapper. Seal the wonton any way you prefer. I copy my aunt's method of scrunching them up in one hand, but I don't do it as well as she does - sometimes mine fall apart as the meat escapes the wrapper, while hers always stay perfectly intact.

3. Boil wontons in a large pot of water. After wontons have been floating for a few minutes, remove from pot and into a large bowl.

Spicy sauce

• 2-3 cloves of minced garlic
• 2-3 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• 1-2 teaspoons of Chinese chili garlic sauce (For many years, I used the Lee Kum Kee brand but I've recently switched to Ning Chi to up the spice factor.)
• 2 teaspoons of black vinegar
• 2-3 pinches of black pepper

1. Pour sauce over the wontons. Garnish with green onions if you wish. Enjoy!

Food recap dessert edition: ShareTea, Village Pub, and more

As I've mentioned before, I'm a big dessert fan! I'm always trying to balance out my health goals with my sweet tooth. I don't always succeed but I am trying to get better about saving up my calories for the desserts that I find really worth it. Here are a few that fall into that category:

ShareTea
I'll start with the dessert that is basically my fifth food group and probably deserves a post all on its own - bubble tea! I don't call it boba because I find that disrespectful to women. Plus, I usually skip the pearls to limit my carb intake. I was ecstatic when ShareTea opened up in San Mateo last year - it's one of the few authentic Taiwanese chains in the Bay Area. My absolute favorite flavor there is the passion fruit grapefruit orange green tea. Other notable items - grapefruit green tea, black tea creama, and classic milk tea. Their drinks tend to be really sweet so I always ask for less sugar. I've had friends tease me for being like the person that thinks ordering diet coke will counteract the super sized Big Mac value meal I'm inhaling with it. *Sigh*...every little bit helps?

Village Pub
The Village Pub is a delicious Michelin-rated restaurant in Woodside. I've never had a bad meal here and I absolutely love their chocolate souffle with earl grey creme anglais. This is one of my favorite chocolate souffles of all time!

Paris Baguette
Paris Baguette has amazing chiffon cakes that are light, fluffy, and not too sweet (a big pet peeve of most Asian dessert palates!). My pick is always blueberry flavor. Here is the cake we got for Jeff's birthday this year. Don't worry it wasn't just the two of us - we shared with a group of great friends. :)

Lei Garden
Lei Garden in Cupertino is my favorite dimsum place in the South Bay these days. The usual dimsum staples are great here but it's their creative dishes that make them stand out. Below is a sesame mochi tart with a pineapple bun crust topping that's a must-have every time we come here.

Mama Chen, Paris Baguette, and Tanto

Mama Chen
Mama Chen in Cupertino is one of our favorite restaurants. They have delicious Taiwanese food in a clean, spacious restaurant - a rare trifecta! This is the ultimate comfort food for us. It's pretty unhealthy though, so we try not to have it more than once a month.

Minced shrimp lettuce wraps - I love the texture and crunch that the bits of fried breadstick add to this dish.

Basil garlic fish tofu - it's a bit like fish ball texture in a rectangular shape. This dish can be a bit salty but I love it anyway. 

Rice with lard - this sounds pretty disgusting and I suppose it is when you think of how it's clogging your arteries. But the smell is so enticing and the taste is amazing.

Other notable dishes:
- Taiwanese hamburger
- stinky tofu (I hate this but Jeff loves this dish!)
- red yeast pork
- rick stick noodles

Paris Baguette
The blueberry chiffon cake at Paris Baguette is the best! When I'm not busy stuffing my face with cake, I'm exploring their other yummy treats. I love how there are so many locations so I'm never too far away from their baked goodness.

Passion fruit brioche bun - the cream is just the right balance of sweet and tart and smells just like real passion fruit.

Tanto

Our friend Christina was in town on a business trip, so we took her to Tanto in Sunnyvale for Japanese izakaya style cuisine.

Yaki onigiri - comes with a delicious salmon filling!

Uni meshi - I didn't start loving uni until a few years ago, and now I'm borderline obsessed with it. 

Vanilla ice cream with mochi and soybean powder - It's as good as it looks. The portion size is very generous and easily feeds 3 people, if not more.

Other notable menu selections:

- sashimi salad

- garlic beef

- fresh tofu

Food recap: Burmese and Italian favorites

Rangoon Ruby

I didn't discover Burmese food until I moved to the Bay Area. Before Rangoon Ruby opened up in Palo Alto, we had to trek up to Oakland or SF and wait in long lines for Burmese food at Burma Superstar. Now we can have amazing Burmese cuisine closer to home without the wait, since they take reservations. Pictured below - the mango salad and the tea leaf salad. Other yummy dishes - rainbow salad, nan gyi dok noodles, and pumpkin stew. 

Delfina
Delfina is an oldie but a goodie in San Francisco. I love their spaghetti - almost as much as I love Scarpetta's rendition of this dish. I'm a big fan of simple classics that are done really well. They usually have an amazing buttermilk panna cotta but on this day, they only had lavender panna cotta so I opted for some Bi-Rite ice cream across the street instead.

Osteria
Osteria is one of my favorite Italian places in the Bay Area. The Palo Alto restaurant is unpretentious, the portions are generous, and prices are pretty fair. My favorite dish is the homemade fettucine with mushrooms and truffle oil, as pictured below. The pasta is perfectly al dente and the truffle oil makes everything taste more heavenly. I also love their calamari and I don't normally like that stuff. Their calamari comes in tender steak portions that are super delicious and completely unlike the typical fried calamari. Their hazelnut flan is pretty popular, but I normally go to Paris Baguette for dessert when I'm in Palo Alto.

Rainbow cupcakes, shaved ice, and more

Panda Dumpling

I am always on the hunt for delicious soup dumplings. Unfortunately, I didn't find them at Panda Dumpling in Redwood City. I knew something was off when I walked into Panda Dumpling on a Friday evening and saw that it was mostly empty. Worse yet, we were the only Chinese patrons. Jeff says I should have known better than to trust an Asian restaurant with "Panda" in the title. Oops.

San Tung
San Tung in San Francisco is known for their legendary dry fried chicken wings. This time, we chose to get them diced, which makes eating them so much easier. Plus, diced wings means that there's more area for batter and crispy goodness. ;)

Sno Zen

Sno Zen is tucked away in a Mountain View townhouse community by the San Antonio Cal Train station, which makes parking rather challenging. Their Mango to Tango shaved snow is super yummy, but if you've had shaved ice in Taiwan, temper your expectations. This won't compare to the deliciousness of Ice Monster.

Last week, a super sweet and talented coworker Lori made these gorgeous rainbow cupcakes for another coworker's birthday. They were almost too pretty to eat! But of course, I managed to scarf it all down anyway. Yum!

Labor Day Weekend

The previous post was pretty heavy so I thought I'd lighten things up with some pictures from Labor Day weekend. This blog will address some serious topics but on a day-to-day basis, we're pretty silly and laidback. :)

Monterey

Our church organized a group trip to Monterey this past weekend. Here's the view from the Pebble Beach Lodge. Jeff aspires to golf here one day - I'll settle for enjoying the view. Not pictured - the tandem bikes that I effortlessly rode as Jeff chugged along. Guess I'm just in better shape than him. ;)

Japanese Tea Garden

On Monday, we drove to SF to enjoy the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. It was pretty crowded but we managed to find a quiet corner for some tranquil moments. I'm not 100% sure it's worth the $8 admissions price given how small it is, but I suppose the price is on par with everything else in SF.

Sumika Grill

This was technically from the weekend before, but delicious enough to warrant a mention - a sesame panna cotta and frozen custard from Sumika Grill. They also have a delicious oyako-don (not pictured because dessert is just more fun and photogenic).