Thursday night, we went to the Art Walk (after intently watching Lebron James and 'The Decision'!!!!) and it was pretty fun! We walked around various galleries and ended up hanging out in the food truck area (thanks to Bryan and Jane's suggestions). I didn't really take many pictures but there was some great artwork.
The next day, I, unfortunately, had work but Jenna was nice enough to come and bring me LUNCH! She brought our favorite vietnamese sandwiches from HERE. If you have not ever been there, it is a must visit! We enjoyed our lunch outside in the sunshine at a little table next to the Subway near my work. It was a very nice change from the other days where I eat my lunch in my car... :( I had to go back to work but Jenna nicely stuck around and did work at the nearby Starbucks. We drove home together after work and decided to go for some Chinese food!
Here's the weird thing: Jenna and I have been together for 7 years and 3 months, yet we NEVER go to eat Chinese food. Don't get me wrong, we love Chinese food but always seem to go for the more 'exotic' asian foods such as Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese and Thai. Jenna thinks maybe it's because Chinese food is kinda easy to make and if we're gonna spend money on food, it should be something cool and unique that we can't make ourselves! Anyways, after a quick search on Yelp, we decided on Tasty Garden in Alhambra. They have great reviews on Yelp and we wanted a piece of the action.
We knew we wanted vegetables but also had to have something tasty (ya know, cuz we were at the Tasty Garden). Here is our Beef Chow Fun with mixed vegetables. Man, I haven't had Chow Fun in a long time and forgot how incredible it is! I remember how back in the day my family and I would go to Chinatown in Oakland and have chow fun with our grandma and cousins at King Wa... Oh, how I miss those days.
This dish of Chow fun was excellent and definitely enough for more than 2 people to share.
We also ordered Szechuan Eggplant Hotpot which had a chili next to it meaning it was supposed to be spicy... it was not. Not.At.All. It couldn't have been any LESS spicy. haha, no worries, the garlicy deliciousness of the actual dish was SUPER worth it. It was SO good, that the old man next to Jenna keep STARING at it (and us) our entire meal! What a creeper...
Darn, i shoulda got the old man in the picture with Jenna... Also, sorry for not telling you that you were going to be in this shot. :)
Today, Saturday, we decided to go for a hike at my favorite hiking spot up in Altadena. However, on our drive up there, I remembered that there was this other hike where it leads you to a giant waterfall. I had always been a little hesitant to go by myself, but now that Jenna was here, we could check it out! The hike was super nice and not hard at all. In fact, there were dozens of other people hiking up to the water fall because of the great weather today and the fact that the climb was not too laborious. About an hour into the hike we did indeed end up at a 50ft waterfall! It was super neat and a couple people were swimming around in the pools with all their clothes on. And of course there was this cute little baby/boy that was walking around naked which I happily took pictures of! hehe. Jenna and I watched this little kid for a long time trying to figure out if he was a year old or maybe a year and a half. As the kid left with his dad, we overheard that the little boy was actually 2.5 yrs old and would be 3 in December! Jenna said he was extremely small for his age and it was weird that he refused to say any words. But, as they were leaving, we heard him mutter, "bye bye waterrrfall."
Cute.
We worked up quite the appetite from our hike and decided to get Dumplings because I always seem to have a hankerin' for some dumplings! a.k.a. Xiao Long Baos!! YUMMY! We went to the famous Din Tai Fung in San Gabriel. Apparently, this dumpling house is one of the best in LA or maybe even all of the US according to the people on yelp.
Here are the XLB's and a little side dish of Mustard Greens. The Dumplings were very flavorful and had a great amount of juice in them! It was even nice that the juice inside wasn't boiling hot so we didn't scold our mouths when we popped the dumplings in!
Here's our other order of dumplings which were filled with Pork and Shrimp. They were not quite as juicy but were very tasty. Also, we kept the steamer lid on which helped keep them moist and hot! YUM. I already wanna go back and have more XLB!
Anyways, Jenna is taking a nap right now and I decided to share our weekend of Chinese delights. OH WAIT!... After dumplings, we went to this bakery across the center from Din Tai Fung and got some buns. We picked out one Red Bean bun and one Red Bean/Mochi bun. The Red Bean/Mochi bun was craziness! It had globs of red bean inside (my fav!) and then a copious amount of mochi stuffed in there too. It was weird biting in and having long gooey strands of mochi come flowing out. Yum again!
Off to Despicable Me later tonight!
mmmm i LOVE the XLB's at din tai fung :)
ReplyDelete