Some of the food we had which I didn't post in the blogs yet....

Ok.....here are some photos that I think I did not post through all the summer days....I think it's time for me to get rid of summer photos, and kinda put them into a group or something....so here is the "FOOD" group which goes all the way to the Thanksgiving dinner we just had 2 nights ago....so I guess this is a brief view of food we had for the past few months, except the ones already posted in some previous blogs....:)

Here are some muffins I made while the boys were still here. This batch was the lemon poppy seed kind....

Those are actually rum cakes we brought back from Miami. It goes well with ice cream :)

I think Buca is where we go all the time when there are enough people eating together....Took the boys one day together with Jack. Here are some good photos of food we got....




One time we discovered a small French food place close to where we live on the main street. I think it's called Bistro 39. We went with Howard and I think other than us there was only one other table with customers. I was actually quite pleased with the food even though the photos didn't turn out all that impressive cuz I took them with the iphone....


Jacob came back to visit in Oct...I think....and we went and ate Banana "boat" with him while we chatted for a long time....I think it's my 1st banana split ever....

This was a cake from Porto's which we bought for Chih-Lin's BD...Nice coffee cake which actually looked elegant....

Scary amount of food for a Thanksgiving dinner.....yeah....but I think I am getting used to the "Liu" family gatherings...They always have too much food which can never be finished for all occasions...Even though the real Turkey wasn't ready when I took the photo, the Turkey looking cake was amusing....Ok...other food photos will have to come later in the future for now :)

Jon's surprising visit after all these years.....

Well.....after all these years (maybe 6?), my SG baba Jon decided to visit us in LA. That was really an out of the blue thing, and I have to say it was a pleasant surprise that I rarely get nowadays....

Jay just happened to decide to come back to LA and live for good after his 10 months long stay at China. He got back a week before Jon's arrival and we both decided to take a day off to hang out with Jon cuz he was arriving Mon night and leaving Wed at noon. We ended up to spend the whole day basically doing nothing but talking, walking around aimlessly, and accomplished nothing at all.....but ah....talking about the old times really made us feel old...so much that had happened over the years....anyway....

Baba took a shot at us while we were getting a cake for Chih-Lin....yeah it was perfect timing that on Tue Chih-Lin was having her 32nd BD. As usual I was gonna ask people to come and eat so we celebrate for her, and Jon joining us was a good bonus for her...

Dinner at Buca was all pleasant cuz we had good food and good time chatting....the dinner went all the way passed 10 pm....

This was the cake we got for her from Porto's. The coffee cake tasted quite nice and we were lucky to get one without waiting in line forever at the store...

Here are pictures from my camera....clearly it will be time to get a real DSLR someday since the diff. between photo qualities was quite clear....oh well....


So.....for the past three days....way too much talking....way too little sleeping.....and I guess I did enjoy whatever time we had together.....

1st Nov 2009 weekend....

I didn't realize the last time I wrote my blog was back in Oct. I guess I just get lazy and there wasn't really much to say for the past 2 weeks...

Mr. Liu came up with this idea that we should do something new whenever we can. We should at least find a new place to go (around LA) each month, and then try a new restaurant like every two weeks, and then learn something new once a while.....and all other plans I can't remember....etc...

So we decided to go to Descanso gardens past Sat, and that had nothing to do with our "NEW" project (cuz we have been there few times already)....lol....We only went cuz we have annual pass and there seemed be an interesting "Japanese theme" kinda thing going on for Sat. As you can see some people werereally into it and actually wanted to look Japanese with the umbrella...hahaha....I can't tell if she noticed I was taking a photo and stared at me with those blind people sunglasses....:p oh and I think it was like the most packed Descanso I have ever experienced so far....

We happen to run into this Chrysanthemums festival when we visited the garden. I don't know where they found all those diff. types of chrysanthemums, but they are not particularly my type of flowers really....so here are some diff. ones which I found interesting......Most of them just look complicated I think....lol...and other types didn't turn out too well in the photos....so anyway....


Got this weird photo of weird lady bugs right at the entrance....

I didn't know people can actually eat and reserve meals at the Japanese garden. I am sure the food must not be too great, but at least the atmosphere is kinda cool....

There were flower displays in the Japanese garden, but I didn't really like the indoor ones even though some of them were creative. I think the outdoor ones just look more natural and has better color combination with the sun....




To go along with the Japanese theme they had those Japanese drums for a performance. Most of the players were not Japanese though....which I find interesting....and they really didn't perform that well, but again most of the garden performances are not that good anyway...:p

No idea why I took a photo of this....but they have this kinda flower everywhere in the garden.

The little cart turned out to look poetic I think....and that grandpa driving the small train passed by us several times while we were walking around the place for like 15 min.

Isn't it strange they have GREEN pumpkins? oh well Halloween was over so I guess nobody cares about the color any more....and Billy wanted to look strong with that little cart which I "supposedly" sat on....

Since everyone was watching the drum performance, we had a chance to take photos at the rose garden without people bothering us. It's the 1st time we don't see whole bunch of people at the rose garden :)

The tree was golden....which reminds me of Michigan a lot....It would be even nicer if they have red maple trees...and Billy wanted to take a photo with the willow tree...I don't know why I used to like those trees a lot when I was a kid....cuz I have no special feelings toward willows now....:p

We went to Art Center to check out their exhibits, but I didn't see anything I liked except this little monster who looked tired and drunk with the beer....lol....

We went to Malbec for dinner, which is an Argentinean restaurant which specialize in steaks. Billy found this place from Yelp (I think...) and we decided this place would be the "new" restaurant we try out for these two weeks :)

The olive oil dip with parsley was nice....and the appetizer Billy ordered was pretty cool too. The appetizer basically had every type of seafood you can think of except fish...yeah I like that part...

Atmosphere at the place was pretty nice...but then there were mostly old people eating at the place. I guess we just happen to go to a lot of places with old people around....

Billy ordered the ribeye steak and I got the short ribs. I think my short ribs was better cuz it had more fat in it and the meat was more tender that way...oh and it was more tasty too with the wood grill... :)

I really liked the cactus that was on our table...must took like 2 dozen photos of it to have a good take because of the dim lighting....

Took a photo when we got our dessert. It was this Argentinean bread pudding which tasted more like cake....Well...I would say the restaurant try out turned out to be good....:)