Phil’s blog

It’s been 3 months since I’ve posted and much has changed. I’ll write about the changes soon, but first some highlights since my last post:

• Went to the 25th annual Santa Cruz clam chowder cook off
• Went on a seven mile hike at Crystal Springs reservoir. I know it isn’t far enough to be notable by hiking standards, but for a non-hiker like me it’s plenty.
• Went to the CMAT wushu competition at Berkeley. Justine competed in nanquan (southern fist) and rocked it per usual. This was the first time I didn’t compete, my excuse being that I’m too busy to train. It was nice to see my former teammates from UVA and Justine’s friends from her wushu school back in VA. The event went way overtime as expected, and we all went out for food and bubble tea afterwards as is tradition. The after party was ok, the highlight being when Syl taught me some dance moves which I probably looked ridiculous executing but had fun nonetheless.
  
  
• Had a picnic on the hills between Google and Shoreline. We feasted on banh mi, Thai iced tea, and beautiful views while struggling for warmth in a small blanket because it was a bit breezier than we had anticipated.
  
  
• Practiced wushu at O-Mei. We went about twice a week and were starting to get back into the groove, but didn’t renew our membership this month because of my change in plans which I’ll write about in the next post. We once trained at Eagle Park (near downtown Mountain View) which was actually really nice until the sprinklers got us.
• Finally installed flush-mount turn signals on my motorcycle. I was all proud of myself but then all of them (even the rear ones which I didn’t replace) stopped working at some point during my first ride. Need to take care of that soon.
• Set up an easter egg hunt for Justine. I only had 12 easter eggs but I also hid tons of stray candy all over the apartment. Amazingly, Justine found every piece (that I’m aware of) except one which was pretty far under the bed.
• Golden Gate Park, specifically, the Japanese Tea Garden, the AIDS Memorial Grove, and the Conservatory of Flowers.
  
  
  
  
• Went to the Gel Conference in NYC. Not your typical industry conference, but rather a series of workshops and speakers covering various topics, the unifying theme being the creation of good experiences (Gel stands for Good Experience Live). I attended two workshops, one about juggling and the other about building MIDI instruments out of junk. Both were pretty interesting and I can now juggle 3 beanbags for a about 5 seconds before losing control. The speakers were also pretty good, and among the more interesting were Danny Meyer, owner of several popular NY restaurants, and Andrew, creator of songstowearpantsto.com. Also got to hang out with some old buddies from middle school, high school, and college - bonus!
  
  
• Spent a weekend in the Seattle area to work out business plans - more on this in the next post.
• Hanging out with my dad in San Francisco.
  
  
• Watched the entire Man vs. Wild and Planet Earth series.
• Watched Spiderman 3, Stranger Than Fiction (surprisingly good!), The Terminal, As Good as It Gets, Cave of the Yellow Dog, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Alien, and Inside Man.
• Cooked a lot and tried some new dishes including mango chicken salad (kind of made this one up), red bean soup (a simple dessert), congee (incredibly delicious yet so simple), and a soup with sausage and veggies that I added way too much cayenne pepper to but was still good.
• Got Justine to play video games with me! Actually got her hooked on Lego Star Wars 2 (which we played through in co-op mode) and The Sims 2 (which occupied many of our evenings). We also played Lego Star Wars 1 and X-Men Alliance, but these weren’t as fun.
• Went to a bunch of restaurants:
  • Palace Bar-B-Que Buffet - Korean BBQ place in Sunnyvale, good but we couldn’t eat enough to make it worth the money
  • Gochi - Japanese fusion tapas, crispy rice pot was incredible
  • Long Life Noodle Company - noodle place in Palo Alto, not that good
  • So Dong Gong Tofu House - Korean place in Santa Clara and Palo Alto (we went to both), outstanding bibimbop but I actually prefer Totoro’s tofu stew
  • Cafe Yulong - Chinese place off Castro, great calamari
  • Queen’s House - Chinese place on Castro, not bad but not super memorable
  • Katz Deli - deli in NYC specializing in giant meat sandwiches. The meat to bread ratio was ridiculous and I wasn’t able to finish. Very tasty though, and the pickles were great.
  • Shake Shack - burger joint at Madison Square Park in NYC, best I’ve ever had
  • Vung Tau - solid Vietnamese place in San Jose
  • Miette Patisserie - French bakery in SF serving up heart-stopping treats
  • Katana-Ya - ramen place in SF, pretty good but not better than Maru Ichi
  • 99 Chicken - Korean fried chicken? Delicious! And the owners are so friendly and cute.
  • I Love Sushi - sushi place in Bellevue, very tasty and nicely presented
  • El Calderon - El Salvadoran place in Mountain View, delicious and seems authentic
  • Afghani House - in Sunnyvale, the lamb was outstanding
  • Gooyi Gooyi - Korean BBQ place in Santa Clara. Was quite good, and at one point a girl and a person dressed as a giant soju bottle came in and started advertising the product to the Korean patrons. The soju bottle was dancing around the whole time - it was pretty awesome.
  • Breaktime Desserts - Asian dessert place in Cupertino, very large and interesting selection, and very tasty
  • Okane Sushi - in San Bruno, nothing to write home about

It’s time for another massive update; I haven’t posted for the past month because I was having too much fun with Justine :] She flew back to VA on Friday so I’ve had time to upload all the photos and recount the notable things:

• Took multiple trips to Maru Ichi. I think udon is edging out ramen as my favorite noodle again. We also tried Ramen House Ryowa but didn’t like it as much.
• Went to a public safety job fair and talked to reps from the FBI, Palo Alto police, private investigators, and a security guard contractor. From talking to the PIs, it seems their #1 type of case is worker’s comp fraud, possibly followed by cheating spouses. Justine wasn’t too excited about that, nor was she thrilled with the rent-a-guard company. The FBI dude told us pretty much what we already knew, but the Palo Alto PD rep was interesting. It sounds like a sweet job; $70k starting salary, mad benefits, and very little danger given the crime rate in Palo Alto. It sounded like a reasonable first step for Justine but the next academy semester doesn’t start until summer.
• Made the best homemade sushi ever. We used tuna, salmon, shiitake mushrooms, cucumber, avocado, and flying fish roe.
  
  
• Watched every episode of The Office. Justine had shown me one before and I wasn’t super impressed but we watched a few more from her season 2 DVDs and I was hooked. Downloaded and watched seasons 1 and 3 up to the current episode. Thank you Bittorrent.
• Received a visit from Miss Kitty, the neighborhood cat.
  
  
• Made multiple trips to Totoro. Two favorite dishes: soon dubu (tofu stew) and bi bim bop (grilled beef and veggies over rice).
• Had dinner at Xanh in downtown Mountain View with my friend Kathy and her husband Peter. Delicious, great decor and food presentation, but expensive. We shared an Asian pear salad, crab and quail egg soup, garlic noodles, cubed beef tenderloin, and shrimp puffs.
• Laid my motorcycle down going too fast into an easy turn, leaning and braking and causing it to slide out. Luckily damage was minimal both to the bike and myself. The left turn signal broke, the handle bar end got scraped, and I got a little scrape on my knee. Pretty amazing because the bike left a couple of long gashes in the asphalt. I was able to pick it back up pretty easily and rode it home. Haven’t not taken it out since; need to get it checked out at the local shop. I’m actually kind of relieved to have gone through my first bike accident. I guess it’s like getting hit for the first time; you think it’ll be awful but it ends up not being so bad. Actually I’ve never been in a real fight outside of sparring. Hope that day never comes.
• Went to Tahoe! More about this in my next post.
• Had a nice dinner with Justine’s aunt Amy, cousin Douglas, and his wife Mimi at Lotus Garden in Milbrae. Doug was excited about the prospect of Justine moving to the Bay Area. On the way to Doug and Mimi’s place we almost had an accident; one car stopped suddenly and completely in the middle of the 101 and the car behind it swerved first left to avoid it, then back right, presumably to avoid more cars. It ended up passing right in front of us, perpendicular to the lane, and off the road. I had started braking immediately upon hearing tires squeal and seeing the stopped car, and luckily we just missed the tail end of the swerving car as we passed. Scary.
• Played laser tag for the first time at Laser Quest in Mountain View. Justine had played before and gave me some tips, but I still got destroyed by a bunch of high school kids. It was kind of embarrassing but I had a good time. Justine is really good and got 4th place out of about 15 people both times we played. I think my problem is that my accuracy is horrible, so in a shootout on equal terms with no cover, the other person will usually win. Guess I need to practice..
• Made a chocolate cake and only succeeded in eating half of it while Justine was here. It was delicious though and we had fun baking and making a huge mess.
  
  
• Got Lego Star Wars II for the 360. I’m not a huge Star Wars fan but this game is cute, clever, and funny, and best of all, Justine loves it and is always up for playing. She even played it while I was at work!
• Made our own soon dubu and bi bim bop. They turned out pretty well, especially the tofu!
  
  
• Was surprised by Justine on Valentine’s Day More about this in a later post.

Christmas vacation has been great. I arrived at Dulles ~3am Friday the 22nd, spent a week in NoVA, and am now in Jackson, TN visiting my dad and relatives. Highlights:

• Having lunch with Syl and Justine at Panera and catching up on Syl’s love life.
• Pot luck dinner at Hao’s place with Elaine, Justine, Syl, Rajib, Abe, Abe’s sister Diana, Vickie, Matt Mah, and Rong. Delicious food + good company + dogs = awesome time.
  
• Playing Gears of War co-op with Rong until 5am. I had intended to go home at 1:30 but we couldn’t stop.
• Last-minute Christmas shopping on Christmas eve with Mom, Andrew, and Dennis.
• Exchanging presents. I got an Xbox 360 from the family (which I asked for after playing Gears of War). From Justine and her family: a sushi book, a Christmas ornament, a gift certificate for a pedicure (not that I have bad feet, but Syl likes making me pretty :), a tie, a glass sake set, a money clip, a stuffed foxy, a $50 gift credit card, and a pair of super-rare yellow and black Asics like the ones Uma Thurman wears in Kill Bill which I had tried unsuccessfully to find in the past but Teeny somehow found.
• Getting a pedicure at Nail Pro in Fair Oaks. For the most part it felt quite nice, but when she was removing dead skin and trimming and cleaning under my nails, I was a bit tense. The scrubbing also tickled a lot. I opted for clear nail polish just for fun.
  
• Feasting on delicious leftovers at the Kwan house.
• Catching up with Junghoon and Stephen at Stephen’s house.
• Dinner at la Madeleine with Junghoon, Stephen, Chris, Matt, and Ben. 5 out of 6 members of my UVA suite from 2nd and 3rd year! All we needed was Dave to be complete, but he was in LA for work. It was still great to catch up with the old gang, and the food was pretty good! I like the self-serve arrangement because you don’t have to tip and the delicious bread+jam are unlimited.
• Lunch at Super H Mart with Carlton, Syl, and Teeny. We ordered some dishes from the in-store Korean restaurant that were outstanding. Kalbi and bibimbop are always good, and we got this beef stew with noodles that was amazing. We also tried cold, spicy noodles which weren’t so great.
• Seeing Curse of the Golden Flower with Carlton, Teeny, Syl, Cons, and Patty. I wasn’t that happy with the ending but there wasn’t a clear side to root for since each character had done something selfish. The fighting was pretty sweet though, and the scenery and cinematography were great.
• Trying unsuccessfully to make sushi. Almost everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. The tuna we got at Super H Mart was bad, we accidentally used sticky rice instead of sushi rice (or even regular medium grain rice) and had to use leftover rice from a day or two before, the avocados were bad and we had to make a last minute run for fresh ones, we couldn’t find a suitable quantity of roe or good pickled ginger (Super H was only selling large containers of each), we ran out of rice vinegar, and we didn’t have a good knife for cutting the salmon. By the time everything was ready, we were too hungry to actually make rolls. What we ended up with were bowls of leftover rice, Japanese seaweed/sesame seasoning, mutilated salmon, and slices of avocado and cucumber. It tasted ok but I’ve definitely done much better in the past. I’ll make it extra-good next time when I’m back in my own kitchen.

I’ve had a recent mini-obsession with a dessert called uji kintoki. As Vickie has informed me, this is actually one of several variations on a popular asian shaved ice dessert. This version consists of shaved ice topped with green tea syrup, condensed milk, red bean paste, green tea ice cream, and mochi balls (sticky blobs made from rice flour and water). Justine and I first encountered this during our trip to Japan last summer at a place in downtown Kyoto. It was amazing.

The first attempt was made on a whim while Justine was visiting. We got a cheap ice shaver from Target and ingredients from a nearby Japanese supermarket. As pictured below, these included sugar, condensed milk, macha (green tea powder), red bean paste, and rice flour. The first time I was a bit impatient and didn’t take much care with the presentation, and it ended up looking like green soup with crap floating in it as you can see from the photo. I’ve made it twice since with better results each time.

Here’s my current recipe:

1. Make the mochi balls by first putting about 1oz rice flour per serving into a small bowl. Add water slowly while squishing it around with your fingers until you have dough that will maintain its shape. Break off little pieces, roll them into balls, and put them in a pot of boiling water. Once they’re all floating, transfer them to a bowl of cold water.
2. Make the green tea syrup (about 2-4T per serving) by slowly dissolving sugar into boiling or near boiling water until it’s about a 1:1 ratio. Slowly add a tiny bit of macha, about .5g per serving, until it’s combined. Put it in the freezer to chill.
3. Optionally form the red bean paste into whichever form you like. An easy option is to roll them into little balls like the mochi.
4. Shave some ice and pack in densely into a bowl.
5. Top with the green tea syrup and drizzle condensed milk. This step will likely destroy your perfect little ice mound. I’m still trying to figure out how to mitigate this, and I’m thinking next time I’ll put the syrup in the freezer for longer until it’s near freezing before I pour it on. Packing the ice differently may also be an option.
6. Add little scoops of ice cream, then the mochi and red bean paste. Enjoy!

It occurred to me that I’m losing my ability to write sentences because my first instinct is always to make lists. I’d say about 50% of my emails contain bulleted lists. It seems more efficient to not have transitions and sentence boundaries, leading to higher information density. On the other hand, maybe people are used to the flow of sentences and the abrupt transition from one point to the next actually slows down the reader.

Anyway, the point of this post is to summarize roughly the last two weeks. Unlike the last massive update (after Justine’s previous visit), this time I’ll follow up with a couple of additional posts with a bit more detail on certain things.

Justine and her family came out here on the 9/27 for her cousin’s wedding. The ceremony was on 9/30 at Villa Montalvo. I’m not a huge fan of weddings (I don’t dislike them but don’t get excited about them either), but it was nice hanging out with Justine and her family. Dinner was great and I was even convinced to dance a bit during the after party (an extremely rare sight). Her parents and younger sister Syl left the next day, but she and her twin sister Constance stuck around and stayed at my place. I’m glad Cons stayed a few days because last time Justine visited, she got really bored while I was at work. Cons stayed 4 extra days and did stuff with Justine during the day, then we’d all have dinner and see a movie or something after I got back. Justine had planned to stay until 10/9, but within a couple of hours of her flight, changed her mind and rescheduled for 10/13 Here’s a brief list of what we did (including when Cons was here):

• Movies
  • Dumbo - Their idea, but was actually decent for an old children’s movie (1941!). I liked the crows.
  • Akira - My idea. They didn’t like it much but I guess you have to be more of an anime fan to appreciate it, especially because it was made in 1988.
  • The Science of Sleep - Charming, hilarious, awesome.
• Restaurants
  • Jatbar.com is a great resource for restaurant reviews in the Bay Area. We used it to find a few of the places below.
  • Maruichi - Multiple times for udon and ramen. Can’t be beat.
  • Totoro - Kalbi and chap chae, nice but less pickled veggies than we got last time
  • Pasta Pomodoro - Perhaps the most reasonably priced restaurant in Santana Row. We got prosciutto/mozzarella/asparagus bruschetta, some kind of meat/pasta soup, and linguini with clams and white wine sauce. They were gross, pretty good, and pretty good, respectively. There was also garlic bread which was served cold, intentionally apparently, which was also gross.
  • Pho Hoa - Justine is getting tired of this place but it’s fast, cheap, satisfying, and reasonably healthy, and I still love it
  • Sushi Coast - Random little japanese restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Read that their rolls are a great bargain on Jatbar, but we weren’t blown away. On the way back we saw an interesting sight on the 101: a police car with lights flashing was swerving back and forth across the width of the highway, making a sine wave as it progressed, and causing all cars behind it to slow down. We thought there might be an accident or hazard ahead but there was nothing, and the cop just exited after a minute or so. Strange.
  • Back A Yard - Tiny carribean place in Menlo Park. We got jerk chicken and ox tail, both of which were incredibly delicious, but the ox tail was like 1/2 fat.
  • Taqueria la Bamba - Massive burritos for cheap - we got carnitas and pollo asado. What makes this place stand out is that they brown the meat so it’s slightly crispy - delicious!
  • Momoya - They disappointed me this time. We got the sashimi dinner for two as we did the last time Justine visited, but this time the selection was much smaller, including only tuna, salmon, yellow tail, and scallops (which I’m not a fan of by the way). Definitely not worth $40. I’ll probably give them another chance but I’ll definitely ask about selection before ordering another variety meal.
• Cooking
  • Couscous with golden raisins, pine nuts, and green onions - Quick, easy, delcious, plentiful, reheats well. We made this a lot last year at UVA.
  • Thai shrimp curry - We also made this a lot at UVA. Our version is based on the linked recipe, but minus the spinach and plus chopped onion, bamboo, and snow peas. Rivals any restaurant’s curry in my opinion, but isn’t so good reheated.
  • Uji kintoki - A japanese dessert consisting of shaved ice topped with green tea, red bean paste, and optionally condensed milk, mochi, and ice cream. I’ll write more about this in a later post.
• Other stuff
  • Shopping/dining at Santana Row, including trips to the Diesel store ;]
  • Mountain View Public Library - Justine loves books
  • Geocaching - Will write more about this later.
  • Shopping at Ikea - Got a sweet bookcase.
  • Toys R Us - Thought it would be cool to go back to this place that was so awesome during childhood, but now all the toys seem lame :[
  • I’m sure there’s more but my memory is hazy.
  • EDIT: forgot to mention taking Justine to the emergency room at 4am for an itchy rash that would appear in seemingly random place on her body and was driving her crazy.  Turns out it was an alergic reaction to amoxicillin prescribed for a tooth infection.  The doctor gave her a steroid and Claratin and there was no trouble after that.  We were pretty hungry so we went cruising for burgers afterwards.  Luckily I didn’t have to work the next day :]