A Sunny weekend is fantastic

My 4 days in Boston and NY with my Ah Pek was overall good, with some not so tasty twists.

Painful twist - Paid US$35 for less than 2 hours parking in downtown Boston.

Bitter twist - One of the most lousy car we have ever rented, no central lock, manual windown rollers, too much hidden fees, even to drive to other states were being extra charged. Grrrr...

Wet twist - Very very heavy rain on the way from Boston to NY. Ah Pek did a great job to reach the destination safe. Muak!

Pasar malam twist - We just need to go to the Consulate General of Malaysia in NY to feel as though we are at a pasar malam. No kidding!

Arrogant twist - Visited one of the largest outlet mall in USA, nothing impressive as cold and bad weather and we were very lack of time. I went there mainly because it is the only outlet with many branded shops, and I am curious what kind of things they are selling in their outlet. Seriously, they need to re-train their staffs, the so call very high-end brand like Chanel staffs are just too arrogant. Oh, what is with the fetishism of Chanel like to hire cocky obaasan to work in their outlet? Gucci staffs cockiness slightly one rank down, not too bad, still not pleasurable. Or maybe it is the northern people things? I don't remember seeing this kind of attitude in other outlets that I have visited. Even the Coach outlet in Woodbury is more arrogant, but the one that deal with us was nice. If you go to Coach in Woodbury, get Pat!! She is pretty good.

Ok, stop complaining. We did quite a number of awesome things.

Good foods - Had the best clam chowder in Neptune Oyster at Salem Street, Boston. The same restaurant that caused us had diarrhea due to raw oysters. Ouch! The clam chowder was so good that I nearly wanted to lick the plate. Awesome mozzarella and ricotta pizza New York style during a very heavy rain night. My first time with the anchovies in pizza, stinky, salty yet interestingly addictive. Ah Pek had his first Carbonara spaghetti with pancetta and sweet pea. He liked it. Go to Dean's Pizzeria on Greenwich Street if you are interested.

Universities touring - We went to visit Yale University, Harvard Univeristy, MIT, Mount Holyoke College and Smith College. Each university took us around 1 hour. Particularly like the appearance of Yale and Mount Holyoke. MIT too business district-like. Harvard just too convenient to go to NY downtown. Met up with Suet Li in Mount Holyoke College and she gave us a guide around her school campus. Thanks. :)

Road trip - Like any of our trips together, Ah Pek and me like to drive miles and miles to see a place. Not so much on the typical tourist attractions but definitely good foods are must. As usual, he was driving and I was navigating and zzzzing. One day, I will help you with the driving burden. Sorry ah~~~

New passport - At least I don't have to worry about my passport until 2014 now. Super big face in my passport. Yike!

Subway memories - I feel superior when the best option to move around is through public transport. ^_^ Ah pek is not too good in that, and I am paiseh enough to say I am a "pro". Hehe...

I think I will put photos in my facebook instead of here letting the scams finishing up my monthly widthband.

When will I be seeing him again? *sigh*

We won!! ^_^

Today we had a potluck dinner. So many yummy foods and I am bloated now.

So, after my 1st try with the chirashizushi, today Xin and me took two hours to prepare it again, with 80% of the ingredients have prepared on Sunday and Monday, except those that needed to prepare on the day.




We were much more satisfied with this time in term of appearance and the balance of colors. Also, since seaweed and deep fried anchovies were debatable ingredients of like or hate, we decided to pull them out. Alternatively, striped eggs with two different flavors as well as stir fried shimeji mushroom with shoyu were used. I think we made the right decision.

The outcome?

Not only people loved the taste, we also won the 1st prize in the main and side dishes category.
Yippie~~~ what a surprise. Although the $15 gift card was not even enough to cover 1/2 of the money we spent on the ingredients, Xin and me were truly "proud" with the effort we have put in it.

Out of the 6 prizes for the night, 3 of the prizes won by my lab. Tee hee hee...




Hicran's tabouli is my all time favorite. It is pretty different from the tabouli that uses a lot of parsley, but more on the cracked wheat. Even though the more sour parsley tabouli is pretty nice and healthy, Hicran's definitely winning over that the green tabouli any time.

And... she won the 2nd prize for the main and side dish category. ;)




Next, Esra's kadayif. She makes very good dessert. I usually don't eat baklava from shop, mainly it is too sweet for my liking, but Esra's baklava, I can eat three pieces.

Today, she decided to make something else, instead of her well-known baklava which she won the 1st prize last year.

Kadayif was her choice and personally, I like kadayif over baklava. The texture of kadayif are unique. Esra make it into a few layers. The first thing she did, was to mix these very fine vermicelli-like pastry with butter so that each strand was infused with the aroma and flavor of butter. Then, at the bottom layer, the kadayif was mixed with sweet syrup, layered with crushed pistachio, then with the baked crispy top layer. (It actually more ingredients than this I believe, but I have very limited knowledge on Turkish cuisines.) Complicated yet complementing each other so well. I love it.

It is a no surrpise she won the 1st prize again this year for the dessert category. You go girl!




Ah~~~ a gift card has never look this pretty before.

Because we won!

Yatta!