Solvang, CA

So cute!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Peeps! Isn't my tree pretty?

Close up of the shells...

...and starfish... mmmm, yummy seafood.

Oh, just woke up from a dream, where I dreamt that I had a beautiful Xmas tree with yummy looking seashell ornaments and a huge starfish on top!

Kawaaiii Alert

Baby's first pair of Uggs!!!! Ahhh, they were so overpriced but had to get them cuz they are just sooo adorable. Nope, I am not having a baby, but a friend is having a baby girl in January so these are my Xmas present for her!

Global Warming is so not Happening!

My deck in West LA...

Shoveling snow... Al Gore, eat your heart out!

California girl in me... we persevere and insist on being scantily clad even in the harshest of circumstances! Hmph! We are by far the cutest gals in the 48 contiguous states!

Pics courtesy of Bella

Jiraffe

Pretty night...

The Boiling Crab

Seafood + Kitty Cat = Heaven (at least for the kitty cat involved). Yes, I love love seafood... even if I eat all the clammies, shrimpies and crabbies into extinction... I don't care! So, after craving The Boiling Crab for like the better part of last month, I decided I had to go... we got there at 5:15, and the wait was already 1 hour!

Anyway, we persevered and eventually got seated. We ordered: clams with butter and garlic sauce, mmmm, droooling again...the basil was a nice, subtle touch.

A ton of shrimp with the whole sha-bang sauce... it was spicy at first, but surprisingly I got used to it later... we also got corn on the cob and some sausages, both were very good. The shrimp thing, eh, wished it didn't have the heads on, a non-Asian girl at a table next to us almost screamed when she saw the eyes, haha!

The worst raw oysters I'd ever had. They tasted nothing -- as if they were washed with chlorine bleach. Ewe ewe ewe!

These cajun fries were so damn good! Perfectly seasoned, crunchy and flavorful.

The Other Side of Las Vegas

First stop in Vegas -- the Wynn Buffet! It was not as big or had as many items as the Bellagio Buffet, but it had king crab legs and prime rib, two of my favorite foods. Sorry J, didn't see your photo request until I came back so didn't take more pics!

After losing my life savings playing the penny slot machine at the Wynn, I had no choice but to pimp myself out at half price to make food money! Lowest price guaranteed!

One of the surprising finds on this trip was the real Vegas -- the part of Vegas off the strip. While driving to the Wynn, we passed Spring Mountain Road, which is the un-official Asiatown. Vegas is probably not big enough to support individual Asian ethnic enclaves, so here Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Saigon, Thaitown kind of rolled into one two block stretch of Asiatown.

It's not uncommon to have store signs in multiple Asian languages (there was even a senior center with both Chinese and Korean signs).

Funny sign in Asiatown -- they would only do taxes for you if are Asian!

Beautiful bakery owned by a Korean family in Asiatown (it was adorable to see the grandmother, mom and little granddaughter working and playing together).

This is what's on the other side of the window... the lady is the cashier (probably daughter of the owner), the young Asian guy in the back (with the baker's hat) is probably the son of the family.

We ended up having lunch at BBQ King, a Cantonese BBQ restaurant. The Chinese restaurants in Vegas are very good (almost better than LA). We went to two Chinese restaurants and did not see a single non-Asian person (a sure sign of authenticity).

Another reason we ate at a Chinese country restaurant was because we had reservations at Shibuya, a fancy restaurant at the MGM Grand, that night. We knew the portions would be small so thought we'd eat a full lunch. Here is the Kani (crab) salad - the crab meat was good, but as you can see the portion was puny, rested on top of a betta fish bowl... poor little betta fish, he was camera shy so you can't see him (other than his little tail).

Spicy scallop roll and lobster tail tempura (aka Kabuto) roll.

Overpriced dessert at Shibuya, the mochi ice cream was straight out of the super market box. The lychee chocolaty thingie in the middle was pretty good though. In summary, Shibuya is a good place to go for ambiance, but not value.

After Shibuya, we saw Ka at the MGM Grand, it was fantastic, totally worth the $$$ we paid for the tix.

The next day, we decided to explore Asiatown a little more and went to the best Chinese restaurant in Las Vegas, Ping Pang Pong!

Just kidding, we actually went to an authentic Shanghainese restaurant called the Night Pearl. This is a traditional Shanghainese homestyle dish. It's basically minced tofugan with an herby Shanghainese vegetable (the waitress told me the name of the veggie but alas, I forgot). It's quite good, really refreshes the palate.

Drunken chicken, very flavorful, but as some Taiwanese guests next to us said to the waitress, not drunken enough. This is a common problem with this dish nowadays. When my grandmother made drunken chicken, I remember her marinating the chicken in Shaoshing wine for days.

Take a good look at these Shanghainese Xiao Long Baos, they are the best I've had in North America, they were so good, we ordered a second Long of XLBs.

Arrgh, tired of taking individual pics, here is the whole spread! The little wanton soup was very good (totally authentic) but the filling was not as fresh as I would've liked... the spring rolls had the authentic Shanghainese fillings but the skin was wayyy too thick, authentic Shanghainese spring rolls have very thin crispy skin.

Yep, Asiatown has taken over Las Vegas, see, even the Wynn is now part of Chinatown! We are taking over the world, muahahaha!

After stuffing ourselves with XLBs, we drove around a little more and this is a view of the hills and canyons surrounding Vegas... very pretty, so glad I got out of the strip.

Bye bye Vegas... you turned out to have more character than I expected... here is a view of the strip, from the Stratosphere needle to the shiny gaudiness that is Mandalay Bay.

Viva Las Vegas

Vegas here I come! Ka-ching! Ka-ching!

Ajisen Ramen

Ajisen Ramen finally opened up in Century City Mall. It's been so brrrr lately, the line was ridiculously long. (interesting that an eatery form Asia has made it into mainstream American mall)

See the Ajisen Ramen logo girl? Rumor has it, she was modeled after Baby Cat... yup I was that cute! Oh, the four large Chinese characters mean: flavor thousand pulled noodle.

Les Sisters

I went to the cutest little restaurant this weekend -- Les Sisters. It serves creole, cajun foods. Look at the decor, even spotted a cowboy in the midst!

Baby back BBQ ribs -- it was pretty good. I liked the sides too, collard greens and cole-slaw.

Fried chicken -- the chicken was nice, and it was fried appropriately. But, we ordered the spicy version and it barely tasted of anything! Fortunately, Tabasco sauce came to the rescue.

The aftermath of Mini-Tornado Cat!

Soowon Galbi KBBQ

Why didn't I go to this place earlier? Soowon Galbi has officially dethroned Chosun Galbi as my favorite KBBQ place in Ktown... We were so hungry, we swept through the food like a mini-tornado! Here is the before pic...

And after...lots of empty little plates, and four pudgy little bellies, yup, all the food went in there!

Tooth Fairy

Just came back from the dentist (7am appt!!!)... Yeah baby, looking good, time to flash that mile wide smile! Rawwwrrr!