More Random Food Photos

Bento dinner - Tampopo (Garden Grove)


AYCE Korean BBQ - Gen (Tustin)


Fried Yellow Corvina banchan - BCD Tofu (Torrance)


Pho - Pho Hoa (Hawthorne)


Potstickers - Peking Restaurant (Westminster)


Xiaolongbao - Ding Tai Fung (Seattle)


Chicken pot pie - Daily Grill (Seattle)


Taro pastry w/scallops - Sun Sui Wah (Vancouver)


Appetizers and beer - Earls (Whistler)


Shoyu ramen - Kairakutei (Tustin)

Chef Hung

Andy, Connie and I went to Diamond Plaza for dinner and we ended up at Chef Hung. It is a Taiwanese beef noodle place next to 85°C Cafe/Bakery. When we walked in at 5:30pm, the place was probably 75% full but there was no host/hostess. A bunch of customers, including us, stood around for 5 minutes before anyone came to seat us (actually hand out numbers). In the meantime, there was a verbal altercation between these two older fobby Chinese guys and one younger maybe-ABC guy about who was next in line. The younger guy was actually pretty rude; he ended up sitting next to us and was moody and rude to the waiter as well.

Anyway, I got the "famous" beef noodles. It was okay... nothing spectacular. The menus and place-mats made sure you know that "Chef Hung" won many beef noodle awards but I think my mom's version is better. Another issue was the prices. Maybe the rent is expensive in Diamond Plaza because the bowls of noodle weren't cheap. My medium sized bowl was ~$10. We ordered drinks and a few side dishes in addition to a main item; the bill came out to ~$50. If I had to give it a Yelp rating (forgot to do it while I was there), I'd give it 3.5 stars. Taking prices into consideration, I would probably drop it down to 2.5 stars.


There was a motorized bowl of noodles at the entrance of the restaurant. It was pretty cool... too bad there was no employees to seat us.


My $10 bowl of noodles. In addition to the bigger chunks of beef, they also had thin strips, kind of like the meat you get in a beef bowl at Yoshinoya. I've never seen this before, even in Taiwan.


Nothing to do with Chef Hung but upstairs in the plaza, there was a photo-sticker place. Not one machine but an entire store packed with machines. I took some of these kind of photos with Shirley a long long time ago.

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In contrast, $20/person got us AYCE Korean BBQ at Gen, near Newport and Main in Tustin. Mmm... I was not hungry for 24 hours afterwards.

2010 Asia Trip, off the coast of Japan

I’m on my way home after two weeks in Asia. It’s been a hectic trip with 8 flights, mainly because I’m flying Cathay Pacific and have to transit in Hong Kong each time. The onboard Moving Map says I’m still about 9 ½ hours away from Los Angeles and I’ve already watched one movie (Prince of Persia) and ate one meal. The flight (CX882) home is fairly full; I’ve only taken the afternoon flight once before and that was to avoid a typhoon. Once again, I’m sitting next to a family with 2 kids. It’s a Chinese couple and they have no control over their kids. Right before takeoff, the older boy (4 years old?) was messing with the tray table and the dad smacked his arm. I’m not sure what he expected but the kid started crying and screaming. The younger boy has been throwing tantrums all flight so far. I guess it doesn’t affect me too much since I can’t sleep anyway.

Back to Beijing, I think I need to continue from Friday morning. I met an ex-coworker for lunch at Oriental Plaza located at the Wangfujing subway station. She is currently working for Deloitte in Beijing and their office is in the same location. She took me to a pretty nice sit-down Shanghai restaurant (上海小南国). Last month when she was in Irvine, I paid for her lunch so she wanted to treat me in Beijing. We mainly talked about work and China. Similar to John in Taiwan, she feels like there are a lot of opportunities in Asia but the work conditions and business ethics are a lot worse compared to the US.


Oriental Plaza from across the street


Raffles Beijing is near the same intersection. Lots of cars on Chang'an Road/Street/Avenue.

After lunch, I had nothing to do so I decided to walk west on Chang’an Road towards Tiananmen Square. It took me about an hour to walk from Wangfujing station on line 1 to Qianmen station on line 2, sweating all the way. Along Chang’an Road are expensive hotels, offices for multi-national corporations, and lots of government ministries. However, I also saw quite a few migrant workers with their luggage, and beggars in each underground pedestrian crossing. There is an index that measures the wealth disparity between a country’s rich and poor. China is at the top of the list, along with a few African and Latin American countries.


Bus stop nesr Tiananmen East station. There were a lot of people in line. Buses run quite regularly in Beijing and if you have a metro card, it's only RMB0.40 per ride. One thing that's odd is that multiple buses for the same route would appear at the same time, then nothing for 5 minutes and 2-3 more would show up? Why not space them out more evenly?


Tiananmen gate from across the street. To get into the open square, you have to go through an airport style security check with x-ray scanners and metal detectors.


Changing of the guards near the flagpole. My friend said that they raise the flag each morning at around 5am. She's never been to one in 33 years.


There were a lot of tourists taking pictures, even on a hot Friday afternoon.


BTV (Beijing TV) installed these huge electronic billboards in the square during the 60th anniversary parade last year (October 1) and they're still here.


Right side screen up close. It was roped off and guarded by one guy in a Beijing TV t-shirt.


Square West Side Road (per Google Maps). It's one of the few roads where you can make a left turn while traveling west on Chang'an Road. Normally it's empty yet security guards won't let you cross until the pedestrian crossing light turns green. Sigh... why not enforce this at all the other regular intersections where everyone jaywalks?!


Qianmen gate. I was going to visit Mao's mausoleum but I was tired of walking and sweating too much already. To get to Qianmen station, I had to walk down/up three underground crossings at the same intersection.

My Beijing friend, Sindy, arranged dinner and KTV with her cousin and his wife for Friday night since I said I could sing a few Chinese songs. Just as we were getting to her car, she got a call about an emergency surgery. Sindy works for a company that reps medical supplies (artificial blood vessels) and she has to support hospitals and doctors that use their products. Usually the surgeries are pre-scheduled but occasionally there are emergencies. So on a Friday night, we had to rush to her office to pick up the needed products (expensive) and deliver them to the ER. It took us about an hour to fight through rush hour traffic to get to her office and just as we were about to drive to the ER, she got a call that the patient (traffic accident) died. That’s way too much stress for me.

By now it was too late to meet up so I took her to Bellagio, a Taiwanese restaurant near Worker’s Stadium that I’ve been to a few times. The restaurant is near Sanlitun which means lots of clubs and expats. We saw some pretty slutty looking girls at many tables; not sure if they’re just rich 2nd generation kids or ernais. Next to Bellagio were some famous nightclubs and we some some pretty nice cars parked outside.

The next morning (Saturday), I got a call from John who lives in Tianjin though he has been in the US for the past 2 months. I wanted to visit him in Tianjin but since I was leaving Sunday morning, it was a bit rushed. I ended up talking to him over the phone… trip to Tianjin will have to wait until the next time I’m in China. Instead, I was invited to Sindy’s maternal grandfather’s 85th birthday lunch. It was at a restaurant and I ended up meeting her entire extended family on her mom’s side. Everyone was really nice though I could only understand about 75% of what was said.


I saw a BMW 535i Grand Turismo on the way to the family lunch. I haven't seen one of these before in the US. Since it's new, it was probably built in Germany and costs >US$100k in China.


We got there a bit early so we walked to a nearby park. In front of the park were people selling watermelons from the back of a donkey cart... in the middle of Beijing. Don't see that in LA everyday.


Next to the park were these super luxury (supposedly) apartments that cost RMB50k/square meter. That's very expensive since it works out to ~$700/square foot. Our house in Orange was <$300/square foot and our front yard doesn't smell like raw sewage. What kind of fertilizer are you using?!


Lunch banquet. There was a lot of food, including Beijing duck. I tried only about 1/2 the dishes.


Birthday cake. It was yogurt flavored... strange but tasted pretty good.

After lunch, her uncle and her cousins went to a nearby KTV place and we sang for ~3 hours. The English song selection was rather poor so I had to sing a couple of Chinese songs. I think they had very low expectations of my Chinese skills so they were impressed that I was able to read the song lyrics, which were mostly in traditional Chinese characters.

Dang, ~9 hours left to go on the flight and my butt is sore from sitting already. I’m going to try and take a nap and continue this later.

2010 Asia Trip, Beijing Day #3 Morning

As I was sitting in my hotel room Wednesday night, I got a call from a strange number on my China cell phone. Since it's a "new" number for me, I couldn't figure out who it was. It turned out my cousin, who is living in Shanghai, is coming to Beijing for a few days on business and saw my message on Facebook. Since he was still at the Shanghai airport, we agreed to meet later on.

My Beijing friend and I had dinner Wednesday night at a Muslim restaurant. The first floor was for ordering snacks while the sit-down restaurant was on the 2nd floor. I'm not very adventurous with food so we didn't order anything strange. As usual, we ordered too much food.


Some kind of juice drink. I think it's the same fruit they use to make haw flakes... haven't had that in awhile.


My friend went downstairs and ordered some of the snack foods and brought them upstairs. The stuff on the left are some sort of pastry stuffed with beef; the three things on the right are sweet dessert snacks.

After dinner we walked to the entrance to Houhai (后海) and met my cousin at a bar. Houhai is a small man-made lake and it's surrounded by bars and restaurants that cater to expats and foreign visitors, i.e., food/drinks are very expensive.


The bar we went to featured a band from Taiwan. Not sure if they already lived here or are actually from Taiwan to perform a some random bar in Beijing. The band was pretty good but the singers should definitely stay away from Engrish songs. While they were performing (and taking requests), I noticed two girls sitting at the bar next to us. One was in a traditional Chinese costume while the other was dressed in a bikini top and hot pants. When the band took a break, they went up to the stage and danced (not at the same time). First was a semi-traditional Chinese dance, then followed by some fancy pole dancing by the girl dressed like a stripper (sorry, no pics). My cousin went out to take a phone call and said there was someone playing an erhu on the 2nd floor... really strange mix of entertainment.

The next day, my friend came to pick me up to go to the Summer Palace. I've been to all the major Beijing attractions during my last two trips except here... the only time I visited was during my first Beijing trip in 1998. Since she didn't know the way, we had to follow road signs that said 颐和园. Once again, we stopped a few times in the middle of the 3rd Ring Road and cut across multiple lanes to take exits. In her defense, the road signs are really unclear, even for locals.


The entrance fee was RMB60 per person if you want to see everything. It was definitely more crowded than my last visit. As Chinese people have more disposable income now, they're probably traveling more; most of the tourists I saw were out-of-town Chinese people. As soon as we purchased our tickets, we were accosted by people asking if we needed tour guides. None of them looked like they spoke English, though I did see quite a few private tours with English guides of varying language proficiency.


One of the first cars imported into China as a gift for the Empress Dowager


There was a "theater" complex inside the Summer Palace where performers entertained the Emperor and Empress. When we walked in, there was a performance with traditional Chinese musical instruments.


Building with performance stage


"Traditional" dance... the choreography seems a bit odd. There were a lot of modern dance looking moves. Maybe the girls were making it up as they danced.


Two guys pretending to fight in the dark. Kind of reminded me of those irritating French mime performances.


Huh? I checked with my Chinese friend and the translation appears correct. I guess we're not supposed to sit on the railings.


Long covered path along the north side of the man-made lake. The scenery was ruined by the thousands of people sitting on the side eating corn-on-the-cob.


17 arch bridge. We rented a boat (electric, not pedal power) for RMB60/hour and went under the bridge. It was a huge but shallow lake and there was a lot of boat traffic. In some places, there were lots of weeds in the water and a few times our boat got stuck in the middle of the lake.


Water lilies... there weren't that many compared to Beihai park.


The focal point of the park was a huge hill with a Buddhist temple on top. The hill was made from the earth dug up to create the man-made lake. Chinese manual labor power!


Covered staircase going up the big hill. I remember this from last time I was here.


Carved figurines on the eaves of one of the buildings


Details of the painted decorations. Each beam had a different picture.


View from halfway up the hill. You can see the scale of the artificial lake and hill, and the amount of labor that went into constructing the palace site.


View of the temple complex from the top (almost) of the hill


Marble boat... I remember this as well from last time here as well.

We walked around the huge palace grounds until ~3:30pm and decided to head back to town. We were supposed to meet my friend's parents for dinner. By the time we got back on the road, it was close to rush hour and the traffic was ridiculous. I think it took us close to 90 minutes to drive back to my hotel. There are a lot of cars obviously, but I think the tendency for Chinese drivers not to follow traffic rules made things worse. Each intersection was a scene of utter chaos with gridlocked cars and pedestrians/scooters ignoring traffic signals. It was really frustrating to watch and experience.


We sat in traffic here for about 20 minutes, moving about 3 car lengths per light change (way up ahead). Chinese drivers don't know how to merge when a lane ends either.

For dinner, my friend and her parents took me to a Korean BBQ place near their apartment. The food was pretty good but they ordered too much and ended up taking home some cooked and raw meat leftovers.


Real wood charcoal, like at Japanese BBQ places. They came and replaced the grill-top about 10x during the meal. I was careful to separate the raw and cooked meat on the grill but each time they would mix it all together again. I hope I don't get sick... :(


Lots of food

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Since the Summer Palace was built during the Qing dynasty, all the carvings and paintings used traditional Chinese characters. My friend has a college degree from China and she had difficulty reading some of the writings. In a few cases, I was able to recognize a character that she could not decipher, even though my Chinese is really lame. I think they should at least teach students how to read traditional characters in China, otherwise they will continue to lose their link to past history and culture.

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I just got a phone call from an ex-coworker who is now working in Beijing, and we're meeting for lunch near Wangfujing. She owes me lunch from a few weeks ago when she visited Irvine.