How to get fat lips without surgical enhancements...

Go to Hunan Chilli King! Yes, that's Chili with a double "LL"... Rawwrrr... But no alcohol permitted... seriously this is like the perfect food to go with Chinese liquor.

Stir Fried Lamb: not for peeps who do not like cilantro, yes all the green stuff is cilantro!

Purple perilla leaves with cucumber. This is a very unique Hunanese dish. Chinese cuisine typically does not heavily use herbs such as perilla leaves.

Spicy crabs, so delicious. When we requested middle spiciness, the waitress quickly overruled us and wrote small spiciness down instead... little did we know, Einstein's Theory of Relativity applies to hotness too. Although rated small spiciness on the Hunanese scale, I'd put at least four hot chili peppers next to this dish. It was darn spicy and I was getting teary eyed, a runny nose and burning lips. Next time I am gonna order extra extra small spiciness.

Chinese yoghurt to the rescue... on behalf of my fat lips, thank you moo moo cows!

Restaurant still packed at 9:30...

85 Degrees of Madness

85 Degrees, the uber popular Asian pastry chain, has finally invaded San Gabriel Valley.

Here is what to do when you arrive there -- grab a tray and a pair of tongs and fluffy pastries here I come.

This is what happens when you get a back-seat driver with a chronic case of eyes bigger than stomach disease: I want this, and this, and this, yeah make sure you get that one too, get one more one more!

After you get all the pastry your heart desires, go to the counter to wrap your pastry and to pay... [Update: my friend Bella first noticed this, but look at the hand of the guy in front of me, does it look like his hand is in another dude's pocket? Did I catch a criminal mid act?]

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival

Happy Moon Festival... It's ultra round and big tonight. I write this msg to you as I sit on the couch munching on faux mooncake and rubbing my tushie. I had to do like twenty squats last night and my tush hurts so much today, wahhhhhhhh. Evil Wii fit!

In remembrance...

It's been ten years, why does it still hurt?

image courtesy of floraluniverse.com

Labor Day Weekend 2011

View from the Wayfarer's Chapel in Palos Verdes... this is what makes battling LA traffic all worth it. Beautiful.

Inside the Chapel. It is famous for its architecture: glassy chapel in the midst of pine trees... kind of like an open air chapel. Dear God, please bless this little kitty cat, I don't want much, all I want is to make it to the finishing line safe and sound.

Green tea fruit cake... yum yum yum.

Balloons inside South Coast Plaza...

Katsuya in Laguna Beach... great place for people watching, especially shovel carrying young women with their much older dates... hey, they need something to dig the gold.

Watermelon and cucumber drink... we ordered three of these, two virgins and one slutty, guess who was the slutty one, meow :)

Albacore with fried onion strips...

This is how much we loved this dish :)

Rolllllll... yum.

Seafood at Pacific Fish Center in Redondo Beach Pier... huge pot of Mae Woon Tang or Korean seafood soup.

Reminder: do not get king crab legs, so expensive and so not worth it, this tiny bit cost us $35.

Pinkberry's. Cute little yogurt swirl, I know you want me to eat you, hehe.

Foot in Mouth Award of the Year goes to...

Five of us were at the Las Brisas Restaurant in Laguna Beach on a moonlit night. The restaurant overlooked the ocean and we could see waves crashing into the beach... and far away, shimmering lights from million dollar homes dotted the slopes of Laguna Hills.

We were casually chatting, enjoying coffee and desserts. For some reason, we started talking about airlines -- Jetblue had direct flights between DC and Long Beach, Southwest has cheap fares, and C commented that he didn't like American because X, Y and Z and we got into a conversation about American's inflight services...

There was a family of four sitting next to us (the tables were close). Suddenly the husband started talking loudly -- how dare they not like Americans when they are in America, and if they don't like Americans, they can go back to where they came from... They looked like they were tourists from the Midwest. We are a party of five with four "minorities" and it became apparent to us that his complaints were directed at us not liking "American"...

I turned around said to him: we were talking about airlines. We do not like American, but we like Jetblue, Southwest, USAirways, United...

Yard

My little piece of the earth...

Here is me!