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Yet another birthday. I'm getting old.
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Great firework show in San Diego! Happy 4th of July!
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I get hungry a lot lately...
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Celebrity Golf Tournament
Lately I have been paying more attention to golf news and events due to the influence from my husband, and when I came across a charity event, Brees Dream Foundation Celebrity Golf Tournament, hosted by my favorite Sports star, Drew Brees, the NFL player of the year, I jumped at the opportunity to attend and observe. It was an all-weekend-event, and we managed to stop by the course Saturday afternoon and because of me wanting an autograph, we went back on Sunday super early as well.
Unfortunately, it did not go all that well because the event was quite unorganized, which was a surprise. The arrangement for visitors obtaining autographs was terrible that some celebrity quickly left after the game saying having a plane to catch, and as for Brees, we stood in line for over an hour prior to his finishing of the game, and guess what, someone who worked there said whoever got in line on time would get the autograph, and with much disappointment, Brees decided to leave the facility when I was 2 people away. I was very bummed, and wished things had turned out differently. (I just really had to get this out of my chest.)
Disappointments aside, I had fun that day watching them play the round of golf and walking along. Palmer, Brees, and (Ray) Romano were in the same team. I wondered if they grouped the three together on purpose?
Being so close in distance with celebrities was actually kind of cool. Recently I read Drew Brees' biography, Coming Back Stronger, and fell in love with such a good, inspiring comeback story. It's also great to see Ray Romano there because I'm quite a fan of the TV show, Everybody Loves Raymond, considering I catch the reruns every night!
It was sort of fascinating how a house right at one of the holes had a house party! What a great idea for celebrity sighting!
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Part 2 of 2 on My Culinary Adventure in Cajun/Creole food in New Orleans!
It's REALLY time to wrap up my birthday trip post.
Mother's
The food in New Orleans had been great. The gumbo, the jambalaya, the beignets, the alligators... were all delicious. Another iconic food item in New Orleans is the Po'Boy (which means Poor Boy) sandwiches. They are not the same kinds you would get at Subways or Quiznos. Many would stuff the rolls with deep-fried seafood, such as soft-shell crab, oysters, or shrimps, but I decided to try a meaty one at Mother's, a humble Po'Boy shop featured in an episode of Travel Channel's "Man vs. Food". Its location was fantastic because it's right across the street from W Hotel, where we stayed during the trip.
You could even find a framed photo of the host of the show at the restaurant.
We got the Ferdi Special, which was a sandwich with roast beef, ham, cold slaw, and the delicious debris. They made everything at the shop and all were yummy! (Ok, I am not sure if they make the bread as well.)
Palace Cafe
After a fun adventure at the swamp, we asked to get dropped off on Canal Street to hit up the weekend jazz brunch at Palace Cafe. The jazz band was in the middle of the stairway at the center of the restaurant in the beginning, but at the end of our meal, they got relocated to the bottom floor, while the upper level were closed off. We got a great view! New Orleans is also known for jazz, and the music was so relaxing.
We both got the Cafe Eggs Benedict: slow-roasted pork debris set on a buttermilk-cheese biscuit, topped with a poached egg and tasso hollandaise sauce. And we were impressed. It tasted soooo good that it was heavenly!
Then we ordered another signature dish, Crabmeat Cheesecake: Baked in a pecan crust with a wild mushroom sautee and Creole meuniere. I loved the lumps of fresh crab meats in this dish, and I have to say the sauce was delicious! It's a small slice but quite filling.
For desserts, we ordered Banana Foster Beignets. It's similar to the beignets from Cafe Du Monde (Please refer to Part 1.) but fancier with a banana and brown sugar twist! Hubby enjoyed it very very much.
Besh Steakhouse
Because of comps from Harrah's, we went to Besh Steakhouse for a quiet dinner meal. The restaurant was run by the New Orleans local celebrity chef John Besh, whom I saw on TV cooking a week or so prior to the trip, on a special report with rebuilding the city from Katrina. You could guess my anticipation to dine at his restaurant.
It was a very dimly-lit restaurant, with interesting jazz-themed paintings on the wall.
The server brought out some bread and chicken liver pate, which I certainly did not enjoy.
I was feeling seafood that day, so I chose a dish with blackened red fish and deep fried oysters. While the oysters were tasty, the fish was seriously over-salted and... burnt. I could barely finish the fish.
Hubby went for the safe route and ordered himself a juicy and flavorful ribeye steak.
ACME Oyster House
After the disappointing meal at the steakhouse, we walked back to the French Quarter to get some raw oysters for dessert. (Yes, you read that right.) And we were at ACME Oyster House, another place featured on Travel Channel's "Man vs. Food".
The was a line out the door for seating, and after about 20-30 minutes, we got seated at the bar, because I just wanted to see the oyster shell cracking action. They are such professionals and could crack-open the shells so fast!
Our fresh, yummy, fatting, gorgeous looking dozen of oysters from the Gulf.
I couldn't wait.
One thing I want to note here is that, there is another location of ACME at the airport, however, I wouldn't recommend you to skip the French Quarter to go there. The quality is just not the same, even though the people who worked there were very nice. The following are photos of what we ordered at the airport location prior to our flight home, all because I was already missing the wonderful oysters from the days before.
Half a dozen of chargrilled oysters, and half a dozen of raw ones.
Fried shrimp and soft-shell crabs po'boy.
Pat O'Brien
Because it was my birthday trip, I was feeling a cocktail! I stopped by a very "happening" bar at the French Quarter and tried the famous drink, The Hurricane. It was VERY VERY VERY strong, or should I say, the strongest cocktail I have ever had? Okay, I guess I had some stronger drink like a martini before but The Hurricane was fruity and strong with 4 shots of rum.
Birthday person gets a glass as souvenir.
I slowly sipped the drink while enjoying the dueling pianos in one of the rooms.
Buffet at Harrah's New Orleans
On the day we were flying home, I suggested checking out the lunch buffet at Harrah's, to get some all-you-can-eat Cajun and Creole food. The selection was satisfying and I wish we have something like this in Southern California. I particularly love the crawfish and shrimp etouffee, and the bread pudding (not in picture)!
We got more beignets at the airport... just couldn't get enough of these...
Thanks for staying with me for such a long post! It was a marvelous food adventure in New Orleans! I love Cajun and Creole food!
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Part 1 of 2 on My Culinary Adventure in Cajun/Creole food in New Orleans!
It's time to wrap up my trip in the Big Easy. Other than sightseeing, the greatest thing about traveling is their local food specialties! With the Cajun and Creole (Yes, they are different.) culture there, it would be a waste not to explore it at where they all began. I'm going to write about the food we tried sorted by restaurants below.
Deanie's Seafood (http://www.deanies.com/)
We are a fan of Travel Channel's Man vs. Food, so I looked up their reference on NOLA's restaurants while planning the trip. Deanie's was one of the featured destinations. With its great location around the corner of the French Quarter, we made Daenie's our first meal in NOLA.
The first thing I noticed was the different condiments from the American restaurants we are familiar with in the West Coast. And then I wondered, where was Tabasco? And Heinz? At the end of the trip, it appeared that almost all the restaurants there had the same condiments in the photo below.
Here comes the best boiled potatoes we have ever ate. Yes, they are seriously just red potatoes, and people eat them with butter. The greatness is in the seasoning. It must be a big pot of flavorful broth where they were cooked for a long time. We wanted more, but decided to make room for entrees.
As for salad, we got to select a dressing. Did they say Artichoke dressing? OK, I'll try it 'cause I'd never heard of it before. Ended up I probably wouldn't order it again due to the acidity.
We were going to share the entrees. One was Crawfish Quartet, Crawfish prepared four delicious ways - crawfish etouffee, crawfish au gratin, fried crawfish tails and crawfish dressing balls, because we just gotta have crawfish while we were in the South. We like how we were able to try all four ways of serving crawfish there. Guess what, I really really fell in love with the etouffee.
And here is the highlight of the meal:
Their famous so-called BBQ Shrimp, The New Orleans way, jumbo head-on shrimp sauteed in our unique blend of seasonings. We ordered just 1 serving, and there were about 10 huge, fresh, juicy, full of flavor shrimps which we couldn't stop talking about for days. It was heavenly as we sucked the juices of the shrimps one after one. The bread was also fantastic when dipped into the broth. Oh yum!
Muriel's Jackson Square (http://www.muriels.com/)
I grew up where turtles were a delicacy and how it was full of nutritional values, thus, when hearing there were New Orleans restaurants which specialized in turtle dishes, namely turtle soup, I just had to mark them down and made a trip. For lunch, we went to Muriel's at Jackson Square where the morning French Quarter tour ended.
The ambience was beautiful during the Saturday lunch hour. I read that they have a lunch special for a decent price, so we ordered from there.
For the choices of soup, one was the gumbo, which is a Southern specialty.
As for the other soup, without a doubt, I got the turtle soup. Turtles have their unique flavor and it reminded me of something I used to know.
For one of the entrees, I just had to get the alligator dish. It was meaty and full of muscles. Like frogs. If you never tried frogs, then imagine some very muscular chicken. This dish is very very yummy. (I wonder why I no longer see it on the menu on their website.)
The other entree is grilled pork chop, bacon (?) cornbread, beans and popcorn rice. One thing we agreed on was that we aren't quite fond of the texture of how popcorn rice was like... Throughout the meal, we kept wondering if the rice was undercooked. Us Asians are used to the soft white rice...
Cafe Du Monde (http://www.cafedumonde.com/)
What a popular place. The line at the French Quarter location would take 3 hours to get people seated, and 1 hour to get takeout. What are the people after?
The Beignets. And they go along very well with an iced latte.
They are... OH... SO... GOOD! Probably not the healthiest pastry item out there, but they even exceed Krispy Kreme Glazed Donut's tasty level, which I didn't think was possible.
Below was a picture I took into the kitchen where the beignets were cooked and floating in that pool of oil...
Where can I get beignets in Southern California?
(To be contined...)
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Wandering in the world of Mardi Gras
New Orleans is such a party city, which Mardi Gras around February every year attracts loads of tourists. It's probably too young for me. Because we might not go back for the giant festival, I suggested checking out Mardi Gras World, the warehouse they produce the festival's floats.
They offered free hotel shuttle pickup. We saved on cab fare.
The admission includes a short film on Mardi Gras, a guided walking tour around the facility, costume try-on, and a slice of king cake.
We got to see the floats in production.
And I spotted my Football celebrity crush. And there he is:
And one more from a whole bunch:
I like Unicorns, and here comes three.
They told us this was the most popular float to tourists:
Then we saw MJ:
I particularly like the really long train. This one must have taken forever to build.
It took us 3 hours to go through the whole place.
(To be continued...)
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My Swamp Adventure
It was around the same time I planned the New Orleans trip and we watched the TV show "Swamp People" quite often. Considering one of the popular outdoor activities around New Orleans is the swamp tour, we jumped on the idea. Because the American West is all about the deserts and the mountains, visiting the swamp appeared to be a fantastic idea! How often would we travel to the South anyway?
We got on one of these motored boats, as shown below, with a guide giving us interesting stories and facts during the approximately 2-hr-long tour.
The scenery was impeccable.
After a few minutes, our boat entered a narrow pathway. The thrill began.
We quickly noticed one of these:
I enjoyed how close they were.
We actually saw tens, maybe close to a hundred, of these interesting alligators. I took many photos, but will spare them here.
Souvenir photo:
(To be continued...)
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Visiting The Big Easy
A wish of us is to be able to go on a trip every year. The last few years were filled with long overseas trips, so, for 2010, we chose somewhere in the U.S., somewhere with a different culture and vibe from the familiar American West.
The destination was...
New Orleans, aka The Big Easy.
We joined a very good tour at the French Quarter, learning a lot about the city's uniqueness in history, culture, architecture and cuisine.
Street performers.
The famous Jackson Square.
And here is the French Quarter's Bourbon Street at night:
A lot of people were throwing out beads from the balcony, regardless of Mardi Gras or not.
The Mississippi River was so beautiful.
That was me, at the pier of the steamboat.
We chose to stay at W Hotel in the Central Business District. It was a few blocks away from all the nightlife and action.
Our room was standard, but with a very comfy bed.
Our view.
(To be continued...)
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My Birthday Month
October was my birthday month and it is always the best month of the year!
I was so glad that my friends all came out on a weeknight to celebrate with me.
The wok flame from the restaurant's kitchen was so funny during the Happy Birthday song.
I made my wish.
After a night of good company, laughters, and delicious food, the next morning, we flew to the Big Easy from LAX to celebrate my birthday weekend.
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Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, and My Mooncakes of the Year
Tomorrow (August 15th in the Lunar Calendar) marks this year's Mid-Autumn Festival, when Chinese families gather up to celebrate sort of like how Americans do for Thanksgiving holiday. Continuing what I do every year, I went out to buy mooncakes again. After the many years I had stayed loyal to my good old Hong Kong mooncake brands, this time around I decided to try something else. It was a debate between Taiwanese ones, Macau ones, or local Californian ones. It wasn't an easy decision. In the end, I picked the 6-flavors-mooncake-jewelry-boxset from Hsin Tung Yang, a Taiwanese company and however, these mooncakes are made in their factories in California.
It came with a beautifully made jewelry box, which was almost the decision factor. (As a side note, I just picked up jewelry making. It's a lot of fun!)
The six flavors are:
- Lotus with one yolk,
- White lotus with one yolk,
- Dates with walnuts,
- Red Bean with pine nuts,
- Pineapple, and
- Green Tea.My favorite is always the white lotus, which I got all the time in the past. This year is to be more adventurous. Can't wait to try the other ones. But not all of them because my in-laws will be sharing them with us.
And why one yolk and not two yolks? Hubby asked to go easy on the yolk. He only cares for the sweet part of the mooncake.
HAPPY MID-AUTUMN FESTIVAL!
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Summer Travel Highlights 2010
Labor Day is around the corner, and the holiday signifies the end of summer is approaching! Here is a post on the fun from my summer travel this year.
Below:
Me lying under palm trees by the lazy river @Mandalay Beach. Yes, those are my feet. Because I cannot swim, relaxing in a floatie in the lazy river is the greatest! That temp of that day was record high and unfortunately I received a tan.
Below:
Obviously I didn't have enough pool fun. Few days later, we booked a cabana @Palms. Loved, loved, loved the amenities and the whole experience. We were there from 9am to 6pm.
Below:
Fine dining surely makes a trip more memorable. We went to Alize, which is a Michelin-one-star French restaurant, located at Palms. Can't beat the beautiful view from the top of the tower.
*I'm still trying to figure out why the photos being blurry on the blog, as they are fine on the computer.What else is Labor Day all about?
Shopping!
And that's what I'll be doing this weekend.
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An afternoon at Norton Simon Museum
It had been ages since I visited the gem of Pasadena, CA--Norton Simon Museum, which is a relatively smaller art museum right next store of the Old Town than the famous Getty Museum and LACMA, but the collections are fantastic as well.
My friend asked me which piece was my favorite, and I then directed her to the one with monkeys in the jungle. (No, I don't remember the title nor the name of the artist.) We also strolled through the current exhibit called Hiroshige: Vision of Japan, which contained an extensive Japanese woodblock-print collection.
One thing I did not check out at NSM in the previous visit was the sculpture garden. This time was a nice day and we decided to take some photos around.
It was time for the museum to close for the day and we wished we could have stayed longer, or that we went earlier. Next time.
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