Cafe Norris

May 27, 2013

Sung-Min, Nayoung, & Rocky

Hanging out with Nayoung and Sung-Min in Jersey, it made me realize my life was missing two things that would make it exponentially better: Koreans and a pet dog.

Edgewater, where they live, is close to Fort Lee and Palisades Park, home to the highest percentage of ethnic Koreans in any U.S. municipality (51.5%). Per my request, Sung-Min and Nayoung took me to get Korean food for dinner, where I ordered my beloved soo jae bi, hand-torn pieces of chewy dough, vegetables, and clams in a flavorful, light broth.

I got to meet Rocky, Sung-Min’s neighbor’s dog. Sung-Min walks Rocky for his neighbor because she has trouble keeping up with him. When I first met Rocky, he couldn’t stop licking my buttermilk fried chicken-covered hands. See, even the dog agrees the chicken was phenomenal! He’s really energetic and likes to lick a lot.

My favorite place that we visited was Mitsuwa Marketplace (the largest Japanese supermarket in the U.S., according to its website). The place straight up reminded me of the large urban supermarkets I saw in Asia (Singapore in particular). The place even sold taiyaki, red bean-filled fish-shaped cakes!

If you ask me, the combination of Edgewater, Fort Lee, and Palisades Park is an attraction in and of itself.

More of Nayoung’s handiwork

May 26, 2013

Q

I need reservations for Cafe Norris! (:

lwu

A

You know you got the hookup. Right this way!

May 26, 2013

Additional photos from Union Square Greenmarket and Smorgasburg in New York. Taken April 27, 2013.

Click on photos to expand and read captions.

May 26, 2013

Noshing with Nayoung in New York

The last two times I was in New York, I spent a considerable amount of time in line for discount musical tickets, a once worthwhile pursuit that my now limited vacation schedule cannot afford. With only two days to spend in New York in late April, there was only one thing I wanted to do—hang out with Nayoung (one of my college roommates) and see what life is like for her working in Manhattan and living in Jersey.

May 16, 2013

We buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like

@Iantunes113

April 22, 2013

Death Valley

Photo credit: Jireh T.

I feel going on a trip with a different set of friends exercises a complete different set of muscles. They expose you to new things, test you in new ways. My friends Te-Yuan and Kevin are self-proclaimed REI junkies and have invited me to join them on various hikes and trips over the last two years. Not feeling up to their level, I’ve always declined, but two months ago, I was asking around for Easter weekend trip ideas, and Te-Yuan told me she had secured a campsite in Death Valley for that weekend. We would be car camping (I had no idea what that meant at the time), and the hikes wouldn’t be too rigorous. I signed up, bought my first pair of hiking shoes, got an REI membership, and didn’t look back!

March 20, 2013

On Cooking

Cooking can save your life, said someone, somewhere, once. Actually, it was Mark Hyman in the Huffington Post recently. While I don’t think there is anything superbly remarkable about the information presented in Hyman’s article, that particular string of words of his has seared into my mind like nothing else I have ever read on food and cooking, and believe me, I’ve exposed myself to a lot of material on those two topics. Cooking can save your life has been my mantra as of late, and the impact that cooking has had on my behavior and happiness in the past month has been profound.

March 16, 2013

24

As low key as I’ve tried to make my past two birthdays, I’m genuinely excited to be 24.

March 10, 2013

LA Road Trip

Kelsey, Jessie, and Effie

A road trip down to Los Angeles has been on my to-do list ever since my friend Effie moved to LA, and my best friend Wilson relocated to Santa Monica for a new job. I’ve never quite understood the allure of LA, to be honest, but having friends who live there now means I have guides who can show me what the area has to offer. I had a really good President’s Day weekend driving down and up with friends, exploring more LA neighborhoods than I knew existed, and getting my grub on.

February 27, 2013

An Intimate Tour of Max’s
Click on photos to expand and read captions.

Through an invitation forwarded at work, I RSVP’d for a Winter Chefs Exchange event hosted at Max’s headquarters in South San Francisco.

As one of the few non-chefs, it was pretty fun tagging along for the behind-the-scenes tour of Max’s (complete with hairnet!) and sampling its line of meats and baked goods. My inner nerd liked learning about the special equipment and methods that Max’s uses to cook, bake, and distribute its food—it’s unlike anything I’ve ever known or seen.

The next time I fly Southwest out of SFO, I’m going to try Max’s matzo ball soup and pastrami sandwich!

February 26, 2013

Thanks to BuzzFeed spreading the gospel of the 10 Commandments of Awesome Hot Chocolate, I have seen the light and am now a believer. If you are still making your hot chocolate from powder mix, repent!

February 26, 2013

Lovely Lake Tahoe

My weekend in Tahoe is the first in a series of trips that I will be taking in the first half of 2013. In February, I went to Los Angeles for President’s Day weekend (post to come soon). In March, I will be joining friends on a camping trip in Death Valley for the wildflower season. In April, I am flying to the East Coast to visit friends in New York City and Philadelphia. Lastly, in June, I will be attending my brother’s graduation in San Diego before going on my annual pilgrimage to the Pacific Northwest (Vancouver-Seattle-Portland).

(I’m wondering if anyone has any good ideas of where I can go for Memorial Day weekend in May?)