Seeking Food - By Ketojinic

      I really can't complain because I got a $75 lunch gift certificate from the blogger prom to come here! After reading through everyone's review, we decided to get one dish from the secret kitchen, and a few lighter options.       We ended up getting the colossal royal tiger prawns that came with the garlic noodles ($39.95), the traditional vietnamese salad (13.95), and the crispy rice paper roll ($9.00). We also got green tea ($7.00) and two desserts - the coconut cake with creme anglais, and the pineapple brioche with vanilla bean ice cream (both $9).       the garlic noodles were definitely tasty. panida r. mentioned it contained parmesan cheese. i could def taste it now. i was wondering what the smell was. the garlic and butter was heavy handed but definitely crack like for the first 3 bites. after that, it's a little too heavy to continue consuming without feeling your arteries clogging. the prawns were aii...

Oh Em Gee. I cannot believe the success of this event. I mean, I know how much people love Korean barbeque but this was ridiculously successful - so successful it was almost annoying. If you wanted to eat something, the lines were at least a 20 minute wait. Some lines moved faster than others because the restaurant owners were more efficient and set up some sort of cracked out assembly line. Other restaurants took too long to cook and then even longer to distribute. A lot of people were walking around with corn because they were cheap ($3) and fast. Next year, I hope they have a lot more sides featured. Korean bbq is awesome but Korean banchan is also a staple as well as a crowd pleaser. Apparently, there were 10,000 people who passed through the doors that day. That's so incredible. It's amazing to see how people come together for food. To organize this massive crowd to come to a charity event would be much more difficult, I'm sure. At $10-$15 a plate, the bbq plates were ...

On August 1st, I drove to the California Science Center for the 7th Annual Project by Project Tasting Benefit. Every year I've wanted to go but couldn't make it for one reason or another. I finally got to go this year and I'm so glad I did! Plate by Plate is not just for foodies. I mean, obviously foodies will be more willing to pay up for tickets to a tasting event but it's really all about helping out the Asian Pacific Islander Small Business Program which in turn helps out micro businesses in Los Angeles, especially those of low income immigrants of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, and Filipino communities. So yes, not only do you have to have the stomach for this event but also the heart (cheesy, I know but it's true). I ended up bumping into so many people that I knew from the past, people who I fell out of touch with, and people who probably would not have recognized me even if I had introduced myself to them. It's amazing how food can bring people toge...

In the spirit of trying to cut down on meat, I decided that chicken broth is a good substitute for actual chicken in my dish. You get the flavor without the meat. Yes, one can argue how that it's better because you still kill a chicken for the broth, blha blah blah but dood, I'm making baby steps here. I already cut down my meat intake to like once a day vs. three times a day and this carnivore is feening. Anyway, the other day, I got this in the mail: I made some veggie paella at work the other day so I remembered some of the ingredients. Since I had to make some food for the fam, I decided to go cheapo and went to TJ's to get some ingredients to recreate veggie paella - but with an Asian twist. Instead of Arborio rice, I opted for the basmati rice at TJ's that has some wild rice in it as well as some seasoning. I thought the seasonings would give it more of an Asian kick to it, which is important if you live in a house with parents who will not eat things that are not...

Prom sucks. Luckily, I moved down to South America to finish high school in tenth grade and never had to deal with the horror of prom (I was in the clear with the quinceanera's as well)- trying to find a date that doesn't suck, a dress that doesn't suck that is affordable, the pressure of being cool when I should really just be studying for my SAT's. Plus, all those dumb high school movies that treat prom like it's some huge transformative event in teens' lives only add fuel to melodramatic teen angst. So, when I got an invite to attend the Blogger Prom I wasn't jumping up and down shrieking like I won a million dollars. Instead, my brain just went down the checklist to see if there might be any reason for me to not want to go to this thing. Date - can ask the bf. Dress - oooh, it's an 80's theme which means I can wear whatever is in my closet and just punch it up a little. Transportation - carpooling and valet is less than $10. Location - ROOFTOP o...