funventures and yumventures

Yay! Today I made $22 and got a free ticket to see a Cubs game!

That made me happy. Free things are always the best, even though I do understand that there are uncounted costs within the "free" umbrella that make things not totally costless.

So. Yesterday my mom sent me a bunch of Anthony Bourdain clips from Youtube and my mouth just watered (I WANT DIMSUM AND PEKING DUCK AND CHILI CRAB--yes, I was watching Asia-located shows).

Combine that with my friend and I looking at various Chicago restaurants and seeing (dreaming/imagining) which ones we would go to if money was not an issue. Oh Alinea, Charlie Trotter's, Spiaggia and contemporaries, how I want to visit you...

Here's where I went last week though:

Sunshine Cafe, somewhere in Andersonville for a glorious foodventure/yumventure/tongueventure/tumventure/nomventure (we discussed the various permutations of this expedition) with ALICE LI (shoutout!) and as always, Yelp did not disappoint. I went here once before with my mom and my cousin's cousin and so decided to go again because I was craving Japanese noodles. Yumyum. Japanese food is one of my comfort foods, having eaten it pretty regularly as a child.

Sunshine Cafe has really nice Japanese food. I say "really nice" as opposed to something like "so extremely amazing" or "I would die because this is so overwhelmingly good" because it was just that--nice. In other words, it was very simple, very comforting Japanese food served in a homey environment. A better description would be to say: if I were Japanese, this is the type of food that my grandmother would serve me (since she would be a good cook--of course).

So, here you go, and these are from my own camera (which is pretty bad--especially if you look at the picture of the potato croquette--my apologies, I am just a poor college student):

Interior of Sunshine Cafe: it was around 5:30 on a sunny, Saturday afternoon when we had dinner so there were not a lot of customers yet--while we were eating though, there were a LOT of people who started to arrive and so the place was pretty full at around 6-6:30ish.

Tea and the chopsticks cover with their name on it: their tea was pretty good green tea (pretty standard but it had matcha in it so that made it nice), and the waitress refilled it a lot while we were eating so my cup always had tea in it during the entirety of the meal.

Grilled Eggplant: who knew eggplant could taste so different when it was grilled? The thing with grilled eggplant is, a lot of the time it's cut too thick so the middle part is quite raw in a sense and so the whole eggplant experience is not that great. However, this eggplant was cut pretty thinly, so the flavor came out quite nicely. Paired with the shaved ginger and the sweet sauce on the side, the eggplant was pretty delicious. :)

Potato Croquette: We ordered this because a lot of the Yelpers were raving about it. The potato croquettes were very...fresh. You could taste that they just were just fried, and the panko crust was still crispy, which contrasted with the mashed potato inside that was combined with carrots and other good things. To be perfectly honest though, as good as this was, I thought that the attention accorded to this was largely overblown. Compared to the eggplant, the eggplant wins in my taste test.

Pork udon: I've always loved udon for its chewiness and the simplicity of its broth, and this bowl of udon was good on all those levels. Not much else to add about this udon, but that it gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling of comfort, which I think is always a good thing. It was simple food that was executed well (which in some respects encapsulates the entire Sunshine Cafe experience).

Oh, to add: my friend that I was with ate their Tonkatsudon. It was good tonkatsu, which is hard to find especially it is very dry and unseasoned in many restaurants that I've been to. She said that this udon was better than the udon that she had in the Japanese airport. Also, my other friend who's part-Japanese said that the broth was good after tasting the leftovers of this meal--after which I can conclude that since if it tasted authentic 2 days after, it must've been really authentic while I was eating it.

We walked around in Andersonville after, later going on to Argyle (Vietnamtown is there!), which was about 10 minutes away. Food, friends, sun=fun. :)

More movies

Both of these are a bit overdue, but here you go...Megan's movie's in three sentences spiel (first sentence summary, second sentence what I think of the movie, third sentence "Megan advice")

1.Fight Club

(1) One guy (let's call him Cornelius) realizes that he cannot fall asleep and so he starts going to support groups (where he pretends to be in need of support, and somehow becomes addicted to support groups because they allow him to sleep), after a while of being a support group tourist, he meets Marla Singer who is also a support group tourist like him (which is a bad thing, because he falls back into insomnia); in this newfound state of insomnia, his condominium burns down and he meets Tyler Durden, with whom he helps create an underground fight club that grows to scary proportions at the end (because of Tyler Durden); Cornelius tries to stop the escalating violence emerging from Fight Club but then realizes something that changes everything (not going to reveal this because I didn't know it when I watched it and thought it was pretty mind-blowing).

(2) This is such a guy movie (gore and violence)--even with that, I thought it was such a good movie (Brad Pitt's abs helped) that reminded me in a sense of Wanted (but not really) and American Psycho (focus on material goods--Ikea).

(3) If you befriend someone who has Brad Pitt's abs (or is Brad Pitt), be very careful.

2. The Shining

(1) Jack Torrance decides to become a caretaker for a hotel over the winter (despite the fate of the old caretaker and his family) and brings his family (including a son who has a weird relationship with his imaginary friend, has psychic powers of seeing ghosts and events of the past and the future) with him to the Stanley Hotel; everything is fine at first but Jack starts to display signs of aggression caused in part by cabin fever--this aggression escalates during a snowstorm where the family becomes trapped in a hotel and Jack becomes influenced by the ghosts of the hotel and goes on a mad rage to try and kill his family.

(2) Creepy movie but I was able to sleep that night because I dissociated myself from the movie by focusing on technical aspects like acting (also, there were parts that were SO RANDOM during suspenseful parts--and by random I mean shot of person in a rabbit costume kneeling down and doing something to someone else who was on a bed--I have NO IDEA what that was supposed to mean).

(3) Yeah...don't become a caretaker for a hotel during the winter (AND OBVIOUSLY DON'T IF IT'S A HAUNTED HOTEL).

*Note: interesting story about this movie though--I was talking to one of my friends and she said that her dad brought her mom to a hotel for an anniversary and they watched this movie there together. I would not want that to happen to me. I would have nightmares...not even kidding.

Greek food!

Last Saturday, after my surveying and successful transportation adventure, I went on another adventure...a food adventure (one of the best kinds of adventuring)!

In any case, I went to the land of the Greek food, which was 2 bus rides away (one of which was a REALLY GHETTO AREA). It also took an hour to get there but...

IT WAS SO WORTH IT. We went to Greek Islands Restaurant (also has really good Yelp reviews).

So this is what I had and what other people had (stolen from other people's facebook pictures):

Grilled Octopus: I tried eating my friend's dish and it was pretty delicious. The octopus was grilled pretty well--slightly charred on the outside but not dry at all. The sauce over the octopus was slightly citrusy (I'm guessing they added some lemon).


Combination Platter and Shish Kebabs (in the background):

Combination platter consisted of koftas (beef and lamb meatballs, which make them juicy and flavorful), dolmades (my favorite, these are grape leaves stuffed with rice/pine nuts/other things, which have a more refreshing flavor), buttered rice, moussaka (kind of like a lasagna with eggplant instead of pasta and a layer of bechamel sauce on the top instead of cheese) and some slices of lamb (which according to my friend were pretty dry).

-probably a good sampler if you don't have much of a background knowledge of Greek food, but I feel like the fact that the lamb was dry is just such a disappointment because I associate Greek food with cooking lamb really excellently.

Didn't try the shish kebabs because I didn't know the person who ordered them that well (so it would be awkward if I asked to eat some of his food--but never mind, I've had shish kebabs in the past so I don't really feel like I missed out on much).


Beef/Lamb Gyros: I thought it was interesting how they gave you the component parts of the gyros and told you to wrap it yourself (similar to Mexican-style wrap your own tacos/tortillas) but I feel that the waiter should perhaps give some information about how to go about eating the gyros. I was on the verge of telling the person who was eating this how to eat it properly (like a burrito instead of a pizza), but thankfully, I restrained myself. Yay!


Make your own combination: Spinach Pie+Gyros: I liked how this restaurant allowed you to mix and match stuff (perfect for indecisive people such as myself, but this was not my food FYI). This looked okay...the person who was eating it really liked it and actually took a bite of it before the picture was taken (that's how hungry he was/how appetizing this looked).


Roasted Leg of Lamb and Spinach Rice: I HAD THIS AND IT WAS PRETTY GOOD. A bit pricey and it's not amazingly, "I just died and went to heaven good" but it was cooked perfectly such that the lamb was flavorful and pretty much fell off the bone. The spinach rice was also good (and it helped that it was a vegetable, which made me feel less guilty about the lamb). I couldn't finish this though so I brought some back and shared the leftovers with my friends today. The lamb was still good. :)


Ambrosia: Since I wanted to detract from just eating baklava, I made the executive decision to order this. It's basically like a baklava with shredded phyllo dough as layers instead of whole phyllo dough, topped with ice cream and caramel sauce. It was good, but too sweet in my opinion (omission of caramel sauce would have helped I'm sure). I liked the texture of this better compared to the baklava actually, since the baklava's phyllo dough layers were pretty dense and therefore hard to cut (and eat and share).


Tiramisu: Tiramisu was pretty decent. I've had better, lighter tiramisu where the ladyfinger layers were drenched (and oozing) with the coffee liqueur (making an excellent contrast) with the dense lightness of the mascarpone cream...but this was good tiramisu. Especially taking into consideration that this was a Greek (and not Italian) restaurant.



Baklava: Baklava was goood. I liked the overall sweetness ratio of it better compared to the Ambrosia. Really hard to cut though, but otherwise very yummy.
So the other thing that happened while we were there was that we undertipped, because one of the members of our small party didn't want to chip in for appetizers and everyone else didn't want to pay extra. In any case, I think that calls for a return trip back to Greektown in the future.

Why am I awake at 8:46am on a Monday morning? I do not know.

Yes, even if my class is not until 11:30.
This is because I had to turn something in whose deadline was 9 in the morning. So, I woke up at 8:10 to turn it in and now I am awake in the library and will probably nap here or something. Yay naps. I don't think I even have the energy to feign enthusiasm/energy by adding an exclamation point to that. Okay, will sleep or will at least try to. If not, I shall blog about my Greek food adventure last Saturday. if you see me in the library, please wake me up at 10 or so.

I just spent about an hour looking at Google Maps, bus schedules, and just maps in general trying to figure out the best and safest way to get to Millennium Park from my dorm. Tomorrow will be Megan's go-alone-transportation day. Why Millennium Park? I'm going to go survey people there. Yes, I will be one of those random people walking around with survey forms and asking people questions for a research project about political psychology.

Quite honestly, I think this is going to be an interesting experiment on behalf of me to myself. I have never really taken public transportation by myself (okay fine, maybe once), and I have a HORRIBLE sense of direction. The other thing is that I'm pretty short and weak-looking, which makes people a bit worried/nervous for my safety (especially when combined with the fact that I have a really bad sense of location or where I should be going). Given these...handicaps (and the fact that my friends all have stuff to do tomorrow), these are the things that I shall do to ensure my safety and mitigate my paranoia about taking public transportation alone:

1. Carry pepper spray (Christmas gift from mom--yay)

Note on this: My friend told me that possession of pepper spray is not really allowed in Chicago--I don't want to believe this so I shall just bring it and hope that I will not ever have to use it--if in the case that I will have to use it, I shall just claim self-defense or something...

2. Try to bribe someone to go with me with food (i.e. churros, popcorn or whatever)

I mean--what could be better than going to a park on a sunny day for a few hours, then going to get a nice merienda of churros, popcorn or whatever for free?

But yes, this is UChicago (where people prefer to study than frolic in the park for fun on the weekends). Haha.

3. Have a REALLY DETAILED PLAN (most likely scenario)

I'm pretty OCD. I have a list of different alternate schedules with where exactly I should be and what time I should get there, which is pretty good and the best I can really do since my phone is not equipped with internet capabilities. Good news though is that I just found out that Millennium Park has wifi capabilities. YAY.

Grey Mornings and Libraries

So I woke up at around 9:15 today to go to a 10:00 psych experiment (I made $10..yay!) which ended at 10:30, giving me sufficient time to go to the library and read a bit, check my email (and of course, Facebook) and listen to music (currently Rachmaninoff's Concerto #3). Such a nice way to begin my day before my 11:30 Calculus class.

Harper Library has such a nice feel to it--the neo-gothic architecture is reminiscent of Harry Potter and just the olden days in general. I've always loved gothic architecture--I studied about the emergence of gothic cathedrals in my art history class last year and I just was so moved by gothic architecture, which to me was successful at giving a feeling of "soaring" through the high ceilings and tall windows which let light in. I also love the antiquated feel that it has, which makes it a very cozy place to do homework, read (especially magazines--sometimes they have Vogue) and take naps in the comfy chairs. Also, it matches the weather outside right now--grey, chilly and slightly gloomy. Hence, the Rachmaninoff. Opera would also be good in this weather I think (listening to opera in this library is such an experience by the way). I love my school.

So I was religious twice-over yesterday...kind-of. And neon-green crepes.

Yesterday was Sunday and it was also Easter.

This meant that I went to mass yesterday morning at 11 in the morning and it was really, really full and people were dressed up for it. I feel that Easter and Christmas are the two religious holidays where everyone just decides to show up to church because they feel that both are important and thus they should go to church. I mean I understand this idea but I also feel that there's a spectator-like aspect in this, in the way that one gets a more abbreviated appreciation of religion to take in all the good things and holidays but not the more everyday things. I don't have a problem with the whole not attending anything else part, (because I think that some people are drawn to religion on a more individual and personal level, and a different path to religion works better for them), but I find the idea that you can consider yourself religious because you attend the major things slightly hypocritical, analogous to taking all the icing and not eating the cake (then saying you have eaten the cake). It just doesn't work.

Contrasted to my experience of attending a Passover seder.

In my dorm, some people came together and decided to have an unorthodox Passover seder last night. My overriding motivation for attending was curiosity--I have never really been exposed to other religious beliefs (except non-belief I suppose) and so I treated the entire event as a cultural experience. The ceremonious aspect of it was really interesting (although was not a good representative of seders in general according to the people present)--there was so much symbolism in the words, actions and sequentiality of the entire dinner that it made me think about the prevalence and enduring nature of symbols as a key to cultural identity. I feel that some symbols probably started off historically as mere necessities and had a functional value but then as time grew on and their function disappeared, the symbol gains power through its repetition. In the end, the symbol comes to stand for something greater than itself and becomes layered with a multitude of meanings and attributes. Anyway, I thought that was interesting.

And also, neon-green crepes.

I have never had such an...odd eating experience as yesterday lunch, when I ordered a La Normandie crepe (spinach and bacon with Swiss Cheese topped with a light white sauce) at Mellow Yellow. When I cut my way through the crepe, green sauce oozed out of the wheat-based crepe onto my plate, and it was NOT the color of real spinach...at all (not even the color of frozen spinach). The color was more similar to a shade of fluorescent green that was slightly bewildering to behold in a supposedly naturally-occurring plant substance--spinach. Tastewise, it was not that bad but it was definitely not good. Why? It was slightly sweet. Thank goodness for the bacon that made the taste somehow bearable.

So what will I do now? I will write this off as attempted (and failed account) of experimental food and not go to this restaurant ever again (and fervently dissuade people from doing the same).

...and this is why I normally do try to explore the restaurants around my school--not to say I never go to any, but just that I go to the ones that have been vetted and are supposed to be good.

And yes, I am a food snob.

Beautiful Weather Day

Today was an unusual weather day, in terms of Chicago in April at least. It's as if the weather gods have decided to pull an April Fools' day on the citizens of Chicago and give them an excellent day of warm, summery weather (just to note, April in Chicago last year consisted of snow). The thing with beautiful weather is that people fling off their winter jackets, come out of hibernation, and wear colorful clothes to celebrate the day's sunshiny goodness.

Sun just makes everything better for the most part. It takes all the bad things in your day and somehow, all the small annoyances are rendered insignificant when considering the absolutely glorious weather the world has created just for you (well obviously not, but still).

So how did I take advantage of this day?

1. Sit outside and read in between classes while it was extremely sunny (in retrospect, this is probably bad for my skin, but it was short--about 15 minutes at most).

2. Wear an outfit that consisted of non-jeans, non-sleeves, and non-sneakers/non-boots. I know, this is really specific is it not?

3. Exclaim to a lot of people, "it's soo nice today!" (talking about nice weather always brings out a positive response from most individuals, as I've found.

4. Eat something cold (will do that later). I am excited.

5. Well, I was happy for the majority of it. :)