deep-fried twinkie and deep-fried oreo (death through grease and sugar--mmm)

I feel like I should say something about the experience about eating these things a few weekends ago.

First, a justification against claims such as:
-Ew!
-Why would you put something like that in your body?
-SO MUCH FAT
-That is a frightening piece of food...

...this is something that I will eat once and ONE TIME ONLY, just because I feel it's an experience that I need to have given my extreme food adventurousness. Also, given that I just had this once, the calories will distribute themselves out. Oh yes, most importantly, these things were free, because it was part of a school fair where all the food was free, so I am not actually endorsing this type of food behavior, and am instead just participating in it as a kind of spectator (albeit one with front-row seats).

Deep-fried Twinkie: I've never had a Twinkie, so no comparison there. Deep-fried Twinkie was better than I expected, because once you bite into its crisp, greasy crust, the Twinkie filling oozes out into your mouth as a sugary mess (one that is only achieved through the wonders of artificial flavoring and high-fructose corn syrup I'm guessing). Could not finish it though, just because the grease on my fingers (I was eating this with my hands) reminded me of the process that created this monster.

Deep-fried Oreo: Marginally better than the Twinkie (at least I thought so) because the bitter taste of the black oreo cookie was able to balance out the sugary-sweetness of the white filling. Still greasy and all, but not bad.

Side note...I looked up how many calories were in a deep-fried Twinkie, expecting like 1000+ calories or so, but it turned out to be around 450 (and I'm assuming the Oreo had less)...so overall, not bad! I was satisfied with the explorations of my palate to American fair favorites. Of course, I went to the gym to burn off those calories+fat the week following my deep-fried tastings.

Additional side note: I actually ate dinner the day I had these deep-fried concoctions in Chinatown. Suffice to say, the proportion of salads in my diet has increased slightly.

Because I don't want to start my paper...Volare!

So I have not updated this blog in a while...a long while. This is what a combined total of 5 weeks worth of midterms has done to me. Sigh.

Volare: Went here with friends because we wanted to watch Iron Man 2 on the weekend it came out (it was decently good as a sequel, but the first one better I thought--Robert Downey Jr. of course, was funny as always). I saw this restaurant on Yelp, and decided on this one because it got decent reviews. So, here goes.

First off, the bread. I did not like the bread, because it was not warm. Not only that but the bread was not even good bread (definition of good bread: soft, crusty and chewy--the bread in Volare was spongy, cold and hard), which may be acceptable when not warm. Anyway, to the food...

Zuppetta de Cozze al Vino Bianco o al Pomodoro (of course I--we--picked the vino over the pomodoro): I really liked this dish, because the mussels were soaked in the buttery, white wine sauce, which made the bad bread (see above) good. In addition, soaked in the sauce (of which there was a lot of) was a piece of crusty bread SOAKED in buttery, winey, mussel-y goodness. I feel like they cooked the bread with the mussels, and that bread was the best part of that dish.

Fritto di Calamari: Calamari to me is just what it is--fried squid. Nothing really special, since it's really difficult to mess up calamari--it just has to be hot and crisp. This calamari passed my test on both counts. Nothing spectacular, so I shall move on.

Salmonata (with fettucini): Probably the best pasta that we ordered, in my opinion. The salmon was good and savory, which went well with the creamy sauce such that the pasta was not sickening (which is what happens with a lot of cream sauces most of the time).

Vodka (with hand-made gnocchi): probably my least favorite among the pastas that we ate, which was partly my fault since I picked gnocchi as the pasta in the heat of the moment (and since I didn't think the sauce was really going to be that heavy...). In any case, the creaminess of the pasta and the heaviness of the gnocchi was a bad combination. Also, there was no "vodka flavor" to the pasta, which was disappointing--I mean, obviously the alcohol evaporates but there should still be some type of flavor imparted into the sauce right?

Arrabbiata (with angel hair noodles): In my opinion, the sauce was too acidic, and did not have the depth of flavor that I would generally attribute to an arrabbiata which is gained through the noticable appearance of pancetta and garlic in the sauce. For this sauce, I was so focused on the acidity of the tomatoes that I could not discern any pancetta at all, or any garlic taste. It really makes me want to cook a decent arrabbiata just to have the satisfaction of eating one that was done correctly.

Overall, we were full (no room for dessert) and enjoyed ourselves (good company). I must say that I was rather underwhelmed and disappointed to some degree about the food, which was not that cheap either. Maybe I'm just too harsh on Italian food--the large quantity of Italian restaurants in the Philippines makes me a very discerning eater.

cookie making and ingredient hijacking

It was my friend's birthday yesterday, and since I wanted to do something nice for her, I decided to bake her some of my cookies and give some Nutella to go along with it. :)

Here are the cookies:

And this is the story that goes along with them:

Basically, I don't like spending extra money if I don't have to. Since ingredients cost money, I decided to...take ingredients for free from as many sources possible. In other words...

- I took baking powder, baking soda, vanilla extract and espresso powder from my aunt when I visited her a few weeks ago

-I took butter, 1 cup of brown sugar and an egg from the dining hall at 9:30 in the morning (as well as spoons+bowls, which I returned after)

-I used some random person's bowl that was in the kitchen

-I went to someone else's dorm kitchen to bake everything (since mine is TOO SMALL and kind of disgusting)

-I saw some foil in that other kitchen and used it

-I used a baking tray that was in my dorm's kitchen

...total cost of ingredients (flour)+Nutella: $5.30, split between 3 people--$1.70 total cost. WONDERFUL. I am so Asian. ^_^ (HAHAHA to Asian smiley face)

Cubs game

The thing with me is that I am not really a sports person. I mean, I will watch football, basketball, soccer, etc... (just not golf and curling), but I don't really "follow" sports teams and all, aside from things related to national pride (i.e. Manny Pacquiao and boxing).

In any case, my school was giving out free tickets to see a Cubs game to 150 people. Yes, FREE. Of course I tried to get tickets, and succeeded (after 45 minutes in line, I was #126 I think).

But yes, baseball. I like watching baseball live because it's a slow-paced enough game that it's perfectly acceptable to walk around during middle of it and disappear for innings at a time to go look at the concession stands (which is, by the way what I ended up doing when I was watching the Mariners game in Seattle--I now have a pretty good general idea of what is being sold and where it is located in Safeco field). Another thing with Mariners games is that most of the time, the Mariners were not really winning anyway (sorry Seattle people, but it is true), so there was no pressure to sit and watch for a home run or something exciting to happen.

Compared to watching a Mariner's game, watching the Cubs game was a different experience. Aside from the fact that the stadium was a lot older (and also did not have a huge screen to watch close-up views of the players), there was a "fan spirit" that permeated the air of the stadium that made up for the lack-of-TV. Everyone seemed to be pretty into the game, such that my impression was that there were a lot more fans than spectators. Also, Cubs won 10-5 against the Diamondbacks with 4 home runs. Not that I was paying close attention at every point in the game though (although I really did watch most of it). Hahaha. I'm glad I went with my friend who actually likes (and watches) baseball because I would just get my commentary/recap on a second-hand basis (and also after the fact).

Here are pictures of Wrigley field:

And of course, the food (sadly, we missed one home run while we were getting this but it's okay):

Note on the selection of food--I missed Seattle food while I was here because Seattle has Japanese food (go Ichiro!), other Asian food (go Asians on the West Coast!) and REALLY GOOD GARLIC FRIES (fries topped with raw garlic, salt and parsley)-->vampires would hate these fries (sorry Edward Cullen).

Chicago dog: Obviously, overpriced at $5.25. It was a regular hotdog with onions (yum). And I just put A LOT of mustard on it...of course, no ketchup for me because I am in Chicago.

Kettle Corn: Also overpriced at $6, even though it was A LOT of kettle corn (see below for approximation--maybe 1 and a half of those bags).

I was very disappointed that their water WAS SO EXPENSIVE at around $4 a bottle (I refuse to pay this much for water even though I love it so much). Given that, I did not drink water for the entire time I was there and was quite dehydrated when I got back.

Nuevo Leon, or a very philanthropic foodventure

Pilsen is, and will always will be (to some extent) linked to good memories. To enumerate:

Orientation week before school started, dinner with Hispanic friends, winter foodventure...and now a spring foodventure that was also philanthropic.

So let me explain the philanthropy. I have a friend who is really skinny, whose goal is to reach the same body proportions as Keira Knightley. Also, this friend is a guy, and he probably weighs less than me--partly because he forgets to eat and does not eat that much anyway. For me and Alice, this is unacceptable behavior, because food is an essential part of the day--the thought of "forgetting" about a meal is a bit shocking. In any case, we invited this friend to our foodventure.

So here's what we ended up eating...

Churros at Don Churro: SO GOOD. They were only a dollar, and they had different flavors of fillings--chocolate, caramel, strawberry, bavarian... I got bavarian, Alice got chocolate and Kevin got caramel, and we all liked our churros. Yum.

Free Appetizers: chips, salsa, soup

Chips-freshly fried and not from the bag

Salsa-tasted fresh, as always

Soup-always good and it has actual stuff in it (meat)

Lengua a la Mexicana: Lengua has always one of my comforting, childhood foods to be sure. I have so many fond memories of eating lengua from a very young age where I went to this restaurant in the Philippines that served lengua with mushroom sauce, and buttered vegetables+rice on the side. YUM. In any case, back to this lengua. It was cooked perfectly, to the point that it was tender--its tomato-based salsa sauce with a lot of onions went well with the lengua, making it a very hearty but not too filling dish. The lengua was served with flour and corn tortillas that were made by hand, so they were a LOT better than the dining hall ones that I tried today--in other words, did not taste like styrofoam.

Carne Asada Tacos: Well, I've actually never tried these myself, so I shall let Alice's picture speak for itself. That and the fact that this picture is from another time that we went to Nuevo Leon, where Alice also ordered the same thing.

Huevos Rancheros: Kevin got these, and he actually finished the whole thing (which is an accomplishment), so I'm assuming they were good. Unfortunately, I have no pictures to document how his food looked like before or after he ate it, so you will never know how it looked like or whether he actually finished his food. Maybe next time.

Horchata: Nueva Leon has the best horchata I've had. Normally, the horchata I've had in the past has been powdery or too sweet, but the horchata here is perfect and smooth. Also very good cleansing out your palate when you eat spicy food.