Nubi Yogurt

Nubi is one of the first self-service frozen yogurt store in CA.
The concept is fresh and fun. People go in the store and grab a cup which only has one size....
They add whatever favors they want themselves. There are about 16 favors in the San Gabriel branch, from the classic ORIGINAL and BERRIES (e.g. blueberry and strawberry), to tropical favors that everyone loves (e.g. mango tart)... to adventurous favors (e.g. taro, peanut butter, caffe latte, french vanilla)...

My current favorite: caffee latte, taro, french vanilla (i like peanut butter too.. but i know you would think "oh no, it's so gross" but it really tastes nice)

The favors I highly disgust: Green Apple, pistachio

No picture for this post.. for sure I will take more next time since I will visit there pretty often this summer.

San Gabriel Focus Plaza
140 W. Valley Blvd, Suite 118G
San Gabriel, CA 91776
http://www.nubiyogurt.com/

Chinese Steam Sponge Cake

Chinese sponge cake: brown sugar, flour, rising flour, water.

My mother used to make it during Chinese New Year. Its texture doesn't seem like western sponge cake but more chewy and gluey.

Ocean Plus Seafood Market

My boss' wife brought me to the seafood market that sell the freshest seafood in the town. The staff can even slice/cut the sashimi for me if I request so. I bought 1 lb of sashimi salmon and the bill was $11 sth. More expensive than ranch 99 or other asian market but the quality is definitely better.

Comfort Food- Coggee (with Preserved Duck Egg and Ground Turkey)

I hadn't eaten congee for a while, so I used the left-over rice to make 3 meals of congee. I cooked it with preserved duck eggs and ground turkey. Overall, it's healthy and comfyyy*

Dinner- 20080515

Tonight Dinner:

-French Style Green Beans (from Trader Joe's)
-Garlic Grilled Sea Bass (rubbed with Salt only)
-Rice** 2 spoonfuls
I love Sea bass but it's one of the most expensive fish I could find in market. Lucky me, lately I found the frozen seabass from San Gabriel Market selling only about $4 for 2 (1 serving each) pieces of sea bass. Yohoooo... I'm crazy fish lover!! No matter it's Salmon or Seabass or just cheap cod fillet.

Pinkberry (in the Grove)

We always go to Pinkberry once a while. It's also the first stop we spent our first date ever. I remember on that day, he always had in mind to bring me to Pinkberry since I never have it and he loved the frozen yogurt there.

I had a small swirl of greentea matcha and orginal, along with a Starbucks' Pike Place Roast
(just my left-over from the crepe brunch).


Nothing to say... you gotta try it when you come to LA

The French Crepe Company

Last sunday JJ and I went to The Grove to have brunch. I told him that I wanted to try "The French Crepe Company". It is very famous in Southern California. I found a lot of reviews and discussion regarding to this creperie.
I ordered "La Normandie" and Jean-Jacques ordered "La Savoyarde". Overall, the food isn't too impressed. It isn't comparable to "Creme De La Crepe" for sure. I guess the high rating is because people don't know French food or ... ... simply, GOOD FOOD.

La Savoyarde raclette and emmenthaler cheese, dry cured ham, cornichons

La Normandie free range chicken, button mushrooms, carrots & green beans in a white dijon sauce.


The French Crepe Company
(inside the Grove's Farmer Market)
6333 W 3rd St,
Los Angeles 90036
At S Fairfax Ave

Breyers' Yo Crunch Yogurt

Advice for all yogurt lovers: Don't buy the brand which ain't specialize on yogurt or healthy products!

Before, I bought the Blue Bunny's strawberry yogurt, the texture was one of the worst I ever have in my life. This Breyers' too has the weird favor inside the yogurt that I cannot really describe. I was just curious about how the cereal/crunchy chocolicky topping would go with the yogurt. It turned out for me just another gimmick that only would fool me, a true yogurt lover once.

Italian Dinner with Jean-Jacques

He is the only guy I think would worth me spending my whole Saturday to prepare to cook dinner for. My first Italian themed dinner includes all classic Italian cuisine must-have ingredients, such eggplant, cheese, tomato paste, salad with Italian dressing.

It's a meal with a starter and a entree, plus a green salad.

Starter:
Baked Eggplant with turkey parmesan meatball, topped by Italian blended cheese
Entree:
Whole wheat pizza dough bought from Trader Joe's (only $1.69 a bag; good enough for a 12 inch pizza, depended on how thin/thick you want your pizza be); toppings include Italian blended cheese, tomato paste, sweet kettle corns, green bell pepper, prawns, porchetta (Italian traditional cube-cut bacon) and a lot of herbs and seasonings
Salad:
Iceberg salad green, kettle sweet corns and cherry sweet tomato, with Italian fat-free dressing

A great western meal, no matter how good the food it tastes, of course cannot be completed without wine. I bought a French imported Bordeaux at Trader Joe's. JJ was so excited when he saw the bottle because he used to mostly have Bordeaux at France, instead of whatever Merlot and etc.

** another wonderful evening we had together.

I Fu Tang Bakery- Tiramisu

It sucked!!! The worst Tiramisu I ever have.

My only advice for all dessert lovers: No Tiramisu should be bought from Chinese Bakery.
Only European bakers knows what is rum or marscarpone.

I was about to get a piece of chocolate cake but then the salesperson said the Tiramisu was better, so I went for her advice.


But then, it's obvious that she had never tried the pastries in her bakery. Big disappointment, Won't go back for cake!

I Fu Tang Bakery

1611 S San Gabriel Blvd
San Gabriel, CA 91776

(626) 288-800

Starbucks- Pike Place Roast & Zucchini Muffin

Lately my hometown's proudest company, Starbucks is promoting the new brew called "Pike Place". If you're a fan of Starbucks, you should know that "Pike Place Market" is the place that Starbucks started off at Seattle. Anyway, it's just an anatomy of how the company tries to bring back the originality of coffee, instead of creating all these fancy/crazy new favors (e.g. Pumpkin Spice Latte, Eggnog Latte, Peppermint Mocha.... all these cost you $3 ~ $4 for a tall size).

Since I moved to LA, I haven't bought Starbucks much becayse there is no Starbucks close to my house or work. Anyway, last Saturday after I bought my ingredient at Lucky to prepare my Italian dinner at night, I stopped by Starbucks to grab a brew that I had been missing so long.


No surprise, I got the Pike Place Roast and also a sweet treat, Mini Zucchini Walnut Muffin. I always want to try Zucchini Bread or Zucchini Muffin but I hardly found anywhere selling this. I imagined it would be tasted like carrot cake or something, and I'm actually right about it. The mini muffin is good. At least the portion/size is good for me, a weight watcher. The calories is not that low in fact. The little pastry adds 390 kcal, 24g of fat, 42g of carb, only 2g of fiber and only 6g of protein to your daily intake. The size is mini, but the nutrition value is so much stingier than the size of the muffin. This kind of empty nutrition trash should only be considered once a long long long while. Actually I just should go ahead to make my own recipe for the healthy version's zucchini muffin.

In-N-Out Burger

Allen's birthday is coming up so we went to Pasadena to look for gift. We ended up getting the tee from Diesel.

After that, it had already been almost 9pm. We were thinking to dine at a upper-end restaurant on Colorado. However, it was Thursday night, I didn't want to eat fancy dinner on weekday late night. I suggested to have my first try at the most well-known burger chainstore, In-N-Out.

I ordered one hamburger with no spread; he ordered a combo one with no cheese (hamburger with double patties, fries and diet coke, of course he ordered diet soda for me). On top of these, he also bought me the signature strawberry shake to try.

We took the food back to my home to enjoy but the food was not as good. >_< I like its burger's buns because they were toasted. I also like the customized option for calories/fat watcher. I chose not to add any spread but then I went home and put on my own honey dijon mustard. JJ loves my secret saucy too. haha.. besides burgers, the fries was not bad too. I wasn't used to the texture. It's nothing like those we ate at MacDonald or Burger King or Jack in the Box. It's less greasy and more "potato". I heard the fries were stripped from a real potato without any artificial processing. What next, milkshake, that drink was fine... not that impressive... I believe I can make something 10X better with my own blender. Anyway, not a bad idea for cheap eat. Only take about nine bucks to feed two people^^

In-N-Out Burger
4242 N. Rosemead Blvd,
Rosemead, CA