Home is where your stomach is haha!

I rarely have Filipino food. I am 100% Filipino but I’m honestly really Americanized. I know, just by reading that first line a lot of you are gonna be like “BOOOO!” and I feel ya, it sucks, but hey, it’s the truth. Basically going back to the Philippines every 2 years since I was born, was the only time I was truly eating Filipino food. But back here in the states, I continued to eat what everyone else considered “normal food.” Burgers, fries, hotdogs, burritos, pasta… I loved thai food, sushi, and my grandma’s cooking although (but it was always nothing too wild as to please my grandfather’s American palette). The only Filipino dishes I grew up with were stuff from Goldilocks, Jollibee, and dishes from the simple Filipino recopies book. Such as Lumpia, pancit (polabok), menudo, adobo and your basic desserts – toron, leche flan, halo halo… I don’t dare touch the hard core Filipino dishes –Dinaguoan, sinigang, lechon… I might be missing out, but I can’t handle that stuff after eating American food practically all my life.

My home may taste generic by quick take outs and easy cookings, but what I can provide you guys with are insight on how my home tastes like on the holidays, birthdays, or special occasions. This is definitely different than my average fast food life! Let’s start off with Thanksgiving! Traditionals include spicy stuffed turkey, sweet cranberry sauce, seasoned mashed potatoes and gravy, sour lemon bars and pumpkin pie. Twists to our meal include Mediterranean lamb racks and cheesy quiche, compliments to my Turkish uncle. My dad puts in grilled salmon and mango salad, while my mom provides a tart cake for my sister’s birthday.

Christmas is a mix of tastes also. Mexican rice, grilled vegetables, roast beef, Pad Thai noodles, more grilled salmon and mango salad, Southern sweet potatoes and ham soup, creamy mushroom chicken, Turkish delights, Oreo cheesecake, and of course decorated sugar cookies. I guess Filipino food gets catered to birthdays/special occasions. That and Chinese food, or Hawaiian bbq because those are easiest to be delivered in bulk haha! Filipino desserts empower these birthday parties too because they’re so convenient and it’s not like anyone can resist a good Filipino dessert.
Although regular meals don’t bring my family together – holiday feasts definitely do and that’s when all sorts of dishes from different places and culture cooperate and come together.

Restaurant Review

This past Sunday my family and I went out to eat at Little Paris Coffee Shop for lunch in Chinatown. The shop is located at 939 Stockton Street, a convenient location for many tourists and hungry people to go eat. Besides Tung Kee Noodle House in Daly City, Little Paris Coffee Shop is another one of my family’s favorite places to eat Vietnamese cuisine.

We arrived at about noon, and the place was packed with people and the aroma of a variety of different foods filled the air. A waitress came up to us and seated us at a table for four people. Everyone ordered phở because all of us decided in unison to eat something that we have not eaten in a long time. My mom does not usually make phở nor does she not frequently make much Vietnamese cuisine for the entire family to eat at home, so eating food that we do not often get to eat in a restaurant is a special treat.

Once the four bowls of steaming phở came to our table, I could not wait to grab my chopsticks and savor the awesome mixture of broth along with the rice noodles, meatballs, and green onions. The rice noodles just tasted so delicious when I slurped them and the meatballs were tender and juicy. I could also tell that my parents and my brother were also enjoying their meals and having a great time. We all ordered three colored bean drinks, a Vietnamese drink specialty, to accompany our meal. By the time everyone was done with their phở and three colored bean drinks, our bellies are so bloated that we could not eat another bite. My dad left a tip for the waitress and we left the shop to go shop in Chinatown.

Overall the restaurant experience was very pleasurable, but some things could be improved in terms of customer service and satisfaction. One big flaw was that after we ordered our phở, we had to wait for a long time of 30 minutes to get our food. This problem is not new. I have eaten at many restaurants where my family and I would practically be left sitting in frustration and distress to wonder about when we were ever going to eat. If the restaurant ever fixed this problem, I know that they would have more customers and make customers feel happy about their restaurant experience that they would want to come back and eat. A minor mistake that I encountered was that the three colored bean drink had too many beans in the drink instead of liquid. In that case, we did not really get a “drink” but instead got a bunch of red and yellow beans mixed with crushed ice and green strips of jello.

However, the restaurant did a good job of making good phở for us to eat. There was a right amount of broth in proportion to the meatballs and rice noodles in the soup. The meatballs were thoroughly cooked and chewy. Eating the phở that they served made me full and happy. The price of $5.95 for a bowl of phở was also reasonable and affordable.

I give this restaurant a rating of 4 out of 5 stars.

APAture 2008 Lap-POP!

So i went to the Lap-POP! event with a couple of my group members and thought it was really cool and a funny show. Well i took a bunch of pictures of the different artists and made a little collage:



Also, my favorite part of the show was when comedian Hasan Minhaj did some stand up comedy. He was just hilarious, and if you like his stuff, go to http://www.hasanminhaj.com/ for more. well i took a little video of his piece, but i'm having some techinical difficulties getting it up ... so i'll try to get it up ASAP.

I'm glad to see that there are so many Asian Pacific American Artists out there and that people are actually loving their work. I had a lot of fun at this event and definitely think I'm going to try to see LapPOP! next year. :D

Reaction to Food Battle and our Viet Philly Recipe

So, for one of our first assignments/ group projects, we were supposed to come up with an "Asian American" dish based on our Ethnic group that we were assigned previously. Then we were to battle Iron Chef style with the other groups. Our group decided on doing a fusion of a Vietnamese Sandwich (Bahn Mi) and the All-American Philly Cheese steak. We kept the bread and toppings from the Viet Sandwich and used the meat and cheese from the Philly Cheese steak to make out "Viet Philly". We were originally going to do a fusion Vietnamese Spring Roll, by using steak instead of shrimp and changing up the dipping sauce, but in the end we chose to make the sandwich instead.

I thought this assignment was really awesome and creative. I absolutely love the Food Network, especially Iron Chef, and was over the moon when this was assigned. Also, I love to cook and bake so this was totally up my alley of choice projects. I wish more of my classes assigned things like this because it makes the class more fun and you get hands on learning about culture via food. Even when i told my friends about what my homework was, they all said "Wow that is hecka tight. I want to do that!" Teachers and professors need to take into account that book work and lecture is not the only way to teach, and try to make things more interesting for their students.

It was fun to actually get in the spirit of the show and have to plate our dish, serve it to judges, and await the battle winners. We went up against the Chinese Philipino Group's (CPGs) "Continental Breakfast". Too bad we lost, but I do agree that their dish was really good and they went above and beyond and made a complete meal on a plate. I also liked watching the other groups battle and see what Asian-American dishes they came up with. And it was especially delicious to get to try the other teams dishes, like AZN +1's Korean bulgogi burger and United's Filipino banana split. Just thinking about all the dishes again is making my mouth water and want to make some yummy food all over again.

All in all, i just want to say thanks for the super fun and yummy assignment and props to whoever came up with the idea of an Asian American Battle of the Chefs.

Ingredients:
- French baguette (sliced in half & toasted)
- Pâté (chopped liver spread)
- Mayonnaise
- Cucumber (cut into small wedges)
- Cilantro
- Pickled carrots (very thinly sliced)
- Pickled Daikon radish (sliced into thin sticks)
- Top round cut of steak
- Cheese (preferably either White American, Provolone, or Cheez Whiz)
- White Wine Vinegar
- Seasonings

Cooking Instructions:
- Thinly slice the steak into small strips/ pieces, then marinate with salt and pepper for at least 20 minutes.
- Cook the steak on a hot pan with oil until brown
- Spread the mayonnaise and pâté on opposite halves of the baguette.
- Put the hot steak and in the baguette and top with cheese so it melts.
- add all the veggies and sprinkle some pepper and a squirt of the vinegar.
- Enjoy!

Reactions to some stuff ...

Sorry I haven’t been keeping u with these journal posts, but here are a couple reactions to a few events in my like involving Asian American culture.
A couple weeks ago I went out to eat at this Chinese restaurant, Han Gong on Taraval Street, with a group of friends. I was actually a little surprised that the service was excellent and the food was really good. I mean usually there are no problems with the food at the other Chinese restaurants that I have eaten at, but the service is usually just alright. This time, the waiter was very nice and accommodating. We felt kind of bad because we ordered one of the set meals, but wanted to change a couple of the dishes. For example, we asked to change the steamed oysters to the honey walnut prawns because only two out of the seven of us liked oysters. At the other places that I eat at, the people would have been a little mad if we wanted to change some things and be a kind of snotty about it, but this guy was really nice and said “sure no problem whatever you like.” Then at the end of the meal, a friend actually made a pie for dessert, so we needed some clean plates to eat it and the waiter kindly brought us some. Usually the workers don’t like it when their patrons stay for a long time, but this restaurant didn’t care that we were there for almost three hours and were very nice the whole time. Comparing this place with others, this one definitely takes the cake on service, taste, and quality. I was amazed that this place was so nice and I am definitely going to come back in the future to have another great meal.
On another note, I got really angry at this Chinese American customer I rang up at my work last week. So here’s what happened: I was working the cashier on a Saturday night at Aéropostale and then this mother and daughter are next in line, I greet them and ask for their e-mail to send them coupons. The daughter said sure and was going to spell it out, but then her mother asked how much their sweatshirt was going to be first, and I told her $29.99. She thought it was going to be fifty percent off, which would have been $19.95, and she wanted me to adjust the price because our sign at the door say “50% off tops”. But I had to tell her that underneath it states ‘Selected styles’ and that the price point above the sweatshirt also says it’s $29.99 not 50% off (like other tops do). Then she said fine, and still decides to get it. When I ask her daughter for her e-mail again, she begins to spell it out, but then her mom says “No!” really forcefully. And what pissed me off was, the mother then begins to speak I Cantonese saying: “No don’t give it to her because she didn’t give you the 50% off. If she gave it to you then you’d give her anything; phone number, e-mail, whatever. But she didn’t so don’t give it.” This made me really angry because she assumed that since I don’t look Chinese I couldn’t possibly understand her and that it’s okay to speak badly of someone in another language. Well I understood every word and I really wanted to nicely call her out on it, but I didn’t. I was going to say to her daughter that I understood her and that I don’t make the prices and I can’t just overwrite the system and change it to the price YOU want. Also what is a little ironic is that she probably thinks that not giving her e-mail hurts me or the store, but it actually just means they won’t be able to save money with the coupons they could get. People are always trying to bargain in our store and don’t read the signs. I can’t believe people are so stingy and get so touchy on a mistake that they made by not reading the signs. I really hate it when people make assumptions based on looks and speak meanly in another language in front of you.

What Home Taste Like

On Sundays it is a tradition for my mother would make jook (Chinese porridge) for lunch. I do not know why but I know that she loves to spend her time preparing jook for the family to eat. She spends one hour before noon washing the rice, boiling the mixture, chopping pieces of chicken, egg wraps, or duck eggs, and heating Chinese dumplings. I pass her in the kitchen on the way to my room or other parts of the house and I notice that she always multitasks between cooking, answering the telephone, and checking on what’s going on in the house. She doesn’t have that much free time so she does her best to accomplish as much of her tasks as she possibly can.

When it is noon, the whole entire family gathers (mom, dad, brother, and me) at the dining table and my mom brings out this large, steaming pot of jook and a plate of food to go along with it (called sung in Cantonese). My eyes widen and my mouth waters like crazy at the sight of such delicious food. We take turns serving the jook (usually I let my dad and mom go first because I think of it as a sign of respect) and have no conflicts over who gets food first.

Once all the food is settled right in front of me, I am excited to eat and get the awesome taste of Chinese cuisine. However, bad manners are not permitted in my family so I cannot let my bad side of greed and ill table manners get to my head. I eat in a respectable way and I enjoy the food. The jook is basically a combination of rice and water, but it tastes really good when served with other food, including leftovers. Once I get a large amount of jook in my mouth, I feel its warmth and I accompany the bland flavor (rice does not have that much taste) with more tasty food like dumplings and chicken. I can also add hoisin (soy sauce) to jook to make it sweeter. There are many ways to serve jook that are impossible to list, but each way is unique in providing a different experience of taste in Chinese cuisine. I like the fact that jook is served warm because most of the time cold food is not appealing to eat. I feel comfortable and calm eating warm food and it provides more value from the meal.

After eating all the jook in my bowl and some of the side food, I am really full and I cannot eat anything else. That’s the thing about jook: if you eat a large amount you are guaranteed to be full. Being full after a meal is important in Chinese cuisine. You do not want people to be hungry and you want people to be happy. That is the reason why the Chinese tend to serve a lot of food and why the Chinese like to eat as much as they possibly can.

APAture 2008; Laugh On

On Tuesday Night, I went to Laugh On one of APAture’s 10 day events on Capp Street. I've never been to a comedy show, so honestly, I didn't know what to expect from it. The beginning of the night was a bit slow, after the first performance I wasn’t too impressed. The jokes the first performer made were not appealing to me. To be honest, they actually made me feel a bit uncomfortable for many of the jokes he made were sexual jokes. I was afraid the whole night was going to be like this, but the next performance was better than the first. The next performance was a group performance. They did an improv based on information they collected from an audience member. This performance caught my attention because Irene had told us that we were going to do an improv performance in class based on the information we read in our hyphen magazines and the whole time I was thinking… how on earth do they do it? There is no way I could ever pull something like that off. Performing in front of a class is hard enough, but to improv a performance… we’ll see how that goes. But seriously, I give them props for begin able to perform like that because it is something I definitely can not do. The next act was from a half Vietnamese half Jewish guy. This guy got the audience on the edge of their seats wanting to hear more. And the last performer, an Indian guy, just took the night away.

It’s sad but true, that most of the jokes that we find funny are stereotypical or racist jokes. It’s only funny because most of what we joke about is true. By laughing about it, it does not necessarily mean that we agree with it, but its reality and it is happening in our lives today. By making a joke about the issue doesn’t mean that we don’t care about it either, it just makes us realize that if we all understand the joke and understand the meaning behind the joke why don’t we do something about the issue?

I really enjoyed the last two performances; their jokes were incorporated into Asian American culture that we are well aware of. We laugh because we know it’s true.

Move Out of the Way!

Have you ever driven through Irving Street (upper Irving and/or lower Irving) on a Sunday afternoon? Well, if you haven't you don't want to start! Irving is always crowded in general, but for some reason Irving is especially crowded on Sunday afternoons. Why is that? I guess everyone has the same idea that on Sundays, Irving is the hot spot for lunch.

Today, a couple of my friends and I were looking forward to eating some cheap Japanese food at KiKi's located on 9th and Irving (if you’re looking for a high class Japanese cuisine, this is not the place for you! But there is a good Japanese restaurant right next door called Ebisu. KiKi’s is like a fast food Japanese restaurant if you ask me). However, plans quickly changed as we arrived on Irving. It was so crowded we didn't even try to look for parking because it was almost impossible to find any. Everybody was doubling parking or circling blocks competing for spots it would be a waste of time trying. We decided to try to find a place on lower Irving instead, but as we got closer we saw that it would be impossible to drive through there as well. Finally, we settled for Noriega Teriyaki and found parking right away. What is it about Irving Street that causes traffic to be bumper to bumper when all the other streets have no cars?

Another question I’ve always wondered was… Is it really necessary to charge for a bowl of soup? So as we were eating at Noriega Teriyaki, we ordered a meal for three people, but we had four people total, so we asked for an extra bowl of rice and soup. I understand that the price for rice is rising, so charging for rice is understandable, but for soup too? If you compare a Chinese and Japanese restaurant, the Chinese restaurant usually serves a bowl of soup per person; however, in a Japanese restaurant, miso soup is only included with a certain meal and if you ask for an extra bowl of soup it cost a little over a dollar. It’s a small bowl of soup, is it really necessary to charge so much let alone anything at all for a bowl of flavored water? You’re probably thinking; if it’s just a bowl of ‘flavored water’ then why get it? Well, I love soup, but I just find it ridiculous how much they could charge for it.

APAture 2008; COMICS AND ZINE EXPO

For my Asian American Culture class we were required to attend at least one of the APAture events that were being held for 10 days in San Francisco. APAture celebrates and displays Asian Pacific American heritage to everyone in the form of art, music, performance, and more. I went to the closing event for APAture today and it offered a COMICS AND ZINE EXPO. It wasn’t as I expected because in my head I was picturing a big floor filled with all these animated pictures of heroes and villains, like a typical comic convention.. But this place was small, like a studio where you can take literally 30 steps and you’ve already seen the whole room. But within those 30 steps, I was able to enrich my eyes with the most individualistic pictures.


I’ll just walk you through what I experienced there and because art is left up to your imagination, I’ll let you guys into what I felt and thought when I saw these pictures. Okay, when you first walk up the stairs you come face to face with a tree. It was basically water-colored paint smudges on current news paper clippings forming this tree. Covering articles about death, rape, and the depression that is about to take forth, I think this tree symbolized how the world needs to be united and be a family to support each other through the hard times that are about to come through.

Walking into the actual expo room, the table full of comics was the first thing that caught my eye. I got to meet Hellen Jo who is the main artist of Jin and Jam comics. Although I didn’t get to talk to her personally about her comics because she was doing an interview for APAture, I got to read some of her work and let me just say, they’re really BLUNT. The main theme of her comic strips that I came across was sexuality. She approached the subject as a natural occurrence in life, and I’m thinking that’s what she would like to portray to the world. Jin & Jam 1, published by Sparkplug Comic Books will debut at the Alternative Press Expo this year, on November 1 & 2.

The next picture I enjoyed was this fingerprint made up of Japanese stamps. To me, this taught me that a person’s identity and culture never leaves a person; it is literally integrated in a person’s body. And this is what I’m coming to find. With this Asian American culture class I’m becoming more curious with not just my own, but different Asian cultures.


The next art work that intrigued me was the tanks that were made out of fuzzy material. They were lined up and leading to a giant explosion looking piece that was made up of these individual tanks. Along with this theme, there were shoes, spray painted camouflage and laid across fake grass. It brought me back to what I learned in class through the culture presentations and how each culture experienced some hardship along the way.


Lastly, my favorite artwork out of the entire gallery was a box you stick your head into. It was attached to the ceiling so you’d have to climb up there and when you look around inside that tiny box, it made me feel I was in a wheat field of some sort, the mirrors creating this vast image of never ending wonder of what the world can offer a person. I guess this is how people who dedicated their life to working in the fields felt.

I just wish they had a friendlier environment because everyone there was busy fixing things. I would have liked to be confronted with information about each artwork because I would’ve liked to have known what each artist was thinking and feeling when making their artwork. It’s okay because that’s what art galleries are all about, interpreting your own thoughts. This APAture event basically tied everything I learned so far in class. The whole gallery had themes about what Asian American culture is all about; family, sexuality, finding one’s identity, and past suffering. Although before I left, one person came up to me and started explaining APAture’s organization and how to get involved in it. And yes, I did join the mailing list (=