Rudy's BBQ

We got takeout from Rudy's last night: sausage, brisket, ribs, and... uh... chunks of meat with bones (I forget what that's called). Ignore the mushrooms - they just kind of snuck into the picture. They also came with a delicious BBQ sauce. My favorite was the sausage. My aunt even has a picture of me eating it (which will NOT be posted).

Short version: Texas BBQ is the best!

Bucket o' Chicken

We went to KFC for lunch yesterday and got a mixed bucket of chicken so we could try out a bunch of different stuff. In the little red box is popcorn chicken. Going clockwise, we have chicken strips, followed by extra-crispy mixed chicken. In the box to the left of the bucket is KFC's new sauceless hot wings.

Because I'm lazy and don't like picking bones out of my food, I particularly enjoyed the chicken strips and the popcorn chicken. Easy to eat, cooked very moist, crunchy, and very fattening. =)

Next time I'll probably go for the crispy mixed chicken instead of the extra crispy. The crispy is what most people are used to with fried chicken. The extra crispy comes in one solid sheet of skin instead of a bunch of crunchy pieces. I would have termed it "extra mushy" instead.

I was expecting the sauceless hot wings to be hotter. They tasted like hot wings that I would eat with sauce. But then again, I'm partial to super hot stuff like 水煮牛, so that's probably not a fair comparison.

Short version: I liked the strips and popcorn chicken.

水煮牛

Here's a picture of 水煮牛, a dish from a restaurant (?) called 亞洲 (Asia Market, I think is the English name). It might be a supermarket. I've never been there personally.

This has got to be the spiciest dish in the history of all spicy dishes. The soup is RED from all the chili that's in it, for cryin' out loud. Don't let the name fool you. This is more like 辣油煮牛. Greasy, spicy, sloppy goodness.

It's got a lot of beef and veggies. A surprisingly high percentage of the dish is beef, and it's fairly good beef too, lean and cooked just right. Make sure you have a lot of water or rice on hand when eating this. Sometimes my aunt waters down the soup to make another dish. If you knew my aunt (this is the woman who eats chili peppers straight), you'd understand just how hot a dish has to be for her to water it down.

(Bad) translations for our English-speaking friends:

水煮牛 (pronounced: shui zhu niu) = water-cooked beef

辣油 (pronounced: la you) = spicy oil

Short version: Mmm! *sizzle*

Another Birthday

It seems like everyone in my family has a July birthday. This was my uncle's birthday cake, purchased from the same bakery as my sister's cake. It's got fruit on top (obviously), and is made of layers of taro cake and pudding (see below). Delicious and highly recommended.

Short version: Let them eat cake!

P'zones

Ate P'zones from Pizza Hut for lunch today. They taste like pizzas, but the sauce is on the side for dipping. Unfortunately, P'zones are not shaped to fit into the container for the dipping sauce. The stuff on the top is... cheese and some spice? It was filling though. I had π radians (pictured) and was stuffed.

Short version: Just put two slices of pizza on top of each other.

Mighty Fine Burger

I took a few bites before I thought to take a picture. =P

The burger and fries are from Mighty Fine, which my cousin and I have wanted to try out for a while. Our original plan was to sue them for false advertisement if their burgers weren't mighty fine (just kidding, I hate frivolous lawsuits). Well, it turns out that their advertising is 100% on point.

I had a 1/2 pound cheeseburger with bacon. It was very filling, and the patty made up the majority of the sandwich, which is getting increasingly rare these days. The meat was cooked very well and not dry. The bacon was delicious and crunchy.

The curly fries in the upper left corner were my cousin's. I stole them to pose for the picture. The fries were soft but not mushy, flavorful, and downright adorable! I'm not usually a fries person (all that potato makes me look like a potato too), but for once I regretted not getting fries with my burger.

Also, if you order a drink, they give you pretty nice plastic cups. I wanted to keep my cup, but I had already thrown it away, and my cousin didn't let me dig it out of the trash can. Oh well. There will be a next time. =)

As for the price, it was about $20 for both of us, so a bit expensive for burgers, but again, the food was way beyond fast food restaurant quality. Besides, my cousin paid, so what do I have to complain about?

Short version: Mighty fine!

Birthday Cake

My sister wanted an ice cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery for her birthday, but the mall closes rather early, so we ended up getting an ice cream cake from our local bakery. The ice cream was Neapolitan (which I always thought was "Napoleon" when I was younger), and there was a thin layer of chocolate cake at the bottom.

Honestly, I'm not the best person to judge food items that contain chocolate, because that's just about my least favorite food. My mom and my cousin, certified chocoholics, always tell me how weird I am.

Besides that, though, the cake was a little dry and hard, which can probably be expected in an ice cream cake. Or we didn't let it defrost properly, because, as you can see in the picture, the fruit on top is still mostly frozen. This wasn't the best ice cream cake I've had, but what's important is that it's still ice cream cake.

This bakery makes wonderful regular cakes, though, and I'm looking forward to eating the one we bought for my uncle's birthday.

Short version: Meh.

Tres Leches

We went out to Churrascos for my sister's birthday dinner on Friday. There was a LOT of excellent food, but unfortunately this is the only picture I took. This is their tres leches cake, which we had for dessert. It's very, very sweet and amazingly heavy for how fluffy it seems at first.

Other menu items I definitely recommend are:

• the sampler appetizers (I loved the fried jalapenos, but you have to love spicy food to enjoy them)
• the filet mignon, medium rare (very tender, yet flavorful)
• the mini bananas that came as a side to the entree
• the Argentinian wine (I don't recall what we had exactly, but it was a suggestion from the waiter)

You're going to want to dress up a little. My family wore jeans and felt out of place. And this place is rather expensive, so take a deep breath before looking at your tab.

Short version: Yummy, if you can afford it.

An Introduction

I got a new cell phone this weekend (Nokia 6133), and I've been taking a lot of pictures, mostly of food. I thought I'd start this blog to share some pictures and comments. Enjoy!