LongLong's OL Blog - 容容 的洛城OL隨記

I bought a key lime cheesecake for Trader Joe's yesterday, and we had it for dessert after dinner tonight.
 It's a mini version Cheesecake, the length & width is just about the size of coffee spoon.  We can never finish a whole cheesecake, so this mini version is just right.
The cheesecake should be kept in the freezer, and only need to take it out in the room temperature 2-3 hours before serving.  

After being feeded spirtually at the church this morning, it's time to feed my stomach with yummy food.  I was watching food channel this morning making fresh arugula salad - that's what I want for lunch.  I visited this new french bakery in Old Town Pasadena.  I discovered this new french bakery, Le Pain Quotidien last month.  I've bought some bread from here before and it was great, and have been wanted to try their food for some time now.  
The weather in LA is really nice today, the place is crowded for Sunday lunch.   
Full of shoppers or people who just wanted to read papaers and enjoyed a lazy Sunday afternoon.  Luckily I was able to find a corner table.  The decoration is simple, wooden chairs & tables and friendly staffs.  I orded a pot of coffee and arugula salad with goat cheese.
They served the coffee with a cute little silver pot, small bowl, and glass of milk.  It reminds me of how they served coffee in Pairs- a  cup without handle. 
They also brought me some baguette and three different type of jam - mixed berries, orange, and nutella.  Nutella is my favoriate.  I've fallen in love with Nutella many years ago when I fist visited Paris.  I like Nutella crepe, nutella with bread, or just a spoon full of nutelle.  You can now buy nutella in the supermarket, I highly recommend it.  I think Samuel and Hannah will like this.
The service was quick, I didn't need to wait long for my salad.  It's so colorful.  
Fresh arugula, a good portion of goat cheese, toasted almond seed, fresh tomato, and some thinly sliced parmesan cheese, with squeezed of lemon juce plus good portion of olive oil.  It's a perfect lunch.
I actually haven't gone to a cafe by myself for a while.  Sometimes it's actually cool to go for the weekend brunch by yourself at the cafe.  I enjoy watching people, take my time eating, just relax, and be myself.  We all need some time to spend with ourselves......
After an enjoyable lunch, it's time for my facial appointment. Au revoir!

Today is our long awaiting Mother & Daughter's Day.  It's the first free Saturday since I moved back home almost a month ago.  I was busy with work for the past few weeks plus some traveling.  Finally today I can enjoy a worry free Saturday with Mom and do a little shopping at Ikea.  Mom has been wanting to visit Ikea for the longest time.
We arrived a bit before noon.  We were both starving so we went straight to Ikea's cafeteria. I like Ikea's cafeteria, it's clean and spacious.  We picked a window seat with a view of San Bernardino Valley, and enjoyed our lunch.
Mom had a lemon herb salmon with steam veggie & red potato.  I had marsala chicken rice with veggie.  We also ordered mac cheese to share - I don't know why these two days I am craving fro mac cheese..... - this is the type of fat craving I don't need.
Mom enjoyed her salmon - it's fresh.  I like my marsala sauce.  The portion is perfect for lunch. We both had lingonberry juice - (Lingoberry juice should make good Martini)....
For some reason, the food and environment here reminded me of UCSB cafeteria.  Mom enjoyed being a student at cafeteria....
After a pleasant and satisfying lunch, we browsed through the store.  I love browsing in Ikea.  One of my old habit when I still lived in the bay area is to visit Ikea over the weekend.  Not really to buy anything special, but just walk around show rooms, and pick up few candles on my way out.  It's a lot of fun.  To most people, Ikea will always have a specia place in their hearts becuase Ikea is the place where we got most of our furnitures for the first apartment.  It's affordable, simple line design and sleek. 
Mom has always enjoyed interior design, so visitng Ikea show rooms it's like kids in candy shops.
We had a good time, and Mom even wanted to come back again next week......  Mom is like a little kid.

I haven't seen men who wear cuff links for a long time.  In NYC, especailly in I-banking, men loves to wear cuff links.   During my weekly regional meeting this morning, as our boss went on and on about how screw up our compensation plan is for the 10th times, I tried to find things to entertain myself.  Suddenly I noticed all the men in the conference room wear cuff links  - this is so rare for California.  Cuff links represents classic and old school, it's hard to link it with morden & relax So. California.  But I guess banking is old school......
My boss had the traditional black and gold cuff link, with his initials on it.  I notcied he also had his initial on his white shirt.  Regional manager from Beverly Hill had a silver knot cuff link- it looks like Tiffany's - I wonder if it's white gold.   RM from westlake village wore a simple silver square one.  The other manager had a titanium one on.  Just as women secrectly check out each others outfits, shoes, jewelry, and even manicure during meetings - these men seem to have some kind of secert competition on cuff links.  I wonder next time who will come in with 5 carats diamond cuff links to the meeting.....
Maybe I should bring out my pearl cuff link for the next meeting and join the men's club.......

E&O Trading is one of my favoriate restaurant in San Francisco.  It's a trendy Asian Fusion restaurant.  Karin and Robert brought me here in late 90th, and it has become a place I would take my out of town friends for dinner when they visit SF.  I also took my staffs here for Christmas dinner one year, and also recieved a raving review.  
The restaurant is decorated in South East Style.  Bamboo wooden floor, over sized lantern, and candle light setting.  
the signature starter, Corn Fritter is the must have.  Deep fried corn, bell pepper & flour mixed.  The lightly sweeten soy sauce dipping makes it even more tasty.  It's so good that sometimes we asked for the seoncd order.   The ingredients and recipe seem simple, and I should try to make it at home
Jane ordered Clam noodle.  The sauce is really speical.  Unlike the typical clam white wine sauce pasta, the sauce is cooked with lemon grass.  Lemon grass gives it a special taste to the noodle.  It's very refreshing.
I ordered my regular - Five spicie grilled skirt steak.   I am a BIG Meat eater......The meat is well marinated and tender-its tasted like Korean BBQ.  I like it when it comes with Kimchi.  You will never go wrong with this dish!
I highly recommend E&O Trading.  The food is good and the atmosphere is nice, too.  Just make sure you make the reservation, it's usually full house during dinner time.

I love Martini.  I had too many Martini this weekend @ SF.  
My martini feast started this Thursday, few of my old pals went to a small bar near work. - EZ5, and  I had a best Lychee Martini ever (sorry- I forget to bring camera).  Vodka with fresh lychee juice and two real lychee.  Munsieng had a great idea and ordered some chinese fried wings & egg rolls from the restaurant across the street.  Lychee Martini & Egg Rolls is perfect combo!!!!!
Jane and I had our Friday night ritual- shopping in the city after work. We added a new twist to our route, had a glass of Martini before shopping.  Nothing beats Shopping with the girls and sipping Martini.  We went to this little Martini bar near SF shopping center - in the dirty little alley, but inside is Martini Heaven.  
Karin told me this place is known for their Vodka drink.
It's a small bar, nicely decorated- cozy with many interesting vintage type poster.  Per Jane's recommendation, we both ordered Mango Martini.  I can't recall when Jane has become Martini drinker, she usually didn't know what to order when we go to the bar......
Mango Martini is good, I can taste the mango,  It would of be better if they added a piece of real mango fruit. 
After few hours of shopping, we had dinner at E&O Trading (see my article on E&O Trading later).  We both ordered cocktails.  Jane had pomegranate margarita - but it tasted like Martini.  I had some kind of house special martini- it was so bad that I can't remember the name.  We both were disappointed.  
I have to say out of all the Martini I tried this week, my favoriate is Karin's home made pomerganate martini - not becuase it's free but it's really good
Karin used Grey goose vodka with pomerganate juice, lemon juice and some fresh lemon.  it's so yummy.  I had three glasses!!!!!

Everytime after a plane ride, I always feel like having a hot Chinese soup - although I've lived in U.S for 16 years, I guess I still have Asian stomach.
KK has craving for Chinese stewed beef noodle soup, so we decided to have a quick lunch at A&J Restaurant at Cupertino.
A&J is a chian restaurant, it also has stores in Alhambra and Irvine.  This place is known for Northern Chinese dishes - noodle, dumpling, and Chinese breakfast.
The line was long, so we had to wait for the table.  Hannah was a good sport- she wasn't fussy during the long wait.  ---but she did look a bit bored.
Once we sat at our table. Hannah started to play and kept smiling at the young men next to our table .  But I might need to train Hannah for her eyes for beauty, beucase that wasn't a very good looking young man....
We ordered a rice porridge and white carrot (radish) cake for Hannah.  I used to like this porridge when I was litte- I like it with a bit of sugar.  Karin didn't want to add any sugar in it...Hannah didn't seem to like it too much.  White carrot cake is good, the skin is crispy with lots of radish filling.
We ordered some soy sauce spicy pig ear appertizer.  It's really good, they sliced really thin.  It goes well with some chilli and soy sauce
Karin ordered her stewed beef noodle soup, and I ordered a small beef soup. The beef is really tender, and the soup base is good, too.  
I ordered a dry noodle for my main dish. This is the typical northern Chinese noodle dish.  Hand made noodle with chilli and some peanut sauce.  It's just a simple noodle, but goes very well with beef soup.
Both KK and I like the hand made noodle, but we think the noodle wasn't fully cook.  I think the business were so good that they were rushing to get the dish out ---not too good of quality control.

Alright,  I am back.......
I've been so busy with my new job for a week now.  Today, I finally left at more decent hour!!!!  The new job is going well, I like my new boss and people in the office.  It's just really hard trying to clean up previous person's mess in a limited time.  One of the advantage of this job is to travel more frequent to SF - I can see little Hannah more often, can have my favoriate BBQ, and hang out with KK.  That's exactly what I did on Monday.
Hannah has grown a lot since I last saw her.  She is a beautiful little girl.  She likes her auntie a lot.  i clap my hands when she stands up, so she kept doing it.
She also likes to sit on her highchair to watch Baby Einstein.
She can also hold her bottle and feeds herself.  
Although it's only a short visit, Robert and Karin didn't let me go home hungry.  Karin went to Whole Food and bought three big pieces of NY Steak, and Robert did his magic on the grill.  We had a feast!  Big piece of steak each with grilled corn and bellpaper.
Of course, no feast is completed without Cakebread Cellars wine.  I bought two bottles -Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon.  Cakebread Cellars is my favoriate winery.  Although a $30 chadonnay, and $70 Cabernet Sauvignon is a little expensive, but it is money worth sepnt.....
Thank you KK, Robert and Little Hannah's hospitality.  A nice short visit helped me relax a bit from my stressful 1st week at work.   I will see you again next week!!!

I've started to miss living by myself. 
The freedom of just wake up in the morning and get ready to work.   Beucase sometimes in the morning, you are in the rush and don't really like to chick chat.
The freedom of of come back home after long day at work, lay on your couch wathcing TV and don't need to deal with people.  Beucase sometimes after a long day, you really not in the mood to social, and you don't really have the reason why and don't feel like to explain it.
The freedom of not really need to explain why you aren't eating, beucase sometimes you're just really not hungry.  Home made dinner sounds good sometimes, but I really not a big dinner eater.
Gosh, it's not even a week.  I keep telling myself, this is the only way to save up for a house.....so suck it up.

I've started my new job today.  Although it's only my first day, I feels like I've never left this place.....
I arrived to the office a bit before 8am since my new boss is usually in around 7am.  He was on the conference call when I arrived.  I said hi to him, and just went directly to my office myself.  I figured it must be my office since there is no name tag, there are key, office supplies and HR booklet with my name on it, so I knew it's my new office.  My new office is nice, it has a flat TV screen on the wall.  I don't think I will watch much TV since I am sitting across from my boss office with glass wall. .   I did feel a little strange because indirectly I kicked out the old finance manager from his office, and he moved over to the cube.
I spent my first 2 hours on Planning conference call already.   I heard a lot of familiar voices, not much has changed.  My day was so busy, and I was working already , it's going to be crazy for the next few weeks.  I kind of excpet needing to clean up a lot of mess, but the mess turns out to be bigger than I anticipated.  I was suprised how behind we are in planning process.  The first pass of the budget number is a mess, the process is all over the map, and we only have less than a week to fix it before the presentation.  Based on my insider conversation with my old buddies in SF, they are expecting us to re-do many stuffs.  It's a little frustrated, beucase the planning process has started almost a month ago.  I've tried not to act too judgemental the whole day, but I have no idea what the other person has been doing in the past few weeks or how the process went last year.....
Oh well, I just need to be more focus for the next few weeks.  I think I can do it, beucase if I don't, I will need to suffer from the bad budget for the whole next year.
I can't believe I am venting on my first day .  It's going to be better after the budget season is over.