Rockefeller Center Xmas Tree

It's cold as &#$% but SO PRETTY!!! 

I'm heading back to New York today for the New Years. No set plans as of yet, but being in the city itself is kinda great already. Have a Happy New Year! Xoxo

NYC Trip - Asian Food Galore

Disclaimer: This post is full of food porn pics, so if you're hungry, please x out and come back later. Trust me.

My cousin took me to this restaurant called Malay Restaurant in Flushing the day before Christmas. They've been raving about this restaurant all morning so we ended up going there for lunch. If you know Flushing, it's almost like the real China Town in Queens or New York altogether. We got there and it was super packed. I think we got the last available table at that time. We ordered few dishes and shared everything together. OMG, this food makes my regular Pinang Restaurant by my house taste like crap. It was so good and so cheap! 0_0 I'm definitely coming back to this restaurant when I'm in NY. Definitely. Other than the Chicken Curry Noodles, my cousin and her husband ordered everything else, so I'm not too sure about the names.

Chicken Curry Noodles

Beef Chow Kwe Tiaw

Beef Satay

ABC Ice

The second restaurant is one of my favorite Indonesian restaurant in Queens called Mie Jakarta. Their dish is so authentic, it's a taste of home really. As usual, I ordered my favorite Grilled Chicken Rice dish and my cousin went for the Noodle set with Meat balls. 

Noodle Set with Meatballs below

Grilled Chicken Rice

Third restaurant is Joe's Shanghai. This place has been so famous for their soup dumpling. We went there for dinner and there was a 20 minutes wait. Where? Outside. HAA! It was cold but we endured the first 15 minutes until we were able to squeeze in to the restaurant by the front desk. The terrible thing is I found out that the 2 type of dumplings they served on the menu contains pork. So yeah, I didn't try them at all. The good thing is, all the other dishes we ordered turned out well especially the Seafood dishes. We made the wrong turn by ordering the Chicken with Chestnut from the Chef Special's Menu. Don't order that please.

Pork Soup Dumpling

Scallop Dish (forgot the name)

Prawn dish (forgot the name)

Overall we covered Malaysia, Indonesia and Chinese food. Actually, we did cover Japanese food on my last day in NYC. However, I did not have any pictures taken with my regular camera since I was meeting my friend Kazusa. I don't get to see her that often , so I didn't want to bother our precious time with too many picture taking. Although I did make few shots with my iPhone. The restaurant name is Gyukaku in Midtown area. It's a Japanese BBQ style like Yakiniku. The restaurant is on the second floor surrounded by glass wall foreseeing the city. It's very nice. On lunch time, they offer pre-fixe packages for 2 and 4 people with different kind of meat, soup, salad, rice and side dishes. We added some more veggies and dessert at the end.








HAHA I think I'm so full after finishing this post. I think I'm going to find something to eat now. There you go: Malaysian, Indonesian, Chinese and Japanese. Wowza!

9/11 Memorial

As promised, here's the pics inside the 9/11 Memorial. You can get the passes in their official website here. The tickets are technically free but they do ask for donation at the end of the reservation which is nominal. We initially got a slot at 2.30 pm that day but as we finalized the reservation, we picked the wrong delivery method for will-call not realizing that the ticket center on site was closed due to Christmas. We tried to revised the reservation but the website did not allow us to do so. We ended up reserving another time which was 5 pm, this time with the print-at home delivery method. I actually was glad that we get the later time since the pretty lights were lit up in the park and fountain. 

Pretty Downtown

NYC trip was great. The city overall was actually less crowded this time although, I should differ on the big tourist sites such as Rockefeller Center, Times Square and so on. The weather was very cold but still bearable to be outside. We were so lucky to get the passes to go to the 911 Memorial on Christmas day (we don't celebrate Christmas). These are some pics we took by the river while waiting for the entrance time to the memorial. Don't you just love the golden hour. More pics to come. Xoxo.

Midnight in Paris

It's one of those nights where it's been raining all day and you just wanna stay in with your robe and socks on the couch. Urbanspoon-ing for a good 30 minutes, then suddenly I remembered that I stocked up some fresh udon from the farmer's market the other day. We (I) ended up making the udon with spinach and some left over grilled chicken. To make the meal complete, we ordered in some sushi rolls for delivery. We also rented the Midnight in Paris - Woody Allen's movie that came out on DVD last week. Perfecto!

Holiday Party 2011

Last year, we held our Holiday Party in Krazy Kat's here with a big group of friends. This year it's a bit more intimate, only us 6, so we decided to take a quick trip to the city for some Brazillian steak in Fogo De Chao. It was good times. Lots of meat and drinks.  Christmas is literally 2 days away.  Are you done with Christmas shopping? I know I am.  I'm heading to NYC today to spend the long Christmas weekend with my cousins and bf. Can't wait to see the big tree in Rockefeller Center and do all the fun things in the city. Hope you all have a great Christmas!  Don't forget to bundle up!! xoxo