Somethings were meant to be photographed.

After my last post, I realized that pictures from my phone still don't cut it, especially when I want to blow them up as large as I do for this blog. That's also when I realized that I had another unfinished post where the pictures were absolutely stunning....not because I took particularly good pictures but because Thai food takes REALLY good pictures. If there was one cuisine that  would win the award for being most photogenic, it has to be Thai food. I guess it is because the cooking encompasses so many vibrant looking ingredients and spices.

Wharton hosted a free lunch with a professor at Pattaya (man so many free meals lately...not that I'm complaining :p) and naturally, I brought my camera. The food itself wasn't particularly spectacular but the dishes sure looked really good. Maybe Thai food also gets the award for being the most sly cuisine as well :)

Spicy Basil with Tofu.

Pad Thai with Chicken.

Yellow Curry with Chicken.

Vegetable Coconut Soup.

Vegetable Lemon Grass Soup.

It might also just be that my dish (yellow curry chicken) was just naturally unassuming and that the place is actually decent. Regardless, I am looking forward to the chance to get to try some really good Thai food in the future.

2 more days of classes left at Penn! Man I get believe this semester is almost over already! I still remember blogging about the end of last semester. CRAZY.

Snapshots.

#1 The pork buns that changed my life. They are so good, I have talked about them over 5 times already (this is probably #8)....Up until now, I have accepted the iconic representation of "the pork bun":  fluffy white flour and (occasionally overly) sweet red pork.  The first time I ate pork buns, I was very thrown off by the taste, I grew up in Beijing and "bei ren" or Northerners never use sugar in their cooking so sweet and savory has always been a startling concept for me. Anyways, over time I became acquainted with the taste and now I usually order a platter whenever I am getting dim sum. But these buns taste nothing like those that I was just describing. This was literally foodie heaven bundled in one little package of succulent pork, cilantro and pickled cucumbers.  I think they were meant too mimic the duck pancakes that you can get in the really legit places of Chinatown (de-boned duck, plum sauce & green onions on white pancakes). Regardless, this little concoction was absolutely amazing and now I want to eat them everyday.

#2. The food truck on 33rd and Spruce that made the little package of deliciosness. Tyson Bees is a Korean BBQ foodtruck right behind the Chem Building....yes it is a hike but I'm going to find more excuses to be on that side of campus now :)

#3. The one unhealthy food that is always on my mind, sweet potato fries. Wharton Undergraduate Consulting Club (one my of main involvements at Penn) sponsored a dinner with Deloitte tonight at Tap House which meant weet potato fries! Although, ordering that big burger was not a very good choice....forgot how difficult burgers are to eat!

#4. A wonderful twist on bruschetta: roasted eggplant on goat cheese. I actually hated goat cheese the first time I had it....actually.... I hated cheese in general the first time I ever tried it. Of course, all foods regardless of what it is always winds up growing on me :)

#5.  Stumbled across this adorable vintage shop on South street last weekend with my roommate...they had these hardcore leather jackets and cowboy boots. Reminded me of my dad....not sure why haha.

Been trying to edit these pictures from my dinner at Marakesh from two weeks ago but the lighting there was so bad I don't know what to do! Sigh. I might just put up the pictures of all the pretty lights they had there...

Back to Pietros

A somewhat symbolic post since the school year is winding down: a journey back to the restaurant that inspired my very first blog post with the same two friends and same assortment of pasta, pizza and cheesy goodness :)...Except this time, there was a better camera lens teehee.

Appetizer + pizza + pasta never fails. YUM. 


Eggplant Rolentine: Eggplant stuffed with ricotta cheese, baked with sauce and fresh mozzarella cheese
Gemelli Arugula & Pollo: Twisted pasta with chicken breast, garlic, arugula, grape tomatoes, Pecorino cheese, in a white wine sauce
Napoli: Baby spinach, pine nuts, sun dried tomato, mozzarella

 Yes the pasta looks unassuming but twisted pasta = wow. delicious.  Generally, I don't like Italian food all that much but once in a while, and it sure is satisfying.

Snapshots

1. Stuffed Eggplant. Enough Said

2. The best fried chicken wings I have ever had. oh man. Three hours later and I'm still full. Probably not a good sign. harumph.

3. More cupcakes. Here's my theory on cupcakes. There are good cupcakes ie made from scratch with good ingredients and tender love and card. There are bad cupcakes ie the ones you buy from the grocery store. When there are bad cupcakes (first off, I usually just avoid the card board tasting, unnecessary calories) but if I was absolutely coerced into eating one, I would definitely go for the chocolate since the chocolate tastes marginally less card board-y than the vanilla ones. However, when it is a good cupcake I am a big fan of just the plain old vanilla ones. The vanilla cupcakes are always a lot more dense (reminiscent of pound cake. pound cake...yum) with a really well made buttercream icing. Anything past that: red velvet, german chocolate etc is obviously delicious but its just more of a good thing. Anyways, enough rambling. Here are the pictures.

4. Thai Iced Tea. Condense milk = love.

5. Heart + Coffee.

Playing around on Picasa

and thought I'd share my discoveries :) With the 70 degree weather today, I've become a lot more motivated to go take more pictures.

I) Pictures of some dried roses after a big snowfall during Christmas Break.

II) Playing around with the focus adjustment. 

III) Super low saturation.

IV) High Saturation

I think I still like saturated/high contrast pictures more than the other way around.

Anyways, since I did promise to always post about food, here are some FANTASTIC looking cupcakes from Philly Cupcake. We catered the cupcakes for a speaker event the Women in Leadership Series was hosting. The people there are delightful and the cupcakes are amazinggg. Hopefully, I'll get some better shots tomorrow when they cater our last speaker. 

Chocolate Oreo in the Back. Red Velvet in the front. 

Chocolate on Chocolate with GLITTER icing.

Who can say no to blue and pink sprinkles??

Here's to a happy Tuesday :)

This is a sign...

Duck bowl! I am a hugeee fan of the rice bowls at Sangkess. The portions are large but just large enough that I can still finish everything if I really wanted to :)

that I need to mix things up. I've realihzed that the only three places I go to eat now are Capogiros, Sangkees and Taphouse. Yes it is (mostly) the only places worth going to on Campus in a pinch but for someone who is always espousing the boringness of the same old same old, I really need to get a little more adventurous...until then: here are some snapshots of lunch of Friday and Sunday at Sangkees.

Chicken with lemon grass. I also really like this dish. The chicken is actually flavored and cooked pretty perfectly.

I went with the lunch special of beef&eggplant, dumplings and rice. The dish was satisfying but a little too sweet for me and the e ginger dressing on the salad was definitely too sweet. 

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Some sort of flat noodle dish with shrimp. After all the times I've had these rice like noodles, I still don't like them because they're always cooked in too much oil. Can someone find me a place that actually does them right??

On another note, the chilli oil at SK is absolutely AMAZING. I usually go through at least one of the these in one sitting...hehe.

Some quick shots of a spontaneous dim sum run on Sunday. Naturally the food was not as good as Chinatown but it did the trick. Yes we ordered too much. Yes we basically finished all of it. )Plus some Vietnamese Iced Coffee. FTW.)

Currently contemplating a BYO to go to this Friday on South Street. Guess we shall see how this planning works out.

New Header!

I finally journeyed to South Street yesterday after being at Penn for almost two years. I don't kndow why it took me so long to visit considering the abundance of eating and blogging opportunities. Needless to say, I'll be going back a lot more before the semester ends (and probably even after since I won't be going to New York until June). Anyways, after strolling (and shopping) for a good 12 blocks, my pledge sisters and I decided it was time for a foodie break and we ventured into Phileo Yogurt. Now the place looks exactly like Kiwi with the bright colors decor, toppings bar and even the labels of the different froyo flavors.  After having Forty Carrots in NY, Yogorino by Rittenhouse and even Pink Berry in Stanford, Kiwi does not compare so I was not super excited about Phileo. BUT THEN, I saw that they had  Tea and Taro frozen yogurt! That made me prettyyy happy even if it was to just take a shot of the wonderful pale green and lavender hues. I went with the green and purple theme and sprinkled some blackberries and kiwis on top. I have to say I am a fan of the bright green-ness of the kiwi.

Anyways, a new header is finally up. I'm not sure how I feel about it since it is a little busy but I guess it will do for now until I can find a way to simplify the shots.

After the strolling on South Street, I met up with my roomie for a quick cappuccino at Capogiro. I swear I go to that place like its my job now but the cappuccino sure is delicious and who can say no to $2 for 6 day old bagels?

Hope everyone had a relaxing and happy weekend. Will post some of the shots from South Street when I am not falling asleep by the computer :p

Baking for a Cause

Last week, Sigma hosted its annual Visions of Chocolate philanthropy event to raise  awareness for the fight against domestic violence. The event featured a dessert buffet with food donations from Taglios, Naked Cupcakes and other local bakeries. In addition, there was a galore of baking done in my tiny dorm apartment from 12am until the wee hours of the morning. Kudos to my the Philanthropy chairs for hosting such an amazing event and showing some impressive baking skills :) I  have to say, I have never baked so much in one sitting in my life but it made me really really wank to open a bakery, teehee.

Chocolate with marshmellows for the Smores bars (recipe here!) and coconut for the Chocolate Coconut Macarons (recipe here!). Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures of the two desserts since it we were too busy baking and I was getting really really tired by 3am.

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies made entirely by the Philanthropy Chairs! (recipe here)

Mini Cherry Cheesecakes. The last time I made cheesecake was probably 3 years ago but turns out cheesecake is surprisingly easy to make.  (recipe here). The original recipe called for nilla wafers but I found them to be really awkward because they didn't fit into the mini cupcake holders. But they were definitely easier than the graham cracker crust I made for the first batch. A random tangent; I really dislike cherry flavored desserts because I always find the taste to be super artificial but the canned cherries for this dish wound up working extremely well.

Quick snapshot of half of half of the desserts that were made. Chocolate chip cake peeking out from the bottom.

Congrats again Phil chairs on a successful Visions!