Bring on the Colors

Sansom Roll from Vic's sushi. What's in it? More appropriate question to ask is what is not in it :p

Now that Philadelphia has finally begun embrace Spring weather (even if it is still freezing at night), all I can think about are colors and with that :tulips, violets and all those beautiful flowers that follow a flurry of April showers. Our old house used to have a huge flower garden, 2 cherry blossom trees and countless other random flowery plants all over the yard, and in the Spring time, the front of the house looked absolutely gorgeous.  Surprisingly, Penn actually has a lot of blossoming trees all over campus, maybe I'll get some snapshots before I head home next week.

Sushi at Vic's [study break with the roommate]

3 roll combo for  $10.95. Bam. 

Check out that salmon. Best fish in existence.

Speaking of which, I can't believe this semester is wrapping up already! 1/2 way through college...wow, I can still remember getting my hair done for Senior prom...Although to be honest, I am very ready to go home after an inordinately exhausting week of finals. One more final to get through and then it'll be Redbox movies, doing 6 weeks worth of laundry and starting my summer reading list :)  Even though it is May already and half of the year is almost over, my mid-year resolution is to embrace more simplicity. First step is to stop eating so many of those sweet potato fries that I have been raving about, second step is to add more colors to my dinner plate and the third step is to take more pictures! Get excited.

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.