Author: yonghokim

  • Second rainstorm

    Second rainstorm

  • Orange Tofu

    Orange Tofu

    Orange Tofu & Brown Rice with Sweet Peppers, Kohlrabi & Cashews

    SPICY CHICKEN & GUACAMOLE WRAPS: cabbage, tomato, corn, creamy parsley & cilantro chimichurri

    this burrito was very meh. maybe because i saw the chicken burning fast and put it half-cooked in the rice cooker, so the rest of it was slow cooked. the slow cooking may have killed the flavor of chicken breasts.

  • CGC SoCal Meetup

    CGC SoCal Meetup

    Yangji Gamjatang

  • Tom Kha Soup

    Tom Kha Soup

    Tom Kha soup tastes alright but I didn’t like how it smells.. it had this faint scent of rotting/sewage.. maybe it was the combination of coconut milk and the spicy oil? Well, it was a different dish from the usual tried out today so that was nice.

    It’s pouring today. Went out just to soak in the vibes a bit.

    Ok let’s finally assemble that rowing machine. (Got another one this end of year as apparently.. my August back pain was probably not related to rowing machine exercises?)

    after taking some measurements, some initial estimation of different heights are:

    3’6″=bellybutton
    4’6″=chest
    4’11″=neck
    5’1″=chin
    5’5″=eye

    just to help me get a sense of what, for example, a 5′ height means.

  • Thai Noodles

    Thai Noodles

    Thai Chicken & Curry-Peanut Noodles with Carrots & Shishito Peppers

    These shishito peppers are like 5 times spicier than previous shishito pepper shipments from Blue Apron

  • Chorizo Tacos

    Chorizo Tacos

    Coffeeshop: actually adults can’t order Kid’s menu items. Not sure what happened before.. we just don’t sell kids’ items to adults.
    Me: Sheesh okay fine I’ll just have coffee then

    Capturing the experience of a taco on photo is kind of hard because it usually requires two hands to eat – even to put it together. This taco is just about average in terms of flavor, but the concept was very unusual and interesting. I like this experience of having food that is different from the routine!

    The potato was just about average though. Looking at the recipe photos, my potatoes didn’t come out nearly as crispy as it looks in the example.

    I had an entire half of a purple cabbage left from previous cooking, so this was my chance to use it all before it goes bad.

  • Chicken Soup

    Chicken Soup

    There’s a restaurant chain in LA called Ocha/Ocha Classic. Usually there’s a lot of latino people at the restaurant, and some weeekends/holidays there’s block-turning lines of people there. A lot of people order the Seven Seas Soup, which I have yet to try out. I used to go here every once in a while for Pad Thai and curries, although I ate more through Thai TG Express delivery and after moving to 6th St, at My Thai Kitchen.

    Today, I visited this place after a 4 year gap. Instead of the usual, I wanted to try out something different, and looked at its 100 menu items for a while, settling for 80. Pork with Chili and Onions. Each item had a name in Thai writing next to it. Most descriptions sounded pretty bland, like “Pork with Chili and Onions”, “Pork with Chili, Basil and Onions”, “Pork with Chili and Garlic”, etc. (That’s the Pork section, which is 1/5 of the menu. Then there’s the chicken section and another beef section, with similar combinations, I imagine)

    The dish was one of the most bland dishes I had tried out in a while. Yes, its spicy, and it has a decent flavor mix for the water at the bottom of the plate. It has cooked pork. Not seared. And chili. And onions. And that’s it. It tasted boring.

    And then it hit me, that’s the majority of this restaurant’s 100-dish catalogue. They are just some meat, cooked on a pan along with the veggies. And the variety of menu is just which veggies you want included in there. And that’s it – there isn’t a whole lot of depth into it.

    With how plain my day to day life has turned over the past two years, eating something new turned into one of my little adventures. And this restaurant ruined it. I’d prefer each eating experience to be adding something unexpected, somethig new, something to analyze. Even if I don’t always like how it turns out – like that Ethiopian restaurant from two weeks ago. I won’t be coming back to this restaurant. And it made me realize something I hadn’t quite realized before.

  • Sunlight

    Sunlight

    I met with a friend yesterday at 12pm in this coffeeshop, and the experience was a real revelation for me because that morning I was super cold in this cold apartment that doesn’t get morning time sunlight into the room, and I hasn’t been going outside much because all I remember from going outside is it being cold and windy. But this day I sat under the sun and it was the warmest I had been all week.

    Usually I’d avoid the sun as it gets too hot, but on days when it’s so cold all day, this was my highlight of the day, being so warm and cozy. It’s only sunny 11am-2pm though, so I think every day when it’s around 60F I’ll go to this coffeeshop and enjoy my few hours of sunlight for that day.

  • Croissant

    Croissant

    Cafe Mooi

    • Affogato Icecream & Coffee
    • Toasted Croissant with Honey and Almonds

    아포가토가 커피 맛인 줄 알았는데 아이스크림이었어?