Portland

I went down to Portland for the weekend (May 20) for Kathy's graduation party. Of course on the list was Waffle Window. Johnny and I discovered it one day when we decided we wanted some brunch before I had to head home. This was absolutely a treasure to find.
I went with all the girl cousins and Johnny. Johnny and I decided to split 3 waffles, where Cindy and Lily split one, Kathy ate one by herself. Yeah, you can say Johnny and I are fat asses, proud of it :)

This is the blueberry cheesecake waffle. It's blueberry cinnamon compote on top of a cream filled pudding with whip cream that's sprinkled with graham cracker crust topping. It was quite tasty, but the whip cream was a little much. Both Johnny and I, and Cindy/Lily got this one.

 The end result of the blueberry cheesecake waffle.

Johnny and I also got another sweet waffle, it is called the Rose City waffle. Compared to the blueberry, Johnny and I weren't a big fan of the rose flavoring. The sliced strawberries on top of this crunchy, sugar-coated waffle was delicious though. It's topped with rhubarb sauce and also whip cream. This place definitely puts whip cream on all of their sweet waffles.

This was by far our favorite waffle. It was the Farm Fusion waffle, with the same slightly crunchy/sweet waffle with spinach, grilled mushrooms, red peppers, tomatoes and marinated chevre. It was a good complement to the savory waffles we ate.

The Waffle Window didn't really have much seating, luckily it was a decent dry day in Portland, so we sat outside. There was quite limited seating inside.

This is the other waffle Kathy got. It was the ham and cheese waffle. It's black forest ham with Jarlsberg and Gruyere cheeses served with Grade A maple syrup. Yum for sure, I enjoyed that probably more than my sweet waffles.

Overall, there are so many waffles to try, and with their menu constantly changing.. it's definitely worth coming back. It's also at a decent price of $4-$5 each. Those sweet waffles are a good dessert to end any dinner. They close at 9pm on weekends!

Mother's Day brunch

Pictures taken 5/8/11

Thank you Groupon. My brother reserved this restaurant, Bluewater Bistro right on the water of Lake Washington. It was a pretty nice day so the view of Lake Washington was gorgeous. I got my mom some heart diamond earrings (fake of course, I'm a poor college student), some flowers and an earring rack. Food was delicious nonetheless! My mom got a free mimosa, she thought those were flowers, haha.

Who serves banana bread as their bread bread?! It was delicious, moist, and soft! Loved.

My brother thinks he's so cool that he has to wear sunglasses inside....

 This was their special of the day. It consisted of a quiche of dungeness crab, cheese, egg, the usual, with a side of fruit, potatoes and a home made scone. This is what my mom ended up getting.

A close up of the home made scone, a little on the hard side. It definitely doesn't compare the fair scones at all. Those will always rock my world.

 This was what I ordered, dungeness crab eggs benedict served poached eggs on an english muffin with dill holandaise & a side of breakfast potatoes.

 

My favorite part of eggs benedict is breaking the yolk with the deliciousness going everywhere. Yum.The only downfall was the english muffin, it was a little harder than I would like it to be.

As you can see my brother's messy plate encumbered in yolk. He got the salmon and spinach eggs benedict.

Overall, I would give Bluewater Bistro a solid 3.5-4. It has all the typical American food you could think of with a gorgeous view of Lake Washington. On a nice sunny day, this place is ideal to indulge in for any meal. The town that it's in is also very quaint and cute!

A little diner in the middle of Washington

During the last weekend in April, Husky Tennis Club went to Walla Walla, Washington for a tennis tournament. Going through Walla Walla meant passing by Yakima, which meant definitely eating at Miner's. Miner's' is a local burger diner that always attracts many sport teams to come drop by. In high school tennis.. or any other sport, whenever we went to Yakima, we always went to Miner's.

The best dipping sauce, fry sauce - mayo + ketchup.. you can never go wrong

Monster burger, I ordered a bacon cheeseburger. I wouldn't say it's one of the best I've ever had, but it's definitely up there. It's literally the size of my head!

Lines can be extremely long, but the old ladies that ring you up are quite nice and helpful.

Part II with Johnny

For dinner, Johnny took me to this family owned Italian restaurant, Perche' No Pasta & Vino near Wallingford. I was craving some pasta.. and he's so nice enough to suggest this, even though this was for his birthday :) I apologize for the photograph quality, these were taken with my phone.

 

For starters, we got a typical Caesar salad and also their housemade marinated grilled Portabello mushroom that were gynormous. These had such a distinct, smoky flavor like it was kind of BBQ, but it was so savory. It kind of looks like it could be mi-steaken... for steak haha, but it was one of the best Portabello mushrooms I've ever had.

For one of our main courses, we got a fettuccini with large prawns, basil, cream and parmesean cheese. I would say I liked this more than the other main course we had, I'm a little biased because I love cream sauces... and noodles. How does it to compare to other fettuccini's I've had? It was pretty decent, they definitely gave us a lot of prawns.

This is the other main course we had, which was the squid inked raviolli filled with smoked salmon, dill, lemon, and cream. At the first bite, it was a little more tart than I thought it would be. It was definitely flavorful, but the filling with salmon kind of lacked a little. It was definitely a risky choice, but definitely worth trying something "squid inked."

 This was the free dessert we got for checking in on Yelp! It was basically creamy flan. It's definitely not as firm and just melts in your mouth after each bite. It wasn't too sweet and it had a good flavor with the syrup. Delicious.

After eating all this food you'd think we'd be stuffed right? I insisted on ordering this.. it's crepes infused with nutella with cream and chocolate syrup. It was absolutely delicious because I'm a big fan of nutella. We slathered each crepe with the cream and syrup and it's the perfect way to end a great date.

The service was great, the owners are Chinese and very nice. For Mother's Day they were giving roses to all the moms and the chef/owner went around the greet tables. Awesome I'd say!

Day with Johnny-love

Johnny came up this weekend and I was sooo excited! I hadn't seen him in a few weeks and when Johnny comes, we always explore and try some delicious food places :)
For lunch, we went to Marination Station in Capitol Hill. This is originally Marination Mobile, which is a food truck that relocates everyday, but now they have established a restaurant and decided to give it a try. 

We ordered 2 kalbi beef tacos and one spicy pork taco. I'm not a big fan of spicy, but the spicy pork was not actually too spicy. Both had a lot of flavor of BBQ. You can tell it is Korean-influenced but the balance of the tortilla and veggies was delightful.

We also got 2 sliders. One was spam and the other is Kahlua pig. I preferred the spam, it had a lot of flavor and was not too salty. The kahlua pig was a little big on the hard side and did not had as much flavor as the spam.

 Going to Capitol Hill also means.. going to the one and only Yogurtland in Washington! This is Johnny's, he got pistachio and plain tart froyo topped with chopped almonds (which he loveeeed), strawberries, and mango. I was surprised, the mango was not as tart and the strawberries were in larger chunks than usual.

I got pineapple guava tart and cinnamon graham cracker froyo, topped with strawberries, Reese's, and Butterfinger bits. Sure the froyo combinations were a little questionable, but I still loved it regardless! Johnny just looked at me with a weird expression =P

Breakfast in SF

I went to San Francisco with a group of friends during spring break, and we went to this restaurant recommended by my brother before visiting Alcatraz Island. It's called Brenda's, which is French Soul Food. Walking here was a little sketchy, because it was near Tenderloin (not the safest area) in San Francisco.. but the end result was quite worth it.

Tia ordered this actually. It's the beignet flight that consisted of a crawfish donut, plan donut, chocolate donut, and an apple donut. I tried the crawfish... and it was to die for. It had a good mixture of salty and sweet that was a perfect balance. Next to her plate were grits, which I did not try.

I also ordered this drink, which was a watermelon iced tea. This was also one of their well known items that you definitely had to try. I'm sure glad I did. It was thirst quenching with a little hint of watermelon.

I ordered this plate, which was an Andouille sausage and cheddar cheese omelet that had mushrooms and scallions inside. This was okay, not the best omelet I've ever had. I'm not a big fan of the red sauce that was on top.

This is another dish my friend, Justine, ordered. This looked absolutely delicious and was envious of her choice. This was homemade granola pancakes and fresh fruit drizzled in vanilla bean cream. The description alone makes my mouth water. Unfortunately, I didn't sample this.. but just from the looks of it, I'm sure this dish was delicious.

Would I go again? Definitely. I would try Tia's beignet flight or their eggs benedict. :)