H and I went to Le Pho while my parents were over on Friday, so that I could get away from the children. 

I was craving beans with shaved ice. This one looks good, but didn't taste sweet enough. The ice also came in a big lump that was a bit difficult to mix. Would not order again.

Their pho was great though!

And the lemongrass chicken on rice combo was spectacular. Very strong lemongrass marinade: 

The restaurant was quite busy, yet the service was quick and efficient. I wouldn't go back though, because it's a bit out of the way for us and it wasn't like the food was particularly extraordinary (a tad salty). 

Somebody recently asked me if I felt a sense of achievement from raising my two children. 

"No, maybe not for another 5 to 10 years," was my response then.

Now that I've had a few minutes to think about it, maybe I'll never feel that way, because why would I want to base my feelings and fulfilment as a person on the success of others? 

This week’s food highlight is lunch at Monsoon in Bellevue this Saturday:



It’s modernized Vietnamese food, in a cleaner environment, and friendlier, yet slightly slower, service. Standard Vietnamese places used to feel like the cutlery still had some leftover fish oil, and the food would come out within 5 minutes of ordering, since all they really had to do was pour soup into the bowl of noodles. While the service was slower at Monsoon (it took a while for them to bring all the food out), I’m sure it was because we had a 17 people group. The food tasted good, but I’m sure they used plenty of MSG, as we were parched for the rest of the day. I had the pho bo, so basic beef noodle. Look how pretty the onion garnish was:



All the other dishes were very aesthetically pleasing, as well. They also have a duck congee, which seemed pretty gourmet, if you ask me… I also had the ice coffee with condense milk, which ended up being a bit too diluted. Either the coffee wasn’t strong enough, or they gave us a bit too much ice to pour the coffee over. I am a bit picky with coffee though.



Oh right, why was I in Bellevue?

Just surprising a friend for his birthday, and some wedding shopping.

All in all, a very good, productive week and weekend! It feels like I barely had any time to sit down and relax, what with all the wedding planning and driving around, but I am working on taking it slower. Is it normal to feel short of breath, even just sitting down in front of a computer?

I always crave pho the end of a rainy day, and this day was no different. I came to Song Huong with my mother for a quick bite:



They’re known more for their beef rolls and their BBH (bun bo hue…), but we both wanted just regular pho. The noodles are OK, the soup is pretty salty, and the portions are average. Their BBH was really good a year or 2 ago, but I haven’t tried it in a while. I still come back once in a while, because it’s fast, clean, and convenient. Parking in the back or residential side streets.



The world feels like it’s slowly dying though, and no amount of pho will stop it. Storms, floods, bombings… When will it all end? There is sunshine behind all those clouds, and things will look up in no time. I think?

 1. EATING:



Came to Pho Lan for dinner with P and J, in the quest for large amounts of Vietnamese food. Pho is one of my favourite foods. This place was pretty dark and dingy, so I couldn’t really tell how clean everything was, but the pho was great. Not too salty, came with lots of toppings, and a large pile of noodles. I finished the XL bowl by myself! Achievement unlocked. I didn’t care too much for the spring rolls here, tasted like it was refried, but maybe if I weren’t so full from the noodles I would’ve liked it more.



2. ANSWERING QUESTIONS - Customer said that I’m good at this I did not make this up.
Customer: When will you have this in stock?
Me: *tells him the date*
Customer: But how soon will you find out if the date will get better?
Me: Sometime between today and above date. *SECRETLY DYING FROM LAUGHTER*
Customer: You’re very good at answering questions.

3. BEING HONEST – I suck at games that require lying, like Coup and Werewolf. I absolutely hate these games. Another game I hate… Legendary. Can’t wait till Cayman Islands at the end of this month, where I’m sure I will not be playing any of those.

That’s about it, I guess.

Met up with M to do some last minute Christmas shopping and catch up since she’d just come back from Ireland. She’s staying in Surrey right now, and I really would not venture out for very many people, but she’s a special one and brings much joy to my life so I agreed to pick her up to go to Guildford Mall.  The hunger hit us after having only a Nespresso shot earlier on. I mentioned pho to her, and she knew immediately which place to bring me to. It was the same that J, another Surrey native, had recommended earlier on that week. Is it because Pho Tam might be the only safe place for pho in Surrey? I had to find out if it lived up to the hype.

I had the Special A – any large beef noodle with a spring roll for TEN DOLLARS. How can you go wrong?! Look at all the beef. It was steaming hot, and the spring roll was fresh and crispy. Stomach’s growling now, just thinking about it. I’m sort of curious about the rest of Surrey now… What else is in this supposedly dark, dangerous land?

Parking lot in front of the place is teeny tiny. Be careful! (Always be careful in Surrey.)

Steamworks for A and G’s going away dinner afterwards. Breakfast and extremely last minute Christmas shopping/Boxing Day shopping (the sales have started already…) this morning. The schedule for the rest of this week is packed with eating. I’m planning for January to be a recovery month.

P walks by Miss Saigon Bistro pretty often, and was attracted by the cute red chairs in the restaurant, so she convinced me and A to try it out. It didn’t take a lot of convincing for me, I LOVE PHO.

I always get the BBH (bun bo hue):

We over ordered cold cut banh mi, spring rolls, and the noodles came with individual servings of bean sprouts:

THIS WAS AMAZING.

The owner was chatting with us because we were the only customers. He told us all the ingredients are delivered from the little grocery store (Dong Thanh?) on Knight and Kingsway, where his wife bakes the bread and makes all the meat.
We were not disgusted by this.


This rainy weather is just so draining. H is enjoying the weather in HK.