Restaurant Name: Doe Jon Station
Specialty: Taiwanese Breakfast!
Location: Arcadia, Los Angeles, California
Company: Skinny Kevin
Overall Experience: YUMMY! ( : asian breakfast is the best!

[The newspaper photo is present because it was our companion during the meal. Of course it's too polite and courteous to move it off of the table. We had to work our way with limited space and lots of food! Typical Asian service, could not have asked for more! Truly not sarcastic.]



[ 油条 ] This is what I consider as a Taiwanese donut. Unlike the American version, deep fried and then slathered in either glaze or some overly sugar condiment. The Taiwanese "donut" is more like a savory item. The dough itself is slightly sweet, but definitely nothing to give one a toothache. It is extremely light and fluffy and the best are crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. Doe Jon's was normal, nothing particularly delicious, but it still did have the nostalgic taste of the doughy Taiwanese donut.



[ 蛋饼 ] Egg pancake! Super delicious. Again, unlike the American tradition, the Taiwanese pancake is not sweet and rather on the savory side. It is also extremely thin, much like The Original Pancake House's dutch pancakes, with with eggs cooked into it. What makes the egg pancake unique it the thinness of the pancake complemented with a thin layer of egg as well.



[ 臭豆腐 ] Stinky tofu! Usually, I would not like to eat something extremely fermented and strong in the morning, but stinky tofu is always an exception. It has a tepid disgusting taste that makes the phrase "takes one to know one" come to life (you need to invest time and effort in revamping your taste buds to realize the true deliciousness of the stinky tofu). One of the best things about stinky tofu is the spicy sauce that it comes with. Do not fear, it will not get rid of the stinky-ness of the tofu!



[ 飯糰 ] If I were a Taiwanese contruction, this would be my ideal lunch break snack! There are two flavors, one sweet and one salty. They both include the Taiwanese donut and are wrapped in semi-stick rice. The sweet one has sugar particles which, in my opinion, makes the sweeters ones better!




[ 咸豆漿 ] Salty soy milk! I have no idea what's in here, but it is basically soy milk made salty. I do know that there are green onion and the Taiwanese donut (putting this with anything makes the dish so much more delicious!).


Note: As you may have noticed (if anybody is even reading this), that I went through more descriptions of the food rather than rated and critiqued it. To be honest, I do not really remember how these tasted. I guess that means that it was okay, nothing spectacular or nothing terrible. I do know for sure that I had a good meal! ( :

Restaurant Name: Bruxie
Specialty: Gourmet Waffle Sandwiches
Location: Orange, California
Company: JJA: Joanna, Joanna, Amanda (but I call her Panda because I am awesome)
Overall Experience: Interesting..hm..





We ordered two types of "sandwiches." The first was a sweet one with Lemon Cream and Berries. The cream portion of the sandwich was nice. A bit sour and tangy but had a lingering sweetness accompanied by the berries that made for a nice sandwich. We also ordered the Buttermilk Fried Chicken and Waffles. The chicken was fried nicely but still was just nice. After having indulged in Roscoe's Fried Chicken and Waffles, this sandwich just did not compare. The waffle was delicious. But I feel that it is worthy on its own without being cut in half and filled with stuffing. It is a thin type of waffle, not so much the typical thick fluffy Belgian waffles that I am more accustomed to. However, it did add a nice crunch to the "sandwiches."



The owner (?) asked us how we were enjoying our food and we mentioned that it was our first time there. He then gave us this complimentary bag of waffle fries and soft serve frozen custard. Marrying the two together was interesting! The waffle fries weren't too impressive. I prefer my fries crunchy and cripsy, with the oil from the frying process oozing out and slathering my lips. These were moderate, a bit on the soft side if memory serves me correctly. The soft serve was nice. Nothing too impressive once again, but still nice.

Restaurant Name: Mariposa Ice Cream
Specialty: Ice Cream
Location: Normal Heights, San Diego, California
Company: Susie
Overall Experience: scream for ice cream!



[excuse the lack of photos]

Goodness graces. I did not realize how fortunate I have been in the ice cream world. I've been spoiled! Mariposa Ice Cream is an ice cream place that I've been itching to go to, and I finally went! We almost passed the shop as it camouflaged with the store next to it. Thankfully with Susie's almost good memory, we managed to stop before we passed it.

The ice cream itself was really really good. I got cookies and cream (!) and one of their homemade cones. The ice cream was creamy without it being too sweet. I do prefer to have my oreo cookies maintain that crunch! of theirs though. The cookies were soggy, but not too bad to have asked for another scoop!

The cone was different. It wasn't really what I was expecting. I'm in love with Sweet Rose Creamery's homemade cone. It has a nice crunch to it which complements the smoothness of the ice cream extremely well. However, Mariposa's ice cream cone was too crumbly for me. The texture of the cone was too similiar to that of the ice cream, rather than provide the contrast that I was looking for. Nonetheless, the cone was definitely fresh and still very good! It had a slight vanilla (or something) flavor added to it which made the cone more floral and flavorful. None of that grocery store blandness here!

Restaurant Name: Shabu Shabu House
Specialty: Hot dogs
Location: Little Tokyo, California
Company: Mother, Liwen Ai-yi, Peter, and Sharon
Overall Experience: weeeee delicious shabu shabu!




It was a cold and raining day in Los Angeles, one of the few, which made this dinner exceptional! You enter the restaurant and are greeted with a man in a cute chef outfit making fresh slices of beef! (look at that marble!) You are seated with a boiling pot of water into which you put the veggies into the water to flavor the water and to cook. There were two condiments that you could choose from to flavor your delicious beef: a ponzu sauce which you add grated radishes and a sesame sauce which you add grated garlic as well as green onions. What made this shabu shabu place was the freshly sliced beef. Instead of having the beef pre-sliced, these pieces of beef were extremely fresh and not dried out in any manner. Whenever I make, or assemble, homemade shabu shabu (hot pot), I would use broth, making the soup very pleasant to drink after the meal. However, in this case, the broth was filled with the fat that boiled out of the meat and not as flavorful as my homemade shabu shabu. Thus, I did not drink the broth. HOWEVER, the meat was extremely pleasant ( :

Truck Name: Bostons Speeds
Specialty: Hot dogs
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Company: Best friend Joanna! ( :
Overall Experience: BEST HOT DOG EVERRR




This is not your Costco hot dog. The first thing about a Costco hot dog is the price. At $1.50 plus tax, a Costco hot dog is extremely cheap for the size of the hot dog. This hot dog was $8.00, but without tax! Even without tax, this hot dog is exceptionally pricey! But it was soooo soooo good! If I had another $8.00 to spare and a ticket to Boston, I'd definitely wait in line for this. We got all the toppings (at the lady's recommendation). The barbeque sauce is amazing! It's sweet which complements the salty-ness of the dog. The bun is grilled for a bit of toasty texture which is nice. The onions give it a spicy and fresh flavor which also accompanies the mustard and relish nicely. So good.

Restaurant Name: Capt. White Seafood City
Specialty: Maryland Blue Crabs
Location: Washington D.C.
Company: Third Aunt, Fourth Aunt, Aunt, and Father!
Overall Experience: Crab everywhere!



This area in Washington D.C. is inundated with vendors floating magically on concrete structures that support their enormous loads of fish and, most importantly, Maryland blue crabs! We drove around half an hour from Rockville to get to Washington D.C. for these crabs, and boy were they worth the drive! The whole experience was amazing. It's like San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf but on steriods, tons and tons of fish and shrimp along with their fellow friends, these gorgeous crabs, on the stands. There were various vendors, but after careful inspection on the liveliness of the crabs, my father and I decided on Capt. White Seafood City's crabs (pst, I think we made a good choice). You purchase these crabs in BUSHELS. A bushel is a way to measure dry goods and is equivalent to 8 gallons. We ended up purchasing 2.5 gallons, which is the the same as 20 gallons of crabs. The center photo is the guy placing our crabs into the wooden bushels and then placed in line to be steamed. The (directly) bottom pictures show these sleek blue crabs being steamed red!






I guess that this was more of a photo post rather than a writing post. ( :