In-N-Out

When In-N-Out was down the street from my parent's house I loved making midnight trips for animal style fries and grilled cheeses. I especially loved ordering things not listed on the menu, just because I made me feel like I had a personal relationship with the burger joint. You know, it's like someone telling you a secret about themselves, and I makes you feel that much more important to them. However, I didn't think In-N-Out would be something I missed while living in Beaverton, since there's Burgerville, a local Pacific Northwest burger chain that many have sworn by, but I think it's because they've never had In-N-Out =)

Grilled cheese with extra cheese and onions.
Cheeseburger, animal style, w/o fresh cut onions
Fresh, hand cut fried potatoes. I love this because my genius brother ordered them "fries light" meaning they are taken out of the fryer earlier than normal, making them soft and squishy and delicious. Except that one over cooked fry... he's a stow-away fry that I had to punish first.
In-N-Out Burger
3001 Mission College Blvd.
Santa Clara, California 95054

From The Bay to...

Beaverton, Oregon?

We made plans to fly down to the South Bay and take a nice 12-hour drive back up to Beaverton, Oregon. Normally I dread long drives. It's long, it's boring, and I get tired of staring at the slow driver in the left lane who really should be on the right but for some reason many road trippers don't understand the rules of the road. So I planned out this long trip to keep me occupied in order to make time fly... with food of course.

One thing I miss about my childhood was the big family vacations we used to take. I don't know how my family was able to take so many trips with the amount of people in my family, since I have a hard time planning trips with my two bestest. It seemed like we were always taking family trip, consisting for at least four cars full of people, some cars even having the kids sit on other parents laps. Ok maybe it was just my parents car that ended up having to "lap it" but that was the fun part. Anyway, before starting our car trips anywhere (including trips to Sacramento) we always always made a pit stop to a Vietnamese Sandwich shop on 4th street in Downtown San Jose. I don't remember the name of the place, since it closed down, the only thing I could tell you is that it is located next to a tuoc bac (Chinese Medicine) shop which I dreaded smelling as a child, but have grown to accept as an adult. I keep going off track, but my point is that we would order at least ten sandwiches, per car. So that's about forty sandwiches total, hey we're hungry people. Ok maybe the parents ended up ordering more, maybe they ordered less, but all I could say was, those sandwiches made the car trips that much better.

So me being the genius that I am, every time I made a trip out to Los Angeles (it's a six hour drive for those who don't have a clue how big California is) I would make a pit stop to Huong Lan in San Jose, CA. My plan was to buy ten sandwiches for our long 12-hour road trip, but for some reason I didn't want Mr. G to judge me, so I settled for five sandwiches. The 25-minute detour South to Huong Lan was well worth every mile, because their sandwiches are so gosh darn delicious, I really can't explain. I cherished each and every single one of those sandwiches, and I miss them dearly.

I've tried four Vietnamese sandwich shops in Portland/Beaverton, yet none had ever hit the spot for me... I've been left sad and unsatisfied.

How could you compare this big hunk of San Jose love... (this one is banh mi thit nguoi or #1)


to this Portland thing they call a sandwich? The coke filled me up more than that sandwich did.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy living in Beaverton, I really do. Living up here has taught me to appreciate what I left back in San Jose, and I left A LOT, which includes family, friends, childhood memories, and of course... food!

Anyway, besides my five Vietnamese sandwiches and two cafe sua da (Vietnamese coffee) I wanted more road snacks, so I grabbed whatever was next to the register, Vietnamese-style beef jerky. Buying jerky worked out well because Mr. G wouldn't judge me and tell me I'm buying too much food (although we were grateful we had an extra sandwich to enjoy by the time we got home). Vietnamese jerky is my absolute favorite jerky. It's slightly spicy, slightly sweet, slightly savory. Mr G admits the jerky is addicting, actually he feels it's very addicting. The poor guy has been deprived from delicious food, good thing he found me so I could show him the way to eating.
There wasn't much excitement with the road trip, besides stopping by the casino and walking out with an extra $15, stopping by the border to smell the fresh crisp clean air, and having a talking fest with Mr. G. I figured since he drove the whole way, I should sit and entertain him with great conversations and singing horribly just to keep him awake.. plus I had two Vietnamese coffees, I was shaking like a leaf, i had to let out my jitters some how!

Right when we got on to I-5, somewhere in Lathrop, CA I saw this truck, and I admire it... it's ART.
Of course we also had to stop by Weed, CA to take a picture and fill up my own gas (it's illegal to pump your own gas in Oregon)


The drive wasn't so bad, it was actually quite scenic. Welcome back to Oregon, my readers.

Chavez Taqueria - Sunnyvale, California

If you're not familiar with Fair Oaks Avenue, or if you've never been to this taqueria, you probably won't find it. Why? Because it's located inside Chavez Supermarket. As you enter the market you smell baked goods to your left, while the smell of fresh raw meat mixed with a taqueria smell lingers throughout the market. When I step into the market I make a beeline past the registers, through the fruit and vegetable section, finding myself staring at the refrigerated section while waiting to make my order. I apologize for not taking pictures of the menu, I rarely look at the menu since I already know what I want.

From fresh carne asada to chivo (goat) to caramones (shrimp) they also offer menudo on the weekends.
I haven't found a taqueria where I could watch the artistic burrito assemblers assemble my burrito, kind of like subway, but for burritos.

They chop your meat in front of you, if any chopping is neccessary.
I request for extras and omit what I don't like (which is pretty much nothing)
I always order the carne asada super burrito, super because guacamole and cheese is necessary when consuming a cow while my other orders a chile verde (stewed pork) regular burrito (minus the guacamole and cheese). Since I'm on a "diet" I asked my Lambchops to share half the carne asada super burrito with me (plus it wouldn't be lady-like for me to eat a whole burrito on my own). Actually, at one point of my relationship with Mr. G, we couldn't share a burrito, because it is that good. Those burritos have caught up with me throughout the years, it's time I went back to sharing.


I think the guy knew I was a food paparazzi, who else would recieve their burrito in this special bag?
I had the burrito artist cut my burrito in half. Could you share something this disgustingly good?
I couldn't, but I had to.

A giant steamed flour tortilla filled with rice, lots of meat, pico de gallo, sour cream, cheese, guacamole, onions and cilantro.

his chile verde burrito
Chavez Supermarket

666 N Fairoaks Ave
Sunnyvale, CA 94085

(408) 736-3793
www.chavezsuper.com

Happy Easter!

I didn't realize how quick Easter Sunday arrived, though I'm not religious I don't have a reason to recognize the bunny holiday. I worked in retail for seven years of my teenage life and I always looked forward to Easter Sunday just because I didn't have to work. Fast forward to today (we only fast forwarded about three years, I'm not that old) and now Easter Sunday sucks for me because most retail stores are closed. On the other hand, I get to spend the bunny day with my cousins. I love getting together with my family, because they don't play around when it comes to eating.

Silly me, arriving late to a food event... this bowl held what used to be garlic noodles... luckily my oldest cousin's wife made a whole new batch of them... which I was a little too hungry to take a picture of.
Goi Du Du, also known as papaya salad.
I don't know how these mussels were made, I'm assuming broiled? baked? grilled? (ignorance occurs when you're late for a food festivity)
Fruit Salad. So simple, so fresh, so perfect for a sunny hot day in San Jose. When I arrived, there were two bags of these sweet and spicy bad boys, gobbled up, sauce left as evidence. My older cousin busted out with two more bags, which also contained spicy sausage and corn..
I don't feel too bad for being late, these lambchops were just hitting the grill.
tender and juicy grilled lambchops.

What is left from the first round of grilling.
I don't think I've ever attended a family party without drinking involved.
mental note: don't ever show up late to a food fest, and don't ever leave early.

Breakfast Biscuit

Who's kitchen is THAT?? Ok, you got me, it's mine.

There's no way I could maintain a kitchen this clean and continue to cook in this kitchen. If I were to keep my kitchen this clean, I wouldn't cook for several days just so I could admire the cleanliness. In this case, I'm going out of town, and since my neighbors are cat-sitting for me, I didn't want to scare her with bottles of fish sauce and/or clutter. Plus the boy and the girl like to jump on the counters, so keeping a knife out wouldn't be such a great idea.

I had a bad experience with using chemicals around the house, it effected my past pet (we miss you oscar the hamster). So being the hippie that I am, I started mixing lemon juice, vinegar and water (1/4c: 2tbspn : 1c) as my cleaning products. I find it to be effective, and safer for the cats as well as the humans. I don't have to fear inhaling the fumes (once I inhaled by accident and my nose hairs started to burn. No seriously, it was really an accident!) My kitchen felt squeaky clean with a lemony, soury (or whatever vinegar smells like) smell. I'd rather smell that than nose-hair-burning smells. Just thought I'd share that with you.

So in this squeaky clean kitchen, I didn't want to dirty it up since it took some time to clean it, plus I had food I needed to eat before I went out of town. I was also craving the breakfast sandwich from an unnamed fast food restaurant (yeah I admit it, I like fast food from time to time) but money is low, I can't even afford fast food, so I have to make my own fast food.

Ingredients:
1 biscuit
1 egg
1 slice deli cheese ( I had pepper jack on hand)
1/2 c frozen spinach
1 tsp cream/milk/half&half/water or whatever you want
salt & pepper to taste

1.) throw your biscuit in the toaster oven to revive it from the cold. (unless you enjoy cold biscuits, then power to ya)
2.) microwave your frozen spinach. I defrosted it at first, but got tired so I microwaved it on HIGH for 45 seconds.

3.) in the meantime, crack your egg in a microwave safe cup. I used my plastic measuring up since the diameter fits perfectly for the biscuit. Add your liquid and whisk with a fork.

4.) remove spinach from microwave, pop your egg in and microwave on HIGH for 1 minute, more or less.

5.) take a few paper towels, add spinach and ring out as much of the water as you can. set aside.

heres my assembly line
6.) I'm not into cold cheese, so I slice my biscuit in half and broiled the cheese on the top half of the biscuit. I ended up folding my cheese in half because it overlapped the biscuit by a lot.
7.) assemble as you like. for me i like spinach on the bottom, egg in the middle and cheese on top, just because it seems to make sense to me

All you need is a side of ketchup and tapatio hot sauce and breakfast is ready!