Beijing Restaurant

I had lunch today at Beijing Restaurant in SF with Eva. I found good reviews on Yelp and saw that Yao Ming had been there so I wanted to give it a try.

We had:
- Hot and Sour Soup: It was sour but not very spicy.
- Stirred Flour Balls with Chicken: Shapes were more like cubes rather than balls. Texture was similar to rice cake.
- Fried Sweet Cake Beijing Style: Mochi texture with red bean filling.

From 090917

In the afternoon we picked up Eva's younger sister from school and had drinks at Java Beach Cafe. Eva also gave me more Taiwanese tea and snacks.

Buns II

Today I didn't have to go home for lunch because Oscar gave me a couple of buns that Hsinni had made with their new bread machine.

The buns were chewy with meat inside:

From 090909

I guess homemade buns are becoming more popular.

It's nice to have a wife that can cook...

Oscar's BBQ

Today we had a 2nd annual BBQ birthday party for Oscar. Last year our manager Wen hosted a BBQ at his house. This year Oscar and Hsinni invited our team and his neighbours for a BBQ. There were 11 adults and 3 kids.

We had a lot of food cooking on the grill including thinly sliced pork, chicken drumsticks, beef shortribs, shrimp, mackerel pike, and mushrooms. For drinks we had diet coke, Hsinni's iced tea, juice, and a variety of beer such as Tsingdao, Asahi, and Corona. For desserts we had a Trader's Joe ice cream cake from Wen, a honey cake made by Eva, and brownies that I made.

Our BBQ started off slowly with Oscar and I putting pork and chicken on the grill. After Wen arrived he took over the cooking duties for a few batches of pork. Chi-Ching was the next cook for more pork and started on the shrimp. Eva decided to speed up the cooking process by poking holes in the aluminum foil that covered the grates. After a few more minutes the shrimp were done and Eva and Eddie decided to remove the foil completely for the shortribs and additional drumsticks. I hope that Oscar won't have too much trouble cleaning his formerly pristine grates. The rest of the cooking was handled by Eddie.

Oscar didn't want me to get a cake but since he told me to arrive around 4:30pm instead of 4:00pm I decided that I had time to try baking brownies. We had a very difficult time getting the brownies out of the container. Instead of squares or rectangles we used a knife and spoon to scoop out odd shapes. I guess maybe I didn't grease the pan enough. Next time I think it'll be easier to just use parchment paper to line the pan. Hsinni helped to clean the pyrex dish after the party.

It seemed that not everybody was aware that it was almost Oscar's birthday. I accidentally let this news slip out so even though it wasn't planned, Oscar received happy birthday songs in Chinese and English. Oscar's candle on the ice cream cake was a number "2" that was previously used at Henry's birthday.

In the end there was an abundance of food. Everybody had leftovers to take home. Note to Oscar - 10 lbs/~40 drumsticks is too much for 11+3.

We spent most of the time listening to stories from Hsinni's father and Eddie. I didn't understand all of the conversation but was content just eating and drinking away. When it was getting dark I asked Oscar to turn on the white christmas lights on the overhang. The atmosphere reminded me of Taiwanese dramas. It would be even better with twinkling lights. I'm looking forward to Oscar's next BBQ gathering where we can try using the charcoal chimney and enjoying more good food and company!

Snacks

Lately I've received a few snacks from Indonesia and Taiwan.

A coworker gave me this from Indonesia:

From food

Nancy brought these for me from Taiwan:

From 090505

Oscar gave me stick things from this company. He told me they are very popular. The purple item below is the taro snack from Nancy:

From food

Fortune Garden

I had lunch with Oscar at his friend's new restaurant. It's called Fortune Garden (雙燕樓) and located on Steven's Creek in Cupertino.

We tried a few dishes:





The shrimp and beef dishes were sweet although they were supposed to be spicy. The flavours were similar and I would describe both as 'orange shrimp' and 'orange beef' but I think the menu named them differently. The waiter that took our order should have mentioned that both dishes were similar. The restaurant was almost full while we dined there and remained that way for most of our meal. Unfortunately this was because service was slow and there was not a lot of turnover. Most of the customers were in large groups of 6+ people. It took us about an hour and a half to finish and I think only one table had to be cleared for new customers by the time we left.

Their specialty is Roast Peking Duck and it has to be ordered an hour in advance. I think we'll try that the next time we go there.

Buns

Andrew showed us how to make buns from scratch. I mostly observed and took pictures. Here are some that we made:

From 090314

Some buns were filled with a meat mixture:

From 090314

Work/Downtime

Lately I've been very busy with work. Part of my current project is being handled in Japan and it has not gone smoothly. It's frustrating when distance creates visibility and control issues. It's disappointing when company politics and policies harm schedules and progress.

For unknown reasons our company in Japan has implemented a strict policy on working hours. Employees go home at 7pm and do not work on the weekends. Locally we have no such policies and we have to bear the brunt of our customer's wrath when progress is slow. With the type of ASIC engineering work that I'm involved with, setting strict working hours does not always make sense. Our goal is to finish the project quickly so that customers can meet their time to market demands. Efficiency is easily lost because of the long runtimes of our tools. Freedom to arrange our own work schedules is highly desirable.

It's hard to keep a high level of concentration for days, weeks, and even months. Days start to run together and there is nothing to look forward to. I was able to find a few hours of relief today by having brunch with friends at Stacks. I had only been to the one in Menlo Park before but today we went to the location in Campbell. I tried the smoked salmon frittata. A friend commented that my egg was a bit hard but I thought it was ok and explained to her that frittatas were cooked in an oven unlike an omelette.

After lunch we went to see a new townhouse before going back to my friend's place. I stayed a bit to play with their guinea pig before heading back to work. I only stayed at the office around 4 hours today and received 2 calls from a coworker about the project.

For dinner I had portobello mushroom ravioli with a simple dressing. I paired it with a glass of chardonnay.

From food

I hope my project will be finished soon and I can find more downtime.

Snacks from Taiwan

Eva brought back some snacks for me from Taiwan.

The taro pastry is a nice change from often receiving pineapple cake. :P

From 090216

The box mentions that taro has four times the edible fiber content compared with rice but only has 90% of the calories. I found a website with nutritional data of various food to verify the claims. More information about taro, and other food, can be found here.

Feb 14 Dinner

I cooked a steak in my toaster oven for Valentine's Day and Nana's one week anniversary.

From 090214

It was more medium than my goal of medium rare.

From 090214

Still, I think it turned out better than Peter's microwaved steak. :P