New York dessert pictures

Desserts from Chikalicious.

Lemongrass panna cotta and pineapple sorbet with poppy seed puffs



Fromage Blanc Island "Cheese Cake"



Grapefruit brulee with toasted pistachios??



Brioche bread pudding and orange-cardamom sorbet



Petit fours: Pineapple cake, double chocolate puffs, and coconut-covered marshmallow squares

Georgia!

Last Friday, my mother and I flew out to Columbus, GA to visit my brother on his 36 hour pass. The plane we flew on from Atlanta to Columbus was this tiny plane that had propellers right alongside our row so that when we were flying, the noise was incredibly loud. The plane was so small that we had to check in our carry-ons for this leg. On the plane, we saw a few people wearing military uniforms. Our flight was the last flight into the Columbus airport and we were the last ones to get a rental car and leave. Got to our hotel room around 11pm.

The next morning, we drove over to Fort Benning to attend a mini graduation ceremony - they had finished basic training. There was a family day for another company so they had soldiers stationed around to help direct us to the right place. We parked near my brother's barracks and were pointed to a classroom for family briefing. Basically, they told us what went on during basic training and what was to be expected afterwards. And of course, some parents asked about deployment to Iraq (the answer was "most but not all" would be deployed).

Also, they laid out some rules for this 36 hour pass that we had to follow such as not leaving the Columbus area (no visiting Atlanta) and the soldiers had to wear their class A uniforms for the entire duration of the pass.

We went out to the graduation area, which is where they usually had their formations. Very chilly as the wind was blowing through. We sat on cold metal bleachers as their company lined up into formation. It took us a while to find my brother since he was on the other side of a pillar PLUS he was wearing these gigantic army-issued glasses (i.e. BCG - birth control glasses).

So happy to see him!!! First thing we did was take him to the hotel room to drop off his sack and change out of the BCGs and into contacts. Then went to the bank, then Popeye's for some chicken and biscuits. We were charged 10 cents per order of water but the cool thing was the choice of "water". There were 3 pitchers - sweet tea, unsweetened tea, and water. So I actually ended up drinking tea. :p My brother eats so much now! haha!

Afterwards, we went to go buy supplies and junk food for him: foot powder, hand sanitizer, Band-Aids, Neosporin, pens, Sun Chips, Snickers, Paydays, and chewy Chips Ahoy. Outside of Walmart, our first out of many supply runs, two of his buddies were sitting on a bench surrounded by plastic bags filled with junk food. haha! We also went to Ranger Joe's, an Army supply store, to buy bungee cords, wash cloths, and a nametag.

We spent most of the time either buying supplies or hanging out in the hotel room, surfing the internet (free wireless!) and resting. For dinner, we went to Chef Lee's Peking II restaurant, a new Chinese restaurant owned by a Chinese person. The decor was beautiful and the food greasy yet delicious. We ordered so much food! We had so many leftovers.

The next day, for brunch, we drove to IHOP's but there was a 20+ minute wait. So we decided to try Waffle House since there were so many of them, about one per exit. It was like a scene out of a movie. Cute little diner-ish restaurant where the servers had soft Southern accents. The waffles are so good!! Also had my first bowl of grits - yum! In the afternoon, we drove to the downtown area to take a look. It's small but a lot of beautiful brick buildings and quaint homes. Also took a look at the Chattahoochee River and Alabama across the river. Went to have Bruster's Ice Cream afterwards. First time I saw my mother eat such a big ice cream cone - she usually doesn't like American sweets all that much. Since my brother ate SO much during the day, for dinner he just had fruit.

When we walked him into the barracks, his fellow soldiers that we met would tell us that my brother was the "PT god" because of his high PT (physical test) scores. heehee. There was a drill sergeant there checking their sacks to see what they brought back in from their pass. Three soldiers got yelled at for not wearing their full uniforms (including jacket) since it was pretty cold and they really should've been wearing their jackets to prevent catching anything.

Anyway, now we're back. We got to learn a lot about what he went through during basic training: get up at 4am, physical training, 7am breakfast, 8pm formation, 9pm lights out. It was awesome to see him again. He's really grown up. He has a lot more patience now and is even more polite than before. Addressing people as "sir" or "ma'am". He's also more careful about where he spends his money.

Columbus is a great little town where the people are very friendly and helpful. I'm glad we didn't get any stares from people because we were one of the only Asian families walking around. All along the highway, we saw LOTS of purple wisteria blooming - very pretty!

New York City!

Here's a summary of what happened in New York...

Day One: Thursday
We were there for an educational conference in Brooklyn. Fortunately, we had a good friend in Brooklyn (less than 1/2 mile away from the conference location, walking) who let us crash with her and her new husband. The flight had been delayed taking off by an hour so we arrived in JFK an hour later than the scheduled TOA. Took a taxi over to their place (it's not in Manhattan so we always had to give taxi drivers directions. weird, huh?). The taxi driver was extremely aggressive and would cut onto the on ramp of the freeway to progress forward.

We got to our friend's and promptly took a nap. Woke up after noon to go set up our booth for the conference. (This was the first conference where they actually had our booth set up correctly when we arrived. The other conferences would forget the extra chairs we ordered.)

After set up, we went to eat these amazingly yummy pastrami sandwiches at Katz's Deli. At $14+ a pop, you'd better believe they were totally worth it! We sat at the table where Meg Ryan did her famous When Harry Met Sally scene. Afterwards, we got some gigantic but delicious potato knishes at Yonah Schimmel's.

Later in the evening, we attended a welcome reception where Mayor Bloomberg spoke. It was quite swanky considering it was for an education conference. There were hors d'oeuvres and an open bar.

Day Two: Friday
First day of exhibition. Went pretty well. Thankfully they had moved our booth location to a prime spot with good traffic. If we were stuck outside the main hall, which is where our booth was supposed to go, we would've seen like two people tops. Anyway, the exhibition lasted until 3pm. We went back to our friend's place to take a nap and eat lunch. (It's pretty hard for exhibitors to eat lunch during exhibit hours because it looks very unprofessional eating in your booth. Plus, you don't want to miss any important leads who might walk by during lunchtime.)

Before dinner, we stopped by Union Square to pick up a map and do some shopping. Highly recommend Streetwise Manhattan. At the Barnes and Noble, there was a ratty Streetwise Manhattan map that had a note saying to see a B&N clerk to buy a copy. We went downstairs to the register where we were sent back to the 2nd floor to get a copy. Then sent back downstairs again to pay for it. Talk about jumping through hoops to get this one map - sheesh! Anyway, went to DSW to pick up a pair of cute flats. :)

For dinner, DH had made plans with a long-lost high school friend to meet at the Metro Cafe and Wine Bar (32 East 21st St). They specialize in wine - with wine on tap which their servers point out, and many "wine flights" available on their menu. They also have Asian dim sum dishes as well as American Kobe beef available. My seared tuna was seared for too long, more of a cooked tuna with raw center. The salad that accompanied the tuna was awesome though and DH did enjoy his chicken parm.

Afterwards, we hiked over to the Chocolate Bar where I indulged in a spicy hot chocolate and DH with a classic. Cute place with fun hot chocolate choices. Beautifully decorated chocolate bonbons in their counters.

Since we were in the area, plus it was recommnded by the people we were with, we made one final stop at Magnolia's Bakery for the highly-raved-about cupcakes. We were warned that the bakery often had lines running out the door and around the corner. When we got there, no lines out the door. Line very much contained in the small shop. It's a self-serve so to the left of the door were trays of cupcakes (mostly gone) and small boxes that hold 4 cupcakes. We grabbed a dozen, each box containing all possible permutations of vanilla and chocolate (chocolate frosting on chocolate cupcake, vanilla on chocolate, chocolate on vanilla, and vanilla on vanilla). The cupcakes were yum but we didn't think they're really rave worthy. Ah well, maybe it's just us. Here are some good pics of those cupcakes (we forgot to take pictures ourselves): Picking cupcakes and Cupcakes!

Day Three: Saturday
Last day of exhibition. Better traffic today than yesterday. The weird thing though was concerning the breakdown. The exhibit officially ends at 1:30pm and unofficially at 1:45pm. Around 1pm, all the exhibitors around us start breaking down. We thought we had misread the signs or something so we asked our neighboring exhibitors. They were leaving early just because. Some of the exhibitors had left even earlier. Well, we were taught by the sales and marketing consultant to always stay to the end. It totally paid off! While all the other peeps were packing up, we were able to get two more great leads. While my DH was showing a demo, the official breakdown crew were dismantling our booth. That was kinda funny to see, almost sitcom-like.

Dropped off exhibit stuff at friend's place and again took a nap and ate lunch. Off to meet up with SK and her bf for some dessert! At 4pm, we crammed ourselves into this little dessert bar Chikalicious where there's only enough seating for 16 people max in the whole place. If the place weren't so well decorated, it would've been designated as a hole in the wall. (Dessert pictures to come soon...check in later.) The desserts are not large so you can very well eat dinner afterwards. You're paying more for the artistry of the presentation and the unusual taste combinations than for the quantity.

Wandered around a bit before our 8pm reservations at Patsy's to treat out our generous hosts. Thankfully we had made reservations earlier that evening because when we got there at 8pm, a party of 2 walked in and were told they would have to make a resevation for 9pm if they wanted to eat there. Great food with first-class service. Definitely worth going back to. It's not a phenomenal experience but you leave very satisfied. While we were eating, there were rumors that the upstairs private room was occupied by "that Mr. Holland's Opus guy". Can't confirm.

Day Four: Sunday
Fell sick and slept pretty much the whole day. Had to cancel brunch and shopping. So sad. At least my DH got to meet up with a good buddy of his for lunch and coffee. Woke up for about 5 hours to watch The Day Before Tomorrow and the last half of the Harry Potter 3 movie. And got to chat with my hosts before we left the next day.

Day Five: Monday
Before the weekend, we had made reservations over the internet to dine at the 21 Club at noon on the day we were to leave (today). Well, my DH and I slept in until 11:48am. oops! He called the restaurant to possibly cancel...but they thankfully did not even get our reservations - yeah, we don't have to pay any cancellation fee! But yeah, online reservations not so reliable for that restaurant. Packed and ate a simple lunch before calling up a car service to take us to JFK. The car ride took us through the seedier areas of Brooklyn since we took local roads for the most part.

And now, we're back!

I need to pack for a weekend trip to Georgia to visit my little bro. Very last trip for a long while.

Co-in-kee-dink?

Coincidence #1
Last week while browsing friends' blogs, I came across an entry that SK would also be visiting New York City in the upcoming weekend. I emailed her to confirm and we were indeed going to be in the City on the same weekend!

Coincidence #2
Over the phone, we discovered that her bf would be flying over to visit her...on the same flight that we were flying over on -- Wednesday evening red eye.

Coincidence #3
Waiting at the airport, her bf showed up. We had all picked out our seats when booking the flight so we compared seating arrangements. My DH and I were in seats 6E and 6F...her bf was in seat 6D!

Funny how the world works out, huh?

Warning for bikers

This is a small warning for bikers, mainly the recreational ones...

Be AWARE of your back view. Check to make sure your butt crack is not visible for all the cars behind you to view.


I had the luck today to drive behind one of these guys. I thought it was a teenager that sagged. Nope, it was a middle-aged man whose pants were just falling. ewwwwww.

Home!

Back home from the conference now. And BOY, it was a bad time to be in Palm Springs-it got cold and drizzly after the first day. The conference went well! The first day was only 3 hours, and 6 hours for the next two days. Lots of standing. It's best when giving demos because then I get an excuse to sit down. And no, I actually didn't get to go around the other exhibitors much to pick up free candy/toys.

Going to New York this upcoming week. Anybody need anything??

If you're curious, we attended the conference because of an awesome math software company.

Live from Palm Springs!

My DH and I are here in Palm Springs for another conference. Last week took us over to the state capital for 2 days. This conference will be for a total of 3 days and with a better schedule (i.e., more sleep allowed).

On the drive over, we experienced what a really fast car driving by feels like. Our car was cruising about 80 and my DH says that there's a fast car coming up our lane. So he changes over to the lane on our right to let that fast car pass. However the change apparently wasn't fast enough because the really fast car passed us on the right side anyway. Dude, this car literally screamed past us. We could hear this shrieking sound as it passed. Crazy, huh?

It was red. It might've been a Ferrari.