it's a biggie!!!

here it is at last, our christmas tree and it's

a fat one. i thought it was a good one till we

brought it home and it had some empty spots

and the top was not straight... oh well

the towel marks the spot.


it's in!!!

now it's time to get the boxes out of the garage and decorate... didn't we just put those boxes away??? and now we are getting them out again!!! stay tuned for a few more hawaii post and then all the christmas stuff...

a champion day...

finally, we got to eat one of our most favorite things in Hawaii.

Champion malasdas!!!

Last trip we did a taste test and pick these malasadas as the best. Jeff said he is glad we do not live in Hawaii cause he would weigh 500 pounds due to eating these yummy delights...
they are made fresh and piping hot, so hot we couldn't even touch them at first and of course burned our mouth cause we couldn't wait till they were cool enough to eat...



outside these malasadas are rolled in sugar and crispy,
the inside to soft and light...
great way to start the day!!!




plumaria flowers outside of champion

libby manapua shop, our very first stop from the airport (we needed a snack)

actually we went there almost every day!!! a great find from our last trip and

still good this trip too...

yum, and easy to eat in the car on the way to the beach.

spent another great afternoon at the north shore.

ahhhhhh...

a very sad day...

after arriving in hawaii and before going to the hotel, our first stop was to check the hours of Jeff's favorite saimin place. it was closed and we were greeted with this sign. it was not a good way to start off our vacation. we had been really looking forward to palace saimin... so sad...

so we decided it would be a good opportunity to try a new place

they had a really big menu compared to palace and way more expensive too

well, how was it??? just say, we won't be going back... if all else fails we will go to zippy's

aloha

we have arrived!!! this was the view from our room at the hilton hawaiian village. we were hoping for a better view of the ocean but this one was pretty good.

lunch at forty niners, one of our favorite places and we really should try to get there more often. we didn't have time on our last trip in May but we got there this time....

garlic chicken and fried saimin



fifty's type of diner, the tables are really old...

terri cheeseburger and mac salad (spaghetti noodles)

both were super yummy and we had wished we had gone back

north shore

pretty good us photo, thanks to photo shop!!!!

spent the afternoon at the beach. the clouds are so beautiful...

Happy Thanksgiving

from hawaii...

hope every one has a great day filled with fun and food.

we'll be flying home so think of us as you eat that juicy turkey!!!

still following the kogi truck

last weeks special "pac man"

2 salsa's, 3 meats (kogi beef, spicy pork and spicy chicken), sesame mayo, salad, chicharrones
jack and cheddar cheese...

and yes, it was good... we have been pretty much following the kogi truck in our area every weekend. i think we are addicted. the lines have gotten shorter with the cold night. if you want to find Kogi taco's http://www.kogi.com/ and twitter...

road trip

Vegas!!!

Last weekend we took a very short road trip to Las Vegas. On Saturday we visited the sharks at the Mandalay Bay Shark Reef Aquarium. First we saw the jungle part and found out we were not allowed to take photos. So this is the only one we took... No shark photos. The aquarium was really nice with lots of sharks...Kai enjoying a ride on Uncle Jeff's neck!!!

For lunch we went to the Burger Bar. We have tried to eat here several times but the line was always too long. These were the mini burgers, one was buffalo, kobi beef and one organic beef ( I think). So cute and yummy too. While Kai napped with his Dad we went shopping at the outlets the rest of the day. After they joined us for more shopping!!!

For dinner we went to cousin's Ruthie and Nelson's house. We wanted to try the famous 30 inch pizza and visit with them at their home since we had never been there before...




OMG!!!
It was like a pizza we saw on Man vs Food. So huge, you can't really tell
in the photo...


Jeff with the 30 inch pizza. It was very yummy and the 6 of us plus Kai did a good job of eating a lot of it. It was a very short road trip but as usual we had fun and look forward to going back.

we are cebrating at disneyland...

happy halloween!!!

korean bbq taco's???

we have been wanting to try kogi taco's for a long time. they first started in la and we saw them on tv, with really long lines. you have to look at their website to see where the truck will be located. we found out that they sometimes come to the oc on the weekends but were so busy it never seemed to work out. this week we found out they now have a new truck (with a big orange on the side) that comes to the oc every night (closed on sun and mon). they would be in irvine last night so we knew we would have to check it out!!! we were confused on the location but when we finally arrived we were a little shocked to see the very long line...

lots of people left the line and it didn't seem like we moved very much but we did see people pass us with their large bags of food. i thought we would have only an hour wait but it turned out to be 2 hours. the truck was scheduled to be at this location from 6-9. we arrived at 8, just 10 people from the end of the line. The last person was given a sign saying no more people could join the line (he got 3 free taco's and 2 drinks). This was given out around 8:30. the truck was supposed to arrive at the next stop in orange at 10:30 and stay till 12 but was packing up with hopes of arriving at 11!!!

it was sort of a hard decision on what to order. wanted to try a variety of items since the long wait and didn't know if we would come back. we didn't want to get too little and leave hungry. there was no way to order again... we had lots of time to think about it and we were starving!!! after all it was almost 10p!!! omg!!!

wow, almost there!!! last run through on what to order...

finally, we can order after waiting in line 2 hours, yes 2 hours

the menu

this was the special *Spam-a-lot short rib burger*

coconut lime chili spread, short rib, spam, cheese, grilled mushrooms

onion line cilantro relish

since it was the special we decided that we must try it...

the burger was good, needed more meat, not sure if i would get it again...

black jack quesadilla

spicy pork, cheese and a verde sauce

it one of the best things we ate, the sauce had a hint of coconut and was not very spicy

the taco's

we chose 3 korean short rib and 1 spicy chicken

they looked really small for $2 each but they were very good and filling

they were both spicy but not too much, lots of flavor and a interesting

combination of korean and mexican

it was a lot of food but all very good, already know what to order next time

would we wait over 2 hours again??? yes!!!

happy 2nd birthday!!!

kai

Here today, gone to napa...

we are going to napa for crush (when they pick the grapes) this weekend.

we were just there in july so this will be our second trip of the year!!!

meeting jeff's brother and sister in law for a mini vacation.

stay tuned for another crazy adventure in food...

back home again!!!

after 25 long days at the first repair shop (our insurance didn't think some of the repairs were necessary) we had it towed to another repair shop and this is what our poor car looked like. the card board box was filled with parts. It was so sad to see our car in this condition. We never expected it to ever be the same...

they worked on it right away and 2 weeks later, we picked it up today!!!
almost like new... just hope we can keep it that way

short ribs, anyone???

for a while we have been eating some really good short ribs at restaurants. so we decided to make some at home...

here is the recipe we used. we looked on line at several different

ones and this seemed the best and some what easy.


the recipe required making a brine (salt, brown sugar and bay leaf)

2 cups of each. omg!!! that seemed way too salty but we vowed to

make it exactly like the recipe. put the short ribs in for 3 hours, we

sort of got behind and left it in for almost 4 hours....

had to brown each piece, we had 6.



celery, carrot and onion, oh my...




stack of browned short ribs

cooking the veggies, looks pretty good


added wine, chicken stock, short ribs and vegetables. after an hour of cooking.

over all the short ribs were good. forgot to take a picture of the dinner but here are the leftovers. i guess we will try them again but maybe a different recipe...

my poor pot...




it survived our experiment and lives to make another good pot of something.
(believe it or not it was easy to clean per Jeff)