probably one of the worst dessert ive tasted. very salty and weird tasting
this hazelnut one was pretty good.
Journeyman totally didnt do it for me. nothing i had was memorable. portions were small; ingredients did not work well together and lacked flavors. service was friendly but slow. dinner was really unsatisfying.
Journeyman
Category: American (New)
9 Sanborn Ct
Somerville, MA 02143
(617) 718-2333
my friend tingting and i also went on a trip to mexico 2 weeks ago, so next a few posts will be on our trip to mexico. i took 6,586 pictures throughout our entire trip. its taking me forever to edit them because the weather was terrible, im trying to photoshop some sunshine in so you guys dont feel depressed looking at my pictures.
before i start, i just wanna thank tingting (she single ready to mingle )) for going on such trip with me, down for anything: hunting for the good food that never existed, ready to go under any bad weather and dangerous road conditions, taking care of me, hearing me complaining about the bad weather day and night, probably sick of watching me running naked in our room for 6 days or jus seeing me for 6 days 24/7 in general, calling room services and doing all the talking for me cuz i hate talking to strangers. one of the hardest thing to find in life is a friend that you can travel together. most times friendships break at the end of the trip and im speaking from experiences. a true friend that can pack up and go on adventures with you anytime to anywhere is priceless. <3
we chose mexico not only because we wanted go somewhere tropical, its gotta amazing culture and history.
this was our original plan, but we couldnt follow it due to the bad weather.
day 1
although the plane ride was like a roller coaster, we did arrive to cancun on time and picked up our luggages after they were sniffed by police dogs. i reserved one rental car on expedia.com with thrifty car rental one week before the trip. their counter was right outside the gate and they drove us to the thrifty location to get our car. as soon as you get on the van, there are two $5 bill sign that says ‘tips’ right in front of your face. tipping starts from here.
its illegal to drive in mexico without liability, so we purchased liability and the lowest damage coverage just to be safe. we got a standard sized car because their cars are pretty crappy so we didnt wanna risk the economical ones. safety first. everyone drives a volkswagen here since they are made in mexico?
we were staying at the ritz carlton in cancun. the road from the airport to our hotel was an easy drive. signs and directions were super clear, we got to our hotel no problem.
our oceanview room
i like this fridge
my friends charles and erica happened to be in cancun at the same time so we decided to meet up for dinner and visit chichen itza together the second day.
charles and erica stayed at Fiesta Americana Grand Coral Beach
charles and erica had been to mexico for 5 days already when we got there. they were super sick with mexican food and tacos in particular. they wanted to try this Argentinian Steakhouse that someone recommended.
margarita and some wine
tuna and octopus carpaccio
sucking pig – not too flavorful
tender skirt steak – not so tender
rib eye – this was the best piece of meat of the night
tenderloin brochette with bacon, peppers and onion
me charles and erica
me and tingting
we werent really impressed by Cambalache, but the service was great. maybe choosing to eat steaks in mexico was a bad idea to start with.
Cambalache
Blvd. Kukulcan Km. 9 (Plaza Forum), Cancun 77500, Mexico
we decided to get a few more drinks and call it a night to get some good rest for chichen itza the 2nd day.
i have to say that mexicans are the true hustlers. they try to sell you stuff and keep you entertained any second. true professionals. this lady was trying to sell us tequila shots. after the 20 attempts, we finally decided to buy her tequila shots. she would feed you the shot then after you took the shot, she would spin your head, squeeze and shake you boobs/nipple (if you were a guy), then shake your butt. she was super aggressive, couldnt stop her from what she does. i have to say $5 was well worth it after all that.
this is all for our first night in cancun. next up: chichen itza, one of the world’s 7 wonders, and city of valladolid
had been wanting to try kaju tofu house for a long time, but the long lines jus too crazy for me. one day i was really craving for soondubu, so i decided to wait.
this is my fave banchan – sweet potatos, love it so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
galbi – super low quality meat, look at all that fat. meat was hard to chew.
We ordered two soondubus at two different spicy levels, but they all tasted equally spicy. It was super bland, one of the worst soondubus ive ever had. Even my Korean friends agree with me. Boston Korean food disappointed me once again, kaju tofu house never again.
Kaju Tofu House Category: Restaurants Korean 58 Harvard Ave (between Cambridge St & Franklin St) Allston, MA 02134 Neighborhood: Allston/Brighton
it was pork belly’s birfuday last thursday so we decided to celebrate it at Asta.
Asta, standing for Alex & Shish’s Taste Adventure, is Alex Crabb’s first restaurant after serving as sous chef at L’espalier for over five years.
parking wouldve been a pain, but fortunately they share the valet at Deuxave next door.
we sat at the ‘bar’ overlooking the kitchen. i loved the setup. it felt very cozy like i was dining at someone’s kitchen.
asta only offers tasting menus available in three, five and eight courses. they allow everyone at the table get different tasting menus which was awesome. ive read good reviews on the 5 course tasting and someone mentioned the 8 course was ‘overly conceptual’, so i was curious about that as well.
2008 Schoenheitz riesling ‘lisenberg’ alsace
duck heart, green almond milk, carpaccio
8-course tasting #1. oyster smoked and raw with celery juice
5-course tasting #1. peas with sheep’s milk cheese from vermont and mushrooms.
8-course tasting #2. after the storm: seaweed pasta, salmon roe, lemon mussel foam.
this was probably one of the ‘conceptual’ dishes. i loved it! when chef alex brought the dish, it smelled like the ocean. i was a fan of the lemon mussel foam, the whole dish tasted like ocean it was awesome. i loved it how it incorporated visual, smell, and taste.
the chefs were super friendly
8-course tasting #3. poached arctic char with ramps and cheeries.
5-course tasting #2. asparagus with egg and ajoblanco
8-course tasting #4. quail – escagot was stuffed in the quail, green garlic, and fava leaves. this was another one of our faves.
5-course tasting #3. scallop with farro, blueberries, and coriander. the scallop was fabulous ‘
2012 ch. d’Or et de Gueules ‘les cimels’ rose rhone – i wasnt a fan of it
5-course tasting #4. beef ribeye with chopped herbs, stinging nettles, and baby radish.
i thought this was a lil underwhelming and bland. the ribeye was very well executed, but i was looking for a kick to the flavor that it’s lacking.
8-course tasting #6. lamb with beets & scallions – same thing with the lamb: very well executed but a lil bland.
8-course tasting #7. campari stewed rhubarb with ricotta, pink peppercorns and white chocolate. im not a fan of rhubarb, but the flavors worked well together.
coconut cream pie. super dericious. the sweetness was just right.
5-course tasting #5. swiss roll – chcolate, passion fruit, tobacco. im a sucker for passion fruit, this def hit the spot. rich and creamy dark chocolate with passion fruit filling. ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
8-course tasting #8. almond and apricot – rosemary milk. this was served warm. super dericious and satisfying as well.
bunny cookies )))))))) hehehehehehe
i had a great meal at asta. food was light, dericious, creative, and unique in terms of the ingredients, smell, presentation, and taste. the unfamiliar ingredients connected surprisingly well together. the presentation was beautiful. i dont think they were ‘overly conceptual’ either. its like alinea in chicago, they combine food with art. i totally dig it.
like i mentioned before, i totally love the ambience and kitchen setup. very cozy, relaxing, and entertaining. staff was very friendly, knowledgeable, and accommodating. although i wish couple dishes had more flavors, the overall experience was excellent. i will def be back.
Asta
Category: Restaurants American (New) American (New)
47 Massachusetts Ave
(at Marlborough St)
Boston, MA 02115
Neighborhood: Back Bay
this is gonna be a long, disorganized, chaotic , and angry post just like the experience i had at little lamb restaurant 2 days ago . if you dont have the patience to read the entire post, here is my conclusion: the very second WORST dining experience i have ever experienced after Giacomo’s Ristorante
where do i start? I have absolutely no expectations for good services whenever I dine at a Chinese restaurant. As long as the service is timely I’d be happy with it. Little lamb def failed terribly in every possible aspect you can imagine.
Little lamb, xiao wei yang, is Mongolian hot pot chain and was just opened its first north American location in beacon hill boston last week. The menu, consisting of various broths and some of my favorite small dishes, looked really promising so I called up a few friends to check it out. We got there at 7:00pm.
The restaurant was half full. We were sat right away. The waiter brought us the menus and left without absolutely no explanations or warning of sold out items. I was confused about several items on the menu so I had to verify with the waiter. Getting the waiter’s attention was the most frustrating thing ever, he would just walk by me knowing that I was waving to him. So at this point, I started to try to get any other waiters’ attention. All of them did the same thing: walking by me knowing that I was trying to get their attention. I started to wonder if little lamb hired all blind workers or i became invisible. Finally, our waiter came, I ask him what’s in the veggie dumplings? He said he has no idea, but he would ask the kitchen for me. Great! I was also confused about another item on the menu, he told me it was sold out. Great! Why didn’t u tell me earlier?
They basically give u a piece of paper which has a list of their items and you can just check it off whatever you would like to order. However, the drinks are not on the paper so you actually have to tell the waiter what you want. We ordered 5 different drinks from the menu and they didn’t have 3 of them. They didn’t even have milk tea. Fine, we will take water.
We waited, waited, and waited. 20 minutes passed. He didn’t even bring us our drinks. He finally brought us 3 drinks but no water for my friends. 40 minutes passed, not only no food was brought to us, the FIRE ALARM WENT OFF.
the drinks sucked.
Seriously, has it ever happened to you? Fire alarm going off in the middle of your meal? It’s bizarre. Thanks to the fire fighters arrived only a few minutes later and turned off the fire alarm so we could return to the restaurant in less than 15 mins. We thought about leaving but for the sake of my blog and all my dear readers out there, we had to get the full experience for you guys so we endured it. We were starving and already waited for 50 mins at this point.
the fire trucks
to give u the ultimate experience, here’s a vid clip
Half of the customers left when we returned inside. They finally brought our hot pot and couple veggie dishes and noodles. So throughout the night the service was EXTREMELY slow. Not only that, after couple hours, they only brought us half of the stuff we ordered. Every time I asked the waiter where the rest of our food was he had no idea what was brought to us and what wasn’t. I had to name each dish that hadn’t been brought to us (not to mention it took me at least 10 mins of staring or waving at the waiter every time I tried to get his attention). He would only bring us 1-2 dishes every time I asked then forgot the rest again. This went on all night. We were super frustrated and starving! He would also name the dishes wrong; no idea what he was bringing to us. At the end of the meal, he still missed a few dishes but we all really just lost all our patience and just asked for the bill. How could this possibly happen!?!??!?!?! We checked everything off on a piece of paper so they should know what exactly we ordered. It’s hot pot! They don’t need to cook anything just wash the veggies and cut the meat and bring them over! How can you mess this up so bad?! They absolutely had no training whatsoever, not even common sense.
the veggie dumplings that the waiter had no clue about – chives, eggs, vermicelli.
at this point, the dinner already lasted 3+ hours. When the bill came, it was TOTALLY wrong. We got charged for some of the stuff that was never brought to us. They also charged us for a bottle of spring water. There was a bottle of spring water on the table but my friend brought that from home. WTFFFFFFF really?!? So I circled every item that was wrong on the bill for him and walked to the cashier with him, the bill kept going up each time he modified it. It took them FOUR tries to finally get the correct amount. At this time, we were beyond mad. They offer to give us some kinda ‘VIP’ card. We rejected it without a second thought. I told them we will never come back again and they ask me cluelessly ‘why’? Their cluelessness got us mad even more. UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH we just wanted to bang our heads against the wall. this whole bill situation took another 30+ minutes, so our entire dinner lasted almost 4 hours. last time i had a 3+ hours dinner was eating a 27- course sushi tasting menu.
in terms of food:
you can get your own sauce
the broth was only ok. flavor wasnt rich at all, jus flat, msg, salty taste. the spiciness was not pleasant, like it was gonna choke up your throat and it wasnt even spicy enough for us.
this was the only time that the water boiled and never boiled again after we dumped food in. the heat was really low even we turned it to high.
the meat was pretty hard, thick, and chewy and too much fat on it.
hot pot meat should be sliced paper thin, melts in your mouth soft and mostly lean meat.
as we were eating, the water kept dripping down on us from the ceiling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
well flavored, but fried instead of grilled
we order 15+ different kinds of veggies, noodles, dumpling dishes, but since the service was super super super slow and we were starving. i didnt wanna make my friends to wait any longer to take my pictures, so i stopping taking pictures.
since the heat was never hot enough, the oil started to grease together. got pretty nasty.
i understand that they just opened not long ago, but this kinda service is beyond hopeless. if you are not ready, at least start with a soft opening instead of a GRAND opening. Only serve limited amount of people until you get comfortable it. At least realize your mistakes, learn how to use the cashier machine, and have some kinda common sense. food was nothing special, even they had something good, half of the stuff on the menu was not available. Average food with this kinda disastrous service. We will not be back for sure. i dont think they will be ready anytime soon.
if you are still reading, thank you so much you are awesome. i really had a terrible experience and felt even more terrible for putting my friends through this. experiences like this are really unforgettable. RIP my brain cells that died that night from all that frustration and anger!
Little Lamb Restaurant
Categories: Food Do-It-Yourself Food Restaurants Asian Fusion Do-It-Yourself Food, Asian Fusion
326 Cambridge St
(between North Grove St & Grove St)
Boston, MA 02114
Neighborhood: Beacon Hill
Mooo… is a steakhouse located in downtown boston. their new ‘acoustic sunday brunch’ is every sunday from 10am to 2pm. you can enjoy live acoustic music while enjoying their new menu and creative bloody mary options.
their ambience and decor are def my fave kind: classy yet comfortable, high ceilings, and i love these chairs!
these high back chairs gave us a sense of seclusion and intimacy which i really enjoyed.
Honey-Bee – hendrick’s, house made thyme, honey syrup, and st. germaine 14
sweet, citrusy, refreshing, great for summertime
cinnamon rolls with butter – super soft and fluffy.
blueberry beignet – the beignet was very well fried while still remained an airy texture and the blueberry def complemented it.
extremely fresh fruits with very light whipped ricotta and a hint of honey.
bloody mary flight – bloody caprese, caper Mary and hot Mary
caper mary – ketel one citroen, lemon, caper juice, with caper berry, cocktail onion & Lemon
bloody caprese – van gogh blue vodka, balsamic with basil, and cherry tomato
hot marry – van gogh blue vodka, jalapeno, cilantro
we liked caper mary the best. it was the lightest among the three.
buttery smoked salmon and soft potato latke with sour cream and caviar
my fave thing of all
french toast with caramelized banana – there’s banana inside the french toast as well. perfectly cooked french toast: a crisp outside and soft, fluffy center without a soggy texture. the banana gives a tint of sweetness without being overwhelming.
the frech toast was served with gingered maple. the bottle was even warm when it was brought to us.
umm umm umm this was some official french toast
check out this small Tabasco that pork belly found amusing
steak & eggs wellington – filet mignon, mushroom duxelle, foie gras, spinach in in puff pastry
this pic is pretty self-explanatory. everything was perfectly executed. i love mushrooms, so i wish the flavor of the mushroom could stand out a lil more.
Baked Alaska
lemon vanilla ice cream, passion fruit syrup
ive had this at oleana before. it’s their signature dessert at oleana and i usually love anything passion fruit, but i hated it the one at oleana. extremely huge and sweet, meringue was super thick, couldve been another meal on its own. huge and overly sweet desserts jus cheapen the entire meal. never again!
however, we enjoyed this baked alaska at Mooo…. the size and the sweetness were just right. meringue wasnt as thick.
we had an excellent brunch at Mooo…. not only the food itself was outstanding, the service and overall experience were exceptional! our waiter Brennan did a fantastic job. extremely friendly, informative, accommodating, attentive, and professional without being pretentious. they have some of the BEST grade steaks in town if not the best! their kobe steak is grade A5 which is the highest grade you can get. they have plenty of seafood options for dinner as well. their seafood is always fresh and never frozen.
mother’s day is coming next weekend! i highly recommend this place if you are still looking for a place to take your mom for brunch. they will be serving their REGULAR menu not some generic prix fixe mother day menu that most restaurants are doing which is a big plus!!! cant go wrong with great food and service with awesome acoustic live music! take your mom for a walk after the brunch and enjoy some beautiful scenery around boston common!
Mooo….
Category: Steakhouses
15 Beacon St
(between Tremont Pl & Somerset St)
Boston, MA 02108
Neighborhood: Downtown
(617) 670-2515
im trying mad hard to lose weight for my beach body, but having a roommate that always suggests to eat out isnt helping much.
sichuan spicy chicken
Chinese Water Spinach – this is my fave green veggie at all times. chinese name is empty heart veggie. badassss
as always, spicy fish
i enjoyed our meal at sichuan palace. i think its better than a few sichuan places in boston. relatively big portions. surprisingly we were super full after only 3 dishes. i am not too sure about the freshness of the ingredients. we all had mild diarrhea the second day and its not because the spiciness of the food, but that’s ok. help me to lose some weight! beach body or die trying baby!
Sichuan Palace
Category: Chinese
7 Summer St
Ste 17-18
Chelmsford, MA 01824
(978) 256-8545
Double Billy’s Lobstah Tails
one fried one broiled
Thin Fries, Grilled Corn on the Cob, Melted Butter
Fish of the Day
swordfish
Fish Tacos
Blackened, Flour Tortillas, Napa Cabbage,
Marinated Tomatoes, Radishes,
Chipotle Lime Dressing
very well cooked fresh fish. i wish these were corn tortillas instead of flour tortillas.
we enjoyed our meal at ford’s fish shack. everything was fresh and well made. i wish they had more boiled or raw seafood options instead of mostly fried seafood.
Ford’s Fish Shack
Categories: Specialty Food, American (New), Diners, Seafood
44260 Ice Rink Plz
Ste 101
Ashburn, VA 20147
(571) 918-4092
)))))))) hehehehehehe
