Happy New Year! Recap of the End of 2011

I can't believe it's 2012 already! You guys know that holiday time can be a bit insane, and that definitely reflected in my blog with the last post being RIGHT before Thanksgiving. Gah.

I'm feeling really good about 2012 and am excited to go full throttle with posting more often again. Maybe even going into a different direction...we will see.

Happy New Year to you all! Here is a mini glimpse at the end of 2011.

Thanksgiving in Phoenix, AZ

We flew out Thanksgiving morning and made it just in time for food! We were in town for about 5 days, and besides eating leftovers, my family took us out to a few places. We got New Orleans seafood at Pappadeaux, fed our addiction of In-N-Out Burger, sipped bubble tea at Boba Tea House, stuffed our faces with a buffet brunch at The Royal Palm Hotel, and ate fresh sushi at Tomo.

There is nothing better than spending time with family especially when it's not often. We climbed mountains at Papago Park, played some baseball behind my brother's house, ate some fresh jack fruit, and was reminded how much I miss my mom's cooking.

$1 Day at the Baltimore Aquarium

Once a year, the Baltimore Aquarium is cheap enough to actually visit. Typically, it is $24.95 for adults and $19.95 for children, which is an expensive day trip for a family. We waited in line with our friends for about 40 minutes, and were given a time to come back. We ended up going to Stuggy's in Fells Point for hot dogs while we waited. We got the fries with Stuggy's Sauce, the Late Night dog ($5.99) and the Chi-Town dog ($5.99). Tiny place with delicious food!

Christmas

Spent Christmas with my family and the bf's. My cousin's yorkie napped while dinner was cooking, my aunt displayed her porcelain figurines, the kids left Santa some homemade cookies and Korean banana milk, and we got a new ornament for our 1.5 ft tree.

Hope you guys had a great end of the year too!

Phoenix for Turkey Day 2010

Thanksgiving is a time for being thankful, and I am thankful for being able to spend it with my family even if it's only for a long weekend.

Day 1: Turkey Day in Phoenix, AZ

The bf and I flew out on Thanksgiving morning so we'd miss the mad house of people traveling the day before. It was brutal waking up so early to catch the 6:40am flight, but so worth it because we arrived at 10am without missing any of the festivities.

My brother had about 40 people over, which means insane amounts of food! That was about half of it.

My sister-in-law made most of the dishes, and I made my 1st honey baked ham! Costco makes it easy with directions on it, haha.

I see my niece and nephew about once a year, and every time I see them they get so much bigger and more mature. They're so cute... I miss them already.

Day 2: Sushi in the Desert

Tomo Japanese Cuisine
1550 N Dysart Rd Ste. A7-9
Goodyear, AZ 85395
(623) 935-2031

The family was tired of eating leftover Thanksgiving food for every meal, so we broke the cycle and went out for sushi. This is my family's favorite place and accommodated our group of 14 for happy hour very well.

It has trendy decor, and a happy hour from 3pm-6pm on weekdays, with drink specials lasting until 7pm. The staff is friendly, the food comes out fast, and the prices are great for the quality.

Imagine how much food everyone ordered for our table of 14 - a lot! Their menu offers a lot of special rolls, many of which are very cheap for happy hour. The kids don't eat sushi, but there were many other items on the HH menu for them like dumplings, chicken, etc.

Day 3: Hiking, Mexican Food and Fine Dining

Papago Park
Priest & W. Park Dr
Phoenix, AZ 85073

We wanted to do something outside and didn't want to travel far. What's nice about Phoenix are the mountains in and around the city. We went to visit the Hole in the Rock next to the Phoenix Zoo. This is the front, which people were climbing...

...but they have stairs in the back! This is the kind of exploring I like.

You can walk through the hole and gaze down at the scenery below. Why do I look so short?

We also visited another "mini-mountain" nearby, which has this nice amphitheater at the bottom.

The rest of the hike was hard for me because I always thought hiking meant "walking on paths", not walking up a 45 degree angled rock using your hands, and slipping on loose pebbles and avoiding cactus. Let's just say my little niece and nephew kicked my butt, and I ended up waiting for my family to come down from the top while I snacked on vanilla wafers.

Carolina's Mexican Food
1202 E Mohave St
Phoenix, AZ 85034
(602) 252-1503

After making it safely down the mountain without cracking my head open, we stopped by the best Mexican joint in all of Phoenix. This has been a family favorite for years, and my sister-in-law used to give me bags of burritos and tamales to freeze in college.

It's a typical hole-in-the-wall kind of place that serves amazing food for so cheap! The tortillas are so fresh and soft, and the sauces are flavorful and everything is so tender. I wish I had taken some on our flight home!

We didn't want to get too full before dinner, so we didn't order as much as we could have. We had burritos, enchiladas, tamales, and sipped on Mexican flavored drinks like manzana soda and horchata. Each item we ordered was less than $4.

Orange Sky
9800 E Indian Bend Rd
Scottsdale, AZ 85256
(480) 850-8606

Our family planned a nice dinner on the 15th floor of the Talking Stick Resort & Casino. They claim to have the nicest view of the sunset, so we requested a window table on the west side of the restaurant.

The space is very open with floor to ceiling windows around the whole restaurant, large comfortable tables and amble space between them. Aside from the main dining room, there are enclosed rooms for larger groups and small sectioned off tables separated with curtains lining some windows. There were also windows into the kitchen, which the kids and I enjoyed seeing.

Curtains cover the windows until the sun is at the right part of the sky, then the curtains automatically open displaying the horizon.

Once the sun has completely set, the lights below provide a nice view too.

The cuisine is American, and was SO GOOD. My brother said it was one of the best meals he has had since moving to Phoenix about 6 years ago. The bread platter was pretty, and we ordered a dozen oysters and an antipasti plate, which was amazing as it had a variety of grilled veggies, meats and cheeses.

Everyone at our table ordered meat (beef, lamb and pork), which ranged between low to high $30s. Every dish comes with your choice of 13 sauces. My lamb was insanely good, and everyone raved about their dish.

We went a bit overboard on the sides ($8 each) because we ordered a lot of potatoes. Each side serves 2 people, so we ended up taking leftovers home. The service was so friendly and professional, I would definitely come back.

Day 4: Shopping and Chinese Buffet

Four Seasons Chinese buffet
1461 N Dysart Rd
Avondale, AZ 85323
(623) 882-8388

Sorry guys, I have ZERO pics from that day! The food was ok to me, and it might have been because we were eating so much everyday that my body wasn't able to get excited for a buffet. They do offer crabs and sushi, which I liked.

Day 5: Chocolate Factory

Cerreta Candy Company
5345 West Glendale Avenue
Glendale, AZ 85301-2619
(623) 930-9000

Who knew there was a chocolate factory in the city? My mom said she's driven by so many times and never noticed, and my cousin went to school a few blocks away and had no idea. At the end of our meal at Orange Sky, we were given Cerreta's famous French Mint truffles, which are AMAZING. So since we had a late flight, we stopped by on the way to the airport.


They offer free guided tours, however I wouldn't recommend it. The place is small, and you can't get close to the machines. You can just walk in and look for yourself, which is what we did and it took us about 5 minutes.
They sell so many different chocolates, popcorn and nuts. It's $11 a pound for the bulk chocolates, and they sell others in nice gift boxes. They taste like good quality and are not overly sugary. I wish I had bought more, but will be going back next time I'm in town.

Hopefully this post showed you guys some places to visit if you'll be in the Phoenix area!

Thanksgiving in Arizona Recap

Oh how I LOVE being on vacation during the holidays. I don't have to work, I get to be with my family and I get to eat ALL THE TIME.

2nd night there my sister-in-law made fish tacos for us with seasoned tilapia. It was really good cuz the fish didn't taste like fish. I love having a lot of fixens to put on my tacos so we had normal stuff like diced tomatoes, sour cream, homemade gaucamole (my fav), black beans/corn, shredded chedder cheese, refried beans with cheese, lime and lettuce/cilantro. My sister-in-law used corn tortillas and gently pan fried them in oil to get them warm and soft. I thought that was a great idea because I usually use flour tortillas and microwave them.

3rd night my mom went to Costco to get stuff for Thanksgiving. She ended up getting food for dinner that night too so no one would have to cook. We had BBQ ribs, a sushi platter and pasta salad with chicken. The ribs were tender and had a nice sauce. The sushi wasn't great since none of it was raw, and the rice was kinda mushy. However the pasta salad was really flavorful and came with a sort of ceaser dressing.

4th day was Thanksgiving and there was a lot of cooking going on! I on the other hand was just playing with the kids cuz y'all know the kitchen is really not my forte. We had a traditional meal for about 30 people. There was turkey, honey bakes ham, roast beef, salad, corn souffle, candied yams, garlic mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. I love Thanksgiving food. I was insanely full for the rest of the night and didn't get to try the dessert =(

Here are only some of the desserts like sour cream raisin pie with merengue, pumpkin pie, apple pie, toffee walnuts, fruit (Asian people always have sliced fruit for dessert), pecan pie (Safeway brand, don't buy it cuz it was bad), and this Vietnamese spongey-cake-geletin thing called 'Banh Bo', which literally means Crawling Cake cuz its jiggley. It tastes like coconut.

That same night I went to another relative's house for another Thanksgiving and this one had less traditional food and more Vietnamese food. Like a Vietnamese salad, egg rolls, mushroom soup, etc. I had some of their turkey that had bacon on it and that was good. I didn't eat much else cuz I was stuffed from the previous meal, but I did eat some dessert. There was home made cheesecake, cupcakes, cake with Jello and whipped cream, and flan. I had a slice of cheesecake cuz I wasn't able to eat dessert at the other house. It was really good with fruit on top.

On Black Friday we went to Pacific Seafood Buffet, which is really a Chinese buffet with lots of seafood. It was a really good buffet with an awesome sushi bar, Alaskan Crab legs, green tea ice cream, and all of the other normal dishes for only $14 a head. I had 3 scoops of ice cream and a ton of crab legs and sushi.

On the weekend some new friends and family met at my mom's house for some Vietnamese and American food. We got Pizza Hut's Pizza Mias, some appetizers from a local Italian place, green papaya salad with Vietnamese beef jerky, and a noodle soup with chicken, egg and Vietnamese Spam called 'Bun Thang'. It was actually really fun meeting new people and sitting at the 'Under 40' table because if you're not a parent of grown children or grand parent then you sit at the kids table.

Since I did a review on YogiBerry, I decided I wanted to try a different frozen yogurt place out there called TCBY/Beriyo. They seemed to have a lot more smoothie options than toppings to personalize one's dessert cup. They did offer cones, and did have other options that didn't come out of a soft serve machine. I liked it because they had a lot of cool smoothie options, and I ended up getting a blend of pineapple, strawberry and banana.

On Sunday my mom taught my cousin and I how to make 'Ca Kho To' which is Vietnamese Caramelized Fish. It's usually made with catfish, but you can really make this sauce for any sort of meat. Earlier in the day we made a Gingerbread house with the kids and just used a kit that came with the gingerbread, icing mix and candy. It was really fun and it looked great in the end.
Random, but Thanksgiving morning my sister-in-laws family went into their backyard and got some aloe plant to mix into a strawberry/banana smoothie. It was really good, and it's healthy for you. I think it's so cool that they can grow stuff like that in their back yard cuz over here in MD, it'd die cuz it would be too cold.

Besides food, I got to go with my family to Sedona, which is about 2 hrs north of Phoenix. It's a really beautiful city with red rock mountains. We did a little hiking (the upper left pic shows me leaping to my death! haha jk), photography, and ate sandwiches from an eatery in town.

I had a great time chowing down, photographing beautiful scenery, being in such nice weather, and being around my family. Hope you guys had a nice Turkey Day too!