Nanciful’s Blog

I.LOVE.THESE.

I went to Whole Foods over the weekend to get some ingredients for my minestrone soup which turned out pretty good, worthy of a post for next time. I have not been to the one in Pasadena on Arroyo and is it a playground for health/organic nuts! I loves it! I love the tea corner, loose nuts/trail mix wall and beauty section on the first floor. I love the cafe bar, dessert cases and Mediterranean buffet on the second floor.

But what I love most about Whole Foods, for this week at least, is that they make Three Sisters Graham Crackerz. This is the healthy version and in my option tastier version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and it comes in a bag instead of a box. Three Sisters Graham Crackerz  doesn’t give you that sugary coating aftertaste like Cinnamon Toast Crunch does. The crunch texture is also a better than CTC. CTC has almost a fried shrimp chip crunch to it but Three Sisters tastes more like miniture graham crackers. (duh!)

Unfortunately, this is the first time and the last time that I will be buying this because I am just too addicted to it. I bought the bag on Sunday and with EXTREME will power, finished it today during lunch. I constantly think about it and plan my meals and calories so I can eat more of these goodies. In other words, it’s taken over my life and I have to put a stop to it before I regret doing something horrible.

So this is Hello and Good Bye, Three Sisters Graham Crackerz…. Ooohhh…but looky…they have 3 more flavors! Helooooo Sisters…….

Heloooooo Sisters.....

Call me superstitious but I think the last blog theme that I had was like bad feng shui or something. Because since I’ve changed the layout, I’ve found my camera AND the laptop screen fixed itself ! Well, the laptop screen will still need to be examined further.  Anyways, I think the new layout is better, no?

I mentioned a couple posts ago that I went to this awesome vegetarian Chinese restaurant that is not Happy Family. I managed to eat my way through everything without a single picture. I ahd to go back again to get the some pictures.

The Hubs and I are eating vegetarian about 3-4 days per month for religious reasons. Our vegetarianism restricts us from food with garlic, any type of onions, peppers and alcohol. So during the veggie days, we couldn’t just go to our favorite restaurants and order dishes without meat. Because chances are, those dishes will mostly likely at  least one of the forbidden ingredients.

This has prompted us to venture out and find vegetarian restaurants that follow these guidelines. My mom suggested this new place in the Focus Plaza in San Gabriel called Gourmet Vegetarian. This is one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants so far because the food taste like…well real food! And we don’t have to ask the waiter/waitress the ingredient of every dish because they are Buddist vegetarian friendly. They do not season their food with garlic or onions.

In my experience, Chinese vegetarian food tend to taste the same. It’s always chewy with some sort of skewed version of kung-pao tasting sauce slathered all over the said chewiness. But Gourmet Vegetarian restaurant has a refreshing take of Chinese vegetarian foods well as a good selection of Japanese dishes such as hand rolls and California rolls. The Chinese dishes are very much Taiwanese influeced and the taste is pretty close to their meatier counterparts.

One of the must orders on the menu is their hand rolls. They used lettuce, dried bean curd and pickled daikon (turnip).

vegetarian hand rolls

close up of vegetarian hand rolls

Next up is the fried “chicken” strips or nuggets. For those of you that read Chinese, it’s their vegetarian version of 咸酥雞, translated literally, it’s saled crispy chicken with basil leaves. This dish is made with gluten and fried in a light batter, sprinkled with some MSG salt.

"fried chicken nuggets"

My mom is a fan of their sesame pancake but I’m just meh about it. It’s just fried dough with a sprinkle of white sesame seeds. I rather waste my calories on another dish.

sesame pancakes

I think the best dish on their menu is the sesame-oil-wine chicken thin rice noodle. In Chinese: 麻油鷄麪綫. It actually taste like the real thing!  Gluten is used again for the chicken chunks but they got the ginger and the sesame oil essence of the dish down. Of course, there is no rice wine in it or it would not be vegetarian in Buddhist beliefs.

sesame-oil-wine-chicken noodle soup thingamageeg

close up

As I mentioned, the menu has quite a few Japanese inspired dishes. This  was one of them. Stir fried vegetarian udon.  It was a little over peppered and a tad on the greasy side. But overall, it’s a good dish for people who are a little apprehensive to try the before mentioned items and great for kids because it’s really just a normal dish you can get at a Hong Kong style cafe.

stir fried vegetarian udon on hot plate

he restaurant also offers many puff pastry selections. The one that caught my eye was the puff pastry almond soup which is more like dessert. However, I was stuffed that day and didn’t order it. My mom did order the puff pastry pumpkin bisque which is a savory dish.

puff pastry pumpkin bisque

Of course, what’s a vegetarian meal without vegables! Here is their take on the Taiwanese style of pairing vegetables with minced meat (meat made with mushrooms).

An Choy with minced "meat"

Gourmet Vegetarian is not your ordinary Chinese vegetarian restaurant. The restauarant is spacious, has nice decor and is clean. The price is not cheap though. A dinner for 4 will run you about $100, high in San Gabriel/Monterey Park/Alhambra vicinity. However, it’s definitely worth a trip.

(626) 280-

I found my camera, I found my camera! It was in Hubs’ car this whole time! I drove his car to the dentist and put it in that little comparment in between the seats. However, I only have a teensy shred of memory of my doing that.  Scary how quickly my memory is going…:(

HOWEVER….when I went to upload my pictures, my laptop spazzed(is that a real word or did I say something bad in Gen Y terms?) on me! The monitor is doing all sort of crazy, mini flea race squares all over the screen. Hubs said that it’s very common for Dell laptops to do that. Boo. So my food blogging is now halted once again due to technical difficulties. ( I’m writing on his MacBook.)

I don’t know what’s going on but maybe the food blog gods are speaking to me? Hopefully all this bad tech karma will go away soon.

That would be the title of the newspaper article if there would be a newspaper article about me. MY CAMERA IS MISSING! It’s actually the Hubs’ camera but I’ve taken ownership of it right after our nuptials so I feel extra horrible.

I last had it at Love Birds Cafe in Pasadena when I took a picture of my ever so delicious vegetarian sandwich with their famous basil sauce. Then a day later when I as ready to upload all my food pictures, the camera was nowhere to be found! I have about a good 3-4 entries of pictures in there! BAH! I retraced my steps and called Love Birds and even my dentist because I was there over the weekend getting my teeth cleaned. But alas…. NOTHING!

I am going crazy by the minute. Oh trusty Canon, where have you gone? Please come back to me!

We went to Tea Station in San Gabriel right after Hama Sushi so I guess I should have posted it together. But I didn’t want to taint my nice little Hama Sushi post with my disenchantment at Tea Station. The Sis had some mad craving for boba (her favorite food) andnd the only boba she allows in her system is from Tea Station. So off we went.

Back in the day, Tea Station use to be just a little tea store that sold packaged teas, loose leaf teas, ice tea, hot tea and various flavored boba. It use to be a place where one can pop in and pop out and get a drink to go. For you young’uns out there…once upon a time, their boba was $2.50 and buy one get one free! GASP! Yes, it’s not just a myth….it’s true!

However, over the years, Tea Station has turned into this boba conglomerate. The turned the stores into this big hang out place complete with Taiwanese tabloid  magazines, Chinese checkers and chess, cards for the patrons to play with. The one in San Gabriel near the Focus Plaza now has 20 something tables. Their menu has more than just dried squid and giant toast. There are full on meals like tea infused pork chop rice and curry chicken dishes.  Tea Station is now a destination, not just a stop over. People will stay there for hours on end, playing cards or reading magazines. I don’t understand why they can’t just do these things at home.

Men hanging out

Playing cards..why don't they just do this at home?! I don't get it.

Along with Tea Station’s  “improvements”, the prices has skyrocketed! I believe the boba is now something like $3.50-$3.75 a cup and the tea is $6 a pot!  And this was not the most expensive on the menu! This is the Hubs’ drink of choice at Tea Station. He loves it. It just taste like sugar water to me. Not even a whiff of tea anywhere.

Hubs' beloved mixed fruit tea

My mind was probably high from the euphoria that is Hama Sushi or I’m just weakling amongst peer pressure but I also ordered a pot of tea. Mine was infused with starfruit that was suppose to sooth my pulmonary system or something. (It said so on the menu so it must be true.) I wanted to kick myself for getting it. It tasted like they just melted a couple of Ricolas in hot water, put it in a fancy glass tea jar and charge you 6 DOLLARS! OK, that might not sound like alot to some of people. But around this neighborhood, you can get 2 meals for that price. So yes, it’s relatively pricey.

My Ricola tasting tea...blegh

The Sis decided to be adventureous and order a  hot barley milk tea with boba instead of a regular iced milk tea with boba. I had sip of it and it had a nutty flavor. Okay, I’ll admit it, the boba is pretty Q (FOB TALK!). In other words, nice an chewy to the core. So this drink was actually okay. Just a tad too sweet for my taste.

Frog eyes and hay sticks...just kdding. Just barley hot milk tea with boba

The San Gabriel population doesn’t seem to share my distaste for Tea Station because the place was packed when we left. Here their addy anways if you ever find yourself craving for some expensive Ricola flavored water.