Good, but eh. I mean, it’s grilled chicken. Consistent, recognizable, done well. If it were down the street from me, maybe, but it’s certainly not worth going out of our way for it like we did last night. We got the butternut squash & couscous salad, and half a chicken with 2 sides, coleslaw and macho peas. The chicken was supposed to be medium hot but it wasn’t hot at all. The garlic sauce helped give it some spiciness but mostly, it reminded me of the Peruvian chicken joints that are popular all around the area, like Crisp & Juicy or Pollo Rico. The salad was quite good though and the sides were pretty decent too, the peas more than the coleslaw. Despite the fact that I wolfed it down because I was hongry, I’d still say, lukewarm, at best. The service was great, staff was very friendly and helpful.
Category Archives: Opinions
E.L.F. Eyeshadows
It’s been two weeks since I got my E.L.F. eye shadow and I’ve tried it enough times to share a bit about what’s good and bad about it. I got the 32-color palette for a peasely $5. I’m comparing it to my “free gift with purchase” Estee Lauder and Lancome eye shadows. First, the good. It has 32 colors. That’s plenty enough to confuse me. Luckily, most of the colors are about the same or similar enough. Black, charcoal, and dark gray, what’s the diff? It might as well be a 20-color palette because that’s how I see it. I do enjoy the variety though and haven’t had to wear the same color twice yet. Conveniently, they all match each other fairly well so I don’t have to think too hard about which color combinations to use. I really can’t go too wrong. But that’s specific to this palette and not the individual quality of the product. So on to that. The colors seem to stay on pretty well and last long enough for me, which is about an evening of 6 hours. They blend well and are easy enough to remove. Even a little tissue off on areas I was too heavy handed generally does the trick. On the other hand, the Estee Lauder/Lancome eyeshadows are a bit more pigmented and stronger so where I’m too dark, I just have to blend out more with a lighter color sometimes. Tissue wiping doesn’t take off that much. They’re also a finer powder. The E.L.F. seems to come off on my brushes a bit coarsely. Which brings me to my next point, the coarseness of the powder comes off my brush and lands on my cheeks. I’ve never had this issue before with my previous eye shadows. It’s easy enough to clean off with a tissue but a bit of a nuisance nevertheless. Overall, it’s not something I’d go running back for but it’s perfectly fun to play with. I’d recommend that if you’re going to pay money for eyeshadow, get something of better quality. They last a long time and you want to have something you like. Don’t get sucked into all the colors. I mean, unless you’re a performer or other artist, a few versatile shades will be plenty enough.
Thai X-ing
Two words: Yum and Yum. This place is what we’d imagine food in Thailand would taste like.
This little gem of a restaurant is barely noticeable on the street. We got out of the taxi and wandered back and forth a bit before seeing its little sign and twinkly lights outside tucked amongst a street of row houses. We walked downstairs to the hostess stand and right away you can see the kitchen. She led us back outside to go upstairs where their main dining room is. All the tables and seats are tiny. The whole place doesn’t have many tables so it’s a good idea to get a reservation.
Firstly, it’s BYOB. We brought beers and as soon as we placed them on the table, they brought us 2 glasses and an opener right away. We noticed every customer brought bottles of booze. Wine. I think we were the only ones who brought beer. I just thought beer went better with Thai food than wine. But hey, it’s booze, you can’t go wrong either way.
Secondly, there are no menus. They ask you only what dietary restrictions you have. After that, the food just starts coming out one or two at a time. On these tiny tables, they have to go through course by course slowly. Each one is so delectable! Spicy too! The papaya salad and chicken cilantro salad are very spicy so watch out.
Each table has its own pitcher of water too so you don’t have to wait for someone to refill your glass. In fact, because there are no menus, there aren’t really any waiters, only servers and really, one main waitress, who happens to dabble in photography on the side. When I asked her to take a picture for us, she knew how to work my camera better than I did!
Our favorites of the evening were the pumpkin curry
and the dessert of mango sticky rice. Even after were were too full to eat our last course, we somehow found room to polish off the mango sticky rice dessert.
All in all, there were 8 dishes for $40 per person.
- Soup of cucumber stuffed with pork.
- Papaya salad
- Chicken cilantro salad
- Pumpkin curry
- Steamed fish
- Green Bean salad
- Pad See Yew
- Mango Sticky Rice
On our way out we peeked downstairs and we watched the chef whipping up a storm in his kitchen. His passion in his cooking definitely came out in his creations.
Saigon Cafe
Eh. It was okay but overall, not someplace we’ll probably be going back to anytime soon. I read about this place and how they were known for making an authentic bun bo hue (this thick rice noodle beef soup). SO of course, we ordered that. We also got caramelized catfish with rice, appetizers of these little round steamed rice flour bowls with scallions on top, cooked shrimp paste on sugar cane, and summer rolls. Their appetizers were tasty. The catfish was flavorful but very salty and the Imperial Hue beef soup was fine too. It was reminiscent of pho though. And we added beef tendons expecting these soft melt in your mouth gelatin like morsels but ended up with a few pieces of leather in our soup. After lunch, we went back to the car and discovered I’d been walking around with dental floss in my purse all these years and flossed our teeth! So nothing was awful and nothing was great. It’s just not somewhere I think you should waste your time on.
Mad Men
Move over Mamoun
Two years ago, we ate our way through a weekend in New York City. One of the most memorable places we ate at was Mamoun’s Falafel. I would not shut up about it. Mamoun’s this, Mamoun’s that. You’d think he was my son! It was because of Mamoun that I set my Yelp star rating basis. A 5-star rating is if I would travel to eat there and by traveling, I mean not sleep in my own bed. Ad-Hoc, Kirala, and for these last 2 years, Mamoun’s all were well deserving of 5 stars. Well, I’m happy and sad to say that I have found a new falafel dealer by the name of Max. Max’s Kosher Cafe sells schwarmas and falafel and they are out of this world. We ordered a half falafel and schwarma and learned very quickly what a big mistake that was… just get the whole. Yes – learn from my fail. They will knock your socks off! We were visibly new to this as the guy asking us what toppings we want quickly realized we didn’t know what we were doing and proceeded to put something together himself. He knows what he’s doing because holy cow they were good. We went back and ordered more after quickly polishing off the first batch. I’m sorry I didn’t bring my camera, but we’ll certainly be back. Oh and they’re not opened on Saturday’s (Shabbat Shalom!) so keep that in mind.
E.L.F.
The stuff’s all made in China!! No wonder it’s all so cheap! I mean, $5 for a palette of 32 eyeshadows? It’s almost seemingly too good to be true. And indeed it is because it’s from China! I’m envisioning a little girl, too young to be wearing makeup, forced to stand in a windowless factory, not even allowed to talk to her fellow workers, cramming makeup brushes into a case.
Had I known about this China bit, I probably would not have purchased any of their products. I am still impressed with the brushes but again, I’d rather pay a bit more for something not made in China. And I’m just a bit squicked out about putting chemicals on my face that came from China. You just never know what’s really in there. I tested some of the eyeshadows tonight and might have felt some in-my-head phantom tingles. I don’t know. So, this stuff will be fun to play with but I don’t see myself ever purchasing from E.L.F. again. Unless maybe they move their factories to Vietnam, which I hear will be the new China in 30 or so years. We’ll see.
Aside from the 32 eyeshadow palette and the 11-piece brush set, I also got:
A Kabuki face brush – It’s so soft! Much much softer than the current one I have from Target (probably also made in China), and of course softer than paint brushes. Anyway, this one feels like a chinchilla. Ok maybe not that soft. But close. In fact, all their brushes feel like bunnies. They’re great. I washed them all and not a single hair fell out.
Eye Transformer – This is a set of 4 light colored eyeshadows which they recommend you use with your existing eyeshadows to create new colors. I guess if you have a very dark color that you want to lighten, you could blend it together. I see this more as just a set of 4 pale colored eyeshadows you can use alone, as a highlighter, or blended – like any other eyeshadow really. Kinda’ gimmicky, but it gimmicked it’s way into my makeup pouch.
Shimmering Facial Whip – This is the same thing as the Body Shop’s Radiant Highlighter, for which I paid $7. Though I haven’t tried it, I’m expecting it to be equally as useful, which is to say, not very much. Still, it’s worth the buck to satisfy my curiosity.
Under Eye Concealer & Highlighter – How many highlighters do I need?! Well, I got it for the concealer half. These bags and dark circles under my eyes aren’t going to just hide themselves are they? The packaging says the highlighter can be used as an eyeshadow primer too.
Eyelid Primer – I don’t know what the difference is between an Eyelid and Eyeshadow Primer. Other than $2. I’ve read it’s just as effective as the fancy pants Urban Decay and Too Faced primers. Minus points for the unsanitary wand instead of the squeeze tube packaging but hey, for a buck, can’t complain.
Mineral Infused Mascara – $3
Lengthening & Defining Mascara – $1 *shrug* they were cheap. I got em.
Gaming
When the weather outside is frightful, we like to stay in and play games. The latest one we bought this week was San Juan.
We played it a little in Taiwan and because this one can be a two to four player game, we decided it was good to have for just the two of us. Also, it’s basically a card game so it’s very compact and portable. I even played a four player round myself once. It’s quite a simple game to pick up and much faster than something like Settlers of Catan. It’s a neat little game we enjoy muy mucho!
X.O. Taste
We went there, 13 of us, for Xmas eve dinner. Although in the end we had enough food, I was kind of disappointed in them. Their dishes were way small, a platter of shrimp had fewer than 13 shrimp. I wished they had told us that so we’d know to order 2 platters of it. Instead, people just weren’t able to have a little of everything. Also, knowing it was a holiday, they should have ordered more food. 2 of the dishes we wanted to order, they ran out of the food. All in all, their food was good. But for any group larger than 6, I wouldn’t come here.
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