We went to a sorta nearby saltwater fish store today to get these guys!

Skunk cleaner shrimps.

And this dude.

Fighting conch.

Everything saltwater is so pretty. Many of the anemone look fluorescent under the lights. I’m looking forward to seeing these four walking about. For the longest time, it’s been just the percula clown fish, hermit crabs, and snails.

This past Sunday, I joined a friend for lunch in Alexandria. Bombay Curry Company. Their buffet was small with very little selection, but what they had was fantastic. I ate EVERYTHING! Three times! I should’ve stopped at plate two though. A. I felt stuffed. B. They stopped taking my plate away after plate two. C. They stopped refilling our water glasses. Yeah if that wasn’t a subtle hint to stop eating, bringing us the check before we even hit dessert made it crystal clear. No matter, it’s a buffet. I wasn’t expecting top notch service. The food alone left me very satisfied. Usually I prefer the rice but their naan here was so good I couldn’t stop myself. I would come back – though I’m not sure they’d want me back since I eat like Sonia Thomas. After lunch we went shopping at all the little boutiques along the road. It was over 100 degrees and we walked about, ducking from one air conditioned shop to another. I don’t know how these businesses stay afloat selling some of the old-lady clothes and tchotchkys and trinkets. I guess folks are still unaware of the magic of Etsy. Still, we both enjoyed window shopping, appreciating the fun of just browsing random shops one after another. I did buy one useful thing – a lightbulb. Finally when we could take the heat no longer, we headed over to the Dairy Godmother. I got their lime mint sorbet. So refreshing! I like this little town, Alexandria.

I spoke too soon about the Metro. Yesterday morning, my train broke down for no apparent reason. It wasn’t overpacked. It just went out of service at one station and everybody off loaded.

On a brighter note, we went to The Wharf Restaurant in Alexandria and had a very good dinner. We got horseradish salmon, crawfish crab imperial, and she-crab soup. The salmon could have used more horseradish but on the whole, the food was good. I enjoyed all the dishes, the service was attentive, but not too hovery and I would come back here again.

On the way home, we walked to the Metro, realized they were single tracking a lot of lines to the point where they didn’t even post how long our train was going to take to arrive. Tired and sleepy, we cabbed it back. With the price hikes, the cost savings from taking the Metro was too small to be worth the wait.

This past Fourth of July weekend, we got to see fireworks on a rooftop porch of a friend’s house. What a great location to be able to see the show without navigating the traffic and getting fed lots of tasty foods. They have a little garden going and we got to enjoy some of the basil from the garden. Nothing like freshly plucked herbs to dress up any dish. I have to remember to harvest from my own garden too. Sometimes I make dishes with the plan to use certain herbs I have growing. But because they’re not in the fridge, I completely forget about them when I’m in the midst of cooking. Like yeah, I actually have to go and harvest my own food.

This weekend was hot!! We headed out to Ocean City, but never quite had time to take a dip in the Atlantic though I heard this year, the water is already warm. With the cookin’ temperatures (over 100 during the peak hot hours of the day), we set out so we wouldn’t arrive until later in the day. It was 4 or 5PM by the time we reached the boardwalk. After a quick stroll and stopping for pizza at Tony’s, we dropped off our things and then met up with cousins for a wonderful dinner at Sunset Grill.

Grilled rockfish with crab imperial. This crab imperial was amazing. I’d never thought much of crab imperial before. It was always too mayonnaisey and salty but that was because I’d only ever had it at buffets. This one was so different and so good I didn’t even recognize it at first.

Soft-shell crab sandwich. It came with 2 meaty crabs! So good.

And the dessert!

Chocolate peanut butter cake. It tasted like a Reese’s peanut butter cup.

I am coming back to this place!

After, we went to Seacrets, a bar/dance club/restaurant. It is giganto with various themed dance halls. Watch out, their Pain in de Ass drink is strong. The cousins outpartied us and had the juice to move onto Fager’s Island while we had to call it a night at 12:30. I think I’d like to go back to Seacrets, but for dinner, so I can float on one of those little tubes, plus it’d be less crowded.

The next day, we had brunch at another very delicious restaurant, Dirty Harry’s. It’s actually in Delaware, close to the border of Maryland. Their crabcake sandwich is outstanding and I loved the seafood omelet. Packed full of crabmeat, scallops, and shrimp with the right amount of Old Bay. It was so good, I am coming back to this place too!

Brunch made us sleepy so instead of making it out to the beach we ended up falling asleep on the couch then heading back.

What a relaxing weekend even if we never quite made it to the beach.

This is the break I needed after the vacation. A nice relaxing welcome-home weekend. The orderliness of American drivers and hearing American English everywhere just felt comfortable and familiar. (I don’t miss the sprawling parking lots and general inefficiencies of suburban strip malls though.) Yesterday we attended a cooking knife skills class to learn the basic skills of how to julienne, chop an onion, bell pepper, crack a coconut, cut citrus, and even how to hold a knife, hone it with a honing steel, along with what knives most cooks need and the varieties out there. It was a lot of information but very helpful as a basic class. At the beginning of class people went around to introduce themselves saying what they wanted out of the class. Several of them had fancy knives like Shun’s and Wusthof’s and didn’t know what to do with them. But they all knew never to put them in the dishwasher! Now I know. Since I have a Walmart knife, it goes in the dishwasher. And now that I know fancy knives can’t go in dishwashers I’m staying loyal to $15 knives. After the class we went grocery shopping and then Korean for dinner then more grocery shopping. Restocking the larder. We’ve missed some Asian cuisines like Japanese, Korean, and Indian not because they weren’t available during our trip, in fact they were everywhere, but we just haven’t had them in a while.

Motto of my life.  My sis and b-i-l came to visit this weekend and we have been doing what we love best and what we’re good at: eatin’!

Thursday night, we went out to dinner to celebrate our cousin’s graduation.  I ate until I had to take short breaths.  My stomach was encroaching on my diaphragm space.

Friday night, we had everyone over and ate!  Again!  As if the meal we ate the night before wasn’t enough for the rest of my life.  Which it did feel like.  But no, we had a humongo dinner, then rested for a bit, then played cards, drank beer, and snacked on chips and ice cream sandwiches.  Then it was on to dessert – almond tofu and sweet red bean soup.

Saturday we made a rack of ribs and played Wii Fit.  Thank goodness for the activity from the Fit games.  It gave us enough room to have more ribs later and beans, and slaw and cake.  Again, I overindulged on the ribs.  Excellent.

Sunday (that’s today), it was off to Full Key for the obligatory twice a year visit.  They make the best salt and pepper shrimp and clams in black bean sauce.  Everything else delicious is just icing on top.  It’s pretty heavy though so I had to take a nap after.

Tomorrow, I’m going to need a bit of a food break.  Not a fast – but just normal.  As in, I can still breathe after a meal.

New York City makes Washington DC look like the boondocks. As we stepped off the bus when we arrived, I was just amazed by the hordes of people and the tall buildings everywhere! Nut stands, hot dog and gyro carts everywhere. Going in, I thought if I could navigate the MARTA, Metro, and BART, there should be no reason why I can’t navigate the Subway.

I can not navigate the NY city subway. It’s wild. Multiple tunnels, lines, and levels. If not for our wonderful NY resident hostess, we would’ve been lost. But thankfully, she knew where we were going and we went everywhere!! Hudson River, Chelsea Piers, West Village, Greenwich Village, Chinatown, Little Italy, Empire State Building, 30 Rockefeller Plaza all in the course of 1.5 days. Wow. When we arrived back and stepped off the bus in DC, it was so quiet and calm. What a difference, NYC and DC.

Friday, right off the bus, when we flagged down a taxi, this black Cadillac type car picked us up. We figured something was amiss when we didn’t see a meter, and everyone knows NYC cabs have meters. Well, he charged us $15 for what should’ve been $7 but I’m grateful we didn’t get kidnapped! After arriving and dropping off our luggage, we had dinner at Puttanesca, an Italian restaurant not far from where we were staying with our hostess. We shared dishes of monk fish, gnocchi, and goat cheese ravioli. So tasty. But the most memorable was the panna cotta dessert. I will return and I will get the panna cotta! It was light, cool, creamy, not too sweet, melt in your mouth.

Saturday. Food. Gluttonous amounts of it.

1. The Grey Dog’s Coffee. They have great (huge!!) sandwiches and breakfast items. We made a rookie mistake trying to eat the whole thing. We should have shared our entrees. It was a lot of delicious food and I couldn’t stop myself from finishing it all myself!
2. Bubble Tea at Chinatown. We all know how filling bubble tea can be. Ooof!
3. Banh Mi Saigon Bakery for banh mi. We shared this time, but I think I wound up eating almost a whole thing myself because I guess I was the only sardine fan. What!? They’re good!
4. Mamoun’s Falafels. Their falafel sandwiches might have been my favorite out of this entire trip. So flavorful. I will be back for this one!
5. John’s Pizzeria. Three of us shared a medium sized cheese pizza. I was already too full but managed to eat a slice. Fresh tomatoey sauce, thin crispy crust. Don’t try to soak up the grease with your napkin. It will pick up all the good cheese. Just enjoy! I will be back for more NY pizza but I do want to try others. Not that John’s wasn’t wonderful, I mean as full as I was, I still thoroughly enjoyed it, but there are so many choices, I figure I needn’t have the same one twice.

During the day, we went to two farmer’s markets and then Chinatown. I wanted to experience shopping the knockoffs and bargaining. And I did. Only I came home with 2 non-functioning janky watches. Ah street peddlers, it’s part of the experience though. We also walked by Little Italy. Then to the Empire State Building. Even at 10:30 in the evening, the lines were still a little over 30 minutes.

The views at night were spectacular though. You could see the city all lit up. In between, we took a break and played 5 hours of Fat Princess on the PS3. The object is like capture the flag. You have to keep the opponent’s princess in prison while rescuing your own princess. Meanwhile, you want to feed your prisoner so she gets fat and hard to carry. After you rescue yours you can also feed her so she’s harder to kidnap. “I’m hungry” she says during the whole game. It has cute graphics and yet it’s bloody.

Sunday we woke up and watched VH1’s Tough Love Couples. The drama is Jerry Springer-esque. I have it on my DVR queue now! After packing up, we walked out to eat on 9th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen. We were expecting to just have a normal brunch but lo! There was a huge street fair.

I felt like I had won the vacation lottery!! So we shopped jewelry and ate along the way. It was the perfect combination of food and shopping. We shared pupusas with slaw, tamales, crepes, gyros, arepas, emanadas and the girls got the rings and necklaces. I know they’re tchotchkes but that’s the charm of them. I didn’t want to leave, but we had to catch a bus back and before that, I wanted to check out 30 Rock! We got a nice little tour of the NBC office building and checked out the Saturday Night Live set.

Tina Fey used this restroom!
For our trip back we grabbed a final lunch, reuben sandwich. I wanted a street vendor hot dog sorta, but I was afraid of being trapped on a bus and eating questionable foods. Maybe next time. There will definitely be a next time and another and another.

Visiting New York City was like taking a 5 hour bus ride to another country. I pictured myself having to live there and how my life would change. I’d have to walk up 5 flights of steps daily. If I forgot something, I would think long and hard about whether I really needed it. Laundry? Suddenly, handwashing doesn’t seem like such a hard task compared to lugging it to and from a store to have it done. Closet space is such a premium, I’d have to quickly learn how to shop judiciously and toss frequently. Grocery shopping would be different. Cooking in a limited spaced kitchen would require some creativity and resourcefulness. My herb garden would probably not exist. I now have a different appreciation for the slower paced life in Washington. It’s much more relaxed and spacious here. And this trip really made me see how little we really need. Maybe I do have enough shoes. And I won’t complain about not having enough closet space anymore. It’s all so spacious!

And we’re off! I’ll be leaving from work to catch the Chinatown bus to New York City. First on the agenda, food. What else!?

I’m going to NYC!! While this will be my third time there, it will feel like the first time because the first time I was too young to remember and the second time I went to a wedding and left immediately. I didn’t get to do very much.

So after doing some research and asking for ideas, I have a list of places to eat and things to do. I know I won’t get to all of them but if I get to even one or two, I’ll be more than satisfied.

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Not Food -