2013 Year in Review

ok technically this is the first week of 2014...since the fiscal retail year ended this past weekend and since chinese new year is the start of the real new year, now that i'm chinese and all. so i'm not late on this 2013 year in review thing...just saying.

first thing’s first, let’s address the elephant in the room – the lack of activity on the blog. at least i’m consistent. a lot went down in 2013, leaving me little time to be blogging (or napping). both are necessary for a good post. to avoid losing any more friends, i’ll only share my top 10 moments of the year. these are not your typical "i explored the world" top 10, these are the unknown pleasures of my life last year. i'm guessing if you read this blog, you probably see my instagram or facebook posts, so let's not be redundant with things. anyways this is already so unfair to you guys. blogs are just an awesome way to feel immensely over-satiated with your own life and hope others envy you. let’s see if this post can serve this purpose (jk...kind of).

10. the toys that come with my jet lag mcdonalds happy meal delivery. 

9. soufflé from pistacchio. actually the best part about pistacchio is that hao helped open it. makes me very proud!

8. ippudo moves to every mall in shanghai. no longer do I have to convince myself that i have a reason to go to pudong. i can now take a 2 minute subway ride and eat ippudo at least once a week. the ramen scene is surprisingly underdeveloped here in shanghai so ippudo is the spot if you’re craving a huge, fatty, satisfying bowl of spicy slurpy goodness.

7. hao's increasing acceptance of selfies. i LOVE selfies. and any picture that includes me for that matter. hao's getting used to it. 

6. the pool on top of my sister’s apartment in nyc. not only did i get to spend some qt with the fam everytime i went to nyc, but I also got some r&r at their rooftop pool. not too shabby. will be missing this in summer when ish and bri move to long island and make way for bambino rapino!

5. being famous. or pretending to be. i was asked by our marketing department to be on the gap blog for china. I mean, given my obsession with myself, i was thrilled. had hair and make up, stylist, photographer, studio and all…so cool. the pics aren’t half bad either (or so my fans say). check it out http://www.gap.cn/style/2013/zh.html

4. the food at my best friends’ weddings. this was an epic wedding year with devanshi and shwe both getting hitched in the same month! Lucky for me, moghul was the caterer for both and the non-stop food/chai/drinks/snacks was a serious bonus to an already perfect month.

3. kalindi and lukas kim venture to shanghai. what a treat to have my two fave kiddies (and their parents J) come to shanghai. I watched these two grow up in sf and it was so cool to spend time with the kims in my new home of shanghai. when I got sick and couldn’t see them on their last day, they sent me this video, which also served as a great pick me up whenever I was homesick or feeling down! (hope you don’t mind the kids’ cameo david and shanti!)

2. three michelin stars in osaka. hard to beat this culinary experience; it was so unique, it has to stand out among all the insane eating hao and I did this year. we climbed into this tiny room from this tiny window (behind hao in the pic below) and were served from a hidden sliding door by the owner’s wife. simply incomparable.

check out houseofhaos.com for the full menu rundown

1. everything about hao’s proposal was perfection but my favorite part of the whole trip was our first meal the evening right after we got engaged. we went to this tiny place called verjus and we had such an adrenaline rush and insanely empty stomachs that we may have had the best meal of our engaged lives (ok maybe I should speak for myself). i love this picture so much, vainly because it shows off my ring and my mani, but also because it reminds me of the best night of my life (thus far) with my boo [insert ‘awww’ or 'barrff' here]. more to come on this subject. 

so there's a peak into my year. i hope you all had equally blogworthy years. i, for one, am looking forward to a lot this upcoming year. moving back to ny, becoming an aunt, planning a wedding, spending time with the fam, etc etc. nothing is better than sharing all these things with the people you love. gag. :) see you in 2014. xin nian kuaile! 

saigon sights

omg this is so embarassing. four months since my last post. 'busy' would be an understatement but 'lazy' would be a more correct one. well much has happened since that glorious post day in january, namely a work fiasco, loss of a precious life, visitors to shang and the (bird) flu. all blog-worthy but alas, ill spare you my venting and just brag about my newest accomplishment.

enter saigon.

hao and i traveled to ho chi minh city (better known as saigon) for qing ming weekend, right after my sister and the kims came to visit shanghai. it was a quick, three-day affair, with a lack of planning or research. i'm kind of into this new way of traveling. hao and i have been very found of this consistently okay pho restaurant near our apartment here in shang, and so we ventured off to the land of vietnam for some food ventures. we had heard that there wasn't much sightseeing to be had in saigon, more of the beauty was in the north. well we only had three days, so beauty was not in our plans. we came to eat.

day 1 we ventured around in the 100 degree heat, hit up a market, saw some city sights and then had our first taste of vietnam. we went to a small local restaurant, tucked away in a small alley, recommended by a fellow foodie friend of ours. we enjoyed spicy beef noodle soup, rice paper pork rolls and some vermicelli with grilled pork. tasty indeed but with the heat dripping down our back and my steretypical palette thinking banh mi and pho, not impressed. the pictures say otherwise i suppose.

after a dip in the pool, a cold shower and a nap, we hit up another recommended spot for dinner. on our walk over, a moto thief tried to steal hao's camera right from his hands. luckily hao is a manly macho man and held on tight to his camera. the thieves drove off into the night. i was left stunned and disturbed, hugging hao at every chance i could get and evily staring down any scooter-goers aka everyone. this is me finally at dinner, giving the finger to the thieves. 

but dinner did not disappoint! we had some tasty, robust flavors with unique ingredients. one of my faves was the homemade fried tofu topped with fried lemongrass + salt. mmmmmmm mmmm. 

the next day we did some light walking and hit up a really cool cafe. we did some light hipster shopping and had a nouveau banh mi. this is me after enjoying my banh mi :)

then in the evening did my favorite activity the whole trip - a foodie tour! two lovely local ladies picked us up on their scooters and we drove around the entire city, sighting sights and eating eats. what a blast! we saw the city through such a different perspective and our tour guides were awesome. we stopped at some popping local joints and a street food stall. everything we ate (except the balut blleeehhhh) was delicious and fresh and so much cooler than anything we would have discovered walking around ourselves. 

my faves: 

 fresh scallops topped with scallions and peanuts in hot pork belly fat. OMG

fresh grilled prawns

spicy beef noodle soup

success!

(just gotta end it with that pic...)

also check out http://houseofhaos.com/

india's where the heart is

india may be where the heart is, but it is also where the food is, the family is and the cows are. my extremely short stint was just enough time to party it up with my dad for his 60th bday, play party games with my 80+ yr old grandmoms and eat a lot of my favorite indian foods (and equal times using the bathroom).

my trip this time took me to the small city of nagpur where my dad's mom and two brothers live, smack dab in the middle of india. not much has changed since my last trip there over 6-7 years ago. the city has some significant significance for my family; my grandparents used to own a property right on the main street of nagpur as a summer house where my dad and his 3 brothers and 1 sister used to vacation growing up. it is also the house my grandmother lived in as she got older, and my immediately family used to visit as my sister and i grew up. not only was it centrally located, it had magical mazes of rooms and closets and rooftops for awesome games of hide and seek. it was also across the street from our fave "cream corner" where my cousins and i used to get a daily (if not doubly) mango ice cream treat. and as our reunions grew bigger, it was conveniently down the street from a host of nagpur's only hotels. several years ago, my grandmother sold the property to a big contractor who built a large complex on the land. and now there is coincidentally a family owned restaurant right where our living room used to be.

this trip, we stayed at my uncle's place, a few minutes outside the city proper. i got in super early on sunday morning, just in time to take a quick bucket bath and get ready for my dad's big birthday bash. aside from my one younger cousin studying in nagpur, i was the youngest attendee by about 30 years. which made it that much more fun and i got a lot of attention and love and first dibs on all buffet items :) one of the highlights was the pani puri and chaat stand which quickly became the crowd fave.

here's a pic of my parents having a special birthday dance and of course...the chaat corner

the coolest parents in the world doing a little dance

the chaat station - nom nom nom

after the party, we basically had a lot of time to hang out, walk around, eat, shop, eat, eat, eat, nap, have chai, etc. here are some snaps of the streets of nagpur

a cow

main street

here's also some pics of us shopping and my magnificent new year's eve with my grandmoms :)

the beautiful salesman modeling this beautiful sari that we did not purchase

the hats came out and bottles (of juice) were poppin! best new year's ever!

last but certainly not least, ended the trip with a spicy mcpaneer sammie. success!

overall a very short but heart-filled family reunion, from which i came back with mango candy, coconut biscuits, two rotis for the road and a load of mithai!

dubai dubai

this place is like no other. i mean, all of my favorites in one - cinnabon, pf changs, red lobster, cold stone, dean & deluca, magnolia's. haha ON TOP of that, there's clear blue sparkling waters, warm weather and middle eastern food. and a load of indian people. what is not to like...

hao and i went to dubai for his good college friend mahdi's wedding. we, along with a dozen other penn alum, attended their reception which boasted lots of rhythmic dancing, radiant faces and some sharply dressed sudanese men. aww yeah.

also two of my cousins and their wives happen to live in dubai so we had some built in tour guides. they graciously took hao, art and i around and showed us the must-sees of the city. most happened to be in or around a mall which pleased me for some reason. below is a snapshot of my short but sweet stay in dubai! will share hao's blog post when he's done to give you the full rundown!

ps. there are not many pics of food here because i was very ill the first two days in dubai and didnt eat much. but rest assured there was incredible food and it shall be captured by the wonders of hao's blog.

the quran and a prayer mat in our hotel room

almaz by momo moroccan restaurant hidden in harvey nichols in mall of emirates

hookah vendor at souk madinat

ski slopes at the mall of the emirates...nbd

a little camel racing to start the day

burj khalifa

delicious pine nut hummus, which i subsequently ordered at every meal following 

hao and i before the wedding

the handsome mahdi, beautiful iman and their fams

hao, the groom mahdi and art enjoying the dance floor

shikher, my cousin, and karam, his wife, on our first day of touring/eating

rohan and shilpy on my last day

thanksgiving, wo ai ni (iloveyou)

thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. this year was the first year i've ever missed thanksgiving at my parents' house - a big feast consisting of loads of family friends, elastic waistbands and, certainly not least forgotten, cajun deep fried turkey(s). i was pretty bummed to be missing it considering the assumed lack of great tgiving related foods here in shang but i was proven wrong that fine thursday evening!

luckily my boss and her hubby ilan (aka my second family) are also big on thanksgiving and had us over for a feast. hao had seen a facebook post from owner of madison restaurant austin hu that they were catering the holiday. so our boss ordered it and we had a delicious, traditional (better than expected) dinner!

i am so thankful for such a happy and healthy life, great family and friends and a happy, filled heart.

here are the pics of the food!!! so good!

the spread

the golden turkey - really tasty!!!!

true to tradition - sweet potatoes with raisins and marshmallows

creamy mashed potatoes - omg so good

green beans are always my fave!

felicia's homemade apple crumble with graham cracker crust!

hao's homemade pecan pie! soooooo good!

madison's pumpkin pie