Monthly Archives: August 2011

Fashion Food Me Movies My Outfits Restaurants & Cafes

Work Break at the Park & La Creperie Café

08/13/2011 – 2:49 AM

I’ve just settled down in bed after getting home from watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. The Perseid meteor shower was supposed to peak sometime after midnight, but unfortunately any plans to watch said meteor shower were impeded by the fact that the sky was just too cloudy. And so the last segment of Harry Potter was the replacement. But more on that later…

Let’s back track a little bit to about 12 or so hours ago, when the sun actually decided to come out. Work’s been rather busy lately as we are in the crunching period of our recent project, but the good weather that happened to emerge around lunch time was too good to pass up. BeiBei, Allan, and I decided to walk over to the nearby park and eat lunch there while enjoying the fresh air.

chiffon top – H&M, jeans – Verdugo jegging by Paige Premium Denim, bag – Marc by Marc Jacobs, high-heeled clogs – Sam Edelman

“Is that the obligatory pose?”

Our current obsession is Mexican soda, sold in glass bottles. Nothing beats soda packaged in the old-fashioned way. I’m not a fan of carbonated beverages, but I must admit the real sugar (as opposed to the high-fructose corn syrup found in most sodas manufactured here in America) highly improves the drink, reducing the overly artificial sweetness typically found in American sodas. I’m still not too keen on Coca Cola, but Sprite will do just fine, thank you.

Fast-forward to post-work time, considering how the sky was not being too friendly to us for meteor shower watching, Allan, BeiBei, Tony, and I decided to go with Plan B – finally watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. Our theater of choice – AMC Marina Pacifica 12 in Long Beach. Tony had two free AMC tickets, and I figured we could easily find some good eats around the Belmont Shore area.

Hungry and determined to eat something delicious prior to our 10:10 PM movie showing, our trusty good friend, Yelp, once again came to the rescue. We found La Creperie Café, located on action-packed 2nd Street in Long Beach. This French restaurant has four stars at a whopping 1082 reviews on Yelp. I love the 2nd Street area and I love French restaurants, so you can only imagine my delight at discovering this venue.

Their menu is extensive, filled with breakfast, lunch, and dinner items all at reasonable prices (they have a $$ price range on Yelp). It is no surprise that the majority of their menu is crepes – sweet and savory. Not to worry for those who aren’t too keen on crepes – they have a great selection of non-crepe foods as well.

Menu aside, I found their interior to be well-decorated to the theme. I was especially delighted to find that they had live music! This restaurant definitely gave off that cute, romantic type of ambiance.

After oo-ing and ahh-ing to myself about the interior of the restaurant and attempting to take decent photos with my point-and-shoot camera in the dimly lit room, I finally decided to pay attention to the menu in front of me. Choosing a dinner item was tough, but I eventually settled on the Dipollo savory crepe – fresh wild mushrooms, herbs de provence and mozzarella with chicken in a sherry cream sauce. I was pretty much sold upon reading “fresh wild mushrooms” and “sherry cream sauce.” I’m a huge fan of food with alcohol-based sauces – love the flavor the alcohol infuses. Tony chose the same dish. BeiBei ordered a side of garlic fries, which comes with three sauces – chipotle aioli, ranch, and ketchup. For her entree, she decided on a savory crepe that consisted of lobster and had a lobster-based sauce. I have unfortunately forgotten the name of the dish, and I can’t seem to find it on their online menu. The presentation of her dish was interesting. Instead of one whole crepe, it was served in mini crepe medallions. Allan ordered the steak sandwich – marinated rib eye, romaine lettuce, chipotle aioli, provolone cheese, tomatoes, red onions and avocado on toasted ciabatta, served with garlic French fries and a Caesar salad.

Pictured above in descending order: Garlic fries, sauces for the garlic fries, BeiBei’s lobster crepe medallions, Dipollo crepe, Steak sandwich. I took a taste of every single item we ordered, and I must say that each item on our table was delicious! I’m not a huge fan of lobster, but BeiBei’s dish was pretty good. You can definitely taste the lobster. I absolutely loved my dish. The Dipollo was infused with the flavor of the wild mushroom and sherry cream sauce, much to my enjoyment. Allan’s steak sandwich was tasty – not your average steak sandwich. The steak marination deserves two thumbs up.

I would definitely visit La Creperie again and give their other menu items a try.

Following our dinner, we headed over to the AMC Marina Pacifica 12 to watch Harry Potter. It was a long movie, as expected. The awkward kissing scenes they put into the film still weird me out. Overall, I suppose the movie was alright. I’m not a huge fan of Harry Potter, really, and the whole time I kept thinking “Why? Why? Couldn’t they just do this? Couldn’t they just do that?” Regardless, the movie was still entertaining.

Summing up the day, I’ve arrived at a few conclusions: (1) I definitely would like to spend more time around 2nd Street in Long Beach and try out all the different little restaurants around there. (2) I love French restaurants. (3) Harry Potter will always just be “alright” to me. (4) I am extremely exhausted.

And with that, I bid you adieu.

Tags Allan Chiou, AMC, BeiBei Chen, Coca Cola, Coke, Crepes, Fashion, Food, French, French restaurants, H&M, Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Jeans, jeggings, La Creperie, La Creperie Cafe, Long Beach, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Marina Pacifica, Mexican Coke, Mexican soda, Mexican Sprite, Movies, My Outfits, Paige, Paige denim, Paige premium denim, Restaurants, Restaurants & Cafes, Sam Edelman, Soda, Sprite, Tony Huynh, Verdugo jegging | Comments (3)

Fashion My Outfits

Genie Denise

08/11/2011 – 10:08 PM

Today was Genie Denise day, and by that, I am referring to the harem pants I decided to wear today. I have three pairs of harem pants – two that I bought from Zara in Hong Kong and one that I bought from Target. They were all purchased three years ago, and believe it or not, I have never worn any of them. Well, that’s not entirely true. One of the pairs I purchased from Zara is knee-length while the other is full length. I wore the knee-length ones on the plane on the way back to America – nothing beats comfy harem pants while on a fourteen-hour flight.

Back story aside, I decided to wear the pair I had purchased from Target. It’s simpler than my full-length Zara pair; the Zara ones have beaded drawstrings and are looser at the top. Enter Genie Denise day.

harem pants – Target, Cooperative leather tie oxford – Urban Outfitters, sequined top – Ross (purchased many years ago), cardigan – Victoria’s Secret

Let’s ignore the scab on my lip that won’t go away.

So who wants me to grant them three wishes? You’ll have to wait, though; I’m off to watch Suits now.

Tags Fashion, Harem pants, Me, My Outfits, Target, Zara | Comment (0)

Family Travels

Ngai Mini Family Reunion, Day One

08/05/2011 – 10:10 PM

Every summer, my dad’s side of the family tries to have some type of family reunion, where members of the family all gather together and travel to a destination. Past trips have involved Canada (west and east), Oregon, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Colorado, and various parts of California, to name a few. This summer, the family decided to have a mini family reunion. “Mini” implies that it doesn’t involve a as large a group as our other reunions (this one only involved those relatives living in California, particularly my dad and his siblings and their immediate families), the destination is not very far, and the duration of the trip is relatively short. As my grandparents get older, it has become harder and harder to travel far distances for long periods of time with them in tow; thus, the family has been trying to accommodate for them, planning shorter trips that will be enjoyable for everyone.

This summer’s trip involved the central coast of California – Solvang, Lompoc, Santa Barbara, Pismo Beach. The huge convenience is that this year’s destination is at about the halfway point between those who live in the Los Angeles area of Southern California (my parents and I) and those who live in the San Jose area of northern California (everyone else). This was not the first time visiting these places for anyone in our family, but it had definitely been a while since any of us had revisited these places.

Both parties decided to meet up initially for the trip at Ostrichland, which is minutes away from our first stop, Solvang. My mom and I made a couple small purchases at the gift shop at Ostrichland while we waited for the other party to arrive. Once the “Asian Caravan” (as my cousins and I call our fleet of four vehicles) arrived, we continued on our way to Solvang. Solvang is a cute area that resembles a Danish village. The unique architecture and numerous little independent shops make this place a delightful tourist attraction.

My cousin, Ryan, who just graduated this year from UC Davis and is now a working man!

Pictured above is my older cousin, Clement. He’ll be leaving for New York next week to attend Columbia University. The purpose of this mini family reunion was also partly a farewell gathering for him to send him off. I’m extremely happy and proud that he got into his dream school, but I’ll definitely miss not having him be as close in distance. Granted he lives up in northern California, at least that’s still within the same state, and only either a six hour drive or one hour flight! I must admit I am also a bit excited for him to be relocating to New York – this gives me more of an excuse to plan a trip over to the east coast soon! By the way, pictured above was his usual pose for most of the trip – quite the busy man. ;]

Ryan was teasing clement since he was on the phone for quite a while (and always seems to be!).

Ryan and our grandpa

We cousins decided to wander off on our own while the parental units and grandparents wandered off on their own. I was craving coffee (when am I not?) and dessert, so we went looking for some type of cafe place. We found The Solvang Bakery and decided to step inside.

I suppose we may have found one of the gems of Solvang. While we sat in that bakery eating our macaroons (Thanks, Clement!) and sipping our coffee, I used my handy dandy Yelp app on my phone and discovered this place had a four star rating!

Post baked-goods-and-coffee-time, we continued our stroll through the Danish village and ended up at the Hans Christian Andersen Museum. This dainty little museum with free admission is located in the midst of a book store. It had pretty interesting articles and artifacts on Andersen. Also, the book store itself looked filled with varieties of books – both new and used. If I had more time, I would have definitely enjoyed perusing their collection.

Of particular interest to me was this Chinese translation of one of the Hans Christian Andersen books. Talk about world renowned writer!

And for those who do not know, Hans Christian Anderson is the original writer of The Little Mermaid, one of among many popular stories he had written.

Above is Clement and his parents. He was pretending to be upset that he was all alone on the other side of the bench in the first photo.

And in conclusion, we have my parents followed by a photo of them with Ryan, whom my dad called his son during this shot. ;]

Following Solvang, we went to dinner at Pea Soup Andersen’s then proceed to our hotel in the neighboring city of Lompoc. All in all, a long but good day.