Conglomo-update

I thought it’d be a bit weird to start throwing up updates that I should’ve done several months ago such as Thanksgiving pictures, so I decided to throw everything that I’ve been meaning to put up towards the latter end of last semester into one monsterous picture update. I know the saying, quality over quanitity, but it’s already the second week of January and I’m already swamped with school work. It looks to be a challenging semester so I’m going to combine updates into one go when and if I can.

Hope you don’t mind.

As you scroll through the pictures, you’ll notice lots of food pictures. The one thing I did consistently aside from eating, was studying. I doubt you’d want to see pictures of that. At least food is colorful and enticing and moving. Pictures of me studying would probably give you ulcers. I think I gained 10 pounds over the winter break, all concentrated in my stomach. I’m definitely hitting the gym.

Anyway, here we go!

by the way, is wordpress better than blogspot? Cause I’m thinking about jumping ship to blogspot.

Soup Dumplings at Dim Sum Garden. A shady location, but good soup dumplings without the drive to NYC.

Eats!

Fried kinds.

Uncles and aunt and my dad during Thanksgiving at my parent’s house. As always, great good, great time.

Preparing the spread.

Bizarre turkey cake that my cousin Jean brought over. I don’t remember how it tasted.

Cousins and moms and aunt.

Watching Jeannie prepare the tree in Long Island. This tree quickly shrivelled into charlie brown status.

Cousin in law, Jean’s birthday, not to be consfused with my cousin Jean who have same names.

Saad’s is the place to be for your halal needs in West Philly. I wish I could open up my own halal restaurant.

Lamb schwarma.

Baklava.

If you can stand the rules, you’re golden to get your schwarma on.

Pho. My first meal after finishing the last final of the first semester of dental school with the guys at choo-choo.

Beer at 11am. It tastes so sweet.

Mitch throwing one back.

Hamid trying to do something with his hands.

Richard mugging for the cam.

Dinner with some old friends in Philly at a random nice korean joint in not so nice middle of nowhere, North Philly.

Una and Ben

Huasc

Ommarice which tasted like a cheesesteak, I kid you not.

The chicken was supposed to be like bonchon style, but I thought it was lacking.

Sick view of Philly from Susan, Miriam and Esther’s place in Chinatown.

23″ of snow in one day. It was snowing nonstop. We got take out pizza from around the corner for dinner the next day.

Winter time is here.

Happy New Year

It’s the year 2010. Twenty-ten.

2009 was filled with lots of craziness and has been both tough and rewarding. These past couple weeks I’ve been detoxing from school trying to get my head on straight, but it hasn’t really resolved much of anything really. In the end of break, I find myself 15 pounds overweight and really behind on my blogging and slightly narcoleptic. Instead of being productive, I’ve gone into the abyss of laziness.

2010 has with it a promise. There’s going to be more pain, more growth and knowledge. I hope to learn from my mistakes and adapt and continue the hustle.

We’ll see where things are in 12 months.

Jarritos

It’s been an interesting year for me with tons of firsts. My first year of being married. My first time in grad school. My first time going to Europe. My first time receiving something from another company because I was blogging about them.

Couple months ago, I wrote a rather innocuous post about eating take out dinner from Cafe Habana in NYC and washing down our delicious Cuban sandwiches with a Mexican soda called Jarritos. Well many weeks ago, I had a representative from Jarritos, David, leave a comment on the site about wanting to send out some samples due to my particular interest in the drink. I got back in touch with them and a week after that exchange, I had a large box from UPS waiting for me. I received 12 different flavors, a Jarritos mixtape CD and a Jarritos t-shirt! It was like an early Christmas gift.

The drinks have been delicious. I’m about halfway through them. My faves so far: Mandarin Orange and Toronja. Thank you Jarritos and David!

Bottled skittles.

So good.

Hecho en Mexico.

Thanks again!

El Jarocho

El Jarocho was largely unknown to me. It was actually recommended to me by a friend of mine who happens to love authentic Mexican food as much as I do. Otherwise, it’s easy to miss it.

El Jarocho occupies a tiny corner shop off of Washington Ave down in South Philly. There probably only about 10 seats in the shop and when we entered we were able to get a seat. The menu here is expansive featuring sandwiches, tacos, burritos, an assortment of platters and a selection of excellent glass bottled soda imports from Mexico.

We ordered burritos and what appeared was a tortilla baby. Seriously, this thing was like the size of sweet baby Jesus. Chips and salsa also come with the entrees- double bonus! We topped it off with a Coke and Squirt both made in Mexico. An aside- the Mexican sodas are made with cane sugar and in my opinion taste much better although it might be because of the glass bottle and it might be worse for your teeth, but when in Rome…

The food was pretty good and service was alright. I’m pretty sure I’ll be coming back here again soon.

The Virgin Mary in the background.

Chips! Some of them kinda tasted stale, but the green salsa made up for it.

Oh yes.

How come there is a Squirt deficiency in Philadelphia?

Burrito.

Yep. Good.

Overdue Update

First of all, apologies for not being so current with my updates to the 2 people that sometimes check the site out…ha. I’m in the midst of finals, and it’s pretty brutal. I think it’s safe to say that I’ve never had a finals schedule like the one that I have now- one final each day for six consecutive weekdays. We started this past Friday and will resume the festivities again tomorrow. I’ve also got to send in my macbook for repairs later this week, so I’ll try to update in the 15 minutes that I’ve got free before getting some well deserved sleep.

++++++++++++

I haven’t really had too many opportunities to interact too much with fellow dental students at my school, but I was able to make it out to Elliot’s birthday hangout. The food was hotpot style and most of the night was spent playing videogames at Eunice’s place out on Gray’s Ferry area of Philly. It was fun time of just not worrying about school and just savoring the few moment’s of relaxation. Although you’ll notice some of the guys in the pictures wearing our blue scrubs (they hadn’t changed since class which was only a couple hours prior to everything happening).

Anyway, this entry is long overdue. My apologies, Elliot.

Jun and Barry manning the foods.

Everyone’s hanging around.

Stephen threw down the peer pressure pretty thick on Elliot for the drinks, but he took it like a champ. Jaime laughing at Elliot.

Eunice taking pics of the cake.

Good times guys. We’ll have to do it again soon.

Since I Left You

I remember stopping by a record shop in Philly at some point having come back home from my first semester at college in 2001 and picking up a The Avalanches- Since I Left You album. What prompted me was seeing the music video for Frontier Psychiatrist, a single off their album. It blew me away.

Recently I was thinking about them again when I was web surfing and saw that this particular album was voted a top ten album of the 2000s by Pitchfork. And then today, I saw another music video that was done for the title track of the album, Since I left You. It was sublime and melancholy at the same time.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it as much as I had.

The Standard Tap

Several weeks ago, I had a chance to catch up with a friend for a brief dinner at Standard Tap, a gastropub-esque joint out in the heart of NoLib. I had heard much about this place so I went in with high expectations. We had a local beer, Yards and I tried the Standard Burger which was unfortunately not so good compared to some of the burgers I’ve had elsewhere. But the restaurant atmosphere was cool, featuring a bar on the first floor with a jukebox and seating upstairs. Apparently there is an outdoor deck which is supposed to be killer in warmer weather. We had ordered oysters as well which were pretty delicious. As I ate my burger though, I kept looking over next to our table who had ordered mussels (they looked out of sight). Overall, it was good and I’ll probably check it out again soon, sans burger.

Menu on the board.

Burger was okay.

Oysters were good.

North Philly Kind of Fall

First of all, Happy almost Thanksgiving to everyone! I myself can’t wait till I stuff myself full of food and drink in the midst of family. The Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving is usually a total wash out no one is concentrating on work or school or whatever, they’re focused on getting the hell out of wherever they’re at so that they can get their holiday to an early start.

Everyday, I roll into school going straight into North Philly. It’s not the safest of places nor is it “up and coming” at the moment. There are some ruined homes and grime and in this there is character. One fall day, on my way back home from school, I snapped some photos while driving. I think they came out pretty well.

Enjoy.

Tastykake Factory. If you roll down your windows, it’ll smell like sugary baked goods.

Fairmount Park. Super gorgeous in the fall.

Mike Birbiglia

Back in 2007, one of the girls that I used to work with at my office in NYC was into watching stand-up comedy and she kept bringing up this guy with a weird last name, Mike Birbiglia. I think she actually did a take of one of his jokes which I didn’t find that funny. Time past and somehow I stumbled upon his act online today and thought it was pretty good. It’s probably old or whatever, but it’s new to me!

So here you go, enjoy!

Sketch Burger Revisited

On an off night, Jeannie and I went to Sketch Burger out in Fishtown for dinner since she had yet to check it out. She got the burger and I got the braised short rib sandwich which was pretty good and juicy. And their wasabi sauce is pretty good too.

Fancy canned orange soda.

Menu on the board changes often.

The burger is pretty big.

Braised short-ribs were good, but I thought the short-rib sandwich at Tinto was better.