Vidalia

yes, it is once again restaurant week in dc. which invariably means that i will be indulging myself at restaurants eating foods created by masterful chefs with bon appetit stars next to their names. where i would normally have my face plastered against the windows staring at the meals that others are enjoying, this week...i will be putting fork to mouth and gorging on my twice a year chance to feed my hunger for 5-star cuisine.

and typical of me...my urge to contribute to ting and my failed food-blog created last restaurant week, has been growing inside my stomach with each morsel of fois gras i feed it. but i will not succumb to that urge, and will obligingly place my words here, for your enjoyment.

my first foray into restaurant week (rw) was at vidalia...serving a glamor version of american southern cuisine. located in the midst of construction on 19th street next to a cvs pharmacy and illuminated with a sign comparable to the local quizno's, it does not strike you as high-class as i almost nearly walked past it and had to do a double-take and follow another group in to be certain. but upon entering and winding down the stairs, you are greeted with a chic, mood-lit, tiered dining room with sitting area, bar, coat check and all.

complementing the decor was the food. those unfamiliar with rw standards, the diner is allowed a choice of one appetizer, one entree, and one dessert from typically an abridged menu. however, vidalia was generous to offer its full menu, with mark-ups on certain dishes to be fair.

deciding to be more adventurous on my first round, i chose the veal tongue to start (as pictured above)...before moving onto the duck breast...and ending with a vanilla bean cake. with my conscience screaming at the inhumanity of eating veal, i was quickly overcome by my urge to try all types of food...and again, stomach 3 (1 being the sheep's lung consumed in tibet and 2 being the pig's brain in chengdu) - conscience 0.

and unlike the lungs, this tongue was nothing to boast about...though it was a little more tender than normal beef's tongue, i guess appropriate being it was veal. the duck breasts, ordered to a perfect medium, is always a favorite dish of mine and i can't seem to escape it wherever i go, and this occasion was no different and definitely not a disappointment with its perfectly crisped layer of fat on top of the succulent protein portion of the dish. the vanilla bean cake, though tasty and served with a nice white chocolate covered strawberry, did nothing to excite me...as is normally difficult with desserts after having been spoiled for 5 years with the immaculate creations of extraordinary desserts in san diego.

but all in all, a good first restaurant in my thus far 4 restaurant meal through rw. tune in for continuous updates of my ever insatiable appetite.

Best of 2007

As we crossed another arbitrary threshold of time, people all around the world are signing up for gym memberships where they will unsuccessfully bind themselves to their resolutions, only to actually be bound to the ironclad contracts they will blindly sign…are installing GTD (getting-things-done) applications to their respective computers/phones/pdas in the hopes that this year, they won’t miss that deadline that would’ve promised them the big promotion or oversleep the final that would’ve been the final step toward graduation…are dreading the fact that adding that extra year will already even make their ‘socially relevant’ age cross over toward one’s ‘distinguished’ period.

Typically around this time, the internet is bombarded by ‘best of’ lists and series. Being part of the blogosphere and net-environment as a whole, I decided to create my own list…the best moments of MY 2007 (working backwards based on months):

December
Finishing semester one of year one of my MPP with my most impressive report card since Mrs. Faulk gave me all smiley faces back in kindergarten, all the while concluding my groundbreaking emeritus state-affairs position with NACHC.
November
Impressing my elders with my unexpected knife skills in the kitchen as I exhausted my entire culinary prowess to put mashed potatoes and candied yams on the Thanksgiving meal table.
October
Seemingly an uneventful month, I was able to recharge my batteries with an opening weekend spent with nam.
September
A celebration of my 23rd birthday, where my wonderful girlfriend gladly came to visit and we enjoyed our first New York experience together.
August
Concluding my first term with NACHC with a prolonged Restaurant Week extravaganza where I emptied my entire summer’s stipend of good food whilst awaiting the first day of my first semester of my first year of my MPP.
July
Another seemingly uneventful month, though this one with a more prolonged visit from nam, ending her month long stay in casa de hu.
June
Coupled with visits by an old friend and nam, was moving into my own house and the beginning of my first term with NACHC.
May
The beginning of the next step of my life began on some mid-May day when I flew away from my west coast roots and planted myself into the soil of the east coast.
April
My triumphant return to the states after a prolonged ‘finding-myself’ trip to shanghai was only trumped by the celebration of a milestone…nam’s first one-year anniversary…and luckily it was with me.
March
Coming towards the end of my stay in china, I became the second Hu of the Hu-clan to step foot on the hallowed lands of Tibet.
February
A wash of relief as I was surprisingly awoken one morning by my dad with the news that some school in DC had accidentally sent the acceptance letter for Andre Hue to me instead. That chump…bet he ended up somewhere lame like SDSU.
January
My exodus from xanga to blogger and the birth of…huspot.

And with a brief, terrible quality video...you can all revel in my cuteness:

Time Flies Like an Arrow, Fruit Flies Like a Banana

As I sit here on board flight MU 586 back to the motherland, I am overcome by a strong sense of nostalgia and sentimentality. However, it is not any of those things that have driven me to pen my thoughts this time…no, it is out of sheer boredom that I have found myself once again conversing with the likes of my keyboard and enjoying the refreshing glow of my LCD monitor.

While I personify the rest of my macbook, others around me are beginning to close their eyes, pull out books and magazines, or standing anxiously waiting for the vacuum flush of an airplane lavatory. It’s times like these that grant me a moment of reflection, a moment where I can shake off the momentum of the arrow and simply enjoy the sweet nectar and the revitalizing properties of potassium as it balances out my potassium-chlorine channel.

Almost as instantly as I boarded and sat down in my tiny little seat, crammed like sardines in a flying metal tube surrounded by jet-fuel 30,000 ft above the ground, I am bombarded by the reasons why I was so happy to leave Shanghai…THE PEOPLE. Don’t get me wrong, the city isn’t full of obnoxious, better-than-thou loogie spitting idiots, but it sure as hell seems like it. And this flight, direct from los angeles was no different. Mixed in with the individuals and families who are simply trying to get back to visit family and friends are the “locals” who will disregard the social order and respect of others and flip off their shoes, releasing wretched aromas into a poorly circulated ventilation system; who will disregard airline regulations and recline their seats even those sitting completely forward; who will snap at innocent bystanders only trying to put their luggage into the overhead compartments, slightly blocking the aisle, only to hypocritically perform the same task moments later. And my only solace to such entrapment on such a flight was the glimmering hope of being able to plug my computer into a socket and bury myself in my love affair with my hard-drive and flash games…unfortunately, as if to rub salt inside an already raw wound, the powers to be that have governed my motions throughout the inception of this trip, have decided to make my socket not comply with the electricity hungry salvation.

Seeing as how I’m ¾ of the way through this page and have not yet written down a single reflection of times past, I realize that I have forayed onto a tangent…away from the initial intention of nostalgia and sentimentality. And as I try to draw myself back to the original train of thought, I find myself drawing a blank instead. I had thought about poeticizing the last six months of my life that have taken on such a different face than I had expected when I first stepped out of my bubble and onto the nascent steps of my future…but I seem to have lost that voice of explanation amalgamated with reflective ambivalence. So I shall leave you all with this question:

“As I pass you from the window to the aisle, do I give you the crotch or the ass?”

My First Real Winter

i knew living here on the east coast was going to have its changes...the snobby new england attitude, the dismal supply of asian food (and faces for that matter), the prospect of car-less transportation, and of course...seasons.

and though it has been cold for quite some time now...and i have readjusted my measurements of what is cold. that low of 50 degrees in san diego so no longer considered sweater, hoodie, and boots weather...that has now become brisk, happy the wind-chill doesn't drop it to 40 degree weather. but through a couple of months of that...the mercury has finally dipped into the low 30s and yes, freezing temperature.

the byproduct of said temperature is of course this crazy, white, powdery substance that is unseen and unknown to those on west coast who do not have boards strapped to their feet staring down black diamonds. to those of us who typically remained at the base of the mountains, we tend to not experience the day to day snow fall. but this transplant has now experienced his first real winter.

this would be the image of the front of my house when i left it this morning at around 10:30am...this sight of white mixed with what's rest of the surviving flora already brought the excitement to my day (it may not look it, but it was snowing at the time as well...as it has for most of the day). however, the prospect of trekking through these meager centimeters of powder were not at all appealing, and the prospect of massive slippage on the ice and the perpetual embarrassment was enough to persuade me to take a bus 4 blocks to the shuttle station for school. yes...that is the west coast mentality (why walk when we can add to the pollution)


but after a day's worth of class and work and then group work back on campus, all the while the sky kept drifting snow...my surroundings became gradually whiter and whiter as green (or more orange-ish...as it was fall just a little bit ago) parks turned into snow-covered terrains fit for snowmen and snowball fights. and at my arrival home at around 8:00pm, this is basically the same view.

it is definitely a different sight to see on a winter day...and i for one am quite excited at the prospect of snowball fights with the guy standing next to me at the bus-stop and the possibility of a city shutdown due to the ineffectiveness of throwing salt everywhere. but i'm sure a few more weeks of these types of temperatures and the constant wetness, this winter wonderland may quickly turn into an icy hell. but until then, snow angels abound.

The Little People

it's always nice when the stars can do something for us little people...

sappy story, yes...but it's still nice