Roadtrip to Michigan (Friday, April 2, 2010)

We had originally planned to hit the Road at 6am, then 7am, then just before going to bed, we decided to leave at 10am.  For road trips, it's a family tradition to make kimbap, but the problem is that you have to make it the same day since you can't put it in the refrigerator or the rice will harden.  The ingredients in kimbap are rice, spinach, carrots, bulgogi (beef), yellow radish, and egg.

Kimbap roller - a required tool

Layering the ingredients

Rolling this is much harder than you would think

On Ethan's trip to the Korean market the day before, he picked up some duk (sweet rice cake) for dessert. 

The road trip to Ann Arbor was 11 hours. When we ran out of the kimbap, we stopped at Panera Bread for dinner - not so bad for service station fast food. We listened to the book, "Devil in the White City" on disk and somehow we timed it just perfectly.  We finished it as soon as we crossed the George Washington Bridge on our return trip.  It was a really good book and would highly recommend it - very creepy and historically interesting.

Some of you might know that I've been on a mission to find a McDonald's Shamrock Shake for the past several years living in NYC - come to find out it's been a decade(s) since they sold this out here.  We had to pull over to a McDonald's about an hour outside of the City b/c I was getting a little car sick (I should've eaten breakfast).  Low and behold this McDonald's,  in the middle of nowhere, is serving Shamrock Shakes even though it was April 2nd!  I was so giddy and couldn't wait to take a big slurp...but it just wasn't as good as I remembered.  Or maybe my stomach being a bit off didn't help, regardless, I think it cured my obsession for a shamrock shake.

Shamrock Shake

I found this on YouTube and had to share:

Bar Breton (Thursday, April 1, 2010)

What great company for an evening out to dinner at Bar Breton. Ethan's friends just flew in from Thailand, and Ethan just got back that afternoon from Baltimore/Philly.  The next morning we were driving 11 hours to Ann Arbor, MI.  I hope we'll be seeing John and Ann again...maybe a trip to Thailand?

Check out my post on Bar Breton.

Bertucci's (Wednesday, 3/31/10)

My nephews, my sisters, my mom, and I went to Bertucci's tonight. It's the first time I've been there and it's not bad for a chain restaurant. I got the meatballs & spaghetti in pomodoro sauce and a caesar salad (with anchovies).

Cheese & crackers (Tuesday 3/3/10)

At my mom's house we had crackers, cheese, salami, pistachios, Cadbury chocolate mini eggs, & wine.

Fondue (Monday 3/29/10)

I'm on a quick Spring Break visit to family. At my sister's house we had fondue, bread, vegetables, and wine.

For dessert we had ice cream mochi:

Spaghetti Carbonara (Saturday, March 27, 2010)

I asked Ethan to make my favorite, Spaghetti Carbonara.  He actually made it with rotini pasta and pancetta.  When I eat this dish, I really don't know when to stop eating...you just have to tell me that I'm full, otherwise, I'll keep eating until it's all gone! I'll suffer the consequences later - it's totally worth it!

Ippudo (Friday, March 26, 2010)

Tonight we ate at Ippudo.  Check out my blog posting on my other Blog, Out to Eat.