Chosun Koren BBQ

Last week, a friend of us paid us a visit from Singapore just for a day trip drive all the way from Iowa to KS. It was so nice of him to squeeze out his busy schedule to visit us. Since he has been in KC for so many time, we didn't bring him to all usual visitor location but just spent some time relax and chat at home and of course to play the little one. For dinner, since I have been craving for hot and spicy food lately, we decided to try one of new Korean BBQ Chugon close to out house. This place serve main the the BBQ dish but they do have some soup and appetizer like dumpling etc. Besides bulgugi, we don't really have any korean BBQ dish in the past.. so after check out the fancy menu with pictuce.. we order the BBQ COMBO which consist of Rib and sirloin steak and a bow of soup with share.
As usually the order come many side dishes which include salad, daikon kimchi, nappa cabbage kimchi, soy sauce beanspout and bean cake, cucumber Kimchi and fried chillies anchovies.
Everyone was served with a bowl of rice with a coleslaw salad.



For the BBQ plater, we were served 2 marinated rib and some thinly slice sirloin, mushroom and some onion. This combo was for 2 people serving, within an additional bowl of soup I think it's perfect for 3, not to mention the refill for the sides are free.

Overall, I like enjoy the meal. The food served were not too spicy and the service were great.

Pine & Bamboo Garden Shawnee Kansas

There aren't many authentic Chinese restaurants you can find in Kansas City area. Pine Bamboo Restaurant is one of a few restaurants in this area which serve decent authentic Chinese food. This is the second time we had our dinner there and I must say I like it better than first time. When we eat in Chinese restaurant, usually we will order something we don't made from home such as deep fry or a very strong taste dishes. This time we ordered 3 dishes to try.

Pork Chop in Peking Sauce

Crispy Tofu Spicy Salty Seasoning

Salty Fish Egg Plant with Meat Floss

We waited quite a bit before the foods arrive but the waitress did inform me that because we are ordering special Chinese food as opposed to the regular Chinese menu, it was very nice of her. I do recommend this restaurant if you in the area and looking for authentic Chinese food.

The also serve Dim Sum during the weekend between 11am - 3pm. So far I think their dim sum is the best you can find in Kansas City.

Ba Le Vietnamese Bakery

I heard that one of the Vietnamese specialty is Banh Mi AKA Vietnamese hoagie which made with a French baguette filled with Vietnamese Sausages, pickled veggies and mayonnaise. After some research, I found this Ba Le bakery online and people were giving very good review about their sandwiches. So we decided to stop by to pick up some sandwiches for picnic.

The store is located at Chicago up town area. They area looks ok and safe and they are quite a bit of Vietnamese and Thai community in that area. We arrived at the bakery around 8:30AM which there are already people in and out the store for breakfast.The store are very clean and loaded with all Vietnamese specialties food. if you arrive as early as we are, you can feel that all the food are still warm and fresh out from the kitchen.

Since we have not had Banh Mi before, we decided to go with Ba Le Special sandwich which only cost $2.75. Instead of order another sandwich, we picked up a few other items to try on. We selected Vietnamese Spring roll, 2 Shrimp balls, 1 sticky rice cake and sausage sandwich and a cup of cold Vietnamese coffee. Total cost were $15.40 which I was quite shock. It turns out that the sandwich is the cheapest among all item we get from the store. A cup is Vietnamese coffee cost $3 and 2 little Shrimp balls $4.50. Oh well, I guess it's worth the experience since we hard find a good Vietnamese restaurant in my area.
Here's the verdict for my tasting:

Sandwich - it was pretty tasty. I like the French Baguette. Very fresh and crunchy and the pickled veggie taste great in the sandwich and I wish there are more meat in the sandwich.

Iced Coffee - That's reminded me Malaysia Kopi tiam Coffee with condensed milk. Hmmmm..

Shrimp Ball - taste ok, nothing special but it's a bit pricy in my opinion

Sticky rice cake with sausage- The sausage was fresh in the bakery. I was thinking maybe I can get 1 home. So I asked the cashier how long can the sausage store in the room temperature and she said the sausage will get spoil after a day if I don't put it in the fridge. So she recommended this rice cake to me. The rice cake is basically a sausage sandwich with 2 piece of glutinous rice flour dough like a mochi and the whole was wrapped by 2 pieces of banana leaf. It was quite tasteless actually. I prefer Mochi over this.
Spring Rolls - instead the Nuoc Cham dipping sauce, this spring roll actually come with a sweet dipping sauce much like the Chinese hoisin sauce. Either way, I love the Spring Roll. It is very refreshing food I think.

Todai Seafood Buffet at Schaumburg IL

It was about 5 years back when we went to Todai for the first at LA location. Since then the restaurant become our favorite place to go every time we travel to city where this place can be found somewhere within the close distance.
Hubby and I are seafood maniac, can't blame us because we both from a country where we can have seafood in every meal and now we are in the middle of the great plain where we are no way close to the sea and the seafood are costly and limited choice.

Basically there are 4 stations for food you can start with.
Cold food station consists of premix salads, raw oysters, shrimp cocktail, sushi and sashimi.

Hot food station served all kind of Japanese Udon, Ramen, fried rice and noodles, BBQ Rib and all variety of cooked seafood.

Salad and fruits station loaded with all different kind of fruits, cheese and veggies
Last and not least the dessert station served all type of dessert where there are oriental flavor or western flavor.
We had a blast with the long waiting seafood and sushi meal with 1 exception surprise that my husband think I should blog about this. It was Aidan's first paid meal! 1 cent for children 3ft or under. I guess I do need to pay for the hot water to heat up the milk.

Chicago China Town Captain Bakery

I love bakery. Sometime I wish I went to a culinary or pastry school instead of the current field I am in which I have absolutely no interest with. Anyway, I want to show you some bakery treats we bought from Chicago China Town.

We don't have any Chinese bakery at my home area, so I am especially excited when I saw those lovely cakes and breads displayed in those Chinese bakery stores and wish I could try them all.

We didn't know how many bakeries they have in Chicago China Town, while we were shopping we just ran into this Captain Bakery where their cakes and bun looks quite attractive.

We picked up a few items from the store. I don't think they are especially delicious but i think it's quite tasty.

After bakery shopping, we also stop by one of the locals and visitors favourite place Joy Yee Noodle shop for some dessert. Even though Joy Yee was named as noodle shop but they actually quite famous with their specialty drinks Bubble Tea or Asian Flavor Smoothies. They offers variety of mixed drinks and you have the choice whether to add the tapioca to you drinks or not. I ordered an Avocado Coconut with tapioca. Very rich and creamy which I think it's little too much for an afternoon snack especially after a full meal. I would recommend stop Joy Yee for some sweet smoothies or bubble tea if you go to Chicago China Town.

Penang Restaurant in Chicago

I believe this is the only Malaysian restaurant you can find in China Town Chicago. Not sure if it is chain or franchises, I have been few different Penang restaurants in the United State: Chicago, Philly and Atlanta. The menu are a little different, some taste better than other. I have to admit that Chicago Penang wasn't my favorite among all the Penang I have been but I couldn't resist myself from going to the restaurant to have some Malaysian food. This are what we order from Penang: Penang rojak consist of cucumber, Jicama and ripe mango mixed with Shrimp paste sauce and crush peanut and balacan powder. I was quite disappointed with this dish. Even though the ingredient can be hard to get in the state but I think this can be much done in a better way. Or Maybe I should make my own rojak.
Mee Goreng means Fried Noodles Indian Style. The taste was alright, not as spicy as the Mee Goreng you found in Malaysia.
Sambal Udang or my hubby calls it Sambal Onion because 70% of the servings were onions.
In my opinion, this place is a bit run down and we weren't very impress with the service and food. If you never try any Malaysian cuisine, I think it is worth to give it a try.

Mitsuwa Marketplace

This is one of my Chicago must go destination. Hubby and I love Japanese food. In this market place, not only you can get food related items and also other japanese products such books, electronic, cosmetic item etc..Be warn, the price are not cheap for sure.

Our trip to Mitsuwa was mainly for lunch. There is a food court in this market place where you can try some delicious Japanese fast food menu. I hope they are as authentic as you can get because some of the menu are written in Japanese language which I have absolutely no clue, thanks to all the sample display on the side, hubby and I manage to order some nice food the try.

I ordered Okonomi-Yaki, A Japanese pizza or pan cake with grated yam, eggs and shredded cabbage top with bonito flakes and Okonomi-Yaki sauce. Cost $3

Hubby order a ramen set lunch meal which come with a bowl of noodle, a bowl of rice and an egg.
The ramen noodle was well decorated with a piece of pork belly, some fish cake, mushroom and a preserved plum for garnish.
The rice top with water crest, scallion and the Japanese rice flavor mix.
Aren't they looks delicious? They actually taste delicious especially the noodle soup. Cost $7.50

For dessert, we ordered the Matcha parfait which start with match jelly at the bottom on the cup, follow by 1 layer of whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, sponge cake, matcha and vanilla soft served, a dash of sweeten red bead and some mochi pieces. The parfait cost $3.50. All can I say is Yummy!

After lunch, we went to the Bakery to get some breakfast for the next day. There weren't many choice but we manage to get some cute bakery item.

Strawberry Daifuku - saw this from some blog, they look interested and tasty so we decided to get one to try it out. It turned out quite good, the rice cake were very soft and never know that red bean paste and strawberry go well together.

Japanese Herbs Red Bean Bun - No sure exactly what Japanese herb but i think it just taste like a regular bread with Red Bean Paste filling.
Doraemon Bun - I bought this because of it's cute looking bun. I just blogged about Dorayaki which is Doraemon favourite food, thought maybe this is a great treat to show you what is Doraemon looks like.
Salmon Roe French Bread- as describe French bread top with salmon roe, parsley and some cheese.

IKEA Breakfast

Chowtimes once mentioned about IKEA 99 cents breakfast, we decided to give it a try the one in Schaumburg Chicago. The 99 cents small plate breakfast consist of scrambled Egg, bacon and hash browns. The serving portion seems to be quite small, in stead of the small plate breakfast we opted the regular size breakfast which cost $1 more with a larger portion and additional toast on the side.

The business hour is 10AM to 9PM Monday to Thursday but the Café hour start at 9:30AM with a free Coffee before 10AM. By the time we arrived, we missed the free coffee hours. After all 99 cents a cup of coffee with free refill wasn't sound too bad.

One more thing about Ikea that absolutely blew me away is how kids and babies friendly place you can find in the state. No only they offer the play area for the kids, they also provided a bottle warming station with a microwave and disposable bibs for the baby; free milk and cookies between 3pm to 5pm and they even sell baby jar food in the café for 79 cent each. What else you can ask for?

Aidan is enjoying his breakfast as well and his friend Mr. Panda is patiently waiting for him to finish the food.

A taste of Gyros and Hummus

My adventure to Greece? I love to go there one day but for now maybe just a Greek Restaurant at Overland Park. There is a new Greek restaurant in town and we decided to give it a try last weekend. The restaurant name is Jerusalem Café. It is not any high-end restaurant but just a fast food type of setting. They do offer a lunch buffet, but we decided to try the menu with the buy 1 get 1 free coupon. My husband ordered a chicken Gyros and my ordered a beef and lamb Gyros. Gyros pronounce as “yeeros” is a kind of processed meat wrapped in pita bread.This was not the first time I had gyros. I remember I had my first taste of Gyros was at the college town fair few years back.

Since there are limited menu selections, we also ordered hummus as appetizer. I never had this before but have seen this on TV (food network) all the time, so I decided to give it a try. I don’t exactly know what hummus is except it made from chick-peas, but I heard that it is a very healthy food. The serving come with some warm and soft pita breads, so you can dip the hummus with the bread. Taste wise, I think it’s ok. It is definitely a very simple and light flavor appetizer to serve in a party or gathering. Want to know more about Hummus, check out the Hummus blog. For me, maybe not so much of hummus right now. It’s time to move on…