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| ogie thinking bout switching to a new type of blogging... any input?
http://chi-unit.blogspot.com/
otherwise I think I will continue to do my blogspots here...
alrightey an update on the Annual Lobster Festival that was held back in August. It was me, Dave Ho, Mei, John Hung, Hideki, Nick, and our mascot DiDi. Great group of eaters! Great team players on a total of 26 hours of driving done within 2 days!
It all started on Friday August 1st... We pick up the car and ate shake shack along the way.
First stop was white clam pizza in Hartford Connecticut at Pepe's. It was good... but nothing special... just tasted literally like clam pasta on a pizza drizzled with olive oil.
Next stop was Bethel Maine. Didn't get there til pretty late in the night.
Next day woke up pretty early and left the house prolly by 8 or 9am for the drive to Acadia National Park up at the edge of Maine bout a 4 hour drive from Bethel. Almost got lost along the way setting us about an hour or two behind. Finally got to the entrance of it and found our not so friendly first lobster shack! Trenton Bridge (right outside the bridge to Acadia. There they explained we could either order soft shell lobsters or hard shell lobsters. Soft shell ones were much juicier but the harder shell ones were meatier. There was also a difference between male lobsters and female lobsters... of course female ones had more egg stuff which was good too but kinda high on cholesterol after awhile
After that we headed into the park where we saw some pretty scenic yet cold views of the mountains and waters around us. You had to be there sorta experiences. Everything was quiet and serene and just beautiful the more north we drove. Pretty dry overall. I was expecting to see much more greenery and water around me. After that we headed into town at Bar Harbor. Really cute new england feel to it. Small quaint town, blueberries plentiful! Ate more lobster, not so good, at this place at the edge of town. Arrived back in Bethel pretty late.
Another early morning, this time a 3 hour drive into Rockland, Maine where the festival was. Finally got there only to realize it wasn't all it was built up to be. The festival just had lobsters... That's all, nothing special. So we quickly headed outta there after an hour or so of eating another lobster and headed to kennebunkport. Found some random wild blueberries sold at the side of the road with a simple sign and a blue dot that signified BLUEBERRIES.
Best part of the trip had to be kennebunkport. Very lively little town. Beach was a typical beach you would think of when in the new england area. DiDi had a great time being scared of the water. Water was clear and everything around us was just unreal. Headed back into town after that only to realized the best oyster shack was actually at a CLAM SHACK!!!! seriously very juicy.
Along the way back we stopped by took at peek at bush's summer house. Then headed back for the long sad journey home.
Food excursion ended for the summer...
September 4th Weekend: Theme of this one BEEhave in Canada!
When we thought the trip had ended another great eating conquest began. This time it was me, John, Nobu, Karen, Gil, and Yuka!
We left and stopped off first at Harriman Plaza for a quick restroom break and some chicken strips at Nathans. Got to Montreal around 2am and stayed at a nice house we found off of vrbo.com. Since we were super hungry we figured let's hit up Schwartz! Too bad scwartz was closed! But luckily we found a restaurant off my list of to eat places! L'Express. All i can say was wow wat a great fatty late night snack, we ordered some bone marrow that was great if eaten in very small portions, beef tar tar was ok, steak was pretty good i remember, and the blue cheese wow for some reason we never tried such good cheese before!
Next morning took a walk into town and the eating began. First stop was a local bakery where we found croissants, and filled filling croissants. As we kept walking we ran into another croissant store and grabbed some coffee there. After that we stopped by the 2 bagel shops everyone kept raving about: viateur bagel and fairmount bagel... warm but eh nothing special... just a bagel! I thought the bagel we had at a random place in bethel was really good cuz it was buttery and salty delicious...
Next we hit up another bagel place a block later. Same exact flavors, same exact taste. So after that we headed to this huge farmer's market Jean Talon's Market. I've never seen so many fresh fruits, basil, and tomatos! All with plenty of samples to try, and plenty of bees to guard them as well. We ate some fried things at a stand nearby, followed by some ice cream, and apple wine. After stuffing ourselves with samples of fruits and the freshest tomatoes ever we concluded that we have to come back here on Monday before we leave back to the states. Mission smuggle exotic fruits and cheeses were underway.
After that we walked away from the market to a local lebanese place nearby. Certainly already stuffed but continued to have a light midday pre dinner. Forgot the name of this restaurant. Best dish there was this hummus with ground beef. Everything else was ok. So we walked for miles literally home and finally got to our resting area and decided to rest for a lil bit before heading out.
Of course before the night ended we went to schwartz deli. There we ordered the medium fatty brisket. It was good but I still like Katz's in NYC better because it is juicier for some reason. Maybe I should have ordered the fattier version of the brisket. From there we went clubbing and ended up at first at GOGO where um there was a huge ratio of guys to girls. So we quickly left there and went into a few others where we should have stayed but instead ended up at Orchard where none of the locals hung out apparently and instead only some short asian dudes who kept trying to hit on us and I just stared them down haha. Anyway left as it was a bust and headed home for resting. We tried a few more clubs but apparently we weren't young enough with enough braces to get into some of these places so we left defeated... No strip club or casino either =P
Next day we woke up and went to another croissant place, I actually liked this place a lot as it had a very diff filling to its croissants. picked up a bag of other stuff. Headed to a local vietnamese place located in a random no vietnamese part of town. Today was a shopping day. Found some neat store that put together pieces of old clothing to make new clothings such as dresses. Of course me, Yuka, and karen came back with a dent in our wallets of that one. somewhere during the day we stopped by a local cupcake shop. Cute but nothing good in comparison to the ones in nyc.
The night was spent at pied de cuchon and wow never had foie gras poutine done so well til then. Had maybe 2 other types of foie gras that were phenomenal. One dish with duck came in a can that was slow cooked. Pretty strong in flavor. Lamb shanks was very tender as well. The last thing we ordered was this pig's head concoction that the chef made using sea urchin and scallops and a combo of diff things that I've never thought could be combined. Good but maybe a lil too much overdone in terms of flavors. Dessert was good but the foie gras is what i would come back for!
After that we walked around to some bars, ended up at a local jazz bar and of course headed home and last stop was at a late night poutine place where we had sausage poutine. Good cheap stuff!
Last day in Montreal, stopped over at farmers market to smuggle some tomatos, basil, peaches that ended up with diff people by the end of the trip
Awesome trip! More to come!
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| Lil NY Annoyances... Let me tell you now, do not let anyone, not even grocery store people, try to rip you off. Scene: Sign at Associated Supermarket reads "Deluxe Mixed Nuts $3.99" (Chi grabs can labeled "Deluxe Mix Nuts" and heads to register) Associate: "Sorry these nuts are not on sale. It's actually 7.79" Chi: "Uh the sign says Mixed Nuts!" (I am not an idiot!) Associate: "No it doesn't see its not on the advertisement" (Chi goes back to shelf and pulls sign off that reads "Deluxe Mixed Nuts $3.99") Associate: (throws sign away and punches in correct price with attitude that she got owned!!!) BOOYAH!!! | | |
| heading back to h-town for my sis's graduation... omg she's an adult now??? WTF???
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