I got there first, and Sofia was lounging on the pillows on the floor.

She got a little Toy Story futon that she absolutely loved.

My cousin Tino had been overseas, so this was one of the first Christmases that he's been able to make it for our annual family dinner in a few years. He deemed it a "White Russian Christmas" and came bearing a bottle of vodka and kahlua to add to the festivities.

Father & Daughter

The grown-ups (I still refer to them as such, even though us cousins are well within that age by now) stayed inside while my brothers and cousins stayed in the backyard chatting and bbqing in freezing weather combined with a ridiculous windchill factor.

Tino serves up the first batch of white russians, mixing it with the baby's spoon.

My dad trying on Tino's Russian-hat-he-bought-while-in-Russia.

Almost 2, Sofia is old enough to figure out how to open presents now.

She's in her pretty princess phase too.

My mom got her a rocking horse, which was her fave gift for the night

Tino tries out Sofia's new futon.

Her second favorite gift? Batteries. Kids these days.

After dinner, we used to have an annual tradition of drinking the Jones Soda Holiday Gift Pack they used to sell at Target, with sodas flavored along the lines of brussel sprouts, gravy, and turkey. They've since discontinued that line, so this year I found a few random brews to try- a bottle of jalapeno wine from a winery in south Houston, and octopus, wasabi, and curry flavored sodas I had purchased during our family trip to Japan in March. I poured them all out into separate cups, mixed them all up, and everyone took turns guessing what each flavor was.

Tina went first.

She didn't fare too well. Everyone else made it through the gauntlet of mystery beverages without gagging too much.

But as per tradition, after the initial tasting, we took all the remnants in all the cups and poured them all into one cup for fantastically gross results.

If people didn't make a disgusted face before, they all did now (I didn't think it was that bad).

The day before my birthday, we (the landlords + new tenant Patrick) sat around the kitchen table eating cheese and sharing a bottle of wine.

They got me slices of cake from the korean bakery and we each had a piece of the four slices they had bought.

Not too shabby.

On my actual birthday birthday, Seo planned to meet up Carol for an internet meetz dinner. She invited Melissa and I to come out last minute. We decided to check out Mongolian Hot Pot, coincidentally right near the Galleria and I had never thought to come here for years.

The place closely resembles the hot pot I had during my Beijing trip.

There's the separation for regular and spicy broth, though the spicy broth was nowhere near as spicy as in Beijing. I think they used less of the szechuan peppercorns that cause that numbing feeling.

The first round of food

Pretty delicious meats

Fish paste for making fish balls. The dumpling things were just kinda meh

Meh

I like these weird mushrooms

Tofu platter

Internet meetz dinner group (geez, my hair is out of control)

The next day Tu and Tramanh decided to try their hand at preparing KOBE BEEF steaks. LOOK AT THAT MARBLING.

Also, a side dish, of course.

Mmm... charred on the outside, raw on the inside.

No, Uno, you cannot haz sum.

Michelle came by the next day and dropped off some birthday cupcakes. So nice of her.

Sad robot is sad. This toy is actually a nerdy manga character dressing up as a robot. I've been trying to find this robot everywhere and Jeannie tracked it down while she was living in Japan for me. One of my fave gifts.

When I visited Jeannie's school that she was teaching at in Japan, her coworker had written up and illustrated this ridiculously cute story to read to the kids. I thought it was the cutest thing ever and had always wanted Rika to draw up a picture from it for me. When Jeannie came back from Japan, she brought along a smaller version of the fully illustrated story. Things made by hand are always appreciated.

It's a story about a bear who is walking about and gets caught in the rain.

My parents got me this wine because it's shaped like a monkey because I was born in the year of the monkey and all.

Yen remembered that I enjoy bacon, so she got me an assortment of bacon-related products. Microwavable pork rinds (surprisingly good), bacon flavored floss, bacon flavored toothpicks, bacon-looking gummy candy (kinda gross looking) and a bacon car freshener. I may hold off on using that car freshener for the time being.

And to top it off, as part of our running joke, she got me this gross bottle of Ed Hardy wine. The wine is as terrible as the packaging.

We tried out the food court, which was still pretty limited in selection- a few more food court places are slated to open next year.

This was okay. There's hainanese chicken (served cold), and the usual roasted meats (duck, pork) you see hanging around, for a reasonable price.

Idiots can be had for $2.69

Mullets for just a little bit more.

Why the long face, Uno?

Uno looking weird.

Pepper being long of leg.

Pepper being weird.

Uno looking weird (again).

Uno looking kangaroo-like.

Pepper squishface

Pepper is a sea of legs

They're only like this because it's freezing cold

Smoldering

A boy and his dog

HAVING A GOOD DAY? HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM?

SO SREEPY

At the dog park

Uno got a big bone for Christmas. He is all hypnodog when he is with it.

Dreaming pleasant bone dreams

The end.

But first, a stop in Century 21. The place would be nice if it weren't so packed like sardines with people. I wanted to leave within five minutes of arriving.

Shopping at Top Shop. The place has some okay things, but it's ridiculously priced. If it were 25% off, it'd be priced about right, but even then I wouldn't buy unless it were on sale off that corrected price.

Our hated Ed Hardy store in Soho. The running joke has gotten so out of hand that Yen's friends/family think that she really likes Ed Hardy.

Vodka pizza. It's just okay.

On our way to more pizza, we passed by Rice to Riches. I like rice pudding, but it's ridiculously pricey at $6.75 for the smallest size.

But they let you keep the cup and the bowl though. This was a hazelnut chocolate rice pudding. It's pretty good and easily feeds 2-3 people.

We then headed off to Lombardi's pizza right across the street.

Yen got to meet up Brian, her old roommate. He also shows up in much of The September Issue, as he used to work for Vogue.

The pizza here is not bad with good crust, but it's a little... watery for my taste. I would prefer the cheesier Chicago style pizza any day.

I don't know why I like the lighting in the subways so much.

I realized that I hadn't even gotten around to seeing the tree at the Rockefeller plaza yet, so we made the trek back across town to check it out.

Christmas in New York? Accomplished. It was ridiculously crowded around the tree, so it was kind of annoying, but at least I got to see Christmas in New York.

Ice skating at the Rockefeller Plaza. Apparently the line, even this late at night, was at least a half hour wait. It didn't look as fun as in the movies, but I am terrible on any surface requiring balance anyway.

For our last night in New York, we wandered around the streets at night, donning the H&M fur hats that Yen had gotten all of us on sale for 50% off. We ended up at yet another 24-hour Korean food joint and got home in the wee hours of the night.

The next morning, I gave up on my search for a nice brown suede blazer from H&M in my size and instead headed off for some lamb and rice from the carts that Yen and Josephine had been raving about. I also picked up some macarons for people back home.

And it was pretty good after all. A bit pricey for cart food ($8? Really? I was thinking like $4), but it was generously-sized portions and a pretty good last meal before heading off to the airport.

Restaurant exterior.

I got there first so I had a bit of time to kill.

Time for some fine dining.

The restaurant features a neat touch screen wine menu.

Of course, I will have to get the lard thick pork fat. Culinary curiosity compels me to do so.

It is white truffle season. I've never had white truffle before, just the white truffle oil which is actually just a chemical flavoring and not an extract apparently, so I was excited to try it.

After I ordered the lard, they decided to give us this plate of lard for free. Ugh.

So here's what an order of it looks like. It is pretty good- like thin strips of bacon fat (sans the meat part), but without being excessively greasy. A very light fat flavor to it- similar to terrine in banh mis.

I went with the carpeneta. Not too shabby.

Uovo in raviolo al burro tartufato. Apparently I cut this open incorrectly and the maitre d' came up all, "NO NO NO". But then another maitre d' came up to Audrey later while she was cutting hers and did it the same way I had done. You cut open the top and have the egg inside fall onto the truffle oil below the ravioli. It was pretty excellent.

The receipt looks like a nice Christmas card. Until you open it. Then,

Eating mission #2: Basta Pasta- a Japanese-Italian restaurant. I had wanted to try it out last time I was in New York. Except it turns out the place is run by japanese people, not that it was japanese-italian fusion food. Disappointing. I think the dinner menu is much better.

A pretty refreshing white sangria.

A very light minestrone soup.

Fusilli with free range chicken ragu, fresh tomatoes, and prosciutto. Not bad. The Japanese influence comes in that the dishes are very light, not heavy and creamy like traditional Italian foods I have had.

Green tea ice cream with room temperature chocolate mousse.

New York misreading #2- I thought this said "Cock Block". C'mon, you saw that too.

This man walked around with a cat on his head.

I passed by this prior to ending up at Adorama- the physical store. I usually buy from Adorama and B&H Photo Video, so it was nice to be surrounded by all the fancy equipment that you usually only see in pictures. I know B&H Photo Video has a physical store in New York too, but there was no time. I had to meet up Alice for the night's events and Yen, Linda, and Josephine were off to see Wicked.

I met up with Alice and we headed off to her friend's charity art gallery function. We stopped off at the Fat Hippo first for a quick bite to eat before heading off to the charity event.

I went with the burger fondue, which was good but pretty complicated to eat. The fries were pretty awesome though.

Afterwards, Alice's group of friends headed off to her old work place and then we headed off to a karaoke bar that one of her friends knew the owner. We had a bottle of vodka in the karaoke room to finish and we gnoshed on some pretty decent asian chicken wings.

I wanted to Rick Roll the entire karaoke room, but thought that would be too easy (also, too two thousand and late).

After karaoke, Yen, Linda, Josephine, and I headed off for Mamoun's for some falafel. It was not a bad falafel (I'm usually not a fan of this sort) and the hot sauce was actually burning (usually "spicy" falls under the ranking of tabasco sauce or spicy cheetos, which might as well just be salt).

They hadn't eaten yet, so we headed off to dinner (my third for the night).

We ended up at Cafeteria, which was anything but. It seemed like a pretty trendy locale and apparently there was a club downstairs. The music was loud, the ambiance was dark, and the food was mediocre.

Dinner trio

Truffle garlic fries- can't really screw that up

I ordered the Mac & Cheese Spring Roll, just because I had to know. Unfortunately, it was severely underwhelming. It wasn't a spring roll- it was an egg roll filled with... well, mac & cheese. I suppose it is what it says, but still, at a restaurant like this you expect a little something more.
 

This is how they sell Christmas trees in New York.

They had a neat touch screen display outside the department store that let you write a letter to Santa.

People come to New York to see these department store displays during Christmas time, but I didn't pay too much heed to it.

Then we headed a few dozen blocks off to Times Square. I suppose everything is walking distance in New York, but coming from Cafeteria in the frigid weather, it felt like we walked for miles.

We ended up at Grand Central Station before heading back home. I can never take a photo I like of the place, but I suppose this one will have to do.

I touched down first at La Guardia airport on a Wednesday afternoon.

The lady who rented us this short-stay apartment was very nice. It's pretty spacious for a 1 bedroom apartment in Manhattan. Location was not bad, there was always hot water, and plenty of additional blankets and pillows. The flooring, however, creaked and groaned with every step. I felt bad because Yen and Linda are ridiculously light sleepers and I snore like I'm sawing logs. Yen also hated us real bad when we came in at like 4 AM after eating at a 24-hour korean restaurant the first night there.

Pretty cozy kitchen.

Somehow I was able to share a bathroom with 3 girls without anyone killing each other. It works out that some were night showerers and I am a morning shower person.

Alice was in the middle of running errands so I roamed about the city for a few blocks, testing out my internal directional compass. I thought this said "Hater Building" and snapped the photo. Then I realized it said "Haier Building." Ugh.

Another one of the places that Jennifer had recommended to me was Macaron Cafe. Alice set me off in direction for these supposedly delicious macarons. Oh, by the way, the main goal of this trip was not site-seeing, but food eating. The last time I was in New York, there was not enough time to eat everything. This time I was determined to have my fill of the city.

And Jennifer's recommendation was on the spot- this place has pretty awesome macarons. Every day, the selection varies, but this day I got: honey lavender, tiramisu, matcha (green tea), rose petal, and espresso. Much better (and cheaper) than Bouchon Bakery.

The rest of the afternoon was spent accompanying Alice on her millinery quest and learning about what it takes to source materials to make fashion accessories, namely fascinators. It's actually pretty interesting, I kid you not.

We then went and met up her friend Charlie at a japanese hole-in-the-wall for some oysters. I got a skewer of chicken hearts which were good, but Yen makes them much better.

Fried soft shell crab. Pretty good.

I've never been a big fan of oysters, but lately I've decided to try to give them a second chance. These were much more different than your typical oysters- you don't get the ocean-y taste you get like at Captain Tom's or other places with large oysters. The toppings and accompanying sauce mask the typical oyster taste and also a bit of the sliminess. Different, but good.

I was still hungry after dinner, so Alice walked me out to Crif Dogs, a hot dog joint meant to redeem my initial New York cold hot dog eating disaster.

The place is pretty awesome- a phone booth which opens on the other side to reveal a hidden speakeasy. I wanted to go and check it out, but it was ridiculously packed on the inside.

I had something along the lines of The Lazy Redneck or something Texan related. It was delicious- crispy bacon wrapped around the hot dog, slathered with jalapeno and coleslaw to contrast the greasiness of the hot dog.