I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling 22

I took advantage of the long weekend to explore Atlantic City with some friends for my birthday. We ended up going to Buddakan AC for the birthday meal. I’d give it a 4.5/5. I’ve obviously had better (and 10x more creative) Asian food, but it would be uncouth to compare Stephen Starr to the lavish restaurants of my homeland. That being said, I fell in love with the edamame ravioli, which had a unique sort of Oriental meets Occidental flavor. Basically, if I had to describe myself in a dish, this would be The One: edamame ravioli with a subtle dash of dépaysement.

In other news, I went to Sampan for happy hour last Wednesday for the last Center City Sips (so much Asian food this week!! I also went to a Szechuan place for dinner and Joy Tsin Lau for dim sum, but those were pretty standard meals). I had a kobe slider, kimchi fried rice, some sort of meat thing, and a strawberry sriracha cocktail… All for $12.

I also embarked on two baking projects this week to get rid of two things in my fridge (salsa and jam) that were approaching their expiration dates. Project #1: tilapia with salsa

Super easy recipe: Rinse tilapia fillets in water and then in lemon juice. Put on baking pan or sheet and pour salsa liberally over the fillets. I used Trader Joe’s salsa, but I’m sure anything can be used as a substitute. Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Voila!

Project #2: thumbprint jam cookies. I followed this recipe.

I seriously need to go running with all of the food that’s going into my body. I’m supposed to do a half marathon on September 15, and the longest run I’ve done so far were two 5k races that I ran without any training (28:08 and 27:52). OOOPS.

From garden to chopsticks

These photos above are from a few weeks ago, but I’ve been super busy. I finally experienced Zahav (top left photo: crispy haloumi; top right: duck kebab), which has been on my restaurant list for forever. It was a work dinner with the associates in my program, so we had the opportunity to sample a substantial part of the menu between the 7 of us. Yay economies of scale. I also introduced my coworkers to Continental Midtown (bottom photo: shrimp tacos). It’s one of my favorite places for happy hour, and guess what? Our visit coincided with Stephen Starr’s!

I made dumplings and bao zi today. Some of the ingredients came from our own garden, hence “from garden to chopsticks.”

My first ever bao zi. I’m proud that it’s not incredibly deformed. I hope it tastes better than it looks though :p

Hope everyone had a great weekend!