I love fresh vegetable wraps. I always cut up chickens to smaller pieces and put lots and lots of veggies. I always ask for more lettuce too.

I just wish they provide chopsticks too. Ha ha. That would be nice and convenient... well for chopsticks experts... I always find it little hard to get the veggies neatly in the lettuce with fork...so I give up and use my hands. It's nice that they give you a wet towel to clean your hands.

Kyu ordered DaVinci? Pasta.

That day the pasta sauce was perfect!!!! I don't know what the cook did differently that day but oh my! It was DELICIOUS!!!

We ended our meal with two cups of coffee each and a red velvet cheesecake~! Perfect.

Cheesecake Factory Gifts on ebay:

Cheesecake Factory COCONUT CREAM CHEESECAKE Recipe ~ no nuts or pineapple US $.99

Cheese Cake Factory $25 Gift Card - Nationwide - all restaurants or online FS US $24.27

Herrington Collectable Teddy Bear Ltd. Ed. 2006 Cheesecake Factory US $20.00

We ordered...

Chicken Pad Thai... this I knew... Haha
Love the chewy noodle with the fresh crunchy sprouts... Yum ... I wish I had sriracha hot sauce drizzled all over this.

Satay for Appetizer. This was very good with the sweet peanut sauce.At first we found it odd to see two bread slices with the satay but we figured that it was meant to be eaten like a sandwich?!?

I ordered Drunken Noodle, but I accidentally deleted it...sigh...

My drunken noodle was spicy... But it was just spicy enough to enjoy... I just munched on too much junk foods right before... So I couldn't fully appreciate the dish. But it was good even with not so empty stomach.

Catfish something...It was okay.
I must have not been in mood for fish. I can't say much about this dish.

And chicken yellow curry... or was it pork? Hmmmm...

Everyone loved the curry except that I found it to be little too sweet to my taste. But it was good.

I drank cups and cups of Jasmin Tea too. Unfortunately, I couldn't finish my dish even with the tea but overall food was good, service was good enough, and the place was clean. So go check it out!

We saw a Japanese Ramen House next door so we will be trying that restaurant next week!! Can't wait!

Ruan Thai is located at:
11407 Amherst Ave
Wheaton, MD, 20902
301-942-0075
http://ruanthaiwheaton.com/

We ate Sesame Chicken, Stringbean with chicken, and shrimp lomein. And I think egg rolls and the soup came with the entree.

I like to mix the sesame chicken sauce with the rice than just plain soy sauce.

Try not to think about the healthy eating when you eat Chinese and just enjoy like I did. Just don't do it too often.

Asean Bistro is located on:
8775 Centre Park Drive
Columbia, MD 21045-2177
(410) 772-5300
http://aseanbistro.com/home.htm

My lunch @ Panera Bread in Columbia, MD. I got 'You pick two' with Garden vegetable and Chicken Cobb salad.

I love their coffee too. I always drink dark roast mixed with couple drops of Hazelnut. It gives just hint of Hazelnut aroma that coffee still tastes good after it gets cold. Mmmm~

They have rewards card there too. I just got one. Not sure how it works but 'rewards' always sounds good to me!

How does it work anyways?
I registered online and supposed to have first free espresso drink for registering. Nice~ Not sure how valuable it will be after this or how often I'll be getting something back....

Anyhow...What's your favorite at Panera?

Panera items on ebay:

Women's Panera Button Down Shirts & Bubble Coat US $49.99

PANERA BREAD GIFT CARD-$50.00 VALUE, NEVER USED US $46.00

* PANERA BREAD Bakery Cafe GIFT CARD $25 Value Brand New no reserve food dining US $23.03

Chopsticks Stand on eBay

2 Pier 1 Pottery Asian Bowls and Chopstick Stand Rest US $9.99

4x Mr.P Kitchen Chopsticks Stand Chopsticks Rest New US $4.30

NEW Japanese Chinese Oriental Wood Bamboo Chopsticks SET w/Stands/Rest Gift US $3.99

...but Korean restaurants rarely have one ready for you. One I took a picture of here was not provided by the restaurant. I made it with chopsticks wrapper and I'll teach you how to make one too!

Ok. Take chopsticks out. You have one long wrapper. Fold in thirds. Folding in the sides in so the middle part will be showing like the bottom part. Nice and clean.

Once you folded one thirds, fold in half like so. Some stop there for quick functional stand. But I would like to go further and make it look little more finished. (By this time I get so into it.)

Now, let's make sides. Pinch each corner into triangular shape like so.

Now the other sides too. Fold both ends into triangular shape.

Now close it firmly with two fingers to make it nice and neat. Repeat for the other end too.

Little more to go, Ha ha ha....having fun yet? Now we need to make a place to rest chopstick so it won't roll off. Just like the corner, you pinch the middle. But this time you are making a diamond shape. Push with one finger in the middle, hold each side with each hand (hold the top half folded area) and push/fold in.

Now you have a place to rest your chopstick!

There you go. Your own chopstick stand!

Just one thing... I also realized that I would make one before I eat and once the food is served, I always forget there's a chopstick stand... since I really don't need to rest it anymore...

Still I unconsciously reach out for the chopsticks wrapper everytime, take out chopsticks, and start folding my chopstick stand. I guess I try to forget my hunger till the food is served.

Hope this helps SOMEONE out there...or if it doesn't...you can kill some time till banchan comes...

Chopsticks on eBay

Chopsticks Teakwood quality woods teak inlaid modern art design US $21.25

DISNEY CAST CREW FEATURE ANIMATION MULAN wax stamp FIGURINE Statue & chopsticks US $9.99

Korean Chopsticks And PlaceMat Set US $50.00

Restaurant Reviews:
Jong Kak Korean BBQ Restaurant in Baltimore, MD
Allgreen Market Food Court-Poongnyun , MD
Sushi King Japanese Restaurant , MD
Niko Japanese Restaurant, MD
VietGoel/LightHouse Tofu House Korean Restaurant , MD
Tian Korean-Chinese Restaurant, MD

Kimchi Recipes:
Traditional Whole Napa Cabbage Kimchi
Quick 'n Easy version Kimchi

I went to Tian the first week they opened. As soon as I walked in, I realized that they did spend some money in interior design. Compared to other Korean restaurants interior was better than any other except that the seating arrangement was too tight and felt like one giant cafeteria table. Other customers (total strangers) were only about a foot away from me. That was uncomfortable.

Servers, whew... wasn't trained at all. But it seems like all the Korean restaurants don't emphasize in training their employee about the importance in customer service. No one smiled, no one was being nice. They were all confused and weren't providing customer service. They were just 'delivering' food.
Enough about the service. This is not the first time I had problem with service in Korean restaurants. I also took some pictures of food I ordered.

So we ordered, Jjamppong and Jjajangmyeon Combo called JjamJjamyeon (First word of each dish combined to make a name) Jjamppong is a spicy seafood noodle soup and Jjajangmyeon(or Jajangmyeon) is a noodle dish with black bean paste (Chunjang) sauce stir fried with veggies and meat. The menu said that they use No MSG, which turned out to be the first good thing about this restaurant since other Korean-Chinese restaurants are known to use a lot of MSG to make Jjajangmyeon tasty. The taste was OK and NOTHING special with noodles (some places make their own hand pulled noodles-if you hear pounding sound back at the Kitchen, they are making your noodles.I don't think Tian makes its own.)

And we ordered, Sachun Tangsuyuk, which was supposed to be a spicy sweet and sour beef (You can choose different meat for this dish. Pork or beef. We chose beef.) We also asked to have sauce on the side so our meat won't get soggy and if we have a leftover, we can take it home. Sweet and sour pork/beef is fried, crispy meat and veggies served with sweet and sour sauce. The price was lower than Hanjoongkwan in Ellicott City, MD, another Korean-Chinese restaurant, but it turned out that the serving was smaller too. Only thing I can say about this dish is that I'll NEVER going to order this dish again!!! It wasn't spicy. It wasn't sweet. It was just sour. It didn't have usual veggies in it. Only thing 'floating' in our sauce was some cucumber and scallions?!? I've never seen any restaurant serving sweet and sour sauce with scallions... It's usually cucumbers, some seafood, pineapple, carrots, peppers, onions...etc. Not scallions... I urge you not to order this dish. Please don't.

My first impression of Tian was not good at all. Too busy with untrained servers, who were obviously confused, and weird dishes that failed to impress me. However this was MY only first experience. I've heard better things from other people. Some people say that the regular Tangsuyuk is OK and that some people actually like their noodle dishes too, because Tian doesn't use MSG. Maybe I'll go try the regular Tangsuyuk next time too. I hope they don't have scallions floating around again...

If you want to try it yourself, Tian (티엔) is located near Lotte in Ellicott City, MD. If you go, please tell us what it was like.