Home baked Vietnamese cracker

I just found that Farmer Direct - a supermarket near UCI sells a  lot of Vietnamese crackers and rice papers. I got one today for myself: sesame cracker with baby shrimp (Banh trang me tom). Though the instruction is using microwave, but as I know, people in Vietname use charcoal to bake, so I decided to use my beloved Breville oven. Just set toast function for 4 slices, level 4, then here is the result:

Meet Fresh - Taiwanese-based dessert chain

Last week, we came to Diamond plaza to try Meet Fresh - a Taiwanese-based dessert chain - the first store in the US.

TIP: don't come here in weekends or dinner time/ evening, you have to wait about 30 minutes on line to order, and about 15 minutes to get your food.

I think the quality of the desert is better then it was in Taiwan (as I know, they are closing a lot of stores in Taiwan), especially the taro ball.

Here is their signature dish

UCI Palo Verde garden

Jaipur vegetables from trader joe's

We didn't have time to go out for Indian food ( the closest Indian restaurant that we love is 30 mins driving), so here was our solution: a pack of instant curry from trader joe's.

Actually, the total cooking time was 15 mins, because I cooked some grounded chicken before add the curry. To make it have more flavor, I also added: 1 spoon of coconut powder, 1 tea spoon of cumin powder, 1 tea spoon of curry powder, 1 tea spoon of paprika powder when I stirred the meat at medium heat (of of these I bought from Trader Joe's). After five minutes, I added 1/2 cup of water and mushroom, closed lid for another 5 minutes. Finally, I added the curry, stir well and cook for another 5 minutes or until the mixture got boiled again. 

If you have fresh cilantro, add some is great!

Happy Pho - shiitake mushroom

I love Pho, a traditional breakfast in Vietnam, but I don't like to eat pho outside (it doesn't not taste good, usually). I also don't want to buy instant pho from asian market, because they use so much MSG and other chemical for soup base. So, It's really happy that we found this product at Wholefood market (around $3 for w servings per box). Unlike other instant noodle, this soup base powder does not include much salt, so I add a tea spoon of fish sauce. The most important thing: no MSG.

To make a bowl of pho has more flavor, some slices of onion and chopped green onion (it will be better if you add cilantro) are added.

As it advertised, the noodle is made from brown rice, so even I use a mixture of water and chicken broth to cook, the final product's color looks so so brown !!!!

In amazon website, they sell 6 box/pack, but it's still very expensive. I will buy more once I see it in wholefood market, much much cheaper.