Long awaited dumplings and return to Spokane

After Hannah had spent a few days at her friends' cabin, we had planned on going out to Spokane for the week to spend time with my family.  She had been once before (in the beginning of the blog!) and it was time for a revisit before we both go off to college and military.

Key lime truffle

In one of our many bike rides around the Seattle area we found ourselves in the University Village shopping center one day, where we curiously found a lovely looking truffle to buy!  Key lime is quite the serious flavor, with an awesome citrusy cream in the middle.  Even when splitting it you get a mouthful of intense flavor that is unforgettable.

Din Tai Fung menu!

Now, this is something we've been looking forward to for a LONG time..  Din Tai Fung is a world class restaurant (with good prices) that is famous for its hand rolled pork dumplings that are to die for!  We absolutely had to go there, and keep in mind that everything we ate was all in the neighborhood of about $30.  Not bad at all considering all we got.  The menu you see above really is quite simple: you've got everything on the menu with prices in front of you and all you do is write down the quantity and what you want and wait for a server to pick it up.  Easy right!?

Passionfruit bubble tea

What goes better with unspecified asian food than bubble tea!  Classic bubble tea smoothie with the boba in it of course.  Went well with out whole meal there.  We just split this one and it turned out perfectly.

Sauteed spinach

To start we got the bubble tea, ginger sauteed spinach, PORK DUMPLINGS, veggie buns, and a side of brown rice.  The spinach as you see above was a good amount, we felt like we needed some green veggies in the mix.  It was good and very gingery, only thing was that we both found it a little too wet maybe, or maybe we're just too picky :P

PORK DUMPLINGS

THE PORK DUMPLINGS.  This is their famous food.  These were so incredible, and filling, that next time i'm just going to get 4 freaking orders of these..  First you pop the soft doughy outside and let the juices out, then you drink the warm and pork-y juices, then you pop the whole thing in your mouth and let the pork-gods take your taste buds on a journey.  THIS IS THE BEST PORK I HAVE EVER TASTED.

Veggie rolls

We needed enough veggies to cancel out the porkiness, so we ordered a pair of veggie buns too.  These were in the similar construction to dumplings, only much larger and without the juices (and with mixed veggie of course).  The result was splendid!  The veggies inside were full of flavor and I always love the texture of the buns that they put these things in. Seriously!

The whole masterpiece

Overall Din Tai Fung is one of the best places I can say I have ever eaten at, and definitely plan on returning when I'm back home in the winter.

Best salad ever

Silverwood.  The six flags of Idaho.  On our trip to Spokane we had to stop by this park which seems to grow exponentially by the year.  During our day of thrills and spills we had to stop for lunch, at their only (affordable!) restaurant: Lindy's, based on Charles Lindbergh.  We waited a little while but got some nice outdoor seating in the shade and I quickly ordered a tall cold root beer.  We eventually ordered, Hannah got a beautiful looking salad and I got a turkey burger (both of us trying to go a little healthier).  Her salad really made me double think what i ordered, It was great!  It had fresh fruit and berries with almonds and gorgonzola and a vinagrette dressing.  It made me pick up my fork and help her out with it!

Turkey burger

About my turkey burger?  Well, it was a burger.  Made of turkey.  Nothing bad, nothing special.  Until Hannah put her avocado on it :}  thanks babe

Omelet with red pesto!

After silverwood we had to get breakfast at least one day in Spokane!  And in the style of trying new places, we went one place that has been famous in Spokane for a long time: Frank's Diner.  It's located downtown in an old boxcar where the sign above boasts "voted best breakfast in spokane!" which they said for a good reason.  The wait was about 10 minutes for the bar seating, this place was PACKED.  So show up early.  We got a couple coffees and ordered two different egg dishes: Hannah's was an omelet with red pesto smeared on top and parm, and mine was a super spicy mexican something scramble which left my tummy aching.  Seriously, mine was just too spicy to REALLY enjoy the flavor, but it still was good from what i could taste!  Hannah's was another winner.  A seriously unique and delicious choice.  I have no idea what makes the heavenly red pesto sauce so good, but whatever it is i want more of it!

Super spicy scramble

Frank's Diner in Spokane

Well this blog post concludes my (Tyler's) last one in a while, any others that happen before thanksgiving will be completely Hannah's doing!  I'm off the Marine Corps boot camp and soon Hannah will be down in college too.  So goodbye for a little while!  I'll miss you Hannah, make the blog proud!

Trip down memory lane with Pizza

Greek Salad with Root Beer on the left

Ever since Tyler stopped working at Uncle Petezas, he has been wanting to return to reminisce amongst the food.  So, we went for a short bike ride to the pizza parlor.  After the ride we were starving.  Tyler and I both really wanted to try the gourmet veggie, but to be a little healthier we went with the margarita pizza.  In addition, we got a half order of a greek salad (we both thought that it looked like a full).  The salad was accompanied by 2 bread sticks.  We also had some amazing root beer (:

Greek Salad

Bread Stick

Margarita pizza

Year Anniversary Picnic in the Mountains

 So, this is a little late...but last week (August 6) was our year anniversary!  Tyler had decided to plan out the day, so I was surpirsed when we went to the Iron Horse trail.  I had ridden on this iconic trail mulitiple times and had been wanting to go there all summer, so it was a perfect choice.  We headed up at around 11, and had a picnic lunch before we started out ride.

Back from a break from blogging

 Hi everyone!!
Sorry this blog hasn't been updated recently, but Tyler and I have been very busy the past two weeks.  2 weeks ago I went to my first camp of the summer in Stanwood, WA.  It was a horsemanship camp so I got some great experience with some horses.  While I was there, Tyler was on a road trip with one of his friends.  They went from Seattle to Utah and back and I heard that they had a great time!
This past week Tyler and I volunteered as councelors at Kiwanis Camp Casey (a camp for physically disabled children ages 6-17).  We had a great time at this camp getting to meet new, amazing people and had the time of our lives.  Tyler and I will never forget these people, and hope to go to the same camp next year!  The only downside of this camp was the lack of sleep that we got...
Anyway, after a nice sleep we decided to take a nice relaxing day to catch up.  We decided to go to a fozen yogurt place in Juanita called Cherry de Pon.  To our surpise they had EGGNOG frozen yogurt in the middle of summer!!! So we just had to have some of that, and some taro, and some thin mint frozen yogurt.  It was topped with mochi, oreos, butterfingers, peanut sauce, mango sauce, chocolate sauce and a cherry!! 

We are both glad to be back in town, and will definitely have a few more adventures before I head to college and Tyler heads to basic!!!

A beach day

Hannah is such a great photographer!

The weather here in Washington has been getting increasingly better and both of us have made an oath to enjoy it as much as possible!! We had visited a few different beaches around our neighborhoods, but they are never sandy, just rocky or grassy, so we made the decision to go to this place called Alki Beach, which is located in West Seattle.  The beach was nice and sandy for a change so Tyler and I found a nice spot and lied down to catch some sun.

Relaxing on the beach

 The beach was a really nice change from the small towns that we had been hanging out in for the past month.  I think that our only small issue with this beach was that there were alot of people who decided to make camp next to us, so we got to listen to little kids playing and teenage girls squealing over who knows what.  On the other hand, there were some nice people who were handing out free coconut water samples (they were legit)!!

Chips and Salsa

Tylers fish burrito/wrap like thing

Hannahs veggie tacos

 We got a little hungry, actually a lot hungry! Our stomachs were literally talking to us out of hunger.  On the hunt for food we began just stopping by little restaurants in order to check the prices and menu.  I was originally craving fish tacos and Tyler wanted fish and chips, but that soon changed.  We began sieving through menus, but most places were expensive, and none of them could accommodate both Tyler and my cravings.  In the end we found a Mexican sort of restaurant that was pretty well priced and with an extensive menu (and an extensive cocktail menu...).  In the end we had made up our minds.  We would start with a basket of chips with a side of salsa!  The chips were satisfactory, but the salsa was normal too.  There were also some homemade salsas on the table, green, red and mango.  Tyler and I definitely favored the mango one!  When it came to ordering, I went with the veggie tacos (just because they had avocados) and Tyler went for the fish burrito with white sauce and cheese.  Both were delicious and we were very happy with our meals.  After though we had to hurry to a meeting, so we could definitely feel that food just sitting in our stomachs!

Full after a nice meal

 After our meeting, we HAD to go to get our dose of bubble tea from...WOW again.   This time I decided to go for a uncommon flavor, that was very simple "rose".  This rose bubble tea was delicious and refreshing, Tyler even commented that it tasted like a flower!   Usually I get the bubble teas with 3 or 4 flavors, but the simple one flavor was great too.  Tyler absolutely loves taro..and coconut, so he chose the taro coconut one.  I'm not a huge fan of coconut, so I wasn't to keen his drink, but I know that he loved it.  This was a successful day of food and sun!

Weekly wow fix! "Rose" on the left and "Taro and Coconut" on right

Hannah's picnic skills in action, our new furry friend, and the best peanut sauce ever

So!  We had another great day planned out for us, starting with a picnic at Greenlake, 100% provided by Hannah, so kudos for that ;)

Greek salad and homemade raspberry soda

 I love how she put these together in mason jars, it seems a lot more handy than using some other tacky looking school lunch equipment, another plus!  So on the left you can see the Greek salad (one of my favorite word combinations ever), which was layer upon layer of fresh lettuce, feta crumbles, kalamata olives, red peppers, big juicy tomatoes and a vinaigrette dressing, WOW!  Put together and eaten right out of the jar this was a definite refreshing change of pace to have some food that I felt good about eating, for health and for flavor.  Greek olives are one of my favorite things ever so it made this salad a must.  The dressing on everything gave everything a nice tang :)

Homemade soda 

 To wash down the delicious salad, Hannah concocted a homemade raspberry soda made of Torani brand syrup and soda water.  Before she even told me what was in it I could tell that this lovely summer beverage had a slight taste of Italian soda to it, and I was right!  I'm telling you, if you have a bunch of Torani flavors at home, go experiment.  It will prove worth while to have a nice refreshing (homemade!) drink like this on a hot day.

Homemade pita with hummus

 Included in this picnic was pita bread, which Hannah had baked fresh the night before, and some very nice hummus to go with it.  This was surely some of the best pita bread I've ever had.  It seems like when you buy it at the store sometimes it can be tough or dry, which wasn't the case here!  Hannah's pita had a nice fluffy texture, and you could definitely tell that it was nice and moist still.  Awesome side :)

Our new friend

 Having a picnic can sometimes attract uninvited guests, but luckily they were friendly about it!  Being in the park there were a few squirrels circling our setup, so we couldn't help but to give them a few nibbles, and one went as far as to take a chunk out of Hannah's hand!  We even got to see an epic fight between crows and squirrels over our bread.  Obviously it was more than just me enjoying Hannah's pita bread.  Once more thank you very much for putting together this picnic for us Hannah :)

Tofu veggie stir fry

 We hadn't sat down for a movie night in a while, so we decided to have a dinner and a movie night at my house that night!  I had found a nice recipe that included a stir fry of veggies and tofu all slathered in a nice peanut sauce (strangely enough I found the recipe on eatingwell.com). So after circling Greenlake twice for about a 90 minute walk, we went over to the PCC in Greenlake to pick up some fresh ingredients for this thing.  We drove it back to my house and got going on it.  Cut up some fresh scallions, minced garlic and ginger, crushed up the extra firm tofu and we were in good shape.  Put most of it in the frying pan for a while, added spinach and mushrooms until everything was looking nice and cooked.

Awesome peanut sauce

 This was no doubt some of the best peanut sauce we have ever had.  It had organic peanut butter, rice vinegar, soy sauce, a little water, and literally CHUNKS of garlic and ginger!  We wanted to be able to put our own amount of sauce on it so we heated up the sauce separately as opposed to with everything else as the recipe says.

Honest tea is delish

 We love tea, even iced tea, and what would go better with this asian dish than some nice iced teas like mango acai white tea and Moroccan mint green tea?  Nothing, that's what.

Everything in full circle

 We couldn't even see the true glory of this dish until we put it all together :)  We put the actual stir fry with sauce on top of a bed of brown rice and than lined the bowl with some romaine lettuce (Hannah's idea, gotta love her).  All together this was one of the best things we've made together.  The peanut sauce was a huge hit, it was very different to taste a peanut sauce with such strong notes of ginger and garlic, but it was outstanding.  I actually put some in a little cup and drank it straight up it was so good!

Leftovers!

For the bit of leftovers we had, I washed out one of Hannah's mason jars and layered the parts up!  I was thinking this was a nice way to have lunch at work the next day or something :)  Just turn it upside down to let that peanutty goodness drip through everything.  Mmmmm

Antique stores, chicken, and more antique stores

Tyler's California chicken burger

 Another day spend around our own neighborhood!  Hannah had a coupon for a local favorite; Alexa's Cafe in Bothell, so at some point we had to go in for lunch.  We've been walking to get exercise a lot lately, so we walked all the way from downtown Bothell to Country Village, which is a little place on Bothell-Everett highway that is packed full of little specialty shops and antique shops.  Popped in and out of a few, Hannah and I really like these kind of places, so we spent a good hour and a half in and out of these stores.  After this we took a nice long walk back in the Bothell main drag and into Alexa's cafe in perfect time for lunch.
We had a $20 groupon here for lunchtime, which worked out perfectly!  We have been feeling on the healthy side lately (which isn't a bad thing!) after our trip, so Hannah got a Thai chicken salad (with peanut sauce of course) and I got the California chicken burger (with avocado of course).  Both were very satisfying!  I always feel like any kind of burger, even if it does have a wheat bun and chicken can taste delicious with a few slabs of avocado on it.  And did I mention bacon?  Yeah there's bacon :)  On the side of my dish was a few pickle slices and a small Caesar salad, both of which were good and filling (we both love pickles).

Hannah's Thai chicken salad (with peanut sauce!)

The salad that Hannah got was outstanding.  To mix classic Thai flavors with a good salad is a wonderful idea.  I have never seen peanut sauce put on a salad, but I'm glad that someone thought of it!  Throw some perfectly grilled chicken on the garden fresh greens and you've got a mighty lunch salad.  The chicken was definitely tasting like curry (one of God's finest creations), which was a huge plus.  It also came with pickle and a roll, with butter of course.

Crazy cheap receipt

So after we had satisfied our taste buds, we got the ticket and gave the waitress (who could have used a lesson in not being rude) our groupon, and she gave me the remainder of the bill, which turned out to be only freaking $1.89!  I happily gave the waitress my card and tipped well over the minimum of 26 cents..  Note on the ticket name it says "COZY CHAIRS" :)  We needed a nice cozy chair after our long walk to country village.

Next up, picnic at Green Lake and a homemade Thai dinner!

7 alarm challenge?

Sweet Potato Fries, and a Wing Dome Salad

 

Scared for the heat

 Today was absolutely beautiful!  From the early morning the sun was shining, and the temperature rose up to about 86 degrees today.  We had to run a few errands and I had a dentists appointment so after, we treated ourselves to a nice relaxing time on the beach in Kirkland.  First, we decided on going to the Wing Dome because Tyler felt like taking a challenge.  So this place is known for there 7 alarm challenge, which entitles, a person eating 7 hot wings, literally dunked in habanero sauce!  The person isn't allowed to drink or use napkins and they have to eat all 7 wings in order to succeed.  The waitress said that if we wanted to try the challenge then we should eat something first to prepare our stomachs.  Firstly, I had been here before and have tried the deadly sauce, so I wasn't up for the challenge.  On the other hand, Tyler, being a typical guy wanted to take the challenge.  For the pre-food, Tyler ordered sweet potato fries, but was too nervous to eat them, so I probably had 3/4 of them.  In addition, I also had a Wing Dome salad for myself which was delicious!

During the burning Challenge

 Before Tyler started the challenge he got super nervous, but still decided to go for it (:  Even worse, the wings must have taken over 20 minutes to prepare, so the anticipation was killing us both!  The watress even came out with a consent form that she made Tyler sign, which scared us even more.  When the wings came I could smell the heat.  Tyler started out strong, and finished one.  The second really hit him, and that turned out to be his final wing.  I was really proud nonetheless that he was able to finish that much!  But afterwards I tried some of the sauce and immediately tears came to my eyes because the sauce was so hot.  After washing his face, hands and mouth, Tyler ordered the recovery kit (a milk and ice cream sandwich) and we continued on with our day on the beach.  Now knowing why this is the 7 alarm challenge!

Korean, Teriyaki and some Bubble Tea

Starter (soup with all the fixings)

 So...back to Seattle!  Yesterday, Tyler and I had our first counselor training meeting for Camp Casey (a week long overnight camp put on by Kiwanis).  The meeting held at a church right outside of the UW campus, and since we got there an hour and a half early, and it was about dinner time, we decided to begin our search for food.  Now, as a teenager living very close to the ave (UW's main street of restaurants), I know that there is a large amount of Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese restaurants, but I had never found a place that served Korean food.  So, after about 20 minutes of walking up and down the ave we stopped at a place that serves not only Korean food, but also had a wide selection of Japanese and Chinese food, unfortunately i cant remember the name.

Tylers Korean bowl

Firstly, pictured above, Tyler and I recived a genouruous starter, which we were not expecting at all.  It was some sort of soup, possibly miso or egg flower, accompanied with broccoli, kimchi, potatoes (that looked like seasoned lemons) and some other dish that we couldn't distinguish.  When it came to ordering, Tyler decided to be adventurous and ordered a Korean dish.  I'm not sure as to what it was called, but I know that it was rice topped with an egg, carrots, sprouts, beef and greens.  I thought it tasted great, but lacked a little flavor.  On the other hand I had a veggie bento box.  It consisted of fried tofu, fried spring rolls, rice and a salad.  I think both of us agreed that the tofu was the best we had tried for a while.  In addition, the spring rolls were great!  I believe that we were both very pleased with this place.

Hannahs veggie bento box

Cookies and Taro on right, Rio Bravo on left

After we went for dinner we attended our meeting.  I recognized a few of my friends from last year, and I think that Tyler made some new friends.  Once the meeting was over we decided on going to my FAVORITE bubble tea place...WOW.  I'm obsessed with this place, and since we have have meetings for the next three Mondays at a place very close to here, we will be making weekly bubble tea runs.  Today I had the Rio Bravo (papaya, orange, pineapple and some other fruit) and Tyler had the cookies and taro (taro, oreos and vanilla icecream).  We will be posting our next bubble tea adventure next week!