Barcelona: La Boqueria

A stroll down La Rambla, you will find the entrance to The Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria or La Boqueria, a large food market in Barcelona, Spain. The market has a very diverse selection of goods...

tons of fruits and juice to buy! different kinds of fruits were mixed w/ coconut juice for a very creamy taste:

fresh fruits of all kind cut up and put in containers...

chocolates...

different kinds of eggs...

creamy gelato...

meat...

more fruit!

caramel and candies...

dry fruits and nuts...

Korean restaurant (the only Asian store there)

candied fruits..,

fried fish balls (we tried them and I didn't it, Andy said it was okay...)

fried seafood combination (it was okay...)

Restaurants towards the back of the markets were crowded but we finally found seats at Bar Boqueria.

it was kinda pricey...

We had the seafood combination for two. The huge dish of seafood includes calamari, shrimp, mussels, fish, and razor clams. The seafood was fresh and cooked right, nothing was under or over cooked. It was made with lots of herbs and some lemon juice. sooo much seafood, soooo delicious, sooo worth it!

picture with our food before we devour it!!

Our last day in Barcelona, we decided to dropped by the market for our last fruit smoothie runs. We wanted to try more flavors so we got 5 or 6 drinks at a time (bad idea...). We spent too much time in the market and shopping that we missed our plane to Rome! I blame it partially on the the trains but anyway...

FYI: if you want to use the bathroom in the market you have to save your receipts to show the bathroom lady. If you don't you have to pay .50euros

Taste of Belgium #7: My Favorites!

#1: Belgian Waffles and Frituurs

#2: Sausage Roll from Panos!
Panos is a chain store that sells sweet and savory bake goods. You can find this store everywhere in Belgium (it's like a Starbucks, you can find one on every corner). It's a quick snack which is cheap and taste so good!

They make different types of rolls like turkey, chicken and sausage.

#3: Belgian donuts:
I must mention these delicious Belgian pastry and donuts. They were SOOOOOOO good! We had these for breakfast. The chocolate one is like our boston cream donut but the only difference is that it's flaky outside. SO DELICIOUS!!!! The other pastries were cinnamon, custard filled and raisin.

#4: Blood Sausage by Sita's MomStesi planned something special for us to try but won't tell us what Sita's mom was going to make for us. They said Belgian people love it but some people hate it. Sita said she didn't like it as a child but was going to try it again when we do. It turns out to be blood sausage! I've tried it before but hated it. The ones i tried was very hard and the taste was really bad but this time it was soo good! You can eat it with apple sauce and some people eat it with brown sugar. I actually really like it w/ apple sauce.

Thank you so much for cooking this for us Sita's mom *hugz* Dank je wel!!!

Taste of Belgium #2: Frituurs

Fri-what? ehh?? Frituurs is a traditional fast food shop that often serves fried and grilled dishes such as frites, meatballs, croquettes, fried chicken, brochette and many other foods. Basically, they deep fried everything! There are a large selection of sauces including ketchup, mayo, mustard, curry and many different others.

It's our first time eating at a frituurs. We went to Den Halt a near by shop from the Stesi. They often come here so we know it must be good stuff...

We walked in and there was a counter w/ tons of stuff you can deep fry. Most of the stuff is on a stick...

lots of sauce:

The guy working behind the counter was curious where we were from because I kept taking pictures. We found out we were the first Americans to visit them! We're so honored =D

Here's the menu on the wall:

Traditionally the frites were served in sheets of paper sometimes rolled up in an upside down cone.

mayo and ketchup (curry favor)

frites w/ curry

i can't really identify these but they were so good!!!

wow so much food!!! delicious!

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Den Halt
Bredestraat 1
2620 Hemiksem, Belgium
03 887 51 80

TY at McDonalds: I Want Them ALL!!

Today I didn't eat lunch until 3:30pm! I was busy the whole day and attended a long meeting so I didn't have time to pick up lunch. It was so late in the afternoon that I didn't feel hungry anymore but decided to go to McDonalds for a little snack. I walked to the counter and was about to order a snack wrap but something caught my eye! A whole wall of teenie beanie babies! I think I scared my coworker Stella who came with me because I let out a scream. I told her I changed my mind and was going to order a happy meal. She laughed at me....


My love for TY beanie babies goes back to high school days. I really like them but they were so expensive and my parents didn't want to buy them for me (well they did but only if it was on clearance section but I love and appreciate all of it!) Then McDonalds started the teenie beanie babies promotion that came with the happy meal. For my parents (most Asian parents), if you buy a toy it's waste of money, but if you buy food that comes with a toy that's a deal! Then they were willing to buy them for me. Yay! We ate lots of McDonald for awhile. I would also force my friends to eat the happy meals I buy because I usually buy more then one at a time.
Today I got the ladybug! My goal is to collect MOST of them. Stay tune to see how many I will get. I'm gonna post my daily TY purchases here:
1) Maiden-The Ladybug

UPDATE as of 8/12/09
2) Fez-The purple monkey
3) Radish- The Dog
4) Topper-The Giraffe
5) Frostiness-The Polar Bear
6) Aussie-The Koala
7) Fluffball-The Guinea Pig
8) Yammy-The Cat
9) Oasis-The Tiger
10) Splits-The Flamingo
11) Rascal-The Dog
12) Streamers-The Bear
13) Celebration-The Bear
14) Thirty-The Bear

Free McCafe To Start Off Your Week....

Free Coffee on Mondays (Now-August 3, 2009)

McDonalds will be offering FREE coffee on Mondays starting July 13 until August 3 at participating McDonalds from 7am to 7pm. Customers will receive a free 7 oz iced Mocha or an 8 oz hot McCafe Mocha.

Yesterday after lunch, Teresa and I decide to check out the free McCafe coffee from McDonalds. There were big signs advertising the free coffee which followed by long lines. The wait wasn't bad, we probably waited around 10-15 mins.

was the wait worth it???

not really...

First of all, I'm not a coffee fan. I only drink coffee on a need to drink basis AKA when I need to stay awake to study. During the past month, Starbucks bottled Frappuccino (I hate starbucks coffee from the store, too bitter!!!) was what I survived on for my all nighters. I usually like to drink tea with milk and sugar or the HK style milk tea (yes, there's a difference...)
The McCafe didn't have much mocha taste at all. It was very rich but bitter. Will I order this in the future? yes, only if it's for free.... =X

Arby's Free Sandwich Review

Last week my brother sent me an email of a Arby's coupon that offers a free sandwich with purchase of fries and drink (other specials such as a free sweet tea and malt shake also available). I've never eaten at Arby's or seen it around before so I didn't know it was available in New York or anywhere near me. A few days ago Andy and I was driving in Queens and suddenly I saw a huge Arby's sign. I got excited and told Andy we have to come here because we can get a free sandwich.

Yesterday, after Andy, Charles and Nadia finished their daily training for the marathon (btw: I'm so very proud of you guys!) we decided to go check out Arby's. I printed out 4 coupons for all of us:

Most of us ordered the small fries and small drink to get the free sandwich. Both item came out to be $3 and change. I added a order of the loaded potato bites. I didn't know I could subsitite the fries with the potato bites which is what I would've done.

I got the American roast beef sandwich. It has bacon, cheese, letteus, tomato and roast beef. I added a $1 and got double the meat. They gave us alot of roast beef! It was sooo good! The roast beef tasted surprisingly fresh and has lots of taste! I expected it to be rough and dry like the ones in the deli which need alot of ketchup or sauce. I didn't think they can serve such fresh roast beef in a fast food chain. So yummi!!!

The gravy was good with the sandwich but you need to pay 40 cents for it. It was worth it!
Charles and Andy ate the sandwich their way by taking a bite of roast beef sandwich and then gulp down some gravy. Andy says this way you will have control of how much gravy you want. Sounds gross but I got to admit it does taste good this way. After we all finished our sandwich Charles and Andy were both still hungry. We got a coupon for a free sandwich for buying 3 sandwiches. We brought these meals individually but they still gave us a coupon, they were so nice! So they got a free sandwich and split it. Andy got the bigger piece but then he gave back some to Charles, how sweet! ahhah...

This deal was so great! We will try to squeeze another trip to Arby's before the deal expires (3/31/09). I'm so happy that we found a new place with good roast beef sandwich! I haven't had a good roast beef sandwich in a long time! The calories content for these meals wasn't bad, it's somewhat healthier then McDonalds or Taco Bell so I'm happy about that.

Go get your free Arby's sandwich too!

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Arby's

6916 Metropolitan Ave

Flushing, NY‎ - (718) 894-0485‎

Jollibee The Bee: Filipino Fast Food

This Saturday, Andy and I finally made time to go check out Jollibee! Jollibee is a famous fast food chain based in the Philippines. There's many chains in the West coast but the first East coast store is the newly opened one in Woodside, Queens. It's been opened in Woodside for about a month already. We've heard so much about this crazy long lines Filipino fast food joint. I've heard rumors that lines were 3 blocks long and one of the workers there confirmed it was true for us. She said it was crazy in the beginning and things were running out fast through out the day. My friend Maribeth said she waited around 1 hour and 40 mins on the line during the 2 week after the opening. Even now after more then a month there's still a lines but it wasn't that bad.

We waited around

~30 mins outside: sooo freaken cold! *shivers*

~20 mins inside: servers went around taking orders on a piece of paper
~10 mins: we waited for them to put our order in and then packed our food to go
Total: ~1 hour!!

At this point we were extremely hungry and cranky since it was already 4pm and we haven't eaten anything the whole day. We decided to order one of each of their specialty item on their menu since we waited so freaken long! We wanted to try everything to make our wait worth it because we're not sure if we would want to come back again.
So what did we order?? 6 piece fried chicken, spaghetti, palabok, aloha burger with fries, mash potato side, 2 peach mango pie and soda. Yes we order that much food....

6 piece fried chicken eaten with gravy ($13.39) the 18 piece is $30 bucks!
Pretty expensive for chicken that taste somewhat like KFC but with fresher chicken.

Palabok ($5.79): thin rice noodles fried with soy sauce and some citrus and possibly with patis (fish sauce), and some variation of sliced meat, shrimp, chopped vegetable and eggs.
This was very good. I love it when I mixed everything together with the noodles. Spaghetti ($4.49): The spaghetti has bits of sausage and the marinara sauce is sweet. I love Filipino spaghetti and the banana ketchup because its extra sweet.

Mash potato side ($1.99): nothing special...
The Aloha burger ($7.69 with fries): has pineapple, cheese, bacon, mayo, and lettuces. It was good because I like pineapple in salty dishes like Hawaiian pizza or pineapple chicken. The pineapple gave the burger a very nice tangy and sweet taste.
Fries were crispy but not salted. Peach Mango Pie ($2.29): it was crispy and warm. The inside taste kind of like warm duck sauce with a bit of mango taste. It sounds funky but it wasn't bad. While eating it I couldn't stop thinking about how much it taste like duck sauce and Andy agreed with me too! interesting.....

The whole meal we spent around $45 and yes ate it all!! okay fine...we had a few chicken left over that we took home....
Would I come here again? YES!

Would I wait on the long line? Maybe...depends how much I crave the spaghetti and palabok
I hope they expand the menu and serve more of what they have on their website.
I can't wait to try the other items on the menu!

Everyone was posing and taking pics with Jollibee including me!

and of course Andy too...

Interesting convo with Justine, the girl who took our order:

Andy: I like your Jollibee hat.
Justine: Oh thanks....
Andy: Can we buy one?
Justine: Umm...no (laughing)
Andy: Can I work here to get one?
Justine: yea, sure if you get the job...
Andy: I might just do that...
Me: (laughing) (In my mind: he's so weird <3)
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Jollibee
62-29 Roosevelt Ave
Woodside, NY 11377