Guest Bathroom Remodel

Our remodeling of our guest bathroom includes:
- Wall covering on the white walls
- Glass shower door
- Marble floor (white carrera marble with gray veins)

The Southern

A newly opened bar/restaurant in Bucktown, The Southern is about 2 blocks away from our house. Its menu has everything to do with its name -- bourbons, micro-brews, whiskeys, hush puppies, shrimp and grits, gumbo, fried green tomatoes, etc.

Since Southern comfort food has been one of our favorites, Jeff and I stopped in last Friday to give it a try as our date night! Friday's drink special is $3 shot of Maker's Mark, so we each had a shot before dinner. It also took the edge off after a long week of work. We then ordered their hush puppies for appetizer, which were made of smoked trout. It was really yummy! The dipping sauce was unbelievable. We had the gumbo and the Duck Orleans as entrees, and we were especially impressed with the gumbo. The portions were not too big, which was perfect.

During our meal, the executive chef, Cary Taylor, stopped by and asked how we liked the food. We told him about our love for the gumbo, but the duck was little too salty. He was very appreciative of our feedback and told us they will make the improvement. At the end of our meal, he sent us a complimentary dessert on the house. We choose the carrot cake, and honestly it might be the best carrot cake I've ever had -- not too sweet, very nice texture, with toasted pistachio and rum raisin.

Co-hosting Jenn's Babyshower

Marie, Jessica, Jen and I threw a babyshower for Jenn on Saturday. We had fun planning it, prepare for it and hosting it! Jenn decided to have the shower at her house, and it worked out perfectly!

We prepared a couple of salads, quiche, creme brulee french toast, fruit platter, croissants, cupcakes, as well as mimosa and white wine for drinks. We saw quite a few friends that we haven't seen in a long time. It was a lot of fun catching up with the girls, and the babyshower was a success!

Our Second Wedding Anniversary

Time flies! I can't believe we are celebrating our second anniversary already! This past Tuesday, I was hoping we would be allowed to work from home due to the snow storms. But I was glad that I went into the office because there were beautiful flowers delivered to me :) I really didn't think Jeff would send me flowers, since I knew we were celebrating our anniversary with a nice dinner on Friday night. I was really pleasantly surprised, and it made my day!

Our dinner reservation was at Charlie Trotters. Since neither of us have been, we thought it would be a great place to celebrate a special occasion! It was a three-hour dining experience, and we were very impressed with the food, as well as the wine we paired. There were 5 courses with 3 desserts. Many of the dishes were unlike anything I've tasted. Jeff and I especially loved the Hamachi dish, but we thought all of the dishes were very delicious and original.
We also selected their wines to accompany each course, and that made the food even better. The service was unbelievable as well. It was really an enjoyable evening with the best food, wine, great service and I had a wonderful time with my man!

Dinner Party & Super Bowl Gathering

It was a busy weekend! On Saturday night, our friends, Katie and Jason, invited us to their beautiful home for dinner. There were about 10 guests in total, and Katie made a really delicious meal. She made a few appetizers in addition to dinner, which entails salads, grilled vegetables and prime rib! Dessert was home-made cheese cake!

Katie and Jason's home is a historic building built in 1906. They pretty much completely renovated the interior, but the exterior must be reserved and unchanged, since the building is one of the national register of historic places in Chicago. Inside of their home, you can tell they have put a lot of thought to it and is definitely full of characters and originality.

Sunday was the 2010 Super Bowl, and we had a casual gathering at John and Marie's home. We had chips and dips, appetizers, pot stickers and ordered pizza. We played squares and cheered for the Saints (at least I was...haha). Jeff thought I had special luck to win sports games, so he asked me to pick all the squares. And he was right! We had the biggest win out of all couples. It was also our first time seeing Katie and Bret with their 2 babies since they moved to the suburbs a few months ago, so it was great time catching up as well.

Scraps recently...

Scraps turned 6 years old on Monday! We took him to Petco last weekend to get a bunch of his favorite treats. We sang "Happy Birthday" to him on Monday morning, and he seems to know it's his special day!


He loves the cold and enjoys playing in the snow in our backyard. After a walk and play in the nearby dog park this morning, he gets sleepy on the couch.



Of course, one of his favorite things to do is hanging out with daddy for some boys time!

New house projects

December was a more fruitful sales month for me, so I decided to use my commission to start an interior design project for our house!

In mid January, I hired a well-known interior designer referred by a friend of ours. Before I met the designer, I wasn't sure if she would take on this work, since her projects are mostly in the bigger scale that includes architecture design and construction management. After I met her, I really liked her personality, her professionalism, and most of all, what sold me was her pragmatic suggestions/ideas after seeing our house. With her decades of experience, she constantly finds ways to help us safe money and make sure that we are getting the biggest bang for our buck.

We started the paint job last week, and it was done in 2 days. Though we did not paint too much of our house, I still thought her team was extremely efficient. Some of the main projects include an uplift of our guest bathroom with new tiles and unique wall covering, a contemporary build-in hutch for our kitchen, the "dress-up" of our dining area with a gorgeous mirror, sideboard and a rug, as well as painting of our master bedroom. We will also put a styled rug and some art paintings in the living area. Her vision is so that we can bring everything together, especially in the main floor, with colors, accents and arts.

The completion of everything will probably take a few months because I want to add things little by little, and not all at once. But I can't wait to see the results and will post before/after pictures when available!

Diversey Rock 'n Bowl

It's that time of the year again when Chicago's winter hits the single digits with windchill in the negatives. When you'd rather be indoor most of the time, what would be an alternative to house parties, movies or dinners at restaurants? Bowling! Yes, since Jeff and I enjoy bowling, we organized a bowling night with our friends. There were 8 of us (4 couples), and we had a great time at Diversey Rock 'n Bowl on a Saturday night.

Diversey Rock 'n Bowl is a popular local bowling ally, and its appeals are rock and roll music and fun sound-activated light show after 8:30 pm Thursday through Sunday nights. We reserved 2 lanes, one for the ladies, and one for the boys. It's been awhile since we bowled together. We sang along with the music, cheering for those strikes and spares and goofed around like kids. It was such a great time!

Happy New Year!

A fun New Year's Eve party at Andy and Jessica's new condo! Good friends, yummy food, many laughs and goofing out.
2010 will be a great year! Wishing everyone a healthy and happy new year.

Fiorentino's Cucina

This is my new favorite Italian restaurant in Chicago!

Our friends Carm and Andrea were in town from San Francisco, and we got together with them for dinner along with our friends Tony and Michele whom we haven't seen in a while. Tony and Michele are now proud parents of three little ones, but as always, they enjoy great food, fine wine and a fun night out. They know a lot of good restaurants in Chicago, so when they recommended Fiorentino's Cucina for our get-together, I was really excited to try it! While it was snowing out, the six of us shares a couple bottles of wine, delicious food, a couple desserts and lots of laugh at this cozy family style Italian restaurant, which is not far from our house.

The owner of Fiorentino's is originally from Sicily, and the dishes are definitely "not art food, but rather comfort food". My entree was their special that night. It was fettucini with Alaskan crab tenderloin and arugula in creamy vodka sauce. Yes, it tasted as great as it sounds. I've had many Italian dishes in my life, and this is probably one of the best ones I've ever had! Everyone really enjoyed their food, and I know that Jeff and I will be going back to Fiorentino's Cucina soon!

My Parents-in-Law

Our Florida trip every Christmas is like our annual retreat. After a year of hard work, we are so blessed to be in the warmer weather, indulge in authentic Chinese food, relax by the pool, open gifts, open more gifts, play ma-jiang, and simply enjoy the best family time.

I often feel I'm the luckiest girl on earth because of my parents-in-law. Their love for me is so unconditional that they never expect anything in return. I truly enjoy spending time with them, and I feel they have given me a family that I've always wanted. Honestly, I think they have adopted me as their own daughter --
I fell asleep on the couch, and they gently put a blanket on me. I wanted to help cook dinner, but they told me everything was taken care of and ask me to go relax. They know I love beef noodle soup, so that's what's waiting for me on the dining table when we arrived. I wanted to get a new handbag for myself, but they insist to buy it for me. Before we were leaving, they packed as much food as possible for us to bring back to Chicago.

These are just a few things they do. How lucky I am.

How lucky I am to have my health, a loving husband, the best dog anyone can ever have, and the in-laws who love me as much as their own children.

陶然亭 Peking Duck

During our stay in Taipei, my good friend, Fion, and her husband Eric (and their 5-year son, Aiden) treated us to a very nice dinner at 陶然亭. It serves the best peking duck in Taiwan! The peking duck was cooked in three rounds. First, the crispy skin and meat were sliced off to go with flour wrap, green onion and plum sauce. Then the rest of the meat were used to cook as a stir-fry with vegetables. Lastly, the bones were cooked in a delicious soup!

In addition to the duck, we also ordered their famous 涼拌白菜心, as well as 炒豆苗 and Crab and Tofu Stew (can't find the Chinese name). Thank you, Fion and Eric for such a great meal! I know we will definitely visit this restaurant again when we go back to Taiwan!

Baked Macaroni

Jeff is a big fan of macaroni and cheese. Unless we go to a restaurant, we typically just cook instant mac 'n cheese at home when he has cravings. Sometimes we would add chili in there to make chili mac.

I was flipping through channels the other day and found Giada De Laurentiis making a yummy and seemingly simple baked macaroni. So I decided to give it a try!

After a night of partying and drinking at Suzi's, I know Jeff would want some comfort food. I got the ingredients in the morning, and while he was watching football, baked macaroni was being completed. Added in the macaroni were assorted mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, and Jeff also added the leftover bacon from last night! According to the recipe, I added Parmesan, Romano and mozzarella cheeses. We also covered it with bread crumbs and butter on top and bottom of the dish.

Jeff really liked it, but I think I should put more cheese in there next time, so they would all stick together better.

New Appetizer Trial

A friend of ours, Suzi, invited us to her fab house for a holiday party this weekend. It was a chill party with about 10 friends. Suzi's kitchen is my dream kitchen! Her contemporary kitchen is huge with beautiful counter-tops, large island, a lot of storage space and double-set of stove top and oven. Her modern fridge is blended in with her cabinets. Before Jeff and I got married, Suzi also hosted a couple's shower for us.

For this holiday party, every person/couple would bring an appetizer or dessert. I wanted to try something new this time and found a easy recipe on www.foodnetwork.com! It is Rachel Ray's bacon wrapped shrimp (and/or scallops). We have some prawn left in our freezer, and I've been wanting to put them into good use.

This appetizer really is simple! First, you marinate the shrimp in sesame oil, lime juice, red pepper flakes, black pepper and salt. Then wrap a piece (about 1/3 of a bacon strip) of bacon around the shrimp. Put them in the oven for about 15 -16 minutes at 425 degrees. After it's done, sprinkle chopped green onion on top. It was quite a hit at the party!

Thanksgiving Day

Jeff and I hosted this year's Thanksgiving at our new house! Jeff's parents flew in from Florida and Jeff's sister, Kien, came in from San Francisco to stay with us for a few days. At the last minute, we also had Jenn and John join us for Thanksgiving dinner. We had such a great time cooking together, watching football, playing Ma-Jiang and simply having a wonderful family time together!

Jeff used our fryer to deep fry some marinated turkey legs and wings, and it was a success -- crispy outside, juicy inside! Kien cooked her famous yummy garlic mashed potato. Jeff's mom sauteed green beans with minced garlic. I cooked corn with chopped red bell peppers and onions. We also had stuffing and corn bread as other side dishes. Before dinner, we opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate all of the good things happened to us this year! As always, we are grateful for everything we have.