Funny Food Fotos: Fancy Wall Lights

Hi everyone.  Kirbie's Boyfriend here, with another edition of Funny Food Fotos.

If you haven't heard, Kirbie loved this place called Papa Walk with the Snow Flake Shaved Ice. I have to admit it was delicious, it was actually better than "REAL" snow. Its also probably cause it was jam packed with condensed milk and carbs. White food equals carbs, right? no? well… ice is white with a little yellowish tint… This is where the phrase "Don't eat yellow snow" can be ignored, maybe it should be rephrased… "Don't eat yellow snow that smells like urine." It doesn't quite roll off the tongue, but you get the idea.

Other than the Asian Celebrity signatures of when they visited there were other oddities across the entire place. From the rooster, maybe it was like something about "early bird special" or something?

To the silly character on the door.

I'm not sure what the following signs were put up for in relation to something interpreted differently in Asian cultures like the kids wearing the Playboy logo because it is a sign of celebrity rather than the actual connotation of Female Nudity and Sexuality. How else can this one be read? Does this mean no slavery or no S&M allowed you can be the judge.

This next one is a little bit more straight forward, "Peeping over this way."

Finally this last image isn't as crazy as the ones above, but it is probably more relevant to the store. Forgive the not so great image quality as I was only using the phone camera rather than an actual camera, its all about the James Bond quick photo snapping. If you can't make it out clearly, this is a bowl of their Snow Flake Shaved Ice. I can't agree with the statement of this thing quenching my thirst as it is nothing like water, but I'm pretty sure that it if you're eating something spicy this can definitely cool it down for you.

I hope you guys enjoyed this adventure.

Heritage Bundt Cake

I've been lusting after the heritage bundt pan for the longest time (sold at William Sonoma). For my birthday, I got it as a gift! Since then I've been trying to decide what cake to make with it. I wanted to try a new recipe. Then I found this recipe at Savoring Time in the Kitchen. Apparently her heritage bundt pan came with a heritage cake recipe! How perfect.

The ingredients for this cake were rich. Lots of butter and sugar. A lot more than I'm used to using in a cake. So I knew the cake would taste good–though also not very healthy. The cake came out super rich.  You could taste the butter so it was almost like a butter cake. It tasted good, but definitely a cake I would only eat in small quantities, especially after seeing the ingredients that went into it.

I absolutely adored how the cake came out. So elegant! The sight of the cake even emitted an "Wow, that's so pretty" from Boyfriend.

Heritage Bundt Cake
(recipe adapted from Savoring Time in the Kitchen)

Print Recipe

Ingredients
2-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon salt
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup whole milk
Confectioners’ sugar for dusting

Directions
1. Allow all ingredients to come to room temperature.
Position the oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to
325F. Grease and flour the bundt pan, tapping out the excess flour or use a spray that has flour.

2. In a large measuring bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

3. With
an electric mixer using the flat beater, beat the butter on medium
speed until creamy and smooth for approximately 1 minute. Add the
granulated sugar and continue beating until light and fluffy, scraping
down the sides of the bowl occasionally, for about 5 minutes. Add the
eggs a little at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the
vanilla extract and beat until well incorporated. Reduce
the speed to low and add 1/3 of the flour, then 1/2 of the milk,
another 1/3 of the flour, 1/2 of the milk and then the final 1/3 of the
flour, stopping the mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl after
mixing each addition.

4. Pour the batter into the prepared Bundt
pan, spreading the batter so the sides are slightly higher than the
center. Bake until the cake begins to pull away from the sides of the
pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 55 to 60
minutes. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack and cool for 15
minutes.

5. Slowly lift the pan off of the
cake and cool completely before serving. Dust with confectioners’ sugar
just before serving.

Mama’s Lu

MaMa's Lu Dumpling House
153 E Garvey Ave
Monterey Park, CA 91755
(626) 307-5700

Another highlight of our Los Angeles food trip was Mama's Lu. Originally, Mama's Lu wasn't even a definite part of our itinerary. It was listed as a maybe. However, since last time when we tried to visit, it was closed, I decided to pay Mama's Lu a visit this time around. And I'm really glad we did.

I had heard good things about Mama's Lu and about their very cheap prices. I had a plan to only try out a few items that were highly recommended over and over again from the blogs I read. When we arrived, the place was already quite busy and there was a wait. Luckily, we got a table pretty quickly.

When I had the menu placed in front of me, all thoughts of ordering just a couple of items flew out the door. I couldn't believe how cheap the prices were. Page after page after page of ridiculously low prices. Almost everything was priced around $5.99. I suddenly wanted to try everything.

So, we ended up ordering too much food than we could eat. But it was fun to try them all.

As soon as we sat down, we were given some peanuts and cucumbers to start.

The peanuts were salted and had pieces of dried nori seaweed flavoring them. The cucumbers were really crisp and crunchy.

We ordered sauteed green beans.  For $5.99 this was a really big order. The pictures doesn't do it justice as how big it was.

The string beans were delicious.The beans are fried, which is what creates the wrinkly looking skin.  A lot of times this dish can come out too oily or the beans are overcooked and come out really mushy.  The beans here were crisp and not too oily.  They were also cooked with pickled radish and little dried shrimp.  I loved the crunchiness of the little bits of radish and the dried shrimp added a wonderful taste to the beans. I really loved these beans. I'm definitely going to order them again.

We also ordered the house special fried rice

The fried rice portion was huge. We had so much leftover that we could barely fit it in the take out container. Unfortunately, I wasn't really a fan of the fried rice. First, usually when it says House Special, there is a mix of ingredients, such as a mix of meat and seafood. This House Special fried rice only had chinese sausage. Also, the rice was pretty dry. It needed more oil.

We also ordered the Shanghai rice cakes.

I didn't love this dish either. I thought there were too many vegetables, creating a watery taste. Also the sauce seemed to be made up of only soy sauce. I usually like this rice cake dish, but I didn't love the version at Mama's Lu.

At $4.99, we had to order the pork soup dumplings (xiao long bao).

Unfortunately, I was not a fan of these either. Some were broken. The skin was too thick and the inside not flavorful or juicy enough.

The beef noodle soup was really cheap too, so I had to order it.

Sadly, I did not like this. The beef had a pretty good flavor, but the broth was so watered down it was almost tasteless.

The green onion pancake came highly recommended from all the blogs I read.

This completely lived up to the hype. I would come back here just for the pancake. It was moist, perfectly crispy, not too oily, had tons of layers packed into the thin pancake and was just the right amount of thickness. By far one of the best green onion pancakes I've ever eaten.

We also ordered fish dumplings.

These were really flavorful. There was a lot of seasoning, but you could still subtly taste the fish. I liked these a lot. They even tasted good the next day. Next time I'll have to get some to go.

Finally, we ordered the chive and pork dumplings.

The dumplings had so much juice inside! And I thought the mixture of chives and pork was perfect.

Our bill at the end of the meal? $42! Boyfriend was so shocked when he saw the bill. While we didn't love everything we ordered, the menu here is pretty big so there is plenty more to try.  And the prices are so cheap! Even late night specials in San Diego still cost more than Mama's Lu. I think if I lived in Monterey Park, I wouldn't bother cooking again.

Here is the menu: