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February 23, 2006

restaurant review: sea salt

We took advantage of the holiday on Monday to wander around Berkeley. While trying to figure out where to go for lunch, we realized we were in the neighborhood and went to go visit Sea Salt. It is part of a family-owned group of restaurants that includes Lalime's, Fonda, Jimmy Bean, and T-Rex. Fonda is one of our favorites, so when I saw Sea Salt written up in the Chronicle, its been on my list of places to check out. As the name indicates, this is a seafood resturant, pure and simple.

With Naomi in tow, its really caused us to be careful about where we go eat, if only to make sure that the place is accomodating for her as well as to be considerate to the diners around us. Luckily, the hostess pointed us to a booth in the corner which gave plenty of room for Naomi to sit between us and play. The overall feel we got from lunch here is a very open atmosphere. Casual, but not too noisy.

We ordered tuna tartare as an appetizer. It came with housemade potato chips, which served as a good contrast in texture when the tartare was spread on them. However, the flavoring seemed a bit light to us, which is to say it might have been too subtle for our palates.

For the main course, Jenn got the fish and chips, which is a house specialty. It is cod coated in buttermilk, then fried. It also is served with a creamy tartar sauce. This was very delicious. The cod was flaky and flavorful. The fried coating was crispy but did not drip oil, as you might expect fish and chips to do. The fries were excellent, medium-cut, with a crisp exterior and a still soft interior.

I ordered the grilled tuna, which was served with roasted potatoes, and a tapenade. The grilled tuna was actually seared, which was done nicely. The tapenade worked well in combination, but was on the strong side, in that it overpowered the taste of the tuna itself. The potatoes did not work as well, as they tasted as if they absorbed too much of the olive oil that was at the bottom of this dish.

No dessert, which I suspect will be the way things go most meals with Naomi in tow.

The price was on the high side, with us running a $60 tab for the items ordered above.

To sum up, the meal was very tasty with a few minor quibbles. We don't know if we'll go back, because aside from the dishes we ordered, there wasn't really anything else on the menu which caught our eye. However, I hear that the menu does change regularly, so we'll probably check back every now and then to see.

Report Card:
Ambiance - A
Food - B
Presentation - B
Baby-Friendly - A
Price - B-
Return Visit - maybe
Overall Grade - B
Satisfying, but high price puts a damper on this.

Posted by spoof747 at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)

February 22, 2006

i love this picture

Posted by spoof747 at 01:49 PM | Comments (0)

February 14, 2006

diet not by choice

Eating tally for yesterday:

1 cookie
1 donut
1 OJ
several cups of water
1 Mango smoothie
4 bags of Southwest peanuts
1 Ginger Ale

Not that I want to repeat this again, but I'm thankful that my body isn't punishing me for inflicting this on it.

Posted by spoof747 at 04:01 PM | Comments (0)

one day in LA

I am on the plane flying back up from Los Angeles (Obviously this will be posted after the fact).

We had a daytrip out to North Hollywood to walk over our test scenarios with Disney Mobile Business folks. The Disney leads from the team, Bala and Tamir, flew out, along with our Visage counterparts. I was mainly along for window dressing, or so I thought. As it turned out, the Disney folks who attended were very "detail-oriented", to put it nicely, so I found myself helping to talk through a lot of points with them. The team still has a little ways to go in the art of communication. I am far from an expert at it, but I do have a little skill at discerning what other people mean, as opposed to what they say, and also how to word things in a way as to make them feel their question has been answered (well as much as possible). Of course, part of that has to do with the fact that I was born and grew up here, while my team leads did not have that opportunity.

On the flip side, I decided to take advantage of the LA trip to see who I could see. As luck would have it, Burbank (which I flew into) and North Hollywood (the Disney Mobile office) was not too far from some people. I was able to get in early enough to drop by Grace's work and give her a belated birthday gift. I even made her go against custom and open it in front of me (just in case it was something she already had). Luckily, she says she does not, and that this was something that she would enjoy (I hope you're not just putting me on).

It was actually grace who got me in the habit of enjoying gift giving, and I've slowly forgotten how do to so ever since (while she still manages to find some great stuff). Now if only I can get past my laziness about shipping stuff I've already bought.

It was good to see her and spend some time just sitting and talking. Its just something that we've had less and less time to do, with marriage and rapidly growing children. But its something that I have regretted, because she is someone who is very close to my heart.

After the Disney meetings, I made plans to meet Shawn for dinner, naively thinking that it wouldn't be too hard to do so, seeing as it was closer map-wise than the morning trek I had made. However, the meetings ran over by an hour to start, which threw me smack in the middle of LA traffic. I then tried to go local to avoid it, but that made it worse. LA main streets aren't any easier than the freeway during traffic times. A unique LA driving rule that I observed:

On the left turns that yield to oncoming traffic, 2 cars will always squeeze in that left, regardless of how long the light has been red for them.

I compounded my mistake by entering the wrong destination into my GPS. (How was I to know that 2740 Olympic Blvd is *not* the same as 2740 W Olympic Blvd?) Luckily, I wasn't too far afield. But as it were, I was only able to meet up with Shawn for about 30 minutes. After that it was a mad dash back to the airport. Fortunately, I managed to get back with time to spare. Having the last flight out of the night definitely made it easier too, from the security lines to even the wait for the plane. I'm currently sitting in the middle seat of an otherwise-unoccupied row. Pretty spacious accomodations.

Not a bad day, not at all.

Now that I've had a chance to catch my breath, that is.

Posted by spoof747 at 03:43 PM | Comments (0)

February 10, 2006

crawling

Roughly 1 month ago, Naomi started crawling. We knew she was close because when we placed her on her hands and knees, she was trying to move. You could almost see her thinking, "Ok, now what do I do?" and experimentally moving just her arms. Then one day, she was able to, herky-jerky, crawl a few feet to (what else?) get to mommy.

Now its a whole new world.

She isn't a rocketship just yet, jetting from room to room. Her desire to crawl right now is limited to seeing something and wanting to go over to explore it or play with it. She doesn't take long strolls for enjoyment. And when she's tired or cranky, the first thing she looks for is a pair of legs, and crawls over, stops, and sticks her arms out in the plaintive, "Carry me!" gesture. Or sometimes she'll just sit where she is, locate you by sight, and stick her arms out from there. My daughter, ladies and gentlemen. (I'd say she's lazy, but someone already chastised me for calling my child that).

It is fun to watch her do this, but now we really do have to watch her. The CD rack will soon have to be cleared, as one of her favorite pastimes it to crawl over there, and pull CDs off the shelves onto the floor. Sometimes to play with them, other times to pull them down and crawl away. Another time, I put her down in the living room to play and I laid on the couch to rest a bit. When I opened my eyes, she had made her way up a step to the entry way and was pulling shoes off the shoe rack and playing with each one. We were warned that it was much easier when our child was stationary and wherever we put her down, she'd more or less stay in the same area. Now we know what other parents are talking about. There are days when I get home, where I can just tell the path she crawled by all the stuff that's been pulled to the floor and "rearranged, Naomi-style".

It definitely sped up our plans to childproof. We've gotten the electrical outlet covers (I think that's pretty standard) but I don't know if we're going to go all the way and get all those various cabinet door latches, toilet seat cover locks, etc. That strikes me as a bit of an industry taking advantage of a parent's natural protective tendencies. When I was a kid, I don't remember having to deal with any of that stuff, except for the outlet covers, that's just good sense. At dinner with clients yesterday, my boss said he even paid someone to come over to evaluate his house for necessary childproofing, and ordered stuff from them based on their recommendations. I don't think we'll need to do that. Of course, the first time she hurts herself on a sharp edge at home, i could change my opinion and join the super-protective crowd.

For now, it is just so exciting to watch her explore her new world and develop new means to do so. When I figure out how to do so, I'll be posting some video clips up on here.

Posted by spoof747 at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)

February 09, 2006

creature of habit

In the 2 years that Jenn and I have been married, one of the things that I've held over her head teasingly has been that she is the more set in her ways than I. She likes what she likes, whereas I tend to be more spontaneous and change my mind based on the moment. I am also more open to trying new things than she is in regards to sports, food types, etc. In part this is someone due to the differences in how she and I were raised.

McDonalds - Filet 'O Fish and fries or 20 piece Chicken McNuggets (and fries)

Ti Couz - mushroom and shrimp crepe

Of course, since we're Chinese, my example involves food. Her family generally sticks to a few Cantonese restaurants that they like. Wherever they go, they order the same dishes. This is also necessary because not all members of her family like the same food. some eat beef, some don't. the dishes selected are so everyone in the family can have something that they like at the meal.

In and Out - 2 grilled cheese sandwiches, fries and a strawberry shake

Cheung Hing - BBQ pork fried rice

This is opposed to my family's approach towards eating out. While they too generally stick to Chinese restaurants, if they read about a new one opening in the paper, they'll want to go check it out. And they are braver than I. I usually go when I read a good review. They'll go even if they see an advertisement for one. And when they go, they'll try to pick dishes based on the supposed regional specialty of the place (note: this hasn't always worked, mainly because some places make their claims based on 1 or 2 dishes they've mastered). So growing up, I've had the privilege of trying a lot of different types of regional Chinese food. It was surprising when I took Jenn to Chinese places where she just didn't know what to order.

Sushi restaurants in general - 4 pieces of maguro (tuna), 4 pieces of shiromaguro (white tuna), 4 pieces of saba (mackerel), 4 pieces of hamachi (yellowtail), 4 pieces of hotate (scallop), 2 pieces of unagi (eel) (Note: this is usually shared between Jenn and myself)

Berkeley (Telegraph area) - Either IB Hoagies for a cheesesteak (chicken these days) or Chili Cheese Fries or Mandarin House for Chicken Fried Rice

So its come as somewhat of a shock to me when I have concluded over the past few days that somehow, someway, I have become a creature of habit myself. I can only conclude this after observing my eating patterns and realizing that damn, these days, I go to the same places, and I make the same orders. Naturally, I could blame her (tongue-in-cheek, of course) for turning me to the dark side. Or I could just be getting stubborn in my old age.

Wienerschnitzel - I only go here when their coupons come out. I only use one coupon: Chili Cheese Fries (see a pattern?) for 99 cents. And I order the maximum of 3 orders.

Taco Bell - 6 regular crunchy tacos

Then again, with minimal time to explore or even research, I could just make the argument that people fall back on their "staples" when they don't really have time.

Applebee's - Garlic Shrimp Caesar Salad

My staples are nothing to be proud about.

Posted by spoof747 at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)

February 08, 2006

its so late its early

coming fast up on 5am.

got scenarios that should have been written by last week.

my last and final procrastination (i swear) is actually writing this post.

2 nights ago it was accidentally discovering while surfing that a lot of cool toys hit the market when i stopped shopping for them, which would have been when jenn got pregnant with Naomi and life changed its focus.

For example, this cool Batman action figure. too bad Mattel (for some reason) decided to not sell it in the US. There must be some huge cult following of Batman in Bolivia or something.

last night it was enjoying the new wonder in our family room that is the Series 2 Tivo (thanks y!). then again, if all i am doing is watching late night when i should be working, then its no different from when i used a vcr (gasp!) to tape things on a daily basis, then watch and erase to tape the next day's interesting shows.

on top of that, i've actually got clients coming into the office in 3 hours. luckily i power napped for a few hours earlier, so that will at least give me some energy. I won't nod off until the afternoon sessions.

Posted by spoof747 at 04:38 AM | Comments (0)

February 01, 2006

state of the union

i did not watch the state of the union speech by the president. i was actually still at work when it started. not that i was planning to anyways -- its not because i have issues with this president, but more because these types of speeches seem so sycophantic. say one sentence, get applause. make a point, get a standing ovation. can people go with their own judgement instead of blind loyalty? isn't discernment valued over ass-kissing? (what am I thinking, we're talking about politicians after all). my co-worker was listening to the speech using headphones, and even i could here the applause going every 5 seconds or so. ultimately, i did read up on the aftermath of the speech, and i just wanted to post an article lede from the Chronicle's Marc Sandalow that seemed apropos:

President Bush's call for Republicans and Democrats to work together, for America to engage the world and for the nation to quit its addiction to oil will sound to many skeptics like Barry Bonds calling for an end to steroid use in baseball.

Click here for the full article.

Posted by spoof747 at 10:07 AM | Comments (0)