Weekend Scrumptiousness!

Happy Autumn! I'm about 1.5 weeks late but what the heck...better late than never. The weather has gotten noticeably milder in recent weeks with some people already decked out in winter jackets. Seems like overkill since I'm still rockin' shorts. To me, Summer's not over until the first snowflakes start to fall!

So I spent this weekend in Queens, NY catching up with some friends. It's always nice to spend time with people who you know have your back and this weekend, it was no different. Whenever we get together, we like to go and try out different restaurants. My buddies like to just dive into the feast but not before I hold them back as I snap some obligatory photos, which are posted below. The photos were taken with my camera phone so please excuse any blurriness or overexposures.

For dinner, we went to Himalayan Yak, a Nepalese-Tibetan-Indian restaurant in Woodside. Some of us had gone there before but this was my first time and I was eager to try it since my buddies had given it good reviews. The photo above is of an appetizer consisting of shrimp and pickled/spiced tofu and vegetables. I can't remember exactly what it was called but it was tasty. Another appetizer that we had was sadeko bandel, which is sliced wild boar. This was my first time having wild boar and it was slightly tougher than pork but still very good.

Sadeko Bandel

Having grown up eating Taiwanese-style, I am quite partial to soups. If there is soup on a restaurant's menu, then I'm pretty much guaranteed to order it. The soup below was a light broth with vegetables and mushrooms, of which the latter I'm a big fan of. For me, the best soups I've had have always been homemade and this one was satisfyingly good.

From the Indian side of the menu, we ordered garlic naan and goat curry. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of the curry but believe you me, both were great.

Garlic Naan

The other dishes were from the Tibetan selections and we ordered chale (sautéed beef tongue) and shapta, which is a beef chili. My photo of the chale was too blurry to post so only the shapta is shown below. As with the other items we had, both the chale and shapta were delicious.

Shapta

Now, after a meal like that, one would think that we'd take it easy the next day, right? Wrong! One of my buddies who couldn't make dinner the previous night invited us out for brunch at Fatty's Cafe in Astoria. While I'm a big fan of good old Chinese dim sum, a hearty American brunch can really hit the spot as well and boy, did Fatty's deliver. I had the two-egg omlette with mushrooms red/green bell peppers, and scallions with a side of sausages and home fries. The salad came standard, which I guess helped me feel better about eating the sausage and fries. Now, now...I keep a balanced diet in-line with the semi-vegan lifestyle. (Read: omnivore) =P

Omlette, home fries, sausage, bell peppers, salad

I hope this post was a nice break from the usual flower photos that I usually put on here. Now that summer's over, the only flora that's around to be photographed are hairy toad lilies (which will be featured in the next post), dried hydrangea flowers, and the occasional rose. Time permitting, I may take a trip upstate to Ithaca, NY and take some photos of the fall foliage as well as my alma mater. Either way, I'm sure there will be something to photograph!