Fire up the grill!

I guess Memorial Day weekend marks the official start of the BBQ season. Encouraged by the good weather, we bought some grill worthy ingredients to celebrate the long weekend.

I chanced upon the Food Network TV app the other day and saw a grilled corn salad recipe that I liked. That went into the menu, along with Korean spicy BBQ pork and salmon for some antioxidants.

While browsing the Friday farmers market at my office building, I saw some beautiful bell peppers selling at 3 for $2. I decided to work that into my grilled corn salad although the regular recipe included tomatoes instead. I also decided to add some avocado since it has such awesome health benefits. Here is my version of the grilled corn salad.

Grilled Corn Roasted Pepper Avocado Salad

- 1 ear of corn, grilled
- 1 bell pepper, roasted
- 1/2 of a avocado
- juice from half a lime
- salt to taste
- coriander

To roast the bell pepper, throw it onto the grill or on your gas stove. Char the outer skin, wrap it up with aluminum foil to steam it so that the skin can be peeled away easily. Dice the pepper and avocado, remove corn kernels from the cob, chop up a handful of coriander, juice half a lime, add some salt to taste, and you have yourself a great and healthy salad to accompany your grilled meats!

Sam Woo BBQ

We watched a HK movie on Friday night and of course one of the scenes (insignificant one, but of course the one I remembered best) shows this old man buying egg tarts for this old lady.  I've never been one to be crazy about egg tarts, but that all changed a few years back when I travelled to HK and had THE MOST AMAZING egg tart that still has me salivating till today.  That scene set me ablaze on my Yelp app, searching for Cantonese style egg tarts.  Many dim sum restaurants came up, which included Sam Woo BBQ.  Despite having lived in OC for several years, I've only been to Sam Woo less than 5 times.  Somehow I've always associated it with a perpetually crowded and expensive place (I hate waiting for food when I'm hungry).  However, the pictures of Wanton Mee were too good to pass, so we decided to head there for dinner the next day.

Being the greedy peeps we are, and perhaps also because we only had a "just nice enough" portion for brunch, we were hungry at 5pm.  I figured this was a good time to go since we'll probably beat the dinner crowd, people who get hungry at regular times.  When you get to this Sam Woo location, you will notice it splits into 2, the "Seafood" section and the "BBQ" section.  The Seafood section will serve more banquet style food while the BBQ section has their signature Cantonese BBQ dishes and more homestyle cooking. True enough, we were able to get seats immediately.  It didn't take us long to decide what we wanted - Beef Hor Fun and Roast Duck + Wanton Noodle Soup.

Our food came pretty quickly, I slurped the wanton soup happily. While it was delicious, I can't help but think with much certainty there's MSG in it.  I added the pickled green chili to the noodles and ate happily.  For $7.95, you get a big bowl of noodles, 4 succulent wanton with whole shrimp and some ground pork and about 4 generous slices of roast duck.  This dish was definitely a winner.  We later discovered you can tell them to omit MSG for your dishes, will keep that in mind for the next time.

Next was the beef hor fun.  When the server brought it to our table, I was immediately captivated by the wok hei.  Wok hei is the trademark smokiness of good Chinese dishes brought upon by cooking dishes over a great heat.  I had high expectations of this dish which probably contributed to the disappointment even more.  While the sliced beef was tender, it severely lacked ANY taste.  The noodles were also just ok.  Don't know how you can get this dish wrong when the only seasoning you would need would be soy sauce and perhaps some white pepper.  At $7.95, this was a dud. 

Despite having a hit and a miss, I'm certain we'll revisit this place soon, I'm already planning my next order, which will include Chinese ham fried rice...mmm..can't wait!

Sam Woo Irvine

15333 Culver Drive Ste 720

Irvine, CA 92604

(949) 262 - 0888 (BBQ)

(949) 262 - 0688 (Seafood)

Yakisoba Bun

This is not a nutritious meal and it violates carb-on-carb rule, but hubs had it once and liked it so who am I to argue with his taste buds. It makes for an easy to prepare weekday lunch as well. This isn't so much a recipe since it is pretty much putting things together.

Buy a packet of yakisoba noodles from an Asian grocery store which comes with yakisoba seasoning which is a mixture of sweet, salty and tangy, kinda like an Asian BBQ sauce. Prep ingredients of choice to go into noodles. I used napa cabbage and green onions as these are what I had on hand, you can use carrots and other vegs you like.

The noodles will usually be packed into small packets and to make cooking them easier, put them in a bowl with some water and microwave for about 90 seconds. This helps to loosen the noodles which will make your life much easier when you are stir frying them.

Heat some oil in a wok/pan and cook the vegetables first. When they are 90% done, add in the noodles. Mix the noodles and vegetables well and sprinkle the seasoning on top and mix them all together.

Put some yakisoba into a hotdog bun. Add some Japanese mayo and furikake for extra taste. Enjoy!

Tips on costs cutting

With the tax season behind us, I thought I would share some of the things I do on an almost daily basis to spend less.

Draw up a budget

This first step is rather necessary as it highlights to you what you are spending on and how much you think you can allocate to the category. I'm not asking you to stick to it religiously though it would be great if you can. The idea of the budget is to create awareness for yourself.

Minimize eating out

When I was doing an annual budget for us, I was shocked to realize that apart from mortgage, food is the highest expense. When I thought about it, it made sense. Food is something we spend on 3 times (or more) a day, so naturally it chalks up to a rather significant amount even if you are not eating things like steak and caviar everyday. To save on this category, I've decided that we would brown bag lunch on weekdays and limit eating out to 2 meals a week unless there's a special occasion of some sort. If you spend $6 on average for lunch and dinner, and that is a very conservative estimate, you wind up spending about $100 a week per pax. This adds up to $5200 a year! So why not spend a little more time preparing your own meals? Doing so you can potentially cut your costs in half and better still, you get to control the ingredients you use and this may help you lead a healthier lifestyle. I admit this is a relatively easy for me to do because I enjoy cooking most of the time but sometimes when I come home after a long day of work I just want to veg out and get take out. I love eating out as well, sampling food that I don't know how to make or do not have the luxury of time to prepare. However, I truly think this is one way to cut costs significantly and it comes with positive externalities as well. If you simply hate cooking, I would suggest perhaps getting those meal plans that delivers healthy food to you. There are many options out there, so choose one that is appealing to you within your budget.

Patience in shopping pays off

I have a weakness for clothes and it probably doesn't help that fashion blogs I read are always touting new threads. To satisfy my desire to have new clothing on a frequent basis, I opt to buy from wallet friendly brands like H&M. Their fast fashion retail concept + low prices are huge draws. Aside from that, sign up for the mailing list at your fave stores. I realized that many brands offer coupons and sale on a constant basis. I learned quickly not to buy things at certain stores at full price. Be patient and some sort of discount will come your way. If by the time the discount is here and the item you are eyeing on is no longer available, dont dwell on it. You will NOT suffer internal injuries just coz you didn't get that dress you want.

Shop online

I would also advocate shopping online as opposed to shopping in brick and mortar stores. Many retailers offer free shipping outright or if you meet a minimum order. The added advantage to shipping online is that you can get cash back rebates from Ebates (link opens to a referral by me). This is a neat way to save some money on the things you were gonna buy anyway. For online shopping, check out retailmenot.com for various coupons if you do not wish to have your inbox flooded with promotional emails.

Use your credit card

Now, I realize this may not come off as a sound advice. I do not believe in having credit card debts as these suckers have the highest interest rates among all kinds of loans. However, using it wisely can help you save money. It is hard to find a credit card out there that will not give you reward points of any sort. I personally likes those that gives you cash back. Just like the idea on Ebates above, cash back is savings on things you are going to spend on anyway. This includes bills, groceries, gas, etc.

To illustrate the above 3 points, here's what I did for a dress that I love but cost a lot.  By now, many people would have seen the dreamy DVF Zarita Lace  Dress.  The original price was $325 and I wasn't able to justify the cost despite liking it very much as I know it wouldn't get much wear.  When I was out shopping that weekend, the sales associate at Bloomingdales told me they were having their Friends and Family preview sale and many items were 20% off.  The dress was not on sale at that time but I decided to wait since I know the official F&F sale will begin in about a week.  I was right!  Given I've not signed up with Bloomingdale's, I quickly did so and received a 10% coupon for my 1st purchase.  I also bought the dress via Ebates and got another 3% back.  So, this $325 dress quickly whittled down to around $230!

DVF Zarita Lace Dress - Picture from Bloomingdales