SUMMER CLOTHING

Last week New York got some unusually warm weather and while I enjoyed the warmth on my face, I started freaking out about what to wear in the summer.  I grew up in Hawaii, but for some reason I just cannot get the hang of dressing myself properly for New York summers.  When I buy clothes, the things I keep in mind about my style are that I like layers, nothing tight (except black skinny jeans), nothing revealing, and dark colors.  My taste kind of screams ONLY fall and winter, but I have been trying to prepare early for summer this year.  I know if I don't I will be a miserable sweaty mess.  (I will probably still be a miserable sweaty mess this summer, but at least I will look at little bit more season appropriate.)  

Here are a few summer must haves I've picked up to make the city heat a little more bearable.

White Oxford

Mint Chinos

Black Sandals (with a mini wedge)

Sun Dresses

White Oxford Uniqlo on promotion for $15 until April 1st, Mint Chinos J. Crew $69.50, Black Sandals Steve Madden $79.95, Red Dress Forever 21 $24.90, Floral Dress Forever 21 $26.90

ERIC'S SQUIGGS

Last week, I accidentally made my boyfriend wait about an hour and a half for me to meet up with him because I underestimated how long the musical Rent ran.  Fortunately for him, he had his sketch book handy and worked up a really cool sketch of these flying mouth things he draws a lot.  He then transferred his drawing to a digital form and re-made the drawing a bunch of times with different colors. 

Here's one he came up with.

He also let me play around with the colors!

Check out the rest of Eric's Squigg's at his tumblr Eric Foster Draws.

GOLD DIPPED BOWLS

A while ago I found this awesome DIY on curbly.com to make gold dipped blows.  I was yearning for a DIY that fast and organizationally effective.

Pretty bowl? PERFECT!

I didn't want to make my own bowls from scratch, so I made a few changes and came up with this.

I had a bunch of plastic bowls from target that were four for a dollar or something really inexpensive that I had bought about a year ago and never use, so I painted a few layer of gesso on them to give them a ceramic look.  I made one bowl with gold on the bottom, one with a silver inside, and one with a blue inside.

Check out the full instructions from Curbly here.

P.S. Finding a good gold paint was a little tricky.  Here is the one I have been using and have fallen in love with.  It's a darker gold, not bronze like the name of the color.  It also has a great metallic sheen as if it is spray painted on.  And if you live in NY like me and have no space to spray paint, you will really appreciate this gold paint.

WASHINGTON D.C.

This past weekend my boyfriend and I went to DC for the annual Cherry Blossom Festival.  According to the festivals prediction the blossoms would be at their peak from the 20th to the 23rd.  The blossoms bloomed right on schedule and they were incredibly beautiful when we visited them on Saturday.

After a while of walking around the tidal basin (which is completely lined in cherry blossoms) it started to rain.  Disappointed by the weather, we left to go to the museums at the Smithsonian.  It started to pour so we ran into the first museum we saw, the Freer Gallery of Art.  It was an awesome Asian Art museum, which trust me is a hard to find... I'm Asian, I grew up in Hawaii surrounded by Asian art, minored in Art History, and have seen a lot of Asian art over the years.

By the time the rain cleared up it was time for us to visit the Holocaust museum.  I had tried to visit it before with my family, but we didn't know that you have to go in the morning to get a ticket for a later time that day.  This time I went at 11:00 am and didn't get an entrance time till 2:45 pm.  The permanent collection at the museum took us about 3 hours to get through.  We didn't even get to see any of the special exhibits before the museum closed for the day.  I would highly suggest visiting this museum, as it covers a monumental time in history in so much detail that helps one feel the pain of the Holocaust more than reading about it in a textbook.  When the museum closed we left to head back to the hotel for a nap before dinner at the Old Ebbitt Grill.  Its a famous spot know for feeding and boozing past presidents and the movers and shakers of DC.  The food was relatively delicious, although something funky was happening with my brussel sprouts.  I had eaten brunch there before and had the most delicious crab cakes, so I would definitely go back.

On Sunday we went back to the Tidal Basin because my boyfriend needed to rent one of the paddle boats. After some complaining on my part because the life vests were soaked and the boat seats were kinda wet, we paddled off towards the Jefferson Memorial.

When we finished paddling around we headed off to the American History Museum.  Eric (boyfriend) really wanted to see some jacket in the Pop Culture exhibit and I needed to see Julia Child's kitchen.  We didn't plan ahead and they were both closed for renovations.  I'll be back to see that kitchen!  We then headed through The Mall to the Natural History Museum, one of my favorites in DC.  Since it was a Sunday it was totally overrun with children so we didn't spend a lot of time in it.  Eric got in a cool drawing of a hippo before we got too anxious by the over populated rooms.  Next up was the Air and Space Museum because we love planetarium shows.  They were playing Journey to the Stars and Cosmic Collisions.  We had seen Journey to the Stars together before so we watched Cosmic Collisions.  I think it was my 4th or 5th time seeing it.  After paddle boats and three museums we were pretty beat, but our bus back to the city wasn't for another two hours so we walked around a bit more, got a bite to eat, then walked to Union Station.

By the time we got to the station, I was really excited to be getting back to the city.  I had an awesome mini-vacation in DC and everyone should see the cherry blossoms somewhere if possible.  I had seen cherry blossoms in Japan before and there are some in NYC, but the magnitude of all the blossoms in DC is breathtaking.

TRANSFER FROM OTHER BLOG PLATFORM

All of the below posts are from my previous blog that only dealt with fries.  With this new blog, I can cover more categories like DIY!

WINGSTOP

(Original post: 3/19/12)

NEVER ORDER FRIES HERE!

During a game this past football season (really late post...) a group of friends and I ordered wings and FRIES from Wingstop in Astoria.  We ordered four different types of wings, 2 were spicy so I didn't dare try them, and the two mild ones were delicious.  Then I eagerly dove into the sad bag of FRIES hoping they would be equally delicious and I was seriously wrong.  They were TERRIBLE.  Tasted terrible, seasoned terribly, and looked super unappetizing.  I know, I know, I shouldn't have eaten them if they looked gross... but I had to.  They were soggy, and cold by the time they were delivered, and there was absolutely no flavor besides old fryer oil, yuck.

WINGSTOP GRADE:

Appearance: 1

Texture: 1

Taste: 1

OVERALL: 1

BOHEMIAN HALL & BEER GARDEN

(Original post: 2/10/12)

Astoria, Queens is not known for much besides Greeks, retired Hipsters, and the Beer Garden.  The later of which has really good FRIES.  I often frequent this Beer Garden because my Beau (yes, I have been watching a lot of Downton Abbey) lives in area.  The Beer Gardens offer up a few Czech food items and the regular bar food items like wings and such, it all sounds tempting (to try at least once) but I rarely order food while I'm there.  A group of friends and I went to the Beer Garden for the Super Bowl so obviously we needed to order beer, wings, and FRIES.  

YAY GIANTS!!!

Wow, their FRIES were a really pleasant surprise.  I was expecting those sorta mushy, greasy fries that often accompany wings, gross.  I hear they are coated in corn starch so when they are fried, they get an extra coating of crunchy goodness.  What made these FRIES even better was there warm fluffy inside.  The FRIES looked awesome too, my mouth was watering as soon as I saw them approaching our table.  These might be a much better version of IKEA FRIES.

BOHEMIAN BEER GARDEN GRADE:

Appearance: 4.5

Texture: 4.5 

Taste: 4.5

OVERALL: 4.5

THE COUNTER

(Original post: 1/29/12)


This week I unfortunately got salmonella poisoning from a deli breakfast sandwich.  Although I am at the tail of this sickness, I cannot think about food very much without my stomach sending angry messages to my brain telling it not to eat.  I have however thought fondly about eating PARMESAN FRIES from The Counter.  These FRIES are the only food I have been able to crave during this miserable week.  That said, these FRIES are my all time FAVORITE FRIES in New York.  The Counter is a fabulous burger join that I  first took notice of in Honolulu, my home town.  Although I never got a chance to eat at the Honolulu location, I had been coveting a taste of their burgers and FRIES since I heard that Jin from Lost (the attractive Korean man) was a part owner.  I don't know if the part about Jin is true, but seriously, everyone needs to try this place.

These FRIES are perfectly crispy, and have a ton of parmesan cheese, garlic aioli, and rosemary.  I don't even know how to put in words how yummy these are.

I should also mention that I am lactose-intolerant, and suffer the aftermath of eating cheese for these FRIES.  I don't do that for many things.

THE COUNTER GRADE: PARMESAN FRIES

Appearance: 5

Texture: 5

Taste: 5

OVERALL: 5

The Counter's regular FRIES are also above par.  Just like the parmesan ones without all the extras.

THE COUNTER GRADE: REGULAR FRIES

Appearance: 5

Texture: 5

Taste: 5

OVERALL: 5

RIBBON FRIES: MINNESOTA STATE FRIES

(Original post: 10/5/11)

While at the fair I couldn't just try one type of FRY, that would be silly, so I went for the RIBBON FRIES.  I had never seen these kind of FRIES before, but they were stunning and  positively heart stopping (because of how delicious they looked, and because they could clog some arteries).

Oh, and I forgot to mention, they were covered in a fake cheese sauce. YUM.

These FRIES were cut really cool so that they were long spirals, thin as potato chips.  They still tasted like regular FRIES, but were more fun to eat.  These FRIES had a slight crisp on the rounded outer spiral and were softer on the inside of spiral.  The only downside of these FRIES is that they got cold really fast because of their thinness.

RIBBON FRIES GRADE:

Appearance: 5

Texture: 4

Taste: 4.5

OVERALL: 4.5

HALLOWEEN

(Original post date: 1/17/12)

I am only about 3 months late on this post about HALLOWEEN...

...but since I embodied the spirt of this blog as "GOLDEN FRIES", I feel it is essential to revisit October 31st, 2011.

I don't really know what I have been doing with my time to keep me away from FRY-DAYS, but I think I got super weird and unmotivated from not eating enough FRIES during the holidays.

Anyway, my boyfriend and I decided to dress up as food for Halloween last year.  He had never worn a store-bought costume for Halloween as a child, so we went ALL out.  He would be a burger and I would be his small fry.  We started our search at Rickys, but got overwhelmed by all the slutty bug/ animal costumes for females and genitalia themed costumes for males that we took our search online.  At this point we had 2 days left till Halloween and needed to find a site that would get us our poor quality costumes by Halloween without charging $$$ in shipping.  Turns out all the burger costumes online were sold out for 2011, so we decided a hotdog would be the next best thing, it was better!

Halloween weekend was almost ruined by tons of snow, so we made the best of the worst weather and went to BARE BURGER to eat ourselves silly.

We proceeded to wear these costumes to bed and all over NYC for the rest of the weekend.

My bf also went to a taping of the Conan O'brien show as a hotdog, where an elderly lady told him he looked like Prince Charming... #winning 

BARE BURGER review coming soon.

BAR SUZETTE

(Original post: 10/9/11)

Every year the Madison Square Park Conservancy puts on Madison Square Eats, a grand outside food market.  This year they have samplings from Almond, Asiadog, Bar Suzette, The Cannibal, Fatty Snack, Graffiti | Mehtaphor, Hong Kong Street Cart, Hot Blondies Bakery, ilili, Junoon, Macaron Parlour, The Milk Truck, Momofuku Milk Bar, Nunu Chocolates, Perfect Picnic, Red Hook Lobster Pound, Roberta’s Pizza, Robicelli’s, Sigmund’s, Spices & Tease, Stuffed Artisan Cannolis, and Wafels & Dinges, open till October 21st.  Although there were a few places at the market that offered FRIES, the FRITES at Bar Suzette caught my eye.  

Unlike many NY joints that offer FRITES, these were not the thick cut Belgian style that comes to mind.  Instead, they were very very thinly cut, resembling the canned shoestring potato snacks of my childhood.  The ultra thin stature of these FRITES is what I first noticed about them, but it also happens to be their downfall.  The first few hand-fulls were delicious, but as I added ketchup into the mix, these FRITES failed to grasp enough sauce on their delicate slivers.  The FRITES also got really cold, really fast.  Beyond these flaws, they were mildly hard to eat.  FRIES are not usually the cleanest food to eat, being finger food and all, but I like to use two fingers max to minimize mess.  Since these FRITES were so small, I needed to use my entire fist to get enough of them.

BAR SUZETTE GRADE:

Appearance: 4.5

Texture: 3.5

Taste: 3

OVERALL: 3.6

MORE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR

(Original post: 10/6/11)

After eating two types of FRIES, a corn-dog, apple pie, cookies, deep fried oreos, corn and sampling what everybody else had, I was stuffed.

Here are some of the FRIES I missed out on.

THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR

(Original post: 10/4/11)

The Minnesota State Fair... where everything comes deep fried on a stick.

One of the GREATEST places on earth.  I was in fried food heaven.  There were corn-dogs, hot dogs, deep fried apple pie, deep fried candy (oreos, snickers, reese's, and more), giant turkey legs, corn on a stick, deep fried alligator, and so much more.

And by more I mean about a thousand choices of FRIES!

The options were overwhelming throughout the fair and like a fair noob, I opted to try the first station of FRIES.  It was a grand red and yellow French Fry super stand that looked too good to turn away from.

I got a very large cup of FRIES so I could share with my family and friends as we walked through the other food vendor.  

Upon first inspection, these FRIES looked very tasty and fresh and by the stand name, I would expect them to be the freshest of fresh.  Unfortunately, I have had fresher and they were sort of mushy and oily, like they had been under a warmer for a little too long.  I wasn't impressed with these FRIES, but I didn't hate them either.  If they were put in front of me, I would eat them, but if I ever find myself at the Minnesota State Fair again (which I hope I do), I would pass these "FRESH" FRIES, and try some of the others.

FRESH FRENCH FRIES GRADE:

Appearance: 5

Texture: 2

Taste: 3

OVERALL: 3.3

IKEA FRIES

(Original post: 8/28/11)

This past week I have been in the great state of Minnesota helping my sister transition to college life at the U of Minnesota.  Among the many things we have had to buy her, furniture was the big one.  And where could we find such cheap, innovative, Swedish furniture?  IKEA of course!

Although IKEA is known for their inexpensive home furnishings, kitchen goods, and to some smart shoppers, Swedish meet-balls, they also boast a pretty descent spread at their food court.

This food court of course includes some unexpectedly delicious FRIES.  Their FRIES have that awesome flaky/crunchy outside with a soft mushy center.  That is perhaps my favorite combination.  I don't know what they do to make the outside taste like that, but I LIKE it!

IKEA FRIES GRADE:

Appearance: 3 (They looked soggy)

Texture: 5 

Taste: 4

Overall: 4