Halloween

Woodbury & Fall Foliage

As you know, I'm not much of a shopper, so I can't spend even half a day at Woodbury Commons just going to stores. So I spent most of yesterday's trip shooting pictures of the fall foliage around the outlets. I walked out to the edges of each parking area and was able to get full nature shots.

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Ifore's 2nd Vacation

Ifore was here again for another 2 weeks in 2009, making it a total of 2 months in the US out of the year! There weren't as many activities this time around as you can see in the blog because he was here to train and study the restaurant business. He didn't have a lot of free days. Today was his last day and we packed in a lot. We all got up early so we could make it to Woodbury Commons right when it opened. It was a good plan. The outlet opens at 10am daily and always gets packed on the weekends. We arrived at 9:45 and were able to get a good parking spot. It probably filled up around 11am and any time after that, you just have to wait for a car to leave in order to get in... or park very far away. We all split up to hit our own stores. I met up with Ifore at 12pm for lunch. We went to the same place as last time... Desert Moon for Mexican. Then we had about an hour left. I went off to the more distant stores just to see what was in Sony... nothing on sale at all. They just had regular or jacked up prices. It makes me wonder why they're even there! Definitely just a branding presence.

We headed out at about 2:30pm and got to Flushing at 4pm so Ifore could do some last minute packing and make sure his check-ins weren't overweight. Emily met up with us at 4:30 and we had a nice dinner. There was no rush because his flight was set for 11:15pm. We didn't have to be there until 8pm.

It always feels like a long vacation for me whenever I have out-of-town visitors even though I don't take the full time off that they're here. I actually only used 2 vacation days for it, but it felt refreshing.

Click here for more photos

Tung Yi Fung

Location: 135-29 37th Ave., Flushing, NY, 11354
Cuisine: Chinese, seafood
Phone: (718) 886-8233
Prices: $15/person
Credit Cards: All major

Food: 8
Service: 6
Value: 8
Environment: 7

Frequency: All the Time

I was surprised it took this long for us to go to Tung Yi Fung again. It was Ifore's second to last day out of 2 weeks. Auntie Clarita & Uncle Mariano also have been here for over a week already. It's still a must for visitors because it's a good benchmark for NYC Chinese restaurants and it's usually impressive for anyone from Philippines. Aside from Gloria Maris, I feel that the Chinese food is lacking there.

I bumped the service back up to 6 because we ended up on the first floor again where there was a lot more attention to the customers. I figure the first floor is a 7 and the second is a 5, so 6 is the average between the two. Everything else is still the same.

Click here for photos. Many of the dishes are repeats from previous entries.

SriPraPhai

Location: 64-13 39th Ave., Woodside, NY 11377
Cuisine: Thai
Hours: SUN-TUE & THU-SAT (11:30am-9:30pm); WED (closed)
Phone: (718) 899-9599
Website: www.sripraphairestaurant.com
Prices: about $20/person
Credit Cards: Cash only

Food: 8
Service: 7
Value: 7
Environment: 8

Frequency: Uncommon

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After a busy September, most of us were able to get together for this month. Clovy requested SriPraPhai since she missed it last year and I also needed to reevaluate it because we experienced unusually bad service that time. The food was still good as expected. For details, check out the Picasa album. It did end up bumping the service up to a 7 from 4. They didn't get the orders mixed up this time and were very accommodating with our large group. Most of us got there late for the 7:30 reservation. It wasn't as crowded as last time, so that likely factored into it. If we did end up losing our table, then it would've been Rice Avenue that earned the big order for the night!

Some interactive links if you want to add your thoughts:
- Jeff & Charlotte
- Meeting

Reinhard & Marites

I just got home from one wedding only to find out about another in the mailbox...


Reinhard & Marites will be getting married next year on July 4 in Cancun! So it looks like that will be my next vacation destination!

California TOC

This post is a table of contents for last week's trip to California for Jeremy & Frida's wedding. As usual, all posts were back-dated to the original dates of occurrence:

- Smooth Flying
- NBC Seafood Restaurant
- Pajama Party
- NBC (Dim Sum)
- Yazmin Malaysian Restaurant
- Little Tokyo
- Jeremy & Frida's Wedding
- In and Out Burger
- Reception at San Gabriel Hilton
- Shutters on the Beach
- 3rd St. Promenade
- Java Spice
- Ontario Mills
- Mijares
- California Interactive

California Interactive

Let's have fun with some of these photos. Click on the links and fill out a comment in Picasa with what you think is happening in each one:

1) What was Frida talking about on her way down the aisle? [click here]

2) What's the reverend telling Jet & Frida? [click here]

3) What are Benjamin & Riley planning out? [click here]

4) What should we name this dance? [click here]

Mijares

Location: 145 Palmetto Dr., Pasadena, CA 91105
Cuisine: Mexican
Phone: (626) 792-2763
Website: www.mijaresrestaurant.com
Prices: $15/person
Credit Cards: All major

Food: 8
Service: 8
Value: 7
Environment: 9

Frequency: Unique

In a break from the Siy Family festivities, we met up with Audrey tonight for dinner. She works at the Hilton and recently had her hours changed. She got off at 3pm and met us at the hotel at 5pm, so we could have an early dinner. We figured we'd go for Mexican since it's easier to get an authentic cuisine from CA. Mijares was a great choice because they've been around for 90 years!

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Mijares was one of the best decorated restaurants I've been to. The space was large and comfortable. Everything was well maintained and restrooms were clean. We all had a good time there because we got a chance to catch up, no rush. Prices were good for the type of place and amount of food. For more details, visit the Picasa album.

Ontario Mills

We spent the first half of the day at an indoor outlet called Ontario Mills. It was sort of a half mall, half outlet. Some stores followed the outlet prices with good discounts and the usual buy 1 pair of shoes, get 50% off a 2nd. Others were just regular retail stores.

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Emily spent most of the time watching a movie. A full theater was part of the gigantic complex. I walked around once, looked for Blu-rays in a used video store and then hopped on their free wi-fi to work on my Picasa albums for the trip. My Dad & Uncle Mariano were just catching up in the food court while Mom, Auntie Susana and Matt shopped.

Java Spice

Location: 1743 Fullerton Rd., Rowland Heights, CA 91748
Cuisine: Indonesian
Phone: (626) 810-1366
Prices: $15/person
Credit Cards: All major

Food: 8
Service: 9
Value: 7
Environment: 7

Frequency: Unique

After our Santa Monica side trip, Jet came over our room to hang out for a bit. We were also deciding what to do for dinner. I remembered the other night when we went for Malaysian, Jet mentioned they chose the restaurant because it was closer to the hotel and also it was similar to Indonesian. The Indonesian place they normally eat at (Java Spice) was too far and too small to accommodate a party of 60. So I suggested the place to Jet. Many of us have never had Indonesian food before, and this was a perfect time to do it with the Hartonos in town to take care of the food choices.

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The closest Indonesian restaurant was way out in Rowland Heights and it was well worth the trip as it was the best meal of the trip up to this point. Overall, the food was very similar to Malaysian or Thai, but a little different. For more details and comments, visit the Picasa album. Java Spice was a mom-and-pop restaurant, which made it very authentic. The service was extra good, probably because half of us were Indonesian... it always helps! The environment was a bit cheap looking, but clean and well-maintained.

3rd St. Promenade

After lunch, we headed to the 3rd Street Promenade since that seemed to be the main tourist attraction in Santa Monica and it had lots of stores for the Philippines family members to shop in. I just went around taking photos and using the city's FREE Wi-fi.

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Shutters on the Beach

Location: 1 Pico Blvd., Monterey Park, CA
Cuisine: European
Hours: MON-SAT (11:30am-2:30pm, 6pm-10pm); SUN (11am-3pm, 6pm-10pm)
Phone: (310) 587-1717
Website: www.shuttersonthebeach.com
Prices: $25/person
Credit Cards: All major

Food: 7
Service: 8
Value: 6
Environment: 10

Frequency: Unique

For lunch, we wanted to get everyone out of Monterey Park, but really didn't know where. Luckily we ran into Jet, who was meeting up with Frida's family at the hotel. After some brainstorming, he thought of Shutters in Santa Monica.

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Shutters on the Beach was an excellent change of scenery, right on the coast. It felt like we were in a different country. EVerything about the environment was just right. The place was clean, spacious and well lit. The seating was comfortable for our party of 7 and we had a good view of the beach. The weather was sunny, but windy by the end of our meal.

Reception

Though we tried to kill time before the reception at Hilton San Gabriel, it actually started promptly and there were no delays with dinner like pretty much every other wedding I've been to! We still made it in time for the first dish though. After In and Out, we actually made another stop for hot tea!

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The reception schedule was very efficient and everything worked out right. There was never a boring moment. The food and entertainment were both great.

In and Out Burger

Location: Garfield Ave., Alhambra, CA
Cuisine: American, Fast Food
Hours: SUN-THU (10:30am-1am); FRI-SAT (10:30am-1:30am)
Phone: (718) 961-2900
Website: www.in-n-out.com
Prices: about $6/person
Credit Cards: All major

Food: 8
Service: 7
Value: 9
Environment: 5

Frequency: Unique

Like it was with Jollibee in the Philippines, I was trying to find time to slip In and Out Burger somewhere into the schedule that was already filled with family get-togethers. We decided to go for it after the wedding ceremony since it would be another hour before doors to the reception were even open. And usually, there's a long wait before dinner starts. Andy found the closest one on his GPS and relayed the info. to Wil, so our 2 cars met up there shortly.

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In and Out Burger had somewhat of a diner feel because of the retro look rather than a typical fast food restaurant. There was also a good wait for the food, so I'm not sure if it's considered fast food or not. It's more similar to those healthy burger joints in Manhattan (minus the healthy of course).

Jeremy & Frida

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Little Tokyo

The original plan was to go to the beach, but it was too hard to coordinate everyone getting up on time. Also, it got a lot cooler from the previous 2 days. Evelyn planned out a bunch of possible activities and visiting Little Tokyo turned out to be a good alternative. Things started out slow as we were waiting for stores to open up, but at least we got the change of scenery and ate somewhere other than NBC!

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Yazmin Malaysian Restaurant

Location: 27 East Main St., Alhambra, CA
Cuisine: Malaysian
Hours: SUN-THU (11am-9:30pm); FRI-SAT (11am-10pm)
Phone: (626) 308-2036
Prices: ??? (covered by Jeremy & Frida)
Credit Cards: All major

Food: 8
Service: 8
Value: ?
Environment: 5

Frequency: Common

After dim sum, Matt & I helped Jeremy & Frida out with some wedding activities. We drove all over LA, picking up shoes, confirming their booking at the Hilton<, picking up the reception decor and dropping off back at the hotel. It was a great workout after that big lunch! By the time we got back, it was almost time to head to the rehearsal dinner at Yazmin Malaysian Restaurant.

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We had 6 tables, which was about 60 people to fill up more than half of the spacious restaurant. I thought Malaysian was a great choice for the traditional pre-wedding dinner. In my family, it's usually a Chinese banquet, so this is a good experience to open up some people. Malaysian is somewhat similar to Chinese food, but yet different enough for the creatures of habit!

NBC (Dim Sum)

I had a feeling we would be back at this close, convenient restaurant again... just not this soon! At least it was for dim sum, so it felt like a different place. Chinese restaurants are like that. The same venue can alter the experience by offering dim sum, lunch and banquet style meals.

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Pajama Party

Since most of us were still getting used to the time zone, we just hung out at the room instead of going out again for dessert or coffee. After dinner, we looked at the clock and it was only 7:30pm, though we were really up for more than a day already. But we had to stay up to make our adjustment easier.

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We all had fun catching up. I haven't seen Matt since Andy's wedding and didn't really get to catch up with Jeremy & Kathy for Uncle Vic's Memorial. So that's one of the reasons why I took more days off than I normally would have.

NBC Seafood Restaurant

Location: 404-A S. Atlantic Blvd., Monterey Park, CA 91754
Cuisine: Chinese, Seafood
Hours: 7 DAYS (8:0am-10:00pm)
Phone: (626) 282-2323
Prices: about $12/person
Credit Cards: All major

Food: 7
Service: 8
Value: 8
Environment: 6

Frequency: Common

Our first dinner was close by and surprisingly good. We noticed NBC Seafood Restaurant earlier in the afternoon when Uncle Mariano drove us around the area. So we just had a relaxing walk over there for later on.

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The food was above average overall, but not nearly as good as something in one of NYC's Chinatowns. For more details, please visit the Picasa album. The service was pretty good in that they changed our plates often and got anything we asked for pretty quickly. The prices were great for the portions we were served. The restaurant space was huge and decorative, but wasn't that clean. There were flies and ants all over and the restrooms could use some maintenance.

Smooth Flying

Generally, I hate flying just because it's boring, so I always prepare a lot of things to do. Many times, I end up not doing any of them. I guess I never really know what I want to do until the moment arrives. I had the following items charged up for more hours of entertainment than the flight itself: iPod (~12 hours), game emulator (8 hours) and laptop (9 hours). Delta had personal entertainment devices with movies, games & music in every seat though, so I ended up not using any of my devices! The movie selections were actually pretty good too. I killed all of the flight time and didn't get to finish everything. There were no delays, no lost luggage and the ride was comfortable. The start of my vacation couldn't have been smoother.