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.