~ Bobby's Burger Palace in College Park ~

It's been a while, I know.  And I am sure you know why.  Work work work!  Well, I finally got a change to go out and play and eat!  On this special occasion, my friends and I headed to Bobby's Burger Palace in College Park.  Bobby aka Bobby Flay.  It's a new place with dorm-cafeteria-ish long tables and a sushi-bar-esque burger bar.  It's very casual and upbeat.  

Each table has a basket of sauces.  I love the chipotle ketchup!!!

This is the Miami burger... with Ham, Swiss Cheese mustard and mayo.  Nothing crazy, but very classically good.  Love the toasted bun!

I got the Dallas Burger.  It has coleslaw, bbq sauce and monterey jack cheese.  It's very flavorful.

I got it well done and it was still nice and moist inside.

I also got sweet potato fries.  I love these!  Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside.  Yum!!  

This is the November special... crunchified!  What's cruncified?  It's chips added to the burger!  This november special is only here for another week, so go try it!  It has an egg and bacon!  I am going to go try it next week :)

As a bonus, I know you all miss Momo, so here are some pics of him!

He's such a prude!! hehe  I hope everyone is having a great time, getting ready for Thanksgiving.  I will try to post some good deals for you if I am not too busy shopping :)

~ Restaurant Week: Newton's Table ~

I had lunch yesterday at Newton's Table in Bethesda for restaurant week.  For $15, you get an appetizer and an entree.   I picked the shrimp for appetizer.  It's amazing!  The shrimp was huge!  The sauce was buttery and sweet.  I love it!!!

This was a melon something soup.  It was served cold and it's very refreshing.  But, kind of weird because it's sweet like a dessert.

 Then we had steak!  The presentation is very nice.  The steak was cooked just right.  Nothing spectacular, but it was good.

Guess what that white thing is.... it's potato!  Layers of potato with some cheese inside.  It was so good!!!!  I am hungry just think about this and the shrimps.

And then, we had dessert!  We saw it at the next table and just had to have it!  It's so cool looking.  The chocolate was awesome.  The cool looking candy thing?  It was ok.  

It's a pretty nice place.  Restaurant week ends on Sunday so try this place out if you have some time!

~ Yummy Burgers at Elevation Burgers in Germantown ~

Germantown is a pretty happening place nowadays.  In the Germantown town center, new restaurants opened this summer including Chipotle, Yogi Castle and Elevation Burgers.  Who needs Rockville anymore? :)  My friend recommended Elevation Burgers and I was a little bit skeptical at first.  It's a block away from Five Guys and I don't even like Five Guys.  But, we walked by today and decided to try it.

It's an interesting place.  You walk in and you have to fill out this form for your burger.  They have all kinds of toppings and sauce to choose from.  I tried the Elevation sauce, but didn't really notice any specific flavor.  I should've added hot sauce.

The food was certainly fresh!  Can you see the steam coming out of the burger?  They have a conveyor belt cooking the fresh daily grinded beef patties.  It's quite a sight!  The burgers were so juicy!!  I like it a lot more than Five Guys.  The fries looked good too, but we didn't get any.  We were being kind of healthy.

They have milkshakes too!  And they can add 2 ingredients in for free.  We got strawberries and Oreos.  I think the strawberries were frozen ones.  I didn't care for them but overall it was good.

Another fun thing... these plates!  They have a handle with a hole that's perfect for drinks.  I like this place.  It's gonna be hard to pick what to eat in that area with so many good choices....Chipotle?  Elevation Burgers?  Sabai Sabai?

~ Unique Dining Experience at Makoto ~

It was our 1 year anniversary a couple weeks ago and we went down to Georgetown for a romantic little dinner.  Our friend recommended a special place called Makoto.  It's a tiny little place, but it sure is special. First of all, men are required to wear jackets.  And they require credit card information for reservations.  Fancy!  

When we walked in, we were greeted by a very nice Japanese lady who instructed us to take off our shoes and put on a pair of slippers.  The wooden chairs are ottomans that can store purses.  We got tea and water and even that was served with flair.  A strange thing is.... the coasters.  If you are Chinese, you may recognize these as money that is burnt for the dead.  What??  Why would they use these for coasters??  WEIRD!

But, the food was good.  We ordered the chef's special which is $60 for 8-10 courses. I was so shy and wasn't sure if we could take pictures so I missed the first few courses.  The first one was awesome looking soup served in a conch shell.  Definitely very interesting.  This is the main course... Chillean bass.

This was my husband's entree.  Very good steak.

Then, we had shabu shabu!  It was interesting.  I didn't like one of the sauces, but the rest was good.  The waitresses cooked the food for us at table side.  Look at this mushroom!  So cute!

This was another course... sushi!  Very fresh fish!

This is the dessert.  Some concord grape shaved ice thing.  I liked it.  Very refreshing.

Everything was good!  The service was just so thoughtful and excellent.  I like all the small dishes.  My husband thought he would still be hungry afterwards, but he wasn't.  Of course, I gave him some of my food 'cause it was too much for me.  There was some dishes that I didn't like but I am just very picky with raw seafood.  It was the first time I had raw scallop and it's just not my thing.  It's definitely interesting!!  We had a great time and I certainly felt special!  

~ Sushi Indulgence at Todai ~

Oooo it has been so long!  I think it has been like 5 years since I went to Todai.  Today, after relaxing at the spa, I stopped by Todai on the way home.  If you haven't had Todai before, it's a good experience.  They have such a big variety of seafood, sushi, Korean, Chinese and Japanese food.  I like to try a little bit of everything!  Let's start with sushi...

Then, more sushi!  I love salmon sashimi.  This is like 2 orders worth of salmon sashimi from regular restaurants.  It's very filling!

We got there just in time for lobster!  So I grabbed one and some seafood.  Really, just one of everything 'cause there's no room for more!  

Then, it was time for some crab legs!  I love snow crab legs.  Some of them were a little bit salty, but some were so sweet!  Some were really big.  These were a lot better than the ones in all the Chinese buffet restaurants.  I dislike Chinese buffet restaurants by the way.  I don't want any cheap, greasy food!

Finally, just some desserts.  I usually also have a plate of fruits, but we were having such fun that I forgot!  Dang, the watermelon looked good too.  I can't believe I forgot it.  I love the dessert at Todai.  Everything is so mini and cute.  I got the red bean ice cream, the tofu cheesecake, green tea cheesecake and strawberry cheesecake and tiramisu.  All good! 

Of course, there are more pictures.... check out this pretty yellow Hawaiian roll.  It's wrapped with pineapple!  Pretty refreshing!  

This was interesting too.  It's tuna with avocado.  Not bad, but only 1 was enough.  Gotta save room for the important stuff!

This was the first time I had crawfish.  It's so funny.  It looks so big, but after I peeled off the shell, there's like nothing left!

Check out this crab leg!  It was so huge and sweet!  I think Todai is awesome every once in a while.  $35 is a lil much, but the variety is awesome and I don't think you can get little cute desserts like that anywhere else.  They have a lot more food than in these pictures.... like noodles, tempera, crepes, and stir fry.  Yum!

~ Ren's Ramen Reopened ~

After long nine months, Ren's Ramen has reopened!!  Once again, I was able to eat this...

The new place is nice!  It's still tiny, and I think they can sit about 25 people.  It's still very simple with barely any decoration and ordinary wooden table and chairs.  It's a lot nicer than the last place though.

The menu looks the same... still the few style of ramen, its toppings and some appetizers.

I had the Sapparo style Tonshio ramen (#2) with corn, fatty pork and egg.  The fatty pork is pretty awesome.  But, I think I will skip it next time.  It's awesome, but it's so filling.  And.... I need to... eat healthier.

Everyone gets the egg.  It's a special soft boiled egg.  I sprinkled some seasoning on it.

My husband got the Sapparo style miso ramen.  Basically, it's the same as the tonshio one except for the soup.  I think I like the miso one more.  It's thicker and richer.  

The actual noodles are thick and yellow and has a firm texture.  Usually, if I finish the whole bowl, I am stuffed.  It's a lot of food!  Overall, Ren's Ramen is still an awesome Ramen place.  You know it's awesome when there's a line waiting for a table outside most of the time.  Parking kind of sucks though.  The best time to go would be right when they open.  Usually there aren't a lot of people at 11:30 and you can get seated right away.  Can't wait to go back!

~ Awesome Chinese Food at Imperial Inn at Atlantic City ~

I recently took a mini vacation at Atlantic City and one night we went to this dingy little Chinese restaurant called Hong Kong house.  Seriously, it was a hole in the wall and dim and not that pleasant looking.  The food was ok though.  So, I was a little bit nervous when my companions suggested another Chinese restaurant.  Thank goodness this place was awesome!  It's called Imperial Inn, a couple of blocks away from Tropicana.  Let's start with the food pictures!  We got the 4-people dinner which starts off with Mustard Greens, Salted Egg and Pork soup.  Very tasty except the mustard leaves were very bitter.  But the bitterness didn't come out in the soup so that was tasty!

 This is pig tongue and pig stomach boiled in a soy sauce mix.  I actually like pig tongue a lot.  My dad makes soup with it and it's so tender and yummy!

This is Pepper and Salt Fried Pork Chops.  Also very tender and flavorful.

Black Pepper Fish on Skillet... so very good!  I usually don't like to eat fish (except for sushi) but this was so good!  I want some just looking at it now.

This is chicken, actually it's half of a chicken with bone and everything, which is the authentic way to eat a chicken.  The chicken was very flavorful and tender.  I was quite surprised because this dish is actually hard to make well.

Vermicelli and Vegetable and Dried Shrimp ... casserole?  Is that the right description?  Also very flavorful and the dried shrimps were very good.  I have had dried shrimp before where it's just rubbery and bland.  But these were good!

There was even free dessert!  I think it's called mung beads in English.  In Chinese, it's just "green beans".  It's very good for you.  It's common knowledge that mung beads are very good for acne.  which is great for me because I have been breaking out like mad. 

Definitely need to return to Imperial Inn next time I go to Atlantic City.  It was so bright and pretty inside and the food was awesome.  And the price wasn't bad at all.  I think it came out to be less than $100 for all that food, which fed 6 adults and 2 kids.  It sure beats all the typical chain restaurants scattered throughout the area!