Author: miemo

Comedic Hypnotist: Flip Orley

Did you just roll your eyes at the title of this post? I’m for real. Comedic Hypnotist. I’ve seen this guy 3 times…and it was a different show every time. What’s even more funny is…The first time I saw him, he just got married. The second time I saw him, he had a baby…this last time I saw him… He’s been divorced…4 times. Oh wait, that wasn’t funny? I guess not, but he made it funny. Ask him why he has 4 hoop earrings in one ear!

One of our couple friends are from Germany, and they want to experience all that DC has to offer while they are here… (they are moving in January :() So I decided to take them to a show at the DC Improv, specifically to see Flip Orley. He talks really fast (because he has to soothe and hypnotize his guests) so it was hard for them (and us!) to understand him sometimes. But the hilarity that ensued was understood in all languages.

If you’ve never been to a hypnotist show, let me break it down for you. The hypno-boy (his joke, not mine) comes out and he tells us about himself, usually in a funny way. Then he tells us about the powers of hypnotism, and how it works and why it works. He also tells us why it doesn’t work. He asks for volunteers to come up on stage, and for people in the audience to try to get hypnotized from there if they would like. Then he puts the moves on ya. After that he does a couple of things to filter people out who aren’t really hypnotized, and continues on with the show. I won’t tell you what happens next, but its DEFINITELY fun.

However, its all relative. I did see one angry girl walk out because she didn’t think it was funny. But hey she was also one of the ones that couldn’t get hypnotized so maybe she was mad she wasn’t relaxed enough. All I know I was glad she left because her stanky attitude was ruining it for the rest of us.

Be sure to find him and CHECK HIM OUT!

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Kwhat?Kwho? KNISH!!!

I’ve never had a knish before, nor heard of it. Does that me sound super uncultured? Oh well. I had one the other day, and it was amazeballs. I mean seriously, I love a whole meal that I can eat in one hand. Okay, well I guess it wasn’t meant to be a whole meal, but that much meat and potatoes gets a girl full.

In case you didn’t know (like me) a knish is a pastry with meat and a potatoes inside, generally. I got a bacon cheddar one, and one of my girl friends got the short rib one, and we split so we could each taste one. The bacon cheddar one was just what I needed. We skipped breakfast and only had coffee, so by noon it definitely hit the spot. It came with a sour cream, chive dipping sauce and it was perfect. I need to know how to make that, and this. Super convenient. The short rib one was okay, a little salty and came with a bbq sauce type thing.

We got ours from Buffalo & Bergen at Union Market. Definitely going to have to try to make this myself!

 

 

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Sketches

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Oh hey did you know I am a graphic designer? And the best way to organize before execution is drawing/sketching. Because we live in a digital age, I rarely spend a lot of time in a sketchbook, but just quick squiggles on a piece of graph paper. That being said, I personally think I am terrible at drawing. I could probably draw well enough to get my point across, but it isn’t anything nice enough to talk about.

So, to kill two birds with one stone, I’ve been drawing out outfits that can be made possible with the clothes in my closet. I have a lot of stuff I don’t wear, being that I’ve changed in size. I turned my second bedroom into a closet/dressing room/kitchen storage space. Now I can keep track of what I have, and all the possible ways to wear it. If you can think of more that would help!

What I wore last week:

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…and then I got tired. It’s busy super busy busy, but I guess I don’t really need to tell you that. Happy Hump Day and I hope this was a good week!

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Lao Tasting Menu at Bangkok Golden

A couple weeks ago, I joined some Yelpers at Bangkok Golden for their Lao tastings menu.  I go there pretty often, and I am Lao, so I know what the food is like, but I figured it would be fun to go with people that has never had it. Lao food is not Thai food. Yes its similar..but no, not really. It was really good to be around other adventurous eaters, not afraid to get down and dirty with the food.

Is it weird to start off with the alcohol? Not when it’s BeerLao. The pride of Laos, this beer is easily a lager drinker’s fave. It might be a little difficult to find for casual drinking around here (though I hear some Shopper’s Food Warehouses may carry it), you can definitely quench your thirst with one here.

Started the meal off with Crispy Rice Salad, or as its called in Lao, Nam.

Spicy Lao Sausages, fingers and sticky rice are a must.

Pork neck and papaya salad (spicy).

Fish Curry Noodle Soup

Chicken Larb

Steamed Fish in a banana leaf

Khao Mao, Avocado sticky rice

Having this restaurant accessible makes me really happy, and sad at the same time. A lot of these dishes my mom made for me. Now that she’s not around, I can go there when I am craving something. But also some of these dishes just make me so sad because they remind me of her. Like the steamed fish in banana leaf? I can’t even smell it without tears swelling up in my eyes. One time during chemo, I packed her that with rice. And she was hungry while she was getting her treatment, so I was spooning some out to feed her, but all of a sudden, she was embarrassed by the smell and didn’t want to eat it. It literally broke my heart to see her refuse to eat. My strong mother, who was never ashamed of anything in regards to her culture was this different person when was sick and going through treatment.

So yeah, I guess you could say it’s bittersweet for me. Sorry to go on in a tangent. Definitely check this place out!

Bangkok Golden
6395 Seven Corners Center
Falls Church, VA 22044

Tasting Menu, 7 courses for $25 a person.

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Ramblings: If We Met Now, Would We Be Friends?

Via Tumblr

So hopefully you have all seen this episode by now. If not, spoiler alert, sort of.

I love New Girl, like all of us girls who are a little bit awkward at some points in our life. When I was watching this, it made me think of my friendships through the years. I still have one friend, who’ve I’ve been friends with…wait for it…SINCE KINDERGARTEN.

We had a lot of ups and downs as we grew into the person we are today, but in the end, we came back around and realized we can still be friends. Time has a lot to do with relationship. You know how people always say when it comes to finding “the one” with a significant other, it is always the timing? I figured it is the same way with friends.

via Tumblr

I’ve changed a lot since those school age years. I  would not have imagined myself the way I am now, back then. Not saying its a bad thing. As for the friendships, the friends that I met AFTER college are the ones that are my day to day. Or, the friendships from my childhood that has rekindled as adults too. These will be the friends that will be “aunts” to my kids. It makes me sad though, to think of the friends I lost touch with or don’t have anything to relate to anymore.

But I think you don’t need as many friends as adults, because you’ve already been well-socialized 😉

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Pork Belly Sliders

I make these pretty often. They are a party favorite, and just so delicious. It’s crunchy, tangy, savory and bites back a little. I love making these as much as I love eating them. I try not to make them too often because pork belly isn’t really the healthiest cut of meat…says the girl who makes everything bacon.

It’s pretty simple to make, pickled daikon/carrots, and marinate the meat, then pile it all together. Deliciousness for your whole family. I used this recipe from Spoon Fork Bacon.

Pork Belly sliders
Makes 16

Ingredients:
pickled daikon and carrots:
2 carrots, peeled and julienne
1 cup daikon radish, peeled and julienne
2 tablespoons salt
1 cup sugar
1 cup rice wine vinegar
¾ cup water
marinade:
¼ cup hoisin sauce
1 ½ tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
1 ½ tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
black pepper to taste
½ lb thinly slice pork belly
green onion mayonnaise:
½ cup mayonnaise
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, minced

½ seedless cucumber, thinly sliced
16 sweet Hawaiian Rolls

1. Place carrots, daikon and salt in a colander over the sink and mix together. Allow to sit for an hour, tossing together every 15 minutes. Thoroughly rinse and
place into a mixing bowl.
2. Place sugar, vinegar and water in a small pot and bring to a simmer until sugar dissolves. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.
3. Pour sugar mixture over carrot and daikon and place in the refrigerator for an hour.
4. Place marinade ingredients into a mixing bowl and whisk together. Add pork belly and toss together until well marinated. Place in the refrigerator and
allow to sit for 30 minutes.
5. Place 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil into a grill pan and heat over medium-high heat. Sear and cook pork belly on each side for 4 to 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and set aside.
6. Place mayonnaise, green onions and garlic into a small bowl and stir together.
7. To assemble: Spread a small amount of the spread onto the tops and bottoms of each bun. Place a couple pieces of pork belly into each bottom bun and top with cucumber slices followed by a small amount of daikon and carrots. Place tops on each slider and gently press. Serve.

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Happy Halloween!

A sneak peak of our costume.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN. Made it through Hurricane Sandy, safe and sound. We were very lucky. I just spent the extra two days, cooking up my own storm. Sorry to those I made hungry via instagram!

I’ve got a crockpot going, so when I get home I don’t have to worry about dinner and I will hop into my costume and pass out candy. Hopefully the kids will be trick or treating. This is my first Halloween at my new home and I am excited to see how many kids will come!

I know a majority of the Halloween parties happened this weekend, but mine is this weekend. What are you up to tonight?

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One Year Bloggiversary!

Guess what, hard to believe, but one year ago, miemonster.net went live! I know that my content has been around since before then, but that was when I finally decided on a dot com (yes, miemonster.com is mine now too finally!) and begin my blogging identity. You see I also have an online portfolio, miemomedia.com and that was where I started blogging. But then I realized, in my blog I didn’t write about design, so it made no sense being there. I work all day everyday with design stuff and I needed an outlet for my other interests, traveling, cooking and well, eating of course. So that’s how Miemonster was born.

So a year ago today, my brand spanking new site hit the interwebs. And if you hadn’t noticed, a new layout! (which will always be in progress because as a designer I get tired of looking at the same site all the time).

This blog has introduced me to cool people in the world and I hope to get to know many more with similar interests so that we can swap tips and recipes! There are still more adventures to come, and thank you to those who decided to join me.

 

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Epic Smokehouse

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Epic Smokehouse, 1330 Fair Street Arlington, Virginia 22202
The name suits it well. It’s pretty epic. This place is what you would call, upscale bbq. Bacon is a key player in their menu, and I am appeased. On one our date nights, the boo and I chose this place because, after the Bacon Shortage scare, I wanted to consume as much pork product as possible. Lucky for us, there was plenty.

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The Appetizers

We chose the bacon app, and the kahlua pig roll.

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The Verdict

The bacon appetizer is just a slab of pork belly, smoked and cooked, topped with sprouts and their fig and mustard sauces. Delicious and fatty. The kahlua pig roll was something to write home about. It’s pulled pork and kimchi rolled in an egg roll wrapper, with a lemongrass coconut dipping sauce. I don’t like kimchi on the regular, but the way the flavors presented itself in that rolled up bite worked really well. Top it off with the cool, creamy coconut dipping sauce, it made me sad when the appetizer was over. But at least the entrees were next!

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Entrees

We had the filet mignon with the crawfish hollandaise, with fried asparagus and an extra side of bacon sprouts.  Also the applewood smoked baby back ribs with fries and an extra side of sauteed portobello mushrooms.

The filet was perfectly seasoned, and you could cut it with a butter knife. I ate it with a bite of mushrooms and it was amazing. Making my mouth water just thinking about it. I love asparagus. But battering and deep frying it was a bad idea. There wasn’t really any flavor to the batter, but the asparagus was perfectly cooked. They topped the steak with two crawfish tails, which was pointless and didn’t bring anything to the meal. Our hollandaise came out later and had no flavor. It literally just tasted like egg and butter..no salt. Nothing. Disappointing.

They don’t say how many ribs on the menu. It’s just “Ribs”. Its a full rack. I got mine with a side of mushrooms, it also comes with fries. These were smoked to perfection. I loved it. It was quite intimidating when it came out, there really was no right way to go about it, so I just dug in. I really enjoyed it. But I like things extra saucy, so I might ask for more ‘cue sauce on the side next time.

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Overall, I had a great meal and would love to go back again! Who doesn’t love a bacon dominant menu? If not for food, then at least for dessert!!!

 

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Bacon Wrapped Pork Loin with Bacon Sprouts

Yep. That really happened. What we have here is a bacon wrapped pork loin, with a jazzed up bbq sauce and bacon sprouts. Yes BACON SPROUTS. The best way to get your man to eat veggies (if you have that problem, I don’t).

The best part? It was pretty easy.

It all started, because I found these at our local Trader Joes. I had NO IDEA that brussels sprouts came from a stalk. Nuts! It was 3 bucks so I was like hmm, why not?!

I didn’t realize I was going to end up with so many sprouts. Chopped in half and I had twice as much…I literally only make about 10 sprouts at a time. I was intimidated. But I calmed down and just made a meal of it. Everything tastes better with bacon right? And that’s how it all began.

This is the first time I cooked a perfectly moist pork loin. My chops always end up dry. But this is why I like cooking over baking. Baking is an exact science, where as with cooking, I just put my heart into it, and it always works itself out. No recipes needed!!

What have you made lately? I am always curious to try out new foods!

Oh and remind me, that my sauce is just bbq sauce, vanilla apple cider, and chipotle hot sauce. WIN.

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