Senior Sports Dinner...

...was boring. [Dude check out my napkin rose! "The Art of Napkin Folding" taught me skillz :D]

Seriously, for a posh swanky parlour, the food didn't meet my expectations. With all those fancy chandeliers and embossed and labelled napkins, and actual slabs of butter rather than the plastic-ky tini containers, one'd expect Mayfair Farms to have really nice food. Of course, the menu on its website is dead elegant and extravagant. However... we got served really late [well, for that, I blame the program schedule], the salad looked kinda wilted [but tasted okay], and the options ranged less than our school cafeteria. Quality-wise, though, the BREAD WAS AWESOME. There was a tiny nutty taste with the corn grits bottom, and the crust was perfect [as in, there was a ton more crust than there was the soft part, which I like]. They had about seven dishes, of which I only ate four, since one was chicken, one was salmon, and the other was cow.

The eggplant parm was really nice, though the top wasn't crispy or cheesy enough. The asparagus was seriously saturated with ammonia and GM-ed so that they were literally the size of whiteboard markers. The potato... was potato :). And the pasta was really nice, with fresh parm, and a nice sauce [with tomatoes].

The dessert was vanilla or chocolate ice cream, with butterscotch, walnuts, or chocolate syrup. The weirdest thing is that earlier on, while staring at the butter slabs, I had said, "Dude, I want some butterscotch"... and I got it! Though, I don't really have a good photo since my coach wanted to talk to me so the ice cream kinda melted... but that was my first and last time eating butterscotch syrup from a wine glass.

Luna Bar...

This isn't strictly a "chocolate" but honestly, I wonder whether there is any differentiation between a Snickers and a Peanut Butter & Chocolate Luna Bar. They are essentially the "same thing", except that the Luna Bar is organic and has 10g more protein than a "regular" Snickers. In essence, the Clif Bar failed to make a wheaty-oaty-ingredient-seeable bar. They instead created a solid mush topped with thin, easily melted [a.k.a. waxy/oily] layer of "chocolate" coating.

This is essentially the same as the Snickers coating. In fact, the Luna Bar is described as being a "Decadent chocolatey covered nougat". Juxtapose that with the Snickers: peanut nougat, caramel, and chocolate covered. Pretty similar... [size included!]
In short, this Luna Bar was yummy :D, and I couldn't taste much peanut at all. The chocolate layer was blandly sweet [a.k.a not chock full of chocolate]. If on the scale of the different "bars" that are on the market today, Luna Bars definitely lean [hahaha. Lean. Get it?] to the Powerbar side. A.k.a. the homogeneous mashed up ingredients side. Check up my scale:

Cake Cookies.

This is the first time in which microwaving the 37th cookie for 30 seconds actually tasted better than the baked version. The brown stuff is gingerbread cake mix [we had some extra].
Mango and raisin. Raisin' hell. Hahaha.
They look so damn poofy! And cakey! They were really "doughy" and tasted like a thin slice of cake. And, they were really shiny [and had baking powder instead of baking soda...] so I suppose this could be considered a "cake".
They didn't spread. At all. I find it rather interesting, as the batter had a low viscosity, and I used oil rather than butter. [They were supposed to be "vegan"].
This is where I got the recipe from. I changed some stuff, but nothing significant or crazy was added... basically added some milk instead of using all oil/water, and didn't use any chocolate or cinnamon. I was kinda pressed for time because these were for the Sports Awards. I don't think that people liked the plating; they looked really weird and bumpy... However, 28 of them were consumed out of 33, so that was cool. [The other 4 out of 37 were split among me, my mum, grandpa, my bro, and JM]. I think I needa tweak this more to make it an actual crumbly cookie, rather than a steamy-pudding-ish-sponge-cake.

A's and MH's Graduation Party

Dude.
Way. Too. Much. Food.
My. Stomach. Is. Glued.
Stuffed. Imbued.

I think the rule of thumb is to only eat one spoonful of everything. Or else, you end up completely unable to move [or, in my case, unable to turn around and watch K do a backflip. I missed his backflips three times. Haha].
Some dry peanut butter cake. It wasn't that great.
Homemade Mousse; best thing ever. Apple pie: really great. PB cake. Read above comment.
Really dry anise-y cookies. Also, I had my first "black-and-white" cookie. It was... cakey!
Dude. Best. Coconut custard cake. Ever.
Israeli salad, sliced potato salad [without apples!], eggplant parm - awesome! and penne.

La Tasca

Spanish food is NOT Mexican food. It is NOT even close to Tex-Mex. People tend to forget that. Anyway, at D.C., we were wandering around the Gallery Place, after having visited all those museums, and we decided to go to the Hard Rock Cafe in order to show grandpa the "American" cuisine. Of course, being the disorganised family we are, we only decided this after trudging through random streets. By that time, we couldn't relocate it. Earlier, to prove that we actually passed by it, I had taken a picture: In the end, we went to La Tasca, which is a Spanish restaurant that sold tapas. On WordReference, "La Tasca" means "cheap bar" in Spanish, and "tapas" basically means "tapas". Or, "hors d'oeuvres". Or "snacks". [Today, I presented my senior project about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; great book! and there was tons of Spanish that I pronounced very badly. Je parle francais; haha]. Anyway, this is one of the times in which QUALITY is much more valued that "quantity".
My dad got some shrimp/scallop thing. $7
Grandpa got salmon. For these two, I have no opinion to give as I didn't consume animal pieces. $7.25
My bro got some kind of sausage with white beans. $6.75
My mum got this Spanish potato and egg and onion omelette. $5.75. In all honesty, this was really good [I tried some, because the mayo was spicy and my mum didn't like it]. Actually, it tasted more like mustardy-mayo, or something. It was EXOTIC!
My delicious mushroom risotto. Oh-so-smooth. $7
It's not really "La Tasca" because at Costco, you can get tons of food for $7. As in, you can get 48 pieces of sausage, or 92 mozzarella sticks. However, this restaurant had damn high quality [except for when they forgot to cook my brother's dish. By the time we 4 had finished, his dish hadn't arrived yet]. Although you can't really tell from them photos [they could be the size of my laptop, I guess], the serving sizes were really small, compared to other restaurant chains [the restaurant with the largest serving size has to be the American Olive Garden. I don't think I "love" Olive Garden. Anyway, good culture! [In the outskirts of D.C's Chinatown].