Eagle Creek Trail

 

Eagle Creek Trail is a very popular hiking trail along Columbia River gorge. The trail was severely damaged during the forest fire few year ago, but the trail has been restored since then. The total distance of the trail is about 25 miles and quite long. Most people hike to Tunnel Falls, which is about 12 miles round trip. The trail takes hikers along the creek and pass by several waterfalls and wildflowers. The trailhead is about an hour East of Portland.

We went for a hike at Eagle Creek on this hot Friday during Spring. By the time we got to the trailhead around 8:30AM, the parking lot is about half full.  We parked the car a little bit down the road but not too far from the trailhead.

The trail was filled with fist sized rocks and was a little difficult to walk on. We had to be careful when stepping on lose rocks and had to make sure we don't roll the ankles. Along the trail we could see the sign of forest fire. Many trees were burnt down into charcoals.

The trail also went along the cliff side with steep drop off on one side. There were steel cables on the rock wall for people to hold on to. Since it was still Spring, there was a lot of water drizzling down the cliff wall.

After about an hour, we got to Punch Bowl Fall. The waterfall pours into a bowl like pond. The amount of water flowing through was incredible. Many people took rest here and head back from here, but we went further on since our goal was to get to Tunnel Fall.

The Tunnel Fall was a lot further and the second half of the trail did not have as much shade. So it was getting quite hot. As we approached closer to our final destination, we came to the place where we had to cross the stream of water. Due to the amount of snow Portland got this year, the water level was much higher and current was quite strong. A few people simply hiked through the stream with wet shoes. We debated a bit and decided not to go further and went back.  This was unfortunate as we did not prepare for this.

Eagle Creek was definitely one of the best hike along Columbia Gorge. We will definitely do it again when the water level is lower and will definitely get to Tunnel Falls next time.

Banana Leaf

Banana Leaf is a very popular restaurant at Milpitas. It specializes in Malaysian cuisine such as the famous Roti for example. We loved the Malaysian hawker food when we visited Orlando last time, thus we really wanted to try Malaysian food again whenever we have the chance.

We got to Banana Leaf at 5PM, just when the restaurant has just opened. The restaurant was quite big and had open kitchen concept. The menu was on the huge QR code placed at the top of the table. We didn't see any physical menus.

We ordered Roti Prata, Red Beef Curry, Banana Leaf Rice, and Hainan Chicken Rice. The Roti came very quickly. This is something that we have been craving for. The Roti came with the curry dipping sauce, however, we found that the Roti was not hot and was too crispy and breaking apart.

The Red Beef Curry was quite good. We loved the curry taste. The Red Beef Curry also had many different other ingredients in the curry such as tofu. It was full of surprise. The Hainan Chicken rice was amazing too. The chicken meat was very tender and the sauce was sweet and savory at the same time. Banana Leaf Rice came with coconut flavored rice and rendang chicken. The rendang chicken was very flavorful, just as much flavor as curry.

We really loved the food at Banana Leaf and wish we had chance to try more items on its menu. The only let down was the Roti and hope it would be better next time and served warm in the future.
 

Sifu Wong Kitchen

 

Sifu Wong Kitchen is a Cantonese restaurant located in Sunnyvale. It serves Cantonese Dim Dum dishes. It has a wide variety of Dim Sum dishes with 4 different prices tags for each individual dish. Other than Dim Dum dish, people can also order larger portion of food from the kitchen such as fried rice and noodle.

We got there around 11AM when the restaurant just opened. As we sat down the table, we first ordered the tea from the 4 different tea options. At Sifu Wong Kitchen, they don't push Dim Sum carts around for people to pick the dish. Instead, we were given a menu selection sheet to select what we want to order. We ordered 10 dishes in total including pork rib, pineapple bun, Sui Mai, shrimp dumpling, rice roll, and others.

All these food were made fresh and we did wait for some time to get the food served to our table. The food tasted very fresh. One of the biggest surprise to us was the pineapple bun. Inside the pineapple bun, it was purple yam instead of custard. We have never seen this before.

The black salty egg yolk bun was really good too. The bun was in black color with a tad of gold color tapped at the top of the bun. The bun may be made with black sesame. As we took a bite, the yolk was so hot and dripping out.

The rice roll was an amazing addition as well. The rice roll was freshly made and it was so hot. The roll was so soft. Then it was mixed with the sweet soy sauce, the texture and the taste was just right. This really shows how important it is to have freshly made food.

Overall, we really enjoyed the food at Sifu Wong Kitchen. We have not had such authentic Dim Sum food for a while. Sifu Wong Kitchen has really shown us how Dim Sum Should be made. We would definitely come back here again if we have the chance in the future.

Duan Chun Zhen

 

Duan Chun Zhen is a restaurant that specializes in Taiwanese Beef Noodle. Duan Chun Zhen is the name of the founder of the restaurant and already has several restaurants in Taiwan. It also has 2 restaurants in US and both of them are in California. We went to the one at Cupertino, right beside Apple's campus.

As we walk into the restaurant, the interior decoration caught our eyes. It was bright and has a clean feel to it. Every table already has menus and utensils places correctly on the table. A clear glass water bottle was also placed on the table.

The menu has a lot more items than just beef noodle. There were various appetizers and also rice dish. There were also different type of noodles that people can choose from. These 3 types of noodles are thin, thick, and hand made noodles.We ordered the recommended beef noodle with tenderloin with hand made noodle. On top of that, we also got a place of braised dish platter.

The braised dish platter was put in a black plastic container, which was quite cheap. The amount of food in the braised dish platter includes bean curd, tempura, seaweed, and beef. Each came with about 6 small pieces, which was very little. We were definitely not impressed by this.

The beef noodle was placed in a nice looking custom made bow with Duan Chun Zheng printed on it. At the first glance, we didn't even see any noodle since it was under the soup. As we dig in, the amount of noodle in the bowl was disappointingly little. The soup, however, was tasty. Unlike the usually Taiwanese beef noodle, this one has Sichuan pepper corn in it which gives some spicy kick in it.

Overall, we were disappointed with Duan Chun Zhen because it actually had good reviews. The food taste was not the best and the amount of food given was quite little. The cost was high for the amount of food given. We would not recommend to go to Duan Chun Zhen if beef noodle soup is what people are looking for.

Crepe Cafe

 

Crepe Cafe is a bakery snack restaurant located at Pier 39 in San Francisco. As its name suggests, it specializes in Fresh Crepes and offers variety of crepe flavors. The flavors include both sweet and savory options. There are many seafood restaurants at Pier 39, but Crepe Cafe is the only place that sells crepes. Thus it has attracted many customers who were visiting Pier 39.

When we got there around 12PM, there wasn't a line yet since most people were having lunch at this time. The wall at the side of the restaurant were clear glass where people can see the making of the crepe directly. Many people stood by the wall and watch. We actually saw an interesting crepe with cheese, pineapple, and ham in there. This was just like Hawaiian flavored pizza.

We then ordered a nutella banana crepe. This is definitely a classic and we would love to try it. The crepe was not cheap however. It cost $13 for the crepe. After we made the payment, we just went to the side of the glass and watched our crepe getting made.

The crepe was made rather quickly and it was done within 5 minutes. The crepe was put on a paper plate, then sugar powder was poured on top of the crepe and whip cream was added on the side.

The crepe was crisp and soft at the same time. It was done perfectly. We used knife and fork to cut the crepe into small pieces, and we really loved it. The whip cream was very fresh as well. We could really enjoy the sweetness of the ingredients and the tenderness of the crepe.

Crepe Cafe is definitely a great place to go for dessert after a big seafood lunch. The only downside was that the cost was a little high, but the cost is usually high at tourist area.

Tiger Sugar

 

Tiger Sugar is a bubble tea place at downtown Seattle serving specialized drinks. It was basically a block away from Pike Market place. Its specialty drink is the milk drink with dark brown sugar. With brown sugar dripping through the milk, the drink looks like the fur pattern of a tiger.

We came across Tiger Sugar after we saw its advertisement on the street. We were walking down the street at Seattle downtown after visiting Pike Market. Then we saw the Tiger Sugar sign at the corner of the street with an arrow pointing East. The picture of the drinks on the advertisement looked really good, thus we decided to follow the sign and check it out.

The store front of Tiger Sugar was quite small. We actually stood outside and checked out its menu for a very long time. There were no one in the store either and it actually felt awkward because the store owner could see us standing outside for a while.

We were hesitating because we were not sure what to get because we didn't want to get any milk drinks. Thus we decided to get the mango fruit drink with lychee jelly and mango pop in there. The drink itself was not cheap. It was about $8.50. The drink was served quite quickly however since the drink was probably pre-made and just have to put in the toppings.

The drink was no doubt tasty with strong mango flavor. However, there were too many chipped ice in the drink. We could barely suck up the jellies at the bottom of the drink. At the end we had to open up the drink to separate the jelly and ice.

Overall, Tiger Sugar had good choices of drinks but just not what we would enjoy since most of the drink were milk related drinks.

Mochinut

 

Mochinut is a special type of donut that is made with rice instead of flour. Mochinut was still a round circular donut but the donut was shaped with small spherical shaped ball along the donut wall. Mochinut offered variety of flavors such as matcha, sesame, coffee, and Oreo.

When we got to Mochinut, we were confused what to do because no one was at the front desk. Then we were told that we just place our orders on the touch pad in front of us. It was a self order flow. We ordered 3 Mochinuts which include sesame, Vietnam coffee, and passion fruit flavor.

After about 5 minutes, our order was ready and a small nice box was delivered to us. The Mochinut was placed beautifully in the box and looked really nice. We took a bite and were surprised by the texture. It was definitely more chewy than regular donut because it was made with rice, but we enjoyed the texture. The flavor of each Mochinut was also extremely strong, especially the sesame flavor. Mochinut was also very easy to eat. We could just twist the donut and take down each individual ball and eat it.

We really liked Mochinut, both the texture and flavor were great. The only downside was that the number of flavors were limited and not a lot of choices were available. There were also several super market selling Mochinut as well, but also with limited flavors.

Little Cheerful Cafe

 

Little Cheerful Cafe is a very popular brunch place located at Bellingham, Washington. Little Cheerful Cafe is located at the central downtown location of Bellingham. The parking fee on the street was $3 per hour. The payment system was through those old school parking meters with a timer counting down after the payment was made. There were plenty of parking spaces there and even more parking spaces further down the street.

We got there around 11AM and there were already people waiting at the front desk. We asked the owner and she told me it would be around 25 minutes wait. The wait time was less than what we expected and we put our name on the sign up sheet.  While we were waiting, more and more people came in. Some came in for takeout and some came in to make reservation in person. The atmosphere at the restaurant was quite great with a local vibe. The owner and the servers were all seemed so happy and sing along with the song playing in the background.

As we sat down on the table, we ordered the Farmer's Omelet and California Omelet. We also got a cup of Mocha. After 1 minute or 2, the mocha was delivered to us. The mocha was delivered in a cute little cup with whip cream on top. We find this really cool because everyone's coffee cup was different.

After about 10 minutes, the omelets are here. The omelet at Little Cheerful Cafe was different than the omelet at other places. The omelet folded over and covered all the ingredient inside. The harsh brown was covered by fried onion, which was extremely aromatic and tasty. Although the omelet looks different, it was actually very tasty. The ingredient inside was a lot too. We really enjoyed it. The omelet also came with specially made biscuit, but we think that the Red Lobster biscuit is better.

Overall, we really loved the local vibe atmosphere at Little Cheerful Cafe. We enjoyed the food as well. It was really unique and tasty. We would definitely visit the place again in the future.