[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 2] Hotel Fonda Vela Galleria

Hotel Fonda Vela Galleria
Apartado 12-5655
Santa Elena, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
(506) 2645-5125
http://www.fondavela.com

Breakfast was included everyday at Hotel Fonda Vela.  Breakfast was served at a bigger dining room, Galleria.



We had some company with us for breakfast.  haha...  The statues were starring at us while we ate.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 1] Hotel Fonda Vela Fireside Room

Hotel Fonda Vela Fireside Room
Apartado 12-5655
Santa Elena, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
(506) 2645-5125
http://www.fondavela.com

We were super tired when we arrived at the hotel, and decided just to have dinner at the hotel's restaurant, Fireside Room. When we were checking at the hotel, they were taking pictures of the hotel lobby for advertisement.  They asked Dr. P and I "pretending" that we were checking in.  We weren't exactly "pretending" because we were really checking in.  But from time to time, they would ask us to freeze for them to take pictures.



When we got to the restaurant, they photography crew had moved into the restaurant for more advertising pictures.  So there we were again.  They asked us to pose like we were having dinner with some of the specially prepared dishes.  I got a chicken (?) tower dish.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 1] Hotel Fonda Vela

Hotel Fonda Vela
Apartado 12-5655
Santa Elena, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
(506) 2645-5125
http://www.fondavela.com

We stayed at Hotel Fonda Vela in Monteverde for 2 nights.  We love this hotel.  The staffs were all very friendly and helpful.  The surrounding is beautiful.  We heard the birds and insects singing all day all night long.  Just love it!



As we were checking in our room, the front desk clerk asked us how come we arrived one day late.  We told him the whole story about how we missed our flight, and how we just got married so everything was so hectic and we couldn't thinking straight.  He congratulated us for being newly weds, and totally hooked us up with the nicest suite they have.  The room was HUGE!

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 1] Interbus San Jose --> Monteverde

The shuttle that picked us up was from Interbus.  We opted for the cheaper shared shuttle.  There was only one other tourist on the shuttle with us that day.  He is a backpacker from Australia.  Interesting guy.  We had fun chatting with him on the 3+ hour ride from San Jose to Monteverde.



The first hour of the ride was on paved roads.  We stopped by a little rest stop.  I thought the shuttle driver stopped for us to use the restroom.  But turned out that it was time for him to eat.

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 1] Calalu Tipical and Caribbean Food Restaurante

Calalu Tipical and Caribbean Food Restaurante
Alajuela, Aeropuerto,
550 Metros Nor-Este Del Semaforo
Rio Segundo, Costa Rica
2441-2121

I am back with full laptop power.  haha....  I really want to write about our honeymoon before I start forgetting things.

We were one day late for our tour.  The local travel agency asked if we would like to take a private shuttle to our destination for $300, or take a shared shuttle for $100.  We opted for the cheaper option.  We arrived at San Jose in Costa Rica around 7-ish in the morning.  The shared shuttle would pick us up around 3pm.  So the travel agency actually sent another guy to pick us up at the airport to take us to a local restaurant to wait there.



The restaurant was called Calalu Tipical and Caribbean Food Restaurante.  This must be the shuttle "station" because we saw quite a few tourists coming here to wait for their shuttles.

No Laptop For A Few Days.... :-(

Sorry for not being able to update for a while.  We just adopted two puppies.  They are the cutest little things.  But they also chewed through my laptop's power cord.  All of my photos are in the laptop.  No power = No laptop = No update on blog.  Boohoo~~~~  :-(

Here is a sneak peak of the misbehaving puppies:  (Pictures are from their adoption webpage.)


Big brother <<<<Teddy>>>>

[Costa Rica Honeymoon] [Day 1] TACA Airline LAX ---> San Jose, Costa Rica

Our flight from Los Angeles to San Jose, Costa Rica was on TACA Airline. I have never heard of TACA before. This airline is from El Salvador. Their routes are mainly to and from Central America. We didn't expect much from this "unknown-to-us" airline. We ended up really liking this company. We made numerous phone calls to the customer service at TACA about our missing flight to try to figure out what to do. They were really helpful, and tried really hard to help us out. The economic seats on the plane was quite roomy comparing to other flights we've been on. The flight was only about 6 hours, but they served a meal. There were also free snacks and drinks, including beer, wines, hard liquors... all FREE! Service was really nice. All the flight attendants are very friendly, not to mention very pretty, too! There's just something about women from Central America. What do they eat to get that perfect body?



Since our flight departed at 1am, Dr. P and I both went to sleep right after the plane took off.  We we5re awaken by the smell of food around 5am-ish.

[Los Angeles] [American] LA Roadhouse Diner 66

LA Roadhouse Diner 66
1 World Way Terminal 2
Los Angeles, CA 90045
(310) 641-3599

I am still waiting to get all the wedding pictures from our photographers.  So I guess I'll have to write about our honeymoon first.

Our honeymoon didn't start that smoothly.  Our flight to Costa Rica is at Saturday, August 21 at 1am.  My brain must be fried because of the wedding.  For some reason, I thought that meant "Saturday night".  On Friday night around 11pm, Dr. P and I were talking about how excited we were about leaving for our honeymoon the next day, all of sudden it hit me.  All of a sudden I realized Saturday 1am meant 2 hours later... Friday night, or early Saturday morning, or whatever you wanna call it.  The point was, there was NO WAY we can pack and make the flight on time from Orange County to LAX in 2 hours.  Yup, so we missed our flight.  It was the first time in my life I've ever miss a flight, and that happened to be our honeymoon flight.  I almost cried, but crying wouldn't help.  After making a few phone calls to the airline and the travel agency in Costa Rica, we booked a flight the next day, the original "Saturday night" flight that I thought we were on.  We would miss the first day of the tour, and had to pay extra $400, but that was ok.  I learned my lesson about "date" and "time".  haha....



We took Super Shuttle to the airport, and got there quite early.  Since we got some time to kill, we went into the only restaurant that was opened in Terminal 2, LA Roadhouse Diner 66.  The food court was opened, too.  But we didn't feel like eating overpriced fast food.  We walked in the restaurant.  A waitress saw us and didn't even said anything.  We went up to her and said, "2, please."  She just said, "ok."  We were like, "uh.... can we sit outside?"  She just said, "you can sit wherever you want." and walked away.  Hmmmm.... talking about service here.

[Westminster] [Vietnamese] Quan Vy Da

Quan Vy Da
9950 Bolsa Ave #B
Westminster, CA 92683
(714) 531-2905

We found the best massage place in Westminster, Olala Reflexology.  The one hour long whole body massage is only $15, and it was soooooooo relaxing.  Normally we tip $5 for those $15 foot massage places in San Gabriel Valley.  But Olala actually focuses on the body more than the foot, which we really like, so we tip them $10 here.  I love how they massage my scalp and face, too.  Just thinking about it make me want to say "olala~~~~", haha.  Anyway, after the massage, we were hungry.  We saw a lot of people going to this restaurant next door, Quan Vy Da, to get take-out.  We decided to be adventurous and walked in without even knowing what kind of food they serve.



The place is big, bright and clean.  The waiter didn't speak much English, but he was still pretty helpful by pointing on the menu to recommend dishes.

[Alhambra] [Chinese] 川渝麵莊 Chuan Yu Noodles Town

Chuan Yu Noodles Town
川渝麵莊
525 W Valley Blvd #B
Alhambra, CA 91803
(626) 289-8966

Last time my parents and I went to Chuan Yu Noodles Town, we really enjoyed the food.  My dad knows that Dr. P loves spicy Chinese food, and said he wanted to take Dr. P here to try.  That morning, we went to the courthouse and officially got married.  (I would LOVE to share some pictures, but we are still waiting for the photographer to give us the photo CDs.)  For our celebration lunch, we decided to go to Chuan Yu.  See, our idea of celebration is not about how fancy the restaurant is, but how good the food is. ^_^


四川泡菜/醬黃瓜/海帶 Sichuan Vegetables Pickles/Cucumber with Soy Sauce/Seaweed ($1.95)

For appetizer, we ordered the seaweed.  The lady insisted on giving us a combo appetizer, so we gladly accepted.  There were seaweed, cucumber, and pickled cabbage in the appetizer combo plate.  Everything we good.

[Aliso Viejo] [American] Chili's Grill & Bar

Chili's Grill & Bar
26631 Aliso Creek Rd
Aliso Viejo, CA 92656
(949) 448-9022
http://www.chilis.com

Chili's $20 for 2 special is back!  We tried the deal before, and got 1 appetizer + 2 entrees + 1 dessert for $20.  Then we went back to Chili's again and found out the deal was gone.  Then last month I received an email from them saying the $20 for 2 deal is back.  But this time the $20 only gets you 1 appetizer + 2 entrees.


Texas Cheese Fries with Chili
Topped with our famous chili, jalapenos, green onions and finished with applewood smoked bacon. Served with jalapeno-ranch dressing.

For appetizer, we picked half order of Texas Cheese Fries with Chili.  These fries were super addictive.  It was the big fat fries that were crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.  Tons of melted cheese on top, with bacon bits & green onions & jalapeno, dipping in ranch sauce.  I knew it was fat, but I couldn't stop eating them.

[Aliso Viejo] [Chinese] 翠瓊樓 Jade Palace II Chinese Cuisine

Jade Palace II Chinese Cuisine
翠瓊樓
26921 Aliso Creek Rd #E
Aliso Viejo, CA 92656
(949) 360-7666
http://www.jadepalaceinc.com

After having dinner at Thai Bite that night, we walked around the plaza to see what other restaurants are there.  I saw Jade Palace II Chinese Cuisine, and was really excited that there is a Chinese restaurant close by to our new house.  We went back the next day to try their lunch special.


Soup

We browsed through their menu.  They offer both Vietnamese and Chinese cuisine.  For Vietnamese food, there are pho and rice dishes.  The Chinese food they have on the menu all looked very Americanized.  And there were no Chinese writing on the menu, only English.  Hmmm, that's not a good sign.  We ordered two lunch special dishes.  A bowl of soup came with the lunch special.  There were tiny pieces of chopped vegetable, minced meat, and rice in the soup.  The soup didn't taste Chinese to me at all.

[Aliso Viejo] [Thai] Thai Bite

Thai Bite
6921 Aliso Creek Rd #J
Aliso Viejo, CA 92656
(949) 643-0627
http://www.thaibite.com

We moved out of our apartment in Irvine to a townhouse in Aliso Viejo last month.  I really like Aliso Viejo.  This is a beautiful city with lots of trees.  It's very mellow comparing to Irvine.  It's always fun to explore a new city and trying new restaurants.  On our moving day, we were exhausted and just wanted to go somewhere close for dinner.  Not really knowing what restaurants are around, we just drove the the nearest shopping plaza.  It was around 9pm, and Thai Bite was still almost full.  We followed the crowd and found authentic and tasty Thai food.


Larb ($7.95)
A savory Thai salad of minced chicken tossed with roasted chili, basil, onion and lemon juice

Dr. P ordered his favorite Thai salad, Chicken Larb, to start the meal.  Honestly, we weren't really expecting much.  Most of the customers in Thai Bite were Caucasians (well, majority of the residents in Aliso Viejo are Caucasians).  So we thought Thai Bite is just one of those Americanized Thai restaurants.  After taking a bite of the Larb, we were surprised on how "non-American" the dish was.  The salad was quite spicy, like the way it supposed to be, and the waitress didn't even ask us if we wanted it spicy.  The seasoning tasted very authentic.  It was strong Thai flavor seasoning, and they didn't tone it down a bit for the American customers.

[Irvine] [Taiwanese] 饗 Asian Tapas

Asian Tapas
饗
6380 Irvine Blvd
Irvine, CA 92620
(949) 651-8999
http://www.asian-tapas.com

We went to Home Depot to get boxes for moving.  We didn't even know Asian Tapas is in the same plaza as Home Depot.  Since the restaurant was right there, we decided to grab an early dinner there.


排骨飯 Pork Chop Rice ($6.99)

We sat outside since the weather was nice.  I ordered Pork Chop Rice.  I didn't think the pork chop looked good on the plate.  It looked rather dry.  But you can't judge a book by its cover.  The pork chop was rather tender.  The breading had really good flavor.  The meat sauce over the rice was just alright though.  I did like the fact that they gave you a lot of green vegetable.

[San Gabriel] [Chinese] 湖南酒家 Hunan Style Restaurant

Hunan Style Restaurant
湖南酒家
529 E Valley Blvd
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 288-0758

I went back to parents' house to have dinner with them.  Dad wanted to try the new Hunan Style Restaurant.  The owner used to own Hunan Restaurant (湖南小館), which was located at where Chung King Restaurant is right now.  Then they moved to Alhambra, but a fire destroyed the restaurant.  After that they opened a new place in Rosemead called Hunan Seafood (大湘園).  And now they just moved to this new location with a new name, Hunan Style Restaurant.  I don't know how my dad knew all that info, but that was what he told me.



We got there really early, maybe 5-ish.  The restaurant was empty.  But by 6, this place was completely full on a week night.  There are many hand written Chinese menus on the wall.  They were a little hard to read though.  I think those were special dishes that are not in the menu.

[Tustin] [Korean] Corea BBQ Restaurant

Corea BBQ Restaurant
14551 Red Hill Ave
Tustin, CA 92780
(714) 508-0024

A good thing about food court is that everyone can find something to their liking.  I wanted Korean Chinese, but Dr. P was more in the mood for some real Korean food.



Corea BBQ Restaurant has Korean BBQ, soon tofu, noodle, rice, and all those typical Korean dishes.  Price is very reasonable.

[Tustin] [Fusion] Ching Chinese Express

Ching Chinese Express
14551 Red Hill Ave
Tustin, CA 92780
(714) 838-8001

For some reason, I was craving for Korean Jajangmyun.  A quick search online, I found out that the food court at Freshia Market in Tustin has jajangmyun.  Perfect!  We can do our grocery shopping and eat dinner at the same time.



The food court has 3 restaurants: Korean Chinese, Korean Japanese, and Korean Korean.  The Korean Chinese one is called Ching Chinese Express.  A lot people ordered jajangmyun from here.

[Costa Mesa] [Mexican] El Toro Bravo Tortilleria

El Toro Bravo Tortilleria
745 W 19th St #G
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
(949) 631-4464
http://www.eltorobravo.net

Dr. P had to go to Costa Mesa to take care of some business.  He wanted me to go with him.  He knew that he could only use food to lure me into going.  We found El Toro Bravo Tortilleria on Yelp.  It was listed as #1 when we search for restaurants in Costa Mesa.



We saw a big "El Toro Bravo" sign when we entered the parking lot.  We walked in, and it was a small Mexican market.  Uh.... where is the taco?  We asked the lady at the counter.  She said, "tortilleria in the back corner parking lot."  The small tortilleria was tucked away in the corner.  But we really should've seen it with the long line of people waiting.  Food price is really cheap here.  Combo meals run about $6.

[Corona Del Mar] [American] Port Restaurant & Bar

Port Restaurant & Bar
440 Heliotrope Ave
Corona Del Mar, CA 92625
(949) 723-9685
http://www.portcdm.com

Dr. P was out in LA for the day.  I went over to my friend Wen's place for afternoon tea.  I had one of the Groupon from Port Restaurant & Bar, which was going to expire on that same day.  I gave it to Wen and her hubby to have dinner there that night.  But they insisted that I go with them and be the third wheel of the night.  They said that I wouldn't be the third wheel because their 12 year old son would be my date.  Yeah, I always wanted to see how it would feel to date a younger man.  haha....



Port is a cute little place.  The dining room was elegant, but still feel pretty casual.  There were guests in shorts and sandals.  There were also guests with suits and cocktail dresses.  Our waiter had bandage on one of his hand.  I asked him if he was ok.  He told me the whole story of how he burned his hand just earlier, and how he had to wrap it for sanitary reason so the oozes from his wound wouldn't contaminate our food.  Uhhhhh.... exactly the things I wanted to hear from our waiter before the meal.

紅燒雞腿 Taiwanese Style Stewed Chicken Legs

Whole chicken legs are SUPER cheap at Fresh & Easy.  6 thighs and 6 legs are only about $5.  I bought one pack and made Taiwanese style stewed chicken leg.


紅燒雞腿 Taiwanese Style Stewed Chicken Legs

Taiwanese stew is very easy to make.  Soy sauce, rice wine, water, crushed garlic, green onion, and a pack of "stew bag (滷包)" that you can purchase from Chinese supermarket.  The stew bag has spices and herbs in it, but it's optional.  You can also add ginger.  Most people do, I think.  But personally I don't like ginger so I never add ginger to my stew.  The amount that I added is approximately rice wine : soy sauce : water = 1 : 2 : 3.  At this point, I have no idea how the sauce tastes like.  But no worry.  Just wait till the sauce started boiling, then you can throw the meat in there.  You can also use pork or beef.  But I wouldn't use chicken breast.  They breast meat won't taste as good as leg meat.  Chicken wings works great in this sauce though.  When the sauce starts to boil again, turn the heat to low, cover the pot, and let the meat stew for about 1 hour.