Cultural Nights with wheels

Since we barely have time to do some research after I gave birth, we picked countries that we were familiar with instead of our usual draw lots.  Also, most of it we had to do at home or with an entourage. For the second half of the year, not only do these dates have third wheel aka baby, Topeng's parents are chaperoning as well.:p

July: Japan! Japan!
We were on a ramen craze. First, Tatay made some beef ramen. Then we went to Ikkyu to try theirs after church but we discovered that they are closed on Sundays so we had to come back another day and settled for Sushi Garden, an eat all you can sushi place in Foothills Mall. All of these on different days of the month of course. Photos in Sushi Garden here.

L: With Tatay's homemade ramen

R: Tonkotsu, Miso Ramen, Shoyu Ramen at Ikkyu

Movie is Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro. It was weird or maybe I just don't understand anime. LOL.

August: Hula Hulawaian

Tatay made some Hawaiian Pulled Pork sliders (Pulled pork with pineapple in Hawaiian sweet rolls). The pork was cooked using the beer (Guiness) from my birthday. Oha! Chume-chef mode. He also cooked some spam for one of our breakfasts.

 

Our movie choices were Godzilla, Blue Crush and Soul Surfer. Tatay played the last one and I'm glad he did. Not knowing what the movie was about before hand, I predicted that something bad was going to happen and was afraid of that. In the end, Bethany Hamilton's story is impressive.

September : Cuban

Nanay is back at work so we took advantage of a lunch date near our office. Since, there isn't really a Cuban resto around, we headed for a place with Cuban sandwich instead.The cuban sandwich was good but not the best and pricier than it should be. It was so un-memorable that we had to walk around the area again to remember the name of the place for the purpose of documentation. The name was Saint House and it is now replaced by another business.

The movie is Che. I slept through it because history and war movies are not really my cup of tea so no Che part 2 for me.

October: German

As it is the month of beer (Octoberfest), we celebrated with this and grocery-bought sausage (Aidell's chicken and apple). Since I'm still nursing during this time and to help with my milk production, we bought some non-alcoholic beers (Becks and Erdinger) at BevMo! (No, I'm not shouting. It's just the name of the beverage store.:p)

According to Pop, our movie for that month was The Diary of Anne Frank but for some reason I have a vague recollection of watching it. I guess it was too tragic that I chose to forget. Another case of being afraid to watch what was going to happen I guess. Also, the story was in Holland so I don't know how I came to agree to watch it. Another option was The Pianist but it is not ringing a bell for me either.

November: French

I made some crepes using sariwang lumpia wrapper from scratch, canned fruit, whipped cream, ice cream, chocolate syrup and powdered sugar. Sinful, I know!


Movie is The Hundred Foot Journey. As I am writing this I remember the story line but had to google the title. The keywords I used: movie about a French Michelin star. Good thing I found it but up until now I still don't get why they used that title.

December: Greek

While looking for a place which has a private room to hold Lily's dedication reception, I stumbled upon this Greek place Fronimo's Greek Cafe so decided to give it a try. We then discovered that their food is an acquired taste for us. Everything seems to have a lemon sour taste, evem the rice, and not the good sinigang or hilaw na mangga kind. Therefore, the 'rents did not like it. Frownimos pala. wakoko!

Movie is My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The rom-com was a good break from our unintentional non-fictional movie streak.

Cultural Night: Korean, Chinese, American

Like my period, I'm so late with my Cultural Night blog entries (LOL) so I'm making it a quarterly instead of a monthly update this time. Anubayan, pa-"low-key" ng pa-"low-key" mga dates namin..transitioning to parenthood ba itech? :))

Korean

We planned to have this last December when we went to east coast but we forgot with all the other kinds of food and activities already provided to us so it was moved to January when we were back in Tucson.

Food: Seoul Kitchen

We almost forgot the name of this restaurant if it weren't for the pictures that Pop took. I was telling him that it's just sad that it meant that our date nights were becoming less and less memorable but then he reminded me that he chose this restaurant because it seemed more appropriate as he will be dining with his Seoul-mate...acheche! sige na nga, pasado na!

Let's see... we had some kind of korean pancake made of vegetables and tempura for appetizer. The pancake looks like okoy but with vegetables so it was kind of oily and I'm not really a fan of the vegetables used. The tempura is not really that Korean-y...we just ordered it because Popy was craving for it. For the main course, I ordered Kalbi Tang and Pop ordered Beef Bulgogi. They came with miso soup, rice and kimchi. Needless to say, we were so full afterwards and still had enough for take-away. I tried the kimchi for the first time but I didn't like it, maybe because it is an acquired taste or it's made of vegetables (Sorry, baby!) but everything else was satisfying. In terms of ambiance, it was casual dining and there was a TV playing what looks like a Korean reality show with no sounds. It looks dramatic but we couldn't take it seriously because of the man's blond hair. :))

Bean Dae Deok: Korean Style Pancake

Movie: 작업의 정석 The Art of Seduction

We were initially planning to do a Korean TV series marathon but things got busy and I'm too lazy to read the subtitles. Being our anniversary month, we decided to watch this light romantic comedy. Like most romantic movies, it does not make sense but it is good for entertainment. :))

Chinese

With all the chaos of transferring homes, we squeezed this in February.

Food/Activity: siopao and siomai

Since we were already planning on making siopao and siomai, we counted it as our chinese food (and activity). I know that it is really more Filipino-Chinese than Chinese but we didn't want to spend after our biggest purchase yet (aka house) so that will have to do. For siopao, we made asado. Admittedly, this was the shortcut version: using McCormick asado mix for the filling and Panlasang Pinoy's recipe for the dough and siopao sauce. It turned out ok though I remember the Goldilocks bake book we did before was tastier and had better texture. Oh well, I guess that's the price we pay for time and effort or beginner's luck. For the siomai, we made pork (with some shrimp) siomai. For the filling, I used the usual recipe from PanlasangPinoy but bought the wrapper from Walmart instead of our local Asian supermarket (Leelee). Since Pop is the master wrapper for the dimsums ("Intcheck it out, y'all!":p) and I'm the official mixer, I'll leave to him to review which wrapper is better.

Movie: Man of Tai Chi
Damn, another movie with subtitles! Pop thought that there weren't that much subtitles, since Keanu Reeves is in it, but apparently not, so I'm out of luck. There were A LOT of fight scenes... I guess Pop is taking advantage of watching all those violence while baby is not yet out.

American 
Monthsary Date for March

Food: Red Lobster

Since I was craving for some seafood and I felt the baby was not getting enough omega-3 due to lack of fresh seafood in Arizona, this was our choice of restaurant. We took advantage of the Lobsterfest promo and coupon. Pop got the Dueling Lobster Tails (A roasted Maine lobster tail topped with tender shrimp in a creamy garlic sauce paired with a golden-baked Maine lobster tail with crab-and-seafood stuffing. Served over mashed potatoes, roasted tomatoes and green beans.) and I got the Lobster Lover's Dream (A succulent rock lobster tail and sweet split Maine lobster tail, roasted and served with lobster-and-shrimp linguini Alfredo.). Both came with biscuits, salad, and a choice of side dish which I wasn't aware of until our waiter took our order (which I wish I read somewhere in their menu so I could have planned for a more balanced plate). Also, I couldn't choose among the salad dressing options because the only vinaigrette they have is red wine vinaigrette. Anyway, fishy ambiance smell, unbalanced plate and limited salad dressing aside, my craving was satisfied.

Movies: Academy Award movies
This made a perfect excuse to watch a couple of movies that won in the Academy Awards which was held at the start of the month. The first movie on our playlist was Dallas Buyers Club. Matthew McConaughey is so freaking thin in this movie so I guess he really deserved the best actor award for doing that to himself.

The second movies was 12 Years a Slave. Pinagma-"Lupita"n ng todo si Lupita dito. Wakoko! I guess the pattern now is to have a tortured movie role to win an academy award.:p 

Lastly we watched The Wolf of Wall Street, we got to learn some loop holes in the stock market that we could use if there is a readily available DeLorean that actually travels back through time. DiCaprio was good but was outshined by McConaughey in Dallas Buyes Club.

There was not much to add to our playlist because we have already watched the other winning (and nominated) movies before namely:

• The Great Gatsby: We watched this last October, I think. It was our drinking game movie with "Gatsby" as the trigger word. Needless to say, we got drunk and wasn't able to finish the movie.::))
  
• Frozen: We watched this in the cinema on our trip to Long Beach last Thanksgiving. I haven't seen the trailer before I watched it so when I heard the title and knowing the people who invited us to watch it were Pop's guy friends, I thought it was some sort of suspense (like Taken) in a snowstorm filled place. Little did I know that it was a Disney movie.:)) Given the raves and different covers done by other people, the movie and music were obviously a hit.
• Gravity: We watched this the previous month if I remember correctly. Yung feeling ni Sandra Bullock nung mauubos na yung oxygen sa helmet nya pareho siguro ng feeling pagbarado ilong at tenga ko due to pregnancy. :p
• American Hustle (nominated): Naumay kami ni Pop sa dibdib ni Amy Adams dito so no props for costume design for this.:)) Di ko rin mashado gets yung con at entrapment na nangyari...kala ko parang Leverage lang. Hindi rin bagay kay Jennifer Lawrence yung pang-nanay na role kasi mukha pa siyang may baby fats.
• Captain Philips (nominated): Nainip ako sa tagal nila mahuli yung hijackers. In fairness, thriller nga talaga sha. Tapos di ko ma-differentiate yung itsura nung mga hijackers kaya ni-labelan ni Pop para sa kin: si ipin (ung leader), si tangkad, si bata at yung drayber. Sana po hindi ko mapaglihian ang mga to.

Cultural Night: Mexico

Food is Popy's favorite El Guero Canelo. Its Sonoran Dog was featured in Man vs. Food before. However, we like to order the carne asada burritos as they are meetier! The servings are also very reasonable.

Movie is Once Upon a Time in Mexico. It's supposed to be an action thriller but I found some parts funny and silly like Johnny Depp's character's "fake hand" and the quip about being a "Mexican" not a "Mexican't" :))

Cultural Night: Vietnam

Better late than never. We almost ditched our cultural night for October because I had so many plans in mind for the month of Popy's 30th birthday pero naisip ko lugi naman ako...I want to be consistent with our date nights even though I always end up pushing it. Men!

Anyhoo, for our food, we dined in Com Tam Thuan Kieu after some last minute grocery shopping at the Asian Supermarket (Lee Lee). I tried to Google Translate the meaning of the restaurant in English and it gave an alternative spelling with accents and it only translated some of the words: Com translated to "rice" while Tam translated to "center" or "heart". Thuan Kieu had no translation so go figure.:)) I ate at this place before so I knew that their servings are good enough for two so Popy and I shared this time. As usual we ordered an appetizer sampler so we can try almost anything. This is #1on the appetizer menu below:

We thought since it looks like a lot that we would end up bringing the rest for takeout but we ended up finishing it. Yummy! Btw, I tried Google translating yummy as well....too many words! Hahaha! Here is Popy smiling with our appetizers:

For our main course, we got the large pho with all the meat in it which is #1 as well on this page of this menu:

The movie of choice is about the Vietnamese war, Platoon. I'll leave it to Pop to review this as violence, drugs and Charlie Sheen are not really my cup of tea.

[Topeng] All I can say is wow! I always thought that it was Charlie Sheen who was in the poster but I was so surprised that it was Willem Dafoe (Green Goblin) which was surprisingly one of the heroes here. There were also a lot of pretty famous actors here when they were not yet so famous. 

As for the story I like it. but be warned, it is not a feel good movie. 

Cultural Night: Russia

It's our first civil wedding anniversary! Popy got me a pot of orange chrysanthemums. TNL: di alam ang difference ng chrysanthemum sa carnation, which is the first anniversary flowers. :)) I got him a gift certificate for him to buy a piece of plastic with a clock in it for our paper/plastic/clock anniversary.

For this month, Russia was picked. We went to Kalina Restaurant for a dinner date. The good reviews in Yelp are true. It is a quaint little place with good service.

Russian Matryoshka dolls and tea set

For our appetizer, we got Vladimir's Special which is a sampler of all their appetizers on the menu.

From left clockwise: Piroshki, Herring Wearing Fur Coat, Stuffed Eggs, Spinach Salmon Roll

I'll leave it to their menu the description for each. For me, out of the appetizers, the stuffed eggs and spinach salmon roll are worth trying.

The first time Pop tasted Herring Wearing Fur Coat, he didn't really understand what he was eating but he kept on munching so I guess it was good. It's basically beets with herring with vegetables and mayonnaise.

For the main course, Pop had Beef Stroganoff with Mushroom Barley soup while I ordered Chicken Kiev with Garden Salad.

Garden Salad

Mushroom Barley soup

Beef Stroganoff

Chicken Kiev

The food was as good as it looked! Since we were too full for dessert, we had the Russian Day and Night for take-away. voskhititel'nyy!

Russian Day and Night

For the movie, Popy chose Anastasia. I already watched it before but I already forgot the story so now I remember again.

For the activity, we went to see the Jordan World Circus. It's not the Russian circus but I guess it will have to do. We availed of the groupon. However, we should have brought some cash as the food and attractions only accepts cash as mode of payment.

We were supposed to also go to Flandrau observatory as Russia is known for space travel but things became hectic so I guess will have to go some other time.

Cultural Night: Iranian/Persian

We had our date night on a Friday. After work, we went straight to the only Persian restaurant in Tucson listed by Yelp called Ali Baba. We passed through several alley ways before finding the restaurant. Kelangan dumaan ng "Ali" bago "Baba" ng kotse. Wakoko!

First, we ordered an Ali Baba Platter containing several kinds of appetizers.

Hummus: This is a dip made of chickpeas.

Babaganush: This is a dip made of eggplant and yogurt

Pita bread (not pictured above): This is a common flat bread served with the hummus and baba ganoush dips. Pop is not really a fan of dips but he liked them in this case.

Tabbouleh: This is a vegetable salad with a vinaigrette-like dressing.

Falafel: These looks like a meatball but is made of beans. It has some similarity to buchi.

Stuffed Grape Leaves: This looks like a suman with grape leaves as wrapper and sour rice as stuffing. Although I like sour foods, this one is somewhat weird tasting for me.

Overall, there were a lot of flavors on the platter.

For our drinks, I ordered the cucumber lemonade (since I saw that it had a good review on Yelp) and Pop initially ordered yogurt drink but they ran out of stock so he ended up with saffron lemonade. The two lemonades looked very similar to each other so I don't really know the difference but they were both very refreshing. I will try to replicate that cucumber lemonade someday.

For the main course, I ordered Lamb Shank with Saffron rice while Pop got the Beef Shawarma Plate. The plates were huge so we weren't able to finish it and had the leftover for takeout. I didn't know that saffron rice is just a fancy name for yellow rice so I was expecting rice with actual saffron in it. As expected, the lamb was gamey which was somewhat a mistake on my part as my teeth were sensitive at that time. Since I am not a usual lamb eater, I thought I was just too full from eating the appetizers that's why I didn't taste it as much. But when I ate it as leftover, I realize that the lamb is not really that flavorful. As for Pop's shawarma, this was actually under "Mediterranean Specialties" not "Persian Specialties" on the menu (which we have a separate draw lot category for) but he has been craving for it so I allowed him to order it. His comment: the meat was not tender and it was not the shawarma he was used to back home.

They also have some Persian desserts on their menu but since we were already full we passed.

For our activity, we tried hookah. Ali Baba also has a hookah lounge beside the restaurant but we later found out that it was already closed. :(

The restaurant referred us to another nearby hookah bar named Casablanca. As we have no experience with Tucson's nightlife, the place looked shady to us but the server was really friendly and helpful, always fixing our hookah and telling us about the dynamics of the place. According to her, we were on the "laidback" area of the place and the party/music are usually out back.

It's a good thing we ate dinner somewhere else judging from the "cleanliness" of their toilets but it was an ok place for hookah and free wifi which allowed us to do some last minute research on hookah smoking which is not as harmless as we thought it was so feeling hipster lang kami for a moment there. 

Disclaimer (to our future kid/s who might read this): We are only mimicking the Iranian culture by trying some hookah from a legitimate establishment which only contains the smallest amount of tobacco with fruit flavoring. Smoking is still dangerous to your health. 

Some other aspects of Persian culture include that can be explored:

• Poetry: According to wiki, Persian literature is one of the world's oldest and best known literature. Unfortunately for us, none of the titles seem familiar to me.:p
• Carpets: We could have gone carpet shopping but they do not come cheap and we do not have a necessity for it as of now. Carpet cleaning also doesn't seem to be a sexy thing to do on a date night.:))
• Gardens: The Taj Mahal is one of the largest Persian Garden interpretations in the world. Given this, I initially suggested going to the botanical garden but we already did that when we went to Tohono Chul.
• Soccer: I believe this is a popular sport in Persia but it is also a popular sport in other countries.
• Persian cats: I thought of going to an animal shelter to find one but I have no plans of adopting a pet.

After the our night out, we headed home to watch the movie. Going with the supposedly Ali Baba pattern, we watched Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves from Amazon. 

While watching, I later realized that Ali Baba is not really a Persian movie. They keep mentioning "Baghdad" which is in Iraq! Since it was already late, we did not bother to change it to Prince of Persia, Aladdin or Sinbad which could probably have been more appropriate. We still don't know the differences between Persian/Iranian, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Arabian. If there is a Venn diagram out there on these then it would help us on our succeeding cultural date nights.:))