Maker's Mark Distillery

Maker's Mark is my favorite bourbon.  Everything about it is awesome!  The red wax dripping from the top of the bottle, the smokey sweet taste you get from the barrel, and the cool billboards created by their marketing team! I mean I just LOVE Maker's Mark.

Well, before I met Maker's Mark I was really good friends with Jack Daniels... But Beth introduced me to her hometown favorite beverage and I got hooked.  Beth also told me about the Maker's Mark Ambassador Program... Once you sign up for the Ambassador Program, they will start the next batch of bourbon with your name on it.  And it takes approximately 7-8 years to produce a batch of bourbon.

A few months ago, Beth got a notice that her batch is ready to be picked up... So we made sure to visit the distillery during this trip to Kentucky... Besides, Its Mother's Day and Beth's mom and our friend Van has never been to the distillery before.

Check out this bottle ... Its got Beth all over it !!!


Don't they look like little bourbon scientists? getting ready to DIP !!!






After Beth got her very OWN Maker's Mark... We went on a quick tour of the distillery... When I say "quick" I mean tour guide Jeff left out a lot of major details, only because he's new... So I guess it's ok?

Ummmmm I don't think so... I actually felt bad for my mother-in-law and Van... because it was their first visit and they didn't learn much from the tour at all... they didn't get to hear the history of the bourbon... nor see the assembly line of how the bourbon was bottled and dipped... It was a LAME tour nevertheless...



But hey I got some cool photos though!!! check em out :)











Maker's Mark turned the old 1800s toll house into a cafe right by the entrance of the distillery. The Toll House Cafe is a great place to grab a quick bite before you head on the road again.



I got the Bourbon Pull Pork and it totally hit the spot!


Beth's Pimentos and cheese


Here are some information if you are interested in visiting the distillery:

Maker's Mark Distillery
3350 Burk Spring Road,
Loretto, KY
(270) 865-2881

click here if you are interested in becoming an Ambassador
Make sure you don't get Tour Guide Jeff :)

My Lunch is Better Than Yours

My co-worker Roberto brought me a pull pork sandwich from Pecos Bill's BBQ in Glendale. This sandwich is messy but extremely delicious... The sauce is different from any other BBQ sandwiches, they drench your meat with this smokey gravy that's to die for! I think I might want another one in a few hours! sooooo good!

All Joe Can Eat Korean BBQ

Two words:  FOOD PORN

An hour before I got off work, I received a text message from Beth... "Jake wants to threat us Korean BBQ tonight and it's all you can eat".  Well, that made my day!  Free Korean BBQ and its all you can eat?! I purposely left my Subway sandwich at work, just so I can eat more at dinner :)

Moodaepo 2 All You Can Eat BBQ - Meat/Drink/Music/Flirt (Flirt? hahah)

We showed up to the restaurant, and the place was BANANAS !!! Its a dance party / bbq!  It was packed with people waiting in line, the place was setup like a dance club, crazy lights and loud music! All you could hear was that stupid Far East Movement G6 song... But the wait was so long... its nothing like the G6.

The wait was worth it tho... We had beef tongue slices, briskets, spicy chicken, squid, pork belly and some other meat... We ate so much I don't even remember the exact list of meat we ordered.

The meal lasted about 2 hours... till the place closed down and they literately had to take our beer glasses away! At the end of the night, we suffered food coma and excess gas!

Viewer discretion is advised... MORE food porn images below

Dumpling 10053 - El Monte

10053 Valley Blvd.  Ste 2
El Monte, CA 91731
(626) 350-0188

The name sounds funny, but the food here is quite serious!  I like this place, I like it a lot!  As much as I have a soft side for Ding Tai Fung,  I have to say, Ding Tai Fung is only worth going when you are in Taiwan.  The branch here in Arcadia is a rip off, and the servers are lame.  Dumpling 10053 is cheap and they have this awesome signature pumpkin shrimp dumplings!

Because my father-in-law is in town, my parents wanted to take him out to a proper Taiwanese dinner.  So my parents decided to take him to a dumpling house.  You must be wondering how they got the name... Its their address, yup they named the place after the address of the restaurant!  I read the reviews from this one annoying Yelper... She seemed to be confused with the name of the restaurant... umm did you read the address above the door?  #shutupandeatyourdumplings

My mom has a habit of ordering a bunch of food... so much food that we ran out of table space for the dishes!



You are probably wondering... what are the red and green dumplings?  Well, the green dumplings are Chinese cabbage and pork dumplings and the red dumplings are goji and chicken dumplings.



These little guys are delicious! although... not as good as what we had in Taiwan, but for now, this will do!



This isn't the best dumpling restaurant ever, but if you are craving for a nice dumpling meal and you don't want to put a hole in your wallet, this is definitely the place to go!

We're Back! Now What?

We are Back!!! back, back to Cali...

This is the moment we've been waiting for after 3 weeks in Taiwan.

PIZZA! We miss pizza so much!  Minutes after Beth and I stepped into our home in Pasadena, I drove to Atwater Village and ordered Crispy Crust pizza and wings! The food was so good and we ate so fast... by the time I remember to take a photo of the pizza for the blog... we had eaten most of it! Oops!



Next morning... We woke up and decided that... well, since we just had pizza... we should hit up Mexican food right? why not! So I went to El Taquito Mexican Restaurant (Lake Ave. and Villa in Pasadena) and bought two burritos, two tacos and some chips'n guacamole :) now lets EAT!



I may be a Taiwanese, but I sure do love pizza and Mexican food!

Body Parts and Cages

Introducing 龍山寺 Longshan Temple

This temple is one of the most popular temples for the civilians to come and pray.  Most of the people pray for health, money, lottery numbers and more money.  When you walk in to the gate of the temple you will smell the burning incense from the faithful believers.



Body parts and cages?  well, this madness didn't happen inside the temple...

When we were done visiting the temple we noticed that there's a small alley market next to the temple.  We decided to check it out.  We thought there might be some street food... well, there's definitely "food"... uncooked "food"... It's more like a butcher alley!!!  Chickens in cages... body parts from chickens, pigs and cows... Last time I saw a live chicken getting butchered was in college... oh college days...

Not free range chickens


Black chicken, white chicken, yellow chicken... you name it!


Charlotte's Web? aw Babe...


Check out more photos from the slideshow below... this is bananas!

Southbound Trilogy - Part 1

日月潭 Sun Moon Lake... #FAIL

Taiwan High Speed Rail (HSR) was FAST... like 189mph fast!!! normally it would take people 4 hrs to get to Taichung,  HSR was only 45 minutes... not even enough time for me to finish my nap :)

When we got to the famous Sun Moon Lake (wiki it if you're not sure what it is)  It was nice and clear! great day for photos! Tourists everywhere, people taking pictures and getting ready to get on the tour boat! What a treat!



We walked around the little town by the harbor and found a restaurant that serves Aboriginal cuisines.  We ordered minced pork rice (their version was called Old School Rice)... which was an eye catcher for me... must eat the old school rice, right? ha.  And surely we both inhaled the rice within minutes.



The boar meat noodle soup was a nice treat as well :) yum yum!  not too shabby for my first 'boar" experience... its like dining with John Locke.



After lunch we decided to hop on the boat that tours around the lake... sounds great right? well, the minute we handed our boat ticket to the tour guide...  the fog rolled into the harbor... i mean... its like Stephen King fog... we looked at each other and literately had the "FML" look on our face... this is #$%@!!! and then it started to rain !!! again... #$%@!!!

Its like our trip to Yangmingshan... sigh





Well, the plan of touring around the lake failed, so we met up with our friend Jim Beam and checked in to this Honeymoon Inn that my aunt had reserved for us :) this hotel was very "purple" and the front desk lady was totally Twilight Zoned out...



I don't think it's healthy for me to write any more about this disastrous day... For sure the photos will do the justice... Let's just hope that tomorrow will be a better day... I hope...

Pork Blood and Fish Balls

淡水 Tamsui is a city north of Taipei. They are famous for fish balls! They even have a fish ball museum! Before I get to the fish balls... let me introduce my American friends this little popsicle looking thing called 豬血糕 (Pork blood cake).



This is one of my childhood favorites, a true Taiwanese street cuisine! It is a made of pork blood and sticky rice... covered with awesome sauce and peanut powder and love!

Now... back to the fish balls!!! Fish balls in Tamsui is famous and delicious! Every fish ball is stuffed with a small amount of pork, just enough to make the fish ball juicy and chewy at the same time! Beth said, "This is the best fish ball I've EVER had!"



If you want to try the best fish ball ever... I suggest you visit Tamsui, Taiwan!

Dinner with Rotory International in Taiwan

I'm not quite sure exactly what the Rotory Club is. My aunt Anita is a member, so is my uncle. They invited us to a special dinner event held at an upscale restaurant in Banqiao. We had no idea what to expect, but we both knew that we will definitely be fed with lots of yummy food! This dinner came with a whopping 10 course meal and complimentary wine, tea and Mccallan scotch (well, the Mccallan scotch was from my uncle ha!).

First Course - Giant serving of sashimi with a miniature ice sculpted snowman. We both did the "woo... ahhh..." when the dish was served.



Then followed with shark fin soup, jumbo shrimps, shrimp sticky rice, steam eggs, pigs' feet, chicken stew soup, fish collar, sweet buns and fruit plate. According to my Aunt Anita... "Everything here is expensive! so eat up!!!"



Throughout the event we had to kanpai (drink toast) everyone in the Rotory Club and they had to do the same to our table! People got really wasted and there were lots of karaoke and dancing!!! My aunt and uncle won raffle prizes... they ended up giving all the prizes to us! So we came home with three stacks of cakes, one box of giant Asian pears, and a makeup gift bag :) I hope we get invited again!

Home Land! DAY ONE Part 1

Beth and I have been planning this trip to Taiwan for ages! I wanted to show her my roots and GREAT food! We love to share so this blog will feature photos, videos and fun stories of our fabulous adventure in Taiwan. NOT "Chinese Taipei"

14 hours on the plane we finally made it to Taiwan!... Soooo LETS EAT!!! On our way to the breakfast cafe with Uncle Quan we witnessed a crazy crash involving two motor scooters. The lady got t-boned, flipped off her scooter and broke her arm... It was quite a scene... but we were hungry so we kept on walking... The breakfast cafe had sandwiches, burgers and coffee... not that interesting actually ha! Off to the next foodventure!

Banqiao Market


Believe it or not, my grandpa (who passed away when I was about 12) used to be the "dude in charge" of a farmers market... this market is located in the Banqiao District. We met up with my grandma and she wants to give us a quick tour of how Taiwanese people do their grocery shopping, This market is not like any typical farmers market, not only can you find all kinds of fruit, vegetable, meat and fish... you can get a haircut or trim your brows before you check off your grocery list.

After we left the Banqiao Market grandma suggested that we should check out this hokkaido style hot pot restaurant inside the Banqiao Train Station. I thought I made some kick ass hot pot... I was wrong... This place is insane delicious, the herbal soup base and the meat quality is out of this world! Bottom line is... I wish y'all can smell the photos!





and that was our first lunch in Taiwan together as a family :)