food glorious food

I have some pictures I've been meaning to post (some more recent than others -- thanks for your reminder, Mike!), and they all happen to revolve around food -- what a surprise!!

A flash from the past outside my favorite vegetarian Indian restaurant -- that's Esther, me, and Sal outside of Branto. I think the last time the three of us were together was back in 8th grade! Esther was in HK for most of October doing a medical rotation and staying with her parents who are living here again. I ran into her at church, and somehow wasn't surprised!


Here are Mike and Kai with our paper masala dosa.
A spontaneous dinner with Helen at EXP at Festival Walk last night. We were surprised when we got to bypass the long waiting line and were taken to this nice ice-rink-view table. The only reason we could come up with for our speedy seating was that they mistook us for irrate customers when we asked how long the wait would be.


Our special drinks. I love the juices at EXP!
And this is from today -- lunch with my parents at the Turkish Kitchen, a new restaurant in TST. I recognized one of the cooks from another Turkish restaurant in TST -- Istanbul Express -- and he remembered me too (guess I went there a little too often last year...). He's working at this new restaurant now.


The owner was really nice -- talked to us about Turkey quite a bit and gave us free apple tea and Turkish coffee. I attempted to say "thank you" in Turkish at one point (something forever etched on my brain after last year's trip), but got no response, which means I either said it too quietly, or was utterly unintelligible.

Here's the apple tea.
My dad got Turkish coffee. I passed because I don't like chewing on a mouth-full of grounds at the end of my coffee. To each their own.