Weekend with the boys

... the boys, the boys, the boys~  Hehe, couldn't resist!  (That's a shoutout to Kpop, by the way :P *feels so proud of self*)  Anyways, Josh came back to St. Louis, so now we were only missing Anna!  ... and possibly Book, but no one knows what his mysterious plans are @_@''  Daniel drove us to the airport to pick Josh up, and we went to Wonton King for dinner.

I've ordered delivery from here multiple times during my freshman and sophomore year, but I had never eaten in situ.  Actually, I thought this place would be really small and dinky (probably because of its name), but when we walked in, the room was pretty big with booths and tables~

Sean, Josh, and Debra!

Ehhhh?  Where's Debra, you say?  Hehe, she called right when we got there, so I talked to her while the boys ordered and then handed the phone to Josh when they finished.  She's in Taiwan and enjoying her break before her classes begin!  Technology is so cool... we're eating dinner half a world away, and we can talk to her when she wakes up in the morning :)

The owner chided Josh for ordering Beef and Broccoli (too boring, she says!), so if you're Asian, don't go for the commonly Americanized dishes, else risk being judged ;)  Haha~  So the boys ordered Seafood and Sizzling Rice soup, which the owner ladled out into bowls for us herself.  We were one out of two groups eating at the restaurant, so I guess she had more time to interact with her customers than usual :P  She added a plate of sizzling rice into the soup, and it made sizzling sounds (i.e. Sszzz, bsstt, sttzzz! I think that's what it sounds like?  Haha!)!  They turned soft after sitting in the soup for a while~

I liked the vegetables here!

Daniel had an intense dance practice before dinner and ate 2 cheeseburgers from McDonald's, so he ate the least during dinner.  Didn't even finish the soup!  @_@

*so full*

The other dishes quickly arrived, and I was happy when the water spinach came!  Green vegetables, om nom nom!  (I didn't go grocery shopping for the week, so I was eating out a lot, as well as nuking Lean Cuisine, boiling canned soup, and steaming rice for a while.. I missed my veggies :'P)  It was a little on the oily side, but still had that garlic-y goodness ^^b

Sean wanted a squid dish that he gets with Anna when they come here, but since Wonton King recently changed the menu, he couldn't find it.  The owner said it was the Salt and Pepper Squid, but when it arrived at the table, Sean looked a little put down and said it wasn't the right dish. I asked her about it after dinner, and it turned out that it's an off-menu item now.  She said that you can come in and just tell the waiter what you feel like eating ("I'm in the mood for something spicy... but refreshing.  Seafood would be nice.  Could you do that for me?") instead of ordering directly off the menu.  That way the "menu can really come alive," to put it in her words!  She seemed really excited, as did the other waiter, haha~  We were all a little surprised and overwhelmed with how much they were talking to us!~

Salt and Pepper Squid

I liked the salt and pepper squid, which is just like calamari :)  Daniel said it's like something that should belong in the Bahamas, haha!  Good memories~  I think it reminded him of cracked conch! :D  Yum yum!  But another patron walked in by himself, and the owner asked him if he wanted the salt and pepper squid.  I guess he's a usual customer, and that this dish is his favorite!

Umm.. some beef.. dish.

Yes..  I don't know what dish this was ^_^''  I was distracted by a cute girl on the phone!  Tee hee~  This one had veggies like baby corn, tomatoes, water chestnut, bamboo, onions, and snow peas!  The beef was pretty tender too :)  My parents' cooking is super light, so whenever I go to Chinese restaurants, I think the dishes are all too oily~  But it went well with the rice :3

Wonton King is one of many restaurants on Olive.  It looks small from the outside, but the banquet room is quite spacious!  I know several friends who come here for dim sum, and their menu is so extensive that many dishes are off the menu.  Make friends with the waiters and owners; they're really nice!~  Drop by if you're looking for another restaurant with Chinese food :)  Ohhh also, the owner is Cantonese, so maybe their dim sum is pretty good?

Wonton King

8116 Olive Boulevard

St. Louis, MO 63130

After dinner, we went to Daniel's apartment (my first time!) to watch a movie.  It was a Korean comedy called "Who Slept with Her?"  Hehe, it was pretty funny, because the night before, I texted Josh to ask if he wanted to watch a movie when he came back.  He asked for the title, and I typed, "Who slept with her?!" and hit send (upon Daniel's suggestion!).  He was like, what?!   Haha, he thought I had texted the wrong person XD  The movie was really funny and ridiculous, but I was embarrassed for quite a few scenes ^__^'' We also saw someone from WashU on live television!  She's a Korean translator for the Starcraft tournament that was in Austin, Texas, so she translates for the Korean gamers when the people interview them.  We were all like, whooooa!  :P  Also, I got to talk to Jeff "for real" for the first time~  He's so funny! :P

~*~

Where are we?

Well, looking at the plate with bulgogi, bean sprouts, and sunny side up eggs, we can only be in one place... UCity Grill!  :D  The boys thought Daniel would still be sleeping, so we headed over by ourselves before doing some grocery shopping.  The owner's mom was on the job today, and she shredded the veggies and cooked us our lunch while we watched her and talked.  In no time, our meals were placed in front of us!

Bibimbap, yummeh!!  ^__^  *heart!*

I am totally in love with UCity's gochujang (red chili sauce), because it's not that spicy and is very sweet :)  The egg placed on top of the bowl looked like a happy little sun, and I gobbled it up with a smile! :P  I saw the lady make more rice, and I think we got the last of the rice, because I got about 5 forkfuls of rice in my lunch.  But it was really good, because I eat the bibimbap for the sauce, veggies, bulgogi, and egg more so than the rice!  :3  Nom nom nom!  I was very satisfied afterwards too~

Josh gave me a box from Debra, and when I opened it I saw her signature Hello Kitty toast and some feathers! Ahhh, feather earrings!  Now I can look like Debra XD  Her sister picked these out, so thank you both to Debra and her sister for thinking of me... and to Josh for its delivery :)

Ooh, so soft!

Okay, this is a picture taken after we played tennis and were all sweaty like crazy.  I was wearing a tank top underneath a hoodie shirt, so it was soaked *ewwww*~  Haha, okie, so just don't judge too hard ;)

Thanks Debra!

Right after I took the picture, I jumped into the shower and took a super cold shower.  Ahh, refreshing!  The boys decided that an hour break to shower would suffice before we headed off to dinner, but first let's get to our little play day outside!

Oh.. this is really random, but look what I bought at Target?!  SO COOL!

Okie, here we are... today is TENNIS!

Yep, Daniel and Sean wanted to play tennis, so I got a ride with them to the court so I could watch them for a little bit and then walk to the swimming pool.  I found Josh in the backseat, and he was going to play too! :)  After I took some pictures, I headed towards the AC and found out that the doors were locked.  D:  What?  I checked online and it said it was open even though it was Memorial day!  Ahhh, so sad :(  I had brought all my swimming stuff and was so excited to jump into the pool -_-''  haha, but then I tried playing tennis, and it was fun!  On to pictures of the boys in action:

Ooh, pro tennis player appearing on court!

Daniel is ready to strike!~

This looks like some karate move :P

Look at Sean's form!  XD (And yes, he did hit the ball back successfully~)

Team Sosh (Sean + Josh, har dee har har)!

I didn't know Josh played tennis, but he's very good at it!

I played a little bit and felt very proud of myself when I could return a ball back to the other side of the court XD  *low standards* All my balls always go really, really high or don't make it across the net.  Durr.. got to work on that!  The day after we played tennis, part of my butt was hurting.  I thought it was because I sit around too much at lab or something, but after I went swimming, my *entire* butt was hurting the same way.  It was sore!  :P  I think tennis gave me a half-a-butt workout ^^b

Daniel drove us back with the windows of his car rolled down and the sunroof open!  Nice~  The wind was like a spa treatment on my sweaty body x_x!  I took off my hoodie shirt to wipe off my sweat, haha, too much information, right?  :D:D:D  We had an hour break to shower and reconvened to go to... Tokyo!  No, really, I swear.  We went to Tokyo. :O

Hehe, not Tokyo, Japan!  Tokyo in St. Louis!  It's a new buffet place that opened, but most of us thought it was just a conveyor belt sushi place.  In fact, it's a buffet *with* a conveyor belt sushi.  That makes it less interesting for me, because less of the focus is on sushi, but I'm always in a mood to try new restaurants ^^v

The plaza outside of Tokyo smelled awful!  D:  I don't even know how to describe it, but I was struggling to stifle my breathing without dying of asphyxiation. @_@''  It was a relief when we walked in.  Smelled weird, but way better than outside!

We were met with a pretty lounge with a fountain, decorative drums, and Chinese dynastic furniture.  I wonder if this is a waiting room?  We were led to a table right away.  Actually, Daniel had sprawled onto one of the chairs, and we didn't realize until later that the host was waiting for us to finish taking pictures to lead us in.. Ahh, sorry!  ORZ

Daniel: "This is actually really uncomfortable."  He blends into the cushion, haha!

The room was really empty, but it might have been because it was Memorial Day.  The buffet included the sushi conveyor belt, a hibachi station, Chinese food, Western food (creamed cheese and mac n' cheese, omgah!!), dim sum, salad, fruit, and dessert area.  There was a *lot* of seafood!  Actually, my second plate (yes, I am a girl, but I do get second, thirds, etc ^^'''') was all seafood!  They had crab, crawfish, shrimp, fish, frog legs, and more~  The food bordered more than half of the restaurant, and it literally took me one whole minute to walk the length (that's not including the time I took to read each dish's name!).

Kitty wants some sushi too!

The sushi was good for a buffet, according to the boys.  I thought the sushi was really weird.  They put seaweed salad inside, which I've never seen done before, but it was still tasty.  Also, I love the bowl of wasabi from which you can get as much wasabi as you want *heart*!  Although some few unfortunate newbies may think it's a bowl of guacamole~

If you want to experience "conveyor belt/boat sushi," I don't recommend going to a buffet to try it.  It's just a different feeling.  Here, you don't get to watch every type of sushi swim by!  I was taking pictures of a sushi plate, but it kept running away.  Must have looked really retarded running around the conveyor belt sushi area with my camera!  Or even weirder for filming my 5th walk down the buffet aisle XD

So orange!

The boys are ready to eat!

Here's my walk down the buffet aisle.  Should have walked slower, but I just wanted to show how much food they had instead of showing each dish!

I'm not a very picky eater, so I thought the food was pretty good.  I enjoyed Tokyo's variety, because I ate crab, crawfish, and frog legs for the first time in many years!  I think my favorite meat was the salmon.  There's an extreme lack of vegetables, made up in part by the mass variety of meats and other foods they have, so I was really happy with their mushrooms and the broccoli I picked out of the Chicken and Broccoli dish.  Veggies *heart*!  I wanted to try their cheese spinach and dimsum, but I was too full, and I'm saving my dim sum appetite for when we actually go and eat dim sum! :)

Eating at Tokyo was actually quite fun, because the four of us were making fun of the restaurant the whole time (bad thing to do, I know~  ^^'').  Josh got an order of hibachi, where they cooked his noodles, pork, and veggies upon order, and the boys all said it tasted like Korean bread.  I was like, "What, no way..." but after I ate a noodle, the aftertaste was sweet, like Asian sweet breads!  Haha, I think it was the sauce, because everything tasted that way.  By the end, we were all joking around and asking each other if they wanted some Korean bread when we were pointing to the broccoli or the egg.  :P  

Also, Daniel wanted some ice cream, and when I was grabbing food, I saw this huge freezer thing.  It wasn't labelled, so I wasn't sure if I was allowed to open it, but I tried to anyways and found a chest of no-name chocolate ice cream cups and popsicles.  I handed it to Daniel, and the rest of us watched him try some.  When he placed his spoon into the ice cream, it made an icy crunchy sound, and we all looked at one another and laughed.  Haha, he ate a bite and didn't want to continue.  Must have not been that great.

Sean got some Jello, and I thought the way it jiggled looked all wrong, but he tried it anyways.  A bite out of the orange jello cube, and Sean said it was okay, not that good.  Then he took a bite out of the blue one and stared at the table for a while.  "So sketchy!!  The blue jello tastes so sketchy!!"  Josh, Daniel, and I burst out laughing.  Hehe, Daniel confirmed that it tasted medicinal.  I wouldn't try it because it just didn't look like Jello ;P

The last laugh came with our fortune cookies.  The three of them ate it and all agreed that there was a minty aftertaste!  What a fun, exploratory dinner~  The buffet including the tip was a little more than $15.  When we got home, we were all dying of food coma!  Too full~  That must have meant the food was good and we ate too much, but I just thought it was really funny how there were so many strange items hanging around the buffet.

If you are looking for a variety of food to eat in one setting, check out Tokyo buffet.  They have tons of dishes to try, including seafood that is usually not available at other buffets!  However, don't be too excited about conveyor belt sushi, hibachi, jello, or chocolate ice cream and popsicles~  Oh my, I sound really negative about Tokyo ._.''  Although I would rather go to Emperor's Palace over Tokyo, Tokyo is really worth going once to see if you like it!  :D

Tokyo Buffet

8008 Olive Boulevard

St. Louis, MO 63132

Resting our stomachs before moving on further~

Sean wanted to return to his lab (and it was 11pm!), so Josh drove us all to Sean's lab to look around.  Sean gave us a tour and explained his project, a machine measuring the effectiveness of heat transfer.  It looked really complicated...  My brain is not designed for engineer-y thinking @_@''  He's very dedicated to his work, and I admire that a lot :D  I wonder if he'll still be working late when Anna comes back? ;)

Sean working with his machine

We said bye-bye to Sean, and Josh dropped Daniel off at his apartment before driving us back home.  I thanked Josh and got ready for bed...  Ahh, we did so much this weekend, and I was tired.  Eyes drooping down...  time to start another week at lab.  But I'm excited to play with my little worms! ;)