Book's birthday

Someone recently told me they still couldn't believe that I'm from Texas.  Haha!  What is that supposed to imply?  @_@''  But I went shopping with Jeff a few weeks ago and he insisted that I buy a pair of boots we saw at Love Culture.  I can't imagine wearing around cowgirl-like boots around...  what can I wear them with??  ^_^''

The next week I was set on buying them just for fun, but when I came back, they were all gone :O  Missed my chance, but it might have been better for me, hehe~  Otherwise soon I'd be walking around campus with cowboy boots, a plaid shirt, and a cowboy hat!  Yeehaw! :D

Boots are so out of context XD

Do you know what Texans like?  We like our steaks.  Errr, so I should say Texans like their steaks, because I think steaks are daunting slabs of meat :P  Anyways, Book's birthday was a few weeks ago, so I booked a place at a steakhouse known for their steaks and that was rated highly by patrons-- Tucker's Place on Soulard!  Also, Soulard's known to be a neighborhood filled with great restaurants, so it had to be great ^^b

Big party of meat eaters

One thing to note about Book is that he *loooooves* meat / steak!  Every time we go somewhere that offers steak, he'll end up ordering it XD   It was really funny, because out of all of us (Book, Michael, Sean, Anna, Lucy, Shuran, David, Daniel, Josh, and me), David was the only one dressed formally-ish.  So it looked like he was going to pay for all of us ;P

Excellent...

The entrees came with a salad, baked potato, and unlimited bread rolls!  The salad came topped with bacon, yummy!  The simple salad was really flavorful with the huge ring of red onion and bacon bits.  David said that the bread rolls reminded him of middle school bread... which I'm not sure if that was a good thing XD  He said it was good, because they're Southern-style rolls~

Book celebrated his 21st with a wine of glass to go with his entree...

which was a filet mignon and a potato with "the works!"

He said it was one of the better steaks he's had, so that made me happy / relieved with Tucker's Place.  It was either this restaurant or the Tenderloin Room, because I remember his curiosity when we passed by on the way to a movie theater in Central West End.  But there were tooooons of 1-star ratings for the place '':/

Meanwhile, I thought it was funny watching Josh toil through his dinner.  He declared he was on a 2,500 calorie diet (down from 3k!!), so he ordered an extra side of vegetables along with his 16oz. New York strip and baked potato. 

This is a regular baked potato (without the works!)

Not sure if vegetables really help on that high calorie diet ;)

He didn't end up finishing, but A for effort!  David and I both ordered the Norwegian salmon.  Every entree with a baked potato came with cups of whipped butter and sour cream.  I used the butter on my fish as it was a little on the dry side, but the butter made it so delicious!!  Also, the baked potato with "the works" (bacon, cheese, green onions) was AMAHHHHZING!  I would come back just for the potato :)  It was so flavorful and the potato was super delicious *love love*~  And of course, I used butter for that too (although it definitely was delicious without)! 

:D  Delicious dinner!

I'm really glad Book enjoyed his birthday steak at Tucker's Place.  I also gave him a book about a journalist's quest to find the perfect steak (get it, BOOK and STEAK?!), but I'm pretty sure he hasn't opened it yet... boys apparently don't like to read =_=''

Tucker's Place

2117 S. 12th Street

St. Louis,MO 63104

Since I came back from lab early, I had to go back to finish my experiments after dinner.  I put on earbuds and bounced around the lab to the radio, very fun~  So fun that I ended up going home a bit before midnight because I missed one of the trains XD  But while I was at lab, they ate the Book's birthday cake!  I asked Josh to take a few pictures before they ate it because I didn't get a chance to before:

This is what it looked like before adding on the whipped cream~

With whipped cream~

on fireeee!

Hehe, this picture makes me smile :)

Hope Book's birthday was a great one!  I recently got a text saying people were trying to get him a little more than tipsy this weekend XD

~*~

This was from the recipe challenge of the week: chicken tetrazzini!  It was actually kind of funny, because I promised to give Jeff some for lunch the next day so we could determine who won.  And I remembered he doesn't like cheese so I omitted that.  That's a big part of tetrazzini, so I'm not sure if I can call it a legit version ^_^''  but it was a creamy noodle dish, and I haven't had creamy noodles in a while, so it was satisfying :)  Also.. my first time to use fresh parsley!!  :D

Hrmm??

This is a lemon blueberry bar in non-bar form!

Okay, now it's a bar (just cut it in rectangles) :P

It was Betty's birthday, but Anna, Sean, Book, Daniel, and Josh were going to see Batman 3 (SO GOOOOOOD) and reserved tickets, so I couldn't make her potluck.  I asked Jeff to take these blueberry bars back to their apartment for me :)  They liked them, yay!

Smush!

Random shot of where Jeff, Fey, Rachel, and Richard work at lab.  So pretty!  Like a science museum for dinosaurs or something

Weekly lunch outing at Kampai Sushi!  I love bentos ^^

Michael, Soomin, and Chenghung were making baked potatoes on Wednesday, and he told me they were going to be with "the works!"   I *had* to join them ;)  We had no idea how to bake potatoes... I mean.. you just bake them right?  After 45 minutes in the oven, they were still pretty firm.  I remembered that some people microwaved their potatoes, so we zapped each of them for 10 minutes and finally had dinner read on the table at 9pm :)

Soomin fried up some bacon, and I cut them into bits with scissors.  I cut the meat mart and set aside the fatty chunks.  The boys took turns gobbling up the pieces, and it was like feeding doggies :3  Hee hee~

Potato-(s)buddies!  Har har har, even though I spelled spud wrong, do you get it? ;D

This was my potato!

Mine was a little on the firm side, so I ended up eating it by picking the potato up and eating it like a pizza.  Mmmm... delicious ^_^  I wouldn't mind trying this again and making the potato soft and scoopable!  Ooh, I also used a lot of butter :P  Yay, thanks for my first time making potatoes in the oven guys!  :D

~*~

Also, time to tempt you with something!  I saw Danielle at Michael's place after we made the potatoes, and she's also a blogger :D  One of her friends started his own graphic design shop, and she wanted to help him publicize a bit (so nice!) :3

Danielle's Giveaway: Cute strange-looking panda (with possible art history influence ;P)

This is one of the many creatures created by her friend in a collection of [ Mui-Ko buttons ].  I think it's super cute, even though I can't tell how many eyes the panda has ^^''  Danielle is doing a giveaway of these critters at her own blog [here], so be sure to check it out!  I'm definitely entering, so you'll have to compete with me :3  Good luck!