Jeffrey's Thoughts is a blog about Jeffrey Sham's hobbies, interests, and career.
This cafe has a lot of options. There are baked goods, gelato, cake, coffee, tea, bubble tea, frozen yogurt, and different types of dessert snow. We got a kids cake and I got some gelato. The kids cake was ok, a bit tougher to cut into than expected. The taste was pretty plain, but the decoration was cute. The gelato was as good as I expected. There were some toppings on the gelato that was weird at first, but I ate it all regardless.
I’ve only read 3 of his books so far. I’ll update this list if I read more.
Rankings:
I was not going watch this show. However, some of my coworkers and friends were talking about it so I had to be in the loop. This Netflix show had a 67% match for me, so it isn’t something that I usually watch – basically not kdrama or anime. I would’ve expected the percentage match to be a bit higher since I have watched a bunch of dating reality TV shows, but oh well.
This show follows a few different Indian singles and their families and their experiences navigating marriage. They have various interactions with Sima Aunty, the top matchmaker in Mumbai. Through Sima Aunty’s guidance and expertise, the singles learn life lessons and gain opportunities to meet with potential marriage partners.
I really liked the show. There are 8 episodes per season and I finished watching the show in 2 days. Sima Aunty is a great person and the fact that she consults astrologists, face readers, and life coaches for insight on people was pretty interesting. These people were surprisingly accurate with their assessments of the featured singles on the show, which make me curious about how that is possible. Like one astrologist mentioned that one of the people’s past of a canceled engagement was ruining his chances at love and it turns out that he actually did have that experience in his past 🤯. Thankfully, all people need to do to fix these curses are poojas, which seems to be some sort of prayer ceremony.
The featured girls were all quite high achieving and attractive. The featured guys were less high achieving and attractive. But still eligible bachelors. Through my interactions with Indian people and Indian media, I’ve gotten some insight into the culture, but this show helped improve my understanding and appreciation of the culture. Each region of India has different nuances for the people and culture. A lot of thought and planning goes into a marriage, much more than what I’d imagine goes into a traditional Western wedding. Making sure that the families are a good match is pretty important as well.
The editing, the cuts, and the background music were great. Like this show was funnier than I expected. The times where the singles listed out their criteria of their ideal partner was quite funny. The background music also was funny because occasionally the music was a bit ominous, but then it’s just like the guy is meeting up with a girl for a date. Also, the facial reactions of the people were on point as well. Sometimes really expressive and sometimes super not interested. I really enjoyed the segments of the show where arranged couples from previous generations were interviewed about how their marriages were going. Obviously, the producers picked couples that had happy marriages or seemingly happy marriages, but getting their input was a nice touch.
One of my friends who is engaged mentioned that they wanted their partner to be on the show. I didn’t understand why before I watched the show, but I think I understand now. The experience of meeting Sima Aunty is life changing and all the Indian people on the show are portrayed in a really good light. Like nearly every one of the people on the show looked like they were crushing it and were cool and attractive. From an outsider looking in, I would say that my friends are already crushing it and are cool so maybe all they wanted was to meet Sima Aunty and to get some astrological advice.
I would recommend this show to people who like dating shows in general. Definitely a different type of show in general. It has drama and beautiful people that people like to see in these types of shows, but also has a splash of culture makes the show more worthwhile to watch.
I recently traveled to New York because I got invited to watch the US Open. So, this was my primary goal of the trip. My secondary goal of the trip was to hang out with friends in the area. My tertiary goal was to try out the Omakase berry.
I believe I first saw this on Instagram or another social media platform. It is a strawberry that is grown vertically grown in a farm without the use of pesticides. In the ad, it made me think that this was the best tasting strawberry ever.
I stayed at a friend’s place in Brooklyn. The day was relatively gloomy due to the rain. I woke up and went to Whole Foods to buy the strawberries. The walk was about 20 minutes one way since the goods are not sold in every Whole Foods stores. Each strawberry costs about $2. I bought an 11 pack for $20. So, a very pricey item. As you can see on the box, there are handling instructions. The Whole Foods employee who packed the groceries did a great job at making sure the strawberries were secure. I walked back, put the goods in the refrigerator, and went to the US Open. After a few hours and an upset stomach after eating dinner in Flushing, I came back to the apartment. I followed the eating instructions of taking the strawberries out of the refrigerator and letting the aroma fill the room for 10-15 minutes. Then, I closed my eyes and ate a strawberry.
The experience was great. I would’ve preferred sharing this experience with others, but that was not able to happen this time. The aroma from the strawberries was subtle and inviting. Smelled just like ripe strawberries I’ve had in the past. One neat thing about the plastic container was that it had some sort of plastic wrap to keep the strawberries in place. The strawberries are very delicate and tender, if that makes sense. Like there is not really any resistance when biting into the strawberry. Sweet and smooth. I wasn’t sure why the instructions told me to close my eyes, so for some of the other bites, I had my eyes open and the experience was pretty much the same. I really enjoyed eating them and I saved the other half for tomorrow.
I would buy these again, even though they are really expensive. This is more of a luxury than an everyday purchase. I wonder if other types of fruit and produce can be grown in this way to make it taste so good. Perhaps it’s the vertical growing or the no pesticides, but I’ve never had such consistently good bites from strawberries within the same box as I had with the Omakase berry.
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A friend mentioned that there was a deal at Applebee’s for all you can eat boneless chicken wings. So, we had to try it. Online, it mentioned that the price was 13.99, but when we went to the Times Square location, it turned out to be 19.99. There were only 6 available flavors and the first order each of us got had to be 10 pieces of a single sauce. The subsequent orders could be 5 pieces for a single sauce. We ordered all the sauces, Buffalo, Honey BBQ, Garlic Parm, Sweet Asian Chile, Extra Hot Buffalo, and Honey Pepper.
In terms of value, if it was 13.99, I think it might have been worth. 19.99 is obviously less worth. The chicken was mostly dry. The 2 different Buffalo sauces were hard to distinguish from each other – both of them were quite salty. The Garlic Parm and the Honey Pepper sauces tasted a bit weird for wing flavors. The Honey Pepper reminded me of Panda express. The Sweet Asian Chile was ok.
I would not recommend anyone to order this from Applebee’s. I feel like they have better items on the menu and if you really want wings, you can go to a place that specializes in wings.
After a relatively long Saturday, I wanted to eat dinner outside. I asked a friend what they were feeling and they were in a seafood mood. After some Yelp searches, we settled on Mussel Bar & Grille.
The restaurant was relatively large, a bunch of seats in the middle of the restaurant and in the perimeter near the windows. As the name mentions, there is a bar and the beer selection is quite extensive. On the drinks menu, there were at least 4 pages of beers. The dinner menu was not too large. Lots of seafood options and these were a bit pricey.
We tried a variety of seafood and I thought that the oysters and the mussels were the better dishes. The shrimp were medium sized and the most expensive out of the dishes we ate. If I were to go to this restaurant again, I would order the mussels, get as full as possible on the mussels and bread, and get the oysters. I might try other dishes on the menu as well. The sauce for the mussels was flavored with some cheese and some sausage. The calamari had 2 different sauces and was topped with olives, which was interesting. I liked it, but they simply were not as good as the mussels. I generally like oysters so that’s why I’d order them again. I’m not someone who can tell if the oysters are good or not, but these didn’t really have any dirt while eating and tasted similar to ones I’ve had before. There was a purple colored sauce I hadn’t had with oysters before. It was a bit sour, perhaps a vinegar taste.
I am moving to a new apartment so I had to cancel service for some of the utilities that we currently have. One of those is internet service. In order to cancel, I submitted an online request and then I received a phone call from a robot to call a representative to complete the cancelation process. When I called the representative, they asked for a bit more information than I expected and asked for my security code. So instead, I opted to cancel in person by visiting an Xfinity store. The in person cancelation was super easy. I talked to the person for 3 minutes and we were able to get the service canceled without any issues. This makes me think that some processes are better done in person.
On the intern’s last day of work, me and the coworkers hung out and ate some hotpot. It took a bit of time to prepare the food and get everything together, but we were able to work as a team and enjoy a nice dinner. Afterwards, we decided to watch a movie.
Mamma Mia came out a while back and I knew a few of my female classmates loved the movie, but I didn’t really have a desire to watch. I knew I would like the songs in the musical / movie though since it is filled with ABBA songs.
We started watching the movie and I really enjoyed myself. Lots of fun, and the subtitles allowed me to sing along like karaoke. The songs made a lot of sense in the movie and it made me think that the songs were written for the movie, which I was told was not the case. The characters acted well and I won’t say that I cried, but I was tearing up a bit during the movie. It must’ve been something in the water. I would definitely watch the prequel, although from the trailers, it seems like it has a very similar soundtrack as the original movie. I think watching this movie with other people made it a lot more fun than if I watched it by myself. I imagine that watching the musical live or watching the movie in the theater would’ve been a blast.
Some out of town coworkers visited the area for a week and we wanted to try some restaurants in the area. One of the restaurants we tried was bindaas since we wanted some Indian food. I don’t know much about Indian cuisine, but it seemed like there was a good variety of food and they were doing some slight twists on known dishes.
Not pictured, but I ordered the Firecracker fries and the Pork Vindaloo Pao. The fries were hot and the seasoning looked like Old Bay, but it was a different mix of spices. Pretty decent of an appetizer. The Pork Vindaloo Pao tasted different than I wanted. The pictured pao was much tastier than mine. The pork in mine was a bit tougher than I would’ve liked and the the sauce wasn’t as flavorful. Also, I think some of the salad seeped into the bread because my bread was a bit sour.
The avocado golgappa was the best thing that I ate at the restaurant. We ate the piece in one bite and there was an explosion of flavor and textures. Really tasty and fresh.
I’ve had Lady M cakes before, at least once or twice in New York. This was the first time trying it in Virginia. Tasted pretty good and similar to what I remember. Lots of different options for crepe layered cakes. I got the matcha one because I think that it is one of their more classic flavors and I read a review that mentioned that the matcha cake and jasmine tea combo was good.
I don’t eat matcha very often so I’m not sure whether it was good quality or not. But the color was nice and the filling was not too sweet. The fork was able to cut through the cake really easily, but only from the pointed side. The strawberry one was tasty too. Fresh. There were a couple occasions that I coughed because of the amount of matcha on the top of the cake. The boutique was really clean and it was a good atmosphere. Fitting for the upscale section of the mall.
Jeffrey's Thoughts