4th of July

While most of my friends spent 4th of July out of NorCal, driving all the way to either LA for Disneyland or SD for Seaworld, I simply stayed in town and enjoyed a lovely day with my three F's: friends, family, and food! Mama Julie and I woke up early this morning to make our favorite home breakfast    omelette! 

It looks like a tortilla, but that's actually scrambled egg with milk

BACON GOOOOOOD.

The goat cheese and arugula were the perfect garnish!

Since Mama Julie and I already had our kitchen-game-face on, we decided to bake coffee crumble cake for Cafe Reina, and banana nut muffins for ourselves. We lack foresight sometimes, but we were lucky enough to have bought some stock of unsalted butter and organic turbinado sugar during our last visit to Trader Joe's, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to function at all.

The coffee cake was baked to perfection. Crumby on the outside, soft and moist on the inside.

We used the excess crumbs on the banana muffins, and they gave it that right amount of crumby sweetness!

Papa Cali invited some of his family over, so it was incredibly perfect timing that we made something for the house. We cooled the pastries on the rack and proceeded to plating them for our guests.

I love this family.. The Baltazars having fun in our living room.

Mama Julie's favorite serving dish

Aside from baked desserts, we also had tortilla chips, salsa, and sausage, as any Mexican household would. Tonito loved his chips!

And for drinks, we had Mango Tea from Peet's. Good stuff!

As soon as everything was set, Mama Julie and I had to take off for Cafe Reina. Just so y'all know, Tita Reina also just recently celebrated her birthday, so aside from delivering her coffee crumble cake, we had to visit her as well to give her our presents. Tita Reina loves Bikram Yoga and the colors brown and blue, so that was basically how we themed our gifts.

We neatly put all her gifts (blue yoga stuff) together in a brown and blue colored sports bag.

Oh, we gave her a baking pan too. She loves to bake! Visit her at Cafe Reina to try her great pastries!

Mama Julie poses with the gorgeous birthday girl!

In exchange for the coffee crumble cake, Tita Reina treated us to her delicious turkey avocado grilled sandwich and white mocha. Yay! Just what I wanted.

No cafe can ever compare to Cafe Reina's white mocha (made with love)

So we simply played Scrabble the whole time   Tita Reina won all three rounds    until it was time to close shop. I loved my 4th of July, if you asked me. We spent quality time with quality people, and you can't get more quality than that.  As I type this, we just witnessed the last firework in our neighborhood crack, while still enjoying the bibingka my step-mom sent for us from the Philippines. ☺


☮ and ♥, Denice

My Last Birthday Treat

Tonight officially marks the end of my birthday week, and Papa Cali and Mama Julie totally made my 19th celebration awesome! We went to Century 20 at Daly City for Transformers 3, and I thought the film was the best one of the series. While the story was simple, and did not contain anything different from a typical Transformers movie, the mind-blowing explosions and robot-killing action made it worth every penny! I contemplated sharing a few of my favorite scenes, but decided I didn't want to be a spoiler and make T3 less exciting for y'all. Nonetheless, I do promise it won't disappoint, and it would probably give you a ride of your life   if you're in Chicago that is. LOL.


Anyway, let's proceed to the funnest part of my Saturday.... FOOD! Papa Cali and Mama Julie has done everything they possibly can to make my 19th a blast, Red Ribbon, Kani Kosen, White Russian, etc    and they did!    so it was my turn to treat them this time. Thanks Daddy!! We drove to ShabuWay in San Mateo for some authentic Japanese shabu-shabu, and the Large Kobe Style Beef platter we ordered was beyond delicious. The last time we were here was when my dad and sister visited in October, and we found their kobe beef and vegetables still tasting as fresh and good as ever.

Good times from last October. I can't wait for Dad's visit this month!

Papa Cali and I ate so much that we even had to get an additional plate of beef, while at the same time stealing some of Mama Julie's (she pays more attention to the veggies! YAY FOR US!)

ShabuWay's Large Kobe Beef Style Plate

Nothing's good without rice!

I'm not a veggie person, but ShabuWay's assorted vegetables were incredibly fresh and flavorful!

Since we were already in the neighborhood, and Peet's was just a few blocks away, being a self-confessed mochaholic, how could we not pay Peet's a visit? Papa Cali and Mama Julie were even most willing, people always fall in love over a cup of coffee    and I could definitely feel the love between them. Yikeee! :">

Only happily married couples can smile like this!

I, on the contrary, simply enjoyed my white chocolate mocha by myself on the lonely side of the table. Hahaha! Peet's has the best white mocha in my opinion    well, next to Cafe Reina, obviously.

Peet's White Chocolate Mocha and Papa Cali's fave Iced Chai Latte

After a busy day out, we finally headed home, just in time to make the beautiful landscape and sunset unique to the Bay Area    when it's not foggy. Haha!

Isn't that beautiful? Life is a blessing. 

☮ and ♥, Denice