Bachelor & Steam

Posted by Lauren

Oftentimes, I feel like my calendar lives and breathes off dinner appointments. Appointments is the wrong word, but I’m blanking on the right one… dates? meetings? plans? Yea, dinner plans. For example, Monday night’s dinner plans revolved around fabulous food and company at Cindy’s house during The Bachelor finale. Tuesday night’s dinner plans included Kyle and a new restaurant in downtown Palo Alto. We were overdue for a dinner date! And now I’m looking forward to Thursday night’s dinner plans with my freshman year roommate, Kelly, at LA’s Sugarfish!

That’s right, I’m on my way to LA tonight!

After the Girls on the Run lesson, I hurried over to Caltrain in Palo Alto > took the train to the Millbrae stop > took BART to SFO > walked to the gate and picked up a Peet’s coffee. I ate a big to-go container of blueberry oatmeal on BART that I prepared at work. I added one scoop of protein powder and a crumbled nuts/chocolate KIND bar for extra stickiness. But – like clockwork – I stepped into the airport and instantly wished I had some snacks. Airports make me feel crazy hungry… anyone else?

I scanned Google Reader on my iPhone while en route to the airport. You heard the news, right? Google is axing my favorite website: GOOGLE READER!!!!

I’ll be doing a detailed comparison of alternatives, but the replacement needs to allow folder creation, favoriting, and have a robust search function. And it needs to have mobile device/tablet applications. This is actually a great opportunity for a simple solution to gain RSS market share. Kind of exciting (I’m still mad though).

Woah, ok. Let’s talk about part 1 of this blog post title: BACHELOR!

First of all, I got dressed up (aka not a sweaty gym rat) for The Bachelor finale at Cindy’s house.

If you’ve been reading the blog for at least a week, you’ll know that my high school BFF Sarah and I regularly go to Cindy’s house (she’s our other hs BFF Natalie’s mom). She is such a great hostess, chef, baker… Love her. We timed our weekly dinners with The Bachelor and the rest is history! For the epic finale, we invited a few other special “ladies” – my mom and Sarah’s mom!

We started with Pinot and Parmesan crisps. So addictive!

Then we enjoyed the salad of the night: arugula, orange, parm, and nuts

Pennsylvania-Dutch potato stuffing, lemon-zest green beans (my favorite), and spinach-stuffed flank steak.

Shield your eyes, vegetarians!

After dinner, Cindy cleared the table and brought out dessert. I love the lil pup Owen in this photo! He was so spastic during The Bachelor, but very behaved at dinner.

Holy Carrot Cake Moly!!!

The Bachelor was great, albeit looooong. I think this is my favorite season ever, mostly because Sean seems genuine and the final two were both perfect options.

One last thing, Sarah, will you accept my final rose?

Great night! On to part 2 of this blog post title: STEAM!

Steam

209 University Ave, Palo Alto
No Website Yet – Yelp

Whenever a new restaurant pops up in downtown Palo Alto, it shoots to the top of my “must try” list. Steam is the new lady in town, and boy is she pretty! The sleek, modern design of this Dim Sum/Tawainese restaurant complements the gorgeous wood ceiling, stainless steel accents, open kitchen, and communal tables.

My handsome date let me finalize our order :)

Scallop Seafood Dumpling – Although I couldn’t discern the “scallop” from the “seafood” flavors, I still thought this was a good dumpling. Only complaint: the filling came out of the too sticky dumpling… That shouldn’t happen, right?

Mixed Mushroom Peppered Beef – in LOVE with this.

Mu Shu Vegetables – this veggie entrée had great flavors and was quite filling! It came with a side of steamed tortillas to create mu shu burritos.

I definitely want to go back to Steam and try more of the menu! There were only about 8 true dim sum offerings, which is kind of odd for a restaurant branding itself as a dim sum spot. Also, there was no cart for the grab-what-you-want experience. Unusual. But, I like it.

Question: IF YOU WATCH, what did you think of the Bachelor finale? Dim Sum fan?

-Lauren