Roy's Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine Giveaway

Mmm. Doesn't that chocolate lava cake look scrumptious? The desserts were the only things I liked from my visit to Roy's Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine - Newport Beach four years ago. I'd love a chance to revisit Roy's myself, but instead, you get to go.

That's right!

The PR folks at Roy's are generously giving me a $50 gift certificate to give to you so that you can experience chef Roy Yamaguchi's Hawaiian fusion cuisine for yourself.

Brodard Chateau Vietnamese Cuisine - Garden Grove (Little Saigon)

After lil' sis's graduation, we toyed with various locations in San Diego for dinner, Chinese family-style or fancy steak house? As circumstances dictated, I alerted oldest nephew to a last-minute deal on JetBlue from Long Beach to Portland so he could come home for his brother's graduation, we ended up in Orange County for dinner. Since it was a special occasion, I suggested Brodard Chateau Vietnamese Cuisine. That was just as well since the number of people attending grew from our immediate family to more than a dozen people.

Brodard Chateau is from the same family as the original Brodard Restaurant - Garden Grove (Little Saigon), but fancier. The restaurant's facade is a Swiss? French? chateau-like building. According to The Orange County Register article I read in 2006, the 8,000-square foot chateau opened with 25 employees and operating costs of $100,000 a month. Pretty pricey by anyone's standards, but for a Vietnamese restaurant, unheard of. Was Little Saigon ready for an upscale Vietnamese restaurant?

I think the fact that it's still around four years later says so.

Ask Wandering Chopsticks 10

Congratulations to the two '88s and lil' sis who graduated from college this month! The youngest cousin graduated from high school too. I feel so old. I remember when they were all babies!

After the older '88's graduation, we went out for Korean barbecue at Seol Ak San - Stanton. It was my parents' and her parents' first time eating Korean barbecue and they quite liked it, especially the variety of panchan (Korean side dishes) and the kimchee fried rice at the end.

The Middle '87's Ninja Quilt

With all this quilt talk, I thought I should show you the Ninja quilt that the middle '87 made. Isn't it so cute?

My cousin said she found a picture of the ninja online and traced it. It took her 10 days to do the appliques, sewing one per day. Then several weeks of machine sewing the pieces together.

Here's a close-up of the ninjas.