Thursday, April 12, 2012

Chasin' Tails

The opening of a new crawfish joint in the neighborhood deserves a "HELL YES!" "THANK GOD" "WOOHOO" post. 

This reminds me of when I first moved to Orange County and had crawfish boil for the first time.  I came home sniffing my fingers, re-salivated, and demanded we go back the next day.  Weekly crawfish $80 meals became a must!!  Our wallets got skinnier, we developed back fat and major heart burn but it was alllll soooo worth it.

O.C (randomly) had so many options.  When my first choice Boiling Crab wasn't available, I ran to my next favorite--Claws or Rockin' Crawfish.  When that wasn't available there was The Kickin' Crab near our house.  As long as it's spicy and I got limes--it'll be a finger lickin' good ol' time.

Then I moved to D.C.  I am all for new adventures in a new city because I had no doubt that I would eat my way around town to find delicious food.  But crawfish boil in a bag is a rarity and it was the one thing D.C couldn't satisfy me with--with the exception of Hot n' Juicy which was great in times of emergencies when my crawfish cravings possessed me--but their sauce was too unpredictable and inconsistent--and the other cajun places around town didn't do boils.
But just last weekend, a new crawfish place opened in the neighborhood (drum roll)  .........  

CHASIN' TAILS!

Whoever opened this place did their research and down right stole some ideas and learned the mistakes of Boiling Crab (i.e naming their combo sauce "whole shebang", having a "watering hole" instead of closed bathrooms doors, not watering down the sauce and sheisting us on corn, sausages and potatoes!!) and they did a few things that we found to be excellent in their own right.


We came at linner time--around 4 p.m.  I saw lots of Vietnamese faces as well--ofcourse, wherever the seafood is, there we are!
Random: One of my favorite shirts the servers had on: "That fish CRAY!"

Lets get down to business:
*1 coke to share, 2 waters
*2 lbs of fresh crawfish (which came with corn, sausage, and potatoes) Whole Shebang, N'awlins spicy
*1 fried oyster basket, please substitue regular fries for sweet potato fries (yum!) for $1 more (our server ended up giving us regular fries for free! yay!)
*1 basket of 6 chicken wings
*and for later, your beignets (fried to order) and strawberry jam (freshly made every morning)


Crap..i'm salivating again



sweating and hot from the spicy n'awlings heat already

fried oysters..so fresh, so clean, so juicy tasting--and lightly battered in cornmeal 


The wings!!!  Fried and then tossed in a wet garlic rub!  Juicy on the inside as well but George said they could use a bit more salt.

His excited face!

I love sweet potato fries =)


And lastly, the beignets..small dainty fried things sitting on a mountain of powdered sugar next to fresh strawberry jam



I devoured these

That damn jam is so good, my eyes are crossed!

 Not bad for us!

Let the hearburn and stomach pains ensue!


Next food goal trip: taste the real crawfish boil and beignets in N'awlins Louisiana!



My food motto:  You gotta eat good!
In the words of my wise cousin Evelyn, YOLO!! 

Sunday, April 1, 2012

100th Anniversary: National Cherry Blossom Festival


Lately my weekend's been limited to just Sundays but no amount of work is going to stop me from greeting spring with open arms--especially when every Washingtonian has raved about how gorgeous spring in D.C would be.

Sneaking out of work on a Saturday to go down the block to snap some photos.
(It's been a blessing getting to work near the white house--lunch breaks are a special treat.  But..random bomb threats--are not so fun!)


Tourist season has started with this gorgeous weather and Cherry Blossom Festival!  Segway tour group mania in front of the White House.

This makes it incredibly hard to stay indoors!!

National Cherry Blossom Festival's 100th Anniversary

In 1912, Tokyo, Japan gifted DC with 3,000 cherry blossom trees to be planted around the Tidal Basin in East and West Potomac Park and on the grounds of the Washington Monument.  This year's National Cherry Blossom Festival marks the centennial celebration and is expected to bring in...a butt load of tourists.  The festival was scheduled to begin on April 27 for a five-week celebration.  But thanks to March's extra weird warm weather, flowers and cherry blossoms bloomed, peaked and have since fallen since March 22nd.  Once bloom, they last for only 7 days so we made it our top priority to make time to go watch these beauties before they all disappear.   
 
 Last Sunday, we walked from VA to D.C across the Memorial Bridge to the Tidal Basin.  We were greeted by my all time favorite flowers--tulips!!!  They were blooming everywhere!!!
 

 Once we reached the north side of D.C's Tidal Basin, there are over 100 varieties of tulips that bloom every year.  A total of about 10,000 Holland bulbs in a dazzling array of colors and varieties are planted and cared for by the National Park Service. And best of all, it's FREE to stroll amongst these beautiful babies!  Great exercise and low budget activity!
Did you know that tulips are first known to have graced the palaces of Turkish royalty and were brought to the U.S. via Europe by the early European settlers?


We were laughing b/c it seemed someone got lazy and accidentally threw some red ones in with the yellow tulip patch
We made it to the basin!!  The cherry blossoms peaked Wednesday March 22nd because it was so warm but we couldn't make it out! 
The extra warm weather caused a huge frenzy amongst the trees' caretaker since they were going to bloom too early which meant no cherry blossoms for the latter majority of the festival. 
We had good timing and came on the open ceremony Sunday of the festival and caught a great firework show!
 
 
 The area and grounds are covered in pink petals--absolutely gorgeous

So glad we caught sight of them before they all fell off...


 Renting a peddle boat to awe in the surrounding sights!  Naturally George steered and peddled while I ooed - aahed--and snapped a bagillion pics!

From the water--in front of Thomas Jefferson's memorial


 Trying to jam our giant faces into the picture--fail


A view of Martin Luther King's memorial 

Along the banks of the basin

Weeee! I feel so freee!


Nak Won Korean Restaurant, Annandale VA
 Walking and doing touristy stuff makes you mighty hungry so we metroed back to VA, hopped in the Corolla (aka named Mo'nique) and drove to Koreatown in Annandale, VA to eat linner at 4 p.m

We were told to try this place because they have fresh pork belly!  mmm...I love bbq fat!
My hands are shaking--hence the blurry shot--from strong sensations of hungriness and salivations.


This dish hit the spot--fried octopus..spicy, tender, a bit sweet, amazing with rice!

and since we were in the Korean area, I had to get bingsoo!

...I get really excited when I eat good!









For more information on The National Cherry Blossom festivities: visit, http://www.nationalcherryblossomfestival.org/