it's my parteee........

saturday night i hosted our annual christmas party for our group of friends aka omgbff. i pretty much started prepping for the party from the moment i woke up at 9am up until the party in which the first guests began to arrive shortly after 7:30. but had started making gifts for everyone the week before thanksgiving, so i had been looking forward to the party for sometime now. the hor'derve menu consisted of: smoked salmon tartare filled cucumber cups, escargot stuffed mushroom caps herbed garlic butter, roasted red pepper hummus, beef meatballs with a pineapple dipping sauce, herbed goat cheese balls on toast points, 'firecrackers' and cheeses. guests also brought a plethora of good foods for everyone to nosh on. oh and of course we had plenty of wine to drink.

i only took a few photos.. so expect more when dru gets around to it.

company parteeeee.

friday night was my company christmas party at dave&busters (in the former Jillian's locale). i had low expections, but i was more excited than usual since i actually knew a few more coworkers this year. it ended up being open bar and we actually stayed until 11pm though my low expectations for the food were met.

a few games were played, a few glasses of wine were drunk, and a few self-portraits were taken.





oh and 2 weeks ago i had planned a company flag football game.. it was quite the success. we'll be playing again in january. and as a whole everyone at our company looks approximately 10 years younger than their real age.

one of these things is not like the other

the other day i was having problems finding renji. now you know why.

brennans

finally... another review since indika.

brennans - 3300 smith street, 713.522.9711



sunday evening, we joined the family to celebrate my aunts 70th birthday (and my cousins' "29th" birthday). weeks prior my cousin had asked me for list of restuarants to do, to pick from. i had handed off a split list of trendy and traditional, being that it was to celebrate my aunts birthday, the traditional side was favoured. once the list was widdled down to a chosen few, we had found out that most 'fancy' restaurants were closed for dinner on sunday. this actually left us with brennans, but not entirely to my disappointment though a bit to my cousins, since the menu in particular wasn't her first choice.

me and T arrived first, in a quiet part of what i think is still considered as midtown, valeted the car, and entered to a podium full of hosts. the decor was appropriate to the whole classy 'ol new orleans scene. it was a bit antique but not in the tacky grandmother sort of way. we were promptly seated and the rest of our party arrived within minutes.

me and T split a bowl of turtle soup for our appetizer. i had heard good things about it so it was the must have for my first visit. it was a bit tangy, with that creole gumbo-ish feel, and topped with a bit of sherry made it even better. and yes turtle does kind of taste like chicken. but the pieces are so small you can't really tell anyways. for my entree i was having a bit of troulbe deciding between the duck breast with foie gras or the rockfish & crab with black truffle. after asking how the foie gras was prepared (seared is the only way to go) i was 100% duck. T picked the venison. now with foie gras one can almost never ever go wrong, and this was no exception, it was delish as always, but it could have been slightly better. the searing was a bit harsh, almost burnt, but it didn't ruin the rest of the experience. it was still a melt in your mouth dream. the duck breast and the squash alongside was good, but not great, they were more like fillers after the foie gras. T's venison was quite good, but the sauce as he said was a bit too salty for him. my father on the other hand ordered the veal chateaubriand, and oh my was this a delicious piece of meat, tender to the extreme, only kobe steak could be better. we all cleaned our plates and had room for dessert. half the party ordered the banana fosters while the rest selected the creme brulee. their creme brulee is actually served on a plate, it was first time for me, i figured it was so that there was more caramelized topping and topped with fruit. The banana fosters was prepared tableside, and i think it was unanimous that the creme brulee was the better of the two, the bananas weren't quite tender enough, though i've had better creme brulee.

oh but i should mention that the service was exceptional, very attentive but not overly, one of the best since the days of scott's cellar or my first visit to aries..

the evening turned out great, but for the price, there are many more restaurants with more exotic and/or pleasing menus in houston that don't charge $30+ per entree. even though dinner was good, it was not overly exceptional meaning it doesn't quite garner a return trip any time soon. i must say i was extremely glad that it wasn't the disappointment that artista was.

leftovers still remain

our thanksgiving feast by chef issaface.

he's so lucky

a few food photos from last week...


salt toasted shrimp


beef stir fry


ribollita - tuscan bread soup

IM ON UR SCREEN, MAKIN U DROOL

i noticed i hadn't posted a few food photos that i had previously taken.. so enjoy!

chocolate coconut macaroons, pasta carbonara, herb/garlic split chicken breast with orzo confit and roasted pototaes, and orecchiette with bolognese sauce

saturday lookbook

so saturday night me and T had 'date night'. and as you can see from the photo T was very enthusiastic about it... j/k it was actually his idea. we decided to eat at dolce vita, and i have to say it was much better the second time around. i highly recommend the egg toast with black truffle (but i [heart] anything with truffle). afterwards we went home and watched gone with the wind (surprisingly also his idea, no lie).

earlier on in the day we ran errands at memorial city. so i got to pull off 2 looks in one day, and with houston's 'fall' weather i was still able to pull off the mini dress.

sushi aphrodisiac.

coworkers went for japanese for lunch on friday.. and officedad spotted something interesting on the menu. unfortunately none of the guys ordered it.

accidental linkage hazard!!!

i have been the victim of accidental copy/paste errors a few times before. you know, sending the wrong link/image to someone thinking that you had copied a new/different link.. but your OS pwnz you instead.
here is the encounter i had today with office bff and probably the best example:

issa says (2:31 PM): http://www.explosm.net/comics/897/
issa says (2:31 PM): WANT TO DO NOW.
issa says (2:31 PM): i remember that comic..
office bff says (2:32 PM): you want to...get a chick to take her clothes off?
issa says (2:32 PM): whoops
issa says (2:32 PM): http://blag.xkcd.com/2007/07/18/roller-coaster-chess/
office bff says (2:33 PM): ah yes
issa says (2:35 PM): i think that was the best accidental wrong link sending evar.
issa says (2:35 PM): only made better by me saying WANT TO DO.
office bff says (2:36 PM): pretty much
issa says (2:36 PM): it is almost blag worthy.
office bff says (2:37 PM): I was like, "sooo...who has the guitar? aaaand...why are you sending to me?"
issa says (2:37 PM): haha.. indeed
office bff says (2:37 PM): DO NOT WANT
issa says (2:37 PM): LOL
office bff says (2:37 PM): TROUBLE DO ENSUE

famous on teh internetz week!

it's been an interesting week.. and what a way to end the week then to be given a pat on the back for your fashion sense (for at least one outfit). i had been reading the fashion blog fabsugar for the better part of this year when a weeks ago i finally decided to make an account and on sunday.. decided to add a look to my lookbook. voila! score! Look of the day FTW!

BOO!

Happy Halloween!



today at work there was a costume contest, so i of course decided to dress up.. as tifa from advent children (no i did not win).. most people thought i was a power ranger.. or chun-li. oh well. though not many people dressed up, officedad did! sorta.. if you count a mask and carrying a fake weapon, as dressing up. the photo of us above was taken by officeboss, at first i attempted to do a selfportrait of us. since i'm usually an expert at it. but yeah. someone was too tall. anyways.. as usual i had to play martha and make cupcakes for the boys at work. dark chocolate cupcakes filled with dark chocolate ganache and frangelico frosting.



officebff made this awesome to the max video for me. this is proof that he rocks more than me sometimes.
so enjoy.... the saturday night competition... and dru's super sweet dance moves.



also on youtube

a drutastic weekend.

dru's birthday celebrations tend to last longer than the normal allotted 5 hours most other omgbff members get. but that's ok, because this weekend was awesome to the max!

friday night we started off with dinner at artista, for overpriced américa's fare with less selections on the menu.



followed by the musical Avenue Q at the hobby center... which can be easily described as a saucy puppet show. i was quite skeptical at first after hearing the song list (ex. it sucks to be me, everyone's a little bit racist, and everyones favorite the internet is for pr0n) and reading the description from wiki, despite it beating out wicked for the tony for best musical of the year after its first year on broadway, but it was actually quite entertaining and a lot of fun! I highly recommend it for the not faint at heart.




no birthday night is complete without a trip to a club/lounge. so off to deco for us, for drinking and dancing.



saturday (and here is where the story will surely vary in levels of details)
anyways dru wanted to attend a halloween party so that he could gawk at all the scantily clad women, and he wanted to drag me and jstar along with him. previously jstar had brought back mike & sulley costumes for her and dru from japan, and apparently bao had first asked them what they were dressing up as and they suggested for him to be the little girl boo, after bao immediately hung up they decided on giving me a call. ye of little faith dru didn't think that i would go, but i agreed unknowing that i was the alternate choice. so after running around most of the day in an attempt to find a big pink shirt, i ended up with kid pjs and looked like i was dressed up as a kid from the 80s. so nighttime came and we were off dressed as the 'most conservative' or 'least sexy' of the night. when we arrived the price gouging had already begun with cover at $20. we paid and went in despite our displeasure. the place was quick to fill up of tons of people we did not know. and dru kept mentioning the costume contest throughout the night, until a girl with a clipboard came by and asked him if he wanted to sign up for the contest, and of course he did (again despite our displeasure). he insisted that we had to do it because it was his birthday. on the registration form it said that we would have 15-30 seconds of 'fame', to which dru began choreographing a dance for us. so we ended up in the group costume contest with teletubbies and a bunch of sexy girls. while jeannie unencouraged me by saying, "i'm glad i'm not melissa, at least i can hide under my hood". the single/couple contest was first where we saw that they would play hiphoppa music for everyone.. and all the sexy costume ppl did sexy dancing. the outlook was bleak, we were almost certain we would get boo'd off stage. then when the group competition begin, the sexy girl groups kept getting boo'd off stage one by one.. and hope peaked through ever so slightly. i mean the teletubbies made it through.. so we're one of the last groups to go.. dru rushes us out there and we do our sweet dance moves. (i never look out in the crowd the entire time) and in the end the roar of the crowd was cheers not jeers! pushing into the next round of the final 5. 10 more seconds of ridiculous dance moves and the final cheers for the winners were estimated by the hosts. we amazingly came out in 2nd place. it was surreal. though we totally could have taken 1st. we got beat out by teletubbies. but hey we totally took sexy back and came out with the $500 prize. i think there were a lot of predators in the audience that night.




and sunday we had omgbff day in the park. grilled burgers, chicken and fish. barbie cupcakes for dru, and touch football.

dru says: DO NOT WANT


i'm totally exhausted.

style A_D_D.

when it comes to my sense of style i think i have A.D.D. on wednesday i went from a lil bit rock to a lil bit prep on thursday. i was actually quite determined to wear a different jacket everyday this week, but midweek the weather warmed up. actually it warmed up by midday each day. so i nixed that idea, but continued taking a daily photo. since we have no strict dress code at work (guys wear hats, shorts, i wear jeans and my reefs) and since an average of 5 people see me a day, i like to 'test out' outfits at work, before giving them a spin IRL. ps. yes i did get the idea of taking these photos from fabsugar's lookbook.

fri_below: i have since removed the scarf. i need scarf tying lessons. *edit* added friday nights outfit