Monsoon Cafe in Jiyugaoka

On Saturday, my boyfriend and I've been to Jiyugaoka, maybe for the first time in three years. Jiyugaoka is the top-ranked residential area in Japan. There are many general stores and apparel stores around there. The newly opened apparel store called FREE'S MART was cool. It's a multi-brand store from L.A.! They have cute and cool clothes at reasonable prices. I didn't get anything on this day, but I'm sure I want to go back and get something one day!

We explored the town and had a dinner at Monsoon Cafe where you can enjoy food from Asian countries (Thai, Vietnam, China, Indonesia, etc...). It was a fashionable restaurant with an exotic atmosphere. I took a pic at the entrance. Their menu is reasonably priced and delicious, which was great! My boyfriend loved their green curry. It was raining hard at night but we were in a good mood, so we had a good time. Simple! He-he-he :D

We found an interesting restaurant dedicated to tomatoes: Celeb de Tomato. Tomatoes are a good source of vitamin C, jose! I wish we could go there the next time!

Today, the weather is super fine again! I think the beginning of fall is the best weather of the whole year ;)

Enjoy your day!

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Colorful Vegetables Steamed Rice

Yes! I finally got a chance to translate it!

I used plenty of colorful vegetable chunks for this steamed rice. I browned the meat and vegetables before I cook in the rice cooker, which makes the rice more tasty ;)




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Colorful Vegetables Steamed Rice

Difficulty: Easy
Time: 30min + rice cooking time
Number of servings: 4

Necessary Equipment:
suihanki (Japanese rice cooker)

Ingredients:
2 cups uncooked Japanese rice (short-grain rice)
100g (3.5oz.) chicken thigh
100g (3.5oz.) seafood mix
100g (3.5oz.) shimeji mushrooms
75g () zucchini
100g (3.5oz.) bell peppers (mix red, orange, and yellow)
100g (3.5oz.) grape tomatoes (mix red, yellow, and orange)
1 garlic clove
50g (1.7oz.) onion
A
* 1 crunched consomme cube
* 1 tsp. salt
cracked black pepper
1 tbsp. olive oil
lemon wedge

Directions:
1. Wash rice 30 minutes prior to cooking.
2. Finely chop onion and garlic. Cut chicken into bite-size pieces and season with salt and cracked black pepper. Slice zucchini into 0.7inch (2cm) rounds. Remove tough base of shimeji mushrooms and broke into bite-sized chunks. Cut bell peppers to one-bite size. Cut grape tomatoes into half.
3. Heat olive oil in a pan, fry onion and garlic until soft. Turn the heat high, add chicken, seafood mix, zucchini, shimeji mushrooms, bell peppers, and grape tomatoes in order, cook until nicely browned on all sides, and remove before done.
4. Place the rice and water (to the correct water level) in a Japanese rice cooker, then add A and mix well. Put browned ingredients (3.) on top and close the cooker and switch it on.
5. When it's done, don't open and leave it for about 10 minutes to blend the flavor.
6. Open, mix well, and serve with lemon wedge.
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Recently, I realized my liquid-type foundation causes acne. I should better use powder-type foundation... Helena Rubinstein has great coverage but I should stop using it X( Also, I need to moisturize my skin even more since the air is getting dry.

See you next week!

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DEAN & DELUCA

The image is the lunch I had one day with my boyfriend at DEAN & DELUCA near home. A little bit expensive but they serve nice light-taste dishes, so we go there once in a while. What we've got on this day was: grilled vegetables salad, crab meat and asparagus sandwich, and jambalaya. Another day we had cabbage and shrimp panini, which was really simple and delicious. Their "Super Premium Ice Cream" is great, too! I will post about it when we get a chance to have it ;)

The weather today is super fine with the blue sky! I wish I could go out for dinner tonight, but my boyfriend said he is busy... will see...

Anyway, I have hula class tonight. I can't believe how fast the week is going! I braided my hair to create a wavy hair again!

Aloha ;D

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