MOTD: Trader Joe's Thai green curry

Whenever I eat Thai food, green curry - objectively the spiciest and subjectively the most flavorful Thai curry of all - is my go-to. Naturally, when I spotted a jar of Thai green curry sauce at Trader Joe's, I had to check it out.

Image 1. Thai green curry simmer sauce

Hot Doug's

I am madly in love with the Chicago-style hot dog. I find it vastly preferable to its New York counterpart, which is immersed in what can only be described as hot dog water and garnished uncouthly with ketchup (the same cannot be said about pizza, but that is a story for a different time).

Image 1. The Fire Dog

This past weekend I had the pleasure of stopping by the one and only Hot Doug's. I had been meaning to visit since my college days, as the place was of UChicago-level fame (seeing as U of C students are generally too busy spending their days and nights in the Regenstein library - without eating, sleeping or bathing - to explore the city, something that is UChicago fame-worthy is a huge deal).

Ice cream cake: when heaven freezes over

At first, I thought this recipe may be too amateur to post here, and then I realized this was The Rookie Cookbook, where professional photography is frowned upon and nothing is too amateur. Nothing. Thus, I present to you the ice cream cake.

Image 1. Homemade ice cream cake

This ice cream cake has a flourless chocolate cake base, topped with cheesecake ice cream, graham cracker crumbs, and dark chocolate ganache. In other words, it's heaven frozen over.

But enough of my babbling. Let's get to it.

Classic & Korean-style baby back ribs

I love me some ribs.

But sometimes, after going through the same rotation of meals for the umpteenth week, you stare at a rack of ribs and think, "I wanna try something different." Which is why, my friends, I present to you the Korean-style baby back ribs.

Image 1. Ribs with brown sugar & paprika rub

Of course, I needed to insure myself for potential damages (i.e. if my Korean ribs suck), so I divided the ribs in half and cooked up a batch of classic baby back ribs as well, complete with homemade barbecue sauce from scratch. That's right. You get two recipes in one post.

MOTD: EPIC BREAKFAST SANDWICH

If you are a chronic insomniac like me, you get some of your best ideas at night. Especially if you're like me and you're always hungry. This breakfast sandwich was one of those ideas.

Image 1. Heavenly breakfast sandwich

That, my friends, is a hot dog bun (it's the only bread I had, lulz) topped with brie cheese, bacon, an over easy egg, and avocado. I was planning on adding arugula, but as you can see, my sandwich was already overflowing. I had to eat it with a fork.

Sapori Trattoria

This restaurant review has been a long time coming; ever since I first arrived in Chicago I have been searching for the Italian restaurant to trump all Italian restaurants, and Sapori Trattoria in Lincoln Park, being the top-rated-on-Yelp restaurant that it is, definitely deserved a visit.

Image 1. I am impressed with the quality of my phone's camera

Hassle-free hayashi rice

I just realized that even though I'm Asian, I don't have an Asian recipe on this blog yet. BLASPHEMY! Seeing as I have an old bottle of cabernet that I bought for cooking purposes and I was kind of getting tired of making marinara sauce, I decided to try something different.

Thus began my journey of cooking hayashi rice.

Image 1. Hayashi sauce

Every Asian probably remembers buying these at their local Asian supermarket. I myself have never tasted hayashi rice made of anything other than this conveniently packaged block of hayashi rice sauce. The problem was, I didn't have any with me, and the nearest Asian market is a significant distance away. Besides, being that this is America, I had no idea how much they costed here and didn't want to be unpleasantly surprised.

MOTD: Epic meal time

Brats wrapped in bacon. Need I say more?

Image 1. BACON STRIPS. BACON STRIPS. BACON STRIPS.

I can't be the only person who thinks the stuff they come up with on Epic Meal Time looks delicious. Sure, they're obscenely high-calorie and should not be consumed by any human on a regular basis, and sure, some things like the bacon protein bar look absolutely disgusting, but mostly, it's just copious amounts of meat and cheese. What's not to like? Right? Right?!