It’s been almost three and a half months since I was last here, and between then and now, much has happened. (Including the column I was writing for 13 weeks, where much of my writing energy was redirected.) But I’m really, really excited to say… NMC HAS MOVED.

This is a big deal for me, evidenced by how many hours I spent on the new site (my own domain!) instead of on the first major workload I’ve been assigned this quarter. But, hey, this is personal. And the personal stuff gets to me.

NinaMeetsCafe is changing a bit, though. There’s no chance I’m abandoning my dining endeavors, of course. But rather than just an exploration of the area, NMC has become an exploration of people. The craziness and mystery and beauty of our everyday lives is one of those things I’ve always been on the lookout for, and now I’m just sharing that discussion. This is what my column was about. And, now that The Stanford Daily volume is over, I’m bringing it to a revitalized NMC.

So, if you’re interested, you are welcome to join me right over here, at my new-most-likely-permanent address. –>

ninameetscafe.com.

Honestly, it would be wonderful to see you there.

With gratitude and warm regards,

Nina.

But hey! Off to Cafe Zoe it was for Anna and I, on a cool Saturday morning for coffee, breakfast pastries and the endless mission of readingreadingreading.

Neither of us knew what to look for in Zoe, but it was the cute, slightly politically active, picture of a small cafe that greeted us (as well as a sweet parking spot).

Some breakfast items weren’t ready (namely, bagels) by the time we got there bright and early and, to be frank, there isn’t much in the way of breads and things. But Anna found a blueberry muffin to her liking, and me a super-nutty pumpkin bread, both of which were set out on plates for us to neatly enjoy. Oh, they were good! [And catered - Cafe Zoe isn't a bakery.] It was all very well-priced.

And I even ran into a friend there who is from the area! Which totally drove home the locals-territory point for me.

Cafe Zoe is earthy, warm, wooden, slightly hippie, and has rock-vases on the tables that declare “Peace” and “Serenity” and similar pleasant concepts. There are also cushy chairs further back where I saw a woman with work sprawled everywhere, taking good advantage of the free wi-fi. Anna and I were sitting on benches with awesome cushions as we chatted and sipped from our enormous coffee cups (another Cafe Zoe high point) and got to our reading.

And the morning finally woke up, daylight started streaming in, and it was honestly a most delightful morning with our new friend Zoe. (Oh, and the rock on our table said “Community,” I think. HAHA.)

It’s only 10-15 minutes away from Stanford, but feels like a total escape, hidden between houses and the like: If you think you read the directions totally wrong, you’re actually probably okay.

Go to Zoe! Get that bread if you see it…

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PLUS, this very green and gorgeous campus region is home to the new Stanford location of Ike’s Place. People are pretty crazy about it.

Well, they must be, because the lines are pretty solid before 11.

Several weeks ago, I found myself waiting in that line for about half an hour, trying not to lose my way inside the super-stocked laminated menu… and also trying to remember the craziest names.

My $5.95 sandwich was the Half “Vegan Sally Ride”: Vegan Turkey, Avocado, Soy Cheese on my choice of Wheat bread. And that may seem like not that many ingredients, but it an unexpected explosion of taste, quite frankly.

For my male friends…

An $8.98 Full “The Catch”: All Beef Meatballs, Marinara, Pepper Jack sandwich. (Except I can’t even remember if it was The Catch.)

Unfortunately/vaguely, Dan said he wasn’t totally crazy about his sandwich.

But pictured above is my friend after having enjoyed his $8.98 Full “Bill Walsh”: Turkey, Avocado, Havarti – which he said was totally satisfactory.

Oh! Ike’s gives you a complimentary fruit or bag of chips with your sandwich, too! Which made me realize that although I absolutely adore Olives at Bldg. 160, Ike’s half-sandwiches are [kind of] a better deal, being at the same price and all… (Olives has all my Cardinal dollars, by the way. This is becoming a serious lunchtime issue.)

Ike’s sandwiches are actually very… American, and by that I mean super saucy: All their sandwiches implicitly include Ike’s Secret Sauce.

But overall, it was worth at least one trip to investigate what all the hullabaloo was about.

And you should go at least once, too, but definitely not at lunch time, if you want to eat during lunch time. Have fun choosing your sandwich!

=)

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Borrone is a big, bright window-box of eats and drinks and highly contented-looking people. The multitude of colors should explain it all.

“A San Francisco Cappuccino?” I asked.

“It’s our special cappuccino, with chocolate,” the brunette cashier responded knowingly.

“OHMYGOSH YES,” I calmly responded.

So it was me and Nadeen and my cappuccino and her heat-complementing cool drink… and her Ph.D. application and my paper on why a certain post-WWII George Kennan in 1951 has some insightful points against a large world-governing body in a system of competing countries.

It was really interesting! No, seriously. This is why I have [FINALLY] declared my International Relations major!

…

Cafe Borrone, a real restaurant with hot food and pastries and cake and large windows and busybodies, etc., will surely distract the studiously sensitive. But if you’re not one of those, hey! There’s more study break available… at the locally famous bookstore right next door – called Kepler’s! It’s the bookstore browser’s best friend, whose local fame is very visibly justifiable. You just have to take one glance…

So Nadeen and I, bookstore fanatics, took our Kepler-looking pleasure and carried that spirit of joy right into our necessary work at hand.

I finished my whole paper, and that was just marvelous. And Nadeen and I caught up, and that was even more marvelous.

Go to Cafe Borrone! Because when I told Nadeen I hadn’t yet been, she questioned me, “You haven’t been to Cafe Borrone?!”

But the situation has been remedied, and now it’s your turn [to try a choice chocolate-hinted cappuccino].

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Thankfully, we’re both done now!

But several Fridays ago we most certainly were not.

That was the context for my proposal to visit Tootsie’s at the Stanford Barn, an Italian cafe I’d been eyeing for far too long.

Situated at the edge of the Stanford Shopping Center, it quickly became one of my favorite [almost-]on-campus locations, and not just for how positively pretty it is.

The employees, first of all, talked me through the menu, and posed extravagantly for every picture they saw me taking…

…well, actually it was just this one guy who was so gung-ho. But collectively, they’re all wonderful. They let us stay past closing. And gave us super-exclusive free biscotti during that time.

Is that not the cutest thing?!

The handwritten chalkboard menu declares delectable croissants (Anne Sophie’s chocolate croissant was refreshingly crisp and splendidly grease-free), panini, several types of small pizza, and a nice little selection of coffee drinks. But by 2 in the afternoon, count on seeing chalky remainders of sold-out menu items crossed off the board.

The young man behind the counter, addressing my ordering anxiety, answered my question about the granita al’ caffe’ with the most persuasive confidence that I’d love it. At essence, it’s a coffee shaved ice. It was just the solution to the day’s heat.

So when you go to Tootsie’s for the first time, to read by the roses or practice speaking with the Italian employees (that’s right, check for Tootsie’s!), I bid you consider la granita.

I plan on becoming a regular customer to this nearby Italian treasure, so perhaps I’ll see you there someday soon.

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1. Less time, meaning less time I want to spend in front of a screen. (The same surely applies to you!)

2. A column I wrote last week (that’s right! – check The Stanford Daily every Wednesday!) made my readers jump through hoops and over hurdles e to find the point that I wanted to make.

Thus, the resolution is: convoluted-no-more, clear and concise posts. It’s an exercise in linguistic efficiency. So y’all ready?

For the dish last weekend that satisfied my love affair with vegetables?

Cascal, a tapas restaurant on Castro Street in Mountain View, was Anna and mine’s destination on a cool Saturday evening, after a day of sunny library studying. Cascal’s hostess allowed us the choice of a 30-minute wait…. or the bar! Of course, we took the latter, where we sat, daintily cross-legged and sipping on water. Their vegetable paella is large, for the menu’s least costly $12-13, highly unconventional, packed with green rice and broccoli and peppers and the tastiest garbanzo beans.

Along with a tapa of tasty Brazilian shrimp & rice croquettas, we managed our way through quite a portion of it, in conjunction with other much larger topics of our lives, as chicas will.

It was quite the grown-up dinner – after the Mountain View Public Library’s Teen Zone, suggested to us by a nice but misinformed librarian.

Our subjects of choice were Econ (me) and Pride & Prejudice (Anna):

…The latter like Keira Knightley.

Yes, that’s us. From Teen Zone to the Spanish bar. Now don’t we just study well and paella well?

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JUNIOR YEAR.

Yes, the first day begins in almost 24 hours. That, of course, is simply the latest of the many Twilight Zone-like realizations that have dawned on me this summer. So let’s be quick in the re-cap, shall we?

Once upon a time, I was in Seoul for the umpteenth, but completely differently-natured, time.

And then I said goodbye to my [very shy!] tutee for whom I was volunteering at one of the city’s children’s foundations…

And there was Hong Kong, for two cousins who have been extensively blogged about elsewhere on this blog:

And, of course, before leaving Seoul I had to check one off of the crazy-cuisine check-list: lively [literally] little octopus. (Its Korean name translates to “live octopus.”)

And my favorite rice-wine, yet again…

And I must say that I miss my Dad’s bathroom air-freshener geckos:

But Hermosa Beach beckoned me back, as did balloons from my mother to greet me. =D

My week and a half at HomeHermosa with my mom was essentially a mini-break retreat, mother-daughter style.

And, on the drive up to Stanford, we sat on a sunny bench (yes!) with tuna and turkey sandwiches by a large mechanical train-ride at Casa de Frutas on the 152 (bountiful in sun, sundaes, fudge, nuts, fruits, nut/fruit-related candies, a diner, tourists… deli!):

And on California Avenue’s Palo Alto del Sol Mexican restaurant in Palo Alto, we split a chicken dish covered in a very dark mole sauce that disguised a super-flavorful combination of nuts and spices and… a $16.50 price tag! But… I think it was totally worth it… as a lack of a descriptive picture reveals how I forgot to capture the mole as we enjoyed it. The restaurant’s complimentary salsas, however, were fabulous, as were the clearly fresh home-made tortilla chips.

And now, a week later, the sands of time are rapidly slipping away, in the reliably mind-bogglingly manner of this school. I’m doing my best not to lose it. So far, success.

This year’s adventures are so close I can almost taste them – they’re just a GoogleMap search away. (And this year with the help of my bright red car, no less!)

So wait up, my friends! Good stories with good friends are to be found… at a dining table just around the corner.

Two Sundays ago, some sprawling streets became massive sidewalks because…

…광화문 (Gwanghwamun), the main gate of 경복궁 (Gyeongbokgung), Seoul’s biggest historical palace, had completed reconstruction and was opening to the public. Finally.

And while the face of the long-term construction cover-up was absolutely gorgeous (picture night-lights, changing colors and intricate detail), I had been waiting for the concealed secret for over a year. A celebration was absolutely in order!!!

Consequently, the streets were closed off for the evening’s event, which was highlighted not only by spotlights from behind, but by musical performances and televised interviews as well. The grandness, of course, was perfectly in line with the prone-to-be-epic nature of this nation’s government.

I obviously wasn’t the only one to rally to see the monumental rejuvenation. It was destroyed years and years ago by the Japanese in a 1592 invasion, then again during the colonization period for an administrative Governor General Building. Next, the Korean War happened. It’s gone through a lot, poor thing! But on that cool August 15th evening, it showed its beautiful, persistent face once more.

I was sososo excited to see it!!! Ohmygosh, historyhistoryKoreanhistory.

And then I walked around to relish the Twilight Zone-feel of huge, empty Seoul streets.

Hey, speaking of transformations…

I got a haircut yesterday!!!

Harharhar.

And tomorrow?

HONG KONG to reunite with some very special people.

…which I went to with my Seoul-residing, former South Korean diplomat-grandfather.

He thought he misheard when I admitted my strong intention to try dog meat. (In fact, most of my family’s did, too, when I told them. Hehehe.) But, after adjusting himself to the novel idea of taking his granddaughter to eat something he doesn’t think girls eat very much, he decided to take me to the best place he knew. YAY. As their generation probably eats it the most, I knew I had to go with one of my 할아버지s (gramps!). (My CA-residing paternal grandfather, however, won’t eat it.) To be honest, I was slightly anxious that, being  a girl, this particular gastronomic ambition was a bit crude. It was okay, though. All the other groups in the restaurant included at least one girl!

It’s unfortunate I have to call it “dog meat” in English; the Korean name of its most commonly eaten form literally translates to “well-being stew.” Older generations ate it for its supposed miraculous medical properties, including total cholesterol extermination. It’s also one of those super-hot stews traditionally eaten in the summer. The ironic/clever Korean summer principle of balance: conquer deathly heat with something way hotter.

Ten menu items indicates this is an established 전문식당: specialty restaurant, few offerings, all done well. Wikipedia, however, suggests that perhaps the restaurant is actually illegal…!? South Korea apparently has a delicate relationship with dog meat: the latter is blatantly absent from a list of “legal food ingredients.” I suppose that if the government really did crack down, this restaurant might be one of the first to go. Yet my grandfather, who demands top-quality for this dish, comes only to this restaurant for it, and sparingly. What a treat for me!!!

In those two large bowls… our 개장국 (the specific name of our soup)! I wonder how many of you are completely repulsed right now. If you tend toward animal rights sentiments, I apologize in advance. I’m just going to say three things.

1. Spicy.

2. Expectation-exceedingly tasty.

3. Not the same species of dogs you’ll find in any house. There. Your reassurance.

(4. I don’t lie.)

I’m certain that my grandfather never imagined himself enjoying one of his favorite summer foods with his granddaughter, with whom he started communicating with only two years ago. I wouldn’t have predicted it, either. It was wonderful to see him so happy.

=)

P.S. Look at his sweet hat. He wears it every time we meet for lunch, so I’ve started to see it as our third lunch partner!

It was having a last little bash with my classmates, who I didn’t know existed 10 weeks ago and have since spoken awkwardly with, horribly misunderstood, eaten with, sung with, and 배가 터지도록 웃겼다 (laughed so hard my stomach almost fell out). A lot of that has to do with my two teachers also, one of whom was the funniest teacher I’ve ever met (pictured).

As the quarter went on, fewer and fewer rounds of people came to class… especially the last week, post-final. But me, being a total nerd, got a special stamp for full attendance; I honestly didn’t want to miss my chance to see these girls while I could. After all, the 12 of us gathered from at least three different languages and countries and totally different life situations. Some are in college, some are in grad school, some are married, some are looking for work in Korea, one just loved KPOP… It was really a convergence of craziness.

*Weeks 1-10* 쉬는 시간!!! We always passed around snacks during class breaks… ㅋ ㅋ  예를 들어서, 기말시험을 봤을 때… (사랑하는) 오예스를 돌리는 마스미 ~

*Week 4* We bonded over messy pottery on a Korean ceramic culture field trip… 마지 씨… 아침에 시리얼을 먹으면 만든 도자기를 정말 써야 돼!

*Week 5* A friend and I went to eat at the Japanese-style spaghetti restaurant 모토코 씨 (Motoko) works at! 여려분, 가는한 한 한국에서 가기 전에 엄청 맛이있는 일본스타일 파스타가 땡기면 모토코는 요리했던 음식을 먹으러 가!)

*Week 6* Though I realized much sooner how attached I was getting (and how extremely sentimental), we were finally able to negotiate a good date for dinner and karaoke… 반찬은 많기 뿐만 아니라 이해 할 수 없는 메뉴도 있었다. 히히히.

*Week 9* And to celebrate the end of our final, we went out to lunch, on the Korean government! (Via cash given to me for safekeeping by our teacher.) 중간시험 끝나자마자 친구반이랑 점심을 무료 먹을 수 있는 것은 아주 특별한 것이다.

*Week 10* And then, just because, I bought us all a sweet-potato celebratory cake from a great nearby bakery on the Wednesday of our last week. 밑에: 고구마 케이크를 빨리 먹어 싶은… 미령.

So now, a 10-week program is over. While most of my learning probably came from outside Ewha, the walls of Room 401 saw so much freaking cuteness!!! That is, aside from the vocabulary, grammar, scores that were .78 away from failing (hehehe)… there was also this girl named Nina meeting an unbelievably fortunately fabulous group of girls.

생각보다 무지무지 멋있고 재미있고 대단한 친구들 만났다. 다행이다.

여러분…

우리 처음으로 만났던 때 엊그제 같다.

언제 다시 보지?? 곧! (인터넷에서 ㅋㅋ)

잘 가!!!

Hehehehe.

=D

And now, no longer bound by the convenience of a short walk to school, I actually write from my Dad’s place once again.

(So yesterday was also goodbye to my wee little dwelling place. Goodbye tiny room!)