This past weekend, a group of my friends and I decided to take a trip down to Wat Mongkolratanaram or the Berkeley Thai Temple for brunch. If you’re in the Berkeley area on a Sunday morning, especially if you are a resident here (read: student), then this definitely should be on your Berkeley Bucket List. Berkeley has its fair share of Thai restaurants, most of which are great, but there’s something different about eating at Wat Mongkolratanaram.

Upon arriving, you’ll probably be a bit confused. “Is this a temple or a house?” It seems to be a house turned temple, or something like that. The next thing you’ll see are the crowds, and in front of them, the main food lines – one for vegetarian and one for non-vegetarian food. But wait, don’t get in line just yet (unless you have leftover tokens from last time, don’t worry, I’m about to get to that).

Insider Tip: Get there early. They start serving food at 10 am. You’ll beat the crowds and make sure that you get what you want. If you get there late, there’s a chance they will run out of certain items, like Pad Thai.

You don’t pay with cash here. Instead, you have to go over to the left and exchange your cash for tokens. The exchange rate is $1 for 1 token. Just hand them a $20 bill and they’ll give you a cup of 20 tokens. This will ensure the fastest, most efficient exchange for you and everyone else in line. But wait, you may ask, “What am I going to do with 20 tokens!?” It’s okay. One, you could exchange them back for cash at the same rate. Two, you’ll be back and can use the tokens then.

Once you get your tokens, you have options. You can get your main entrees (remember, the vegetarian and non-vegetarian lines), beef noodle soup, drinks, or dessert. I went straight for the non-vegetarian line. At both of the entree lines, you get a plate of rice and your choice of 1, 2, or 3 entrees. The prices are 6, 7, and 8 tokens respectively. I got Pad Thai and Cashew Chicken with rice and made a beeline for the condiments. I highly recommend the sambal, load up on it before it runs out. Pictured above is my friend’s plate of Cashew Chicken and Red Curry.

Insider Tip: Bring your own Tupperware (or comparable food container)! It is generally accepted that you get more food this way and you can pack your leftovers easily (if you have any).

After getting either your entree or beef noodle soup (6 tokens), don’t forget to get a drink. Their Thai Iced Tea is excellent! It’s cold, refreshing, and not too sweet. I’m sure their Thai Iced Coffee is good too, but I didn’t get to try it. Both the tea and coffee are 2 tokens each.

Now that you finally got your food, you’re going to have to find a table. If you find one, great. If not, get there earlier next time. The next step is simple, enjoy your food!

The Pad Thai was everything Pad Thai should be: sweet, sour, and salty. It wasn’t like some bad Pad Thais I’ve had. You know, the ones that taste like straight ketchup? If you’ve had your share of Thai food, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. The Cashew Chicken had a lot going on. There’s juicy chicken, fresh vegetables, and crunchy cashews. The flavors and textures worked really well together and the sambal just took it over the top. The Cashew Chicken is also a “safe” dish if you’re not the adventurous type.

I tried a bit of the Beef Noodle Soup with the fat, flat noodles. I wasn’t a huge fan of it, to be honest. The broth was surprisingly sweet, which was the main turn off for me. The beef was tender and flavorful and the noodles had a good bite to them. If the broth was more savory, it would have been a winner in my book. Maybe some sambal and pickled jalapenos would have solved the problem for me.

Some of my friends got the Mango Sticky Rice (5 tokens). The dish is made up of fresh mango slices and pudding that rest on a bed of sticky white and black rice. I can’t comment on this dessert because I didn’t get a chance to try it, but my friends seemed to enjoy it.

After your meal, take a stroll through their garden. It’s not too big or amazing, but it provides a peaceful escape from the crowds and noise.

So, how was it? Let’s just say, a friend of mine saw workers from an unnamed, well-known Thai restaurant eating here. If it’s good enough for them, it’s probably good enough for you. I’d definitely recommend all of you to go if you are in the area on a Sunday morning.

Wat Mongkolratanaram
1911 Russell St
Berkeley, CA 94703
(510) 849-3419

This month marks one year that I’ve been working at The Daily Californian, Berkeley’s independent student-run newspaper. Over that year, I’ve covered my share of protests that we seem to have rather often. In fact, it doesn’t seem like a semester unless there is a protest of some sort. Here are some photos from various protests that I’ve taken so far on assignment with The Daily Californian, including last year’s Wheeler protest and Occupy Cal.

I know I haven’t posted in a while, but now that I’m starting to settle into the new semester, it’s time for another post! While I was back at home for winter break, I made sure to stop by the Frysmith. If you don’t know, Frysmith is a food truck that uses French fries as a canvas to paint a culinary masterpiece on. I swear I thought of something like this before them, but I was young and not ready to start a business. Oh well (:P). As you read this, keep in mind that I made this visit about a month ago and I can’t seem to find my notes. I’ll do my best to remember everything as accurately as possible.

They had different kinds of poutine throughout the month of December. If you know me, you know I love poutine, but being foodies, we needed to try a variety of their offerings. We got the Rajas Fries, Kimchi Fries, Sweet Po Fries, and their special Holiday Poutine. Also, they switched from their old boats to oval-shaped platters. This switch definitely helps get the toppings more evenly distributed on the fries. It made for a more pleasant eating experience than when they used the classic boat.

The Rajas fries were excellent. You get giant strips of shawarma-marinated steak with caramelized onions, fire-roasted poblano chiles, cilantro, and jack cheese. These fries are MEATY! Seriously, how can you not like something with strips on strips of steak? Oh, and the steak is perfectly cooked, tender, and full of flavor.

The fries are of the thin variety and they sit in the perfect spot between soggy and crispy. For something like this, you don’t want a very crispy French fry; and you never want a soggy, limp French fry.

I’m going to go ahead and say this now, these were my favorite. As a Korean, how can the Kimchi Fries not be my favorite? These fries are topped with kimchi, Kurobuta pork belly (삼겹살), onions, green onions, and cheddar cheese. The brightness of the kimchi cut through the fries and pork while the pork and cheese provided the hearty element of the dish. There was a great balance of flavors. It also proved to be an excellent palate cleanser in-between eating all the other fries.

The Sweet Po Fries are sweet potato fries topped with chicken in a tomatillo-tamarind sauce, jack cheese, and cashews. The flavor profile on this one was sweeter than the other fries we had; the tamarind in the sauce is definitely a prominent flavor. The cashews lend a great textural contrast to the rest of the dish as the sweet potato fries aren’t as crispy as the regular fries. I thoroughly enjoyed these fries, especially in-between bites of the other fries.

The Holiday Poutine was topped with bacon, cheese curds, and holiday gravy. Remember how I mentioned that I love poutine? Well, this one was sadly disappointing. First of all, the cheese curds weren’t as melty as I like them. I know cheese curds are supposed to have some bite and “squeak,” but these were pretty firm – the gravy could have been hotter. On that note, the gravy was this dish’s greatest downfall. Because it was a “holiday” poutine, they flavored the gravy with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and orange peel. The flavor of the spices were too strong and overpowered everything else. We all came to the consensus that the gravy just didn’t work with the rest of the dish.

Overall, this trip to the Frysmith was a very pleasant one, as my other visits have been. They are always experimenting with new dishes and specials. For example, for a week (until yesterday), they turned into the Soupsmith and served soup instead of fries. Everything from the food to their truck sets them apart from most other food trucks. Their custom made truck runs on fry oil! Go check them out some time. Fries never fail.

Frysmith
www.twitter.com/frysmith
www.eatfrysmith.com
(818) 371-6814

I recently recorded a drum cover of Five Iron Frenzy’s newest song from the grave, “It Was a Dark and Stormy Night.” If you do not know, Five Iron Frenzy is one of the greatest ska bands to grace the world. Maybe that’s an overstatement, but I’ll let you be the judge of that. Anyway, they broke up in 2003 to the dismay of fans everywhere. In November of last year, they announced that they are coming back from the dead with an uber successful Kickstarter campaign that met their goal of $30,000 in about 55 minutes. At the moment, they have $186,363 pledged. They also released this track as a free gift to their faithful fans.

After posting the cover to Youtube, I put a link to the video on Five Iron Frenzy’s Facebook page on a whim. I was just hoping to share the video with some fellow fans, but what I least expected happened… Five Iron Frenzy liked the post. I stopped for a while and thought, “Wow, the band, or at least someone in the band/affiliated with the band saw it and liked it enough to click ‘Like’!” If that wasn’t cool enough, I noticed that my view counter started to jump and I started getting comments from random Youtube folk. Sweet, people somehow found my video. It wasn’t until user bobbytharabbit told me via comment that the band put my video up on their Facebook page. That just killed me.

I was honored, humbled, and dumbfounded as it all happened. There I was, just another Asian kid on Youtube (there’s a ton) posting content for fun, and one of my favorite bands notices! That’s the power of social media, I tell ya. I hope all of you enjoy the video.

Technical Info
Video was shot on a Canon 7D and Nikon D7000 both with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 lenses and a 35mm f1.8 on the D7000 for a couple shots.

Audio was recorded with some new mics and a new interface. I had a pair of Karma K-Micros as overheads and on both of my toms, an EV N/D 757A on the snare, and an SM58 on the kick. All the mics ran into a Tascam US-800 and into my computer.

I just wanted to let everyone know that Adobe just released the Lightroom 4 Beta! Lightroom is my favorite digital photo processing software on the market. It makes processing and organizing your photos a breeze. If you are serious about photography and have not yet heard about or tried Lightroom, I don’t know where you’ve been all this time. So go, check it out!

Note the sneak peek of an upcoming post in the screenshot.

Click here for the download and more details.

As promised, here is the second post on the series covering my time at the 123rd Rose Parade in Pasadena, CA. Today, I will feature the people of the Parade. Hopefully this will offer a slightly different point of focus than other peoples’ coverage of the event. Above, we have some jolly old men on the Shriner’s Hospital float called Soaring for Kids. Check out yesterday’s post for another photo of the float.

Here we have the mounted rider my friends and I lovingly called “The Asian Cowboy (with a Fu-Manchu).” We really liked his stache.

Of course every group of horses was followed by an equally (or in most cases, more) exciting group of poop scoopers! Everyone loves these guys and gals. They get cheered on as they do their work in the wake of the horses. The woman leading this group was especially excited. Fight on.

Even if you camp out early to save a spot, it can be hard to see over the heads of everyone in front of you. Luckily we had primo accommodations and got access to some great vantage points. However, if you were stuck behind droves of people, you should take notes. These guys are actually on top of a ladder. Genius!

Now, if you don’t know yet, I’m a photographer. Photographers tend to be a bit nosy curious when it comes to what gear someone else is using. Naturally, I couldn’t help but notice what people were using to photograph the parade.

Here you have the oh-so-common iPhone. It takes great pictures. That’s a fact, which is why you see people everywhere taking photos with them.

Next, I spotted a relatively small tablet sticking out of a crowd of iPhones and SLRs. It must be a bit awkward to take photos with, but oh well, it works.

Now, an iPad. It’s just too big to be comfortable to use as a camera and frankly, it looks ridiculous. I’m not going to judge you if you do it, but others might.

Okay, this one just dumbfounded me. A Nintendo DS? Huh? What’s going on? Yeah…I’ve never seen this before. I guess there’s a first for everything.

I hope you all enjoyed my coverage of this year’s Rose Parade as much as I enjoyed watching and photographing it! If you want more information about the parade as well as more coverage, check their website out here!

First of all, Happy New Year, everyone! Today was the 123rd Rose Parade in Pasadena, CA, and for the first time of my many Rose Parades, I was able to attend in person! Thanks to some generous friends of friends, we had access to a penthouse and street view of the whole parade. What a great way to experience my first in-person Rose Parade. As we watched, it was really strange not hearing commentary from Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards like I’m so used to. I realized how clueless you are watching the parade without commentary. I had no idea what many of the floats were, but I still enjoyed it. Today I will be featuring photos of the parade itself. I plan for another post tomorrow on the people of the Parade.

Here is this year’s Grand Marshal, J.R. Martinez.

The parking was pretty ridiculous, as one could imagine.

I hope you enjoyed this post. Be sure to check back tomorrow night for another post on the people of the Rose Parade!

Hello everyone! I know it’s been a very long time since I’ve posted, but here’s a little gift for you all! I recorded a drum cover of José Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad” with some of my new recording gear. I was inspired by Brad Davis of Adventure Drums, so I donned a faux-moustache, my naughty boxers, and a rather creepy tude. Feel free to subscribe, comment, rate, whatever your heart desires, maybe I’ll start posting more videos. Merry Christmas, I love you all!

Technical Info
Video was shot on a Canon 7D and Nikon D7000 both with Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 lenses. The 7D shoots at 60 fps while the D7000 shoots at 24 fps, so there is some noticeable difference between the shots from both cameras. I was able to work around this for the most part.

Audio was recorded with some new mics and a new interface. I had a pair of Karma K-Micros as overheads and on both of my toms, an EV N/D 757A on the snare, and an SM58 on the kick. I’m still waiting on clips and stands for most of my mics, so I used some gaffers tape and got the mics decently placed around the kit. The sound isn’t where I want it to be yet, but I’ll be working on it. All the mics then ran into a Tascam US-800 and into my computer.

I ended up getting to the shoot late because the class I had before was running over time. When I got to the location of the shoot, I found out that I had but five minutes with Ivan. A part of me went into panic mode. I had to ditch my initial plan of setting up lights. Also, because of the position of the sun, I couldn’t get a clean background like I wanted to. Not to mention, I was rushed. This was one of those situations where I just had to adapt. I ended up breaking several rules that I usually follow religiously. First, I had to mount my flash on camera. This is a major no-no, especially when using it to shoot directly at the subject, which I had to do. Second, I had to use my wide-angle lens. I typically shy away from using a wide-angle lens (especially a super-wide like my Tokina 11-16mm f2.8) to shoot portraits. However, in this situation, breaking some rules actually worked in the final image. Here are the images I got (yes, there are only two, mind the five minute period I had). The following images are copyright The Daily Californian.

Here’s what the image looked like in print with design’s work and the story.

Here’s my attempt at doing a faux Instagram effect in Lightroom. I’d say it looks pretty hip.