Food: Saigon Cafe Review [Delivery]

Restaurant: Saigon Cafe, Livermore

Delivery service used: DoorDash
Date ordered: 17th May, 2020

Dishes ordered:

  1. Pho with Rare Steak Slices (Large) – $13.00 – 7/10
  2. Pho with Rare Steak, Brisket, Tendon and Tripe (Large) – $13.00 – 7/10

Flavour: I mean… it’s not bad. It’s not the best pho I’ve ever had, but it’s okay. I personally find the broth too sweet and somehow a bit salty all at the same time. You can taste some other spices like star anise in there too but… I don’t know. I find it lacking, somewhat. It’s like it would have benefitted from simmering in the bones and spices for another few hours to bring out a richer, deeper flavour in the broth itself, rather than over-seasoning to supplement taste.

I ended up pouring some more hot water into the broth to dilute it a little, which worked out well because I feel like we didn’t get as much broth in proportion to the quantity of dry ingredients. In addition, I’m more of a lime-with-my-pho type of girl, but they tend to serve theirs with lemon. I do appreciate that the meat and herbs were very fresh though.

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Recipe: Tuna Nicoise Salad

I made this last night based off this recipe because we wanted to eat something healthy and happened to have a number of ingredients for a wannabe tuna niçoise salad.

It was so easy to throw together, and turns out the hubby liked it so much he wanted it again today. So I should write this down so I don’t forget what was in it or how to make it:

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I’m trying to grow everything.

It began with randomly trying to propagate my money tree. We’d just re-organised my desk area and I put my little money tree nodes into a mason jar and put it by the windowsill (you can see it in the background of these photos).

Unfortunately, being so close to the window burned some of its leaves because the sun gets very strong towards the afternoon, so I moved it to the top of my bookshelf instead.

I thought it’d died. But lo and behold! It’s starting to grow roots! The main stem has started to grow a whole host of roots, and even the leaf nodes have started to show signs of sprouting roots.

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Faith: How I Choose A Church To Commit To

Image credit: Unsplash

I’ve moved quite a lot in my life (4 countries, 3 continents, 10 cities and counting), and moving in my adult life as a Christian, one of the first things I would do is to look for a church community. When I was younger, typically I would just look for the local Chinese Church because it’s what I was used to growing up, and usually there’d only be one.

However, before moving to the States, I received some solid advice on how to choose a new church. I took this advice, and by the grace of God it led me to my previous church family that I loved so deeply I almost didn’t want to leave, and is the criteria I would consider if I ever had to move again.

There are only 3 things I look for now. If I write it down so that I don’t forget, perhaps it could help you too.

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Recipe: One-Pan Egg Fried Riced Cauliflower

This is less of a recipe and more of a throw-everything-in-a-pan-and-stir-fry-it sort of thing. It’s so easy to make, tastes good, saves on washing up, and is healthy (literally a bowl of veggies + protein).

These are instructions for using frozen produce, because we can’t finish Costco-sized packs of meat and veg in a day. Feel free to make substitutions, just alter your cooking time accordingly.

Also, as much as I’ll try and give instructions and provide cooking pointers, it’s not a fool-proof recipe; your appliances will differ from mine so adjust accordingly. Neither will I have accurate measurements of salt/pepper/oil etc. – I prefer my food a little less salty, but you season it how you like.

Let’s get started.

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