Lunch: Tina made an awesome bacon, avocado, and egg sandwich for lunch.

Dinner: We had the last of the Christmas dinner leftovers - prime rib, corn, sauteed fresh spinach, and Yorkshire pudding.

Breakfast: We drove up to IKEA to take advantage of their one day sale on POÄNG chairs ($50 each instead of $90). As part of their holiday deals, we also got free breakfast - some scrambled eggs like substance, potatoes, and two strips of bacon. We split a Greek salad as well.

Lunch: After church, we went over to Chen's Noodle House (8650 Spicewood Springs Rd, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 336-8888‎).

Extremely crispy and flaky cong you bing (scallion pancakes). When I bit into it, I immediately tasted something in the oil that I usually associate with sweet pastries, but I couldn't quite place it. It wasn't sweet - it was savory and had a decent amount of scallions, so I wasn't sure what it was. I remember last time tasting the same flavor (a flavor that I don't normally associate with Chinese food) in their cong you bing, but I didn't find out what it was that time. We asked this time and it turns out they add a tiny bit of butter (which is why it doesn't taste like Chinese food).

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What I Ate: December 27, 2009 (IKEA, Chen's Noodle House)

Lunch: We headed off to the Barton Creek mall for some Day After Christmas Sale shopping and stopped in at Nordstrom Cafe Bistro for lunch. The last several times we ate here, the food has been excellent, but not today. The soup was fine, but the pasta dish was lacking and the pizza was merely okay.

Potato Soup

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What I Ate: December 26, 2009 (Nordstrom Cafe Bistro)

Dinner: Tina and I prepared a Christmas feast for… just the two of us. I decided to do a prime rib for Christmas dinner this year because I kept answering questions sent to me by other people trying to prepare a prime rib. It seemed like a good idea, but really for two people, you just end up with a lot of leftovers. I picked up a one rib roast (which I would normally call a steak, but humor me) last night and started preparing dinner after we went to see Sherlock Holmes at 4:30pm. I grilled the roast over high heat to get a nice char on the outside and then finished it off over low indirect heat.

Yorkshire pudding.

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What I Ate: December 25, 2009 (Christmas Dinner)

Dinner: We had a rather disappointing meal at Aquarelle (606 Rio Grande Street, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 479-8117‎) which was in start contrast with our first meal at Aquarelle (during Austin Restaurant Week). The main reason I wanted to go back was the delicious but simple dinner rolls, but they didn't have the same addictive taste as they did during our last visit.

The started us with an amuse bouche of salmon mousse with sun-dried tomato vinaigrette. Good.

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What I Ate: December 24, 2009 (Aquarelle)

Dinner: After Christmas service at our church, we went to Musashino Sushi Dokoro (3407 Greystone Drive, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 795-8593‎) to try their sushi. The place claims to serve sushi "Tokyo-style" which, I took to mean, how they eat sushi in Japan. As far as I know (having only had sushi in Japan once in the Roppongi district of Tokyo), the etiquette is to use your fingers to eat sushi. Nigiri is made with wasabi already placed underneath the fish (on top of the rice), so only a light dipping in soy sauce is needed. The nigiri is placed in the mouth fish side down in the mouth so the flavor the fish is the first thing that the tongue can perceive before chewing begins. When eating sashimi, soy sauce and wasabi can be combined and then the fish dipped (because sashimi is not prepared with wasabi already on it). I prepped Tina before we left home and when we perused our menu found a nice guide on how to eat sushi in the back of the menu. In addition to the items previously mentioned, they also ask patrons not to rub their chopsticks together. Our chopsticks were of fairly high quality, but there were still splinters when we snapped them apart - if they don't want us to rub them, then they should have given us higher quality sticks. We picked off the few splinters by hand in deference to their request then ordered a couple appetizers, a selection of different nigiri to try, and ended with a couple rolls.

Sake Kama Shioyaki (Grilled salmon cheeks) $10 - This was excellent - the cheek meat was buttery, succulent, and strongly flavored (a pleasant fishiness). Along with the cheek came an ample amount of salmon steak which was also cooked just through (but not any further). This was a great way to start the meal, and I wouldn't hesitate to order it again.

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What I Ate: December 23, 2009 (Musashino Sushi Dokoro)

Dinner: I grilled two beef chuck steaks along with mushroom, onion, and bell pepper shish kebabs and sweet potatoes.

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What I Ate: December 22, 2009

Lunch: Ate left over Chinese food - that weird egg foo young, fried rice, and green beans.

Dinner: We watched Avatar at the Alamo Drafthouse. I ate a Chinese Chicken Salad during the first hour of the film (it was a little overly dressed - the salad not the movie - and had too many onions). Since it's dark in the theater and they frown on cameras, there's no picture of the meal - but here's a shot of where I ate the meal once the lights came back up during the credits roll.

Lunch: I whipped up a simple tuna fish salad for lunch and served it on Ritz crackers. We also heated up a cong you bing and ate that along with our lunch.

Dinner: Greg and Yachi were in town, so Gary, Mary, Greg, and Yachi came over to see the house. We then went out to The Salt Lick (Greg and Yachi had never been) for barbecue baby back ribs (a Sunday special), some brisket, sausage, potato salad, and cole slaw. We enjoyed the dinner with a couple of bottles of wine from our "cellar" (the boxes on the floor of our pantry that we hauled from California) - a 1997 Cabernet from Mondavi and a 1998 Bordeaux from a winery I forgot to record. BBQ, friends, and great conversation - isn't that what it's all about?

Lunch: We heated up some tamales and ate them for a quick lunch before heading out on errands (my desk chair doesn't do a good job at supporting my back and shoulders, so we went to a couple of stores to try a variety of ergonomic task chairs - then to IKEA to pick up some more bookshelves so we can furnish my office and continue unpacking).

Dinner: After IKEA, we drove over to Origami which is supposed to be some of the best sushi in the Austin area (on par with Musashino). Unfortunately, they closed early today (9pm instead of 10pm). I noticed a neon "open" sign a few doors down at the Sichuan Garden (110 N Interstate 35 # 240, Round Rock, TX‎ - (512) 238-0098‎), so we went there. Upon entering, we were greeted by several stares. A group of older Chinese people were eating at one table and a couple of Caucasians were at another table. All looking at Tina (she was in front of me since I opened the door for her). Finally, after an awkward few seconds, a tired man walked slowly towards us and reluctantly asked in Chinese if we were eating there or taking out. Tina replied in Chinese that we were eating in and the man glanced up at the clock (it was 9:40pm). As he showed us to our table, Tina asked what time they closed and he said 10pm. He asked what we wanted to drink and after a few moments of hesitation (since I hadn't even sat down yet), we responded that we'd like tea. Looking over the menu, I didn't see all that many Sichuan dishes and decided that I'd try the Yang Zhou Chao Fan. When it came, it didn't look very good and had plentiful amounts of spam or vienna sausage instead of cha shao (Chinese BBQ pork). In the end, it didn't taste bad. (Of course, we ordered all three dishes when first and then were served them, but for brevity I've included my thoughts on each dish as I tell how the ordering process went.)

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What I Ate: December 19, 2009 (Sichuan Garden)