On one of our many recent rainy weekend days, we stopped by the Twisted Tail for a late brunch. They just opened in Headhouse Square and in addition to food and drink, offer live blues music and open blues jams, for those of you inclined. They’re also a bourbon house so they’ve got quite the array of liquors! They also feature a charcoal grill in their kitchen and cook most of their food over open heat, whenever possible.
Of course, they also have beer. The restaurant is really quite big, especially the downstairs. I did not get to check out the upstairs, where the music happens. It’s decorately quite tastefully, even with all of the curly tail motif everywhere. It’s warm and masculine, with a slightly rustic touch.
Here’s some complimentary bread, one which was a corn bread, and one which was a bourbon based bread, I think. See the curly q of butter? Yes, very cute. The corn bread wasn’t particularly corn tasting at all. I like the bourbon bread, it had a little sweetness.
This is the watermelon gazpacho. Delicious and refreshing! It’s made with watermalon, pear tomatoes, jicama, and opal basil. It was a lovely mix of sweet and savory, with nice hunks of the fruit and veggies. It was so surprising and great.
This is the grilled Jersey Blue Fish, with confetti rice, and grilled loco corn. The fish was cooked on the grill, skin on, and was moist and delicious. It had a great flavor, all on its own. The corn had some kind of bbq type of sauce on it, and while already super sweet already, had the added sweetness from the sauce. It was amazing!
I had my eye on the bison meatloaf, and after our server told us it was one of his favorites, I had to go with it. It’s made out of bison! And it comes with a portobello mushroom gravy and green pea whipped mash potatoes. It was all delicious! The meatloaf has a bit of a kick from the glaze that’s on the outside. I’m in love with this green pea whipped mash potato stuff. It’s chunky and has tons of potato skin in it and pea bits. I just loved it.
For dessert, our server recommended the Chocolate Symphony. Why the hell not? It’s a layer of white chocolate pound cake, layers of chocolate mascarpone, a layer of German chocolate cake, and topped with Godiva sauce. They put the sauce on at the table, so you can get as much as you want. So go all out people, go crazy! This thing is nuts! It’s incredibly dense, sweet, chocolatey, and way too much for a weakling like me. I was done after a few bites. But it’s everything you’d think it would be. This was a great meal. Neither of us had any kind of idea what this place would be like. It’s brand spankin’ new and in a location that seems to be fraught with closings. Well, we hope this place stays around for a long time. The food was great and so was the service. Especially the service!

Arches National Park was the one park that I had been to before. But you know what? It’s still amazing. It’s a pretty small park, but there is plenty to see, and it has one of my favorite hikes in the universe – devil’s garden trail. It includes everything you would want in a good hike, is incredibly challenging, and never boring. And it’s long. It will make you hungry! The hike to delicate arch (see above) is not that interesting, but totally worth it to see this wonder. It’s famous for a reason, people, because it’s rather awesome.
So be sure to take snacks for along the way, like a banana. We ate a lot of bananas, as we always grabbed a bunch from our continental breakfast at the motel. And apples too, we took a lot of apples from the breakfast fruit bowl. Cookies don’t hold up very well in the heat, especially ones with chocolates in them. But dried fruit works wonders and so do fig newtons, so pack some. And obviously, it goes without saying, take lots of water. You’ll need it.
There isn’t food available in most of the national parks. So be sure to bring food with you. So yet again, it was another sandwich. We just picked up some sandwiches from the grocery store, and since we were always starving, they were always delicious. The hardest thing about eating these was how windy it was out. Man! We had to hold onto everything, and not just the sandwiches. We ended up giving up half way through and then eating in the car. I love this park because everything is so big and weird looking, but it’s a really easy park to get around.

The 1st birthday for a korean baby is a big deal. I mean it’s a huge deal. It’s bigger than what a sweet 16 would be, what turning 21 would be. It’s a true celebration and people tend to go all out and fest. My nephew just turned 1 and his mom went absolutely bonkers preparing for the little kid party of the century. It was a rainbow theme and there were decorations galore. It’s amazing just how many different ways to decorate people can come up with. The internet is apparently a great source for all kinds of random party stuff.
One of the traditional things you have to do with the baby is a fortune telling ritual where the baby picks what career he/she will end up having. A bunch of objects that represent things like athlete, lawyer, entertainer, etc. are laid out and the baby is free to pick an object of their choosing. This signifies what they will be in the future. It’s corny but it’s fun to see. Baby E picked entertainer. Somehow, I don’t see this happening.
My mom did not feel like cooking, and who really wants to cook a bunch of food by herself for 20 people, so instead, we got catered food from Kobawoo in Elkins Park. And let me tell you, it was all good. Here is the galbijim.
Pigs feet! I did not partake in this. But apparently, it was quite good.
Here is some marinated spicy squid and a bunch of banchan.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a party without a bunch of jeons. There was a spicy kimchi one, a fish one, and a plain old chive one. I particularly dug the kimchi one.
Japchae! Have you ever been to a korean party of some kind and not had japchae? And here’s some cucumber kimchi.
Big hunks of fish. There was so much food in my mom’s house it was ridiculous. All I kept doing was encouraging people to eat and take food home.
But aside from the proper dinner food, there were plenty of other foods and edible decorations. There was a giant selection of different kinds of dduk, korean style rice cakes. These thoroughly took me back to the motherland. I don’t eat dduk often, but when I have it, and when it’s good and fresh, I really enjoy it. See those little decorations with the beans? My sister-in-law made those, by hand, bean by freakin bean! I was impressed.
Here’s some more dduk, a different kind, as well as a plethora of fruits. I think they each probably symbolize something, but really, they’re also just colorful. This particular kind of dduk was actually my favorite.
This was the first of the two birthday cakes. This was a korean style cake made out of dduk. It’s super cute, huh? And those watermelons? Courtesy of yours truly. My first watermelon art, but I think they turned out pretty well.
The piece de resistance though, was the regular birthday cake. Courtesy of the baking artists at Night Kitchen bakery, this super adorable cake was really the hit of the party. They did an amazing job following my slapdash mock-up of what we wanted. I’d never had a fondant cake before so I really didn’t know what to expect. Everyone I had talked to before said that they made really tasty cakes. It was a vanilla cake with lemon curd, and indeed, it tasted great! It was super moist and there was a thin layer of cream in between the cake and the fondant, so even with the odd tasting fondant (not odd in a bad way, just odd) the whole thing was great. It was a little bit sad hacking into this thing that was so super cute, but everyone enjoyed it. Sure, the baby didn’t get to eat this cake nor will he remember it, but I think everyone else will. Ok kiddo, we’ll see you at your next birthday!