I had quite the food day yesterday. I had to go to an all day off-site meeting at the ACE Conference Center. It’s one of those places who exists purely to house people having conferences and meeting. That’s what they do. They’re not a hotel, they’re a conference center. There’s also a golf course there too, but you have to be there for a conference to use it. So it’s not a golf club either.

Anyway, I love going there because they feed you all day long. And I mean all day long. First off, they have drinks for you all day. Sodas, water, Wawa lemonade and chocolate milks, coffee, tea, hot chocolate. The works. For breakfast they had fruit, yogurt, some bacon-y puff pastry with potato thing, and granola. You could snack on it all morning. Then for lunch they have a cafeteria that serves a slew of different things, buffet style. I love buffets because it lets me taste everything. I had some really great chicken, mahi mahi, pasta, salad, nachos, rice, corn chowder, and on and on. And for dessert I had some peach cobbler a la mode and some pineapple. They also had a bunch of cakes and a bunch of pies. And cookies. For afternoon snacks they brought out some mini chicken cordon bleus, more yogurt and puddings, various ice cream (fudge bars, ice cream sandwiches, fruit bars, strawberry eclairs), cookies, Pepperidge Farm gold fish, M&Ms, and fruit. And they left that out all afternoon too. Seriously people, I was in heaven. I didn’t take any pictures because, well, I didn’t want any of my colleagues thinking I was some weird ass freak who takes random pictures of food at conference centers (but I will try next time!).

All I know is, I have to go back there in a few weeks, for two whole days. I’m going to be obsessing over it until the day is here!

It wasn’t until just a few years ago that I even knew how football worked. I’m not all that into professional team sports, so I just didn’t care enough to know. A few years ago, at a Super Bowl party, I actually learned how the sport worked. And I still remember most of the rules now. This year wasn’t too exciting team-wise, but I had to watch, if only because I had put in $6 to the office block pool. I lost, of course, but it was fun nonetheless.

I really enjoyed the game though, mostly because of the rain. It added that element of the unknown, and I loved all the slips and fumbles. Prince was good too. The whole time before half time I thought for sure Prince wouldn’t play in the rain. His diva-ass self must have had some “no bad weather” clause or something in his contract. Something about not affecting the quality of his purple catsuits. He kicked it out though. I thought he sounded great, looked great, and put on a good damn show. The cirque du soleil crap in the beginning was just crap. I couldn’t even pretend to watch. But that was one of the best half time shows I’d seen in awhile. I only chuckled a little bit when his guitar speakers went out right at the end.

I didn’t have any fun Super Bowl food. No chicken wings, no Doritos, no beer. Instead I scrounged up some random goodies from the pantry. I had some Roasted Garlic flavored Triscuits. OMIGOD. Now I love regular Triscuits just fine, but I had these for the first time right before New Years, and these are delightful. These kick regular Triscuits to the curb. Seriously, I’m in love with these. I also boughth some Izze, clementine flavor, at the Target the other day. They’re alright. Honestly, it tasted like Orangina. But I like Orangina just fine so I enjoyed these. For the price though, I think I may stick to the sparkling juices from Trader Joe’s (blueberry being my favorite). I also had some Ritz so I made some Ritz peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I love the salty and sweet combo of these!

My mom invited us to come to H Mart for dinner on Saturday night. It’s something I love to do because it’s close, there’s lots to choose from, and it’s good. Now we did not eat in the H Mart but there is a food court above it. There’s good variety, including Korean, Japanese, and Korean/Chinese. I hadn’t eatn any Korean in awhile, so I opted for something very Korean – dolsot bibimbap. Bibimbap literally means mixed rice. It includes veggies and some meat mixed with rice and a spicy pepper paste (kochujang), and you just mix it together and eat. The dolsot part means it comes in a burning hot stone bowl, so that everything is hot, hot, hot when you eat it, and if you let your rice stick to the bowl, it will crisps up nicely into a burnt crunchy snack. You can make it as spicy as you want or not, by adjusting how much of the kochujang to put in. I like mine spicy! It also came with the obligatory kimchi (which was very bland) and a couple other banchan, plus some soup. The soup was quite good!

My mom opted for some seafood udon from the sushi place. She wanted something healthy. Z also opted from the sushi place, getting a couple of avocado and cucumber rolls and a shrimp tempura roll. They made it fresh for him, and it was all quite good. There’s a stall there called “Monsieur Tong Tong”, which makes “fried chicken” and certain other more fried dishes. They have an excellent Japanese tonkatsu. It’s HUGE and the sauce is quite good. And you get a bunch of side dishes. It’s definitely for sharing. At “Chew Young Roo” they have alot of dumplings and buns and specialize in Korean-Chinese noodle dishes, like champong (spicy seafood noodle soup) and chajangmyun (noodles in black bean sauce). I often pick something from them as well. It’s nothing to write home about, but it’s good for fast Korean food!

Friday was pizza day for lunch, but I was in a training class all day so they catered some sandwiches for us. They had one of my favorites, chicken salad on a croissant, and they also had some of the best grilled green beans I’d ever had. They were smoky, crunchy, and had a slightly asian-esque flavor. I wanted to eat the whole giant bowl! Speaking of eating the whole giant bowl, ESPN2 showed a bunch of reruns on professional eating competitions on Sunday. Sometimes, I dream of getting into competitive eating. Perhaps it’s something I’ll have to try out once in life. I’m just not sure what I would pick as the food of choice!