It was a great experience watching Warriors win

So I went to another Warriors' game. It's the second one since I got back from Taiwan. I gotta say, when you are in another city, you do not have the chance to enjoy this kind of privilege. Of course, a lot of people don't care, but it's really nice to have an arena 30 mins away from your house and is showing games most of the nights.

Tard and his DB friends decided to go and asked me if I want to join them to get the group deal which has the ticket and one free t-shirt. Of course I said yes since there's really nothing else to do in Fremont. I mean, come on, it's Fremont we are talking about here.

So Tard, Isa, and I went to the game, alone with Tard's little gf and DB ppl, and we weren't disappointed. Actually, I was pretty mad at first. The person who bought the tickets were late because of bad traffic. Reasonable, but not what you want to experience before the game. We didn't get in until the first quarter was almost over. I was actually thinking about only paying him 15 for losing a quarter of the value, but since he's a nice guy I decided not to be a d-bag.

The game was interesting, mainly because it's a close game but Warriors were always winning. And there were two guys sitting behind me talking about Darko Milicic, the former second overall draft pick who were sucking but suddenly got good recently.

Apparently Darko is on one of their fantasy team, and he's also on mine. He was in fact the leader scorer for Timberwolf, surprisingly. For the entire game, besides all the cheering and booing, those two and I were just talking about how Darko got so good and he's helping the fantasy stats in many categories. It was fun. Seriously! It is, and I'm not a dork! :D

Last but not least, I'll post photos and videos I took. Interesting fact: every time I picked up the camera, Warriors start losing. They either started making stupid mistakes or the T-Wolves start cutting the lead............

that's it! Enjoy, guys!

The Great Vietnam Fusion in Castro--Xanh

Today's restaurant is Xanh

yelp page

We didn't order a lot today, so I'm gonna talk about everything with how much I like each of them.

We got calamari for appetizer. The calamari is very tender and the batter is not too thick. The flavor is just right, salty with a hint of spicy. It's crispy, flavorful, and very unique (most of the restaurants wouldn't use onion and jalapeño)

We got two entrées. The first is the Lucky Egg Noodle. When my friend chose this, I was like "you really want this? It sounds cheap." But it turns out that the noodle is very delicious. Good choice lady! The plating is very unique and the presentation of the food is full of fun. Although it's just noodle, it would be worth the price ($13)

The second one is Duck Duck Good. It sounds funny, I know, but that is the name of the dish. It's made of duck, sticky rice, and sauce. I have to say it's not the best duck I've had. It is delicious, but it's not really that special. What's special would be the sticky rice at the bottom that is soaked with all the juice from the duck meat. Full of Flavor, but I don't think it's worth the money ($24)

Overall, it's a good place to eat if you can endure loud noise. There was a company party or some sort there so it was quite noisy. I was okay with it, but I do have to take out some points here because it simply takes too much energy to talk in that environment. That would be something to note.

Overall,

Flavor: 3.5 (duck was a bit disappointing...)

atmosphere: 3 (you kinda have to yell to the other people for them to hear you)

location: 4 (Castro, free public parking)

Price: 4 (This is hard. I like the price of the noodle, but the calamari is a bit overpriced, and the duck is definitely overpriced for how much I enjoyed)

overall: 3.5 (I kinda don't get how this restaurant got such good review on Yelp......)

Special Guest of the Day:

A comfortable and homey tavern in Palo Alto--Osteria

Today, i'm gonna talk about this restaurant that lies near University Ave. in Palo Alto.

yelp page

We had a really nice dinner here. When we walked in, the design of the restaurant is not what we expected to see near this area. As you guys all know, we've been eating around here a lot, and most of the restaurants are quite fancy on interior design. This one however, does not give that kind of feeling. Just like the word "osteria" means: Tavern. It's a homey looking restaurant without all the high class feeling. However, it doesn't affect the rating of it.

Just like the design of the restaurant, the plating of food isn't quite eye catching. To me, there's not even any plating. For appetizer, we got the prosciutto with melon. When the dish came, I immediately thought of Luffy from One Piece. For those who read the manga, it's the dish Luffy was trying to find during the banquet after saving Nami's village. Yes! It's that dish. The flavor is quite unique. the Prosciutto is salty but the melon is sweet. With the lemon juice added to it, it has three different flavors combined together. Pretty interesting.

My entrée was the pasta with shrimps and garlic sauce. Forgot what it's called. it has a strong garlic smell==> good stuff. The portion is big enough to fill you up, and the flavor was decent. Again, plating does not exist......

For the dessert, we got the hazelnut flan with chocolate sauce. i like the flan. Even though it pretty much tastes like Nutella, it's still really good. Unique? maybe. Delicious? definitely!

Oh yeah, did I mention that we only spent 60 dollars total for this meal? knowing us, it's a really cheap meal!

Overall, I like the restaurant for the portion and the taste, but it's not really a restaurant I'd take people to. There are tons of other restaurants around that have better service, food, and atmosphere in general. So the grade is......

Flavor: 4

Service: 4, the servers here are really friendly

atmosphere: 3, actually this one depends on people. If you like the homey style, you'll probably like it, but I don't think it's worth driving 30 minutes for this kind of restaurant.

location: 4, University Ave, enough said

price: 4.5, a good meal for this kind of price

overall: 4, it's good for casual lunch or dinner, and it will get you full with a little money

So i went to today's (11/30/2010) game against Spurs......

I have to say the first quarter was the best quarter, and then the Warriors just crashed......

Manu still had good game, and Tony Parker (now single) and Tim Duncan are just being themselves, so who made the difference? I kinda wanna say Richard Jefferson and DeJuan Blair (they both scored double digits, Blair even had a double-double......to make a comparison he has not scored more than 4 points in the past 4 games), but the real difference is that the Warriors are not communicating with each other. Jefferson got some many points simply from dishing from Parker, and he just went ahead for the ally-oop. This kind of play happened at least 4 or 5 times, and the Warriors had no solution to it.

If that's just it, the score wouldn't look so horrible (118-98). What are other factors?

First, turnovers. Warriors committed 16 TO's which yielded to 20 points. It's actually only 4 points more than San Antonio, but you gotta see it from the real thing instead of the stat chart. Most, if not all, turnovers are just stupid mistakes, and they have been doing that for the past few games. They gotta clean that up if they still want to win. Winning against Timberwolf is not something to be proud of. Timberwolf has allowed the most points (something Golden State used to do) to opponents. Which means everyone can have a chance to score. Spurs, however, are known for the D. Same strategy would not work on them.

Second, and the most important, foul trouble. By saying foul trouble I don't mean players that are limited for playing time due to fouling too much too quickly. What I am saying is that they foul in a bad way. This can actually be seen on the chart. Both teams have 18 personal fouls, but the free throw attempt numbers are just totally different. the FTA almost doubled and the FTM almost tripled. The Warriors really need to avoid stupid fouls like that one before break when Manu clearly cannot make that half-court shot but Rodney Carney or whoever fouled him. This is what I believe the biggest difference.

Overall, an unpleasing game to watch, and the ref's for some reason favored the Spurs. Well, maybe I am the one who's biased, who knows.

Last but not least, some pictures i took!

okay never mind, ill just share a link of video, the title explains all..........