When will I ever have a quiet weekend? 🙂

Friday

To start off my not-so-quiet weekend with a big bang, Friday night begun with an extremely nice dinner at the not-so-cheap Sonoma Teppanyaki steakhouse right at the corner of Hsinyi and Dunhua (#9, Dunhua South Road Sec. 2, Tel: (02) 2784 4811).

God, especially to a steak-lover, Sonoma is a piece of heaven.

And thanks to the recommendation of fellow steak aficionado JW, we shied away from the 8 oz. 12-grade Wagyu Beef Steak which the servers kept on encouraging us to get, and instead ordered the NT$2,800 per set 12 oz. NY Prime Cut Steak. Big and yummy, just the way we liked it.

First came the warm toasted bread and the appetizer, the oh-so-tender foie gras, which practically melts in your mouth and is perfectly accompanied by seared cut cucumbers and juicy cranberry sauce.

Next up was the mushroom cappuccino which was served in a tiny cup. Slightly frothy and just of the right consistency, I particularly enjoyed the bits of real mushroom that complements the soup’s flavor.

The Caesar salad which was pretty ordinary, though JT vowed that the croutons had a buttery flavor to it:

And for the climax, our huge NY Prime Steak:

The first bite was just heavenly, almost trumping Ruth’s Chris’ Fillet Mignon. It was tender, full of flavor and simply divine. Indeed, the first few bites were the ultimate highlight of the evening and eaten with alternate bites of the complimentary mushroom pasta, it was just perfect.

Sure, the steak was so big that it became laborious to finish everything in one sitting, but honestly, I’ve enjoyed the food so much that I tried to make the experience last as long as I could.

And to finish off our meal was coffee and a small serving of warm chocolate cake which oozed in choco syrup, and was eaten alongside a scoop of vanilla ice cream — a reminder of my dining experience at Joyce East, which serves very similar desserts.

For this, I thank JW for that lovely treat, without which I cannot afford this divine dining experience. May your pockets again be full, and your life successful. Hugs!

But wait! The night ain’t over yet!

After Sonoma, we then went to Cashbox KTV across Sogo for a night of singing. Gosh, that place was PACKED and we spent 45 minutes just waiting for a room. Damn, business is good!

Since for some crazy reason, this is my 4^th time doing KTV this month (yes, it’s been an insane month of KTV) with various groups of people, I’ve come to realize that you can practically get a feel of the crowd based on the songs that they sing. For example, last Wednesday’s KTV at K9 were full of Oldies, while last Friday was Jay Chou galore and we sung almost every song in Jay Chou’s albums!

Just shows how much younger this crowd is! Surprisingly, they were pretty good singers and I enjoyed listening to Jay Chou songs I’ve never heard before.

And to top off this busy night, we then moved on to Room 18 and danced the night away. The music was so-so, but at least, the place was rocking! There, I bumped into my good friend Mike who was leaving for California this week. Great thing I still managed to catch up on his farewell party and said goodbye to him!

It was around 4-ish where I finally plopped down in the sofa out of exhaustion for a night that’s never boring. It’s been awhile since I’ve partied this long, and I guess it’ll take me a while to recuperate before I can party this hard again.

Saturday

Brrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiing!

Groaning, I woke up and tried out the Mandarin-only class in the morning. With a cup of heavy black coffee on hand, I trudged to the training center with less than 4 hours of sleep, but realized that my Mandarin ain’t good enough so I went home during the break and frustratingly studied on my own.

After a short after a long bout of studying, I met up with some friends to try out the legendary suan cai bai rou (sour cabbage white meat) hotpot, the most famous of which is right near the Guting area.

Check out the line just to see how long it is:

The store itself opens at 6:00 pm, but by 5:00 pm, the line was already this long. My friend JC said that the restaurant was supposedly offered to Taiwan Electric employees only, but it was so delicious and popular that they finally opened it to the public.

Taiwanese people really like falling in line — but then again, this place IS famous and hotpot is best for winter!

Unfortunately, our party came in too late at 5:15 pm, and we weren’t able to get any seats — and this was when the store wasn’t opened yet! CRAZY! So disgruntled, we just ate at the local Thai restaurant near Shida Road — cheap yet managed to fill us up and grabbed some flavored Belgian beer in a cafe and talked about absolutely everything and nothing.

Then I dropped by the computer market at Taipei Main Station because materialistic me wanted a new baby — the Canon IXUS 850. Pricey at NT$14,300, this camera takes great shots. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the saleslady discouraged me citing that my old Panasonic camera’s still good. It’s just a matter of knowing which functions to use. Groan!

Overall, a very relaxing Saturday!

Sunday

Brunch with a whole bunch of friends at this newly-opened restaurant at CODA. Well, having swiss mushrooms and cheese burger for brunch is kinda weird, but luckily, I have the Ploughman’s Brunch at Carnegies to look forward to this Saturday!

Basically, Sunday was spent hanging around with sexy/beauty IL, Lisa and Andy. We managed to waste the day talking and then catching an early Vietnamese dinner nearby. Luckily, all is not lost as I managed to clock in some studying time in the nearby coffee shop near my house. Terrific!

Monday / Tuesday

Watched Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto” at Warner. Man, that Mel is one good storyteller and the movie was basically done in the indecipherable Mayan language. Heck if the main character said, “Go f*ck yourself” in Mayan, I don’t think we’d even know. But it’s fun and entertaining nevertheless.

If you’re looking for a film that would make your heart pump adrenalin, this film is it! Definitely not a waste of your hard-earned cash.

Meanwhile, Tuesday was spent wallcimbing with French cutie (who else?) and Wednesday was with Toastmasters where I did an impromptu variety session. Nice.

Afterwards, studied a bit. Worked out. Checked the bookstore and went to bed.

Okay, long enough. I’ll just follow up what I did this week later.

Night!