Lunch: I ate the leftovers from ASTI for lunch. A little polenta and sausage.

A few slices of pizza.

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What I Ate: July 13, 2010 (Azul Tequila)

Lunch: I ate the last two garlic chive dumplings as well as several thin slices of boiled pork (also from Tina's parents).

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What I Ate: July 12, 2010

Lunch: We met up with a few friends at Shanghai Chinese Restaurant for some barely passable dim sum. The chicken feet were pretty good today, but the shrimp dumplings were a bit low on flavor and had skins that were broken and a little gooey. The company was great: I made a couple new friends and caught up with ones we hadn't seen for months, so it was a great lunch!

Dinner: We went over to Tina's parent's home for garlic chive, egg, and shrimp fan fried dumplings.

Dinner: I prepared a dinner for eight for the second of our series of housewarming dinners. I was going to change the menu for each dinner, but in the end we decided to stick with the same menu so we could execute more and more smoothly over the course of the dinners. We started with cherry tomatoes on the table. Then we plated the first course - a wilted spinach salad with 63 degree egg and marcona almonds.

Then we brought out the main course - USDA Prime Rib Eye Roast which I sliced to order and plated with some jus. Unfortunately, the plates cooled down faster than expected and so did the beef. It was still extremely tender and tasted pretty good. I served grilled red potatoes, bacon cooked Brussels sprouts, and tarragon corn as sides. Playing host, carving the roast, and eating caused me to forget to take another picture until we were ready for dessert which was tiramisu.

Lunch: We went to ASTI Trattoria (408 East 43rd Street, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 451-1218‎) to try their lobster roll (available only on July 9th this year) which was a lunch special kicking off their annual LobsterFest. Before we had the lobster roll, they brought us a little amuse of crostini with gorgonzola and honeyed grains.

After speaking to Emmett Fox (owner of ASTI Trattoria and FINO), we tried their Grilled House-made Sausage & Tomato Sauce Fresca Polenta which was one of the best tasting polentas I've had. The Anson Mills Organic Corn Meal was cooked until it was soft and springy and had enough strength in flavor to be well matched with the savory and spicy sausage and the tart tomato sauce.

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What I Ate: July 9, 2010 (ASTI Trattoria 10th Annual LobsterFest)

Lunch: We ate more of the stewed pork and sauteed carrots and broccoli stalks with rice. Tina made some tomato eggs to go with it.

Dinner: Before going to see Despicable Me, we stopped in at Steak 'n Shake for a late night burger. I ordered the Western BBQ Double Steakburger with lettuce and tomato.

Lunch: I ate leftover rigatoni with collard greens and bacon.

Dinner: Tina used the pressure cooker and stewed some pork in soy sauce following the recipe in Key to Chinese Cooking by Irene Kuo (the recipe is called Red Cooked Pork). She's made this recipe several times and every time it comes out bland (there's not much in the way of spices except for a single star anise), but every time she forgets that she's done the recipe before and didn't like it. So I left a Post-It note in the book this time that says the recipe is too bland. Tina salvaged it by applying a lot of five-spice powder to the stewing liquid and mixing it into the pork.

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What I Ate: July 7, 2010

Dinner: We went to Ryu of Japan (11101 Burnet Road, Austin, TX‎ - (512) 973-9498‎) for dinner. We started with seaweed salad.

Miso soup came with our order of the chirashi sushi.

Monkfish liver

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What I Ate: July 6, 2010 (Ryu of Japan)

Dinner: In the evening, I found myself at the Lakeline Mall in Cedar Creek. (I was picking up a set of pans that I ordered online at sears.com which apparently I could not get shipped to me and this Sears location was the only one within an hours drive that had it. The set they put aside for me was dented (a 30 degree arc on one side was pushed inward so it was flat) and the pots were smaller than I expected, so we ended up returning them.) Looking through the food court, I didn't find anything that caught my eye. I decided on chow mein, orange chicken, and broccoli beef from Panda Express which was passable. While eating, I sat directly across from the baked potato stand and realized that besides baked potatoes they also sold gyros, kabobs, and Greek salads that looked quite tasty. Oh well.

Lunch: Our friends Tony, Connie, and Chaffee from California were in town, so we headed over to The Salt Lick (18300 Farm to Market Road 1826, Driftwood, Texas‎ - (512) 858-4959‎) for lunch with Braden and Kelly who drove up from San Antonio to meet us. I ordered a couple racks of baby back ribs and a couple combination plates of brisket (moist cut) and sausage for us to share.

Dinner: Braden, Kelly, Tina, and I ate an okra and sausage soup with white rice for dinner after we played an afternoon of FIFA World Cup soccer on Playstation 3, The Beatles Rock Band, and SingStar.