𝑺𝒆𝒂 𝑺𝒂𝒍𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒖𝒔𝒕 — a thread for food

stella_vigo · January 25, 2026, 12:36pm

And I’m here to present the goods! Or more like the noods, because noodles

I will first preface this by saying that the kitchen I have access to is… not the greatest, to put it very lightly. To this day, I still don’t understand the logic of this kitchen, or even this apartment

Anyway, because of my current limitations, I can’t cook as much or as many things as I used to compared to when I had my own apartment off-campus. So what have I been cooking at home? Noodles!

Behold, some instant ramyun with kimchi, gochujang, chili oil, and an egg added to it

If you’re wondering why the bowl looks weird, it’s because it’s not a bowl—it’s a pot. Literally before I started cooking, I searched the kitchen for bowls only to find that there were no bowls. Oh well. On the bright side, that was one less thing I had to wash.

And @caralogues this is the noodle dish I was referring to: a questionable serving of bacon garlic chili oil noodles

Before you ask, yes, my aunt is that kind of person to wash and keep every single takeout box and piece of plastic cutlery. I remember seeing those disposable plastic spoons and forks in the drying basin and wondering why she’d hoard them when I saw the newly washed but clearly used aluminum foil tray in the kitchen, I decided to use this dinner as an excuse to use that tray and then finally toss it in the trash. And the chopsticks in the picture too. I’ve seen those chopsticks lying on the countertop for Lord knows how long

Also the reason why I used bacon is because I recently realized that the sealed and unopened pack of bacon I’ve been storing expired last year, in July and I decided to cook and eat the entire pack that night before I put it off again. The bacon in the picture is the remaining 40%, I ate the rest while cooking

And if you’re wondering why it looks pale and not saucy, it’s because I ran out of soy sauce and my aunt didn’t have soy sauce stocked anywhere which is weird considering the fact that she’s Filipino, and soy sauce features heavily in Filipino cuisine. She has a crap ton of other sauces and ingredients—many of which, to be frank, I consider too suspicious —but no soy sauce

Anyway I promise I’ve cooked better noodles before in fact, I’ll drop some nicer pics below! (to compensate for the pics above )

First, some Taiwanese beef noodle soup that I made from scratch even made the stock by roasting and simmering leftover beef shank bones with veggie scraps!

I’ve also made pho from scratch before! This one was approved by my Vietnamese friend and if you’re wondering why the cilantro looks mushy, it’s because it was previously kept in the freezer

And yeah, the beef slices were raw, but according to my friend, they serve the slices raw in Vietnam. Don’t worry, the broth was hot enough to cook them!

And have some late-night scallion oil noodles too!

caralogues · January 25, 2026, 12:41pm

the ‘noods’ really look good!!! O.o it reminds me a little of mamak mee soup XD

i now see what you mean AHAHAHAH but hey nothing matters except for the taste if it’s your own food XD

very ‘old Asian’ i see XD tbh i do that too, but specifically for the hard-plastic ones because they last long and only recently (`ー´) the stuff in my hostel have taken to breaking very inconveniently (i prefer glass) so i just use these when i have them on hand lmao but yeah the crinkly kind are no goes for me T_T don’t they get super messy? O.o i’m amazed.

wowww i hope your system survived that AHAHAHA

such real dialogue XD i feel like you’re a tenant of some form of witchery place XD (i mean that with no offence!)

those last dishes all look SOOO GOOD (except for the beef AHAHAH the red is … very red lmaooo)but the dish itself is chef’s kiss! especially the colour of your onodle broth, simply glorious!

Churro · January 25, 2026, 12:48pm

I’m dying. Borat, Commies, Terrorists. Yoga lol. Yeah, I think that at times, Americans view of countries is very stereotypical, at times. But I do love the memes from it.

stella_vigo · January 25, 2026, 12:56pm

thank u!

Oh I completely get it if it’s for the hard plastic kind, I keep some takeout boxes too, but she does this to an unhealthy degree. I’ve offered to help clear out parts of her apartment multiple times but she always refuses.

And considering all the stuff she already has in the kitchen, she really shouldn’t be adding takeout containers and other disposable items hell, she shouldn’t be adding a lot of things to other parts of the house. Her dishwasher has been used to store dishes rather than actually wash them for as long as I can remember, and the first time I visited her apartment was in the mid-2010s

Thank you! I not only survived, but I’m doing perfectly fine!

I tell people that it’s just my Indonesian stomach grew up eating street food that was fried in old oil as dark as my skin tone, if not darker and drinking es teh manis out of plastic bags!

You’ve now reminded me of another difference between Filipinos and Indonesians, at least from my experience. Even though street food also exists in the Philippines, it’s seen as more of a thing to avoid if you can afford to. My mom would ask our Filipino relatives and her Filipino coworkers for street food suggestions and they’d tell her to stick to malls because the street food is considered really dirty.

Meanwhile in Indonesia, you can see people who own Lamborghinis and other expensive cars roll up to a small food cart for dirt-cheap bakso street food in Jakarta at least is seen as a very cheap yet tasty option. There’s this seafood street food place that sets up only after sunset at 6pm on a literal road, with no running water whatsoever (because who’d install a sink on a literal sidewalk), with tarp for a roof and plastic stools for chairs, yet some customers pull up in German cars o.O

My brother, mother, and I don’t really get sick when we go to the Philippines. Or at least we don’t get food poisoning. Meanwhile when our Filipino relatives would visit us in Jakarta, at least one of them will get food poisoning and we don’t even take them to the dirtiest spots either

Can they top the Japan map though? I metaphorically died when I saw the map of “Asia according to Japan” and a huge chunk of it was labeled “INFERIOR RACES”

I think that all countries view at least some other countries through stereotypes. The issue with America is that it’s geographically huge and oceans apart from most of the world, many Americans haven’t left the country or had much experience with other kinds of people, yet also have internet access and speak the most common language on Earth. As a result, many just tend to read things online and then think they’re fact without thinking much about it… and I’m sorry to say that from my personal experience, it also applies to college-educated self-proclaimed-inclusive urban-dwelling Americans too

NatilladeCoco · January 27, 2026, 11:09pm

I do feel they were mentioned a lot more often as a kid, even my mom once said that she hadn’t had a banana split in a long time

I only know of 1 chain ice cream place that has them visibly on the menu, but I also haven’t been paying much attention to whether other places have them definitely need to explore ice cream menus a bit more!

stella_vigo · January 29, 2026, 8:47am

Back with another post, this time featuring a drink that we all know and (hopefully) love: tea!

If you guys were here last year, you might remember the time another friend and I shepherded nearly 30 people around Chicago. Yes, it was a hassle, but we all had fun in the end! During the trip, one of my friends stopped by this place called Molly Tea in Chinatown. I didn’t get a drink at the time since the wait time was about 30 mins but I was curious to try it later on! So earlier this year, I ended up making a trip there!

Got the premium jasmine tea as well as the osmanthus tea on her recommendation. I have to say that I really liked both. Not only were they really fragrant, but the quality of the teas themselves was much higher than your typical boba shop.

Fast forward to a little over a week later. One of my friends was visiting from another state, so we met up at this HK-style restaurant called Gourmet Food. We had a bunch of food to share (not all of them pictured), but we all got the same drink: Hong Kong milk tea!

Pictured above, we had stir-fried ham and egg over rice, char siu pork, a tub of duck congee, HK milk teas. We also ordered shrimp rolls, ham and macaroni soup, and beef noodles, but they came after this picture was taken.

The first thing I noted was the fragrance of the tea. I asked the rest of the table if they were able to pinpoint the type of tea used. Initially, they thought it might be black tea or green tea, but after I suggested that it might be jasmine tea due to its fragrance, they sipped the tea again and changed their minds. We never confirmed with the staff, but we all just assumed that it was jasmine tea mixed with milk.

Later that day, I took my out-of-state friend and Viet friend to Living Water Tea House. I’ve gotten a matcha latte here before, but we were here to try something different: a tea tasting menu at the bar, hosted by the owner. It was rather expensive ($22 before tax and tips ) but it was very well worth it! The owner was super knowledgeable and really chill

It was a pretty cool experience! We were first presented with a tray of different teacups and asked to pick our favorite one. After that, the owner asked us what our favorite kinds of tea were, then he presented different teas based on our preferences. One of the teas we tried was a special kind made for him by one of his friends in China, and apparently his shop is the only one in the world with that kind of tea! the tea tasting was also a cool educational experience. For example, I learned that the term “dong ding” in dong ding oolong tea (one of my favorite teas) refers to the very tip of the mountain from which the tea is harvested

Towards the end, I asked him if he had any jasmine teas that we could try. They had a jasmine tea powder and some other stuff. Eventually, he brought out a big pouch of blended jasmine green tea. He admitted that he wasn’t keen on showing or selling jasmine tea as much as the others because “once people try jasmine, they can’t try other teas.” A sniff of the bag was enough to see why: it was easily the most fragrant out of all the teas, and also my favorite! Later on, he said that I could buy a pouch of the jasmine tea for $25 if I were really serious about it. (Spoiler alert: I did.)

Later on, he asked me where I was from. That’s when I told him I was from Indonesia: the country where jasmine tea is extremely popular it was at that moment when everything made sense to him

@caralogues I’m wondering how many of these tea brands you recognize, btw! I know they’re huge in Indonesia but idk much about their popularity elsewhere and yes, they’re all jasmine tea

There’s a Southeast Asian supermarket near me that sells Teh Kotak, and I remember seeing Teh Pucuk in some supermarkets and convenience stores in the Philippines I don’t remember any other encounters aside from those.

NatilladeCoco · January 29, 2026, 11:00pm

You had my interest at jasmine tea its been a long while since I last found a place with it, and that tea place has since closed down T.T

Honestly sounds like an awesome experience!

stella_vigo · January 29, 2026, 11:16pm

Awww no! Hope you’ll be able to source some jasmine tea soon ): is there an Asian grocery store near you that you can try searching in?

That reminds me, r/tea has a pinned list of reputable tea vendors. I haven’t checked it out myself (since I have more than enough tea in my stash) but it might be helpful.

I will warn you that the tea subreddit can be very snobby I remember looking up what people there think of one of my favorite tea brands only to see them bashing it not to mention their obsession with fancy East Asian tea sets and hatred of tea bags. Makes me glad I don’t have a Reddit account

It is! The out-of-state friend I took to the tea house later admitted that the teas started blending together so it got harder to differentiate them later on, but said he’d come back just to chat with the owner. He’s also thinking of taking one of his other friends there (who was supposed to eat with us at Gourmet Food, but bailed at the last minute )

stella_vigo · February 1, 2026, 2:41am

Hey all, it’s January 31st (or February 1st depending on your time zone)! D’you know what that means? Well, it means we’re already one month into 2026 (I swear New Year’s was just a couple weeks ago ) but it also means it’s National Hot Chocolate Day in the US! According to two sources, at least.

To kick off this special post, we have two types of hot chocolate from Kopi Café.

This pic was taken two or three weeks ago when I was hanging out with a friend. We were originally supposed to have our first reading exchange here, but the café was too crowded, noisy, and had no free wifi so we ended up having a cathartic venting session over hot drinks ~~And yes, both hot chocolates were for me my friend got a cup of tea.~~ I forgot which cup was which, but one of them was the regular hot chocolate and the other one was the sipping hot chocolate. The sipping hot chocolate was much thicker than the other one. If I were to put Kopi Café in my tier list, I’d put it at Mid-Top Tier oh, and fun fact: kopi means “coffee” in Bahasa Indonesia!

Up next is a very old picture from Café by the Ruins in Baguio, Philippines.

For those who’re less familiar, Baguio is a city in the mountains that’s considered the “Summer Capital of the Philippines.” They’re especially known for strawberries and hot chocolate! Considering the cooler weather up there, I’m not surprised

Now you might be wondering what type of hot chocolate I’m drinking to celebrate Hot Chocolate Day. It ain’t anything fancy like the pics above: a good ol’ cup of Swiss Miss!

I will say it was a culture shock to see that Swiss Miss has a (relatively) poor reputation in the US. Where I’m from, Swiss Miss is the “rich people grocery” hot chocolate a sachet of Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate with mini marshmallows in it was considered a treat!

That’s all I have for today. Hope y’all are keeping warm—or cool—these days!

stella_vigo · February 5, 2026, 6:56am

@alcoholandcaffeine I’ve eaten there today and am excited to show you what we ordered!

Behold, the food we ordered at Ambar!

So all the spreads (kajmak, ajvar, beet tzatziki, white bean hummus, urnebes, and olives and veggies) were automatically given to us along with some bread. My friend and I ordered the veal soup, tomato soup, meat pie, cheese pie, cevapi, halloumi, and lamb medallions first. After finishing all that, we got the steak-frites (which came without frites ), cabbage rolls, and goulash! (Also, the waiter made an impressed “MMMmmmm” when I told him I wanted to order goulash is it rare to hear people not from that part of Europe order that?)

This was my and my Vietnamese friend’s first foray into Balkan food so we didn’t know what to expect or if it was authentic/good or not, but we both really liked the meal! (Also, when we both entered the restaurant, he told me “This is the nicest place you’ve ever invited me to” it was also arguably one of the most bang-for-buck Restaurant Week deals )

This lunch was also right before a job interview which I’ll elaborate on below!

I had an online interview with a company based in Minnesota last Monday. I was feeling hungry afterward, so I decided to stop by this hidden gem called Huaraches Doña Chio

When I ordered, the cashier asked me if both items were for me. She warned that their tacos were twice as large as the average taco, and used her hands to demonstrate how much larger a huarache is. I decided to order both anyway. I can confirm that both were huge—I had to ask for a takeout box, and the leftover huarache became my dinner the following day

At around the same timeframe, I was also trying to schedule an interview with another company with a location in Chicagoland—keyword: trying. Basically, Recruiter A reached out to me and asked for my availability for a first-round screening call. I replied with my availability for the week. When she replied, instead of scheduling a call, she told me to contact Recruiter B to schedule a call. So I did. Then followed up a week later. Then followed up the week after after the third email, I finally got a response, not from Recruiter B, but from another person I’ll dub Recruiter C, who then asked me if I would be free on a Monday. That week, I was going to attend a job fair Wednesday afternoon and also had an appointment for a free blow-dry (thank you salonapprentice.com! ) Tuesday afternoon, so an interview on Monday would work out perfectly for me.

Then on Friday, it got rescheduled to Tuesday afternoon which meant I had to reschedule my blow-dry appointment to Tuesday morning, which meant that I had to get up early so that was exactly what I did on Tuesday. I got up much earlier than usual, took the Metra to the suburbs, and while waiting for my appointment, I grabbed a matcha latte and hot chocolate at the café across the street.

They were alright. The bill was $7-ish total. And the blow-dry afterward (which happened at a swanky salon where the shampoo stations had back massages built into them)? Free and just in time for the interview and the job fair the following day!

Since the interview was scheduled for hours later in the day and I was also very hungry, I decided to drop by Honeybear Café for brunch. I read about their huge portions online and saw the prices, so I opted for a half-order of churro French toast instead of a full order, and also got a cup of hot chocolate to warm me up. The cheesecake bites at the start were complimentary, which I really liked!

The food was pretty good and super filling (though admittedly the hot chocolate was skippable). Unfortunately, a few unpleasant surprises awaited me afterward.

First, they tacked on a 4.5% charge for using a credit card

Next, they set the default tip to 30%! That’s almost a third of the meal! (I didn’t tip that much because damn, the audacity…)

And worst of all… when I reached the library in time for my interview, I found out that the interview was rescheduled again to Wednesday afternoon—just a few hours after the end of the job fair and the lunch reservation I made at Ambar

Cue Wednesday. I showed up to the job fair, which was smaller than I anticipated and only had one employer with jobs relevant to my field then later I met my Vietnamese friend at Ambar. And after that, I called the front desk of the Harold Washington Library to plead for them to not cancel my study room reservation while rushing to catch the next train south.

Thankfully, the library didn’t cancel my study room reservation, and I was able to set up my laptop a few minutes before the interview! It thankfully went well. The interviewer was really nice and also apologized for the constant rescheduling. She told me that she expects to deliver news later this week, and I’m hoping to hear something good

I had time to spare afterward. The library was huge and had a lot of cool facilities, so I checked out their winter garden

And as a piano lover, I had to check out their music rooms. I wasn’t able to try out their grand piano, but I gave one of their upright pianos a go!

To treat myself after all that, I paid my first visit to Dongpo Impression in Chinatown—a sister restaurant of Chengdu Impression, which I’ve posted about here before!—and singlehandedly finished an entire portion of dry chili chicken and rice

Considering how I was able to demolish the whole thing without much difficulty even after an extremely filling lunch, I was either severely malnourished or the serving of dry chili chicken didn’t have as much chicken as usual in other restaurants

Oh, and I also grabbed some “dessert” by visiting the newly opened Chicha San Chen branch in Chinatown! Despite what some people online might tell you, it is not Michelin-starred. It is a very popular chain of boba shops, though. I got the bubble milk tea and dong ding oolong tea with honey, both with less ice and light sugar

Both were good, but unfortunately not worth the price. The bubble tea was $8.50 pre-tax and the dong ding oolong tea was $7-ish pre-tax if I wanted to spend a lot on a takeout cup of quality tea, I’d much rather go to Molly Tea a couple blocks away or make the trek to Gathers Tea Bar in Little Italy. Molly Tea is at a similar price point and Gathers Tea Bar is about $1-$2 cheaper, but both taste much better (and I’ve posted about them here, too!).

I’ve gone to the branch in the Philippines before this visit (I got a mango milk tea with boba). It was much cheaper (about $3 if I converted it to USD) and also better-tasting than the one in Chicago.

They also have a branch in Jakarta but I haven’t been to that specific one @caralogues have you tried this before?

alcoholandcaffeine · February 7, 2026, 5:15pm

All of that looks amazing!

I’m so hungry rn

alcoholandcaffeine · February 7, 2026, 5:24pm

Also as it happens, I’ve got some salmon and rice in the multicooker atm it’s basically like a rice cooker, but it’s got this extra basket thingy which I put on top for the steam to cook the salmon.

I like to mix it in with some “sauce vierge” (essentially a finely chopped tomato salad ), which is the part that takes longest to prepare…I use cherry tomatoes and I chop them really small…then they need to sit with the salt for a bit to get really tasty.

I’ll try and take a picture if I don’t forget tho I like to mix it all in like a salad, so it might not look too pretty

caralogues · February 9, 2026, 9:06am

just got back and the updates are blowing me XD how do i see post previews now? T_T

tbh none of these AHAHAHAAH T_T the selection i usually see is boh, lipton, ah chek? if i’m remembering that name correctly. but then again, i rarely buy the bottled tea like you’ve shown, mainly because i prefer boiling it off on the stove with milk.

another one i’ve never seen/heard of O.o the only boba choices i know is tealive, family mart, the alley (LOVEEE this one), mixue and then the roadside stalls. around my areas we don’t seem to have anything else