A Google phone?

Would you buy a Google phone?

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9044758&intsrc=news_ts_head

Orange juice

Odwalla has the best premade orange juice

When I was in Taiwan, I did not have any preference on orange juice. If I wanted to have some juice, I picked whatever looked healthy and tasty to me (I did not like juice with green or purple color. Just did not think they would be tasty). I developed my orange juice liking after I arrived in States. I lived on campus at that time. My apartment had kitchen, however, I would not like to cut fruit and eat it regularly. But I knew I needed to get some fruit in my diet. So, I started to drink orange juice. Why orange juice? Because Safeway had various brands of orange juice. The color of orange juice looked healthy.

Then, I discovered Odwalla. Thanks to Totof. Odwalla really knows how to make orange juice. Odwalla's orange juice is expensive. But, much better than other brands. To save some money, we go to Costco to get Odwalla. Costco's Odwalla is almost half price compared to Safeway's Odwalla.

Odwalla's orange juice is very orange. Fresh, no sugar, and taste like just pressed. It does not have orange skin taste (bitter taste). It does not have old orange taste (plain taste). Odwalla's orange juice tastes like you are drinking juice from healthy, strong, and young oranges.

Pho Vi Hoa

Their spring roll and seafood Pho are highly recommended

Last night, after OSS 117, we went to Pho Vi Hoa for dinner. Why? Navaline recommended it. When we discussed where to go for dinner outside the free screening place, Pho Vi Hoa was mentioned. Since the majority in the group have been there, we decided to go there to enjoy some homemade dishes.

I knew this place through Pei-Chen and Yongjin. We four people went there once. However, I did not remember what we ordered before. Roughly recall Pho Vi Hoa's broth is recommended.

Navaline said Pho Vi Hoa's spring roll and egg roll were excellent. She said "Pho Vi Hoa's rolls are unlike other Pho places. They are big. The egg rolls are not just with many carrots. They have meat inside". So we ordered some spring rolls and egg rolls. We were happy to have them.

Kitty ate already. So, she ordered a Vietnamese coffee. I never seen Vietnamese coffee before. It was a drip type. The waiter served her a cup with milk and a coffee powder holder. The waiter already put the coffee powder holder on top of the cup. Then, he walked away and returned with a hot water container. He told Kitty to pour hot water to the coffee powder container when all the water inside was gone. So, she could refill her coffee as many times as she want. The coffee device looked interesting. If we were not there for dinner, if yesterday was not a weekday, then I would like to try it as well. Apparently Navaline and Heve thought the same way as me. The coffee thing looked tempting.

What we ordered

Appetizer
- Spring roll: it is fresh. It has shrimp, pork and vegetables inside. It is served with peanut sauce. The sauce is thicker than other places.
- Egg roll: it is deep fried. Normally I do not like deep fried. But this one does not look greasy. The egg roll has ground pork, shrimp, and vegetables in rice paper. The lime sauce matches the egg roll well.

Entrée
- Beef Pho: it has eye round steak and well-done brisket inside. It is a noodle soup.
- Seafood Pho: it is a rice noodle soup with pork, shrimp, crab claw, squid, and fried fish cake.
- Grilled marinated shrimp and pork on top of Vermicelli.
- Grilled marinated shrimp and pork on top of Vermicelli. It has an egg roll on the side.

Drink
- Vietnamese coffee (nice try, Kitty)

Dessert
- Red beans, shredded ice, Vietnamese jelly

Everything looked great. Every dish was tasty. We stayed there pretty long. We were the last people to leave. We were having a lot fun so that after we walked out, we still stayed in the parking lot and continued our chat. A nice dinner. Pho Vi Hoa is not a fancy place. But it warms your heart and satisfies your belly with authentic homemade food.

Location: 4546 El Camino Real Suite A12 Los Altos, CA 94022

OSS 117: Le Caire nid d'espions

If you have not had a chance to know French, try this movie

You will then say to yourself "No wonder". This movie presents French vividly. In a fun way.

Yesterday, I went to have a free screening (another word, free movie) with Totof, Heve, Navaline, Fabian, and Kitty. The free screening was supposed to start at 6. So, Totof and I were in a hurry. Then, we knew, we were too early. We should have known that. French never done things on time. We should have given the movie crew 15 min polite time (which means we should have arrived at 6:15).

The movie crew changed the free screening room. So Totof called Navaline and Heve to ensure they would come to the right location. Apparently Navaline parked her car far away from the main quad. Totof called her at 6:05, but she was still walking when the time hit 6:30. At the beginning of the wait, we saw two people at the same hall wandering around. It appeared that they were waiting for someone too. We did not know them. So we just politely nod. Then, a funny thing happened. Kitty showed up. These two people knew Kitty. Oh, they were waiting for Kitty... and Navaline. Everyone at the hallway connected to each other. The world is small. You never know who you can link to.

A hilarious movie

The introduction, the dot, the line, the link, was quite art-oriented (when you see it, you will know what I meant). The beginning reminded me of 007. A handsome looking hero with a dangerous female enemy. A sexy, dangerous, proud little thing. But... The first scene ended up funny and silly. Totally unexpected. You knew at that moment that OSS 117 was not just a 007 movie. I did not want to spoil your interest in OSS117. So, you need to figure out this by yourself.

OSS 117 was a French secret agent. OSS 117 was a code. Just like James Bond or 007. OSS 117 had a charming smile and very interesting eyebrows. His eyebrows could act too. Many excellent expressions were due to his eyebrows.

The way OSS 117 and other French agents recognized each other cracked me up. They asked each other "how is your veal stew?" The correct answer was "Excellent." Then the beginning person needed to say "There is a hearing that the side dish was good. What is it?" The second person needed to answer something silly. The lines did not sound intelligent at all. You could imagine anyone who likes veal stew could provide a similar answer. How could these line served as spy recognition tool? Very silly.

The silliness of OSS 117 was unlike that of Austin Power. Austin Power type silliness was more sexual. OSS 117 kind silliness was more French humor. The movie was in French with English subtitle. Sometimes the English subtitle did not make sense. For instance, the subtitle said "You are "Russian" at me". What did this mean?

Many fun parts were pronunciation jokes. If you do not know French, grab a French friend with you when you watch OSS 117. Then you would understand more.

Overall, I have fun when I watched it. A hilarious movie. Recommended.

Hong Kong Saigon Seafood Harbor Restaurant

Saigon's food is highly recommended. But their services are rude.

If you are looking for a good dim sum place, you can try Hong Kong Saigon Seafood.

Saigon just opened couple months ago. I was told it was initially in Berkeley. The original one got burned out. So, the owner decided to move the new Saigon to South bay. South bay has had some dim sum places already. However, since South bay is quite diverse, people like to try different cuisines, a new dim sum place can always find a niche on any competitive market.

Totof and I have been there three times. We always felt very satisfied with their dim sums. However, if you have not been there and you want to give it a try, then you need to be prepared. Their services are rude and you may feel uncomfortable. Some waitresses would just force you to get some plates. If you refused, you would see a very nasty look. I hate going to a place with rude services. Don't know how other people feel. But I think a dinning place without good services like Saigon will fade away soon. Saigon indeed provides better quality dim sums. However, if Saigon does not improve their services, customers will walk away to another dim sum place if there is a comparable rival coming.

Little delight

Unlike other dim sum places, you can always have fresh and warm dim sums any time you walk in. We got some seafood based dim sums. Shrimp dumplings, scallop dumplings, shrimp with pork dumplings, Shrimp rice ball. All of them were excellent. We ordered Turnip cake since Navaline and I like it very much. Unlike other places, the Turnip cake at Saigon is made of real Turnip. Not the flour. The pan friend chive bum was tasty and juicy. We had the shrimp with wide noodle wrapper too. The sauce was fantastic. We did not know what Saigon put in dim sums. They must have some secrets in making them. So, with similar looking, their dim sums were 2 times tasty than others.

We ordered Sesame balls as dessert. I normally do not like sweet dim sums. But this time, the sesame balls totally blew me away. Others agreed with me, this sesame ball was much better than those from other dim sum places.

Saigon can be more successful if its staff respects customers more. I like food there. However, the services hold me back sometimes.

Location: 1135 N. Lawrence Expressway, Sunnyvale, CA