Sigh. I’m a bad blogger. A few wonderful people have passed me some awards, but I’ve been neglecting to play along because my posts are always rather long, so I find myself running out of space to squeeze in more information about myself when I’ve already been yabbering away about myself for several paragraphs. In fact, I also kind of forgot who my awarders were as well, so if you could please speak up…hee. Sorry, my friends.

Well Kristen from EatingRD recently passed me two awards, and I decided it was time to stop procrastinating and finally post them on my blog. So I shall deviate away from my usual long post about me, me, me to write another long post about…me. Woo-hoo!

Okay, time to get things going! First award:

Aw, someone thinks I’m beautiful. That makes me happy. And I’m supposed to list 7 things that you may not know about me. So here goes:

1. I just found out I have a wart on my foot. I saw a doctor this afternoon, and she cut the dead skin away and put liquid nitrogen on it. Mega-cool.
   
2. I once wanted to be the President of the United States. Thank goodness for the dear Americans that only natural citizens are allowed to be president.
   
3. My real name is So Hyun (Korean), except no non-Koreans can pronounce it, so I go by Sophia (it means wisdom!)
   
4. In Singapore, my nickname was Soap, because I hated the way my friends pronounced my name “so-FIA” in two harsh-sounding syllables instead of the more melodious “so-FI-A”. Since they were too lazy to say the extra syllable, my friends decided to stick to one simple syllable: Soap.
   
5. I have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Don’t mess with me.
   
6. I adore cute Asiany stuff like pretty stationary, adorable plush toys, etc. I have an entire collection of notebooks and pens and miscellaneous utensils with a cow character on it.
   
7. I listen to the whole Grinch song every single day. I also watched “The Grinch” (with Jim Carrey) about 573 times.

Here’s the other award:

  10 Things that make me Happy:

1. Listening to hymns: Nothing like a beautiful song that reminds me of all the Goodness of God.
   
2. A prayer answered: big or small, powerful or subtle, they just light me up with fresh faith!
   
3. Hugging my parents: I think no matter how fat and old I may become, I’ll always feel small and babied in my parents’ arms.
   
4. Creating and cooking a new recipe: Love that first bite and reconfirming my ingenuity!
   
5. Receiving mail: big fat packages, cards, and especially long, hand-written letters. Emails are just not the same!
   
6. First cup of coffee in the morning: Fresh-brewed, no instant please.
   
7. Checking things off my To-Do List: Ah, that empowering sense of productivity…
   
8. My 7pm Rule: Because it just rocks and gives me the excuse to read blogs and just chill. I’ve never broken it, ever.
   
9. Good, sunny weather: I’ve been too pampered by SoCal weather. I don’t think I can live in rainy and under 60-degree weather anymore. My heart goes out to the penguins.
   
10. My daily poop. Oh so refreshing. Cathartic, even.

Thanks for reading. That was actually really fun! I’m probably one of the last bloggers to post these, and so most of you have received these awards already. But if you haven’t, consider yourself tagged!

I recently hung out with my friends after church, and we decided to eat lunch out at La Taquiza together. La Taquiza is this famous hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant in the vicinity of USC. It’s not just popular among USC students; apparenly plenty of Los Angelenos will make a trip downtown just to eat their “fabulous” tacos and mulitas. 
Good friends? Check. Great service at church? Check. Eating out? Check. Good food? Eh, not so much…

La Taquiza actually showed so much promise. I wasn’t feeling like Mexican food that afternoon, but seeing these started to make me excited to try their food:
A huge mound of fresh tortilla dough, ready to be made into tacos by order: A fresh salsa bar:
And Al Pastor off the spit, spinning and roasting in its own juices…
Not to mention the clean, colorful, and ecelctic interior design:
I really thought I was gonna have a show-stopping meal. Perhaps I expected too much, because my order turned out pretty disappointing. I ordered three tacos:
The first two were the famous Al Pastor and pollo (chicken).

And third one was the more expensive salmon:
First of all, the portion was much smaller than I thought it would be. Dang, I didn’t think tacos are supposed to be the size of your palm. Or maybe I’m just too used to Big Mac sizes? Either way, I was ticked off at the size of my tacos.
I tried to make up the small portions by piling on the free salsas and pickles and onions:
  Unfortunately, the Al Pastor and pollo were both nicely seasoned, but extremely dry and tough. Boo!! I’m not a meat-lover from the start, and dry meat just turns me off. But because the sizes were so small, I still had to finish them all in order to feel satisfied.
The salmon was the opposite problem. It wasn’t dry at all, but really wet…and greasy. The guacamole on top was rather bland, too.
Most of my friends ordered one mulita:
This is basically a taco sandwich: two tortillas, encasing some kind of meat and guacamole and cheese.
They also had a shrimp one:
Can you see it peeking out? And another ordered the fried fish:
My friends weren’t particularly bowled over either. All in all, none of us could see what the hype over La Taquiza was about. Considering the small portions, the prices weren’t that cheap, either.

I totally had to have a snack when I got home. Thankfully, I also happened to receive some sample products through the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program from Special K:
 A new (low fat) granola, and a packet of Fruit Crisp

First, the granola. I’m not much of a fan of granola actually, but this one was actually pretty tasty. It was crunchy, slightly sweet, and hearty.
(Please excuse my gross bandage. I cut myself)

Next, the fruit crisps:
Now, these aren’t marketed as a meal, or a healthy product, so I’ll give it much more leeway. 
Actually, I think they make a pretty damn good snack. They’re light, and slightly crisp, perfectly portioned into 100-calorie packets. They are a bit sweeter than I would have liked, but they do the job of satisfying your sweet cravings. The inside is some kind of strawberry filling, but they also have  blueberry ones available.
Overall, they taste like skinny pop tarts. I approve. But what is with the bland packaging?
I suppose it’s just because they are samples?

P.S. As if the two above memes aren’t enough, check out Sean’s interview of me here!

Related posts:

1. Gloriously Unproductive Day
2. Why Are We So Sensitive About Something We Poop Out?
3. What A Little Birdie Taught Me
4. I Rock, You Roll
5. The Lee Family Meets Three Torontonian Ladies

Tagged as: avocado, beef, chicken, granola, mexican, mulita, salmon, salsa, seafood, snack, taco, tortilla