Lunch at MooDaePo Rowland Heights, CA

July 27th, 2013

I have 29 food allergies or food sensitivities. I always have had tummy trouble, eating peppermints and raw ginger, drinking teas to soothe stomachs, even taking Tums and other stomach digestive aids. One day I had had it, and I was not going to suffer anymore. Went to a food nutritionist and i was tested for over 60 different foods and vitamins and 29 food allergies of them came back as an allergy. (tomatoes and peppers have too many varieties to name them all so I quit at 29).

Eating out is not an option for me anymore, everything from the bread basket or chip n dip they put on our tables, to the dessert I'm doomed to be allergic to something.

So I was very excited to get invited to MooDaePo Korean BBQ in Rowland Heights, CA and experience their new lunch menu, and some items from their all you can eat menu. MooDaePo's one year anniversary is on August 8, 2013, and they were trying to get the word out about it, by inviting local bloggers, yelppers, and business owners. 

When I arrived, we were set up in their banquet room, and each place setting has this waiting for us:

Here is my confession, I have NEVER eaten Korean BBQ before, this was my first time and I was so excited!!

BANCHAN (SIDE DISHES)

Banchan refers to small dishes of food served along with cooked rice in Korean cuisine. Banchan are set in the middle of the table to be shared. At the center of the table is the secondary main course, such as galbi or bulgogi, and sometimes a shared pot of stew. While the main course of the meal is sticky rice. Bowls of cooked rice and soup are set individually. Banchan are served in small portions, meant to be finished at each meal. They can be replenished during the meal as they are finished.

Left to right / top to bottom:

Sigeumchi Namul - Spinach Dish, Cooked Zaccuni in a spicy sauce, Potato Salad with Macaroni, Ggakdugi - Radish Kimchi, Kongnamul - Soybean Sprouts, Kimchi Fermented Cabbage

I completely fell in love with the potato salad with macaroni, it had sliced apples, peas, cucumber slices, and bits of carrots.  I ate the whole mini dish plate and didn't share with my table mates. Sorry gals!

First Course: Salad

Second Course: Bulgogi Soup with Rice Cakes & Vegetables

Third Course: Teriyaki Chicken

Fourth Course: Galbi (Beef Rib) Soup

Fifth Course: Kimchi Bokumbap (Fried Rice)

Sixth Course: Korean BBQ: Prime Beef Brisket, Prime Marinated Short Ribs, Flower Steak, Tiger Shrimp, Prime Pork Cheek, and Miso Pork Belly

My favorite entree was the Galbi (Beef Rib) Soup. After even just taking one taste I spoke up and said, okay I want the recipe for this. The broth was buttery and very mild. I tasted onion, beef short rib, it was a clear broth, and I was told by my table-mate this was a common "basic" broth that most Korean's use, probably similar to my chicken stock that I make by boiling the bones. Well I ate the other items, that were good, but was "heavenly". They took the big bowl away to make room for the other food, but I would be completely content with a huge helping of just that and the all you can eat meat for lunch or dinner anytime... 

**Hint** to anyone who wants to come over and make me a big pot of this in my kitchen** 

Next up my next favorite was the Miso Pork Belly, I'm amazed being the carnivore that I am that I don't recall ever eating this before... maybe I have been served it before, but no one told me what I was eating. Anyhoo, I could have eaten it all day long. It too was buttery, melt in your mouth. It looks like a pure fat meat, and then you put it in your mouth, and the world stops while the flavors burst into mini fireworks of flavor in your mouth. (Salivating right now as I remember how yummy it was). Our server Suzie, while very friendly and informative could not describe how it tasted, she basically told us we need to try it because it is "beyond" words, and I have to agree with her. I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my face because it stopped my world from moving.

Their menu here. They do have lunch menu prices at the $7.99 price point, and their lunch times are 11:00 am-2:30 pm. (Monday - Friday) They told us they understand about people's lunch breaks, and can speed up their stellar service to accommodate lunch schedules. I remember working in the corporate world and what a big deal it is to be back on time from lunch break. So I thought that was thoughtful, although I can see how easy it would be to stay there all day and eat. I got there 11:15 am, we started being served about 11:45 am, and we were done eating by 2 pm, but after milling around, and taking pictures and such, it was almost 3 pm before I was out the door. 

My meal came from A2 - All you can eat $25.00, I will defiantly be coming back. Our servers were informative, and patient. They were all wearing headsets so they could communicate with each other, and better serve us, plus there was a button on the wall they we could ring if we needed anything, but I feel we were well taken care of. 

Attention

My mom thinks I do things to get attention as if I would curse anyone with my life, allergies, and my ex.

So much of our lives are spent vying for our parents approval. Am I making the right  decision, is this the right course to take?

I often wonder if I really do have autism, as my mom and ex say I do? I have been out on my own for awhile now... since I was 17 really. When I came out of the sheltered world I lived in. I didn't grow I was just there aging yes, but not growing. I started to make my own decisions that were right and wrong. Why didn't my many primary Doctors tell me to get tested. All those intimate answers we give our primary Doctors so they can prescribe up something to cope with our misery. The short span of time that I went to a marriage counselor, no comments about, "Have you thought about being tested for mental behaviors or disorders?"

After being fired from another job because of mouthing off to the boss, or being overly too honest with my opinion of how they are running their business into the ground. I have been told more than once that I was "ballsy" for making that comment by both my co-workers and former friends. I don't understand how telling your boss your true opinions when they ask how would you run the company if I wasn't around, or how would you have handled the account differently, during lunch in the conference room? Do they really expect everyone to kiss their ass and tell them what they want to hear? I guess so, because I have been fired too many times to count. The hurt and feelings of being betrayed. I start new jobs with many tall walls, and little by little the owners break down my trust issues, and then they see me all exposed, and then I am being told to leave the building and here is my last check, they told me I was an important person in their company, I was an important "facet" that made the company tick, and yet when they are telling me why I am being asked to leave, it was I wasn't a team player. They hired me already knowing I wasn't a team player.... but yet they kept me around anyways. They knew... they knew... what changed?

Why would I do any of these things on purpose to get attention? If anything I always feel like I'm in the spotlight, and I want to be out of the line of fire, out of focus, not on display.

About Me

About me:

Even when I was a small child I could not stomach things like eating early in the morning before work, or taking vitamins on an empty stomach. As life when on I just figured I was eating poorly and as a result my stomach was paying for it. You know those days when you crap fast food with coffee, then snacks in the office donuts and more coffee, then fast food lunch, 3 pm snacks to keep from falling asleep in of your monitor while in your cubicle, rush home to eat more fast food, and then in my case spend the rest of the night popping tums, eating ginger or peppermint candy, and even some nights hugging the toilet wishing to die. Whenever I got really sick, I assumed I had the 24-hour bug or food poisoning, and didn’t think much of it. I had a weak stomach and it became a day-to-day thing, which I actually got used to!

So now fast forward to August 10^th, 2012, fed up with the stomach pains I went to see a specialist a nutritionist. I already believe in alternative medicine and taking herbs to cure ailments, so going to a nutritionist was not a far stretch, but I thought going to a nutritionist meant I was looking to learn how to eat healthy to lose weight. I had & have no intention of doing that. So I go to my nutritionist and she started off by pricking my finger, so she can smear some of my blood on a glass slide. This was something new for me. Afterwards she connected her microscope to a monitor like for a computer, and there in black and white I saw what looked like a long worm inching around. She told me that was my blood and they were clumped together unable to absorb any nutrients, because in so many words I was eating crap, and they were unable to do their job. So from there we did “Applied Kinesiology”. What we did was I held various foods, like corn kernels, and soy beans, and a few other things in little Dixie like cups, and she put her fingers on my wrist to feel if my heart rate increased while holding the cups of food. If my heart rate did increase, that meant that my muscles were tensing up, and in essence my body would not process that food item, and do it’s best to expel that item like a poison. 

It turned out that I am allergic to 29 food items, and they are:

Grains	Barley, Corn, Flax, Gluten, Wheat
Beans	Soy
Fruit/Veg	Eggplant, Mushrooms, Oranges, Peppers, Pepinos, Pimentoes, Potatoes, Raisins, Tamarios, Tomatillos, Tomatoes
Nuts/Seeds	Peanuts, Sesame, Walnuts
Sugars	Aspartame, Saccharin
Misc	brewers yeast, egg yolks, paprika, sulfites, green tea, Textured Vegetable Protein, whole cow's milk

At first I was in utter shock, if I can’t eat those items what on earth am I supposed to eat? I purged all the food in my house, everything from my deep freezer, to my medicine cabinet. Amazingly some of the food items had not 1 bot 4 or 5 of the ingredients in it making me sick from morning to night, and I was upset about what CRAP I was really eating. 15 paper sacks later my fridge, and cabinets were empty.

Then I panicked. My kitchen was empty what was I supposed to eat? Everything I enjoyed eating was on the list of cannot eat. So from there I went online and started reading healthy gluten free, dairy free, grain free blogs, and here I am today. Feeling like night and day from my previous life. Every day is a struggle, I have gotten into a routines of foods I know I can eat and only spend about 30 mins in the health food store. At first I would spend 2+ hours in the health food store and read every single label and have mini melt downs / pity party’s when I would read every cereal box and find out there was no cereal I could eat, because even at a health food store all the cereals would have at least 1 ingredient that I was allergic to. Thoughts of eating honey nut cheerios or rice crispy treats were no longer an option and I had no idea what I was going to do.

Since then, the pity party’s no longer happen. I walk in with a shopping list for the food projects I want to accomplish that month, plus the favorites, and the staples that I buy every month, even if we have enough in the house already.

I have made friends with the staff of the health food store, and when they ask at check out if I found everything I wanted, I still answer, “No”, because there is still no cereal on their shelves that I can eat, and the same goes for “Asian dressing” because all “Asian dressings” have soy and/or sesame in them and I can’t have soy or sesame, essential ingredients to make that dressing “Asian”, but I still have my hopes and my taste buds to deal with.

http://www.appliedkinesiology.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_kinesiology

Life as I know it

I have sort-of gotten into a routine of life as it is now.

I got terminated from my last "real" job that was on the books, and I got a "real" pay stub 10/21/2010. I only remember this date as it was the same day as my parents 32nd wedding anniversary. I never could remember what date their anniversary was until that day I was terminated.

I honestly, don't remember 2011 at all. It came up during last week's therapy session. My therapist asked me when I was fired? A simple question, but my mind was in fog. Was is 2011 or 2010? 2010 seemed like so long ago.

Slowly, my mind worked through the fog, and bits and pieces came to me, as I spent most of the weekend piecing it back together, Like doing a puzzle with the blank cardboard pieces up, and then turning over the puzzle after it was put back together.

Being terminated..... going to court... being denied unemployment benefits... big gap..... starting my dental implants. I remember it was November 28th that my dental implant process started so what happened between Jan of 2010 and the end of November 2010? I honestly couldn't tell you.

I told my therapist it was like that file of my brain was removed, and I don't recall a single thing.


Fast forward today. I am settled into my new daily / weekly routine.

Monday: clean my house before 10 am
Tuesday: water the yard, and weed, and dead head any of the plants
Wednesday: clean, work on a food project or eliminate clutter by going through a junk box, or condense stuff
Thursday: water the yard, weed, trim back the overgrowth
Friday: clean, finish the project of the week
Saturday: water the yard, transplant anything that looks like it is not happy where it is.
Sunday: Day of rest... HA HA HA - get out of the house before I can get stuck doing something I don't want to do like clean or do laundry or water the yard. Stay out as long as possible sometimes not returning home until 2-3 in the am.

I have been looking for work for the past couple of weeks. Looking online at various job websites. Keeping a MS-Word log of where I am applying and pasting the info into the log. I don't need to turn it it, but it keeps me from re-applying to the same jobs if the employer / staffer is cross posting.

After I was putting away some laundry tonight I wondered if I could return to the office after being out of it for so long? I still have all of my office wardrobe, although now it is over 5 yrs old, and probably not as trendy as everyone's current office attire. But black skirts can always be worn with cute lil tops, and if needed after I get back into the swing of things; I can update my look. I'm not worried about that part. I always dressed on the conservative side, which is good my clothing can last from one trend to another.

I'm worried about being able to conform back to sitting in a cubical all day long. My current life is where I'm on my feet most of the day doing something, some days when I am doing back to back food projects I don't sit for 4-6 hours. And in the office you sit for 8 hrs + only getting up to use the restroom or get something off of the printer. I remember those long boring days all too well. How on earth did I do it?

New Day - New Way

It's a new day and a new outlook on life.