Wes & Erica's vacation photo album // DFW, TX // December 2024

 

Another year, another trip to eat & shop at Carrollton Town Center. 🍴 Although this year, we branched out and ate & played all throughout the DFW area. The hotel we usually stay at in Carrollton was full so Wes found us a place in Farmers Branch. I was a bit worried at first but it turned out to be a more central location for all of our activities. I did so much driving 🚗(which I was also dreading but the traffic was surprisingly not violent nor overly congested). Our first stop was an errand for one of Wes's friends. He ordered a computer part from Micro Center and charged us with picking it up. I assumed Micro Center would be a small shop in a strip mall but is gigantic. Should be called Mega Macro Center!! It was like the size of two Best Buys or one very large Circuit City (remember those from back in the day?) 

Vegan tuna rice cakes (top left picture) was the best part of lunch!!

Our first actual vacation stop was lunch. We went to Blue Sushi Sake Grill for dinner a few years ago. I wasn't impressed and Wes said it was just okay, but he actually loved it. When we were planning all the restaurants we'd try this year, I mentioned sushi and he suggested giving this place another go. 🍣 He said the roll he got was really good & unique, and that he liked the Godzilla theme and vibe of the restaurant. I was hoping that we'd get to sit by the Godzilla mural this time, but our hostess sat us at almost the same table as our last visit. We came during happy hour and our waitress talked us into getting all the specials. LOL Wes ordered the same roll as last time and said it was just as delicious, but I again, wasn't super impressed with my meal. 😕 I thought the shishito peppers had too much shallot and my spicy octopus roll was entirely too spicy 🔥 (like it overwhelmed the octopus). One thing saved my meal and that was the vegan tuna. Wes refused to try it but it was SO GOOD; like a thousand times tastier than I expected! Blue Sushi Sake Grill is known for its vegan sushi options. I didn't try any last time, but I was really curious about their Vegan Tuna Rice Cakes. Their vegan tuna had the same texture and taste of actual tuna. Now I know that if we got back (which I probably will veto next time), I should only get the vegan options.

I got my first hole-in-one with the bonus on the Connect 4 hole.

We went to play crazy golf next. 🏌 We've played putt putt a few times (Wes is a huge mini golf fan) but never crazy golf. It is so much better! Each hole had an added game attached to it, like it was ski ball and you had to hit the ball into the highest slot, or it was Tetris and you had to maneuver the ball around the blocks. There was the Diamond, Emerald, Ruby (our course), Amber, and Sapphire courses. I had a lot of fun even though my shots were so dismal that the automated tv screen displayed a depressing message after each shot. I kept getting the message that read, What a string of bad luck!, literally after every stroke. LOL 😅 I know & admit that I am terrible at sports (and basically any activity that has a game element to it) so I wasn't mad about it. I actually had a ton of fun! In the end, I did end up with two hole-in-ones, and one of them included the special bonus shot. 👍 My final score was 330 and I was #61 for the day (I think only 70 players had come in so far). Wes managed a 410 and was in third place for the day. I would totally come back every year and try to play on a different course (they're automatically assigned when you come in, so I think its completely random which one you'll get on any given day). My score most likely won't improve, but each course has a set of different games, and I'd like to get the opportunity to fail at all of them. 😆

So much Hello Kitty merch for her 50th anniversary. I loved the Texas kitties and almost bought one for me & Lacey.

We went "home" to the Doubletree by Hilton Near the Galleria (the hotel was seriously called that but it was in Farmers Branch instead of Dallas) to rest a bit before our shopping at Daiso, Teso, and Kinokuniya. Shopping wasn't all that this year 😔; there wasn't that much cute washi tape or pen pal supplies, and I think there is less and less tokidoki stuff each time we go. Kinokuniya was actually closed for the day, so we went back tomorrow.

Those noodles changed my life.

We had dinner at Fat Ni BBQ. 😋 It is a skewer restaurant; you order off a sheet of paper, like at sushi restaurants but they're all types of meats on skewers. 🍖 I wanted one of everything but had to practice restraint. LOL We weren't sure how big the pieces of meat were so we only ordered a few. They're pretty small portions so I would 100% opt for more next time. Each skewer can be made spicy or not spicy. We got a few of each. They're all flavored with Asian 5-spice blend. Everything we got was amazing, but the Oil Spill Noodles were the super star of the meal. It is flat noodles drenched in chili oil with bok choy and roasted garlic & scallions. It was just the right amount of spicy. 

The next morning, we had breakfast at the Grand Prairie location of 85℃. It's a smaller location with less options than the Carrollton one (and the guy at the counter wouldn't heat up my pastry like they do in Carrollton 😢), but it was also much closer to our next activity. I wanted to try the new toffee latte that was on special but they were out of toffee 😑 I got a Matcha Oat Pumpkin Spice Latte instead. I thought it might be too many flavors but it all blended together really well, and it was the perfect hot drink for a chilly morning (it was actually cold in December in TX this year! ❅). Everything was delicious, as always.

The bakery was next to an Asian "mall," so we took a walk around after we finished breakfast. It was bringing back flashbacks of the Asian malls I went to when we visited my dad's side of the family in Houston & Dallas when I was younger; herbal shops that smelled awful, gold & jewelry stores, and all the slippers, fuzzy blankets and silly imported fashions. Most of the shops that I was interested in were still closed so there wasn't too much to see. The food court looked amazing and I almost wished we came hungry for lunch. We did our grocery shopping at Hong Kong market since it was there, and we figured we might not have much time tomorrow to shop at 99 Ranch. It is smaller but still had all the stuff we needed. There were flyers advertising a dragon dance competition at Asia Times Square later in December; I wish we could have come back for it. 🐉 I wonder who won.  

Didn't like much of the art, but here are a few pieces I thought was cool. 

We went to the Arlington Art Museum next to see the Disney costume exhibit. (I took soooooo many pictures so we'll save that experience for tomorrow's blog post. 💻) The "museum" is an itty bitty section of a much larger event space. The event space had a giant E-sports arena, which seemed to be the main attraction of the center. Parking at the museum was a total rip off. 😡 There was no street parking so we were forced to pay $10 to park in a deserted lot that was at least two blocks away. There was zero security or even a sidewalk for us to walk back to the main entrance. The museum's permanent collection was a small gallery of amateur student art. It was very obviously student art. Every single piece was purposefully woke and aggressively thought provoking, i.e. there was a section of unnecessarily graphic abortion art. I prefer to view art and then come to my own conclusions about it, but everything in this gallery was screaming, look at how horrible people like you have made the world, and now it's up to me, a righteous artist, to save all of humanity with my opinions. Just so gross and pretentious. At least the permanent collection was free with our Disney ticket so I didn't waste any money on it.

Next was lunch. We ate at Hurtado BBQ--another good pick. 😋 [I think we choose good really good restaurants on this trip. I usually look on Instagram for places to try but sometimes the food isn't as good as portrayed in the pictures, but not this time. Every place was so yummy!] Hurtado is one of those small barbeque joints that is open until they're sold out of meat smoked for the day. It was really busy even after the lunch rush (I think it was around 2:30 or 3pm when we went). My eloté brisket bowl was perfectly balanced. Not too much sauce or too much lime, like I've had at other places. Wes said his Spanish rice was amazing because it was cooked in the meats' drippings.

After lunch, we stopped in White Rhino coffee for an afternoon snack before driving back to the hotel. ☕ I got a Whole Latte Love, which is a lavender honey coffee. It had a very strong and distinctive flavor. Wes said his cold brew was a little on the weak side, but still good. The café advertised a local vendor market the following weekend, which makes me want to consider doing smaller café shows here. Any recommendations? Hurtado and White Rhino made Arlington worth visiting, but I didn't really like the city much. It's definitely not as nice as other Dallas suburbs. 

How cool is this place? There are bird cages hanging from the ceiling and flying saucers printed on the dinnerware! 

We had dinner at Ida Claire. I 100% recommend this place! The Southern voodoo/tarot, ancient vibe is so cool! 😎 It just had the best atmosphere as soon as we walked in. The food & drinks was also really good. There were whole pieces of lobster in my seafood pasta 🦞 Wes got the chicken and waffles. He doesn't like his food touching, and usually chicken and waffles is served with the chicken on top of the waffles and then a bunch of toppings. But, Ida Claire had the chicken on the side of the waffles and all the different syrups & butter in their own separate ramakins. There was a Thunder game on at the bar. We sat close enough to where we could watch it. It felt weird rooting for the Thunder when literally everyone else was rooting for the Dallas Mavericks. The Thunder won so they can all suck it. LOL

Our last meal before we left town was my customary black egg congee at 99 Ranch. I look forward to it every year. 😊 I got a side of taro cakes this year (they didn't have my eggplant). We already did our grocery shopping yesterday so we didn't really need to walk around the ranch. The cosmetics shop where I always get my face masks changed their hours from 10am to 11am so I couldn't get any this year. 😥 I guess we could have waited around for an hour, but we were both pretty anxious to get back to Athena & Zephyr. 🐕 We stopped in Buc-ee's on our way home and bought a ton of stuff, but I didn't take any pictures. It was fun to do activities and try restaurants outside of Carrollton this year. I already spotted some new places I want to try next time while we were driving around. Everything we ate was good, but to recreate the perfect meal I would choose: oil spill noodles from Fat Ni and the brisket eloté from Hurtado. With a side of the vegan tuna rice cakes from Blue Sushi and the fried oysters from Ida Claire, and the cocktail from Ida Claire for my drink. 🍹 And the matcha oat pumpkin spice latte from 85℃ for my dessert. 

Preview of the Heroes & Villians Disney costume exhibit.

The main reason why we spent so much time outside of Carrollton was because I wanted to see the Disney costume exhibit. 👗 The costumes are from the Disney archives so they're the actual pieces that the actors wore on screen. I knew it would be fantastic, but it was a thousand times more awesome than I thought it would be. I'm not even a Disney fan, just a massive lover of clothes & fashion. More on that to come... 

Wes and Erica's vacation photo album // Carrollton, TX // December 2022

When you're 38, you get excited about -- beef jerky case at Buc-ee's, a gorgeous quilt at Not Your Mama's Quilt Store, and gazebo at Historic Downtown Carrollton

Last week, we took my annual birthday trip to Carrollton Town Center. ☕🍙🍜🍨🍣 We ate lots of yummy Asian food and did our shopping, per usual, but new this year was the addition of fabric shopping! 😄 I found three fabric stores in the area, and Wes found an authorized Gundam model kit retailer. First, pictures of food, then shopping...

We got into town mid-afternoon so we started with a light lunch. We went to Frankseoul for Korean hotdogs. I got the "half & half dog", which was part hot dog and part mozzarella stick rolled in a crispy batter. They had a bunch of dipping sauces; I got honey garlic, hot sauce, and ketchup. For dessert, I got a dalgona ice cream sundae. 🍨 It was sooooo good!!! It was soft-serve ice cream topped with caramel and bits of dalgona cookies. The cookies were a little too sweet by themself but tasted great in the sundae. Wes got a sujeongwa drink, which is a cinnamon punch. He was so excited that they had it because he hasn't had it in ages and can't find it anywhere. 

We went to dinner at Too Thai Street Eats. It is the best Thai food I've ever had and the restaurant had a nice vibe, too. I think this is my favorite restaurant we visited this year. I got the boat noodles with beef. I asked for a 1.5 - 2 spiciness level but it was still too spicy for me to drink the broth. For our appetizer, we ordered the pork Thai sausage. I thought they were really good but Wes said they had too much ginger in them. He got the pad Thai and said it was good but didn't share my opinion of it being the best Thai restaurant. 

The next morning, we went to 99 Ranch for breakfast and groceries. There is only one place I've found in OKC that has congee with bits of preserved black eggs in it, and its only available for dim sum. 😒 Since we rarely get dim sum here, I wait literally all year to get my bowl of congee from 99 Ranch. It is always my favorite breakfast. 🥣 Wes got a pastry with all of his favorite ingredients - coconut, raisins, and almonds. We bought lots of chips, candy, and other non-perishable grocery items. My mom only uses a specific brand of egg noodles (that has 2 chickens on the packaging 🐓🐓). Cao Nguyen stopped carrying them so she's been lamenting each time we go over to her house for won tons. We found that exact brand at 99 Ranch so, of course we stocked up! LOL

For lunch, we returned to BCD Tofu House. It was my favorite restaurant when we visited for my birthday last year. I was so excited to return but was underwhelmed this time around. 🙁 It had to have been what I ordered because Wes said his meal was just as good as last year's. I got the soon tofu with tripe. I was worried it would be too spicy so I ordered it plain. It was definitely plain... too plain. It didn't have any spice in it and it tasted gamey because of the intestines. I should have stuck with seafood and a low spiciness level. 

We wanted an afternoon snack and had way too many options to choose from. There was a boba cafè, a place that made crêpes, and an ice cream shop that I was interested in. We decided on none of those. LOL We went to Coconut Paradise. I don't even like coconuts! 😅 This place was absolutely amazing. It's decor is so adorable, the owner is the nicest man ever, and the coconut jelly desserts were so good! 😋 I told the owner that I've never tried coconut jelly so he told us all about them and offered samples. I tried the matcha flavor but ended up with chocolate. The coconut jelly is like a pudding but not as thick. The one I got was topped with Oero bits, M&M's, chocolate syrup, mochi balls and coconut flakes. It didn't really even taste like coconut. Wes got the coconut espresso. He said it was good but wish he got the coconut Thai tea in hindsight. 

For dinner we went to Kura for sushi. It is a sushi train restaurant. The wait was super long and the food was just so so. I think people went for the price. It was only $3.75/plate. I always want sushi on my birthday because it is one of my favorite foods but we haven't had much luck. The place we went to last year also wasn't too impressive. The conveyer belt sushi concept is a fun novelty. And they had a robot with a cat's face that played music while it delivered drinks to the table. That was actually my favorite part of our dinner! 😂 I felt like all of the good sushi items came out after we were already full. If you get 15 or more plates, you get a free prize. We only had 7 but the waiter gave us a prize anyway. He must have sensed it was my birthday! 

Our last meal was breakfast before we headed out for home. We got pastries from 85℃ Bakery. Always a good breakfast! 🍪 We got a little extra for the road home. too! Of the places we ate at, I would want to return to Too Thai Street Eats and Coconut Paradise for seconds. I already picked out restaurants I want to try for next year's birthday trip (a Vietnamese place, a different Thai place and a restaurant called Mad for Chicken -- because the name cracks me up).

Now onto reason #2 for the drive down to Texas... shopping!! Wes and I are mostly minimalists but this is the one time a year we really shop. There are very few things that I like so normally shopping bores me but when it comes to fabric, washi tape and stickers, I lose all self control. LOL We spent the first day going to all the shops at Carrollton Town Center. I got tons of washi tape & small gifts from Teso and Daiso, face masks from K-Pop + and, of course, my tokodoki Unicorno 🦄 Sadly, Teso and Daiso didn't have as much tokidoki stuff as they did previously. 

We went fabric shopping our second day. The first shop we went to was Urban Spools. 😍 It is my new favorite fabric store. It has super contemporary and modern prints like Sewciety in Norman, OK, but it was about three times as big. They had a lot of Ruby Star Society prints and there was an entire shelf of Alexander Henry prints!! I saw a bunch of different designs that I've only seen online. I wanted to buy two yards of everything but I controlled myself. I wandered around the store twice and picked out my absolute favorites to buy. My prized purchase is two yards of Endless Love by Alexander Henry. The print is of two Victorian lovers in the English countryside but they're skeletons.

After Urban Spools (which is in Dallas), we drove to Plano to visit Not Your Mama's Quilt Store. The owner was incredibly nice. I told her this was our first time in because we're from out of town. She gave us a quick tour of the store and free bottled water. She claimed to be a modern quilt store but I don't think they had as much unique fabric as Urban Spools. It was a nice mix of traditional and contemporary fabric. I recognized some of the fabric from the Road to Oklahoma Shop Hop I did with my sewing club friends this summer. I saw a lot that I liked but knew I could purchase it in OKC so I didn't buy much, just a few fat quarters.

While we were in Plano (which is way closer to Carrollton than I thought it would be), we went to HobbyTown USA. I guess there are HobbyTowns all over but this one is special because it is a flagship store for Gundam model kits. A quarter of the store was devoted entirely to Gundams. 🤖 I have never seen a Gundam tv show or have any interest in model kits but this place was pretty neat. There were tons of models! The wallpaper (floor paper?) on the floor was printed with Gundam pieces and there was a gigantic model RX 78-2.

The last fabric shop we went to was back in Carrollton. The Old Craft Store is a very traditional quilt shop (all florals and fabrics in your grandma's sewing room). I didn't like any of the prints. The owners were kind of rude, too.😑 The two women followed us around like we were shop lifters. One of the women seemed annoyed when she asked if she could help me find something and I told her I was just looking around. The only interesting part of the store is the antique fallout shelter. There is a room in the back with tons of old canned goods, boxes of provisions, and other general store items. 

And thus concludes another vacation and the end of my 37th year. The highlight of my year was finally making friends in my sewing club. 😁 I've been a member of The Oklahoma City Chapter of American Sewing Guild for probably 5 or 6 years now and I have always been friendly with all of the ladies. But, this year, I actually made a group of friends who I hang out with regularly outside of sewing club, and we've let each other into our personal lives and have become genuine friends (instead of just casually sewing... which we do plenty of that together, too!) 

Wes & Erica's vacation photo album - Carrollton, TX - December 2021

The last time we were in Dallas (probably 2018 or 2019), I discovered that there was a 99 Ranch - my favorite Asian grocery store, and Wes discovered there was a Kinokuniya - his favorite Japanese bookstore, in the city of Carrollton. They are both in a shopping center with lots of cute shops and tons of restaurants. We decided that the next time we travel to Texas, we'd spend a weekend in Carrollton to eat and shop. We were going to do this for Lunar New Year 2020 but had to postpone due to COVID. Then we were going to in August, but Zephyr got super sick the day before we were supposed to drive out. So, FINALLY, we went for my birthday. This was over a month ago but I'm just now finding time to journal. 

You can't drive by a Buc-ee's and not stop in, so the one in Denton was our first stop. We got there around lunchtime on a Saturday and it was packed. We bought snacks, souvenirs, and lunch... all the things you need to buy when visiting a Buc-ee's. LOL I got a hotdog with dill relish and some potato salad for lunch and Wes got a Lunchable-type thing with cubes of cheese, salami, grapes and almonds. We ate it all before I could take a picture. 

Our next meal was dinner. 🍣 One of Wes's friends from work suggested that we go to Blue Sushi. It is his favorite sushi place and gave Wes a stellar review. I was so pumped to try this place... and it was not as good as I had hoped for 😔 Wes said his friend probably likes this place for its vegan options. I think he likes this place because it's a hip restaurant to impress his girlfriend. LOL I'm almost certain that the patrons dine at Blue for its ambiance and not its sushi. I would compare it to Sushi Neko in OKC. The coolest part was the front room & bar that was Godzilla themed. 🐉 It had murals of scenes from the old movies. We weren't trendy enough to be seated near the front; the hostess sat us in a different dining room that wasn't themed.  

The best part of our meal was the shishito peppers we got for our appetizer. One of my rolls had cilantro in it and the other was rolled in tempura beet flakes -- the two best parts of my dinner. Wes said he liked his sushi alright but there wasn't anything special about it. I was kind of bummed after dinner, so I wanted dessert to compensate. There weren't many places that were both nearby and still open so instead of dessert, we decided on coffee. I am so glad we did because Civil Pour was so good. ☕ I got a caramel apple latte that tasted exactly like the lollipops. 

The next morning, we headed out to our Asian shopping center excursion. We had breakfast at 85℃ Bakery. We've been here before and loved it so had to go again. Dine-in wasn't available, which was actually better because we got to heat up our pastries at the hotel. They would have still tasted amazing at room temperature, but I prefer them warmed up. The potato croquette I got was SO freakin' yummy!! 😋

We spent a majority of the day wandering around the shops. It was a really good shopping day. 😁😍 I bought a ton of snacks, goodies for my pen pals, and even Wes (who never shops) bought a couple of things! Of course, we had to take a boba break so we got drinks from 7 Leaves. I got the mung bean milk tea. It was delicious, no surprise. It had bits of crushed up mung beans and reminded me of the mung bean cakes I liked when I was a kid. 

Next meal was lunch (We did do things in between meals; in case you were wondering. We went to Rainbow Vomit 🌈 and the Meadows Museum, and they will be chronicled in the next blog post.) Wes really likes Korean food but it's just so-so for me. 😕 I try to find different Korean restaurants each time we travel in hopes of finding a dish that I really like. And it worked... I found my favorite Korean dish on this trip!! We went to BCD Tofu House and all they serve is soon tofu soup. It was the absolute best Korean food I have ever eaten. Wes really liked it, too, but he didn't agree that it was the best he's had (he's had the homecooked stuff and you can't beat that).

Soon tofu is soft tofu. The soup is made with lots of different spices, ginger, onion and scallion. Chunks of tofu are added to the broth and then you get your choice of meat. I got the combination with beef, shrimp and clams. You get to pick your spice level (I'm a wimp and got 1 🌶pepper). The soup is served boiling hot in a clay pot with a side of rice, traditional Korean side dishes--one was a whole fried mackerel 😋--and a raw egg that you crack into the soup. The restaurant had televisions playing informative videos about how to cook the soup, the proper way to eat it and BCD's annual spicy soup eating competition. 

For dinner, we had Pakistani food at BBQ Tonite. 🍛 I was still pretty full from lunch so I don't think I liked the food as much as I would have if we hadn't eaten a ton just a few hours previously. We shared the beef seekh kebab and rice with lamb. Wes really liked the spice blend they used. It was a good meal albeit a bit too spicy for me. 

Our final meal was breakfast the next morning. When we were shopping at the grocery store the day before, I noticed that 99 Ranch had dim sum at their hot deli. And on their dim sum menu was congee, like the legit congee with salted pork and black preserved egg. OM-freakin'-G!!! I am the only person in my family who likes congee so it's never cooked at family dinners, and you can't find it at many restaurants around here. I was ecstatic!!! I wasn't hungry when we went shopping so I didn't get any... when we returned for breakfast the next morning, I made a beeline for the dim sum and asked for congee. The cook said it wasn't done yet and I would need to wait 5 - 10 minutes. Wes got his breakfast (a pastry and some tea) and we wandered around the store a bit, patiently awaiting. As soon as the 10 minutes had passed, I rushed back to the deli and the cook handed me a steaming hot bowl. I triumphantly brought it to our table and devoured it.  I also got some fried stuffed eggplant, which was also delicious.

We stopped in IKEA on our way home. I got a table for my serger and we got a (much needed) new dining room table. We spent three days in Carrollton and ate as much as we could. SO MUCH GOOD FOOD. Our hotel was only a block away from the Asian shopping center so we had every meal (except for sushi) there. I almost wish we had something like that in Oklahoma but then I think it would take the fun out of travelling for good authentic Asian food. And I would probably be broke from shopping --or I would just have the most awesome collection of stickers & washi tape. LOL Anyway, it was the perfect way for me to spend my birthday! 🎂