Welcome to Indiana - Purdue Farmer's Market in West Lafayette, IN

Some scones from the market

My experience with food thus far in West Lafayette has been pretty interesting. Most of my meals are spent in the various dining halls around Purdue, but when the farmer’s market rolled around on Thursday, I knew I had to check it out. As a first year freshman, I find myself running around campus or desperately trying to navigate the swarms of people on my knock off penny board during my cross campus trips to various classes or to study at a library with friends. So in all the hubbub and frenzy of syllabus week, I decided to seek the comfort of the more familiar notion of the Purdue Farmer’s Market.

The Tastiest Road - Raohe Night Market in Taipei Taiwan

Bring comfortable walking shoes!

Some nice takoyaki we found

Night markets are often what people think of when they think of Taiwan - long narrow streets filled with people bustling around trying to get their hands on whatever grub the stands are peddling. But what no one tells you is how much you walk because yes, it might seem obvious because it’s a night market on a street but the feeling of being stuck in foot traffic and your ankles begging and whining for mercy really put things into perspective. Luckily I wasn’t alone and brought my friend Nathan, who was in the neighboring city of Taoyuan for a mission trip (he went back to the US early after fracturing his arm in some serious street ball).

So Maybe I Got Spammed – Cha's in Shanghai, China

Not worth it...

Lovable bun, with lovable butter!!!

So maybe I kinda deserve this, but no one deserves to get ripped off, so I'm going to go off on this place. Cha's is not good. I know, I'm in China I was bound to get ripped off some time right? Well yeah maybe I did but that doesn't really make any of this better. Anyway Winnie and I are tired out of our wits, and we see on a website that Cha's is a recommended place! Hey! That's great! I get really antsy about going to a place that isn't recommended online when I travel, so I do a lot of research beforehand to know where I go. Today was the first day that I was forsaken by the food website recommendation gods – Cha's is a no go if you're ever in the area.

The Los Altos Food Adventure - Part 1

Another day, another food adventure

Athena!

So one of my latest food adventures is actually a make up for one that was supposed to happen on
Senior Ditch Day – I had tentatively planned to hang around Los Altos with Athena for the day, but when another group of friends decided to go to San Francisco to eat and drink boba, I had to jump on that train. But today I redeemed myself by making it up to Athena; we spent the entire goddamn day eating food – that’s right, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Athena and I could’ve gone around the entire Silicon Valley eating food and spending money, but we were limited by one very interesting thing: her car. According to Athena (I have yet to bear witness to this) the car is fairly unreliable, and even her dad was scared it would break down if we went too far. Lucky for us, there is an abundance of high-quality food in the Los Altos-Mountain View area, so let’s just jump right to it!

Indian Pizza! - Tasty Subs and Pizzas in Sunnyvale, CA

Nice and spicy

Have your friends ever agreed to meet up at a place then decide to pull out and move the entire group to another place? Well, that's how this food adventure started out. I was out with my friends after watching Alien: Covenant (spoiler alert: it's scary) and Paras, Athena and I were literally about to order at Teanado (maybe I'll write an article about this place sometime) when Shlok gives me a call and tries to convince me to go get pizza instead of some good bento. I had never heard of "Indian pizza" before, and I wasn't too keen on getting my mouth burned because of how spicy it was, but I decided to trust him and we went off to the next plaza. Just a word of caution: parking in the plaza is pretty rough. It took a slightly shady parking lot move for us to get a spot for Shlok and Nihar but it did the trick (Please note that this blog does not endorse the use of shady parking lot tricks).

Grill Talk - Sumika Grill in Los Altos, CA

Miles P. Olson (2017, color)

Smoky

Actually, before we move on to the next parts of Vegas, I have to write about a stellar dining experience I had in my hometown Los Altos, CA. This place is better known as "Steve Job's Hometown", or even "small town next to Mountain View", but the downtown has some restaurants that can definitely hold its own. I'm here this time with Miles P. Olson at Sumika Grill, one of the higher rated restaurants in the town. Miles and I talk often on Snapchat and Messenger, but we only really make the commute to hang out when someone is visiting from outside of the Bay Area. That being said, I was really excited to see Miles again, since we had quite a bit to catch up on since our last time out for food.