Phan Photography » monterey park

Capital Seafood – Monterey Park, CA – Linh and Dan’s Wedding

phan photographers — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 19:05:20 +0000

Linh and Dan’s wedding is the perfect example of a festive and joyous traditional Chinese ceremony. The wedding had all the essential elements – elaborate decorations in red, a family altar where the couple would pay homage to the family ancestors, a tea ceremony to honor the couple’s parents and family members, trays of gifts brought to the bride’s house by the groom and his party, a large roast pig, lots of red packets (from the groom) to offer to the bridesmaids so that they’ll “surrender” the bride, and a few challenges for the groom to complete in order to get his bride. The ceremony was followed by a fun-filled reception where guests feasted on a 10 course dinner and partied the night away.

Thank you Linh and Dan for having us photograph your special day! Also, special thanks to our second photographer Richard Cao of Richard Cao Photography for second shooting for us. Below are some of our favorites:

Pasadena City Hall & Capital Seafood – Linh & Dan’s Wedding

phan photographers — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:54:08 +0000

A few quick teasers and more to come…

Pasadena City Hall & NBC Seafood – Lindy & Art’s Wedding

phan photographers — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 22:26:48 +0000

We had a little bit of a twist for Lindy and Art’s wedding as the groomsmen and bridesmaids had a role reversal. The wedding party consisted of the best lady and man of honor along with the bridesmen and groomsladies. So does that make Lindy the groom and Art the bride? HAHA, that’s a question you’ll have to ask them yourself. =) You gotta love the humor in that. You can only guess and assume how the special day went. Relaxing. Easy going. Fun. Full of laughter. A little bit of tears toward the end of the night. A whole lot of drinking. AND the grand finale…the biggest wine glass we’ve ever seen!

So here it is, a few of our favorites from Lindy and Art’s super fun wedding.

Did we mention the cake was awesome. Looks exactly like them!
And the drinking rounds begin…

Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden, Long Beach & Capital Seafood, Monterey Park – Lana & Chans’s Wedding

phan photographers — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 23:38:45 +0000

Lana and Chans are genuinely one of the sweetest and kindest couples we have had the privilege to work with. Very easy going and thoughtful, they always seem to find ways to make any kind of situation turn out great even when things don’t turn out as planned. Simply put, they definitely know how to make the most out of anything life throws at them. They have our admiration.

It was our great pleasure and privilege to be a part of their beautiful wedding. We wish them the best of luck in their new adventure as a married couple. We would also like to thank Brian of Brian Fletcher Photography for helping out with the second shooting and Steve for manning the photobooth.

Here’s a glimpse and a few of our favorites from their special day.

tgif! The Open Door – Monterey Park, CA

phan photographers — Fri, 28 May 2010 18:17:53 +0000

We have been making more of an effort to go out on mini date nights, happy hour or a quick dinner without the kids. It keeps us sane, especially after a crazy month of the kids being sick, a busy month at work and month full of weddings and photo sessions! We’ve heard about The Open Door through friends and have been wanting to try it out. The restaurant is small, but it was clean, the service was great and the food was super yummy. We loved their menu, which is broken down into small bites (munchies), big bites (appetizers) and bigger bites (full entrees). We like variety in our meal so this place is perfect for us. We ordered a few things from the small and big bites – and although the dishes looked small, it filled us up quick! They also have really good fruity drinks. The best time to go is during their happy hour, which is between 5:30 and 7pm. They have a pretty good happy hour menu that’s almost 50% off the regular priced menu. We can’t remember the last time we went out alone and drank with each other. Or did we ever? We ordered a Lychee Shochu carafe to start. It was SO good. Everything we ordered was really good and tasty – enjoy the photos!

Lychee Shochu
Lychee juice mixed with Shochu aka “asian vodka” – so goood!

Albacore Sashimi with Gochujang Miso

Salmon Sashimi with Garlic Citrus Soy

Fried Shishito Peppers

Deep Fried Soft Shell Crab

Beef Tataki

Braised Beef Short Rib
I just have to add that the meat melts like butter – it was so tender and the sauce was sweet and flavorful!

Go try this place out if you want to sample a bunch of little different dishes with awesome flavors. Aside from these unique dishes they also have a sushi/sashimi menu. :)
Happy Friday!!

Lana & Chans’s Wedding – Phantastic Photobooth

phan photographers — Wed, 26 May 2010 06:51:25 +0000

We just wanted to share a few of the hilarious and favorites from Lana and Chans’s wedding. The rest can be viewed on our client gallery and proofing site. Have a blast!

TGIF! Hot Pot Hot Pot – Monterey Park, CA

phan photographers — Fri, 14 May 2010 22:50:14 +0000

We love hot pot! We often make it ourselves at home, given that it’s fairly easy to prepare and it requires no cooking skills at all. =) Food prep is very time consuming though. We’re always trying to find a hot pot restaurant that is clean and serves fresh food. It wasn’t until a couple of months ago that we found Hot Pot Hot Pot in Monterey Park through Yelp. It had good reviews so we thought we’d give it a try. After all, what can be worse than wilted veggies, brown looking meat and sauce that gets put back into the jar after it had been served to someone? Yes, we’ve seen it all.

This place was nice, but it’s still your typical chinese restaurant with extra bright florescent lighting. It was clean though, and the food was fresh. Service wasn’t too bad either so we were happy. If you like hot pot, give this place a try – their broth looks bland but it is sooo yummy and flavorful! A word of caution though – if you get the 1/2 and 1/2, order the spicy side with a level 1. Your mouth will be on fire even at level 1 (the lowest).

Another cool thing about this restaurant was that we ordered our plates from a menu sheet and everything was brought out at the same time. They had good portions too. The meat and veggies came in small plates that’s probably good for 2-4 people.

It’s such a great idea to serve the dishes on a cart! We loaded up on veggies. :)

They also serve fresh hand-made noodles.

Our veggies simmering – you have to order the pumpkin. It’s so tender and sweet after it’s boiled in the pot.

Oh boy. This is making me droool. We need to go back for more this weekend. =)

Happy Friday!!

monterey park – jen’s bridal shower

vanessa — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:16:11 +0000

Over the weekend, Kareena and I attended the bridal shower of one of our dearest friends. It didn’t seem that long ago when Kenny shot Jen and Danny’s engagement session at USC and UCLA, but it’s been almost a year! Where does the time go? Kareena and I had so much fun at the shower. It was her first, but i’m sure there will be many more to come as her aunties get married off one by one! Some of the photos from the shower:

The beautiful bride-to-be, Jen!

There was some really yummy food. I’m getting hungry just posting these. So if you’re kind of hungry too, maybe you should scroll down really fast and bypass all the food photos. Ready? This is a dim sum dish called Ha Gow (Shrimp Dumpling)

Shu Mai
Short RibsPotato balls from Portos. OMG. I had no idea these were so good.
Mini BBQ Pork Pies
I don’t know what this is called, but it was SO good. Sticky rice with edamame, seaweed paper and bits of fried scallions. Yummy!
Cabbage Salad – also really yummy!
Spam Masubi – Kareena and I love these! Actually, Kareena only loves the Spam!
Cheese Rolls from Portos. If you ever want to bribe any one of the Phans, this is it. This deserves its own post.
Fruit Salad

One of Jen’s girlfriends made this huge cupcake cake. So cute!
Red Velvet Cupcakes and Chocolate Dipped Strawberries – the perfect combo!
So when we first arrived at Jen’s house, Kareena was overwhelmed by all the unfamiliar faces. She then spotted a few aunties that she knew and kind of clung on to them. It got a bit better after Auntie Dana pulled her aside and gave her a Hello Kitty lunchbox loaded with Hello Kitty stuff. It was soo cute!
After that I think her mind flew to Hello Kitty land – she didn’t hear anything or notice anyone except for the lunch box.

It didn’t take too long for her to warm up and get comfortable, especially after these yummy treats!After the sugar…

We had so much fun! Thanks for having us Jen! Congrats to you and Danny! He’s a lucky guy!