my life in pictures..

AKA palm pre photo dump.
recent photos i've taken on my phone and posted to flickr/twitter, but not high quality enough for me to use in my usual photo blog posts. it's mostly the places and food i eat.

lobster roll at blue plate oysterette in santa monica.

rick baker giving a talk at dreamworks animation.

thursday night tasting at silverlake wine.

brewster coffee shop in cape cod.

just for you cafe in san francisco.

susan feniger's street in hollywood.

huckleberry in santa monica.

happy times during dodgers NLDS.

new ny+c pizzeria in santa monica.

new york style pizza at ny+c.

getty center at dusk.

dent may performing at the getty center.

inside umami burger in hollywood.

wolf suit from WTWTA on display at arclight sherman oaks.

the bar + mixologist at comme ca in west hollywood.

hallway party at dreamworks on a friday evening.

sausage hash at TART at fairfax + beverly.

puppy food hike.

seared figs and jamon at the bazaar.

this morning we went for a hike out in runyon canyon with ben. it was a nice hike, and reminded us how much we enjoy it - perhaps we shall try working hiking into our exercise routine more often. afterwards we brunched at tart, where i had their sausage hash (roasted red potatoes with andouille sausage, chicken apple sausage, smoked alligator sausage, onions, peppers and topped with three eggs) - freaking good.

before heading back to santa monica, dan and i spotted a pet adoption and spent a good half hour meeting lots of nice puppies. i really wanted to bring home a five month old pit bull mix named spankey.. or this beautiful beautiful rotweiler named xena.. i'm a bit dog-obsessed right now, i just really wish work allowed dogs, because i would get one in a heartbeat then. guess i'll have to keep waiting..

for dinner we made a couple new york steaks, a spicy corn salad (corn, butter, garlic, lime, paprika, chili powder, cayenne, salt, pepper), a simple salad (romaine, tomatoes, avocado, homemade lemon dressing) and a bottle of zin.

and YAY the yankees win the american league penant.. now for them to smash the phillies..!!

open your mouth to seafood.

flower at the getty center.

can't even explain how glad i am it's the weekend.

drove back to arcadia to lunch at din tai fung dumpling house with simeon, who i haven't seen in.. well, almost a decade. he's one of the people i looked up to most back in the day, and it was nice to catch up and see that we're still on the same page for a lot of things.

for dinner, dan and i went back to blue plate oysterette. we started with four oysters (baron point, luna, kusshi, island creek) and two clams (top neck, little neck) each. dan had the lobster roll again, and i went for their lobster mac & cheese (with gruyere and truffle oil) which was sooo good. even though we were full, we opted to get dessert anyway since their banana bread custard just looked too good to resist (though i now have a tummy-ache)! afterwards we went and saw new york, i love you, which was visually very cool and a great collection of little "love" stories.

muddled limes & raspberries.

flower at the getty center.

we had dinner with ben last night at comme ca, a "modern french brasserie" in west hollywood. at the bar i ordered their caip-germain-ha, a twist on the traditional caipirinha with cabana cachaca, st. germain elder flower liquer, muddled limes and raspberries. it was sooooo good, i had two! we all split a charcuterie plate and a cheese plate - both were delightful, and really filling. for our entrees, dan and ben both had the steak frites, and i had their roasted monkfish. everything was delicious, and we were all too full for dessert (which is bummer because they have a brioche bread pudding on their dessert menu and if you didn't know, i'm a sucker for bread pudding..)

and just like that, the season's over.

the dodgers single win in the 2009 nlcs.

i actually started crying. then again, they didn't deserve to win - they've been playing so badly since the nlds. i hope the yankees trample the phillies. but i can't wait for the 2010 season, and am already getting pumped for spring training in arizona! what can i say, i've fallen in love with baseball.

sad face.

dodgers just had a heartbreaking loss to the phillies in game 4 of the nlcs.. after being up 4-3, broxton blows the save and we lose 5-4..

now to make it to the world series the dodgers have to win the next three games - a very difficult, but not impossible task (eg, boston red sox in the 2004 and 2007 ALCS..).

fingers crossed.

a week(end) update.

left field pavilion dodger fans.

i'm behind on posting, so i'll just give a quick laundry list of the past week.

_dinner with a bunch of dreamworkers (dan, mike, rob, mattJ, ray, eli, edL, lauraW) at umami. their casablanca burger, which is basically a lamb burger, is pretty mindblowing, and everything else was also very good.

_NLCS games 1 and 2 at dodgers stadium vs. the phillies. dodgers lost game one, won game two. both great great games.

_where the wild things are. not a children's movie, but a movie about childhood. not a lot happens, but visually stunning. very interesting take on the book.

_back to the east side to get my teeth cleaned. also dined at JTYH restaurant in rosemead for some yummy shaved noodles.

_brunch at amandine. major disappointment at the dodgers loss in game 3 to philadelphia.. but it ain't over 'til it's over!

max terrorizes a pumpkin.

max from where the wild things are.

as previously mentioned, we bought some pumpkins to draw on (instead of carving), and we used sharpie paint markers. we had a little baby pumpkin that we used to test the markers, and one large pumpkin each. i decided to paint three different images of max, the little boy in the wolf suit, from where the wild things are. the full photo set can be found here (includes dans interpretation of a where the wild things are movie poster and a large mets logo).

sweep getty ramen.

changing leaves at the getty center.

highlight of the weekend - dodgers sweep the cardinals in st. louis and clinch a spot in the national league championship series!! the next series starts on thursday against either the phillies or the rockies. ya ya, gooooo dodgers!

last night was the last saturday off the 405 at the getty center. we went, walked around taking pictures, checked out a few galleries (irving penn's small trades photo exhibit is really really amazing!), and then watched dent may - a very funky, cool little indie pop band from mississippi - perform. note about the picture above - PROOF that california doesn't have only evergreens and that leaves do change color and fall of the trees here, damnit! and we have seasons!! just not severe ones.

afterwards we dinnered at ramenya (tenshin-men for me, mabo ramen for dan), purchased pumpkins to paint on (images to come later), and rented year one - which was absolutely awful awful awful.

dinner at the bazaar.

sea urchin sandwich @ the bazaar.

dinnered at the bazaar with dan, mike & zai last night. we brought two bottles of wine - a '96 tempranillo and an '05 dolcetto d'alba. we ordered as follows:

"philly cheesesteak" - air bread, cheddar, seared wagyu beef
sea urchin sandwiches with avocado served on steamed buns
not your everyday caprese - cherry tomatoes and liquid mozzarella
traditional gazpacho estilo algeciras
seared figs with jamon iberico fermin and pedro ximenez reduction
ensaladilla rusa - potatoes, carrots, mayo and tuna belly
catalan pork sausage with white beans and mushrooms
lamb loin with foraged mushrooms and aired pototoes
beef hanger steak with piquillo pepper confit
braised veal cheeks with california oranges
sauteed cauliflower "couscous" - cauliflower puree, harissa, lemon, fried quinoa
watermelon "nigiri" with hamachi, wasabi, red wine, soy foam and jalepeno
baby peaches with traditional peach
creamy chocolate heart with coffee and cardamom

[ full dinner photoset ]

amazing as usual!

an expensive hobby.

dodgers celebrate improbable 2009 NLDSgame2 win.

so - the 2009 NLCS tickets for dodger stadium went on sale today, and of course, we bought tix to every game. i think we spent about $700 today. we also spent more than $500 on the current NLDS series. luckily, we get our money back for the games that don't actually happen. i don't even want to think about world series tickets and how expensive they're going to be - if the dodgers make it there, that is. this whole postseason baseball thing is very expensive, and nerve-racking - my blood pressure and heart rate feel constantly elevated - hopefully that part is just in my head and not a reality. ahhhh, go dodgers!

new york & chicago pizza in santa monica.

santa monica's new n.y. & c. pizzeria.

so last night was the grand opening of NY&C, so of course, after all the amazing craziness of being at game 2 of the cardinals v. dodgers NLDS and the dodgers' extremely improbable win in the bottom of the ninth, we thought we'd go try it out for ourselves. they had an $8 special - 2 slices plus a draft beer - and dan got pepperoni while i had the sausage&peppers. it was really really good, and according to dan, passes the authentic-new-york-pizza test (they don't serve chicago style by the slice so we didn't try it.. perhaps next time.. )

ny-style pizza slizzies.

as i was reading through my food blogs today, i stumbled upon a post on grubstreetLA about NY&C, and lo-and-behold, dan and i are in the picture they use (warning, i look fat and neckless)!! yup, that's me in my blue mannywood t-shirt. and yes, on that tv in the corner, they are showing either andre ethier's homer, or mark loretta's winning single, or some other amazing dodger moment from last night!

an uncomfortable position.

twelve-year-old contortionist, midautumn festival, chinatown.

dodgers are NLwest champs!

dodgers just clinched NL west champs! second year in a row!!! NLDS series against the cardinals starts on wednesday - already got our tix ready to go!!!! ya ya ya, go dodgers!!!!

STREETfood.

flowers in cape cod.

AJ was in town last night, so we grabbed dinner with him at susan feniger's street in hollywood. it's a super cool half indoor, half outdoor space with global-street-food-inspired fare. we had too much trouble deciding what to order, so we had our waitress just order for us and this is what we got:

japanese shizo shrimp
ono sashimi
spinach varenyky (ukrainian dumplings)
kaya toast
vietnamese corn with pork belly
saag paneer
korean bbq short ribs
tatsutage fried chicken
singapore chili prawns

everything was really freaking good. in particular the kaya toast, corn and pork belly, and the tatsutage chicken (and i don't even like chicken!). definitely want to go back.

9dragons.

belly of a sea urchin.

it's been a pretty quiet week at work, but i just wanted to mention a couple happenings.

one. we had a crew screening of how to train your dragon in its current state and it's looking very very solid (read: amazing!). so i'm very excited for that - and you should be too! it comes out in march - get excited!!

two. shane acker, the director of 9, gave a lunch time presentation/talk about the making of the movie, showing art, textures, animation tests, and department-iterations of a couple sequences. pretty wicked stuff.

i don't say it nearly enough, but i love my job!