a very happy foodsgiving.

our thanksgiving weekend was filled with deliciousness! first we picked up some chive and cheddar biscuits from proof bakery, along with some pastries. then we headed on over to g+b coffee where their thanksgiving "special" were holiday drinks like eggnog latte and peppermint mocha. very fancy, super tasty.

testing.. testing.. so behind!

so, we just got back from an almost-two-week trip to taiwan, and i have so much to blog about and no idea if i'll even be able to get to all of it. hopefully i'll get photos uploaded soon though!
also, the blogger app finally got an update, so i am testing a post from it! this is james on halloween, who dressed up as the disheveled joaquin phoenix since it 1) works and 2) we were leaving for taiwan halloween night so it had to be something easy.

recent cookings.

we've been eating at home quite a bit lately, and eating well at that: festbier and brats for oktoberfest; garlic and green onion marinated rack of lamb; pork neck (aka pork toro) and eggs.

glanville and babinski at sqirl.

a new coffee shop, glanville and babinski, opened down on virgil in the sqirl space. so we stopped by, and it was great! we met both owners and chat with them for awhile, as well as had some brioche toast with nut butter and jam from sqirl. they also sell their delicious iced coffee in bottles. we'll definitely be back.

ramen yukinoya in arcadia.

there is some great japanese food, and thus great ramen, in los angeles. however, it rarely graces the SGV. and when it does, it's usually a second outpost of another place and not as good as the original. but a little place called ramen yukinoya has opened up in a plaza dominated by a 24-hour CVS very near where my parents's house is. so, we had to try it out, and it's pretty good.

i really liked the thick, chewy texture of the noodles, and the soup is tonkotsu-style but not as heavy and fatty as say, daikokuya or yamadaya. well, it's a bit lacking in flavor honestly, BUT they do have soy-marinated whole garlic cloves and a garlic press at every table, so its easy to pump it up. we also ordered a side of chicken kara-age, which was good, but pretty disappointing. it's still good to have that option in arcadia though.

neighborhood bites : fix and pie.

on our big move weekend, we didn't have time to cook so we stopped by some cheap, good local eats. first was for some burgers and fries at the fix burger (by my old place), another was for a hearty breakfast at house of pies (by james's place) before doing heavy lifting. even though i hate leaving my neighborhood, it is definitely nice that james's neighborhood as lots of good eats, too.

wordless wednesday : signs of fall.

MESSHALL.

after a day of moving big furniture items from my apartment into storage, as well as taking some of it back to my parents's house for my brother, we were very exhausted, and in need of a good meal. we decided to try messhall, a recent addition to the los feliz hillhurst food scene that we've been driving past for the past few months.

coffee + milk ( + pastries!) at LACMA

we went to the LACMA the other day to scope it out a bit since we were planning on having our engagement photos taken there a few days later. we had to stop by the new coffee + milk to try their coffee and pastries. i had a macchiato and james had the angelina (iced double shot latte with simple syrup, shaken) to drink, and he had the elvis cupcake (banana, peanut butter, bacon) and i had the bacon and fig pop tart. very delicious! it's a great addition to LACMA, where they already have a really great bar in stark bar.

HUGE portions @ alcove.

we discovered a new brunch place in los feliz recently. it's kind of sad because it's very well known, and really close to james's place, but we just so rarely venture to hillhurst, and we have our staples we don't usually like to stray from. all that said, alcove is awesome and we will definitely be back.

despite being super busy, they are super efficient; both the host and our server were extremely nice and accomodating. the coffee is good and the portions are ridiculously huge. neither of us got through our plates. i had the meat lovers omelette and james had his usual huevos rancheros, but with a side of texas chili.

wordless wednesday : recent things.

seafood for peas annivesary.

after getting back to LA, it was my parents' 38th annivesary! so we took them to newport seafood in san gabriel for a huge, seafood-y meal. it's pretty much known as the best chinese-style seafood you'll get in the SGV. we ordered all this for only four people! and there was definitely lots of leftovers to be had the next day.

the thorntons.

this post is really just a collection of some of the family we hung out with while visiting alabama. the first few take place on james' grandparents's property. there is lots of awesome old stuff there! and i staked claim to the old fridge above. it still works! don't you think it'd be so pretty in a nice seafoam green?

cracker barrel and hot and hot fish house.

so after philadelphia and boston, we headed down to alabama to see james's family and friends. i'm only going to mention two places that we ate (most of the time we ate at someone's house anyway). the first, obviously, is the cracker barrel. i think we went at least twice, if not three times. i still can't get over their blueberry pancakes. they're so good. at all of them. and they've ruined blueberry pancakes (and pancakes in general really) anywhere else for me.

boston : the sights.

boston : the food.

after all the great eating in philadelphia, we continued eating well in boston, but this time with family! john picked us up from the train station and took us back to his place friday morning; his wife went to a bakery, whose name i can't remember, and bought us croissants and morning buns!

celebratory dinner @ alla spina.

this is the problem with traveling and blogging - i don't keep good records of things! so now that i'm getting around to blogging about my amazing meal at alla spina in philadelphia, right after james proposed!, i can't go anywhere near into the level of detail it deserves because i don't remember the details! here's what i do know: james had just proposed. i'm deliriously happy. we are meeting matt, one of my favorite people from my college days. i am completely overwhelmed by the menu. so we asked our amazing waiter to just order for us whatever he thinks is best, and to order lots, because james and i can eat for four, honestly. we also order the publican special, which is basically a six-pack of beer for the kitchen. what can i say, we were very happy, and when we're happy, we're generous.

we're engaged!

i guess i should have mentioned this earlier, but this was the big news of the trip! james proposed to me our first day in philadelphia, after we had wandered most of the city, but before we went to dinner. it involved wine, truffle popcorn and a very large greek australian man (but i'd rather not go into detail). i said yes, of course! i really had no idea it was going to happen, and i cried a lot. and then we proceeded to go to boston to see all my brothers and alabama to see his parents and grandparents, yet i was the one who planned the trip! so i've learned he is very sneaky and i can never trust him again. ;)

philadelphia : the sights.

ah, the beautiful sunrise in philadelphia from our cab from the airport. we were exhausted, but couldn't check into a room so after some coffee and breakfast, we were up and on our way. we did independence hall, the liberty bell and the magic gardens, all before lunch!

philadelphia : the food.

wow, so much has happened so i am so very behind on posts! (more on that later)

anyway, we recently made a trip to philadelphia, boston and alabama. we ate well, did some sightseeing, and visited family and friends. it was such a big trip i'll have to break it into smaller bits and pieces - the first one is about the food in philly!

we landed at 6am (which was 3am our time) and had known ahead of time that we would need coffee. one of our baristas here in LA recommended we stop by oddfellows, and we're very glad they did. it was very early and they had just opened, but the barista was very sweet and pulled us some delicious espresso drinks. i had a gibraltor and james a latte. we hung out there for a little while to get ready for a day of exploring the city.

style survey : sproost.

so, outside of food, i do look a lot at design blogs and pinterest home stuff. i took this style survey over at sproost that was mentioned on apartment therapy. it says my style is 67% cottage chic, 17% modern elegance and 16% nantucket style. that last one is a bit of a surprise. kind of fun and interesting, i think.

sanford, recently.

just thought i'd share some recent photos of sanford being cute, which he always is. and stupid. in explanation of the top photo, i recently reorganized my room and put an orange pillow (with a french bulldog on it!) by the bed and he took to it immediately.

silverlake salsa crawl : diablo, taco fabricator

there are so many mexican taco stands and restaurants in silverlake, we started a "salsa crawl" awhile back to try and eat our way through them. i haven't blogged about it until now, but we've been to several places (tacos delta, el conquistador, mixto, burrito king (before it became mixto), ricky's fish tacos) though we have many more we haven't been. anyway, we recently saw a new place open up on sunset - it's hard to miss with its new grey facade, giant red lettering "diablo" and the subline "urban taco fabricator".

SJCS and a kitchen demo(lition).

we volunteered to help our friends david and leah demo the kitchen in their new home, so that they can put in a brand new one. we knew it would be a lot of work, so we filled up on corned beef hash and the sunset scramble at sunset junction coffee shoppe first. i still can't get over how good their tater tots and sourdough bread are.

night + market : street food at its best.

oh. my. goodness. this. place. is. so. good. i mean, i've heard great things about it for so long now, but it's in west hollywood, and i hate driving out there and dealing with traffic and drunk people and parking, but it is so worth it. we had the fried pig tail (above), beef grapow, nuoc mam fried chicken wings, pork toro, and pad kee mao with short ribs. it was all SO. FREAKING. GOOD.

an SGV labor day.

this post is a little behind, but we had a very nice little labor day. after sleeping in, we first stopped at handsome coffee in downtown for their oh-so-good espresso. then, we went for my real craving - taiwanese breakfast! - at huge tree pastry in alhambra. egg pancake, dragon stick, beef sesame roll, black rice roll and turnip cake! we didn't get any soy milk since we'd just had coffee.

sweet and savory brunch at mohawk bend.

ah, saturdays. we were debating which of our regular brunch places to go to, but for some reason, james mentioned mohawk bend in the morning, and i vaguely remembered that they serve brunch. since we'd never been, and have been wanting for quite awhile now (regular theme lately, i know), we checked that they were open (they were!) and we went.

not sure why, but we started with dessert. sort of. we decided to split their elvis french toast, which came with banana and peanut butter and bacon. and this to-die-for peanut butter syrup.

eating well at little dom's.

we made resy's at little dom's in los feliz for dinner friday night. it's a neighborhood staple that we hadn't been to yet, and had been meaning to forever. there was no special occasion other than my remembering that we should go! we were actually seated past the back of the restaurant inside their deli. nicely transformed for dinner service, i think, and much quieter and more romantic than the bar area or main dining room.

just another sunday night.

there's something nice about sunday nights. usually i've slept in, didn't have to work, but do have to work the next day, so i like the evening to be as lazy and relaxing as possible, while still being interesting. does that make sense? anyway, i also like to prep a good dinner for sunday nights since i have some more prep time from being at home doing chores, including grocery shopping! this past sunday, i decided to try making a rack of lamb. i don't know why i never did it before, it is SUPER easy. i rubbed it with olive oil, salt, pepper and finely chopped garlic. browned in a pan for a few minutes. then twelve minutes in a 400 degree oven. done! and it was AWESOME. super easy. super tasty. this may need to become a regular menu item in my kitchen.

little kai at the travel town museum.

the new dodgers and four pregnant women.

i've wanted to do a group outing to a dodger game for awhile now, and a couple months ago settled on a saturday night game against the marlins and started inviting people. somehow, someway, it ended up be me and james, jack and suzy, justin and sarah, katie, and david and leah. and guess what - all of the women are pregnant. so yea, i went to a baseball game with four pregnant women. it was weird. but kind of amazing.

introducing baby ethan!

this is ethan, my new baby nephew. he's less than a week old and already looks very alert and aware! isn't he freaking adorable? he's the main reason for our trip to the east coast next month. i can't wait to meet him!

woolgrowers : basque in bakersfield.

so, supposedly there is really good basque food in bakersfield, so obviously we had to try out what i was told "the best" when we went to see james's parents on their last weekend in bakersfield. they're so sweet and made a reservation at woolgrowers when we told them we would be able to make it up for the weekend.

murray family farms.

another fun place we stopped in while in bakersfield was murray family farms. it's a giant farm with bounce "pillow" and petting zoo, etc, etc, but we really just went into their big red barn which serves as a market selling their produce. there is lots of fresh fruits and veggies grown on the farm, but they also had tons of different kinds of honey, spiced nuts and corn, dried fruit, fruit and vegetable chips, pickled things, hot sauces, and various prepared hot foods and desserts. it's quite the operation.

tile heaven in bakersfield.

james's parents wanted to look at tile while we were up there to visit them, and who are we to say no? i love tile, and bill ray tile in bakersfield is everything you could ever hope and dream for in a tile store. it's a total DIYer dream.

sanford vs. the red ball.

sanford made a new friend this weekend in bakersfield! just kidding, he was actually really scared of this red bouncy ball, and i slowly got him accustomed to it by forcing it on him. clearly, he was not happy with this idea, but i wasn't trying to be cruel or anything! just show him that it can't hurt him or anything. he ended up attacking it like any one of his other toys a few times.

gorilla bread, or monkey bread on steroids.

while visiting james's parents in bakersfield this weekend, his mom and i made "gorilla bread" a very fancy version of monkey bread from a paula deen recipe. it's super easy to make.. layers of sugar and butter, crushed nuts, cinnamon and sugar, and refrigerated biscuits wrapped around cubes of cream cheese. the cream cheese is really the kicker here - it was awesomely delicious. and we had plenty of leftovers to bring back to LA with us.

upcoming eats and travels.

work has been a bit of a drag lately - sunday overtime, long days, lots of meetings. i'm not complaining; i love my job. but i have been more stressed out and tired lately. though that may also have to do with getting up before 6am three days a week to work out, which i've been doing for about a month now.

anyway, the point is, i've been more tired lately, but that's okay because i have some very exciting trips (and eats, of course!) coming up, and planning these things is always fun.

first, rather unexpectedly, is a trip to bakersfield this weekend. i know, i know - bakersfield? well, we're going up to see james's parents before they leave for alabama. normally, i wouldn't be that excited except i recently found out that bakersfield has some amazing basque food, and we have reservations to woolgrowers - one of the best, supposedly - on saturday night!

another southern breakfast at auntie em's.

we went back to auntie em's while james's parents were in town for the weekend. such great food! their sausage and cheddar grits have so much black pepper in them, i love it. plus with the sweet cherry tomatoes on top to balance it all out.. it's definitely the best grits i've ever had. the biscuits and gravy and fried egg sandwich are just solid dishes.

the hot hot heat of los angeles.

there's been quite a heat wave in effect in the southland for nearly a week now. it's finally cooling off today, but it was really quite hot over the weekend. which is why it wasn't the smartest idea to head up to the griffith observatory in the hundred degree heat, but we did it anyway. the hardest part was really having to park downhill from the observatory itself and hiking up the rest of the way. however, we got there about 5 minutes before one of their planetarium shows started, so we got tickets and sat down in the nicely air-conditioned dome for nearly an hour before exploring more and checking out the amazing views of the city.

sanford goes back to daycare.

sanford went back to doggy day care for the first time since he was put on crate rest nearly three months ago. this is all he did when he got home. he was a tired, happy puppy. which is the point. (=

ink.sack one year later.

someone suggested ink.sack for lunch one day, particularly their one year anniversary, and i jumped on the chance to go! especially since everyone who ordered a sandwich that day got a free cold fried chicken sandwich. despite having to drive all the way to west hollywood, we made really good time, and mr. voltaggio himself was actually serving (you can see him above on the right).

GRB lunch special.

the pub at golden road has weekly lunch specials that are served mondays through thursdays. this week, i saw them tweet that the special was a blue cheese turkey burger so we had to go! all the lunch specials come with a side, so i got the vegan chili. it was all oh-so-delicious.

the porch of death returns?

my plants are actually growing surprisingly well. the cucumbers (above) are getting tall and sending out "feelers" to latch onto the chicken wire that is up around the porch (to keep sanford from killing himself as a puppy). some of the bok choy are also getting quite large, and starting to resemble bok choy in how new leaves are growing in!

however, something is burrowing INSIDE the leaves. not on top or underneath, literally inside. i don' t know what it is, but i was able to find a little orange worm-like bug still in a leaf and "pop" it out like a pimple. not sure what to do, other than continue to spray insecticidal soap on them every week or so and hope the plants are healthy enough to beat whatever is feeding on them..