heirloomLA does southern with soul.

silverlake wine's weekly monday tasting usually features the heirloom LA truck outside the store. and this week, the menu went southern.

me and my shadow in THR.

the hollywood reporter released an article today announcing the voices (bill hader, kate hudson, josh gad) for the dreamworks animation film i'm working on now, me and my shadow, as well as a brief of the story:

Conceived in-house as an original film, Shadow centers on Stan, a shadow (Hader) who yearns for a more exciting life than being attached to a timid human named Stanley Grubb (Gad). When a crime in the shadow community puts both of their lives in danger, Stan is forced to take control of Stanley, thrusting both of them into an adventure featuring a shadowy villain, who intends to lead a rebellion to take over the human world. Hudson will voice Grubb’s potential love interest in the real world.

The movie will mix up CG and traditional animation (the shadow world will be handrawn while the human world will be CG), which the studio hopes will be pioneering and create an experience not seen before.

and yea, my work since puss in boots has been entirely on the hand-drawn/CG integration for this film. fun stuff.

soup & sammies @ fabyans station.

when we first arrived at bretton woods, no one else had arrived and the townhouse was devoid of food except for some cheese and crackers. everyone else was driving in from boston or providence and bringing food for the weekend. but they all also would have already eaten dinner that night, so we were kind of left to fend for ourselves that evening.

we hadn't thought we could go to mount washington hotel for dinner (it said jackets required) so we tried going to the only other restaurant within a couple of miles, fabyans station. based on the menu, it's your typical american fare - soup, salads, sandwiches, burgers and a few pasta or protein entrees. however, everyone else in town had the same idea, and the wait for two would have been an hour. instead, we went to the gas station / trading post next door and got ourselves some new hampshire beer, crappy pizza and fried chicken, and soup. the chili and beef stew were actually pretty good, and the beer was welcome.. but the rest was crap. but that was our arriving dinner:

sharp looking men; the sartorialist.

i'm a big fan of the sartorialist and his work, and he recently did a lunch for 25. the photos and video below show off some really sharp looking gentlemen.

the sartorialist: lunch for 25 from the sartorialist on vimeo.

weekend getaway @ bretton woods.

we woke up bright and early friday morning to catch a 6.30am flight out of LAX. we were really, very tired, but the sunrise view of los angeles out the window during take-off was quite gorgeous.

mahler number five @ walt disney concert hall.

awhile back i saw that the LA philharmonic was doing the mahler project. a good friend is a huge mahler fan and he recommended symphony number five, so i got tickets for me and james.

good times @ golden road brewing.

golden road brewing opened just down the street from work a couple weeks ago or so, and we have quite a few connections within the company to them so there's been a lot of chatter and excitement over it. an ex-coworker dropped by today for lunch so a bunch of us decided to head over there and check it out.

dreamworks oscar nods.

the 2012 oscar nominations were announced today and both kung fu panda 2 and puss in boots were nominated for best animated feature! the above panorama was taken at our company toast - everyone's in high spirits!

aaaaannnddddd, that means both movies i've ever worked on (how to train your dragon and puss in boots) are oscar-nominated. >.<

the bullitts are supercool.

this "music video" and song by the bullitts make me ridiculously happy. the first two minutes is setup - the lead singer pretends to be a homeless man who spots rosario dawson. the music itself starts around 2.10 and i absolutely heart it.

proof bakery in atwater village.

the neighborhood atwater village is just on the other side of the five freeway from me, and i've heard many good things about it since i moved to silverlake, but for some reason i never really ventured over there. well, this post over at the amateur gourmet (where he has much better photos than i was able to take) totally inspired me, so before heading to venice this morning to help james move, i stopped at proof bakery for coffee and a croissant. the croissant is definitely one of the better ones i've had in this city. i just can't get over how close it is, and how i thought there were no decent croissants near me this whole time. it might become a regular morning stop before work now.

sanford loves car rides.

how do i get in this darned thing?

wait, what do you mean we're not going for a car ride?

roundup : kitchen yellow.

so, if you got the january crate & barrel catalog, this is the very first spread:

how delicous does that look? now i am seriously considering buying all of it! toaster, coffee maker, espresso maker and the dinnerware. there's even a matching kettle! the delonghi kmix appliances come in a huge variety of colors too (which is why i amazon-linked them) - but i'd obviously go with the yellow.

they would go fabulously with the yellow melamine mixing bowls i got last christmas (and was thinking of getting matching paint for to re-do my kitchen cabinets - but that's a whole other story).

i can't afford all that though. maybe just the coffee maker? it might be nice to keep my own coffee maker at work since i can't stomach starbucks. my cubicle neighbors would have to bear with grinding beans in the morning though... too rude?

you can even get a yellow kitchenaid mixer (though, the amazon colors don't really show a true yellow..)!

black diamond gloves.

we are heading to new hampshire next weekend to see my brother john and his family. he's rented out a house, and hopefully we'll get some mountain time in. last year in maine, it was so cold, my gloves just wouldn't cut it. my hands were frozen / numb / useless within a couple hours and made for skiing the rest of the day very difficult.
this year though, i have purchased some new gloves from black diamond equipment. they are supposed to be good to sub-zero temperatures, so hopefully they hold up!

With premium construction, fresh moto style, and a sleek, under-the-cuff design, the Women's Legend is Black Diamond's premier women's ski glove, offering versatile, top-notch performance for any part of the mountain. Outfitted with a waterproof and breathable Gore-Tex insert with XCR Product Technology and PrimaLoft One insulation, the Legend gives you warm, waterproof comfort and incredible dexterity without unnecessary bulk.

hopefully they get here on time. aren't they pretty?

brunch @ gjelina

gjelina is one of those restaurants i've been dying to go to. my one experience there was meeting up with a few people who already ate most of their dinner, and i simply joined in, nibbled on some leftovers, and left. however, i never ever actually think to go there.

this past sunday though, james had the brilliant idea that we should try to stop in for brunch. so we did. and it was awesome. it was a wait of about 10 minutes for two people at the communal table.

i had a glass of 2002 reisling kabinett and james had a 2009 grenache blanc. we were very tempted by the pizzas, but opted for the brunch items instead hoping we'll actually be back for dinner one of these days.

i ordered the buckwheat ricotta blueberry pancakes (and the largest freaking blueberries i have ever seen!) and james had the fried egg sandwich, which had mozzarella, prosciutto, arugula, bell peppers and harissa aioli. both were great, but the sandwich was out-of-this-world delicious.

roundup : gotye's somebody that i used to know

one of my favorite songs of 2011 is gotye's somebody that i used to know featuring kimbra; it kind of blew up on the music scene and now there are a bunch of versions of it out there.

this is the original song + music video:

this was a live session they did on KCRW:

this is a cover done by walk off the earth - five musicions who recorded this particular song on a single guitar all at once - it's rather mind-boggling and amazing:

and since we've been a bit obsessed with dubstep lately, here is a dubstep remix by DUBS.me:

sanford's exciting weekend.

despite my food adventures this past weekend, sanford too had a big weekend. he played with his neighbor max on saturday then took a nice long walk in venice and santa monica beach on sunday.

and he wants to know, "what are you looking at?"

salt's cure : simple fare in west hollywood.

dinnered with my beloved tannis at salt's cure in west hollywood. small menu; nice simple food - really enjoyed it.

we shared the pickle plate - it was very tart and fresh. the soft pretzel it came with was quite good. i had the stone crab claws, and tannis had the beef shank; we split a side of russian kale, which i didn't get a photo of.

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salt's cure
7494 santa monica blvd.
west hollywood, ca 90046
323.850.7258

fresh uni @ the hungry cat.

had an awesome dinner at the hungry cat for the roomie's birthday tonight. won't go into too much detail, except that they had a special tonight of fresh plucked uni, from santa barbara this morning. can you tell how excited i am?

it was DERICIOUS!

photos courtesy of james t.


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the hungry cat
1535 n. vine street
hollywood, ca
323.462.2155

brunch @ AOC.

suzanne goin's AOC is one of my favorite restos in LA - i had my birthday dinner there last year and am seriously considering it again for this year. awhile back, OpenTable had a spotlight deal (kind of like groupon) for $15 for $30 brunch at AOC, as well as $25 for $50 dinner at AOC. obviously i jumped right on them, but time is running out. they both expire before the end of this month, so we cashed in the brunch one this past saturday.

i was going to have wine, but our waitress highly recommended trying something from the selection of mimosas and bellinis. james had the tangerine + basil mimosa (above, left) and i tried the cucumber + mint bellini (above, right). both were really great - light and refreshing, and not too sweet.

we ordered three entrees (hey, we were technically getting $30 off of our meal, so why not?) the first was an oven-baked pancake with blueberries, pistachios with fresh whipped cream and candied meyer lemon on the side. so good! texturally it was more like a cake - i'm tempted to even say i'd want it to be my birthday cake. next was a toasted brioche with gruyere, frisee, prosciutto and an egg. so heavenly. my one complaint is that the knives we had were not sharp so it was very difficult to cute through the amazing prosciutto they had. our last dish was the duck confit and wild mushroom hash which came with two poached eggs and aged balsamic drizzled on top.

freaking delicious, we'll definitely have to be back. and we only have a couple weeks before our dinner one expires. i'm never buy food coupons again - way too stressful.

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AOC
8022 west third street
los angeles, ca
323.653.6359

photos : prettiest succulents.

i think these are just the prettiest succulents.

taken at the huntington library.

NYE2011 : the images.

as previously mentioned, we attended LACMA's the golden stag for new year's eve, which was held at the gorgeous park plaza hotel over by macarthur park.

the event itself was sort of a mess on top of it being new year's even and impossible to get a cab. it took us forever to get a cab there, and forever to get a cab home. they were very disorganized, and the entertainment for the evening was all over the place. however, in the end, it was quite fun and i can't really complain. i think we were really more annoyed at the taxi situation than anything.

best of all though, at the VIP tables, we got a bottle of absinthe and a bottle of veuve clicquot (my favorite!) for the midnight toast, all for free! well, we paid $150/person, so i guess it's not really free, but you know what i mean.

the full flickr photo set can be found here.