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.