Food Fest in L.A.

My first blog entry back will have to be about my awesome "food fest" weekend in L.A. this past weekend. It's been several years since I last visited SoCal and my friends who have traded the beautiful PNW scenery for the traffic and smog...oh yeah and sun.

The weekend started out with brunch at Doughboys which is a great bakery/cafe that has some breakfast foods with a twist. i had the french toast pie and my friends had a breakfast bbq pork burrito and a chilli omelette. they are also known for their red velvet cake which was delicious!

That night we went to an all-you-can-eat korean bbq place where you grill your own meat. needless to say, we left that place never wanting to eat meat again...well at least for a long while. we made the mistake of order a second round of meat from 2 waitresses and end up with way more meat than we could consume and we feared being charged for the uneaten meat. so we resorted to hiding meat under finished dishes and hanging out until they gave us our bill.

the next day we headed out to manhattan beach to meet up with steph and her friends. i've never been to an L.A. beach and was pleasantly surprised. i was impressed with the number of beach v-ball courts set-up for anyone to use..why don't they have things like that on hawaii beaches?

it was a super nice day too...a little too nice as we were told to buy some socks on our way to the beach b/c we were told that the sand was too hot to play on without socks. wearing socks at the beach was definitely a first, but it wasn't too bad a price to pay to play beach v-ball. it was a great day at the beach...we played v-ball, splashed in the cool water and just hanging out in the sun. on the way back to the cars we walked by all of the amazing beach front properties...i wonder if i'll ever be able to own a place like that.

that night we headed to The Loft to eat some hawaiian food. good stuff...kalua pig and island style fried chicken. i even had a lava flow...my favorite! after dinner we went down to hermosa beach to "walk around" but ended up hanging out at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and having some laughs with a super friendly barista named Star.

next morning we went to the pasadena mosaic church service and then to Din Tai Fung Dumpling House where we had to wait an hour, but got to eat some of the best dumplings ever!!! so yummy! later that afternoon i went with steph to her church, The Exodus, and got to hear some awesome sharing by steph and several other congregation members.

that night we ate light after a weekend of heavy eating, but still managed to squeeze in a visit to Diddy Riese for a cheap and yummy snack!

the trip wrapped up with a final meal at BJ's Restaurant/Brewery where they have the best Chicago style pizza outside of Chicago!

that was my "food fest" weekend of fun down in L.A... what was the best part of it all? hanging out with my friends, of course! thanks steph, susan and jerm for making my weekend awesome...i miss hanging out with you gals! shan, thanks for letting me crash with you!

Return of the Blog

i've been toying with the idea of returning to my blog. i've had passing thoughts of blogging...strange, since it's been almost a year since i left the blogging world.

hmm, i don't know...maybe i'll ease back into it and see how it goes...not sure who still visits this out-dated blog...anyways stay tuned...but don't hold your breath...