Angie and Jessica's Birthday Celebration: Golf Themed Pub Crawl

Angie and Jessica's birthday this year was definitely celebrated in style....golf style. I don't think anyone of us actually plays golf, but we brought out the argyle outfits and crawled around the Santa Monica area from bar to bar. We started off at the "clubhouse" which was Jessica and Mark's home. They did a lovely job decorating with golf themed plates, napkins, and coasters. They made some yummy pigs in a blanket, shrimp cocktail, sangria, and Jessica's mom made a homemade lemon bundt cake. Daniella made her always popular cheese balls. Angie and I made Chibi Cheesy Cakes, spicy tuna crudite, and Mac and Cheese. After drinking and eating we took our crew to the SM promenade. I made some golf score cards to help people keep track of their drinking. Each "hole" had a par, or amount of drinks you aimed to drink. Now opposite of golf, you actually want a higher score. There were a bunch of people who were getting their double bogeys. After the tee off at the clubhouse, we continued to Cabo Cantina where we picked up a few more for our team. It was funny, because I would see someone in argyle and think they were part of our party. Next we moved to Brittania where Angie and Jessica love to drink and sing karaoke. The last stop on our crawl (you can really only get to so many places before it turns 2am) was Makai where we got out dance on. It was so much fun hanging out and you know me...I love a good themed party!

The Original Pancake House: Perhaps My New Neck of the Woods???

I've been searching lately for a place....a home to call my own. I started out in the Westside area because I just love the neighborhood and I work around here. I put a bid on a place in Santa Monica but got outbid. So I kept looking, going to open houses and doing my research. My parents suggested looking for a single family home out of the area. That seed was placed in my head awhile back when I was dating Kirk who always said the closest good city to West LA where you could even fathom buying a home would be Torrance. But I thought, I really want to stay in West LA so I looked for condos. I guess the more I looked, the more I was starting to think $600,000 for a two bedroom condo? I wanted to keep my options open and not be so rigid, so I went to a open house in Torrance. The house was so cute, 3 bed, 2 baths with a perfect backyard for entertaining. It was a bit small, but it had a garage and beautifully remodeled kitchen. The great part was it was in my price range! Of course it got snatched up that day and I didn't even have a chance to blink, let alone put an offer in. But it did give me some hope that maybe I can afford a home. I'm still looking in the westside, but I'm looking in the Southbay as well. I started checking around the neighborhood, doing some drive-bys, and scoping the surrounding areas of the Torrance. Before doing that, we stopped off to try the Original Pancake House. I have always wanted to try it but if you don't get there before 9, it is impossible to get a table without waiting for a long time. We got seated right away and my eyes popped open with a huge assortment of pancakes. I was boring and tried to plain buttermilk ones. Wow, you could taste the buttermilk in that pancakes. It was so delicious. My date had the potato pancakes which were basically like hashbrowns. So good....I can't wait to go here again, possibly as a Torrance resident.

Wilshire Restaurant - Dine LA Week

My favorite week of the year aside from all the holiday and vacation weeks I have, is Dine LA week. For a few weeks out of the year, a ton of restaurants in the LA County area have specialty 3 course menus that highlight their restaurants. You can try these places for dinner and some for lunch for a reasonable price for a nice tasting menu including a appetizer, entree, and dessert. This year, I toned it down to one place. Lately I've been trying to limit the amount of "luxury" eating due to trying to lose weight, eating healthier, and saving money. Luckily my best friend Jennifer sent me a nice giftcard to Wilshire as a thank you awhile back. What better time to use the giftcard, so thank you Jennifer!

The restaurant was uber trendy and I thought used the spaces quite uniquely. We started off at the bar for drinks. One of the bars was located outside and sort of intertwined with the trees (the bar was basically built around the tree). My friends Adrienne and Alex tried Wilshire and had a bad experience with the food and service, so I was a little biased. However, I think they redeemed themselves and I thought the food was great and the service excellent.

I decided to have the Dine LA menu which included a variety of choices for the appetizer, entree, and dessert. For the appetizer I had the choice of Kabocha gnocchi, grilled octopus salad, or something I can't remember...hehe. I chose the octopus salad which was grilled nicely and served with some frisee and a puree of some sort, I think a red pepper one. My date decided to go off menu and started off with a large crabcake singaporean style. It was spicy with large chunks of crab. For the entree, the choices were duck leg cassoulet, pot pie for two, and diver scallops. The pot pie sounded delish, but it was for two. The duck leg was unique and I've always wanted to try a cassoulet which is a French dish that is slow cooked with white beans. The meat on the leg fell of the bone with just a touch of my fork. It was so tender and perfectly flavored with 5 spice giving it a sort of Chinese taste to it. My date opted for lamb which was tender and served with an interesting array of Indian spiced quinoa, a soy flavor Japanese eggplant, and Raita. I guess they were going for a Indian, Asian, American fusion? For dessert, it was a no brainer choice....doughnuts! Three red garnet yam doughnuts served with praline ice cream. It must of just been fried because it was hot and crispy.

Wilshire has a great happy hour menu and some specials on certain days. It is a great place for some good cocktails and asian-french-american fusion food.

Angie's Sushi Themed Birthday Party

Ok, so I know I've been a little M.I.A. lately, but in my defense I've been a little busy at work. During my off times, I've been training for a little half marathon which I did last week, so now I can breathe a little.

For Yuki's (Angie) birthday celebration, my mom so graciously hosted a make your own sushi party and invited all of Angie's close friends. Of course, my dad and Chibi were there. Chibi made his appearance as co-sushi chef in his sushi man outfit. My mom cut up all sorts of goodies: salmon, tuna, yellowtail, uni, unagi, tamago, sweet shrimp, spicy tuna, spicy scallop, avocado, krab, cucumber, etc. For those of you who haven't had make your own sushi, it is basically like temaki (the hand roll) you get at the sushi bars. You take a piece of nori (seaweed), put some sushi rice on it, then pick and choose what you want on top. My favorite is spicy tuna and kaiware. For desserts, Jessica's mom (Linda C) made two cakes!!! My favorite red velvet cake and she is famous for at her dessert parties that I've previously blogged about and a german chocolate cake. They were to die for. I was in charge of decorations. I decided to buy everyone a pair of chopsticks. I also rolled up washcloths to look like onigiri (rice balls) with a red pom pom to act as the umeboshi. It was a great way to celebrate and everyone had fun making their own sushi concoctions.