Lei Lounge

Whew! I'm finally on vacation with more time on my hands to post! A couple of weeks ago, me and my co-workers went out for dinner before going to the...PROM! I hadn't been to the prom in a couple of years. We didn't really "chaperone" because that implies that we would be there from the beginning to the bitter end and actually supervise the students and get paid for it. Hell, we just wanted to go out and have an excuse to dress up and have dinner!

This year, the prom was not at a hotel, but at an alternative venue downtown in the Gaslamp. It was quite different from proms past but I'm pretty sure the students loved it because of the "nightclub"-like atmosphere. That and all the wild moshing (and then some) going on! Anyways, my co-worker (and GBF) suggested that we go to the LEI Lounge (site of of pre-dinner prom back in '06 - I had just started food blogging back then but hadn't taken photos! I know, blasphemy!). Here's their website here and Yelp reviews here.
It was only 6:15 p and still light out. We were able to snag parking behind LEI lounge, which is located on Park Blvd in University Heights. Three of us drove separately, then the plan would be for just one of us to drive downtown later to save on parking. Anyhow, we were so lucky to get parking because our other co-workers, who came later, had to park farther in the neighborhood.
The bar was jumpin' and totally packed. My friend had reserved one of the fire pits for us. The LEI lounge has an outdoor seating area with cabanas on one side, tables out in the open in the middle, and fire pits on the opposite site of the cabanas. The cabanas and fire pits can only be used for up to 2 hours. If you reserve a fire pit, then you must spend a minimum of $200. With about 11 of us there, that amount was easily met that night.

So many items on their menu...

We had our eyes on a few things...

Tikilicious:

We started off with a couple of orders of Sweet potato Fries which came with some sort of overly sweet dipping sauce (wait, I just checked their menu online----no wonder, it was a caramel dipping sauce. OVERKILL. UGH).

The fries were delicious - nice and crispy on the outside, but once you bit into them, they melted in your mouth:
One of the girls ordered the Cotton Candy which consisted of coconut rum, coconut cream, and pineapple juice tinted with grenadine. It looked so cute and it tasted very girly as well.

Last time we were here, we ordered a pitched of their Signature Vanilla Berry Mojitos. This turned out to be a major disappointment. Three years ago, the drinks were clear, and not colored with syrup or whatever. It also tasted more crisp and you could actually taste each ingredient separately. There were also real berries in it. This pitcher was a bit of an abomination; in fact we should have sent it back. We were told that they formulated the drinks differently and tweaked the recipe. It tasted like a melted Jolly Rancher. It was cloyingly sweet and the alcohol in there tasted bitter.

Here's the Edamame - they had a bit of a sweet taste to them, like they were dipped in soy sauce or something. I could have bought a bag of this at Ralph's for $3 and dumped soy sauce on it myself.

Closeup of our horrible drink. I ended up nursing a Diet Coke that evening:
I think these were one of their Spring Roll offerings. By the way, the only thing I ordered was the Kobe Beef Sliders. Everyone started ordering stuff off the menu and we shared them as the food started rolling in...

I'mnot sure what was in it - the menu lists duck as one type and lobster as another. This looks like neither. Well, I had one piece and it was all right, but then again, I was totally hungry and would have eaten a balut! Pay no attention to my ratty nails!Calamari - eh, squid is squid.

Lobster Pad Thai - There were some small bits of lobster in here. This could have used more kick. I don't think any real Thai restaurant would serve anything remotely like this. These were Crab Empanadas with Boursin Cream and green tomato salsa. I thought it was a misnomer to call these "empanadas" because of the roll shapes. They seemed to be more like "flautas" rather than empanadas. These were also quite delicious. Man, anything fried and covered with cheese spells winner to me. Ha ha.

I had two orders of this to go around, the Kobe Beef Sliders with Cheddar. One of my co-workers wanted it with blue cheese instead but since I hate blue cheese, I didn't order it.

One of the couples ordered the Tropical kobe beef burger which had pineapple and bermuda onion in it. You can't really see the meat since it's covered by the avocado:Yet another permutation of a burger, this time with Duck. I wish I had tasted this! By the time this came around, I was pretty full.

We ordered two kinds of desserts. One was a trio of ice creams: Vanilla, mango and coconut ice topped with whipped cream and sprinkled with coconut. I almost gagged on the coconut flakes. The texture was annoying - it was like something got caught in my throat when eating this. My favorite was the mango ice cream... Another dessert we ordered was the Tres Leches ice cream with fresh fruits (mangos and strawberries), mixed with caramel and garnished with fried, sliced bananas. This dessert was a big hit and it was finished pretty quickly...

After an evening filled with fun conversation and sampling the different entrees, we all headed out for downtown to go to the prom!

I remember my high school prom - it was at the La Jolla Marriott and I wore a PEACH taffetta mermaid style dress. Yes, pastels were quite the rage back in the mid to late 1980's. My hair was teased and moussed into submission and I had on matching peachy orange lipstick. Nice! Back then, girls at my school didn't just buy their dresses at the mall. Oh no, we had to design it ourselves or copy it from a magazine and shop for the damn material and have your mom's friend the seamstress (or gay uncle who happened to be a tailor) make it. That way, no one would have the same dress. So, that's what I did - designed my own dress and all. So, yeah, peach off the shoulder with a peach lace bodice (Lace was in because of the everpopular influence of Prince) and a skirt that flared out like a mermaid's tail. I think that dress is still at my mom's house somewhere! I dont' think I can fit into that dress now! That was 20 pounds ago!