Pasadena City Hall & Vanille

After our excursion at the Pacific Asia Museum and our lunch at Tibet Nepal house, we wanted to check out Pasadena's City Hall building....Here is the view from the parking lot; it was in the mid afternoon when we got there. According to wikepedia, City Hall was completed in 1927, is the tallest building in Pasadena, and is a "significant example of the City Beautiful movement of the 1920's".

Dome:

Detail of arch leading into City Hall...

Inner hallway which leads out to a courtyard with a fountain...I didn't know this until I looked it up in wikipedia, but the courtyard "used in the 1995 movie "A Walk in the Clouds" to portray a Napa Valley town square.". That movie may have sucked shit, but it had Keanu Reeves, one of my major mancrushes in the late 80's and early 90's. Who cares if he can't act!!!!Ha ha ha!

Yowza! Keanu Reeves!!!!

 

Lastly, a no smoking sign with an exceptionally graceful looking smoke plume. Most no smoking signs have a no frills cigarette, this one was fancy.

We cruised around Pasadena checking out several sights before  heading over to neighboring suburb San Marino to go to Vanille de Patisserie (see my original post here - can you tell I'm retracing my steps?). These photos were not taken at Vanille though; they were taken the next day at home. We took the cakes to go before going out to dinner. I bought four mini cakes for Valentine's Day. I don't remember what this one was called but it had a thin gelatinous layer on top along with a slice of candied fruit (kumquat maybe?) and a painted white chocolate square. The mouse tasted like either passionfruit or mango...

Cake # 2 - "Concert" - Pistachio mousse with chocolate cake $3.95 - This was Bert's choice, which he loved. The cakes are quite light and not too sweet. You can still see the plastic wrapping around the cake's sides...Oops, how unsightly, eh?

Cake #3 - "Tropical Passion" which had mango mousse and special crust $3.85. The crust was buttery and tasted like it had macademia nuts in it. This was TC's choice.

Lastly, Cake #4 - "Glamour ", which had peach banana mousse and chocolate cake $3.65. I wanted this the last time I was there but didn't get it. So this time I did! I liked the flavor combination of peach and banana...I'm glad the cakes were still good the next day. 

Next up...dinner at Indo Kitchen in Alhambra!