Porto's - Burbank

Finally! My LAST post on our Summer Road Trip!

As mentioned in the previous post, the next day was Father's Day. Instead of eating the spaghetti and pizza leftovers from Guido's, we got up early so we could go to Porto's in Burbank.

Thankfully it was only a few minutes away and we were able to snag some coveted parking in their private lot!

Guido's Pizza

Aaaah - Just two more posts and I'll be done with our Bay Area/L.A. Summer Roadtrip! Thanks for bearing with me on this...

After the awesomeness that was Whimsic Alley, we went on our merry way to Burbank...

Tired we were...

Grauman's and the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Does this photo look a bit familiar? A similar view was in my previous post for my roadtrip with D.

This is the same building (the Hollywood Museum) next to Mel's Diner (where's Flo? Kiss my grits? Oh, wrong place!). Bert, TC and I had just left Whimsic Alley and we were about to head into tourist-ville...

Return to Whimsic Alley

Back to my Food Roadtrip with D...

After having chowed down on those delectably wicked wings from KyoChon in Cerritos, we headed to downtown L.A.

(downtown L.A. skyline) Since both of us are Potter freaks, there was only one place we were going...

Return to Gelato Vero Caffe

Wut?! Another coupon?

As Sarah Palin would say, "You betcha!" (Gawd, I HATE THAT PHRASE!)

Florencia's

Yay! Both TC and I are on Fall Break. That means two weeks of trying new places! In this case, using coupons from the Entertainment Value book fundraiser. I really like using those for the discounts for museums as well as restaurants (fast food as well as casual and fine dining). I'm a tightass, yeah I'm frugal like that.  So during our vacation, we will try to go to places using these savings passes...

It looks like it says "Forencia's" but there is a barely noticeable "l" after the "F". Well, we'd never been here before so hopefully this wouldn't be a bust. You know how going to a new place can sometimes be a crapshoot.,

Whimsic Alley - Los Angeles

Lunch was so fab at Royal/T Cafe which was coupled with the ultra cool gallery space and eclectic artwork. As we headed north to the Hollywood area, we passed by numerous billboards, many of them touting the season premiere of my favorite show, "True Blood".

Where's my Eric Northman?

Royal/T Cafe - Culver City

I'd been hearing about this place from several bloggers so we couldn't pass up the chance to come here...

I was already intrigued by the astroturf covered walls and the whimsically painted windows...

Day 8 - Jovi's Delights

This was our last day in Santa Maria...

We stayed in the historic part of the Santa Maria Inn (the older part) as opposed to the newer and more modern towers. I read somewhere that silent film star Rudolph Valentino used to haunt the hallway near his suite (which was a few hallways down our room). Creepy! I'm glad I didn't see "The Sheik"!

Santa Maria BBQ Land

What a long day we had. From the Guadalupe Dunes, Lompoc, Solvang, and Nojoqui Falls...

This is where we picked up some dinner before heading back to the hotel...

We wanted to give Santa Maria style bbq another chance.

Nojoqui Falls

When I was doing "research" about the area months ago, I came across a video on YouTube (seen at end of post) about this waterfall near Solvang.

We totally had to see it...

Solvang

Can you tell I'm trying to finish up our summer road trip photos? Hence the barrage of posts...

This picture doesn't do it justice but that was a really brilliant field of orange flowers.

Last time Bert and I were in this area, we were celebrating our one year wedding anniversary (1996). We ended up driving through Solvang instead of stopping because it looked so damn boring (no offense to people that live there). Now, 15 years later and with a kid, we figured we'd give it another chance...

Lompoc Farmer's Market and the Lacambra Sisters...

Before we headed over to Blue Hairville, we noticed a Farmer's Market a block away (on Ocean and I Streets).

Turns out this was the Lompoc Farmer's Market which gathers every Friday...

Filipino Heritage Mural

After our delicious lunch at Samantha's Filipino and American Diner, we set out to find a particular mural in Lompoc.

I happened to like the look of this neon sign. It's The Rice Bowl, an Americanized Chinese place that, according to some of the yelp reviews, is stuck in a 50's time warp. Well, we didn't go in to check for ourselves, for right around the corner was the mural I'd been wanting to see...

KyoChon Chicken - Cerritos

We are back to our regular scheduled programming of D and CC's food road trip.

After our brief foray into Little Saigon for Nem Nuong at Brodard's...

it was time to head up to the mall!

Congo Bars

The SD Union Tribune recently showcased an article featuring several local SD Foodbloggers. Three of them were our very own Jenny of Foray into Food and JennyWenny Cakes, Leanne of Three Dog Kitchen, and Marie of Meandering Eats. See the article "Will Blog for Food" here.

That same article also had a recipe by another foodblogger, The Gonzo Gourmet.

This here's the result of my attempt at making "Congo Bars":

I gave away the middle pieces to my neighbor, saving the tasty edges and corners for myself the family...

Two toned platforms...

It's been awhile since I did a "shoe post", so I'll throw one in to break things up a bit.

This was a recent pair that I bought with a gift card. The heels were on sale, then I had a $20 off of $50 coupon card from Macy's plus 25% extra off because of some sort of sale going on.

It's always great to walk away with a good deal...

Fantastic 4

Gotcha! Sorry this post isn't about that Marvel superhero quarter. But while I have you by the 'nads...

Since it was right across the street from Nam An, The Prof and I went to Pangea for dessert. Unfortunately their offerings weren't what we were looking for. Their selection was rather meager that morning and it was also really crowded in there. here was o hot dog thing, no blueberry bun, no mocha, no almond, and so on. There was only one other place we could go...a place just a few blocks/stripmalls away...

No surprise. We went to Big Joy Bakery again!I was pretty sure by now the ladies working there already knew my face. It was my third time in as many days (including this visit, four in all)...But, hey, I have no shame!

Return to Nam An

Despite my near disastrous first visit (no thanks to the fucking plastic shard in the ice water), I decided to pay Nam An another visit.

This time, I met up with The Prof...

The rest of our day...

Before heading back home after our fab desserts at Big Joy, D had to pick up her house mate from the airport. To kill time, we went to Harbor Island to enjoy the view..

We parked in the C-Level/Island Prime parking lot...

Three is a Magic Number...Big Joy!

Last weekn when C and I went here, we were wondering about this Hair Duck place, which is in the same strip mall as our dessert destination.

Turns out that KD's mother in law gets her "hair did" there! It's an Asian beauty salon...

TORC's Bday lunch at Alforon

This past weekend, the Educator GF's celebrated TORC's birthday.

It's always a blast going out with them because they are pretty willing to try anything new. In this case, Lebanese food in the College Area...

Return to Big Joy Bakery

After our filling dinner at Eddie's, I really wanted to go here again...

Yes, Big Joy! But I prefer to call it the Happy Happy Joy Joy Bakery!

Yo Adrian!

A few nights ago we went out to dinner at one of our favorite spots...

As much as we wanted to have then, it was a No Philly Cheesesteaks night!

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!

After our lunch at Nam An, CAB wanted to check out Big Joy Bakery which was a few strip malls down...

This is the bakery right next to Phuong Trang in the Convoy Plaza strip mall.

Nam An

I had the pleasure of meeting up with CAB of CAB Cooks last weekend. She suggested the newly opened Nam An in Kearny Mesa...

We were curious about a few items on their appetizers menu...

Brodard's - Garden Grove

Okay, now where were we?

Oh yes, the continuation of our little food trip (me and D)...

After H-Mart, we continued up north to the city of Westminster where Little Saigon is located.

We were on a mission...

H-Mart - Irvine

I don't know about you, but I love going to ethnic grocery stores.

I'd only been to the Super H-Mart in Niles (near Chicago). It was like a foodie amusement park in there. Let's see if this H-Mart measures up...

Bon Epi Patisserie

Hey now...

I'm back to my food road trip with my good friend D....

After our awesome breakfast at 85C Bakery, we moved over to the other side of the parking lot

Another bakery? Yah-huh!

Cupcakes galore!

Just down the same street was our dessert destination. MFH hadn't been there before and she was curious about the hearing of the marriage between beer and cupcakes.

Where oh where could we have gone?

Yes, the one and only PubCakes!

Alforon with MFH

It has been awhile since I've gone out with Mi Firme Hina (MFH), who's been one of my closes friends through work and in life. Even though she no longer works at the same site, we still  see each other at district meetings but hardly get to chit chat since we have to sit with our sites.  So, every so often, we try to get together to catch up on things. Last year I took her out for her belated birthday lunch at Aladdin in Hillcrest.

This year, I gave her several choices. Sab-e-Lee 2 in Santee? Ba Ren in Clairemont? Que Huong in City Heights? Alchemy in South Park for brunch?
We ended up going to Alforon in the College Area. She hadn't been there before and it was also close by where I wanted to take her for dessert...

Louisiana Famous Fried Chicken - Spring Valley

So here we are again, with another coupon. Mind you, this is the same night that we ate at Leocynn's.

Haha, "Chocken"...I was in a hurry when I entered the info into our Garmin...

Coupon Fail and Leocynn's 3x

Man, I am jumping all over the place, trying to finish our Summer trip, then my Food Road Trip with D and a few other outings...

Well, this was a place we'd been wanting to try out. I remember reading Mary's post on McGonagle's last year.

I remember there was one of these (see above) in the book so off we went...

Samantha's Filipino & American Diner

Do you like my primitive wrinkled map?

After all that "fun" in the sand, we headed out to the neighboring town of Lompoc where we would soon have our lunch...

Guadalupe Dunes

I wonder if we would find "The Lost City of DeMille"?

First, we had to pass by the Guadalupe Cemetery...

Day 7 - Mural in Guadalupe

So this was our second day in Santa Maria, having arrived the night before. On our way out to Guadalupe, we passed by a man selling paletas and other cold treats...

It's about a 9 mile drive west on the 166 to get to the 1 which is the main drag in Guadalupe.

Return to 85C

A few weekends ago, D and I made a food-centered road trip. We celebrated her birthday earlier in the month and wanted to extend it further with a day of eating checking out different places at points up north..

Were we in the right place? Where was the line? Turns out, the food gods were smiling upon us the entire day. No lines = no waiting!

Shaw's Steakhouse Tavern

After settling in for a bit of rest, Bert and TC checked out the pool and the star placards on the room doors. Turns out that our hotel was a historic stop for many movie stars who were on their way up to Hearst Castle in San Simeon. There were stars like Carole Lombard and Clark Gable, Kim Novak, Walter Matthau and even Rudolph Valentino (more on him later). Bert and TC also ended up taking a quick dip in the hotel pool while I pondered over where to go for dinner.

We didn't have to go too far. The girl at the desk recommended Shaw's for dinner so Shaw's it was. Lucky for us, it was across the street from the Santa Maria Inn.

But even then, we still took our car! I didn't want to walk at night!

On our way to Guadalupe

After viewing the artistic masterpieces known as the Pismo Beach clams (cough), we headed out of Pismo and made our way down south. I snapped this shot of Arroyo Grande High School from our moving car...

Did you know that Zacqueisha Zac Efron is a famous alum of this school? Class of 2006 dudes.

Efron, who is probably one of the prettiest boys I've seen (note, I said "pretty", I think he wears more makeup than I do), is the guy who played Troy Bolton in the insufferable Disney series and movies, "High School Musical". Thank goodness TC was never into those. I liked him better as Link Larkin in the 2007 reboot of John Waters' "Hairspray". I believe he was also the recipient of those infamous beaver shot photos of his then girlfriend, Vanessa Hudgens (who played his love interest in the HSM movies and in real life).

Giant What?

Now back to those oversized mollusk statues!

As you all know, I'm a sucker when it comes to checking out wierd roadside oddities.  A trip to Pismo Beach is not complete unless you take a gander at these bivalve beauties!

Behold! One of the giant clam sculptures of Pismo Beach. This one is on the Northbound Price Street off ramp near the 101...

You say it's your birthday...

Later on that evening, we had our neighbors over for a small belated birthday dinner for Bert. No Spam this time. We had Mediterranean ring bread with sesame seeds on top (from Vine Ripe Market) with butter, preserved olives, grapes, crackers, cheese, and salami...
I kept it really simple for that night...

Once, Twice...Three Times...

They say the third time's a charm...

One of Bert's good friends also shares a September birthday. Since their birthdays were just days apart, we met up for lunch at Coop's this past weekend...

Craw Island

[Closed as of August 2012]

Since there was no school or work for that matter the Friday after "Dark Thursday" (woo hoo), we celebrated Bert's bday with lunch at Craw Island.

This is in the Vons shopping center on Telegraph Canyon Road near the 805.  We'd been wanting to go here for awhile...

Another float...

This excursion was an excuse to use one of our coupons last week. It expires this November but not to worry since I bought a new coupon book for TC's school camp fundraiser. More coupons galore! Feeling like a root beer float, we stopped by the Wienerschnitzel in IB...

Using coupons doesn't necessarily mean "tight ass alert". With the economy being the way it is, saving $$ is a good thing. 

Bert's Birthday Blackout

SO, how did all you San Diegans (and some OC folks and 'Zonies) enjoy yesterday's unprecedented BLACKOUT?

(photo courtesy of The Voice of San Diego, 9/9/11)

Philippine Islands Condos

Before we get to the Giant Clams, we made a quick stop to see a small slice of Filipino American history recently reincarnated as the  Philippine Islands condos (the former site of the historic P.I. Market), on Ocean View Street, just a few blocks from the beach.

How cool - check out that classic T-Bird out in front too!

The Scoop Ice Cream Parlor

I was getting ahead of myself about the Filipino American history lesson...That will be in a few posts.

Well, as always, we cannot visit a town or city without going to their local ice cream place. In this case, how could we pass up this giant ice cream cone at The Scoop Ice Cream Parlor?
From giant It's It, to Artichokes to this. Wacky giant food replicas are the way to go...

Pismo Beach Car Classic

Since we were here we figured, why not!

I'm not a car expert so forgive me if I don't know the years or makes/models.

Splash Cafe

Even though it was kind of touristy, Astroboi highly recommended the Splash Cafe which is known for their clam chowder.

It was mega crowded when we got there but we knew that would be the case, with the car show going on, summertime, etc.

Was the clam chowder as good as its hype?