My birthday morning - Cream Pan in Tustin + Hopper & Burr coffee in DTSA + Mexican fruit cup from vendor

Bert's bro was kind enough to let us stay in his pad overnight. TC and her cousin were able to catch up while we were crashed out...

My birthday morning was started at one of my favorite bakeries...

Hinotez with Astroboi & TC

On the last Friday of my vacation...

I met up with my childhood friend, the always so fun Astroboi...

Summer Road Trip 2018 - Day 2: Visits to Giant Robot, Giant Robot 2 + Coffee Tomo

It was cool to see the Giant Robot store still around...

For those that don't know, Giant Robot was a bi-monthly Asian American pop culture magazine that ran from 1994 up to 2011....

Summer Road Trip 2018 - Starting off at Cream Pan, THH, a vintage Taco Bell & a stop at Neat Coffee

We can never have a road trip up north without stopping here...

It's pretty much required...

KD's Bday Crawl: Stop 5 - MNGO Dessert & Coffee Bar to end the day...

I remembered seeing the signage late last year...

I hadn't realized that Big Joy was gone so it was nice that dessert in some shape or form would at least still be offered at the Convoy Plaza strip mall...

Cold ramen + Happy hour revisits @ Gunco Ramen

It's been so hot lately...

and I wasn't feeling it for eating anything hot at Gunco...

SFSU + the now defunct Takuya Hot Dog Bowl, Inner Sunset

We did make to the university on time...

ahead of time in fact, making sure we parked in the structure closest to the meeting place...

D's Birthday Crawl - The Trifecta: Cream Pan, THH + Kolache Factory

Last weekend we celebrated D's birthday with...

what else? A food crawl!  As is our MO for these trips, Cream Pan was our first stop...

LA Day Trip - First Stop, as always, Cream Pan

A month and a half ago I was able to get tickets to the Broad Museum in Los Angeles...

The tickets themselves are free but you have to order them a month in advance, which was a bit of a hassle. Bert's summer schedule allowed him to have a four day work week, so off we went on a Friday...

Hogetsu revisits 2016

I know this is not a sign for Hogetsu...

But as of April last year, Japanese restaurant Utage was gone and later, a banner for a upcoming birria place was up...

Pokirrito

With our second week of break nearly done, I took TC and her good friend out to the lunch spot of their choice...

which was in one of the parking lots from Heck on Convoy.

The last stops: THH & Cream Pan

Behold...the new Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet sign on the I-5...

The road here has been widened and was one of the surprises we discovered while on our way home from our Spring Break trip earlier this year.

Our last stop was House Roots Coffee in Granada Hills...A few hours later, we were passing by downtown LA...

D's Birthday Food Crawl - Brunch @ To the Point Eatery

Yesterday, 3/4ths of the Educator GF's went out for a belated birthday celebration for our dear friend D...

It was of course, a food crawl...

with window shopping (and real shopping) interludes amidst our food stops...

Vietnamese salads @ Pho Mai Cali & Phuong Trang + a revisit to Tokyo Central & Main

I had just picked up TC from a volunteer gig.  Nearby was a place we hadn't been to in awhile...

It was time for a revisit...

A quartet of bakeries - Los Pollos Cuban, Hogetsu, Papa Luna's & 85c

This post is a compilation of a few places where I had baked goods...

at places that aren't quite traditional bakeries. The first is a fairly new place in East CV...

Mini Roadtrip first stops - Cream Pan and THH

Having left our home at an ungodly hour, we made it to the checkpoint around 6 am...

The sun hadn't even risen yet, but we had a long day ahead of us...

New flavors at Hogetsu

A recent training brought me to the area...

where I had a sudden craving for mochi sweets since it was so close by...

I hadn't been here in quite awhile and it was time for a revisit...

Japanese store two-fer: Tokyo Central & Main plus the new Daiso in Kearny Mesa

I still have to get used to the new signage...

(photo from my "TORC's birthday lunch @ Purple Mint" post, September 2015)

after having been known as Marukai Daiso for awhile...

This was one of our stops when TC was gathering up items for a birthday gift basket...

Another Cream Pan Visit - Feb 2015

Whenever we do a road trip, we usually go to Cream Pan, but before doing so...

Bert usually gets his coffee at this tiny strip mall off of Red Hill Drive in Tustin...

The mandatory stop at Cream Pan - LA Roadtrip Day 1

See the window? And it's already February...

Can you tell I'm a bit behind in my posts? Oh well, this was the storefront next to Starbucks off the Red Hill exist in Tustin...

It's our first pre-stop for Bert's coffee (and a much needed bathroom break) before we head over here...

Cream Pan is almost always our first stop whenever we make any trip up north and this trip was no exception...