Olive Garden, Chula Vista

Earlier this year, I met up with a group of educator gal pals...

this was a different group from the Educator GF's, but equally as loved...

FANHS, SD Fundraiser dinner at CPK

A few nights ago, we went out to the Otay Ranch mall for a rare dinner night out on a weekday...

It was for a fundraiser for the San Diego chapter of FANHS (Filipino American National Historical Society). Next year FANHS, SD will host the National Conference so funds needed to be raised...

Surf 'n Turf from Panda Express

Sometime last week, the coworkers and I went to the local Panda Express...

Mr. TJ was happy that they started offering brown rice...

We thought that our wait in line (we were number 3) would be short. How very fkg wrong we were...

The new Red Lobster - Chula Vista

This past weekend, we took Bert's mom out for lunch at the new Red Lobster in Chula Vista.

The previous location was in the downtown business district while the new location is at a prime spot on the corner of H Street and Broadway. This was once the home of Bob's Big Boy and then Carrow's. The whole building was demolished last year and was reborn as Red Lobster; their official opening was earlier this month (Labor Day)...

Anyhow, there was piped music from outside (which turned out to be the same as inside the restaurant).To my delight, it was 80's music!

They should have been playing this:

"Red Rock Lobster! Down! Down! Down!"

Haha! There was even more 80's musical fun once we stepped in...

McBite this...

It's been so long since I've been at bad ol' Mickey D's.

I had some time to kill before going to TC's soccer game..

New tacos from Rubio's...

So while the kids were getting their food at Panda Express (I was such a worry wart because I wanted to make sure they were within my line of sight; they are 11 and 12), Bert and I stood in line at Rubio's.

We were armed with coupons I just got thru email that morning...

Day after Xmas - Movie and lunch...

The day after Christmas, we met up with our friends and their two kids...

I was waiting outside for them while Bert and TC secured seats. In the meantime, as I emptied my purse and listened to my iPod, I found these three Cassava and Jackfruit tarts made by my aunt. I had forgotten they were in my purse from the day before!

Rubio's Burritos

It was one of those nights where I didn't feel like making dinner. TC had a craving for Rubio's...

which was good since I wanted to use my coupon!

Pink Berry - Fashion Valley

Everyone split up after lunch except for me and MFH. We stopped by Sephora so she could look for a perfume she ran out of (it was not there since it was seasonal). Then we stopped by a few stores but mainly to window shop.

I haven't been to Fashion Valley in awhile but I noticed that the foodcourt seating area is now covered! Very nice! I also noticed that D'Lush was gone and in it's place was Pinkberry...

Return to CPK

We headed over to CPK after our brief visit into the Halloween hell known as Party City, and TC's quick snack from Hot Dog on a Stick. Bert's mom was joining us for lunch and we waited for her to get dropped off by my Bro-in-Law.

It was a warm day so we sat outdoors in their patio...

Food in stick form...

Before having lunch, we went to Party City to get TC's ninja weapons but first, another variant of the Edward Cullen wig!

Remember we saw "Love at First Bite" and "Modern Vampire" in previous posts? Say hello to "Moonlight". I think these names are so funny. The guys that they put on there are trying to look all sultry and smouldering but they just look like something died on their heads...

Salads at Rubio's and CPK...

I'm totally going out of order...

Last week, we had two staff development days in one week. I personally felt that the meetings could have been combined into one day so we wouldn't be missing nearly the whole day of work. In any case, it was another opportunity to have lunch with the co-workers. 

The first day we all went to Rubio's. This is my food only, two original Fish Tacos and a side salad.
The fish tacos were hidden underneath all that cabbage. According to radio commercials, they've gone back to their "original" recipe. I don't recall the fish tacos tasting this way. It seemed there wasn't enough fish and that the batter was different. It also tasted too "hard" or "fried" if that makes any sense.

KyoChon Chicken - Glendale Galleria

After our leisurely breakfast (leftovers) at the hotel and after Bert and TC madeuse of the pool, we headed over to the Glendale Galleria...

It's the second largest mall in L.A., which I didn't know until I looked it up. But yeah, it's pretty damn huge. We weren't there to shop though...

Johnny Rockets - Burbank

Not feeling too adventurous, we decided to use this coupon at the nearbyJohnny Rockets by the big AMC in Burbank.

Even though I have the San Diego coupon book, a few of the coupons had other non-San Diego locations...

Wendy's

Yo' man. We are back from our mini roadtrip. Those posts will be up by the end of this week. I've got one more week of vacation, woo hoo!

As with earlier posts, TC and I have been going out to lunch everyday using coupons. This day we happened to use the one for Wendy's since it was near an area where I was doing a bunch of errands...

We were there a few days ago and utilized the "Free Junior Frosty" coupon (no photos, wut? heh!)/no purchase necessary.  Wendy's is one of those places I rarely eat at...Plus, remember the finger in the chili? I know it was planted but...

Graduation and party food!

After graduation, the counselors booked it outta there with a quick change in clothes (from our dresses and a coat/tie for the lone male), we headed over to BF Wang's PF Chang's at the mall.

McD's...

Hey, I'm not above an occasional visit to the devil chain known as McD's...this was a recent fundraiser for TC's school.  As soon as we walked in, the smell of fried STUFF filled the air. Plus it was chock full of noisy kids. Not a pleasant place to be, for antisocial me at least.

Red Robin and Y2K...

I am so behind in posts, but slowly and surely, I'll be churning them out...

Just like Benihana's, Rubio's, and Daphne's deals where you could get something free on your birthday, Red Robin offered a free gourmet burger. I'd never eaten at Red Robin before so I figured, okay, I will give this a try. Despite my dislike of going to the mall, especially Plaza Bonita (even though it's in the new part), I had TC as my lunch partner. TC hadn't been to the mall since last year's Easter earthquake.

Red Robin is near the AMC theatres on the upper level. Since we were there around 11:30, it was still early enough to get good parking and also good seating in the nearly empty restaurant. The decor was a poster and photographic mish mash of pop culture icons like the Beatles, Jackie O, and Albert Einstein . The "mascot" is seen below.


The server told me I could choose any burger off the menu...I was planning to split it with TC anyways so I had her choose.

In addition to the burger, which turned out to be the Bacon Cheeseburger, I also chose the Asian Chicken Salad. I like how most restaurants nowadays list the caloric content of the meals. Ever since doing that nutritional plan next month, I'm hyper conscious of it now. I'm not totally religious about it, but when I see the stats, it makes me think twice about what I eat, especially in terms of fat, sodium and sugar content.

Surprisingly, the Asian Chicken salad wasn't so bad. The salad had romaine lettuce with diced red onion, red bell pepper, mandarin oranges and teriyaki sauced chicken breast. I was expecting the chicken to be dry but it was actually quite moist. It wasn't salty either like that chicken from Fat City. I also half expected the salad to be drowned in dressing. Wrong again. It was lightly dressed which I like because I could taste the vegetables better and it seemed lighter and tasted fresher that way. The only unhealthy thing was the fried won ton chips on the side but that was really nothing. Our server was kind enough to split both of the entrees for us...

Here's my half of the Bacon Cheesburger. I like how it was wrapped too. So nice and snug. The patty was cooked medium. The cheese was American (chosen by TC). The lettuce and tomatoes were fresh and not wilted and sad. Best of all, was the thick cut "applewood smoked" bacon! Yeah, bacon makes everything taste better!

I didn't feel so bad eating half of the burger which topped out at 1030 calories, so it was really 515.

Before we left to do more errands, we walked around the mall a bit. Sadly, Paciugo Gelato was no longer there. Mary had done a post on that place last year and I'd been meaning to check it out. We felt like dumbasses walking around the mall, then consulting the directory, then double checking to see where it was. I also wanted to see if their MAC store had any of the limited edition Wonder Woman lipsticks. No luck there. They're sold out everywhere it seems. I wanted "Spitfire" which is a purplish magenta shade.

We also took a look at this store (below), fresa, which sells makeup. I happened to see the "NYX" sign outside. NYX is like a more affordable version of MAC. The quality seems to be on par. I used to buy my NYX lipliners at those cheap beauty supply stores. There was a certain shade I really loved but hadn't seen in a couple of years. In fact, when I last saw it, I bought 5 lipliner pencils. I ran out a year or so ago and have been using several substitute colors by other brands but they don't compare to NYX. A MAC lipliner is about $13. Yeah, you heard that right. $13, but NYX is $2.99!!! Fkg A!!! Right?

As Hans Landa would say, "That's a Bingo!". They happened to have Y2K which is my favorite shade. It's a dark burgundy/plum shade, which goes well with the dark lipsticks I tend to favor (MAC: Media, Dark Side, Underworld, and Deepest Wish). Out of desperation, I bought MAC's lipliner, "Nightmoth" which is similar to Y2K. Just one pencil. But with this newfound discovery of the equivalent of the cosmetic Holy Grail, I bought five of these suckers. These are the pencil type. They also had the twist version of the lipliner (not a wooden pencil) but I prefer the pencils.

So, yay, I was happy. I'm set for about two years now with my new supply of NYX lipliners!

Time to get outta here, pick up some stuff for tonight and enjoy the rest of the day!

[Edit: This post should have come before my Birthday dinner post but oh well!]

Daphne's Greek Cafe, Terra Nova

So here goes...after reading Mary's post on free birthday meals last year, I signed up from a few sites just for fun, such as Rubio's, Benihana's, Daphnes, MXN, and Red Robin. Earlier this week, TC and I headed over to the Daphne's Greek Cafe in the Terra Nova strip mall, which has Marshalls, Big 5, Bed Bath and Beyond and Sports Authority.

Now I'm not much of a Greek food fan, but I wanted to get the free meal for TC not for me. I ate before coming here so I didn't plan on having the actual meal.

Just for signing up on Daphne's site, you get "Pita Points" and a free appetizer. Now I had to do two separate transactions to get both the Hummus and Pita starter and the combo plate.

TC enjoyed the pita and hummus (original flavor) and I had a piece as well just to try it out.

As you might surmise, we sat outside. Number one, the weather was nice so we may as well enjoy it. Number two, it was away from the prying eyes of others and in the relative comfort and anonymity of being by ourselves.

For my comped birthday plate which comes with a salad, you can choose two items plus a side. I let TC decide - she wanted one veggie and one beef kabob with wheat pita.

She let me choose the side which was fire-roasted vegetables...

And there you have it...the combo plate that TC enjoyed on my behalf. I had a bite of the beef kabob and let's just say it was not so good. The beef was dry. She liked the chicken more because it was juicier. TC also felt the salad was too salty but that's because of the feta cheese. And as we all know, feta cheese = yuck. I would rather smell LeBron James' stanky shoes after playing the NBA finals. Sorry! Not a fan of the feta! For the most part, TC enjoyed the chicken kabob, the salad and vegetables. We took half of it home anyways since it was a lot of food for a kid.

We were off to do errands and to pick up a few items for my upcoming birthday dinner on the actual day with both sides of the family...

Off to Seafood City!

Seafood Friday - Rubio's

It's the first Friday of Lent so if you're Catholic, then that means no meat on Fridays.

According to wikipedia's entry on "Fasting and abstinence in the Roman Catholic Church" (my comments in yellow):

"Current practice of fast and abstinence is regulated by Canons 1250-1253. They specify that all Fridays throughout the year, and the time of Lent are penitential times throughout the entire Church. All persons who have completed their fourteenth year are bound by the law of abstinence on all Fridays unless they are solemnities (that's a holy day - I actually had to look that up). All adults are bound by law to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday until the beginning of their sixtieth year.

(By abstaining from meat on Fridays, you are supposed to show penance for your sins. Man, if this was the case for me, I'd be a vegetarian!)


...The current regulations concerning Lenten fasting and abstinence for Roman Catholics in the United States generally are as follows:

• Abstinence from all meat is to be observed by all Roman Catholics 14 years old and older on Ash Wednesday and on all Fridays of Lent.
• Fasting is to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday by all Roman Catholics who are 18 years of age but not yet 59."

Well, I'm not a strict Catholic but since today was the first Friday of Lent, it seemed like a good time to use one of these at local San Diego fast food joint, Rubios:

I ended up using the first coupon - the burrito with Mesquite shrimp. It was kinda pricy dammnit. I'm sch a tighta$$. Fearing the burrito might not be enough, I also ordered a fish taco on the side. The burrito came with chips (but no beans).

Here's the burrito cut in half. Lots of filler - rice and beans. My co-workers told me, "Let me know if there's any shrimp in there!"

And yayssss! There were loads of skrimps! (Say that in a Morrid Day voice!) Every bite had nicely seasoned skrimps. I could have done with less rice but yes, skrimps galore!

Not bad, but I think that's the last time I'm going to buy a $6 burrito. The fish taco was good, as usual but I really do miss Fins. The closest Fins used to be near Bonita Road but that closed several years ago and is now Cotija's taco shop where they have some killer potato tacos! I have very plebeian tastes when it comes to this kind of food. Not of that high falutin' fish taco crap at the higher end places for me.

Who else ate at Rubio's?

Mary from Foodies: A Southern California Foodblog wrote about joining the Rubio's beach club - you can get coupons (hence my coupons!) plus free food on your birthday!

Cathy from Mmm-Yoso posted about Taco Tuesdays. Yum!

Paul, creator of the webcomic Cooljerk, wrote a guestpost on his wife's blog (Darlene)My Burning Kitchen and actually met Ralph Rubio at a foodblogger meetup!

The dude from Food Coma 911 did not post on Rubio's but instead, went to San Felipe, the source and inspiration for San Diego entrepreneur Ralph Rubio to open up his own restaurants in San Diego!

More seafood coming up...