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!

Return to Tibet House and Mignon Chocolate

After watching the tepid movie adapation of Rick Riordan's book, "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief" at the Santa Anita mall, we headed back to Pasadena for lunch...at Tibet Nepal House. (see my original post here). Since I liked it so much the first time, I thought it would be nice to go again with Bert and TC....This was TC's plate - she only had little bit of rice and a few spoons of the other dishes (shrimp masala, some curried vegetable dish and a piece of naan). I didn't bother taking a photo of my plate...

This was Bert's plate - his second, I think. He had a piece of the tandoor chicken (which looked burnt to me so I didn't get one), plus some fried pakoora, a stew with bamboo shoots and potatoes and something else with chicken. God, don't you just love my encyclopedic knowledge of Tibetan food? Seriously though, he liked the different entrees that were available, but I was saving my appetite for dinner later that night...It was going to be Indonesian...

A placard for Tibetan beer...

Bert ordered one of those Llasa beers while I had champagne since this was considered a weekend brunch.

More of Bert's beer bottle because it's so fkg exciting, ain't it.

After lunch, we walked a few doors down to another place I had the pleasure of visiting earlier that month, the very cute and tiny Mignon Chocolate shop (see my original post here). What was cool was the lady working there remembered me from before! We got a box of 14 truffles to go...From the top left covered with NUTZ is Hazelnut, Cappuccino, Spicy Chile (and it was!)....The white one in the middle with the green stripes was Irish Cream, below to the right with the pink stripes was Raspberry. At the lower left corner was the dark chocolate covered caramel patty with gingered sea salt and a cocoa covered Dark Chocolate truffle. That was just the top layer. Unfortunately, I didn't take pix of the rest of the chocolates which included: Pomegranate, Blueberry, Ginger Sea Salt, a Pharaoh shaped chocolate, and a few others I don't recall...

Here's another view of the chocolates. This time, you can see the dark chocolate covered caramel patty with gingered sea salt. The lady said those were new and she gave us three pieces for free! Nice! She wanted to know if we thought it was too salty because some customers considered it too salty. We thought it was just fine. The caramel was just a thin layer, but it went well together with the dark chocolate and the salt. At the lower left was the Ginger Sea Salt chocolate and peeking ever so slightly underneath it was the Blueberry chocolate...

Here's the box again...These chocolates were such sexy bitches. It seemed like a crime to eat such mini works of art.

For TC, we bought a chocolate cup topped with fresh berries...quite delicious!

We had some time to kill so we drove around Pasadena and decided to check out their City Hall...

ABC Music Humpday Videos - "Q" is for Queen

Okay, it's MUSIC GEEK time again!

The often imitated but never duplicated genius that is the late and great Freddie Mercury from one of the greatest fucking rock bands of all time, Queen:

This little known gem , "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" is the 8th song (or back in the good old days, song 3 from Side B) of Queen's album  Day at the Races (1976) which was their follow up album to A Night at the Opera. Incidentally, both albums were named after Marx Brothers films.

The previous album was best known for the epic and bombastic rock opera, "Bohemian Rhapsody" and to a lesser extent, one of my favorite songs, "You're My Best Friend". Personally, I loved the "A Night at the Opera" (referred to hereafter as ANATO)  as a whole, but I love "A Day at the Races" much more. Queen were masters of multi-tracking and up until 1980's album, "The Game", entirely synthesizer free.

Before the bastardization  of and piece mealing of songs by itunes, people bought albums, not songs. Albums were bought and listened to in their entirety. Queen were masters of putting together cohesive albums which flowed from beginning to end.

Album tracks included (for a blow by blow description of each song, click the link to "A Day at the Races" underneath the video):

Side A (I say "sides" because I'm old school like that. Comments in red are mine):
1 - Tie Your Mother Down (very Caveman!)
2 - You Take My Breath Away (beautiful vocals and piano)
3 - Long Away (one of the few songs where guitarist Brian May sings)
4 - The Millionaire Waltz (another piano driven song)
5 - You and I (another one of my fave songs from this album)

Side B
1 - Somebody to Love (Freddie Mercury's favorite Queen song, as well as my husband's - a fun song to sing along to and a masterpiece in multitracking)
2 - White Man (penned by Roger Taylor, the drummer - talked about the injustices towards the Native Americans by whites)
3 - Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy
4 - Drowse (a cool song featuring drummer Roger Taylor's vocals and cool slide guitar by Brian May)
5 - Teo Torriate (Let Us Cling Together) (a few verses are sung in Japanese!)

"Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" is not a hard rocking Queen song, in the vein of "Tie Your Mother Down" ("ANATO) or the precursor to speed metal's, "Stone Cold Crazy (from their third album, "Sheer Heart Attack"). Rather, it is a sweet yet rollicking song utilizing Mercury's piano skills and multitrackedvocals. If you listen to the lyrics, they're quite witty.

Here's the 3rd verse:

"Ooh let me feel your heartbeat (grow faster, faster)
Ooh Ooh let me feel your love heat
Come on and sit on my hot-seat of love (ha ha!)
And tell me how do you feel right after-all
I'd like for you and I to go romancing (liked this transition)
Just say the word - your wish is my command"

And here's the verse after the guitar solo:

"Dining at the Ritz we'll meet at nine precisely
I will pay the bill, you taste the wine
Driving back in style, in my saloon will do quite nicely
Just take me back to yours that will be fine (Come on and get it)"

It's so very British and I just love Mercury's judicious use of falsetto. Justin Hawkins eat your heart out!  And Freddie Mercury is the Queen of Camp as well! Who else can wear a one piece harlequin outfit and get away with it? Okay, maybe Johnny Weir can!

Most recently, easy listening bore Jason Mraz did a bland note for note rendition on the Queen tribute album, ""Killer Queen - A Tribute to Queen" (2005), which is a pretty damn good tribute for the most part. Unfortunately, I felt that Mraz's take on the song offered nothing new to the Queen canon.

The Letter "Q" was pretty limited. For me, it was either Queen or metal band Queensryche Queen of the Reich - Holy Fk! Listen to Geoffrey Tate's air raid siren vocals! That song kicks a$$!), but since I love Queen waaaay more, it just had to be Queen...

Until next week...

How Awesome is This?

I just had to post this up as well.  This was Oggi's "Picture of the Day", as seen on her blog, I Can Do That! Gotta hand it to this Filipino/Polish American, JR Celski is definitely representing his Pinoy pride!!! [notes to follow regarding the significance of the three stars and sun motif].

JR Celski's sun tattoo pays homage to his Filipino roots

February 21, 2010
by Samantha Chang

Celebrity Fitness and Health Examiner

Speed skater JR Celski, who was disqualified Feb. 20 in the 1000m semi-finals, caused a stir when he took off his shirt Saturday and displayed a large sun tattoo in the middle of his chest.

Celski, 19, was visibly upset after being disqualified in the semi-final heat of the 1000 meters in short-track speed skating after jostling with Canada's Francois Hamelin during the race.

But the worldwide media was more abuzz about the large "three stars and a sun" tattoo displayed across JR's chest when he took his shirt off in the waiting area shortly after being DQ'ed.

[My notes - Flag Info: The three stars represent the three main island groups of the Philippines: Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao...the sun's eight rays represent the eight provinces that revolted against Spain during the Philippine Spanish Revolution in 1896.]
HOMAGE TO FILIPINO MOM

The "three stars and a sun" tattoo is reminiscent of the national flag of the Philippines, and pays homage to Celski's mom, Sue, who was born in the Philippines. JR's dad is an American of Polish descent who served in the U.S. Army.

Meanwhile, Vancouver has been a great games for Celski. On Feb. 14, he won a bronze medal in the men's 1500m short track final. Celski's U.S. teammate, Apolo Ohno, won the silver medal in that race,
while the gold went to Jung-Su Lee, 21, of South Korea

Celski is scheduled to race again Feb. 26 in the mens 5000m relay with American teammates Apolo Ohno, Simon Cho and Travis Jayner.

OVERCAME HORRIFIC INJURY

JR, one of the brightest stars for the future of U.S. speed skating, overcame a career-threatening injury recently.

While competing in the US Olympic trials in September 2009, Celski plunged the tip of his right skate deep into his left leg when he hit the boards coming out of a turn in the 500-meter quarter finals.

The razor-sharp blade sliced through Celski's suit and through his left quadricep muscle all the way to the femur, leaving an ugly 6-inch gash above his knee and missing his femoral artery by one inch.

"I had to pull [my own skate out of my leg]," he said. "I saw my femur. It's not fun seeing things you don't normally see in your body."

Celski was immediately rushed to a nearby hospital where he underwent extensive surgery requiring 60 stitches.

JR was able to recover fully after months of intense physical therapy under the care of orthopedic surgeon Eric Heiden, the ex-U.S. speedskating champion who won 5 gold medals at the 1980 Winter Olympics.

Celski and Ohno will race together in the 5000m relay finals Feb. 26.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Check out this 24-Hour Fitness Commercial here...

 You can see JR sporting a Manny Pacquaio t-shirt complete with the colors of the Philippine flag (red, blue and yellow)!


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On another note, JR Celski is not the first Filipino American to be in an Olympics...

Others of note include:

A notable first -
Victoria Manolo Draves - won 2 golds in the 1948 Olympics in platform and springboard diving. She was the first Filipina to win a gold medal in the Olympics and the first woman to win both medals in these events.
Other Filipino Americans in past Olympics:

Elizabeth Punsalan - ice dancer with partner Jerrod Swallow, 1994 and 1998 Olympics
Liz Masakayan - pro beach Volleyball player, 1988 Olympics
Tiffany Roberts - at the age of 18, won the gold medal in the 1988 Olympics in women's soccer
Natalie Coughlin - won the gold in swimming in 2004 and 2008 Olympics (she is one quarter Filipina)

There may be more but those are the ones that I know of for sure.

Yoma Myanmar

[ Wait what? Only 2 new posts!]

Last weekend, Bert, TC and I took a road trip to LA. After our practically free day at Universal Studios and experiencing the extreme fuckery known as LA traffic, we headed over at a snail's pace to our hotel in Pasadena to briefly check in, drop off our luggage and head out again for dinner. By this time, it was already 7:45 pm. We left Universal at 5 pm. Yeah...

 Our original plan was to stop by The Oinkster in Eagle Rock for one of their ube shakes but that was not to be. Prior to our trip, I searched the web to see what other cuisines were out there that we, as a family, haven't explored yet...Lo and behold...Yoma Myanmar. Although it says "Thai", there weren't too many Thai offerings on the menu...

Here's a few mentions of Yoma on yelp  and here from the LA Times. The website on their take out menu is apparently not in service (http://www.yoma-burmesefood.com/). Yoma is in Monterey Park in the San Gabriel Valley. There are tons of Chinese restaurants there, but hey, we were here for Burmese food. We were majorly hungry, having brought our own lunches to Universal...we hadn't eaten since noon. 

I was quite curious about Burmese cuisine, never having had it before. I don't think there are any Burmese places in San Diego. The owner of Yoma said the only other Burmese place in Southern California was Golden Triangle in Whittier.  More on Burmese cuisine here.

When we arrived, a family of four had just finished eating. There was a couple in the corner, then another lady came in. Most of them spoke in their native language to the owner (I assume it was Burmese). That right there, was a good sign. The restaurant is pretty small, seating maybe 25 or 30 at the most. We sat by the corner near a TV. Nearby lay Burmese newspapers and a Burmese DVD. There was one wall hanging that I regret not taking a photograph of - it was a black velevet decoration that said, "Beautiful Ladies of Myanmar". There was an outline of the country and dotted all over the map were glittery dayglo renderings of these women. A yelper actually wrote about that in her review.

The owner greeted and and handed us, I kid you not, five different menus. Some of them only had a few pictures on each page, like this one. I think they need to streamlime their menus! The chayote with egg looked pretty good, but we dind't order that.

Sorry this one is a bit blurry but if you look at the upper left hand corner, that particular item caught our eye. We were actually going to order something else, but decided to go for the Burmese tea leaf salad which is not something we see too often in San Diego.

Here's another page from one of their many menus...curries.

I totally dig the Burmese writing - it's so pretty...

and here is another page from the menu. Look at #84...the Burmese boiling bean fried rice. We ended up getting that, as you shall soon see.

This was a flyer underneath the glass table top. I found out later that Mohinga is the national dish of Burma. Had I known that, we would have ordered it as well. Mohinga is a fish soup withthin rice noodles.

Okay, here goes. This was the Burmese Tea leaf Salad which we all really loved. It had fermented tea leaves, chopped tomatoes, peanuts, broad beans, thinly sliced cabbage, and some other type of bean (very small, kind of like a lentil, but crunchy) and flavored with lemon juice. The taste was amazingly complex. There was sweet, sour, salty, earthy, and crunchy all at once. The textures were also great - coming from all of the beans in there.

Close up of tea leaf salad:

One of our appetizers was the Samusas with tamarind sauce. The wrapper for their samusa, unlike the Indian samosa or the Ethiopian sambussa, was very thin, flaky,  and light. The filling was mashed potatoes with onions, and peas. The dipping sauce was also quite tasty - if you like the sweet and sour quality of tamarind, brightened with cilantro leaves.

This was the Burmese Bean Fried Rice which had onions and a fried egg on top. The beans (which I looked up on the web) are known as Vatana beans. I thought it was kind of different having beans WITH rice. The owner said this is a traditional breakfast dish eaten with bread (wow, three starches!).

Can you tell that we were trying to sample the different Burmese specialties? This dish below, the Burmese stir fried noodles was the only disappointment of the night. The noodles were mixed with broccoli,  carrots, green onions, and shrimp (our protein of choice). The sauce was nonexistent, so there wasn't too much flavor there. Our daughter, on the other hand, enjoyed this. She actually liked everything we ordered but liked the noodles the most.

Now this was the Burmese Fried Dried Beef (appetizer) - You can see slivers of ginger in there. The beef was fried to a crisp and the shreds were so tasty, aromatic with the flavors of ginger and garlic. We ended up taking the leftovers, which, by the way, are still quite crisp! I bet this would taste awesome with fried rice!

Here's another view of that beef...

We had a nice chat with the owner who seemed genuinely happy to see us trying her cuisine. She even asked us point blank why we chose her restaurant and what we thought of her food. She was quite helpful when describing the dishes and answering my questions about several of the ingredients. By the evening's end, the restaurant had gotten full again. The woman came and went several times to drop off our dishes, to check on us, and answer questions. The service, while slow at times, was friendly. The dessert you see below was on the house. The lady brought us a plate of gelatin topped with coconut cream. The gelatin was flavored with coconut milk and was quite firm. Maybe this was given to every customer? In any case, it was a nice gesture on her part.

The next day would be filled with lots to see and do and most importantly, EAT!  First thing tomorrow, we would watch the first installment of the Rick Riordan bestseller, "Percy Jackson and the Olympians - The Lightning Thief". This series has now dethroned Harry Potter in TC's library. There are five books in the series and this movie will be the first in the franchise. Bert and I frantically read the book prior to our trip (I finished it the morning of watching the movie!) so we could discuss the similarities and differences with TC. 

By the way, it's Sunday right now and it's raining. The BAFTA's are on BBCAmerica and RPattz has a stray lock of hair that looks quite hideous on his forehead. He's also sporting 1890's sideburns since he is currently filming, "Bel Ami" in London. More on that later. Bel Ami deserves its own post. Let's put it this way, that film BETTER be rated R. His character in the book, in addition to scheming his way to the top in his quest for money and power, bangs everyone and their mother in that movie! And of course I can't wait to see it!

Universal Studios Hollywood

Yay! Thanks to Universal Studios' Salute to Schools program, I got a free ticket while my husband and daughter were half off! Hell to the yeah! Three for the price of one! Can you believe it costs $69 to get into Universal? Maybe I'm a cheapass but that is an expensive ticket!  I'm not a big theme parks person, but Bert and I thought it would be fun to take TC there now that she's old enough to enjoy the rides and shows.

We got there in about 2 and a half hours, by 10 am when the park opened.  One of the first things we did was go on the tour. The nice thing about this four day weekend (Presidents' Day weekend last week) was that it wasn't too crowded. We didn't even have to wait at all (except for the Simpsons' ride) for everything! TC got excited when we saw this!!!! The Scooby Doo Mystery Machine!  Zoinks! Like, Wow! (say that in a Shaggy voice please)

The tour took us to the Universal Studios backlot. In the summer  of 2008, there was a fire and part of it burned down. Many of the buildings were in the process of being rebuilt.

Here's a worker fixing one of the facades...

One last view of the backlot...

This is the "fake" Mexican town where they have a flashflood. This set is also seen in one of TC's favorite movies, "Big Fat Liar" where Paul Giamatti (yes, Oscar winner) is chasing after Frankie Muniz and gets caught in the flashflood.

TC also got excited when she saw this "Lyon Estates" gate from the "Back to the Future" movies.  "Oooh, look Mommy!!! Lyon Estates!!!"

New to the tour (we hadn't been here in 7 years) was the inclusion of a row of movie cars. This was the Deathmobile from "Animal House". They also had the DeLorean from "Back to the Future", Kit from "Knight Rider", and Tom Selleck's red Ferrari from "Magnum P.I.". There were a few more but I don't remember what they were. Oh yeah, shit from "Fast and the Furious"...

According to the Wikipedia entry on Float (parade) under the section "Floats in Popular Culture":

"The climax of the movie Animal House features the protagonists from the title fraternity surreptitiously launching their own float into a parade featuring legitimate entries from many of their rivals. The illicit float, in the form of a giant decorated cake adorned with the words "Eat Me," later splits open to reveal the parade-destroying "Deathmobile" inside."

We also went on a street called Colonial Street (named after the styles of the homes there). Look familiar? This yellow house is featured on "Desperate Housewives". Yes, this is Wisteria Lane! I don't even watch that show but I recognized the set. Check out more info here (there's a map too!)...

And here is my favorite....this green house was the 2nd house for "Leave it to Beaver" (heh heh, she said, "Beaver")...This house is also on "Wisteria Lane". I can just hear the theme music in my head now. Where's the Beave? What about Eddie Haskell and Lumpy? And, what about Beave's friend "Whitey"?

This was from the Whoville set for the Jim Carrey flick, "The Grinch".

This was funny...at the Bates Motel set (from the Hitchcock film, "Psycho"), there was a Norman Bates lookalike stuffing a fake body into a car trunk! He then approached the tour bus with a knife and made violent jabbing motions at the passengers.

Cue Bernard Herman's shrieking violin score here....It's the Bates house!

This was from the "War of the Worlds" set.  It really looked like a plane had crashed there. It was quite eery seeing the smoke, scattering belongs, and crushed cars and homes.

All right, now this is more like it! Krustyland!!!

Krustyland is home of The Simpsons Ride - the line looked barren outside but beware. Like Space Mountain, it was an illusion. You are led into labyrinths worthy of Hades and snake in and out of lines while at the same time, entertained by snippets of Simpsons episodes! Win for the Simpsons! Boo for the wait! The "ride" itself was simulated and lasted maybe about 5 minutes. I had to close my eyes because it went so fast. This ride used to be "Back to the Future". When Bert and I last went here back in 1999, Bert's neck and back hurt like fk and he had a headache the rest of the day. This time, he took Dramamine!

This was a display inside the inner sanctum  of the ride...it's everyone's favorite Scotsman, Groundskeeper Willie.

I thought this was funny!

In the Krustyland area, there was a Kwik e Mart! Sadly, no Apu Nahasapeemapetilon though.

View inside the Kwik e Mart where you can buy Simpsons merchandise of all kinds.

Like this giant Lard Boy Donut...mmmmm Donuts!

Or this Flaming Moe energy drink...(that's one of my favorite episodes):

You can even buy Duff Beer here - but this is an energy drink, not the beer!

One of Bert's favorites was this, the Android's Dungeon,which is the comic shop in Springfield. This was on the side of the Kwik E Mart building.

Behind the Kwik E Mart facade was Moe's Tavern!

They actually had this sign on the escalators!  How stupid can people be???  They also had one that forbid people going on escalators with strollers. This was the 4 part super steep escalator that brings you down to the lower lot. Imagine falling down that thing.

These rides were on the Lower Lot...The first one we went on was Jurassic Park. Luckily we didn't get too soaked. We sat all the way in the back. The big plunge was towards the end anyways. I had to close my eyes so I wouldn't see the drop. My stomach lurched though!

Jurassic was followed by The Mummy - TC was a bit scared of this one but she went anyways. None of us realized that the damn ride would go backwards as well! Like the wimp that I am, I closed my eyes as  because I started to get motion sickness.

We ended up checking out the Special Effects show, which TC really liked. It was cool for her to see how they used green screen and sound effects for the movies.

Actually we saw Backdraft first, then the Special Effects show...Bert and I hadn't seen it from before. You could really feel that fire in there!!!

TC's ice cream swirl at Ben and Jerry's. When we were sitting down and sharing this, there was a worker dressed up as the Nutty Professor in his aqua blue sweats and headband riding a Segway. His sweats were padded so that he would like "large", but you could tell he was skinny. He approached a table of African American women, and cracked some jokes to get their reaction. A few seconds later, he literally chased two Asian female tourists who screamed and ran away from him. He would stop, then chase them again. It was kind of mean...

This was the Waterworld Show. I wasn't really into this at all. I didn't like the movie so I didn't expect to like the show. I mean, the effect were great, but the acting was really stilted. But then again, nobody goes for stellar acting.  I do have to admire the actors' athleticism because they were running, jetskiing, rappeling, driving boats, swinging from ropes,  and shooting guns all over the place. It was 30 minutes of waiting for this to end. Almost as bad as listening to Kenny G.

One of the last shows we saw was Shrek in 4-D - one of those simulated rides. When we were last here in 2003, TC was scared by the graveyard scene and the giant spider. Now, she thought it was cool and enjoyed the "wet" special effects.

Lastly, let me leave you with this photo of a Chinese tour group leader. He had the coolest thing ever so his group could spot him - it was a cute little Santa Claus toy dangling on a stick!!! We saw him several times that day!

It was a pretty long and fun day! We brought our lunches with us (snuck in Bert's backback, underneath our jackets) and were totally hungry! Our next stop, dinner at Yoma Myanmar....