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....

West Pac Noodle Bar

This post was originally written to go out in late January of this year, however, I decided to wait it out because I wasn't sure if we would revisit...turns out we didn't, for reasons which will be discussed later in this post...

But hey, enjoy this awesome view of the San Diego skyline while crossing the Coronado Bridge...

Bert and I were off to visit my mom...

Noodle World

View from the top of our hotel room in Pasadena.

Lovely view of the San Gabriel mountains there...

Marco Polo Italian Ice Cream

After walking up and down several blocks to explore, we went back a few blocks the other way to hit up this place...

We were on vacation and yes, we wanted dessert every $%#@ day...

Max Cup

[Update - This place is now CLOSED as of June 2015 and replaced with Otay Lake Pho]

To make the Eastlake "trifecta" complete, having been to the two newest additions to the strip mall...

TC and I went to check out the new boba place...

Pacific East Mall - Hong Kong Snack House, Candy Box & Sheng Kee Bakery

After our drinks trifecta from Asha Tea House, Guerilla Cafe and Philz...

we headed over to nearby Richmond to an all Asian shopping complex......

We were curious to check out several shops and eateries...

Cuteness Overload - The shops at Atlantic Time Square

This entire center, called the Atlantic Time Square is a combined retail and residential complex located in the middle of Monterey Park.

It seems to have it all, from restaurants, to a fitness center and walking distance to various ethnic markets...I noticed they had Curry House here. The one in San Diego by Nijiya is long gone, having been replaced by Koon Thai...

TC and I wanted to check out some of the shops before leaving, especially the candy store....

The Asian Cultural Festival

As mentioned earlier, we wanted to see the Asian Cultural Festival at the NTC Park in Liberty Station. May is Asian Pacific Heritage Month. Apparently, this is the fourth year of this festival, but the first time I've ever heard of it.

Since we didn't walk in the right direction and didn't feel like looking for it earlier (the food won out, ha ha), we kind of put it on the back burner while we enjoyed our day with lunch (except for the pizza), dessert and even more dessert! Kirbie went back home while I drove down the street to see if I could find this festival, which I did. It was near these Gun Platforms...

which used to be on an old battleship, but are now displayed at the park...

Kafe Yen

Sometime last week when I was still on vacation, TC and I made a trip out to PB...

Above is the original location of Rubio's, which is on Grand Ave in PB.

We were headed out to the edge of PB, right near the Crystal Pier...

Coming Soon...

I noticed this last week when I was in the area...

Bert says the owners of Tastea Grill are the owners of Bamboo Garden. Thisis a new sit down Asian place in the Heritage business district on East Palomar in Otay Ranch. Tastea Grill is more casual, serving plate lunches, sushi rolls and smoothie/boba/tea type drinks. The owner and chef is really nice. I believe he is Korean. His wife and daughter I(who speaks fluent Spanish) also work the counter, but Bert saw the daughter at the new place. We will have to check out Bamboo Garden soon. Nice to have a new place near us.