Happy Hour @ Cafe 21, Adams

Earlier this evening, we thought we would give Cafe 21 on Adams another try...

I really liked their Happy Hour at the Gaslamp and we wanted to go to the original location especially since the tapas are $1 less than the Gaslamp's...

Happy Hour @ Cafe 21, Gaslamp

As mentioned previously, I would be going out with three gal pals from the gym for yet another belated birthday celebration...this time, in the (dreaded) Gaslamp Quarter.

It actually wasn't so bad, now that Cafe 21 has taken over Croce's spot at the Keating Building. Parking is free (for three hours at least) at Horton Plaza and walkable...

Cafe 21 - The full post

Hot off the press from last night's teaser post...

My pre-birthday dinner from Cafe 21 spent with my two favorite people, TC and Bert...

Seafood Friday - Week 5, Pre-birthday dinner @ Cafe 21

This will be a super short post...

Earlier this evening, we went here...

No, not the liquor store but the restaurant next door...

Bert's Bday dinner at Kemo Sabe

[This dinner happened earlier last month....so by the time of this post, the restaurant should already be closed]

I read somewhere that Kemo Sabe was closing at the end of the month (September). Their lease had expired and the owners were looking to relocate.  Since Bert and I had a Cohn's Restaurant Group gift card as well as a super super old Kemo Sabe gift certificate, we decided to give Kemo Sabe one last go before it went out with a whimper.  I remember when this place was new 15 years ago. Fusion was the "in" thing back then. Now, as a decade and a half has passed, our taste buds have changed as well as the culinary  landscape.

I had a virgin drink - a blueberry lemonade which I liked. Bert had a drink as well - something with a lot of rum. I forgot to upload the photo, so ergo, it's not pictured.

We got the fried calamari appetizer - the squid rings were sitting atop some greens, Kemo Sabe's  ubiquitous frou frou beet and carrot strings.There were two different types of sweet and sour sauced in the fried won ton cups; the difference between the sauces was that one was spicier. It tasted like that Chili Sauce for chicken you can get at Ranch 99.

For old time's sake, Bert go Kemo Sabe's signature dish, the Skirts on Fire. This was skirt steak with a spicy marinade served with black beans and mandarin oranges. I thought this was a huge ass plate. He really liked the meat - I had a bit of it. I'm not a fan of black beans (or most beans for that matter) so I left that untouched.

I had the coconute fried shrimp with udon noodles in a  peanut sauce sesame based dressing. It was garnished with a very pubey looking tangle of carrot curls and seemed to have that same sauce that our appetizer had. The shrimp was a good size and I really liked the noodles. The noodles also had stir fried vegetables in it - batons of carrot, as well as green and yellow squash. It was too big of a portion to actually finish, so I took about half of it home.

For TC, this was a rare outing for her to be out and about with her progenitors on a schoolnight. There ain't no kid menu here and thank goodness for that. She ordered the Anasazi Ravioli - stuffed with goatc cheese, served with a side of roasted corn on the cob with mango salsa (that was really tasty and had a kick to it) with roasted corn kernels.She didn't really like the multicolored corn chip garnish. There wer three big round ravioli on her plate and she only finished about 1 1/2 pieces.

So long Kemo Sabe...hope you reopen elsewhere! I hope you also revamp your menu because Southwest/Asian fusion is pretty passe now. I also hope they stop using beets and carrots (they used to do shaved cucumber curls too but seemed to have stopped] as garnish because even though you can ooh and aah over the presentation, if you take all this shit away, the bottom line is this, "Does the food taste good?". In some case, the food was just meh. Despite all that, we still wanted to go here for old time's sake...

Cucina Urbana

It's been a long ass time since I did an actual food post. I'm actually backlogged like a lone Portapotty during an Ozzfest concert. We went to a ton of places this summer (although not as many places as I'd liked to have gone due to this thing called work!) and they are just waiting to be shot out like another kid through that Duggar chick's flappy vajay that's probably so huuuge that it's like throwing a hot dog down a wide and lonely hallway.

This must be an OLD picture since she only has 14 kids in here!

I think she has 19 now! Ouch!

Olan Mills made some money that day!

I'm so crude but hey, you're still reading this, ain'tcha?

And even if you're not, fine by me!

This past summer, we celebrated a friend's bday so he got to choose the dinner venue,which was Cucina Urbana, formerly known as Laurel (see my former Laurel post here). As with Laurel, I was inspired by
Captain Jack's post here  and had been secretly wanting to go here. So, therefore, I was happy that my friend chose this place (see the Captain's old Laurel post here). I was also impressed that CJ alone polished off a FAMILY SIZE Pasta plate! And, he got a free drink out of it so fk yeah!

We had dinner around 5:30; it was such a bitch to get parking but we got lucky that evening...

The interiors are still ultra cool but a little more relaxed and not so cutesy French like the old Laurel.

Cool chandelier...

Lots of blue hairs and non ethnically diverse people who lack natural pigmentation. The only ethnic people I saw besides myself and a couple of my friends were the servers. Hey, I can't help but notice these things, but it's to be expected in certain parts of town...It would be the reverse down South.

Here's the dinner menu which you can also see online here...

If you bring your own wine, the corkage fee is $15. My friend, the birthday guy brought this bottle from home...

I didn't really drink my wine; I'm not a fan of reds. I ended up getting an Italian soda with an interesting flavor - Chinotto.

According to wikipedia's entry on "Chinotto":
"Chinotto is a small, bitter citrus fruit that grows on the chinotto tree, which is also called the "myrtle-leaved orange tree". This tree grows to a height of three meters and can be found in Malta and in the Liguria, Tuscany, Sicily, and Calabria regions of Italy.


The chinotto fruit is an essential flavor component of most Italian bitters (i.e., amari) and of the popular Campari aperitif. Its name is derived from China, where the tree was thought to have originated.


Chinotto is a non-alcoholic drink produced from the juice of the Citrus myrtifolia fruit and other herbal extracts. It is dark in colour. Its appearance is similar to that of Coca-Cola, but it is not as sweet as Coca-Cola, having rather a bittersweet taste."

The waiter said it was like sarsparilla. I thought it tasted like a bit of that combined with root beer. It wasn't too sweet. Best of all was the babe-a-licious bottle. Wowzah! Buxom bombshell alert! Kinda like a dirrrrrtay Vargas Girl. So that's what I drank since I did not partake of any alcomoholic beverages.

This was theTuscan toast with with Gorgonzola Walnut Mousse which we all liked...

This was the Ceci bean hummus with piquillo jam, also with Tuscan toast...The jam provided a tiny bit of a kick...

These were the stuffed fried squash which were filled with herbed ricotta cheese, purple basil peso and served with a cured lemon dressing (these descriptions are pretty much straight from their menu)...This was pretty good, but for $9.50, you'd wish they had more than 3 measly pieces and there were 5 of us that night.

More bread with who knows what that is? Oh wait, let me look at the menu again...Okay, it was some sort of sun dried tomato spread. It was a bit too watery for me. As you can see, we ordered small things here and there...

Here is the Fritto Misto - fried soft shell crab, calamari, shrimp, and vegetables with caper mayo...Loved the green beans and squash slices in there.

We ordered the Short rib Pappardelle which had cremini mushroom + parmigiano. The regular size was $18.50 but the waiter suggested we upgrade to the "family style" portion for $18 more. WTF, we thought, there's 5 of us, so why not. As you can see, it's a pretty damn big bowl, Here's our waiter grating some fresh cheese on our pasta, which was the best thing I ate that evening!

I loved the wide noodles and the short rib meat was melt in your mouth delicious.

Lastly, we ordered a couple of pizzas. I wanted to try the pork belly pizza with potato, scallion, asiago cheese and bechamel sauce. Unfortunately my health conscious cohorts did not want to try it. I figured, let the birthday guy decide. This was the Fig/Gorgonzola pizza with caramelized onion, candied walnuts and aged balsamic. It was topped off by peppery arugula leaves.

This next pizza was a little more conventional - It was pepperoni and fennel sausage with homemade mozzarella and peppadew pepper...I didn't like the burnt crust edges though.

My friends had already polished off the first bottle of wine...Here's the second (ordered from the restaurant)...Another red.

I'd like to go here again but next time when it's not so crazy busy. I'm not into crowds but everyone was in their own little bubble anyways. I had a lot of fun chatting with my friends, especially one we all hadn't seen in awhile. It was our way of catching up with each other. I'll have to take Bert here, maybe for his birthday...

Gulf Coast Grill

[Update - Closed in 2011]


[original outing was in early November 2009 but finally being posted now]

I believe this was during the Veterans Day holiday...we were trying to use up our Entertainment Book coupons so that day we went to Balboa Park's Japanese Garden. For lunch, we wanted to try the Gulf Coast Grill (which I hadn't been to in several years) on Park Avenue.

Unfortunately, the 2 for 1 coupon I had for Gulf Coast Grill, which came from a magazine that HotFudge sent me, was not valid during a "holiday" which Veterans Day was. So...we decided to stay despite this glaring error on my part. We'd already sat down and ordered and didn't want to back out now.
Here's the view of outside patio from our table. If you look closely, you can see Henry's Market across the street.

Check out their lunch menu here:

I had the Cornmeal crusted brie with organic mixed greens salad, candied walnuts and honey drizzle. I really liked this dish - especially the candied walnuts. The sweet mixed with the bitter greens and the crunchy crust of the brie was divine. The bread was blah and seemed like an afterthought.

Bert's Jambalaya with with shrimp, spicy andouille sausage, house smoked chicken and topped with a crawfish. Both his and my entree were dusted with some sort of smoky and spicy powder. He really liked this since it had a little bit of everything in there. As for me, I am not a fan of rice that's "soft" or "wet" (sounds like the title of a Prince song there, ha). Doesn't that crawfish look cute?

For TC - we ordered her the House Smoked BBQ Ribs with jalapeno BBQ sauce, fries, slaw (the menu said, "jicama" but this was clearly regular cabbage slaw). The portion was a little much for her so we "helped" her with it. The sauce was also a bit too spicy for her as well but for us, it was normal.

One of the appetizers was clam chowder which we ordered for TC. Although you can't really see it, it had a lot of clams and potatoes and was nicely seasoned. Win for the soup.

Although this was an "almost" coupon meal (a pricy mistake), we still enjoyed our food. It was nice and quiet since we came at the tail end of lunch (1:55 pm) and we almost missed eating there as well. Originally the host thought the chef was about to leave as well for his other job at another restaurant, but he didn't have to go until later so he stayed to make our meal.

Chocolat Cremerie - Hillcrest

[3 New Posts...Scroll down]

Earlier this week, I went out to lunch with a few friends. We went to the newly opened Chocolat Cremerie in Hillcrest. I'd read both positive and negative reviews about it, but WTF, we wanted to check it out for ourselves. See reviews here and here. This is the former location of Mille Feuille, which unfortunately closed last year (see my old posts here and here ).
The interior is quite slick with a blingy crystal chandelier and cool track lighting. The front counters held artisan chocolates as well as desserts. The counter at the far right had their gelatos.

There are also mini ottomans for seating that are covered with creepy and hairy cow hide. The photo below has a bar...see the guy behind the bar? I don't know if he was the owner but he was going around making sure everything was okay at each table. He was Italian and from Milan. One of my lunch companions had gone to school in Italy so they conversed a tiny bit in Italian. We found out that the guy once worked for an Anna Wintourish hellion in Italy and was fired from his job because he didn't get Elton John's birthday present delivered to him on time!

There are a lot of things on their menu...salads, cheese and bread bar, pizzas, and pastas..Seems a bit much for a tiny place like this.

While I had plain old water, my two lunch companions both got the Pomegranate Green Tea by Republic of Tea (I liked the bottle). It wasn't overly sweet but I couldn't taste the green tea in there.

Salads have to be ordered separately. We both ordered the mixed greens ($3.95). I chose to have the balsamic separate and gave it to my friend. I dressed up my salad with olive oil, salt, and pepper.. My friend had his with Gorgonzola.

After a nearly hourlong wait (which to me, is pretty shitty considering what we ordered wasn't time intensive) our food finally came out. My friend had ordered the eggplant and goat cheese pizza. There is a bluish cast to this because I was playing with the setttings. I only tried a tiny piece of her (sans the goat cheese) - it wasn't too bad, but you can see that it was burnt around the edges. C'mon folks - it's a thin crust pizza that shouldn't take 45 minutes to make....

My glorified ham and cheese panini (Prosciutto and gruyere) which was overpriced at $9.95. If came with salad, then that would have been a little more worth it. I know, it's paying their rent...

My friend's had the crepe with sausage and roasted peppers...garnished with a sprig of basil ($8.95). His portion seemed more worth it to me and it tasted better than mine as well:

As you can see, the pizza was not precut. That kind of sucked.

Although we did not order dessert, the Italian guy brought us a cup of gelato with a trio of flavors: milk chocolate, white chocolate and pistachio. Considering we didn't order dessert, that was pretty nice of him. I'm not sure if I would go back here for the slow service. The servers themselves were competent and the Italian guy was very nice however, it seemed like it took too damn long just to get a pizza, sandwich and a crepe.Here's a tip, if you park in Hillcrest, try to park in the neighborhoods a few blocks away. You'll save on parking $$ for the meters.

Here's a sticker I saw on the car parked in front of us. Awww...so cute!