CPK

[posting finally on 12/10!]

So after watching the first showing of "Twilight" on opening day with my GBF, we decided to eat at CPK which is right across from the AMC in Fashion Valley. He had never eaten there before so we chose that place rather than Pizzeria Uno.

For the sake of time, we decided to eat at a restaurant within the confines of the mall. I'm not a big fan of chain restaurants but I will tolerate them once in a while. Just realized I forgot to rotate this photo of the menu. Oh well, fk it.

It seemed fitting that they had Portobello Mushroom Ravioli on their menu since that is what Bella Swan ate at Bella Italia the night Edward Cullen saved her from a group of would be rapists in the book "Twilight". In the movie, she does get served mushroom ravioli but the restaurant is not Italian - it's some wierd name - "The Bloated Toad". Sounds more like an English pub type name. And no, I did NOT order the ravioli. That would be kind of lame. Another comment, I think Kung Pao Spaghetti is all kinds of wrong.

We ended up choosing a pasta and a salad to share. The pasta was the Chicken Tequila Fettucine (see description in menu photo above)... We both liked this - anything with cream is a winner to me. I actually should be eating healthier though.

The salad he chose was the Classic Caesar Salad with Chicken. I ended up picking at the shaved parmesan flakes and eating just the lettuce. The chicken seemed a bit dry to me.

Close up of the Chicken Tequila Fettucine...We were both starved after watching the movie. No popcorn for us. We actually polished off the pasta and salad both! Oink oink!

By the time we were done with lunch, the lunch crowd was in full force. Time to get the fk out and beat traffic!

Sab e Lee Revisited

[Finally posting this on 12/10 - man, I lag!]

The day before Thanksgiving, Bert and I met up with Lotus and her daughter (she's almost 2 now!) at Sab e Lee. Here's my first post here. I'd been wanting to eat here again since last month. When we tried to eat there last week, it was closed on that day. Luckily we found parking right in front and it was not crowded either inside. Bert started off with the Thai Iced Coffee:

I also ordered the Pork Won Tons as an appetizer. This was a pretty big serving. Good thing there were four of us! Lotus' daughter went to town on these and seemed to really like the chili spiked dipping sauce. Hey, she's a Korean, she can handle it! :)
Even though I had this before, I just had to have it again - the Papaya Salad. I asked Kobey (the owner) to make it really spicy but I think he had it toned down for us. Boo.

Lotus and I both ordered a side of Sticky Rice...

The next dish to come to the table was the Northeastern Style Sausage (which we had before). Yeah, yeah...Originally Lotus ordered a noodle dish, but we realized it halfway through the meal. Turns out that they probably forgot and since we were kind of stuffed, didn't feel like we needed to include the order after all. Anyhow, I ordered this so Lotus could try it, yeah, that's the ticket. I wanted to try the other type of sausage (which has pork skin in it) but this one was calling my name.

You can see the rice studding the sausage innards:

The dish Bert chose was the Thai Beef Jerky. This wasn't what I expected but we all liked it. I guess when I hear the word "jerky", I think of something that is dried up and hard and chewy. This definitely wasn't Slim Jim material!

The beef jerky tasted awesome with the fiery dipping sauce and the sticky rice.

We totally have to go here again! There's so many things I want to try on their menu!

Romesco

[Man, I'm finally posting this after two weeks! It's actually 12/10!]

After watching "Twilight" for the 3rd time, my friend and I ate here...

Romesco's is on Bonita Road and opened up about 2 years ago and used to be the site of Tomatoes Plus. It's right next to Baskin Robbins and McD's. Yeah, classy. But seriously, this is a classy restaurant. They serve a lot of unusual items that you won't find elsewhere. It's a bit on the pricey side though. (click photos for larger view of menu items)

(click photos for larger view of menu items)

We chose to sit in the back room where there were no crowds or drafts from the front door. When you walk in, it's narrow with booths lining the right side. There were a lot of people there and we (okay, I!!!) didn't want to sit near a bunch of old white farts.

The bar area in the back room where we sat.

The bread - crusty French baguette with butter:

Fried Calamari appetizer with marinara sauce and spicy aioli:

My friend ordered the Paella. This had everything! Shrimp, squid, mussels, clams, baby octopus, chicken and a pork rib! This was a lot for just one person. I'm sure it was meant to be shared, unless you are a sumo wrestler.

Here's one of the baby octopi...cute little thing!

This was my entree - The Slow Cooked Beef Short Rib with braised fennel, Cabernet sauce sitting atop a bed of Yukon Gold mashed potatoes with a side of glazed carrots.

This was so delicious! Because I was full from the bread and calamari earlier, I only ate about one half. The meat was so soft!!!

Our dessert was Warm Apple, Pear and Berry Cobbler with Tahitian Vanilla Bean ice cream with homemade caramel sauce. I'm not a fan of mixing hot anything with cold. I hate having ice cream melt with pie. So, I'm not an a la mode kind of girl. But that crust was really flaky though! Yum! I'd rather eat crust on pies that the filling.

"Twilight" the movie

Okay, I saw it...for the first time.

I'll be posting my review later this week since I'm seeing it again with different people this weekend.

All I can say is, if you haven't read the book, you'd be wondering, "WTF!!!"

The movie is not the book.

The book is not the movie.

I think the producers and director did a decent job with the measly budget that they had.

What was lacking - Good special effects. In fact, they were kind of cheesy. The "sparkle" effect was underwhelming.

What was great - the acting by the leads. Rob Pattinson played tortured and angst ridden vampire to a "T". Kirsten Stewart's intense and obsessive love was captured quite well. The lush, green scenery along with the desaturated tones of the Pacific Northwest were also beautiful. The wierd camera angles. The music.

I liked the movie and am looking forward to seeing it again to catch the other details.

Say It...Out Loud...Say It!

Scene (a heavily wooded forest in Forks, Washington)

Edward: "Say it...out loud...say it."

pause...

Bella: "Vampire."

OMG! OMFG! (insert high pitched fangirl screaming here, kidding). After months of waiting to see this (potentially cheesy but who cares, I'll still see it) vampire romance flick, I'll be seeing the film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's best selling novel "Twilight" tomorrow morning with my GBF (gay boyfriend). He's just as excited as me!!! We'll probably be one of the oldest people there (cough, late 30's)! Yeah, no midnight showing. I'm not that crazy to brave through the throngs of screaming teens/tweens and their moms. I hope they don't scream in the theatre everytime they see Rob Pattinson's character, Edward Cullen (or any of the other characters, who are all pretty much good looking, which doesn't hurt!). I want to enjoy the movie, dammit. But seriously, I'm watching this more than once anyways! Fk what everyone else says! Hey, I'm not embarassed!

Crab Hut

Today Bert and I had planned to have lunch at Sab e Lee which we visited last month (post is here). Unfortunately, the place was CLOSED. There was a sign that specifically said, "We will be closed on 11/17/08! Just our luck. And I was SO craving that Northeastern style Thai sausage and the Nam Tohk too! : (

Instead we drove down Convoy trying to pick a spot we hadn't tried yet. We decided on Crab Hut. It was either that or Kabul Market, but we wanted Crab Hut more. Here's a few reviews of Crab Hut from Yelp and Mmm-Yoso. Crab Hut is located in this tiny strip mall - the one with Morning Glory (like a Korean Sanrio, but I think the Sanrio stuff is much cuter), Tofu House and Yogurt World. This parking lot is pretty bad with tight spaces and people who don't like parking within the lines, but we were able to find parking since it was way after lunch (around 2'ish).

Crab Hut opened last year and is owned by Vietnamese; they specialize in Cajun style seafood. Nice Sharpie rendition of the Heineken bottle. The crab drawing reminds me of Mr. Crabs from SpongeBob.

The inner decor was a nautical theme with twinkly lights, fish nets, fake birds, ornaments hanging from ropes, and butcher paper covered tables. You know, they don't really have to wash dishes here or even utensils since you eat with your hands. I think our daughter woud love this place since she's a"hands on" kind of girl.

More of the shipwreck type decor:

Our server was a young Asian guy (maybe college age) with funky anime character hair. It was bleached blonde in parts (but since he's Asian, blonde ends up being orange), spiked and arftfully coiffed. He was very helpful in helping us decide on our sauces and level of spiciness. The menu below is a little hard to read, but the sauce flavors included: Cajun, Lemon Pepper, Garlic Butter, Old Bay, Plain and Full House Full House is all of the sauces combined - kind of like a "suicide" as in "suicide Slurpee". Rememer those?

I wanted the Crawfish which was going for $6.99 lb for frozen. They were out of fresh. I thought a pound would be too much. It turned out to be just right, but I could have eaten more.

To start off, we had the Cajun fries ($4.00) which had a nice kick to it (you could see the powder), plus some tartar sauce on the side. Towards the end of our lunch, we ended up polishing off the fries, using it to soak up the sauce juices from our crawfish and crab!

These fries were probably frozen, but they sure tasted good! Man, I just noticed how ugly the nailpolish looks on my thumb. All chipped. The color by the way is not black. It's "The Deepest of Violets" (a thick matte eggplant shade) by Sally Hansen Salon. It's a dark dark dark purple.

We were both provided with these fashionable bibsters (see Bert below). Put it this way - don't come to Crab Hut in your nice clothes. Wear your thrasher clothes or clothes you wouldn't mind getting seafood splats on. Wait a minute, that sounded gross. Splats. After snacking on a few fries, our orders came out in plastic bags. I like that you don't need plates here. This was my entree - the (frozen) pound of crawfish with 1/2 of a corn cob (I think they should give you a whole corn cob!) and 2 or 3 slices of sausage. The sauce I requested was "Full House" (why not!) with Medium spiciness. I wanted to enjoy the food and not have it too spicy and regret it later.

Awww...look at that beady eyed little crawfish..about to be eaten! Yikes - it's the return of my yucky nailpolish. I ended up redoing it later that night. You could see that it's grown out too. About my dish - I would have preferred the fresh crawfish, but I settled for the frozen. It wasn't too bad. The sauce was very garlicky. It was the "suicide" saucen which our waiter recommended as a customer favorite, so it had a little too much going on. If I ever go again, I would pick a single sauce so the food wouldn't be overpowered by it.

Bert ordered the Snow Crab Legs ($14.99 market price) with Garlic Butter and Medium spiciness. I liked his sauce, but I didn't think it was spicy enough.

My husband gave me a few of his crab legs, which were nice and meaty (hnmmm..the word meaty reminds me of the Who album title "Meaty Beaty Big & Bouncy!" )! The meat came out in nice big pieces and practically dripped butter! Yum! I liked my husband's food better than mine because he ended up with bigger pieces of meat. With my crawfish, you "suck the head and pinch the tail" but something about my technique did not compute. Sometimes, when pinching the tail, I broke off the meat and it didn't come out in one nice piece. The tiny piece of meat you end up with just way too much work for all that effort. Next time, it's going to be crab for me!

Bert was given shears, a crab claw cracker, a mini container with salt & pepper and sliced limes. I used the limes to make my hands smel better too. Then, I ended up washing them with soap and water before we left.

I've experienced first hand that there is not neat way to eat gracefully in tis type of restaurant. You peel or crack your seafood shells and the juice splatter on everything. Some of it gone on my glasses too. It was a bit difficult trying to take photos with sauce dripping from my fingers also. I had to utilize the paper towels quite a bit. There are paper towels on every table. Our paper towel rolls were almost depleted before we started eating, and by the time we were actually finished, this was the tragic result:

Here's an overhead shot of the shell carnage:

I love how my camera's "food setting" supersaturates the colors. Crab legs - good! Crawfish were okay but I am definitely going to try crab next time. More meat!

So although we didn't eat at Sab e Lee today, we were able to try something new. I think that will be my goal - for me and Bert to try one new place a week. I am still taking time off work so I have until the end of December to try new places before my time is once again occupied by work.

Broken Yolk Cafe - Eastlake

Earlier today we ate at this place (see below). This is the 2nd location. The first one is on Garnet in PB where it's always busy. The Broken Yolk Cafe is in the shopping center behind Target in Eastlake. This is the same complex that has Henry's, Trader Joe's, Borders and Pier 1, like we need another Pier 1, heh. We met up with some friends of ours after dropping off our respective kids at school. Our daughter and their son are very good friends and have known each other since kindergarten. Granted, they're only in 3rd grade now, but I think it's cool that one of my daughter's best friends is a boy.
So it wasn't really crowded when we got there. It wasn't even 8 am yet. This was an absolute rarity for both me and Bert - meaning we almost NEVER eat breakfast out. Ever. Well, maybe if we're on vacation but because of all the shit that's happened this year, we didn't go on vacation this summer. Anyhow, it was so wierd being out and not eating my usual banana or cereal at home. Sorry for the yellowish picture quality - no flash, which I should've used.

Here's their paean to gluttony. Reminds me of this bar we were once at in Oakland - they had a wall of fame for all the people who've ever drank (drunk?) the equivalent of a keg. Well, not in one shot, but over the course of some timeframe, which escapes me at the moment. Thane's former roommate's boyfriend was on that wall three times! He was Asian too, which struck me as funny because most Asians can't hold their liquor. They turn red and pass out. This guy was pretty big too. I guess he could hold it pretty well.

I think this wall is a testament to the stupidity of the people who attempt to eat a bigass omelet in the hopes of getting a free meal and a t-shirt. Sorry but I don't think that having the worst dump in your life, possibly diarrhea, a distended stomach and raging heartburn, and perhaps a subsequent bout of violent vomiting is worth a free t-shirt. Ah, food fame mongers. To each their own. Ya wanna eat eggs like Joey Chestnut eats hotdogs, be my guest.

The place is pretty big inside too and there is an outside patio. There were really nice booths inside. Lots of privacy. My friend ordered the Chicken Fried Steak with Country Gravy which came with a side of eggs (she had them over easy) and hash browns. She also had a blueberry muffin to go with all this. The muffin turned out to be dry and crumbly. Not so good.

Her husband ordered the Mole Enchiladas. I should have tried some of that. It comes with a side of beans, rice, and what looks like a fried triangular piece of tortilla.

My husband got the French Toast with strawberry syrup and sausages (I ended up bogarting one sausage, then half of the other later on). I must say, that was a lot of damn bread. Bert didn't finish it all. Imagine all that bread in your gut, just soaking in all that butter and stuff. Lovely.

My breakfast wasn't as exotic as mole enchiladas. I figured if I was at the Broken Yolk Cafe, I'd get some eggs. There's a menu item called "Just Two Eggs", which you can order whatever way you want. I chose scrambled because that's how I roll. The plate comes with hashbrowns (or you could choose home fries), and an English muffin (or toast or a regular muffin). I ended up being pretty hungry because I finished my plate. Not pictured, the ketchup I used to douse my hash browns.

We had a good time having breakfast with our friends. It's not something we normally do so it was a "treat" for us to even be out. We'll probably do it again, but maybe a different place next time for fun.

In other news, "Lisa's Filipino Cuisine" (dude that shit makes me laugh) in the Eastlake Vons shopping center is now open. I passed by earlier that week and their "Coming Soon" sigh was gone and replaced with "Now Open". I gotta check that place out. I hope it's not some crappy steam table joint like every place else. If you put "Cuisine" in the restaurant title, I'd expect much more than just doing the "point-point" thang. Lisa's Cuisine is next to this BBQ place, a Hawaiian place and the WORST Vietnamese joint ever, Pho Vien Dong. I posted on that place a couple of times. Sucks ass.