Had a gratifying weekend... finished (almost) all of my errands on my to-do list, had a lot of great food and shared it all with good people. =) Weekends like this almost reverse the ill-effects of a 60-hour work week.
On Friday, I had one of my favorite San Gabriel Valley meals -- hainan chicken rice at Savoy Kitchen. Surprisingly, the drive east was shorter and faster than I remembered. This may have been fueled by the fact that I had to pee so I was rushing M, who was driving... despite the fact that his bumpy suspension was extremely rough on my bladder.
My only mistake is that I didn't eat regularly through the day and so I developed a nasty ulcer from starving all day and binge eating/drinking in the evening. =/
After Savoy, I joined some co-workers at Saints & Sinners, a small bar on Venice Blvd. Most of the night was spent sipping on Seabreezes while watching Pasos and Kam break out their dance moves in the small space behind the bar seating. It was an interesting night -- definitely not a group at work I would have normally expected to see at a bar together. There was a lot of spontaneous dancing, lots of laughs and amusement watching Curley crushing on a random guy she thought looked like Twilight's Edward. Haha.
Oh, and I should note that this was my first time drinking a hell fire. I have no idea what was in this drink, just that it was a lit up shot dropped into some type of energy drink and smelled like bubble gum.
Surprisingly, even after staying up on the phone until 5am, I was able to wake up before 10am on Saturday and begrudgingly got ready for a day of errands. I brought Lulu out and M joined us for a day of running -my- errands. He was a good sport -- there were a lot. We went to the dog park to watch Lulu bird hunt. Then I picked up my dry cleaning and complained about the astronomical prices for dry cleaning in West LA -- even after a 30% off coupon it came to about $7.50 per item. I remember cutting out Penny Saver coupons in Cerritos to go to Continental Cleaners for $1.25 an item! Geesh.
We grabbed lunch at Good Stuff where Lulu scarfed down a bowl of steamed veggies. Then we headed to Century City to pick up my presale stuff from Bloomie's. I'm so glad I have work clothes this week. After the mall we headed down to Pet Smart so I could exchange Lulu's water fountain. The CatIt fountain was not refilling properly and the gurgling water noise started to annoy me. I bought her a new Drinkwell fountain and am so much happier with this one. It has a huge water reservoir and requires less frequent filling.
After Pet Smart I gave Lulu a quick bath at home and pacified her with a greenie before leaving for the next set of errands. We drove out to Ktown to get my lashes done.
We then headed down to Bellflower so I could show M what REAL Indonesian food is like. I looooove the fried oxtail at Toko Rame -- and that night they made it perfectly. I wish it was something I could make at home... maybe I should try. :D
After stuffing ourselves with buntut goreng, siomay bandung and nasi bungkus, we headed to Target to go walk it off. I was really good and stuck to my shopping list. It was really weird going to the Cerritos Target because I'm so used to the layout of the one on Jefferson. It was also super huge. After Target, I went to Goldilocks to buy some Ensaymada and Mamon -- mmmm. Then the perfect ending to the day -- we went to Guppy Teahouse to have some brick toast. I think the last time I had this was with Aai!
After dessert I rushed home to feed Lulu some dinner. I felt bad that we got back so late but I figured after a half day out Lulu was probably knocked out for most of the evening.
Today (Sunday) I slept in a little and woke up at around 11:30am... about a half hour after R texted me letting me know that they were headed to my apartment. We agreed to meet at 12noon so I lazied around the house until G called at 11:57 to say they arrived... and literally took 45 seconds to get dressed and let them in.
We headed to the Brentwood Farmer's Market for some tamales and empanadas... they are so good! There aren't very many food vendors at the farmer's market (mostly produce and clothes vendors) and these two stands are probably my favorite.
We took the food back to my house to eat and then left for the Getty Museum a little before 1pm. Today was the last day of the Bernini portrait sculpture exhibit so it was pretty crowded. We walked around and stalled as long as we could -- M was late. We watched the 11-minute orientation video, bought some bottled water and finally decided to just wait in line for the Bernini exhibit.
I am a big fan of Bernini's architectural work in Rome but I'd never given much attention to his sculpture work. It was amazing to see so much real-world human emotion and personality captured in such a stoic medium. It was a small exhibit but enough to witness Bernini's mastery over marble. After exploring the exhibit, we took a walk around the gardens to enjoy the scenery. That was the aim at least, unfortunately I was unable to enjoy it as much because of the abundance of railings everywhere. Even though they weren't railings against sharp drops, it was still enough to stir up uneasiness in me.
After the museum, I met up with F, an ex-rapper, at Starbucks for some coffee. I think I've discovered my Starbucks drink for the moment -- an iced soy caramel macchiato. I love that the first sip kind of tastes like Chinese soy bean milk. I had a venti-sized iced coffee because F is bad with the Starbucks size conversions -- I asked for a "medium".
After catching up over coffee, we decided to head down the street for some dinner. We settled on Osteria Latini since we both hadn't been before. I'd only seen the outside of this restaurant which looks -really- small and casual based on the two awkwardly misplaced tables on the sidewalk. The interior is actually pretty charming -- it's a bit narrow but the clean decor accented with orchids and wine bottles give it a kind of modern Italian twist.
I was really impressed with the food. The menu didn't look too appetizing at first glance... it was pretty standard Osteria fare. At first I settled on the Ravioli Aragosta but then I heard the specials for today... and all of a sudden I was debating between the pappardelle with crab and asparagus and the John Dori grilled with a shiitake mushroom sauce. As always, the John Dori won out -- one of my favorite fish. We started with the tuna carpaccio which was amazing and the beet salad which wasn't so much. :P We had the server recommend us some wines -- I ended up with a pinot noir which was actually pretty good. (And I'm not a big fan of wine) We ended the dinner with a caramelized banana topped with meringue and a blood orange sorbet. Yum.
The food was great but I think I was most impressed with the service. Everybody there had such a great attitude and was so nice. The timing of everything was perfect and the servers weren't too overbearing. The wine pairings were perfect (at least mine was) and even though the restaurant got crowded towards the end of the evening it didn't ever feel claustrophobic.
