An Old Favorite

We started the day and trip up the California coast at one of my favorite sushi places, Cho Cho San! I haven't been there in so long -- it was nice to see familiar faces behind the sushi bar. Driving up I also realized that in the 10+ times I've been there, I've never been during the day!

Good thing about lunch -- we were seated right away. We had a spicy tuna hand roll, spicy tuna rice krispy, Ken's special roll and a pink lady. We wanted to keep it light since we'd be eating at various pit stops on the way to San Francisco. It was the perfect lunch.

Best Clam Chowder Ever

We spent so much time in Camarillo finding the perfect suit for Max at the Barney's outlet that we were still on the road around dinnertime. We were approaching San Luis Obispo so I asked Marcela for a restaurant recommendation since she used to visit Mason in SLO so often during college. Since it was Valentine's Day night, we didn't want to go someplace too busy and she recommended the clam chowder at Splash Cafe.

The cafe itself was very low key. It was a casual cafe/bakery known for their chocolate and chowder. We both had the clam chowder in a bowl and it was AMAZING. The soup was flavored just perfectly with fresh clams and potatoes and no bitter or clammy aftertaste at all. My favorite part was the carved out bread which was toasted with garlic butter -- so crispy and soft at the same time.

This is going to be a hard craving to fill in the future as the only two locations are in San Luis Obispo and Pismo Beach.

Edit: Just found out that select Costco stores sell their clam chowder... will definitely look for it the next time we go to Costco!

With BBQ Sauce

It's like I've joined some human race to see how much weight I can gain in one month. I've grown accustomed to our gargantuan dinners followed up by late-night dessert (or Taco Bell!) runs. This is not good. At this rate, I'll be 140lbs by springtime.

Anyways I had a non-stop day at work today so I barely had time to eat lunch. Coupled with my sickly inappetite during the daytime, I could barely finish my chicken+vegetable soup for lunch so by 5pm I was STARVING. I am slightly hypoglycemic... or at least I like to believe that is the reason for my dizzy spells and headaches when I'm hungry and not something like I'm a hungry fat kid, but anyways when 5pm rolled around today I was starving and visions of sushi and BBQ started dancing in my head.

As soon as a hush puppy creeped through my mind, there was no stopping it. We had to have dinner at Mr. Cecil's BBQ Ribs on Pico. Max had never been there and I thought tonight might be a good night to overeat.



I tried to be sensible -- we went with 1 full rack of baby back ribs and a 1/2 rack of beef ribs. On the side we had cole slaw, beans (with bacon) and a double order of hush puppies. It was the most silent dinner we've had in a while. Max was literally eating the beef ribs in disbelief -- I don't think he's ever had beef ribs as tender, juicy or flavorful.

We weren't the only ones with a feast. We brought a large beef rib bone back for Lulu and she had her way with it for a good 20 minutes.



Until it made her throw up. =/

Xooro: Premium Spanish Fritters

Tipped off by Los Angeles Magazine's top 20 LA bakeries, we decided to try Xooro in Santa Monica. The idea of a premium churro filled with various fillings including Nutella and adorned with different types of chocolate toppings seemed promising.

Unfortunately, Xooro fell short, literally. Each churro was about 5" long and instead of the hot, crispy fresh churros the web site promised, the ones we got were stale and reheated. I got an original with Nutella filling and Max got the Jordans which had Nutella filling and white chocolate on the outside. The Nutella mixed with the traditional sugar/cinnamon outside was a weird combination I could not get used to. It reminded me of the Mexican hot chocolate I had at Leonidas right before Christmas. Max's was drenched in chocolate sauce and was way too rich and sweet. At $4 a pop, we thought it was an interesting experience to try once but we probably won't be going back.

Flash Flood!

I hate a mess and this is definitely entirely messy. :(

The ceiling above my computer area started leaking in multiple spots over the last couple of days of rain. This resulted in a sleepless Thursday night and a wet and flooded corner on Friday night. Victims of this week's rain include my printer, some pictures, random boxes and a bunch of documents. My white console table is a bit water damaged and we have yet to test my Bose sub and keyboard from the latest splashes of water.

Rain, rain, go away!