A few weekends ago, Tina took Monday and Tuesday off from work, and we decided to take a trip out to the sunny city of LA. I think it was a much-needed break for Tina, and it was great to see friends.
We arrived Friday night, and on Saturday, Tina shot a wedding with Carol while I hung out with Laura and Andrew. We had lunch at Porto's Bakery with Lawrence (sorry, no photo). Then Laura took Andrew and I to the Huntington Gardens, where we saw lots of cacti, ate strange fruit, and read the Gutenberg Bible. It was a very nice place, but it was huge and we weren't able to see it all. I think I got enough of a feel for it to know that I'd like to go back on a future trip to LA. For dinner, we ate with Tara at Musha Pasadena, a Japanese tapas bar that was quite delicious. Tara was in LA for a health care conference, so the timing was perfect! :)
Dinner with Laura and Tara at Musha.
Sunday morning, before Tara had to go back to NC, we ate at Huge Tree Pastry, which was probably my favorite meal of the trip. It was a Taiwanese breakfast full of soy milk, "oil sticks" (you tiao), flaky pastry bread? (sao bing), scallion pancakes, sweet tofu (dou hua), and my favorite: sticky rice wraps (fan tuan). I probably wrecked the English translations, but hopefully you get the point. It was delicious.
Dou hua with soymilk in the background.
Fan tuan. So tasty.
The rest of Sunday was spent at the Grammy Museum in downtown LA, followed by a meal at UMAMIcatessen, which is part of the Umami Burger chain. The burgers were ok, but I was most impressed with their home-made ketchup. And it's hard to go wrong with cheese tots.
On Monday, we started the day with a meal at Dorados Ceviche Bar, which had awesome ceviche. We don't get a lot of that in NC or Seattle, so it was a good choice for a meal. Plus I ate too many tostada chips.
The ladies at Dorados Ceviche Bar.
We then spent most of the afternoon in Santa Monica. First at the beach, then at the Promenade.
Laura and Carol playing Laura's paddle ball game at the beach. I think the record for the day was set by Laura and Tina, but I don't remember their score. We spent a lot of time playing this game. And just sitting on the beach, which was nice too.
Dinner that night was at Road to Seoul in Korea town. All-you-can-eat Korean BBQ = amazing. Plus, they had a pretty nice selection of meats to choose from. Laura and I were of course distracted by the Monday Night Football game going on in the background, but it was still good to eat with Jez and his brother Philo.
All in all, a wonderful and relaxing trip. Thanks to our wonderful friends for helping make it happen!
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