Off the Market

As of a couple weeks ago, I'm officially off the market!

It's kind of weird really.  At the start of this blog, I was married to my first husband and then over the course of events, got a divorce and then chronicled a lot of what was going on in my life, but especially my dating life!  I wonder if that means the next step will be my married life?  Seems like the next step...

Either way, my boyfriend, ISTJ, better known now as Jason (yes, the same as my first husband) asked me to be his wife!  And as my friend Edward said... I took the "very old-fashioned" route and said, "Yes!"

The Boyfriend becomes the Fiance
On July 8th, we went out for lunch after church and then Jason drove past my exit (for the third time this week! We had a couple "false alarms" earlier in the week, but third time is the charm or so they say).  Luckily, this time, it didn't involve Mulholland Drive!

Instead, we drove up to the Getty Center.

It was a beautifully gorgeous day with the perfect LA weather!  The kind that makes you never want to leave LA! We went up to the top floor of the South Pavilion, which has an awesome view of the Los Angeles.  There, Jason pointed out the various places around LA where we'd gone during our relationship, including Manhattan Beach, where we had a very long, tense walk just a couple months into our relationship, during which I came this close to breaking it off with him, but then didn't.  Divine intervention?*

After recounting our various escapades around the city, the trips, the restaurants, the activities, he started with all the mushy stuff about how much he loved me (and many other sweet things that will remain private).  He then got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.  I didn't have the heart to crack a silly joke.  So instead, I said, "Yes!"

Here's a snapshot of the ring... I picked it out a few weeks beforehand, so I knew the proposal was imminent.  We decided to go the non-traditional route ring-wise.  It also has a matching necklace, but I haven't taken a good picture of that yet, but I love it just as much as the ring.

The non-traditional engagement ring designed by Symmetry (Greek designer)...
18K white gold, custom made with two raw diamonds, two blue sapphires and one pink sapphire

The Aftermath
Then we sent emails, texts, made calls to all the appropriate people.  It was his parents anniversary, so that should make it easy to remember!

The After-Aftermath (aka: the Emotional Aftermath)
It's been weird.  But in a really good way.  I eloped the first time I got married, so the total time between "engagement" and "marriage" was about four hours.  This time, it's gonna be a whopping 2 1/2 months!  Since the first part of the engagement was consumed with my Jeopardy! obsession, I can now relax and focus on the wedding itself, which should be relatively simple and easy to plan.  Mostly because I'm not a girly girl, so I have no big "wedding" dreams that need to be fulfilled.

Emotionally, I've been feeling closer to him every day.  My day in the Jeopardy! studios was super-intense and he was there for me and so supportive in every way, which I completely appreciate.  I'm in awe of his support and caring for me.  It's a little unreal sometimes.  Sad to say, but I haven't had very many people in my life that I feel like I can count on like I can count on him.  My goal is to be the same for him.  Someone he can depend on to be his friend, confidante and lover.  I don't think that will be too difficult.

All of this just serves as a daily confirmation that I made the right choice in saying yes!

An "after" pic with our beloved Los Angeles in the background:

Jason & Steph in the South Pavilion of the Getty Center

Looking forward to many more adventures!!

* Turns out I had a "love language" I didn't even realize I had!  Acts of service!  So, we were fighting over the dishes, but really I was feeling unloved because he wasn't helping me.  Luckily, we got it ironed out...

Moving to a non-LA way of life

ISTJ (the aforementioned boyfriend) and I have been having lots of talks about our future over the last six months.  One of the recurring themes has been whether we will stay in Los Angeles or move elsewhere.  The top choices seem to be:


Nashville - His parents will be returning to Nashville in 2014, after completing their 14 year (by that point) mission trip to Venezuela.  They'll be moving into their home that they've rented out all these years after a bit of renovation/updating.  This, of course, makes Nashville a natural choice.

We'd have grandparents living locally, so that would be a great help and make it a lot easier for the grandparents to see the grandkid(s).  Additionally, the cost of living is much more affordable, so it would put less stress on us financially to live a modest lifestyle allowing me to stay home to care for the babes.  We'd definitely get more bang for our buck, real-estately speaking... >We would be within driving distance to many of the game conventions I love in the Southeast, which would make attending more affordable, if we could talk the grandparents into babysitting for a weekend every now and then!

The potential downsides:  heat, humidity, making new friends (although I do know a handful of people there, but not that well), not being near an ocean, having a small-ish airport, not having 24 hour everything at my beck and call.  Although, truth be told, it's fairly rare I need a grocery store at 2 AM, but when I have, I really have.


San Francisco - His job is in tech, so a natural choice.  It's beautiful, cosmopolitan, the weather is aaaaawwwesome!  How can you not love San Francisco filled with all its water and love?  I love this town.

The potential downsides:  It's really expensive to live here, which would make the whole staying-at-home-thing a lot tougher.  Also, no family and only a few friends, so probably no support if we needed it for kid stuffs.


In a distant third...
Atlanta - My mom lives here, so we'd have family support.  He doesn't love the city, but I know TONS of people, so friends would be the easy part.  It's less expensive than LA, but more spread out so more danger of getting pigeon-holed in a weird little suburb somewhere and end up not close to anybody.

The potential downsides:  heat, humidity, traffic, expensive real estate depending on the area we'd want to live in...

And of course, the
Staying in LA option - The weather is pretty awesome, we already have friends (although, they're not too kid-friendly for the most part), we know what we're in for, my rent is crazy reasonable because I'm the on-site manager.  It's only $950/month for a good sized one bedroom in a decent and convenient part of town.  We both have jobs, the beach is nearby, we have the world at the tips of our SPG Amex at LAX.


No decisions have been made, or probably WILL be made for at least a year or two, but just putting all this down as a kind of note to myself.

After having spent the last few days in Dunwoody (suburb of Atlanta) with my mom, it's been so nice to go to Costco and not wait in a HUGE line or sit in traffic while just trying to get in a parking lot.  The less dense population is kind of nice.  I feel like I have room to breathe!

Check out this lack of a line at 4:50 PM on a Tuesday afternoon!

I'll have to update this as more options/thoughts come up as to if or where we'd move, but these are the main options at the moment.

Envelope System: Halfway through December 2008

I decided to make December my "test" month for trying out the envelope system. I put $150 in my Groceries envelope and $200 in my Eating Out envelope. We're now a little more than halfway through the month and here's how it's looking so far...

Groceries
I've spent $104.62 on groceries so far, of which $14 was for vanilla extract that will probably last me for the next two years and $7 was for pure entertainment of friends (some chips and dip). It's gonna be tough to stick to this and I may have just allocated too little to this envelope. Especially with cooking Christmas Eve dinner and co-hosting a New Year's Eve party. I only have $45.38 left and the standing rib roast I want to make will likely take up $25 of that even with the meat on sale this week. Hmmm... Maybe if I can spend less in the eating out department... How's that looking?

Eating Out
Tonight was my major outing for the month, an annual Christmastime tradition of eating $18 AMAZING grilled cheese sandwiches at Campanile. Add wine, cheese as dessert and a mandatory gratuity for a large party (not that they don't deserve it because the service at Campanile is excellent!) and you've got yourself a $50 dinner. I am proud of myself for not falling into the valet trap. I found street parking for free, a block away, while everyone else paid $6.50 plus tip for valet parking. I will gladly walk two blocks to save $8 dollars for nothing. I had planned on spending up to $60, so I am happy that it was only $50.

Back to the progress report... I've spent $104.86, so I'm on track to be OK for the month if I don't go crazy. I've been invited out for drinks tomorrow night with one group of friends and dinner with another... I might have to skip one or both if I want to have leftover money to put towards extra groceries and party supplies.

Overall
I'm happy with the budgeting. I've been taking some ribbing from friends, but I can take it. It's my money and sure, I might look cheap sometimes, but at least I am in control of what I'm spending and more importantly, I'm consciously spending my money. The envelopes definitely help with this because seeing the money in the envelope and writing down on the outside of the envelope exactly how much I spent helps me keep an eye on it. I've also been enjoying cooking more at home. It makes me feel more productive. It's a nice feeling.

City Race LA

I'm getting excited about City Race LA!! It's this Saturday and I'm signed up to run around with Chia, Travis and Ron! I have no idea if we'll win, but I'm ready to have some fun! I'll have a full report this weekend! I'm a little concerned because it's taking place in downtown LA and I'm not quite familiar with the area...

According to the website, we'll get a packet of clues that range from very easy to very difficult, along with a list of scavenger hunt items. The team that finishes in the three hour time frame with the highest score wins!

Day 3: Saturday

We met up with some friends for a BBQ lunch on Saturday. Davebo brought his kids and I sat near the kids' end of the table and fielded questions (mainly from Kate) like:

• What kind of food you would not want to have on a first date? (My answer: BBQ? but I wasn't really sure if that was a good answer. Suzie had the best answer which was spaghetti. Unfortunately, that was exactly what I had eaten the night before when we stopped at the House of Pies, so not sure if I looked messy or not...)
  
• What kind of food would you want to have on a first date? (My answer: sushi! All the kids agreed that sushi was a good answer and we chatted about what type of sushi we'd order...)
• What was my favorite NFL team? Was Shane upset that Brett Favre was retiring? (That one got a big "oooooooooogggh" from Shane when asked... But nooooooo, she's not upset! [sarcasm])

Those kids are so darn cute. After kissing Athens at lunch, I was teased (again, by Kate) with the "Stephanie and Athens, sittin' in a tree... K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" First of all, I haven't been teased with that particular song in about 25 years. Second of all, there apparently is an updated follow-up verse that goes "...and that's not it, that's not all, the baby's drinking alcohol!" Oh, taunted by an 8 year old... my weekend. Thou art complete.

After lunch, we headed over to the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. It was my first visit. It's nice! Reagan is the first President that I really remember and I know surprisingly little about him and his wife. It was interesting to learn more about both of them. They seemed like remarkable people. We also went on board the Air Force One that was retired in 2001. That was neat. We took a picture before boarding AF1, but it's too cheesy to give prominent blog space to... check the flickr account if you're interested.

After the library, we went to the store to pick up snacks to munch on while we were at the Hollywood Bowl for the "Bugs Bunny on Broadway" show. It was so much fun. I haven't been to the Bowl in several years. The show itself was very entertaining too. The music was great and the cartoons were classics. He had a great time too, so I was really happy about that.

Overall, it was a busy Saturday, but fun and relaxing at the same time. While at the Hollywood Bowl, we were talking about how nice the weekend had been. The thing I was most surprised (and pleased) about was that he hadn't done anything to really annoy me! Which is saying something because I can be easily annoyed.

I was sad to see him go on Sunday, but really happy that he came out to see me and that we had such a wonderful weekend together.

Boyfriend!

I'm not sure what exactly turns a "guy I'm dating" into an official "boyfriend," but I think I have one! At least I called him that and he seems to like it! :-) Things have been progressing with 42. I really like him. We have some major common interests (games, food and each other!) and goals, but we have differences too and that part we're working on to see if they can be ironed out.

The biggest problem? He lives across the country. Yes, a long distance relationship. I've been out there to visit him a couple times, we talk on the phone everyday and he's coming out to visit me in a couple weeks. He's never been to California, so I've been making a list of places to see, well, more accurately, things to eat while he's out here. So far, In-n-Out, juicy pork dumplings from Din Tai Fung, a sandwich from Tony's Deli in Burbank, Scoops and sushi are on the list... mmmm... Plus, I want to take him to the beach, have Shane meet him, cook him dinner and make pepper shooters! Somehow, I doubt we'll get all of that done, but it's good to have goals.

Point Break LIVE!

Yes, you read correctly... Point Break LIVE! If you loved the guilty pleasure that is the Patrick Swayze-Keanu Reeves summer hit of 1991, you will LOVE watching the LIVE "stage" adaptation of Point Break. We saw it on Saturday night and it was hilarious!

The best part? They choose an audience member from the audience to portray FBI Special Agent Johnny Utah who reads off of cue cards all night to capture the wooden magic of Keanu. Our Johnny Utah was awesome - Jim, an aspiring writer/comedian... The skydiving scene was SO frickin' funny. I thought we were going to die laughing.

Even if you've never seen Point Break, I'd recommend seeing this. It's completely absurd and wonderful. When I heard it was a play, I thought it'd be in a theater, but it's actually in a lounge - Charlie O's in the Alexandria Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Tickets are only $20 and it's worth every penny. I'd recommend sitting directly in front of the stage for best viewing. Beforehand, you might want to eat at Weeneez across the street. We didn't try it, but it looked good!

Guitar Hero Bar

Last week, I had two friends email me within five minutes of each other to let me know about a bar in Silverlake that features a Guitar Hero night every Wednesday at 10 PM. Do they know me or what?

Of course, I had to go check it out ASAP, which was tonight! Here's how it works. You buy a beer (no hard alcohol available), then get signed up on the blackboard they keep behind the bar to get a turn up on stage to rock out. The tricky part once you get up there is that you have to watch the notes on the opposite side of the screen from where you're standing on stage.

The guy that runs the bar and the two barbacks all took turns up on stage and it was great! They are the three bears of GH greatness... One wasn't that good (but had good stage presence), one was medium/hard good, and one just rocked the house on expert every time!

Travis and I played a few times... the first one was co-op "Can't You Hear Me Knockin'" by the Rolling Stones on expert. Then we played Freezepop's "Less Talk More Rokk" on hard, but in hyperspeed mode (code at the main menu: OBOYOBOY). Our final song was an expert pro face-off of "Sweet Child O'Mine" and I kicked his ass. I think it was the long streak that did him in. I nailed the first part of the song. It was awesome! There was one other girl that was really good and I would've loved to face-off with her. By the time I saw her play, it was crowded and the waiting list was long. If I see her there again, I'm going to throw down the ax!

This all took place at a non-signaged bar:
Hyperion Ave Tavern
1941 Hyperion Ave.
Los Angeles, CA

The pros: It has Guitar Hero! Cheap drinks ($4 beers, $2 non-alcoholic beverages), friendly crowd
The cons: No hard alcohol, it gets crowded around 11 PM.

I'm going to post a MyPC event and see if they'll open early for us!


Eugene and Erin rocking out!



Here is the kick ass bartender Eric who is playing with his homemade controller! It has extra fret dividers on the neck and when you press the string to the fret thing, it closes the circuit and makes the button activate. The strum bar barely sticks out past the strings, so you need a pick to strum this guitar. It's awesome!



Here are a couple of pictures of Grant's homemade wireless controller:







Here's a picture of Eric's more decorated homemade Guitar Hero controller and me using Grant's!!





Update 6/7/07
I went to the GH bar last night and saw Grant. He and Eric are thinking about starting to take orders for the converted guitar controllers. I told him that I'd put an order in. He said that he's not sure how much he'd charge. I told him to make sure he charges enough to cover his costs and make some money at it. It takes a couple weeks to make one. For materials, he has to buy a controller which costs $50 and then the guitar, which probably costs a bunch too. Adding in labor, etc. and the whole thing could get pretty pricy. Buying one would probably be worth it for me. Even if I knew how to do it step-by-step, I'd never actually do it.

If you're interested in finding out more about ordering one, leave a comment!

Working on the resolutions

I've already been working on my resolutions. I didn't have anyone over tonight and therefore got some stuff done around the house and did a couple errands I put off last week because I was so busy! I returned some ornaments I bought but didn't use and I went to exchange one of the two copies of the new Barefoot Contessa cookbook I received for Christmas. I picked out a Korean cookbook that looks good and a copy of the 2007 Zagat Survey for Los Angeles. If I'm going to be eating out at least one new restaurant a month, I'm going to make sure it's a damn good one.

Speaking of... On New Year's Eve morning, we went to Din Tai Fung for breakfast. They serve soup dumplings. In short, it was amazing. Everything we had was wonderful!! I can't wait to take my sister there the next time she visits because she loves dumplings.

I'd highly recommend the following dishes:

• Juicy pork dumplings
• Soup dumplings - only served on weekends
• Appetizer - That's what it's called, it's shredded tofu and bean sprouts. Very tasty!
• Pork fried pan noodles - similar to chow mein
• Sesame buns - if you like sweet, warm sesame buns
• Vegetable dishes - We didn't order one, but someone else at our table did and it looked so good. I think they have only a few veggies each day. I'd recommend trying those. I am going to next time.
  

If you're planning on going (and trust me when I say it's worth the drive and getting up early on a weekend morning) and you don't want to wait for 45 minutes - 1 hour, I'd recommend getting there by 10:15 AM on weekends. They open at 10:30 AM and we got there around 10:20 AM and we were the last people seated inside. Unlike dim sum restaurants, their dining room is very limited.

After you sit down, you write down your order on the sheet (kind of like a sushi restaurant) and they start bringing it out ASAP. The waitresses spoke English, so they were able to make recommendations and answer all of our questions. Once you're done eating and paying, if you don't vacate your seat relatively quickly, they will *subtly* nudge you out. After all, they have a line of people clamoring to get in and eat some dumplings! Don't take it personally, it's just the way the restaurant works.

You can expect to spend between $15-20 depending on how much you order. Afterwards, we hit up a boba shop in the next shopping center that had a smiley face on the yellow glass for its logo. I'd highly recommend that place too. It took about 5 minutes for them to make our boba though, which to me, seemed like a long time.

Din Tai Fung
1108 S. Baldwin Ave.
Arcadia, CA 91007
(626) 574-7068

Hours:
M-F Lunch 11:00 AM - 2:30 PM Dinner 5:00 PM - 9:30 PM
Sat Lunch 10:30 AM - 2:30 PM Dinner 5:00 PM - 9:30 PM
Sun Lunch 10:30 AM - 2:30 PM Dinner 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM

New Restaurants for 2007

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to eat at one new restaurant a month. I might've set my goals a bit too low! Acquiring the Zagat guide has really upped the awareness of new restaurants all over the city. Plus, I have lots of friends that like to eat! Some of these restaurants may warrant a full review and if so, I'll link to my review for ease of reference. If not, I'll try to refer to a website or review elsewhere online.

1. John O'Groats - 1/6/07. A breakfast/lunch diner with good food and quick service. Their bacon is yummy and they have all kinds of different waffles/pancakes. The French fries were delicious!
   
2. Kansas City BBQ Company - 1/7/07. A hole-in-the-wall BBQ joint new to NoHo. Be warned: the ribs are OK, but sauce is spicy! I love spicy, so it's OK for me, but not for people with delicate palates. Their sweet potato fries are delicious! Cole slaw a bit too creamy for me and the potato salad was a bit sweet. I think it has relish in it.
3. Gorikee - 1/10/07. Full review with photos to come! Really good food, reasonable prices. They have a happy hour dinner special. If you're seated between 5-6 PM (weekdays only?), you get the entree as well as soup, salad and dessert! Service was a bit laid back, decor is nice, but minimal.
   
4. Blue Hen Restaurant - 1/18/07. They serve Vietnamese food made with all organic chicken. The consensus was the tumeric fries and jasmine green tea are phenomenal. The food is pretty good, but not excellent. The service was pretty attentive and good. They tacked on an automatic 20% tip for having 6 people. I ordered the BH sandwich and it was pretty tasty. Bottom line: It's good and it's cute. I'd totally go back.
5. Caioti Pizza - 1/20/07. Dawn, Evan & I went to check out this California-style pizza in this cute little (about 10 tables) pizza shop. They serve thin crust pizzas. The dough was pretty good and I'm not usually a crust eater. We also ordered the "The Salad" and it was good, but the Italian vinaigrette was a bit sweet. Service was good.
   
6. Pink's Hot Dogs - 1/23/07. Stopped by after watching a revival of Gone with the Wind at the New Beverly Cinema. We ordered a couple chili cheese dogs, a "Lord of the Rings" dog and a Polish sausage dog with fries. Good! Normally, there's at least an hour wait, but at 12:30 AM on a Tuesday morning, the wait was less than 10 minutes. It was good, but I could never imagine myself waiting an hour to order a hot dog.
7. Baker's Burgers in Victorville - 1/25/07. Fast food joint with good food.
8. Bellagio Buffet - 1/26/07. Breakfast is $14.99
9. Burger Bar in Mandalay Bay - 1/26/07. Owned by Hubert Keller - the burgers are out of this world!!!
   
10. Blueberry Hill - 1/27/07. A really good 24 hour diner in Las Vegas. They make their desserts fresh everyday. The chocolate cake was out of this world.
    
11. Viva Mercado - 1/27/07. Good Mexican food (and salsa) in Las Vegas. Be warned, portions are huge, split a meal with a friend!
    
12. Sushizo - 2/2/07. New sushi place in L.A. and the food is divine and prices are reasonable. Best pieces of the omakase were: toro, yellowtail and butterfish. The shot of yuzu at the end was a rare treat too!
    
13. Chinese Deli - 2/7/07. The Chinese food place around the corner from my apt. and the food is delicious!!
14. Eegee's - 2/9/07. Fast food favorite of Tucson. They have those slushy/icee type drinks there.
    
15. Las Margaritas - 2/9/07. Mexican restaurant in Tucson. I had the "Tacos de la Casa" which are yummy tacos with beef and potato. Plus, they have choco-tacos!
    
16. Lo Lo's Chicken and Waffles - 2/10/07. Grandson of Mrs. White, he's taken her recipe for chicken and combined it with waffles a la Roscoe's.
17. Carnival - 3/9/07. Seth took me to this Lebanese restaurant and it was pretty good. You definitely want to go as early as possible though to avoid the wait!
    
18. Trattoria Farfalla - 3/21/07. Excellent food. I had the spinace, olivo, penne pasta and it was delicious. The sauce on the gnocchi was outstanding. Service was good. My only complaint about it is that it's a bit noisy inside and crowded. Also, unless the parking gods are smiling on you, you'll probably have to valet.
19. Asia de Cuba - 4/23/07. A deliciously modern restaurant located in the Mondrian on Sunset. I would highly recommend the lobster mash, plantain fried rice with avocado salad, calamari salad, char sui short ribs and the butterfish. It's pricy though. For seven people, we ordered four appetizers, five entrees and one dessert. Plus alcohol, tax and tip, it was about $85 pp. The unexpected part? $15 for the valet (and that's with validation!).
    
20. Jack Stack BBQ - 5/4/07. For a full review, see here.
    
21. Stroud's Restaurant - 5/5/07. For a full review, see here.
    
22. Scoops - 5/12/07. Check this post out for a description of my first visit to have bacon caramel ice cream!
    
23. Mozza - 5/28/07. This is Mario Batali's new restaurant. I took some pictures of the pizzas, but don't have them posted just yet. I had the oregano salame, mozzarella, tomato & fresno chiles pizza and it was a favorite of everyone at the table. I also really liked the gorgonzola dulce & fingerling potato pizza. All of the pizzas we ordered were good, the crust was super-thin, and the service was good too. I'd highly recommend reservations, probably at least a couple weeks in advance. We made our reservation about a month in advance.
24. Frida Mexican Restaurant - 6/7/07. Went here with eHarmony date #7. Located in Beverly Hills, it's set on this street full of eateries. Great for people watching! If you want to make sure you get a table without a wait, make a reservation. The lobster tacos were delicious and the other food was good too. I don't think it's necessarily worth the price though. There are just too many good Mexican places for way less money to justify spending close to $120 on 4 margaritas, an appetizer and two entrees.
    
25. Mother's Tavern - 6/8/07, San Luis Obispo, CA. We jump started Shane's birthday weekend here. The Caesar salad was nice and tangy. I had the ribeye sandwich and Shane had the red-headed step-child pasta, which I enjoyed more than she did. The vibe of this bar is pretty good and the bartenders were cute!
    
26. F. McLintock's - 6/9/07, Paso Robles, CA. Originally, we had reservations for Artisan, but after waiting 45 minutes past our reservation time, we walked down the street and had a blast at this more casual establishment. Food was good! I realized that I think I may enjoy the NY strip steak better than ribeyes!
    
27. Zia Cafe - 6/10/07, Santa Barbara, CA. We stopped here on the way back to L.A. and it was so-so at best. My carne asada tacos were edible, but not great. The meat was cut up into too big of pieces for me. They were like chunks of meat. The corn tamales were actually pretty good. I don't need to go there again.
    
28. Las Fuentes - 6/13/07. The molcajete salsa was delicious at just the right heat level and the carnitas taco was SOOOO good. There's enough meat for two tacos, so I split my taco into two of them (they give you two tortillas). The carne asada was OK, but again, the meat was cut into pieces that were too big. The guacamole was surprisingly good too. The color is a little pale, but the flavor isn't too bad. I would recommend this place!
29. 94th Aero Squadron - 7/6/07. Went there for date #5.4. The great thing is that you're right by the Van Nuys airport airstrip so you get to watch planes taking off and landing all dinner. The bad? The food was just so-so. However, the service was pretty good. Maybe just my particular dish wasn't that great. It was overly salty! And I love salt!
30. Providence - 7/29/07. It lived up to my expectations. After reading on their website that Gourmet magazine has them listed as one of America's top 50 restaurants... this dinner was amazing! I ordered the sea bass, but in reality, the other dishes I had were more amazing. Some of the highlights were salt and pepper ice cream, the king crab appetizer, a shot of chilled melon soup topped with a lemon emulsification and a teeny bit of olive oil... actually, all of it was great. I could basically list everything I had. Let's see if this link to the photostream will work.
31. Johnnie's Pastrami Restaurant - 7/30/07. This place has pretty yummy pastrami. And a price tag to go with it. But I do have to say that I think this tastes better to me than the Hat. I still hold that one of the best pastrami sandwiches (not a dip though) is at Dino's in Burbank.
    
32. Mama D's Italian - 8/6/07. The calamari was delicious and the fra diavolo was spicy, garlicky goodness. I would highly recommend this place, but be forewarned, it gets crowded!!!
33. Bossa Nova - 8/26/07. Brazilian food that was fairly good & reasonably priced. Went there at the suggestion of my French teacher!
34. Rock'n Fish - 8/30/07. Yummy food, steps from the Manhattan Beach pier. You can't get a better location. Food was pretty good too.
    
35. Valentino - 8/30/07. Excellent food, excellent wine list, excellent service. I'm not sure you can get better than this in Los Angeles for Italian...
36. C & O Cucina - 9/3/07. Delicious garlic knots and huge portions of pretty good pasta! I'd highly recommend this place.
37. The Crepevine - 9/5/07. I'd been wanting to try this place since it opened a few years ago. I'm not a huge crepe fan, but I liked the other stuff on the menu. The mac & cheese was pretty good, the apple walnut salad with blue cheese was awesome. I'd go back just for that. I was surprised by my French dip sandwich, which looked more like a panini than a sandwich made for dipping. They only serve wine and beer though, no hard alcohol. They had a guitarist playing music and it was great! He played regular mellow mood music, but then started in with mellow Metallica and Britney! It was awesome!
    
38. El Patron - 10/23/07. I went here on a date. The service was SUPER fast, beans and rice were actually decent, but I really liked the chips and salsa! The salsa was spicy and really good.
39. 
    

Amazing Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

I went out to dinner tonight with a group of friends to Campanile in Los Angeles. It was my first time there. Their food is delicious! On Thursday nights, they do grilled cheese sandwiches in all varieties. I had the Reuben on country white bread ('cause I don't do rye bread). They use La Brea Bakery bread and mmmmm... it was heavenly!! The service was adequate, nothing really to write home about. I had a good glass of champagne and a pretty decent Long Island ice tea. It's been a while since I've gone out for a dinner like this and it ended up costing $67 including alcohol, food, tip and valet.

Here are pictures of all our sandwiches...


My Reuben on Country White (not rye)



Hanger Steak with Wild Mushrooms



Grilled Turkey, Cranberry, Cheese sandwich



Gorgonzola Dulce with honey and walnuts



Grilled Cheese with Cured Meats and a Fried Egg on top


Cheese platter for "Dessert"


Then, we went out to Simon LA for dessert. It's located on the bottom floor of the Sofitel Hotel on Bevery Blvd. To start, we ordered a couple side dishes: macaroni and cheese gratin and truffle mashed potatos. Both were just so-so to me. A couple other people in the group kind of liked the mac & cheese, but I wasn't super crazy about it.

For dessert, we ordered the junk food platter which included: vanilla bean milkshake, Rice Krispie treats (regular and cocoa flavored), fresh pink cotton candy, a peppermint sundae, melon sorbet, bag of cookies (chocolate chunk, oatmeal cranberry and peanut butter), caramel popcorn with peanuts, homemade Hostess cupcakes, and homemade Snowballs. My favorite item on the dessert platter was the vanilla bean milkshake. The second best was the cotton candy and I'm not a huge cotton candy fan!



As if that wasn't enough, we also ordered grilled donuts served with a cup of melted chocolate for dipping.



The one thing that was pretty good was our server. He was pretty attentive, but the best part is when I inquired about our leftover desserts to be sure none of them had nuts, he got us all new desserts that had definitely NOT been in contact with nuts to take home. His girlfriend has a peanut allergy, so he is very aware and sensitive to the seriousness of that allergy. He was very gracious and gave us extra cotton candy for somebody's breakfast tomorrow!

Bottom Line: I would gladly go back to Campanile for the food. However, I wasn't overly impressed with anything at Simon LA, so I doubt I'll make the trek back there. I'm glad I went once to at least try the desserts and a couple side dishes, but I don't know if I'd want to go back and spend $50 on an entree.