LA Trip Day 2 - Thursday 12/30 Part I/I

Pasadena/LA

Intelligentsia - 55  E. Colorado, Pasadena

First stop on this lazy morning was Pasadena where I met the East-Coast twin and partner-in-crime, Lola.  After strolling the downtown area, we decompressed at Intelligentsia, a stylish but unpretentious coffee bar that specializes in some of the finest coffee there is.

                                         OMG, Intelligentsia has food too!  A trail of enticements.

This is the Ivy League of coffee bars, people. Their baristas know what they are doing.  My capp' was concentrated, hinting strongly of caramel. Heaven.

Cappuccino that tastes like love.

Pastries come from the bakeries Cake Monkey and Bottega Louie. I ordered a banana bran muffin, which coupled scrumptiously with my cappuccino. It was neither dry nor oily, and tasted a bit like green tea. The muffin was topped with a shower of oats, seeds of various kinds, and large granules of sugar.  Delicious.

Very possibly the best banana bran muffin I've ever had.

Intelligentsia also has a small lunch menu of salads and sandwiches. There are fewer than a dozen Intelligentsia locations and three of them are in LA. (Hey, what's up with that?) Anyway, the cool thing about this particular location is that it also has a wine bar in the back. The interior of this bar is gorgeous with high ceilings and wood paneling...and the noise level is low for a coffee place...unless I was too caffeinated to notice.  I don't ever recall feeling like I was in a construction zone, as I do at other coffee shops.

                  Deadly looking cookies. Glad I wasn't having one of my chocoholic episodes.

Lots of caffeine and sugar options.

Lola's green tea drink (it looks red, but that's because the cup is red). Doesn't it look refreshing?

Pasadena was getting ready for its Rose Bowl Parade in two days. Barricades had been put up along some streets, as were some port-o-potties.  Along the way, we stopped at Birdpick Tea & Herb, which features potpourri of loose leaf tea in glass containers.  

All kinds of teas at Birdpick.

Lots of fine gifts for the tea lover...or the potpourri lover!

We also stopped in both shops of the Euro Pane Bakery, on Jonathan Gold's 99 Essential Restaurants list, where we picked up some macaroons. Below is a deceptively yellowed photo of the hazelnut macs. In fact they were the color of sand with flecks in them. In the mouth, they were slightly chewy and had a distinctively hazelnut flavor--I loved them and, after one bite, declared that Euro Pane deserves the reputation it has in Pasadena, of being a local favorite.

After spending a lovely afternoon in Pasadena, I put on my heavy traffic armor and headed to LA.  It took an hour to get to West Hollywood, which is not bad for LA standards.  According to Google, the distance is only 21 miles and should take 28 minutes. But this is LA folks.  I was satisfied with my time, especially given the hellride from Ventura to Pasadena that morning.

After much agonizing over where to eat, I decided to forgo swank and go for cheap vegetarian eats. It was a very difficult decision, but not one I regret for reasons I will explore in the next post....that is, if I survive this first week back to work. Help!!! LA! Macaroons! Coffee--I need you. 

LA Trip Day 1 - Wed 12/29

Santa Barbara's Sojourner Cafe's ingredients' legend.  Legendary!

Arrived in Santa Barbara this afternoon, driving through episodes of blazing sunshine (my throat got a tan), drizzle, real rain, and gale force winds.  I put my car sun visor up and down about thirty times.  

I wanted to go to Sojourner for dinner since I had a very nice comfort-food lunch there some time ago.  Dinner was just so-so this evening.  I had their acorn squash special which was not savory enough for me, and felt too much like bird food: rice, nuts, a couple of pumpkin seeds...

I had the carob drink for dessert, and ordered black bean stew to-go since I was still hungry.  The black bean stew was better and heartier than the acorn squash.

But man, their menu with their ingredients' legend is awesome, and I'll visit them again.   

Now I am surveying the edible options in LA for tomorrow. LA is Big Time. Unlike Santa Barbara, LA is saturated and it's making me crazy. I will have to CHOOSE among M Cafe, Lucques, Real Food Daily, Mendocino Farms, Rustic Canyon, Fig, Angeli, Koo's Sweet Rice Pancake Ho-tteok Cart, Santouka Ramen, Melisse (actually they were booked), Sunnin, Daikokuya, and Square One, JUST TO NAME A FEW.

ARGHHHHHHHHH!

Christmas at Home

Here is a photo essay of what happens when you mix Japanese and American cultures during a Christian holiday.  

Mama's dinner on 12/23 (that's a slab of sake marinated black cod in the left corner, a rich, buttery item I could eat every night).

A behind-the-scenes view of the assembling of dinner.  Japanese meals include so many little dishes.

Dumplings steaming.

Random photo.  Just a cat who loves my mother,  and seems to know when dinner is being served.

Christmas present from coffee-aficionado-brother - drip coffee equipment including a bean grinder for one serving. Yay!...except, I am too lazy for this method...

Kabocha.  Eventually gets soft around the edges and carmelizes...

Christmas Day - mom's roast turkey dinner.

Cookies from Japanese cousins. A masterful Japanese adaptation of Russian tea cakes/Mexican wedding cakes (I call them Butter Bombs).   These came in three varieties: Earl Gray flavor, sesame and one more that I can't recall. They look bland, but they are sophisticated and terribly addictive.  

On Christmas Eve, I made a kale casserole and "Simply Delicious Cabbage." The cabbage was a huge hit.  (The pictures are way more yellow than reality.)

"Simply Delicious Cabbage" really is.

On Christmas Day, I made a warm cornmeal custard which was also successful, but I didn't take a photo of it.  All were recipes from Food52, that disgustingly gorgeous website. 

More treats from Japanese friends.  This is mizu-yokan, a red bean dessert that is subtly sweet and has the consistency of a firm custard.  Delicious with green tea.

Gochisoh-sama-deshita!

Christmas in San Francisco

Wednesday, December 21, 2010

For the first time since I've lived in Norcal (twelve years), I went to see the Christmas lights in San Francisco. On this Wednesday night, three days before the Big Day, the city was bustling with tourists (when is Union Square NOT bustling with tourists?!) but the mood was calm and jovial. It was a bit breezy and overcast, but mild (temps in the high 50s).  Some pictures at twilight.  

The Tree, at Union Square

The tree. It's cute, and even cuter with the lights on. So if you go, go at night.

Wreathy Macy's 

I dare not go inside, except to bypass a busy street corner to get to MUNI. The purpose of this trip was to go to Zara, my favorite store of late (there are none in the Silicon Valley), and to see the lights without getting clobbered.  Food was not a part of this trip.

Cable car bus, Christmased-up

I thought the tree at Neiman was impressive.  Classy.  Same with Union Square, in general. I had this fear that it would be grossly kitschy, like Christmas in the Park in San Jose, or my parents' neighborhood in Sacramento.  In both locations, there is EXCESSIVE lighting, and objects like blow-up Santas and reindeer strewn in the yard.  In a word, tasteless. 

Neiman Marcus

In the New Jersey suburb where I grew up, the houses were decorated in lights at Christmastime, sure.  But there never seemed a threat of fire danger or visual impairment because of too many lights, or careless decorating.  Instead, houses often had candles flickering in each window, or would have one one large pine tree in the front yard glowing in large red, green and blue bulbs like the kind in Charlie Brown Christmas. The decorations emitted a vibe of coziness inside the house. When I look at the houses in my parents' current neighborhood, glowing in gold and robin's egg blue, I think: Children's Las Vegas or neighborhood inferno.

Skating rink

Wow. So there is a skating rink in Union Square. Well, it is dinky. It is not Rockefeller Center. OMG I had to bring up New York. I just had to, didn't I.  

Well, New York it is not, but that is irrelevant here, and making comparisons of the cities, especially at Christmastime, is not fair.  Union Square is certainly charming and I will go again next December (and plenty of times before that). Next year in December, I'd love to have tea in The Rotunda. Oooh. Posh.  Include food.  There you go.