so this week, hollywood hills felicity came back to LA from a nice long stay on the east coast ... celebrations all around including a trip to paco's tacos for the best mango margaritas this side of the border ... honey even managed to make a rare appearance to partake of a vegetarian super mex burrito ... seems like an oxymoron to me, but what do i know about fine dining?
all-natural chicken salad w/ chicken, celery, apple, walnut, and yogurt ... courtesy of felicity ... can't beat that w/ a bat ...
but the 4th celebrations came mainly by way of happy hour ... taste on melrose was offering extended happy-hour hours ... like 12 times longer ... so i hoofed it on over to west hollywood w/ alf, felicity, and honey ...
but yeah from open to close all weekend, $5 appetizers and $5 dollar drinks ... pizza ... fries ... pizza ... truffle mac and cheese, calamari ... shrimp cocktail ... every bargain drink on the menu ...
we basically ordered the entire happy hour menu twice and the bill still came out to something like $25/person ... good patriotic deal, if i do say so myself ...
and the fun didn't stop there ... craving a little post-cocktail dessert, we headed over to the closest sweet lady jane's ...
hazelnut cheesecake, carrot cake, red velvet cake ... yeah a little much ... which is why we barely touched it and decided to give it all to shirley ...
a fun time with old friends ...
and the trip to san diego was pretty rad ... got together with helen and eugene for a vegetarian family get-together ... new baby ... not our baby ... or their baby either ... but yeah a new baby was involved ...
so we celebrated with kim chi pancakes and veggie potstickers ... and sweet sweet corn on the cob ... many thanks to eugene's family for the hospitality ...
we relaxed our way through the rest of the 4th weekend and avoided the crazy-ness that is driving to see fireworks ... not this year, thanks ...
and honey's birthday is fast approaching ... considering that a few of us won't be in town, we decided to celebrate a few days early ... a trip to natalee thai on robertson ... we haven't been in a while ... they've long since gotten rid of the sushi bar ... i blame the economy ... but they still had the coconut juice ... hit the spot ...
we welcomed honey's old-ness w/ fried banana ice cream ...
so yesterday was gerard's b-day celebration out in redondo beach ... an all-you-can-eat brazilian meatfest combined with live nearly-naked dancing ... you don't have to tell ro twice ... he got all beyonce on their asses ... ballsy move on his part ...
but yeah, the meat-filled venue was meant to break the monotony of gerard's usual diet of dry chicken breast in a whole-wheat tortilla w/ no condiments ... yep ... gerard's on a serious health trip ... he is the bobblehead of all bobbleheads ... and while i hit the weight-loss plateau long ago, with some major slips here and there, he's busting through to sub-200 lb territory ... +/- 40 lbs lost so far ...
there's some serious envy ... i think it's pretty freakin' awesome to pull that kind of stuff off w/ a kid and a job w/ crazy hours ... and so he's put it on me to reach my health goal before i turn 30 ... 90 days ... hmm ... how will i be able to maximize my time? how about tony horton's P90X? yeah, that sounds about right ... gerard's doing it, and seeing as i don't have the responsibilities that he has, i'd be pretty damn lazy if i couldn't pull it off least as well as he is ...
so he's my thin-spiration ... now i just have to bring it ... see you in september ... happy birthday gerard ...
so shirley and i have been together 7 years now ... we know each pretty well and we're pretty comfortable around each other ... i can be a pain in the butt some(::most::)times but i'm glad she's stuck it out w/ me ... long-distance relationships aren't easy ... but everyone knows she's such a great person and that's just one of the things about her that just makes the time fly by ... so she was in town for a short time for business and we managed to get our schedules together to have a little anniversary dinner ...
we're fans of low-cost outings, so we tried to hit up the happy hour at the westwood palomino ... nope ... packed full of westwood business types ... but they did have their 'first seating' option in the dining room ... 3 courses and a drink for $25 if you're seated before 6pm ... score ... creamy mushroom soup, beef short rib w/ polenta, and tiramisu ... decent bang for your buck ...
things are happening pretty quickly for shirley professionally ... once those things fall into place, we'll see what we can do to work on the personal stuff ... i'm excited ...
love you ...
foodie destination of the evening was the oinkster in eagle rock ... home of the slow fast food ... main items on the menu - burgers, pastrami, rotisserie chicken, beer ... yeah, a pretty ecclectic mix ... an andre guerrero business, i figured we could see if the boho fiasco earlier this month was an isolated incident ...
the food was decent ... pastrami was good, fries are a big draw w/ their garlic aioli ... burgers were m'eh ... best bang for the buck still goes to carl's jr's $6 burger ... but yeah they had an upscale version of in n out's animal fries ... twice the volume for 3 times the price ... not sure how the math works out on your wallet ... and the chili on their chili fries was pretty tasteless ... so yeah, if you're the area between 3pm and 6pm, you might want to drop by for a pound of belgian fries and a pitcher of hefeweisen ... otherwise, it's an ok place but not worth the 25 miles and 45 minutes to get there from the westside ...
afterparty shenanigans at the little cave in highland park ... home to some of the bbc's most debaucherous events ... it might have gotten a little crazy w/ the girl-on-girl bottle fight ... so we made a quicker exit than usual ...
but yeah a fun time w/ richard's friend juan and a quick guest appearance by vanessa and val ...
a great weekend down near the border ... we caught the hangover ... i want to say that it's the funniest r-rated comedy of the year so far ... mainly because of the brother-in-law antics and the over-the-top, yet not-entirely-implausible story ... everyone has their crazy drunk stories ...
followed it up w/ a cheap indian buffet at india palace in hillcrest ... the best indian food lunch bang for your 11 bucks ... and peach and taro fro-yo and a cut-throat game of jenga at yog-art ...
we finished off the night with a little taste of thai ... shirley's a big fan of the coupons and when we saw a buy-one-get-one dinner deal, we jumped at the offer ... nice sit-down place ... beef skewers were off-the-chart good and their peanut sauce is not watered-down ... i feel bad having to say that, but i've been to more than a few thai places w/ thinned-out peanut sauces ... shirley got the panang curry w/ chicken ... best chicken i've ever had in thai food (we both made the "ooh" face) ... and i had drunken noodles w/ beef ... beef was just as good as the skewers, but the noodles were over-done ... a mushy-texture ... shirley 'volunteered' to take care of all of the left-overs ... like i have any say in the matter ...
and a round of drinks at urban mo's in hillcrest ... one of the gayest gay bars in san diego, the place was balls-to-wall gay ... guys kissing bouncers kissing bartenders ... not that i haven't seen that before ... well, ok, maybe not that much kissing ... but yeah they make a pretty stiff long island ... and i might have been getting a few more looks despite shirley's best sexy dress-up efforts ...
barged right in on a little guy-on-guy line dancing action ... raising money for some good cause, those guys sure know how to hoe-down ...
so the san diego county fair is starting up again ... and of course we had our own food-oriented goals in mind ... deep-fried mac-n-cheese balls, the second longest sausage i've ever seen, and huge cheapo bag of kettle corn ... we heard rumors of the zucchini weenie ... basically a weiner stuffed in a zucchini and deep-fried ... but we never did encounter that beast ... deep-fried burritos and deep-fried cheeseburgers and deep-fried snickers ... in my younger days, i would have gotten all of them ... but yeah, no ...
highlight of the day was the pie-eating contest ... though the competition was full of huge guys (muscular and not-so-muscular) ... shirley ended up in third place (first among the women) ... and i edged out the competition to take first with a slice of chocolate cream pie ... i'm not sure i've ever been more proud to inhale pie through my nose ...
we checked out the livestock and petting some cows and sheep ... shirley was going to try her luck w/ the llamas, but i'm not sure they were a fan of her ultra-shiny shirt and they freaked out a little ... it's ok ... we'd like to go through a whole day w/o getting animal drool on us ...
and we stayed in to watch the lakers win the championship over some sushi ... go lakers ... though i wish we would have won it in LA ...
great weekend w/ shirley ... back to work now ... nothing to see here ...
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