“That’s my favorite,” said the barista when I asked for the lemon cupcake–and I can see why. Doan’s Bakery in Woodland Hills offers a variety of pastries, both for breakfast and for dessert. Honestly, it was hard to limit myself to a couple of choices. The cupcake was delicious, and so was the raspberry muffin. Oh, and they make a mean cappuccino, too.
Tragic Sandwich
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Blue Dog Beer Tavern
My friend A and I took a lunchtime break from New Motherhood and stopped in at Blue Dog Beer Tavern. Since both of us were driving, neither one of us was drinking, but the beer selection does look interesting. Another time, perhaps, when the teetotaling Mr. Sandwich is with me.
The food, however, was ours for the asking. A ordered the fish and chips, and I ordered a burger. The Chi Chi Burger, to be exact–a 1/3 lb. patty, topped with cheddar cheese, bacon, hash browns, and a fried egg, on a maple-crusted bun. It’s a breakfast burger that works. Delicious–and it encourages me to try other items on the menu. The Maui Mama and the Texas Squealer caught my eye as well. Oh, and the fries were excellent.
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Waffling
Yesterday was Baguette’s first morning in day care. It was a success, and I wasn’t really worried, but there was a bit of separation anxiety. Mine, naturally.
Fortunately, I had scheduled brunch with a friend. We decided to try out CiCi’s Cafe, reputed to have excellent breakfasts.
The menu is enormous; it reminded me of the menu at the Country Pancake House, one of my favorite breakfast spots when I lived in New Jersey. My friend ordered Strawberry Valentino Crepes, and I ordered The Jumbo Jet–waffle, eggs, and ham.
In the end, the crepes and the eggs were good. The ham was a bit dry, and the waffle was, well, disappointingly bland. I would go back, but I’d try some of the ingredient-packed pancakes–maybe the Say Trick or Treat, or the Aloha Pineapple. I think I’d have trouble choosing between those two.
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Bill’s Cafe
If you’re in San Jose and wondering where to have breakfast, you might want to drop in at Bill’s Cafe. Located in the charming (and expensive) neighborhood of Willow Glen, Bill’s offers up the basics and beyond.
Our table wound up with oatmeal, pancakes and eggs, and corned beef hash. I ordered the Eggs Cordon Bleu, a twist on Eggs Benedict with ham, Swiss cheese, scrambled eggs, and Hollandaise sauce, all served on a croissant. That was agreed to be the standout (lucky me!). And the coffee and fresh-squeezed juice were good, too.
But there were any number of omelettes, skillet breakfasts, and scrambles that I’d be delighted to try. It’s probably a good thing I don’t live in San Jose.
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The Written Word
I continue to work on The Confusion by Neal Stephenson. In the meantime, I also finished Emma by Jane Austen and read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson. That last one, by the way, was the weakest of its trilogy.
I’m more pleased with my discovery of Tana French. So far I’ve read In the Woods and The Likeness. While the “reveal” in each has not been much of a surprise to me, I have enjoyed the characters she created and the way in which she writes about them. Book #3 (I’ve forgotten its title) is on the way, courtesy of Amazon.com.
Additionally, I’m reading What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman. It’s based on a true story to which I have the most tenuous of connections, and I’ll discuss it in a later post. Also, I haven’t finished it yet.
After that, I’ll move on to books by Robert Crais and Linwood Barclay, both of whom are new to me. The opening pages, however, seem promising.
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A Whole Lot of Food in One Post
It’s been a long time between posts. So let’s go to the highlight reel, shall we?
Recently we were introduced to Fabrocini’s Italian Restaurant in Tarzana. Best chicken piccata I can remember.
Little Toni’s in North Hollywood has great pizza–we had Canadian bacon, meatballs, and garlic on ours. It makes me wonder why we haven’t been adding garlic as a topping all along.
Tacos Michoacan serves some awesome carne asada, and the price cannot be beat.
But the real news is that my dear friend Madame Scandal (of Tea & Scandal) came for a long weekend. As she, like the Sandwiches, loves food, I figured that a tour of Los Angeles food institutions was in order. No, we did not enroll in L.A. Trade-Tech, although I hear their cafeteria–run and staffed by the culinary arts students–is excellent.
So what did we do?
First, we had lunch at Salsa and Beer. This may not be an institution, but it’s mighty fine Mexican food, which is tough to find in Madame Scandal’s home state. Dinner, naturally, was In-n-Out. You just can’t beat a good double-double.
The next day, we packed up Baguette and headed to Hollywood. Our destination? Pink’s. Verdict? A hit. That evening we invited a few other friends over for a cookout over the wood-fired grill that Mr. Sandwich has installed in our back yard.
Saturday started off slow, but wrapped up nicely with the second L.A. Street Food Festival at the Rose Bowl. Yes, I know that’s not in L.A. But the field was the site of dozens of tables stocked by local food trucks, which have become a Twitter sensation. We ate so much, and enough time has passed, that I don’t remember all of the details. But I loved the banana pudding at Nana Queen’s, and I’ve never been a fan of banana pudding. I’d go back for more of Nana Queen’s, though. Manila Machine had good adobo, although unfortunately they had run out of lumpia. And although I didn’t spot The Grilled Cheese Truck until I was too full for anything but dessert (the concourse or mezzanine or whatever it’s called midway up the stands still seems like an odd spot), I did finally get to try Coolhaus‘s ice cream sandwiches. While I had never before imagined ice cream that includes candied bacon, I can tell you that it? Is delicious.
One suggestion to the organizers: although there is a cool factor to being on the field, the need for vendors to run food down from the trucks added to the slowness of quite a few lines–even for those of us who spent the extra $$ for VIP tickets (totally worthwhile, I might add). Why not have the event in the parking lot, like the monthly swap meet held there? You can still control access (the swap meet does), and it seems like there would be fewer delays.
On Sunday we made a trip to the Encino Farmers’ Market (who doesn’t love farmers’ markets?) in the morning, and made our way to Philippe’s in Chinatown for French dip sandwiches.
And then, sadly, on Monday Madame Scandal had to go home. Frowny face. We live too far apart.
But the eat goes on.
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Plinky
So I’ve been trying out a site called Plinky, which purports to help with writer’s block by providing prompts for blog posts.
The problem is that now I keep looking there for prompts, and have trouble coming up with something that isn’t a response to one of them. Does that mean I need more variety in my life? I’m really not sure how I’d schedule it. I mean, right now it takes me three weeks just to make a hair appointment. Not go to the hair appointment, mind you. I mean it takes me three weeks to send a text message to my stylist.
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Beach-tastic
When Mr. Sandwich and I were planning our honeymoon, I was assigned to a stressful project at work. I told him, “I’ve never really wanted the traditional beach vacation, but I really want a beach vacation. And I don’t want to cross the street to get to the beach, or take the elevator down 10 floors to get to the beach. I want to walk out the door of my room onto the beach.”
We didn’t manage to swing that for the honeymoon (although we found a great place by the beach, and liked it so much that we’ve gone back twice since), but we did stumble into that dream vacation. Some friends rent a place on the beach for a week every summer, and a couple of years ago, they invited us to join them. Imagine my delight when we found that the rental not only had a balcony that overlooked the beach, but that there wasn’t even a concrete path between the door and the sand.
So what’s your dream vacation?
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Repeat Offender
I could read Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon over and over. I know because that’s what I’m doing. I’ve read it front to back twice, and the triple storyline makes it easy to dip in and out of a particular plot.
Why Cryptonomicon? I’m not sure. There are virtually no female characters–then again, that’s never been a requirement for my reading. Is it the World War II setting? The other World War II setting? The contemporary (well, as of when it was written) treasure-hunting? One thing is certain: it’s not the math. I may have taken calculus in high school, but I am not a mathematician. It’s not that I’m bad at it, but I do lack confidence. Also interest. As I’ve learned a little more about math, I see why other people love it–but the real-world applications of higher-level math were not emphasized in the classes I took, possibly because some of those applications didn’t exist then.
But back to Cryptonomicon: while it is full of math, that’s not essential to the story (well, it is, but you can understand the story without understanding the math). It’s a rollicking good time, full of adventure, excitement, profanity, lust, good, evil, and so on. And I can’t stop reading it.