Thursday:
- office Pie Day, celebrating Black History month, Chinese New Year, President's Day, & Valentine's Day
- last day of bootcamp (testing out)
- got to eat some khao soi & Korean fried chicken.
Pie Day! It was mostly an excuse to take advantage of Marie Callendars' bi-annual month-long pie sale.
Bootcamp! It was the last day, meaning it was testing out day! I lost 6 lbs overall, 3 inches in the waist, more inches all over, and 1% body fat. I almost doubled the amount of sit-ups I could do and slightly increased the number of push-ups. I also did the timed mile run in 8 minutes. I don't know how much of any improvement that is from the beginning, but I'm guessing a big improvement. I haaated running outdoors but I think I've gotten better at it now. I've built up more stamina and I'm considering getting Lawrence to go running with me at night. The next session starts in March and I'm still trying to decide whether or not to do it. The amount of time it takes and the dietary limitations are pretty stressful.
Dinner! For dinner, we went to a Thai restaurant over in Hollywood. It's a place that specializes in Northern Thai cuisine, which means they have khao soi! Khao soi is a curry noodle soup using a coconut-based curry with egg noodles. The places I've had it typically serve it also with chicken, red onion, pickled cabbage, and lime juice, topped with crunchy fried noodles. It was very good and definitely had a spicy kick to it.
We decided to top by Kyochon on our way home as we had heard about the Korean fried chicken phenomenon several times now. It took 20 minutes for our to-go order but apparently that's normal. Lawrence didn't want to wait until we got home so we had some in the car. Now this is some delicious fried chicken! They're supposed to be double-fried, which is why they take so long. This technique produces a yummy chicken wing with tender meat inside and a crispy mouthful of skin on the outside. The soy garlic sauce was good, but I felt like it would have been even better if I had honey to dip it in. The spicy chicken had a spiciness that crept up on you, but once it did - OUCH. That was some painful spice on my tongue! Lawrence's first spicy piece wasn't very spicy so he happily ate another. I guess that's when the heat kicked in...lol. He hopped around the apartment complaining about the pain while I laughed to myself. See, it wasn't me being a spice wuss!
Friday, February 19, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Thai food
I miss Thai food. Sure, Saladang and Saladang Song in Pasadena are nice, but I need a place where I can get good, cheap, non-pretentious, Thai home cooking. We haven't explored the wealth of Thai food in LA, I think because Lawrence was tired of having so much Thai for so long...but I reallly want some. NAO.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
table leg warmers
I just saw a post on ApartmentTherapy showing off some photos from Ambiente, an international design show in Germany. One of them really tickled my fancy - a bench from the Pling Collection with knitted "socks" on its legs.
I've never seen knitted home decor used that way before! It's totally functional too - if I have wooden floorboards, I can give my tables socks to help them slide around easily without scratching up the floor. I need to come up with some guerrilla knitting for my home!
I've never seen knitted home decor used that way before! It's totally functional too - if I have wooden floorboards, I can give my tables socks to help them slide around easily without scratching up the floor. I need to come up with some guerrilla knitting for my home!
Sunday, February 14, 2010
LA Street Food Fest [after]
We got up before 5am and were out the door by 5:30am. I wanted to make sure we got some breakfast so we stopped by Jack-in-the-Box. By 6:30am we were at the LA Center Studios, where the event was being held. The guy we met there gave us a tour of a set. They film a lot of stuff there and apparently they were still in the process of filming The Next Food Network Star (airing summer this year) so we got to see the set. :) That was pretty cool.
We spent the next 3 hours setting up the booth for MobiMunch. It was exciting to watch as the food trucks trickled in. The chef I met on Wednesday was Ludo Lefebvre from LudoBites. MobiMunch sponsored the food truck he was cooking on. Apparently there's some backstory behind how that came about but I won't get into that here. Jeffrey Saad (finalist on The Next Food Network Star) came to the event as well to act as sort of an ambassador for MobiMunch.
The event itself was O.M.G. insane. A quick search today showed that reactions have been very mixed - people were either excited they got a chance to try the food there or were pissed off at how long the lines were. Since we were stationed in an open space in front of the LudoBites truck, we were able to witness the chaos first hand but not get totally consumed by it. The LudoBites line grew quickly, expanding straight out until it hit the fence and wrapped around...hit another line and turned again. At that point I lost track of the end of the line. The location was enclosed so there was a longgg line outside to even get in. It wrapped around the block, made a snake-line through the parking lot next door, and continued to wrap further around the block - I don't even know how long it went for because I was inside the whole time.
So, even though we were at the event, we only really got to try a handful of food. We were able to get some of Ludo's chicken. One of the girls volunteering with us was able to snag some popsicles from PopShop. I had a lime mint mojita popsicle, and it was deliciously refreshing. It got to be very sunny by mid afternoon. I was able to get into the VIP section and try out some other vendors there - The Fry Girl, The Dim Sum Truck, and The Tea Salon. The lines everywhere were seriously ridiculous. Some people had to wait 2 hours for Ludo's chicken, and then another hour to get their order. The most successful people separated for a divide-and-conquer approach to hit up the most popular vendors.
At the very least, I feel the event was a great intro to the newest street food out there and really gives me more incentive to go find the trucks and try them out on my own time. If I went to the event on my own, I probably would have gotten really pissed off too.
We spent the next 3 hours setting up the booth for MobiMunch. It was exciting to watch as the food trucks trickled in. The chef I met on Wednesday was Ludo Lefebvre from LudoBites. MobiMunch sponsored the food truck he was cooking on. Apparently there's some backstory behind how that came about but I won't get into that here. Jeffrey Saad (finalist on The Next Food Network Star) came to the event as well to act as sort of an ambassador for MobiMunch.
The event itself was O.M.G. insane. A quick search today showed that reactions have been very mixed - people were either excited they got a chance to try the food there or were pissed off at how long the lines were. Since we were stationed in an open space in front of the LudoBites truck, we were able to witness the chaos first hand but not get totally consumed by it. The LudoBites line grew quickly, expanding straight out until it hit the fence and wrapped around...hit another line and turned again. At that point I lost track of the end of the line. The location was enclosed so there was a longgg line outside to even get in. It wrapped around the block, made a snake-line through the parking lot next door, and continued to wrap further around the block - I don't even know how long it went for because I was inside the whole time.
So, even though we were at the event, we only really got to try a handful of food. We were able to get some of Ludo's chicken. One of the girls volunteering with us was able to snag some popsicles from PopShop. I had a lime mint mojita popsicle, and it was deliciously refreshing. It got to be very sunny by mid afternoon. I was able to get into the VIP section and try out some other vendors there - The Fry Girl, The Dim Sum Truck, and The Tea Salon. The lines everywhere were seriously ridiculous. Some people had to wait 2 hours for Ludo's chicken, and then another hour to get their order. The most successful people separated for a divide-and-conquer approach to hit up the most popular vendors.
At the very least, I feel the event was a great intro to the newest street food out there and really gives me more incentive to go find the trucks and try them out on my own time. If I went to the event on my own, I probably would have gotten really pissed off too.
Friday, February 12, 2010
L A Street Food Fest
w00t! Totally looking forward to this. We're going to be up at 5am - set up on location is at 7am. The event doesn't actually start until 11am and it runs until 5pm. Afterward...I still have to head over to my parents for Chinese New Year stuff.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Sick?!
Speaking of being sick...I hate being sick - who doesn't? I'm pretty sure I caught whatever it was Lawrence had a couple weeks ago. Yesterday, however, was a fortuitous day to get sick. Josh is in town, the LA Street Food festival is this Saturday, and that means there's a lot to do for the business!
I slept till pretty late in the morning and Lawrence was late to his dental appointment. After he got back, his brother asked if we wanted to go check out a certain food truck that just finished getting wrapped (i.e. covered in a vinyl wrap so as to change the visual of the appearance of the truck in a non-permanent, easily switchable way). This truck is being used by a certain celebrity chef on Saturday's street food fest. I just recently started following LA Weekly and a few over local L.A. oriented restaurant-food blogs and so I've heard about this chef. Screw my cold - I wasn't going to give up this opportunity to meet the guy!
The truck looked totally badass, with his totally badass logo of an angry coq (French for rooster, harhar) wielding a knife. There was a small film crew there taping the chef for a reality tv show based on the chef. They tested out the deep fryers on the truck and we got to try out the inaugural food truck-fried chicken. It was juicy, flavorful, and totally delicious! The chef and his wife were very friendly, personable, nice. We got to chat with them and it was soooo cool & fun.
That night we went to have dinner with them at the Lazy Ox Canteen. It was funny...when Josh asked if we wanted to go have dinner with them Lawrence was a little hesitant (I didn't want to seem overly eager by screaming out "OH GAWD, YES!!!"). Then Josh mentioned they were going to the Lazy Ox Canteen, and both of us lit up and were like "OKAY!" Haha. I had heard it mentioned all over the LA food blogosphere and really wanted to give it a try. Dinner ended up being not so much about the food as Josh, in his enthusiasm, ended up dominating the conversation with his "company pitch". :P All in all, it was a great time. I felt bad for our servers as they kept on coming by to see if they could bring us our second course, but everyone was either too busy talking or just plain not hungry from all the fried chicken we had earlier in the afternoon. I tried to eat a lot of the salad and veggies (luckily we ordered plenty), but yes - my bootcamp diet went out the window. I didn't order a beer and mentioned I was kind of on a diet. The chef was like - oh yes, I'm always on a diet - bread, butter, etc....LOL. There's nothing better than a fresh, warm baguette for this French chef and I totally agree.
Man, I SO wish I had done my food research before going to Paris with my mom that one year. I totally missed out on the opportunity to experience some of the best food in the world. Lawrence and I will have to go there some day. He's so cute too, he said I should ask about the famous Parisian artisan bread baker I had been reading about in Peter Reinhart's book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I did mention that I had just gotten into artisan bread baking. :D
So yeah, to sum it all up - I had an awesome day meeting some awesome people who cook deeeelicious food. I felt like the odd duck out cause I'm just a lowly code monkey who works on a computer all day. Speaking of which...it feels good to get back into some REAL coding, no matter how much I complain about the frustration. It's only frustrating until you figure it out, then it's like the biggest satisfaction ever. :D Even so, it's nice to occasionally take a break from the code to do stuff like refactoring or UI design.
I slept till pretty late in the morning and Lawrence was late to his dental appointment. After he got back, his brother asked if we wanted to go check out a certain food truck that just finished getting wrapped (i.e. covered in a vinyl wrap so as to change the visual of the appearance of the truck in a non-permanent, easily switchable way). This truck is being used by a certain celebrity chef on Saturday's street food fest. I just recently started following LA Weekly and a few over local L.A. oriented restaurant-food blogs and so I've heard about this chef. Screw my cold - I wasn't going to give up this opportunity to meet the guy!
The truck looked totally badass, with his totally badass logo of an angry coq (French for rooster, harhar) wielding a knife. There was a small film crew there taping the chef for a reality tv show based on the chef. They tested out the deep fryers on the truck and we got to try out the inaugural food truck-fried chicken. It was juicy, flavorful, and totally delicious! The chef and his wife were very friendly, personable, nice. We got to chat with them and it was soooo cool & fun.
That night we went to have dinner with them at the Lazy Ox Canteen. It was funny...when Josh asked if we wanted to go have dinner with them Lawrence was a little hesitant (I didn't want to seem overly eager by screaming out "OH GAWD, YES!!!"). Then Josh mentioned they were going to the Lazy Ox Canteen, and both of us lit up and were like "OKAY!" Haha. I had heard it mentioned all over the LA food blogosphere and really wanted to give it a try. Dinner ended up being not so much about the food as Josh, in his enthusiasm, ended up dominating the conversation with his "company pitch". :P All in all, it was a great time. I felt bad for our servers as they kept on coming by to see if they could bring us our second course, but everyone was either too busy talking or just plain not hungry from all the fried chicken we had earlier in the afternoon. I tried to eat a lot of the salad and veggies (luckily we ordered plenty), but yes - my bootcamp diet went out the window. I didn't order a beer and mentioned I was kind of on a diet. The chef was like - oh yes, I'm always on a diet - bread, butter, etc....LOL. There's nothing better than a fresh, warm baguette for this French chef and I totally agree.
Man, I SO wish I had done my food research before going to Paris with my mom that one year. I totally missed out on the opportunity to experience some of the best food in the world. Lawrence and I will have to go there some day. He's so cute too, he said I should ask about the famous Parisian artisan bread baker I had been reading about in Peter Reinhart's book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I did mention that I had just gotten into artisan bread baking. :D
So yeah, to sum it all up - I had an awesome day meeting some awesome people who cook deeeelicious food. I felt like the odd duck out cause I'm just a lowly code monkey who works on a computer all day. Speaking of which...it feels good to get back into some REAL coding, no matter how much I complain about the frustration. It's only frustrating until you figure it out, then it's like the biggest satisfaction ever. :D Even so, it's nice to occasionally take a break from the code to do stuff like refactoring or UI design.
Monday workout
I flew through workouts on Monday. It seems that bootcamp has increased my stamina for Melody's workouts - maybe it's the cardio, or the fact that I'm working out 4 nights a week instead of 2 for a total of 3.5 hours of strenuous activity each week instead of 1 hour. I don't remember what I did - there was too much. I should have written it down on Monday. :( I missed last night's bootcamp workout because I was sick...
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