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Handmade gelatos. This place has become my current favorite dessert place…which is a big deal since i’m not a person who is immensely obsessed over dessert. Today I decided to give the scoops sample spoon population a break and just picked out two flavors and went with it. Raspberry & balsamic vinegar was my first choice and Pineapple and coke was my second. the balsamic vinegar matched the raspberries’ tartness. The coke made the second scoop fizzy and sweet while retaining the pineapple taste.
Mediterranean-influenced American. Don’t let the name fool you. Nobody we know gets their burgers. It’s all about the Chicken Plate. CJ is making a limited-engagement appearance so we grabbed lunch with him.
We got 6 Chicken Plates with extra sauce. Too much of a good thing really is bad…because the fries were so salty and spicy that we surrendered it to the basuro bin. The tortillas were dry and caked into a chunk for me. The coleslaw provided a 
nice relieve to the intense flavor.V-Lounge (Formerly known as Lush; Santa Monica, CA)
Bar. It was BT’s birthday bash tonight and I felt really bad for Y that the 80s band did not show. Poor guy drove all the way out only to swim awkwardly in the sea of people he did not recognize until about two hours later when we showed up. J and I both had amaretto sours which were $8 and chock full of ice. We hung out with CJ, T+, and Y and then witnessed security excorting BT and him expelling his alcoholic intake for the night on the wall outside and in the dumpster. To top it all off, someone slammed the car door into his fingers as he was getting in for a ride home with his friend. Fun times.
The 6 of us decided to get food and J is the guest writer for the next entry:
BCD Tofu House (K-Town, Los Angeles, CA)
Korean. We ended up here at 2:30 in the a.m. after clubbing it up at V-lounge, and the out-of-tower in the party wanted some tofu for old times sake. W, the experienced tofu-houser, wisely ordered the #6 Dumpling and Beef tofu soup, which came with the works. I ordered the same, because I didn’t have enough time to digest the whole menu and make an informed decision, and W has good taste.
The first thing delivered to our table was a dazzling array of Korean side dishes, including some spicy kimchee, pickles, 2 eggs in the shell (for dunking into the soon tofu), a small cold spicy cabbage soup, (chopped seaweed blob, red-but-not-too-spicy gluten) and (though fewer dishes than other places, here is) the first wonder: a whole fried fish. (it wasn’t big, but on the plate was the entire fish from head to tail was on the plate) See, I am certainly a Westerner, and not a
ccustomed to such things on a plate in front of me at 2:30a.m. So I looked for direction from the others at the table. Let me tell you, they make it look easy! Our utensils were metal chopsticks and a long metal spoon (which reminded me of a bar spoon), and were hard to get used to. They were also kind of flat, like a wooden stir-stick you’d find at Starbucks. Anyways, I ended up with a mouth full of bones the first try. I got better at removing the fish from the bones, but everyone else made it look so easy! The fish was good, flakey but a bit cold (despite sitting under the heat lamp along with a hundred other cousins).
Next, the tofu soup arrived, still boiling and bubbling. I discovered what the eggs were for: your soup! Everyone cracked and dropped the eggs into the soup, and I hoped it was hot enough to cook the egg through. It was a fair bit of juggling this large spoon and the heavy slippery chopsticks to fish out the dumplings and tofu from the soup, without burning yourself on the hot soup. The soup was good, tofu was hot and slippery. The dumplings were good, it was tricky to get a good-sized bite without eating the whole thing at once and burning your mouth! Midway through the soup, I found small bits of beef at the bottom of the bowl. Very small, but good with the tofu. Everyone drank water to cool down from the hot soup. (i end a lot of entries with “i 
drank water” so this is to poke fun at that. BCD used to serve their rice in a caste iron bowl and the ajuma would stop by at the end of your meal to scrape off the rice stuck at the bottom, and add water to make uh, rice and water. The crisped/ burnt rice is fun to eat. However, BCD now has switched to stainless steel bowls and the said ajuma now comes by to drop off premade rice and water. I want to point out to my sister that about 20 years ago, i got shunned for putting water in my rice. little did she know that a whole nation follows my trends. i am just kidding)
Thai. K and I originally were planning to check out TG Express, which was rated quite highly as a delivery place. Upon arrival, we decided to find another because there was no parking on the street and that the area was quite dodgy – in terms of seeing the car again. 
The joint was located in some shady motel complex, and we decided to axe the idea.
which took a little bit of exploring to find, since it wasn’t on Sunset Blvd but near it. Here, the place was close to empty, but if the reviews are good, then I’m not deterred. I ordered the appetizer Thai Stick (something that I saw at Saladang Song), which are skewered shrimp wrapped with chicken sausage and fried noodles that surrounds the stick.
Scoops (Bicycle District near LACC, Los Angeles, CA)
Homemade Gelato. After dinner, we still had the time and stomach for some dessert, so we 
made a huge detour to find this place. The selling points of this place are: Different flavors every day and cheap prices. It used to be cheaper than $2.50 for two scoops but it’s still a great deal. I have a habit of trying a few flavors and then ordering my scoops blind. Before picking out Pear and Ginger sorbet, and pink grape and mango sorbet (which tasted a little bitter due to the grape skin), I tried their Vegan black sesame ginger gelato and coconut pandan leaves gelato. Even though it was bone-chilling cold outside, K and I braved it and enjoyed our treats. We paid the price when we got out of the place and got into the car, where I proceeded to shiver violently for about 10 seconds hahah.
12/25 Sleeping over at J’s parents house was a lot less scary than I thought. I had the guest room and I left the door open so I wouldn’t oversleep too much and they’d know what I was up to (which was absolutely nothing).
Christmas morning! J’s mom served raspberry scone; sausage ; danish; wheat English muffin and OJ
For lunch, the other branches of the family stopped by. J’s cousin made some bitter Greyhounds, which were made with (Evolution brand) grapefruit juice + absolut vodka.
We quickly switched to mimosas, which were made with (Cook’s extra dry) champagne + Simply Orange orange juice.
For snacks, there were smoked salmon + cream cheese + mini bagels on the table, and Mrs. S recommended me to try her candied macadamia nuts.
When it was time, everyone gathered around the table buffet style, featuring ham, mediterranean vegetarian appetizers, fruit salad, green salad, and polenta.
I had a gluttonous slice of chocolate chip cheesecake ala mode with warm caramel apple slices, and a piece of brownie.
12/24 To everyone’s surprise, we were able to make dinner in San Clemente (poor poor J 
). We went to his grandparents’ place, where his eccentric uncle & aunt cooked and even more eccentric friends gathered. I had a glass of Haven’s 2002 bourriquot. I’ve never tried bourriquot before but I like it. I also had some Pelligrino and champagne.
J’s Uncle E made paella with manila clams, clams, jumbo shrimp, chicken, sausage, green peas and spanish rice. Nobody touched the 
lobster in the middle. J’s immediate family didn’t seem to like the paella although it tasted fine to me. Maybe it’s too “international” but I didn’t dare to come out of the paella closet and say that it tasted fine. A fine psychology example of Group Think. Although I didn’t eat much, I wasn’t very hungry either.
my coworkers gave me Godiva raspberry chocolate?, homemade Pfeffernüsse and Mama Bear’s almond crackle.
12/23 this afternoon after the cirque du soleil corteo show, we went to J’s grandma_L’s home in Newport beach and had some shelled pistacchio and Korbel champagne.
Sapori Ristorante Italiano (Newport Beach, CA)
Italian. J’sGL treated her family and me to dinner tonight. The bread basket provided us strips of foccacia and slices of baguette, which we dressed in vinegar+olive oil. J and I shared a Caesar salad (Suspect #2A – Suspect #2B is the spaghetti). J got the stomach flu from one of these. I got the Penne otero – which is the chef’s signature dish! Priced just like everything else. So why not? It’s penne in a tomato cream sauce with fresh tarragon, bits of bacon, and vodka. For some reason I thought tarragon was some sort of dried fish or fowl but I was wrong on both accounts. To go with our entrees, GL ordered a bottle of pinot noir, which appeared on our table inside a bottle of Wild Horse 2006. i’m really relieved that J’s family is nice. I didn’t take any pictures since I want to exude whatever class I can muster hahaha just kidding.
California. J had mentioned brunch at this place a few times and today it was finally going to happen. As soon as I stepped in here, I remembered that I once came here with A and T. For some reason I thought we had gone to Urth Cafe that time, but it must have been our other choice for brunch. Anyway, instead of getting two orders of the legendary thick french toast, J got the Almond-crusted French Toast – brioche bread grilled with a toasted almond crust…with cornflakes and powdered sugar. My order of Applewood Scramble – smoked applewood bacon, cheddar cheese and mushrooms, balanced out the sweetness 
of J’s order. I got my Organic Farm-fresh Eggs served with Cafe Potatoes. He got a lemonade…it was a bit too sweet to go with the French Toast. I think it’s Simply Lemonade? I drank water. It was a nice Easy Saturday brunch.
I think Nacho got a #2, and M and M both got #6’s. We didn’t get sangria because everyone was already lethargic. I need to check out #5 next time, then i would have tried all the pork dishes.
The first course was crab cakes – one of the specials of the night. When it comes of crab cakes, i think size does matter. It may be one thing to tease the palate, but in Winnie’s world, if ya gonna tease, don’t pillage the wallet too. it’s against the law. They tasted good with the spicy aioli sauce on top and a bed of spinach underneath.
(filet mignon grilled and baked in a gorgonzola sauce) to Jason, along with a glass of Merlot. The filet came much rarer than “medium”…almost more raw than the the beef sashimi that M had at Azuma. We are still investigating whether this piece of meat was the culprit (suspect #1 of 2) in causing the food poisoning that brought the man down on christmas eve. I had a bite and it tasted pretty good. Oven-blasted at high temps – not easily replicated at home. Bad for the stomach maybe but yummy either way.