Food Truck Virgin No More

My very FIRST food truck experience in Los Angeles! 

Last night, while I was writing the post about wanting to try some food trucks, I happened to see that the Sweets Truck was going to be at the apartments right next to my work today! And, at precisely 1pm, when I went outside, there they were! They were actually parked in the driveway of the apts, probably trying to catch some shade so their goodies won't melt.

There were 2 other guy already ordering when I walked up to the truck. They took a long time deciding what to get but that was ok because it gave me time to check out the 'menu'. DAM, expensive! It was like $3.25 for a dinky cupcake and $2.50 for a small chocolate cookie. But since I was determined to try something (and it was Friday) I decided to go with the Red Velvet cake.

 

It definitely was a small portion for the $2.00 I paid for it, but I got the souvenir I was looking for. I decided to savor it after I got back from my usual Taco Smell lunch with my coworkers. Because it sat for a while, the oil, *ahem... I mean tastiness, started to bleed through the wax paper and brown baggie. No biggie. I grabbed a plastic fork from the office and began to chow down.

  

The cake was very moist and sweet and I, surprisingly, didn't notice that familiar red dye taste that Red Velvet is known for. The inner frosting, most likely a cream cheese based spread, was luscious and paired perfectly with the two rounds of cake. It only took 5 or so bites to finish off my little desert but it kept me satisfied for the remainder of the day. 

While I admit it was a very good treat and especially fit for a hard working Friday, I don't think it was 'the best thing I've ever had'. I mean, the Red Velvet Cupcakes I made for my mom were definitely on par with these from the Sweets Truck. Still, I am looking forward to my next truck experience with have high hopes and expectations. 

Anyone else ever try the Sweets Truck?

WOOOOOOOT

Today turned out to be one of the most enjoyable days of the year! Finally, FINALLY! after numerous visits back and forth between the DMV and the CHP offices, I have finally completed my new registration and got brand new license plates! No more waiting in 2 hour DMV lines while listening to crying babies and hearing the security guard yell at people to wait outside even though they don't speak English and don't know what the hell he's saying. No more going back to the CHP office at the butt-crack of dawn just to be sarcastically brushed aside and told to go back to the DMV. 

When I finally finished with the DMV, I texted a bunch of people with a flurry of !!!! marks. My roommate replied by asking me if I got a cool personalized plate. Thinking back on this experience, I definitely should have done 'F*CKDMV'. They're basically the ones who screwed me and made me run around the city of LA. The DMV is truly the WORST place to on earth. You probably have to wait in line at the DMV just to get into hell... My one ok moment at the DMV was seeing Fabio! haha, that's how bad things got.

Anyway, this is how I feel now and it was wonderful to go through the workday with that kind of load lifted off of me. I was more cheery in the office and felt free to chat it up with all of my coworkers. One of my coworkers noted that I had a pretty cheery disposition throughout the whole process... (which I guess was true) but there was no point in letting the situation stress me out anymore. I just had to roll with the punches and let karma take its toll. 

On another note, I really want to start trying all the fascinating food trucks scattered throughout LA. There is always a food truck right next to my work but none of my coworkers are interested in trying it. Whenever I go out to lunch with them, we ALWAYS always go to the same exact Taco Smell just because they're buddy buddy with the cashiers and the food is cheap.... yuck. I just end up bringing my own lunch and have to sit inside Taco Smell and munch on my large salad or turkey sandwich. One day, I will have to go visit the food truck before we head out and then see what all the fuss is about!

Here some I'm interested in:
(also, any suggestions are very welcome and helpful!)

Dim Sum Truck

Nomnom Truck

The Sweets Truck

Buttermilk Truck

Coolhaus

Kogi BBQ

The Grilled Cheese Truck

Plus many more.... Anyone wanna go and try some with me?!?

Quick and Easy

This post will be short because I'm tired and depressed. I didn't get the other job that I had been applying for. I really wanted it and thought I would be great doing it too... alas, it was not meant to be. (As is so many other things right now.... )

Anyways, here's a roundup from the weekend with Jenna:

Here is a quick and easy meal. Marinated grilled chicken, whole wheat pasta with basil, and garlic, onion broccoli.

I kinda dropped the ball a bit with the chicken. I thought we were stir frying everything so I charred the outside real good and then had to leave it on longer to fully cook it through. That = dry chicken.

The next morning, for brunch, we made potato pancakes. But since I never have the right tools for job, we  had to grate 2 large russet potatoes with a cheese grater! And it was the small hole too! haha. Oh well, it was just a more fine grated potato cake than expected. More like a potato mush. Very very delicious nonetheless. We added onions, parsley, bread crumbs and seasoning. Fried em up and dipped them in ketchup. I'm looking forward to making more tomorrow night for dinner.

And of course we had our Mochi. :)

Shout out to Cindy and Shar and who ever else is reading this thing. Thanks!

A Mochi Weekend

What hits the spots on a dreary weekend?

MOCHI!

Come on people. Get back to your Japanese roots and head on down to Japantown and grab yourself some mochi. Jenna and I drove down to downtown LA yesterday to walk around and feed our mochi fix. I forget the name of the little shop, but they sells lotsa different kinds of mochi and they're conveniently located a couple doors down from Daikokuya! So after you down your bowl of spicy hot ramen, walk on over and get yourself a mochi desert.

This is our spread. I think around $1 each.

Even though I wanted to instantly dig into them as soon as we bought them, we decided to keep them bagged up and walk around Japantown. We walked over to a small super market and bought seaweed salad, an unagi sushi roll and some rice crackers. Spending the $10 allowed us to get our parking ticket validated. Then we trotted over to the new yogurtland which was only $0.30/oz. Cheap is good.

Super creative and artsy.

This was a green tea mochi with kinako on it! YUM! Reminded me of the ones my family makes for New Years.

This one was baked I think because it was bready and was filled a ton of whole red beans. Very unique and definitely one of my favorite out of the bunch.

Mango flavored with white bean paste inside. Many of the shop's mochi's featured little jelly flowers on top. A nice touch if I say so myself.

This one was orange flavored and quite tasty. Had much more of a fruity flavor than the mango one.

OOO. Probably the best looking one and most interesting tasting. It was a regular mochi with white bean inside but covered with a jelly thingy and it had a flower on top! All that design on a piece of desert that smaller than the palm of my hand. Cool. One of Jenna's favorites.

All this sugar was probably (ok, is definitely) not too great for the body. What ya need is something to wash it all down and help regulate your body. For me, I have my go-to drink on hand just for times like this. I won't reveal the name of it cuz it's kinda embarrassing but I'll show you a picture.

P.S. Hi Cindy! Thanks for reading. Anything you wanna request?

Zushi Time

Our favorite sushi spot in Santa Barbara is the one and only Edomasa. After living in Alhambra for almost 5 months, I have yet to discover that hidden gem sushi restaurant. Last night, we may have found something close!

It's called Zushi and its just a short drive up to South Pasadena. What's funny is that it's in a small strip mall so that makes it the hidden gem. The place is also super tiny: only about 6 tables and about the size of Jenna's living room! We had to wait a little while to get our seats but it was worth it.

Tiger Roll: California roll with Salmon and Eel on top!










As soon as we were seated, we got complimentary miso soup and edamame. Score! That's like $8 already at some other Japanese restaurants. The green tea was $1.50/person.... but no biggie cuz it was tasty and they were great with refills. I got my tea refilled 3 times and my water refilled twice. Even Jenna had multiple refills on her drinks. The fact that the place was so tiny helped with the excellent service.

Hot Nights Roll: sexy name for a shrimp tempura roll with Spicy Tuna on top.








We ordered 3 rolls: the Tiger Roll, the Hot Nights Roll and the Baked White Fish roll. Each was unique and each was super tasty. One thing we particularly appreciated about their menu was the numerous rolls that had asparagus in them. The flower roll, (our fav from Edomasa) has asparagus in it as well as a wrapping of soy paper. Alas, Zushi didn't have any rolls with creative wrappers but all the rolls we tried were delicious nonetheless.

Baked White Fish Roll: Very creamy with plenty of sauce and scallions.









After dinner, we ran through the rain over to Vons (which I JUST discovered is 24hours!!!) and got some groceries for the today's meals. While in Vons, I found some interesting packages that I'd like to share with you:

Here is Cathy Cashew... She kinda reminds me of Paulie the Penis.

And here are all "Our Nutty Friends". It's a party in my mouth. haha. I think my Haribo characters are a LOT better ... and less phallic.

Valentines Day!

A stressful weekend for any boyfriend. Not only are there the expectations to live up to... but you've always got to top last year's events. Hell, you gotta top your roommates/friend's Valentines day plans too!

This year, I didn't have much money (or time) and desperately had to scrounge. Last minute planning is always a major no-no but I didn't have any other choice. My plans were to decorate my room with x-mas lights while having a table-clothed table set up in the middle. We were to eat by candlelight while listening to romantic music followed by dessert and a good movie. Oh, and then of course, I was to have flowers and a gift all prepared for Jenna. Alas, here's how things went down:

-couldn't find x-mas lights to hang up in my room
-couldn't find that 'perfect' gift to give her
-bought the flowers but she saw them when she got to my apartment (b/c i forgot to hide them)
-we ate the desert BEFORE dinner! :)
-and there was no movie because we were too tired from eating ... and the champagne.

Haha, but all was not bad. In fact, Valentines day was splendid; for the sole reason that we got to spend it with each other. We woke up Sunday and I proceeded to make Jenna breakfast in bed. After breakfast, we casually browsed the shops in Old Pasadena. Later, we stopped by a bakery and gobbled down some mochi that was meant for desert. For dinner, we teamed together to whip up 2 FULL platters of sushi and for the icing on the cake, Jenna made me heart-shaped coconutty cupcakes (ironically, with no icing).

Here's breakfast. A turkey, spinach, onion, cheddar omelet with sliced oranges and apples. It was all I had.

This probably would have been better.







So we decided that our Valentines Day tradition would be to make as many sushi rolls as we could. Buying the fish and other Asian necessities is easy living in Alhambra and once again we managed to make way too much food. We went to this small mom and pop store that I found on Yelp and bought $25 worth of Hamachi, Salmon, Krab, Eel, sesame seeds, cucumber, wasabi and sprouts. We had to go to Ralphs to buy avocados and seaweed sheets.

Although we thought we bought less than last year, we still managed to end up with 7 gigantic rolls; each with their own personality and flavor. We TRIED imitating the masterful flower roll from Edomasa but it lacked a certain... creaminess and pazazz. No worries, we had fish and plenty of it.

Jenna mixing up the diced Krab.

The green portions of our sushi. We grilled asparagus for our flower roll but I think it needed to be cooked more.

The fish was delish.

Here was our final spread. Tons and tons of rolls (just like my belly).

It was much easier to make them seaweed side out but it looks cooler when the rice is on the outside.

 Jenna's rolls were beautiful and delicious.

Way toooo much sushi.









Lastly, even though I didn't need it because I'm fat, we decided to make coconut cupcakes. I only had these stupid heart shaped cupcake molds so we decided to use them... Horrible mistake. You'll see...

Maybe we didn't butter the molds enough but the cupcakes just disintegrated when we tried taking them out. Still tasted wonderful though.

Here's the stupid heart mold that didn't work. Its made of flimsy silicone which is supposed to make it easier for removal.

Anyways, we went with the big dish and it worked well as a cake. There is a funny story here but I won't retell unless asked.

Overall, V-day was far from D-day. I loved spending my time with Jenna and especially making food. We are our best when food and eating is involved. This may be the 7th Valentines day that has passed in our relationship, but we've only just been together on 2 of those actual days. The years to come will only get better, as we upgrade our sushi skills and somehow move closer and closer to each other (both figuratively and literally).

Happy Valentines Day Jenna. I love you and had an awesome weekend!

When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Bruschetta!

I visited Jenna this past weekend even though I was on the verge of sickness. Luckily, I have the greatest girlfriend EVER and she welcomed me with homemade chicken stew AND brownies for dessert! The perfect meal to warm the stomach and make me happy after the 2+ hour drive from work in LA.

Here's the Chicken Stew by Jenna








It was truly delicious and I had to hold back from getting a large bowl of seconds like when we made stew. I was saving room for ice cream and fresh brownies!

Another picture of Jenna's wonderful stew.

Sorry about the bad picture but these brownies were excellent! Too bad they were probably not too healthy...











After a delicious dinner we went to bed hoping I would be better by the next day.

I wasn't... It wasn't quite flu-level sick... but sick enough to the point where lots of rest was manditory. Unfortunately, I was against the whole resting thing. Long story short: I acted like a baby and created an unnecessary tension between me and Jenna... Kinda ruined the weekend and I'm sorry. But lets not talk about that right now.

For breakfast, I ate something that I'd never had before: plain Rice Crispy Treat cereal with milk! Who eats rice crispy treat cereal without the butter and marshmellows?! Am I right?! Anyways, it was pretty good and I was fascinated with the 'popping' sound just like in the commercials.

Much better with Blueberries.










The conclusion to our uneventful and confusing weekend ended with a tasty note. We decided to watch Julie & Julia before the Superbowl and Jenna remembered the scene where Julie made Bruschetta. We bought some of the few simple missing ingredients and quickly whipped up the snack. And although I am not a fan of tomatoes, it was superb. The garlic and olive oil was super strong and the crispyness of the bread was perfect. Even though Jenna didn't like the added avocado, I thought it went well. Bon Appetite!

Hats off to the wonderful Chef! I will be your Paul if you be my Julia.

Of course, anything goes better with wine.

Grape tomatoes, basil, EVOO, garlic, feta (i think) on toasted french bread.

When It Rains, It Pours

These are not my cars.









I wish they were my cars though... Not just because they're nice and expensive, but because they wouldn't have gotten stopped by the cops next to the Staples Center and given a ticket! Not only did I get a ticket for expired registration tags (ok, maybe my fault) but the cop kept accusing me that my car was stolen or that the license plates were matched up to an impounded car... ugh.

So, this morning, I went straight to the DMV before work. God, the DMV... I would die if I worked there. It took me an hour to get up to the desk to talk to someone! But then another 1.25 hours later...I was STILL there! Its a long story that I don't wanna relive or retell.

HA, the line is out AND around the building!











THE WORST part is that the whole issue still isn't resolved. I now have to go the ChP so they can verify my car (and it's legitamacy) and hopefully THEN all will be done. Knowing my luck, they're either gonna determine that my car is stolen and will take it away OR they're gonna make me go back to the DMV. UGH. Can't wait.

See ya on the 16th, Officer Garcia!