Why do you think I am Glad????

Nickel Diner, Downtown L.A.

(If you click on the above link, you will go to a really cool blog.  I think you might be interested in navigating yourself to this spot when you find yourself in Los Angeles.)

I didn't want to bother the other diners at the diner by using a flash here, so hence the grainy photos.  When this burger came to the table, I almost sent it back.  I had no idea how I would get my mouth around it, but I tasted an onion ring and kept the plate close by.  I have discovered that my mouth is plenty big enough to handle this burger.  (And as my friends know, plenty big enough to handle most any situation.)

 

I am glad because the food here was so yum, and affordable.

This is some sort of weird dessert that Malaina ordered.  When I go out to dinner, I always order a dessert that is different from my companion diner, then I can eat different desserts.

I ordered this homemade strawerry pop-tart.  I HAVE to find the recipe and create it at home,  it was delish!!! The chef nailed the icing, sprinkles and then topped it off with dehydrated strawberries

So Malaina's good friend Lisa knows L.A. like the back of her hand.  Every single neighborhood and just about every single restaurant, or diner, so thanks Lisa for carting us around!!!

Go to this restaurant if you:

• don't mind a handsome/grungy tattooed, slightly stoned waiter.
• a dark dingy homely street.
• like good food.
• want to hear scary people fighting with each other.
• appreciate street musicians.  (We talked to a guy who played drums Miles Davis.)
• enjoy a noisy, fun, interesting, vintage diner!!!

Sponges and Chop Houses and a Fox

So tonight Malaina and I went to the Arroyo Chop House  in Pasadena tonight.  It is L.A. Dine Out weekend, and I was impressed to make a reservation at the only restaurant in all of L.A. that serves Prime USDA beef.  All participating restaurants have to have a 44 dollar menu.  Oh boy, we picked the right place to go.  We had the most incredible steak we had EVER tasted; not a single piece of gristle, fork tender, and cooked to perfection.  I have to say, the chocolate souffle' was so wonderful, and large, that it was enough to share.  So Malaina had two desserts, cheesecake and my souffle'.  We will be back Arroyo people!

It was also Pasadena Art Night Out.  There were many locations of local and regional art to peruse.  Malaina was cranky tonight, but she went along with my plan anyway.  We began at the Art Center of Graphic Design in the beautiful hillside of Pasadena.  There was a brilliant display of art in the graphic sense.  Items that could be marketed for sale, and new ways to look at everyday products.  For example, there was a great idea for reusable packaging. It was dishwasher friendly and completely "green".  Why hasn't anybody invented that before?  However there was one piece of art Malaina and I couldn't quite understand.  It was a household sponge, laser cut into the exact replication of a female vulva.  Hmm..  as we thought about this sponge all night long we wondered what the creator was thinking.  Was there some correlation between the sponge and the female genitalia, that he was trying to connect?  Did he think the sponge was a cleaning product that needed to clean up the dirty state of the human psyche?  Did the sponge and it's human shape represent that a woman's place is in the kitchen/laundry room? Or did the artist resent women and their ability to "soak up like a sponge " the life juices of creativity out of his  everyday existence ?

And thus we ended the day watching the "Fantastic Mr. Fox".  The way Malaina drove home down the hillside after the sponge incident, we were lucky we didn't kill any foxes along the way.

So it was Opera Night

Svetlana (also known as Malaina), Jordan and Me have season tickets to the Salt Lake Symphony and Opera.

Last night was Macbeth (also known as "Guilt will Kill Ya") Those of you who have never read Shakespeare's Macbeth, well in a nut shell it is a power-trip by Lady and Lord Macbeth to take the Scottish throne. Guilt eats them alive and they go insane with guilt and eventually die. Utah Opera did a really good job of Verdi's Macbeth. The tenor who played McDuff was very weak sounding however. The costuming was really clever, and I told the girls they should go as "wenches" for Halloween.

We Glad girls always, always go out to eat on Symphony night. We like to try new restaurants that we have never gone to before. Tonight was Thai Lotus, 212 E 500 S. SLC, UT. Well, I always order everything HOT, as in spicy HOT, and at Thai Lotus, they burned all my taste buds down to little nubs. I was sweating, and in lots of pain, but the food was awesome. We had Som Tam (green papaya salad) their version was missing the dried shrimps, too bad. Then we had Ginger Beef, umm.., Then came the Pad Thai, and the Green Curry Chicken. All were very, excellent. I love Thailand and the beautiful men dancers; all the best female dancers are men impersonating women. The most beautiful woman Dave ever saw was a man dressed as a Thai dancer.

I am the second most beautiful woman he ever saw.

Cafe Rio Review

I can only recall doing one restaurant review before on this blog. I think it is time for another. But it is a bummer because Cafe Rio is paranoid of knockoffs or "corporate espionage" so they don't allow video or photography inside (and y'all knows I loves me some photography!). Jordan and I went to dinner after my physical therapy session. ( an aside)We are so funny... I made Jordan go with me because there is a good looking therapist at the office, I wanted her to flirt with him. Jordan is masterful at the art of flirting.

"Hi, I'm Jordan, this is my mother Cindy. What's your name? You look familiar, did you go to Provo? Oh really? Viewmont? My grandparents live directly across the street from the Viewmont tennis courts! How did you end up living here in Springville? Oh, you are on your last year at BYU, me too, only I go to UVU. What does this contraption plug into? Where did you serve your mission? Oh, wow, that's great..."

And on it goes. We actually had him blush once or twice.
He could not take his eyes off her.

So, we go into Cafe Rio at the Plum Tree Shopping center on the diagonal, and we walk in @ 6:00, and miracle of miracles, there is zero line! We both order the salad, mine grilled steak, her's grilled chicken. They have this really nice ranch, tomatillo, avocado, lime dressing that goes with it too. The salad comes with a large thick tortilla and melted cheese as a base. Then, beans, (pinto or black), rice, lettuce, pico, guacamole, cotilla cheese and a wedge of lime and then really good corn tortilla strips. Basically an unrolled huge burrito.

• The food 9 out of 10. It was good value for money, very good. The salad was$ 7.95
  
• Service. It would be 10/10 but the men would not stop staring at Jordan, and then making sucking noises at her while she was eating her food. 5/10
• Cleanliness 9/10.
• Overall 7/10... I'll be back.