Weekend Food Recap

The weekend started Friday with a pretty chill day at work. We were getting ready for PROJECT and (capsule) this week in Las Vegas. Instead of spending the day at the computers, we were running errands and mocking up new packaging. When it came time for lunch, we stopped by Cream Pan where I picked up this delicious Tonkatsu Sandwich. Tonkatsu is one of my favorite things in the world and for those who are unfamiliar with it, it's panko-breaded fried pork cutlet. But what made this sandwich awesome where the combination of the cucumbers, tomato, cabbage, lettuce, and dressing. It was the perfect refreshing contrast to the meaty fried goodness.

And of course, I had to follow that with some delicious dessert. Cream Pan is known for their strawberry croissants. They're light and airy croissants filled with vanilla custard & sliced strawberry. It was the perfect balance of flakey outside and gooey inside.

After work, I met up with Kevin and we went to Zankou for dinner. Just our typical run of the mill Friday. The only thing missing was a trip to Vroman's. But we started our night a little late so we couldn't make it to Vroman's before they closed. Kevin wanted to try out some new places together so he suggested a trip to D'odici. He was telling me about some of the great cheesecake he had from them recently. So we stopped by and I had every intention to get one of their souffle cheesecakes…until I saw their array of mousse cheesecakes. I totally went for the blueberry one and never looked back.

Saturday rolled around and my best friend Nisa was celebrating her 26th birthday. Due to extremely poor timing (thanks to my haircut taking longer than expected), I was only able to stop by her birthday barbeque for an hour before I had to head off to work. Lucky for me, the party was still going afterwards. I met up with her and her boyfriend after his band's performance at a local space in Highland Park. Tacos sounded like a really good idea at the time. And what better for tacos than La Estrella. The Highland Park location is a permanently parked taco truck but they have regular brick & mortar restaurants in Pasadena. I got my usual 3 asada tacos. YUM!

Most of my Sunday was pretty sluggish. I worked two days in a row at Leanna Lin's Wonderland because it was a weekend full of Valentine's Day related events. Afterwards, I was totally famished and met up with Kevin to go to The Coffee Table. But we changed our minds on the way there and ended up at Four Cafe instead. What I love about Four Cafe is that they have a different menu every season. So far, their Summer and Fall menus are my favorite. We ended up getting the Italian sausage soup and the short rib grilled cheese. Everything was good, but definitely not my favorite thing I've ever had from them. Part of me wished we had walked a block down to The Coffee Table.

Weekend Recap

So over the weekend, I originally had every intention of taking a trip to the LA Printer's Fair at The International Printing Museum. But I woke up late (just a little before 1PM). And being that I had to be back in Eagle Rock at Leanna Lin's Wonderland by 5PM, I decided that wasn't happening. 

Luckily, Gallery Nucleus was hosting the SC3 Party in collaboration with the Southern California Classic Collectors. There were over 30 classic arcade machines available for game play and with that, of course, comes BurgerTime!!!

Anyone who knows me really well knows that I have some serious beef with BurgerTime. (pun intended? sure!) Growing up, I had it on my original Nintendo NES console and I remember it being really hard. Well...now as an adult, I still think it's pretty damn hard. And even harder on a classic arcade machine that isn't as quick and responsive as it was in its prime. 

For those of you who have never played it, you play the role of a chef and the goal is to build burgers but in the process you're being chased by eggs, sausages, and pickles who are trying to stop/kill you. And your only weapon is pepper, which you get limited quantities of and it only stuns them temporarily. You also have to run across each layer (bun, patty, lettuce, bun) to get them to drop down. But they only drop down by one level each time, so you gotta repeatedly run over the layers to get them to drop. Sounds difficult? Yeah, I know.

Does that sound confusing? Here...why not watch some gameplay....

Then when I was done totally done with losing to BurgerTime, I moved on to the next machine to my left...Oh Hey! What do you know...it's Paperboy! I think we were all totally falling for the sweet novelty handlebar controller. But once playing it, we all realized how much it sucked. And I mean SUCKED! I don't think anyone spent more than 3 minutes with this machine. Too bad. It had the potential of being awesome.

Then came Sunday which is Kevin's day off (he works Tues–Sat. it's the typical art gallery schedule), so we took a trip over to Nickel Diner in Downtown LA (most known for their bacon donuts).

I love that the Nickel Diner serves bottled sodas...no soda fountains to be found here! Unfortunately, I didn't realize it until after the waitress brought out my Coke that they had Dr. Pepper. But it's ok, bottled Dr. Pepper is only 8oz. whereas the Coke is 12oz.

Kevin ordered the Biscuits and Gravy (comes with 2 poached eggs) that's only available on Saturdays and Sundays. The gravy was a sausage gravy which made it 10 times more delicious!

And I got the 5th and Main (which is spicy BBQ pulled pork on potato hash with 2 poached eggs). It didn't look like it was a lot of food but it was really HEAVY. But equally delicious. 

I want to eventually go back to try their Irish Car Bomb donuts, Strawberry Crumble donuts, and the Dutch Baby. They also have really great homemade poptarts!

At the end of my weekend, I came home to this:

Sebastian was super bummed out that he had to stay home and miss out on all the fun.