Jan. 9, 2010

9 am

1 bowl of Crunch Berries

The one thing that sucks about cereal is the powder at the bottom of the box when you get to the last bowl. It especially sucks for cereal like Crunch Berries. It’s like inhaling Pixy Stix, laced with LSD. Needless to say, I started my morning like this:

12 pm

tuna melt

handful of pretzels

1 can of Diet Coke

7 pm

3 eggplant slices with basil and mozzarella

side of tricolor fusilli pasta with tomato sauce

side of Greek salad

1 Trader Joe’s frozen creme brulee

2 Blue Moon Honey Moon beer

1 scoop of Ciao Bella blood orange sorbet

My friend Kim was nice enough to host a small dinner for a few friends. She made these eggplant slices topped with basil leaves that looked like a gondola with two mozzarella balls as passengers tucked in. The recipe came from some magazine, I think (Kim?) and it sure was tasty. She also topped it with a sprinkle of Hawaiian pink sea salt that punched up the flavor. Now I remember a simpler time when our only salt options were Morton’s iodized table salt. Now there’s Kosher, sea, Maldon, Hawaiian, gray… the list goes on and on. I have three kinds of salt (sea, kosher and pink) at home and none of them are from Morton’s. Am I happy with my more complicated lifestyle? Why yes. Sea salt kicks iodized salt’s ass every day of the week.

BTW, Kim and I realized that we are frighteningly good at the board game “Cranium.” I mean really, really good. We didn’t miss a clue until our piece was more than halfway around the board. So if you’re currently happy and content, I suggest you not invite us to play “Cranium.” We’d only upset your idyllic life by bringing sorrow and despair after the beating we’d inflict on your psyche.

Jan. 6, 2010

9 am

1 bowl of Crunch Berries

When I was still young many years ago, Crunch Berries and Cinnamon Toast Crunch were my two favorite cereals. The day I willingly bought Chex instead of a sugary cereal with a cartoon mascot was one of the most depressing moments of my life. When did I get so old? This bowl of Crunch Berries is a desperate attempt to stay young and relevant. Crunch Berries at 30, a Harley at age 40 and a 26-year-old UCLA grad school blond at age 50. That’s the plan, at least.

1 pm

Shabu Shabu Ya

7 oz. beef shabu shabu

1/2 can Diet Coke

This is the second time I went with my friend Candace to Shabu Shabu Ya, and each time, she points out that they raised the price by $4 or so. So what was originally a $10-$12 lunch special is now 18 freaking dollars. Over the course of a year! If a restaurant is jacking up prices like a payday-advance lender, then they have issues. Candace is friendly with the owners here, so it’s too bad they have to resort to such shenanigans to stay afloat. And with that, the $18  lunch special was pretty good and had WAY too much food. We should’ve ordered the cheaper options or split one order. Maybe we should’ve done that instead of hurling McCarthy-like accusations of highway robbery. This is why proper journalists hate the internet.

2 pm

Starbucks

1 grande nonfat caffe mocha

7:30 pm

Cube

truffle burger

hot potato slices

1 large bottle of water

1/2 bottle of cava

It drives me crazy that whenever you try booking a reservation on Open Table, they usually only offer 6 or 9:30 time slots, reserving the prime 7-8 pm dining hours for God knows who. That’s exactly what happened when I tried to book a table at Cube on Tuesday night. I usually end up going the old-fashioned route and calling a restaurant to make a reservation. As much as I like the concept of Open Table, a live human being is always better to negotiate a better reservation time. I also made reservations for Ricardo Zarate’s Hatchi meal at Breadbar. Same deal, only 6 pm was offered on Open Table, but I called the restaurant and got an 8:15 reservation.

After our meal at Cube, we ducked into The Tar Pit, the new bar/restaurant by Campanile’s Mark Peel which is right next door, but the place is both tiny and packed and it was too much of a hassle for a quick drink. We did see Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villagairosa pulling up to the valet in his motorcade, pulling an illegal U-turn to do it. He was with his new news-anchor girlfriend, who is hot and also taller than him. He sure has a type, attractive news-anchors willing to disregard journalistic integrity to sleep with the mayor. Sexy!