March 23, 2010

10:15 am

Starbucks

1 tall nonfat latte

1 raspberry sunshine muffin

Since I’m not working, free food is a godsend. This was from Starbucks’ Free Pastry Day, which lasted til 10:30 am.

12 pm

Ben n’ Jerry’s

1 scoop of Cherry Garcia in a cone

It was also Free Cone Day at Ben N’ Jerry’s. My lunch consisted of a muffin and ice cream cone. I for one, support these new marketing tricks to lure in new customers.

7 pm

Loteria Grill

quesadilla de plazos

1 michelada especial

side of chips and salsa

Loteria Grill is one of my favorite Mexican restaurants in LA. Chef Jimmy Shaw has an encyclopedic knowledge of regional Mexican cuisine, and he tries to reflect that on a relatively inexpensive menu. The influence is obviously uber-celebrity-chef Rick Bayless, and while the cooking isn’t as grand or ambitious, it’s still one of the more interesting Mexican food around. The full-service restaurant in Hollywood originally started with a menu that mirrored their food stand in the Farmers Market on Fairfax, but it has since expanded to included several dishes that are more complex than what you can get at the stand or most Mexican restaurants in general. And with that, the special quesadilla de plaza, a special that was supposed to be stuff with squash blossoms, huitlacoche and cheese, was a huge disappointment. I’m pretty sure I got the wrong thing delivered to me, but do to a time constraint, I didn’t have time to send it back. What I essentially ate were empanadas stuffed with cheese and corns that were completely unmemorable. I didn’t even see empanadas on the menu, yet that’s what I got. Since I ate a huitlacoche quesadilla from Huarache Aztecas the day before, the comparison made this dish even worse. Still, a glass of michelada, or cerveza preparada, hit the spot. It’s beer in a tall, salted-rim glass, flavored with lime juice and a generous dabs of hot sauce. It sounds odd, but the combination is refreshing. Once again, beer saves the night.

March 14, 2010

10 am

2 S’mores Pop Tarts

3 pm

Nature Food Expo

I think that human beings, as a whole, have evolved pretty far as a species. We’ve invented the printing press, TV and the internet, and we’ve also created porn for all of those mediums. But there are moments when you get to see humans unveil their base animal instincts. An entire convention center full of free samples is one such moment. The Nature Food Expo in Anaheim only had healthy and natural foods. None of it was particularly tasty. But try to keep a middle-age woman from getting that one bite of gluten-free cookie sample and BLOOD WILL BE DRAWN! Most people are decent and take one sample. But there are a few who carry multiple bags and intend to shovel items in bulk into every single bag. Those people are assholes. I did see one guy take an entire box of Happy Chips after the convention. He dropped it and chips spilled out onto the sidewalk. Those Happy Chips sure weren’t so happy, were they punk? YOU DESERVED RIDICULE FROM PEDESTRIANS, FAT ASS.

There were a lot of nuts, buns, granola and yogurt at this convention. You can say it was like Burning Man. There were no meat to be found, or gluten. For some reason, gluten is now public enemy no. 1, according to health food manufacturers. This strikes me as odd since gluten is the part of the grain where all nutrients and protein structure necessary for baking is located. How is it healthy to remove nutrients out of grain? And who enjoys chalky gluten-free baked goods? Oh right, because gluten is starch and carbohydrate, it’s bad for us. I know that about 1% of people are allergic to gluten. One of my close friends from college couldn’t process it. And I know that Jews can’t eat certain grains during Passover (except unleavened bread like matzah). Those are the only valid reasons to be gluten-free. But 1% of the world population and an annual holiday isn’t a big enough market to justify the hundreds of new gluten-free product I saw here. And this is not mentioning the new gluten-free bakery in LA (by way of New York) called Babycakes. This is a sign that gluten-free products are the next health fad. Wars were fought over grains in ancient history. Bob Geldof created Band Aid to get starving children in Africa grain for basic sustenance. Now we shouldn’t eat it because it’s bad for us? God, I hate the health-food industry sometimes. Maybe some ass cancer will set their priorities straight.

Oh, and speaking of greedy S.O.B.’s taking way more free stuff than they should, check out what I got:

An entire box of NuGo bars! There’s a chance that this blog might get really boring because my meals will get replaced by these meal-replacement protein bars for the next week or so.

5 pm

Cafe Tutu

2 Blue Moon beers

I ate one bite of a spinach-artichoke dip. It was the single worst thing I’ve ate at a restaurant in two years.

9 pm

1 bowl of rice

side of kimchee

water

1 mini-chocolate muffin

Feb. 4, 2010

9 am

1 bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats

11:30 am

1 bowl of chicken paprikash (leftovers)

1 bowl of white rice

1 can of Diet Pepsi

2:30 pm

Starbucks

1 tall nonfat latte

6 pm

4 slices of pork belly

side of white rice

1 can of Diet Pepsi

Bobby, a regular reader of mine, made the following observation last week, “I see that you’ve been cooking in more.” Well, that’s what happens when you’re not working. I can’t afford fancy DineLA dinner like you moneyed folks. I don’t mind though. It’s fun to cook. I’ve been doing some actual cooking as opposed to idling on my couch while watching Chopped re-runs (They can’t figure out how to combine shrimp, kale and white chocolate into an edible, presentable dish in 30 minutes for three douchebag judges and the gay foodie from Queer Eye? Losers!). Cooking in also means leftovers, and that extends my daily budget of $8.34 through a couple of meals.

I’ve also been getting free food from friends and families. You’d think that I’d be above accepting free food out of pity, but you’d be wrong. Feed me like a charity case, it’s just as easy as texting “Haiti” to 90999. I’ll even give you a receipt for tax purposes. I even took free food even I worked and could afford lavish feasts. Why not? If I don’t eat it, some other lucky bastard will. If you work at a large company like I did, it’s easy to find a free meal somewhere in the building thanks to birthdays, pregnancies, retirements and what-not. Just ingratiate yourself to the one person you know in that department. Birthday cakes are the easiest to snag. Stand in the background, join in the singing of “Happy Birthday” and wait for a slice of cake to be passed to you. Or, wait until the meeting clears out and take the food before it gets tossed. I once got free gravy from the office kitchen like that. Anyway, these pork belly slices are from a family friend who owns a Korean restaurant, and they inevitably got passed to me. Free=tasty.

7 pm

1/2 pint Ben N’ Jerry’s Phish food

9 pm

1/2 cup cherries