DineLA Week 2 @ Starry Kitchen

Today starts 'week 2' of DineLA; and one of our favorite restaurants is once again participating. Lunch was $16 a person and includes an appetizer, entree and dessert. A LOT OF FOOD!! I ended up using most of my daily 'weight watchers' allotment on this one meal.. As I write I am still stuffed!

I thought I'd share some pix from our lunch today!! =)

Sean's meal was the Crispy Kimchi Rice Cakes appetizer, Spicy Black Korean Pork Belly Banh Mi w/ Spicy Vietnamese Salad as a side..


I went for the Pandan Chicken, the Spicy Black Korean Pork Belly wrap w/ Spicy Vietnamese Salad as a side..

I ended up not being keen on the Pandan Chicken.. That's a first for me! I did have one of Sean's Kimchi Rice Cakes.. I liked that!

and dessert..

Pandan Flan and Durian Cheesecake (foreground) We ended up halving them so we could try both.. yum! The Pandan Flan is still my favorite though. =)

DineLA continues til Thursday February 4th all over Metro LA.. with varying price points.. lunch and dinner. If you're in the LA area I would suggest going to the LA Restaurant Week website and see if there's someplace new (or a favorite place) in your area you'd like to try..



**Disclaimer** Yes, I'm still on Weight Watchers.. I have a blog for that now! Check it out: Do or Doughnut **

sidewalk scene

sidewalk scene
Originally uploaded by meekorouse

This was the scene on the corner of Main & Winston early Saturday morning. I posted this to Facebook then, and got several interesting comments regarding the hinky-ness of this filming. They did have a permit.. they weren't necessarily the part of the filming that was legitimately going on this past weekend. (we still haven't figured this out) and they weren't selling shoes.

What amused me about it (because getting woke up on Saturday from some guy with a bullhorn wasn't it!) was their attempt to film a cafe scene on the sidewalk in front of the parking lot next door.. Good Luck with whatever that is. Maybe next time they can save up and rent a real cafe??

Beer at the Nickel

As most folks who know me, know one of my favorite places to eat is the Nickel Diner. I have several posts about the place and have joked in the past often this should be my Nickel Diner blog.. "so what you eat this week??" Actually, it's been a while.. in part because I've been out of town a lot the last couple months. Then there's the diet. Going on Weight Watchers new program had me anxious to see if I could even go out to eat, let alone enjoy my favorite places.

Having a mad craving for meat, we headed to the Nickel so I would be sated. The surprise waiting for us was Kristen Trattner, noticing the Sean's NOFD tshirt mentioned she had a bottle of Dixie for him to try. "What?!"


Sean taking a sip of his Dixie..

Turns out their beer & wine license went through the beginning of the year. Kristen says they should have it on the menu officially next week and will carry about five or six different beers at a time. Like the soda they offer, she says they plan to mix it up and 'keep it fun'.. So at least for now, they plan to have different brands available.

This was Sean's first Dixie (I got him hooked on Abita) and agreed with Kristen it's definitely an 'everyman's beer' and similar to a PBR. So there you go. =)

Big Thanks to Kristen for sharing the news with us. It's a long time coming for that beer and wine license.

As for me, I did alright!



I ordered the lowrider burger (Ano chilis, pepperjack cheese, red onions, lettuce, tomatoes) w/ a salad instead of fries. I asked for the dressing on the side. I did good earlier in the day so I actually had just enough to be able to eat the burger (leaving the bun). It was just the thing!

Next time I'll get that steak salad.. sometimes a cheeseburger is all you really want.

Just Another Saturday on Main

An average weekend (or weekday) will find traffic stopped on Main so that filming of some kind can occur. I get so many FilmLA notices (one must subscribe to email updates as the posting of FilmLA notices are erratic or non-existent), I'm not sure if this was an 'action' shot or just a messed up car commercial.

If you see the video the car is being driven South-bound on a normally North-bound ONLY Main Street. Basically all day long traffic is stopped, shouting occurs to silence the neighborhood and then a 'take' is shot, then repeated several times over several hours. Most people who live downtown are familiar with this as it seems Downtown LA is the location for any number of programs, (like CSI: NY or Castle) commercials and movies (too many to name).

This one was fairly innocuous, as far as noise and light (night shots can often be bad as giant spotlights are shone into buildings as they light the block up and shooting on sidewalks can be annoying if you have some jerk PA trying to tell you you can't walk on your own sidewalk out of your building). I can't speak for anyone dealing with the traffic stoppage though.

2011 Resolution Re-do..

One of my more successful resolutions.. to read more is getting renewed for another year.

I know New Year Resolutions are a joke. Most of the time they aren't kept or, attempted halfheartedly. I have a new crop of ideas that I hope some will shake themselves out to a positive effort. Some are just things I want to change about myself.. thought processes and bad habits. What it comes down to I think, is de-cluttering. So far I'm not doing so good & I'd like to think it's because I've spent the first part of the new year w/ the never-ending sinus cold. Never-mind that, here's my list I came up w/ on the flight home from Florida late last month:

2011 GOALS

read at least 2 books a month (since 1book a month seemed so easy)

start writing letters (you know, 'snail mail')

take a creative writing class!

go back 'on program' (this I've started on Jan 3rd! enrolling in Weight Watchers revamped program:"points plus" so if I talk about #ww that's what that is).

go 'home' more.. and by 'home' I mean the Bay Area.. When we moved so many years ago, I really did think we'd get back at least once a month like we seemed to do when we would head to Disneyland from Berkeley.. OK, or every other month realistically..I'd be happy if we could get up there maybe 2x a year?? to start?)

get a passport. I finally am curious enough to go on a cruise or if I ever hope to go to Tokyo or anywhere else in the world ever again).

bike, walk, or wii a day! (gotten to a rocky start with the cold but.. so far so good)

register for & DO a "minnie 5K" or whatever you call those things they do at the parks.. walking first then running.

'walk' the cornfield. I know this sounds lame but getting my butt over there to walk the track just hasn't happened yet.

organize the loft: We aren't hoarders I swear! but one of the bummer things about lofts is the lack of storage. Yesterday I actually priced a storage place to put all the stuff we want to keep but not have you know, 'out'..

re-write my manuscripts: I liked doing NaNoWriMo last year despite not getting to the 50k word minimum, but it did force me to sit down and write a few hours a day. More of that would be good.

Find lost siblings. One of the oddball things of the last year or so is that my biological older sister 'found' me on Facebook. So I found out I have half-siblings from my biological father's previous marriage. I joined Ancestry (which is fun!) and so I'm working on that some. It's not good for finding living people so much, but for doing my family trees, it's interesting. I want to find these half-siblings mostly for my biological sister.. If I can find at least one person this year that'd be good. Right? =)

convert our old videos: both VHS and those mini VCR and Hi-8 tapes of home movies we made at Disney World on our various vacations... Besides the convenience of stream-lining it all, the older they get, the more they degrade.

That last one is harder than it sounds.. I think at some point it's going to take a hardware upgrade (plus I don't know if I have what I need yet to do the conversions).

I think I would add to the list of 'goals' for this year:

visit my dear friend Joe in Eureka. I haven't seen him since he moved up there & I miss him bunches. It'll just be very difficult to get out there w/ out a car.

Find another place to have my afternoon tea and hang out..since Banquette closed New Year's Day..

See more movies! I have about 8 movies I want to go see right now.. and no, they're not all Disney!)

get my macbook looked at The tracking pad has been sticking & it's frustrating.

We'll see how I do. Go ahead and laugh. I already am.

HAPPY 2011!!

how I'm spending my new year's morning.. watching the Rose Parade w/ a bit of a cold.

Spent a quiet NYE celebrating at home after dinner at Pete's. I think a lot of our downtown neighbors and friends celebrated too in their own way, (whether it was staying at home or going to a local club like La Cita or Villains Tavern). However you spent it, hoping you're all having a wonderful & hangover free New Year's Day!

Whatever 2011 brings, may it work out for everyone eventually.. and that you have health, happiness, and as ever, friendship.