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Dandan’s Guilin Rice Noodle - with Mom

So. My mom calls me, twice. She asked me if I had dinner yet, at 6 PM. Ok just say it, what is it? She got a new car and said she wants to drive me. Keeping in mind that I was assuming she got the car some time this or last week. I got to her place from Pasadena within 30 minutes. As I parked and got out, she was getting ready to back out. After getting in, I looked at her like 'whhhaaattt are you doing..?'. She stops in the middle of the road as she was trying to switch to drive. I asked her "Did you just get the car today?!" she said yes in the afternoon.

AND.I.LITERALLY.JUST.DIED.

I'm not even kidding you. The seat belt fastened so quick it just took one click. And then, I kept my arms away from the doors, and sunk my body into the seat. I feared she was going to make an asian move into the intersection to merge and a car was going to slam on my side. If I had balls, they shriveled. I was so terrified! I'm not going to lie I wanted to cry. She sees a random restaurant and asked me if I would like to try it. I, immediately said yes. Especially because it was around the corner from her place and I don't want to be a passenger for more than 1 mile.

Dandan's Guilin Rice Noodle

600 E Valley Blvd Ste A San Gabriel, CA 91776

Just to start. I kind of felt this vibe as if our patronage was not necessary. Given they were fairly empty for their little shack, I felt bad to not try it while my mom wanted to leave and eat somewhere else. I'm not sure if I would come back because of that. My mom was speaking to the waitress in cantonese. I could hear it in her tone and see her body gestures that she was not into us. I don't tend to do this... but when someone upsets me and I feel disrespected, I give them the look. I have this thing I do, that I just stare. Into their eyes. Suck out their soul. And that's it. But my goal now, is to eat, pray for my safety as my mom drives back, and go.

First dish

Cold trio appetizer

You are able to choose 3 different types of cold dishes that they offer for this trio appetizer. My mom chose the seaweed, spicy pig ears, and some dried been curd. It was mediocre, not bad, but not great. A typical appetizer that I love to snack on. The seaweed is in a slight tangy vinegar, sesame marinade.

Beef Brisket rice

This dish was actually pretty good. It was stewed till tender, and it came out pretty quick. Literally, in about 2 minutes. There wasn't anything particularly special about this dish. It was just comforting and hearty. I doused this with a lot of chili oil.

What's not shown are some scallion pancakes that were also mediocre. Not sure if they made it in house, but it lacked a lot of color, and can be cooked a little longer to cook out the grease.

Not sure if I will come back because of the bad attitude. I will always try a restaurant again for their food. For service, it only takes one bad impression for me to walk.

And, honestly, this is 626. I can find this food anywhere.

Thanks Mom!

Daiisies

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The Perch - Happy Birthday best friend forever-ever.

On Saturday, we celebrated my Best friend, Jocelynn's birthday. I've known this chick for about 13 years. Our memories are consisted of a lot of alcohol consumption, random crying nights (NO more of those thank God), random parties, Hot Cheetos, and Starbucks.

This year, we went to Downtown Los Angeles to a beautiful restaurant/lounge called Perch.

448 S Hill St, Los Angeles, CA 90013

We had reservations at 5:30 PM, which worked out better for all of us. And I honestly really hate going out late. I don't mind staying out, but starting the night late is such a waste. Think about it: I want to see the sun, feel it, and see it say goodnight. If you've never thought about it that way, I hope you will start.

Before dinner, we took a few... or was it a lot, of Jameson. It's her birthday! and Who cares, we weren't driving (please drink responsibly). There's parking across the street for $10. Remember to put all your belongings out of site. And when crossing the street, always look left and right. AND! make sure drivers see you, and acknowledge you are crossing the street. Downtown LA can be a dangerous place at night with a lot of drunk and impatient drivers.

The Perch LA is pretty strict with reservations. If you want to dine here, make sure to give notice at least 2 weeks ahead of time just to make sure. If you have a party of 6+, definitely call a month in advance. When we showed up to our reservation, we were seated pretty quickly. The restaurant was also more than half empty. More reservations at 5:30 could've been accommodated. After we were seated, without much thought, we all pretty much ordered meat.

BOEUF BORDELAISE $29 ("braised short rib, roast garlic potato puree, beets, cippolini and pearl onions")

The short rib was braised for who knows how long till it was literally melt in your mouth, fork tender, fat rendered-good sh*t. If you come here, I highly recommend this. I also loved the beets and the bits of citrus to cut through the fat of the short ribs.

FILET MIGNON AU POIVRE $37
("parsnip + potato puree, asparagus, fines herbes, bordelaise, mushroom ragout")

The filet Mignon was cooked perfectly. Not much to say besides it being another classic French dish that they offer at Perch. The flavors are not as rich or heavy as it may seem. I do wish there was more of a punch of flavor since filet itself, or at least to me, has a mild beef flavor. A little FYI, I am NOT a filet Mignon gal. I love my fatty rib eyes and new york. The portions by the way, are decent and acceptable.

Steak Frites $26
("'flat iron, maitre d’ butter, bordelaise, truffle cheese fries")

Maitre D'butter is basically compound butter. It's butter set in room temperature where it becomes softened enough to mix with whatever concoction you want. Roll it back up into a log, fridge it, and then VOILA! The bordelaise is just a red wine base sauce. The "truffle" cheese fries, however, had zero truffles in it. Not even one trace. And I never send back truffle complaining there's not enough, because in reality, if you are not paying $100 for it, then you really aren't ordering it. This is just cheese fries. Unless they really did forget to add artificial truffle oil. Who knows. Don't care, the Jameson is kicking. The flat iron was cooked perfectly and tasted pretty good actually. My friend Mark even said it was as tender as the filet, figuratively speaking.

From the 3 meat dishes, I would definitely order the short ribs again. It was just executed very well and it's always something I love to order, especially if it takes hours till it becomes fork tender.

Hey, where's our waitress? I swear she left to go home or something because she never stopped by. Not having it.

So after dinner, we headed upstairs to the lounge.

Upstairs looking down at the restaurant.

There's no food served at the rooftop lounge, but there is a bar, and a pretty beautiful, bad ass view of Los Angeles. And notice how pretty everything looks when there's still light out? Hey, and you will never know who you can run into. We ran into an Ex Senator with his family and friends. Super friendly and kind. They also offered their seats when leaving so we can enjoy the rest our evening there. How sweet is that?

Mark and John


Jocelynn on the left, me on the right.

Jocelynn on the left, me on the right.

What I love about Jocelynn the MOST is how reliable she is. Yeah, you can say your friends are fun, do crazy things, love to go out, whatever. How often can you actually count on someone that's within your circle? And know that every single time you are in some kind of rut, they will be there? My ruts consisted of a lot of hunger issues.. but on the real note, she is the best and I can count on her to be by my side for the rest of my growing old years. And if you do have a friend like this, you will know exactly what I'm talking about. But mine is still better.

This night was unforgettable. Literally. I'm all kinds of messed up from it. But I'll never tell.

Cheers!

Daiisies

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The Habit Burger Grill

If you know me, you will know that I love and pretty much obsessed with The Habit Burger Grill. And I'm not the only one, my dad loves it too. I would even run into him sometimes. Or he would just come up to me and grab my arm instead of being a regular person and say hi in front of me. I could've knocked him! Anyways, their charburgers pretty much says it all "CHARBURGER". With char, it comes with mounds of flavor. And for some strange reason, it always comes out perfectly. I eat at The Habit, pretty religiously (at least once a week). Like some folks who crave In & Out all the time, I need my charburger, with a side of onion rings, all the time.

Right now, you can go to The Habit and donate to No Kid Hungry. No Kid Hungry focuses on ending child hunger in America. What I also love about their campaign is teaching low income families how to prep and make healthy meals for their family. At the Habit, with a $2 donation or more, you can receive a free charburger on your next visit.

Double Charburger with cheese

Hashtag your image with #SayCheeseburger and win a chance to be featured at the Nasdaq tower for national burger day. Yes, I want to win. Because I am the hugest fan of their charburgers. But since this campaign is for a great cause, I need to share this with you.

So start snapping and hash tagging #saycheeseburger. My tummy was happy, but I felt even better knowing I contributed to a cause that ends hunger here in America.

Another great thing about this is that all 100% of the donations that you give at The Habit will go directly to the organization. Again, why not?

Start eating!

Burger cheers,

Daiisies

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Troys no 8. Drunk food overload. thank you.

Ok first off, I wasn't drunk. Or I think I wasn't. I know I was fine because I remembered the whole night, just not how I got a bloody toe. It was dripping over the floors a little bit BUT I was fine. Neosporin and Bandages. See? I disinfected my toe first.

It was a Sunday. And to be honest, I would hate myself if I don't have one night out with some friends involving some kind of alcoholic beverage during labor day weekend.

What is Labor Day? Here's what Urban Dictionary has to say about Labor Day

“The holiday at the beginning of when school starts that nobody really knows what it means.”

’Hey When’s Labor Day?
Next weekend Foo’
Oh Man! Yes! ..Whats Labor Day anyway?
I don’t know Cuh’ ”
— Urban Dictionary

If you are looking for what Labor Day means... go back to school.

... Going back to the story. I wanted to stay home, lay on the couch and watch countless hours of Homeland until it's not stressful anymore. But that sh*t is always stressful. My best friend Jocelynn called me and asked what I was doing.

'Laying on the couch' (I almost spelled coach).

'Do you feel lazy?'

'No, I'll call you when I leave'

And that was that. The commitment was done. She offered a way out. She asked if I was lazy and hell yea I was! But without a thought, I just put on a pair of jeans.. shirt, and sold my soul to her. I walked through the halls to say goodbye to John like it was a death penalty. John didn't want to go because he had too much work to catch up on. That normally means more trouble for me.

I'm not going to tell you how much I had to drink. All I can say is her boyfriend Mark, who has also became one of my close friends over the years, decided to make Margaritas. Poor guy was squeezing the limes with his hands and making simple syrup from scratch. Fun part of it was we get to drink it. It was either too sour or too sweet (sorry Mark), but one thing he did well was masking the flavors of the tequila. All I can tell you is that Jose Cuervo and I go way back. And we are not friends. We are enemies. But today, I won.

What I love about hanging out with these 2 is that everything is always a yes, sure, if you want, let's do it. I had steak for dinner, but had my heart set on something tonight. Mark said it first. Chili cheese fries.

Chili Cheese mess

We headed over to Troys drive in No 8 in Highland Park on York. Mark wanted more than one order, but I said no and that we should share. See that there? Self Control. Why should one person eat that whole thing? You'll probably die, but you'll be smiling.

I stopped at the drive thru, and contemplated on what we should get. Was I hungry? I thought about my dinner. Had Marks 750ml tequila. Had a few chips. But we are sharing the chili cheese fries right?

*Pulls up drive thru*

"One chili cheese fries with the fries well done, one bacon cheeseburger with avocado, one carne asada burrito and ONE PASTRAMI BURGER."

OK What just happened there? Who gives a sh*t it was only $20!

Dear John,

Sorry for the calorie intake. But I saved you some food?

love,

Daisy

Yes that saved my ass and we ended up watching 2 more episodes of Homeland when I got home. If you are a guy or a girl, always bring food home if you are out. I get hangry as hell. Sitting around, waiting. Pretending like I am busy but I am not. I'm not hungry either but you better bring me back something to eat. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, there's something wrong with you. And I am saying it like "there's sumthin' wrooooong wid chu".

Pastrami was on point and met the expectations of a drive in burger joint. Nothing you would raise a pinky about. And if you are going to be critiquing a place like this, it goes back to the same phrase "there's sumthin' wrooooong wid chu".

This is the cure to prevent hangovers. and 10 pounds.

At the end of the night, I was extremely happy I hung out with them. For a few hours, I actually forgot about a lot of things. Time just stopped and the stresses that I had went away. You need friends like that in your life. Even more important, the ones that can make you feel like who you are. I can fart at that moment and be cool with it. And I probably did who knows. Since I don't even remember how I cut my toe. Yeah, that part was not cool.

Here's the address guys:

4738 York Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90042

Enjoy and always cheers.

Daiisies

 

 

 

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Quick ~ lazy fish sandwich

The name says it all. Quick and lazy. I went to Pavilions today and saw a bunch of goodies on sale leading to this post. I really didn't want to cook tonight. It's too hot, I've had too much to drink yesterday, watched too much Homeland last night, and I just didn't have enough sleep. So yeah, I didn't want to make a fish sandwich from scratch. Frozen beer battered fish were on sale for like, $4.99, so that decision went really quick. All I had to do was pick up some tomatoes, some french rolls, and a head of lettuce because I remember seeing a bottle of tartar sauce laying around somewhere.

lazy fish

I'm not complaining at all. It's simple, quick, and feels semi gourmet. Plus, I get to have more time watching Homeland and that series is stressful as F. Paper plates, unbuttoned pants, and a bottle of root beer. You can hate me all you want because I have no tedious dishes to wash.

I used Gortons beer battered fish fillets. For tomatoes, I used Roma. Tartar sauce, I had McCormicks.

I'm all ups for frozen fried fish fillet recommendations because I LOVE FROZEN FRIED FISH FILLETS. Ain't nobody got the energy to make fried anything on a daily. So having some fun goodies are always a plus, and keeps me less stressed on those nights where you really just want to bum it.

Have you met my dad? He's hardcore. He would even freeze bread so don't judge me.

Cheers, and goodbye 3 day weekend, I AM OVER YOU.

Daiisies

 

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