Sunday, November 20, 2011

"Yelp Me, Yelp You!"


I started yelping back in May 2009, but was never really consistent with it. My first yelp review was not under my current account (and I don't know where it is now...) but it was to rant about horrible service I had in a downtown San Diegan Italian restaurant that I'm fairly confident no longer exists.

I use this site almost religiously whenever I'm in a new area. Usually, I'm passing through, but it's been a big help now that I've relocated.

Since I use it so much, I thought I would finally give back and let's face it: I'm opinionated and when it comes to food, I know what I like and I know what I don't like.

Mesa Cafe's Corned Beef Hash
Eggs Benedict
I was keeping a private list of favorite restaurants, which I would occasionally update, but this is so much easier to use, since it has all the information I usually need AND (as I'm sure most of you with smart phones know) it has its own app. I haven't reviewed all of my favorites, but I will so that I can remember them when I return. (I'm thinking about you, Boston and San Diego!!)

Taqueria Los Tarascos assortment 
of street tacos
I know many of you don't see what the big deal is about this site. But, just so you can see how helpful and entertaining it can be, I invite you to read a few of the posts from my friends, the Yelp Elite: Erica "Zombie Killer" P. (helpful) and her husband Chun "49% Gay/ 51% Cheapass" P. (entertaining, so much so that I'm usually LMAO!)

Goleta Sushi House's Chirashi

Feel free to friend me Kim "Kimikat" V. to follow some of my culinary adventures and to make some suggestions. I used to be all sugar and no spice on this account, but now, the truth comes out. After all, who wants to be lured into a crappy restaurant?!






Tuesday, November 15, 2011

A Phung-fastic weekend!

My good friend Erica Phung came to see me this weekend. I've had visitors every weekend I've been in SB and mostly we would walk around State Street and eat. This time was a little different.

Instead of just looking at different restaurants to try and roaming downtown SB, Erica and I looked for activities that could be fun in between all those meals. Our first crack was a boot camp that began at 8:30am on a Saturday morning. Well, at least according to the local paper, the Independent. We were so excited that we woke up early enough to give this a try, only to get to the fitness center and find out that the class had been cancelled... boo!!!

Crab Cake Eggs Benedict
Not to be discouraged, we decided to go to Cajun Kitchen for breakfast. A co-worker of mine recommended this place, and yelp gave it good reviews, so I thought, let's try it! (It was also right around the corner from the Boot Camp that didn't happen.) I got the Crab Cake Eggs Benedict and some OJ. It was good, but not as good as Erica's Hot Link Sausage. That in itself was amazing! (No picture, sorry.) The hash browns were indeed, awesome, as the reviews said.
After breakfast, we decided that we needed to commit to our earlier agenda of getting in some fitness in our day, so we ended up at Yasa Yoga for their "YASA Yin and Yang" course:

Enjoy a 45 minute YASA style flow, balanced by 45 minutes of yin yoga. During the yin portion of the class, students will explore longer holds, fewer poses and work with subtle energy to balance their yang practice. The perfect addition to any day to leave you feeling balanced and blissful. Suitable for All Levels.

Yeah right! That class was taught in a warm studio (about 85F) and kicked my butt! Granted, I'm working towards getting healthier, but this class was hard! So hard, in fact that all I wanted to do afterwards was take a nap. BUT, I had company, so that wasn't going to happen.

Pumpkin strip
After we freshened up, we headed to State Street for some shopping and stopped at Andersen's Bakery for a very late lunch. We were starved after that class! (At least I was!) The food was good, and the pumpkin strip was to die for! This may not look all that interesting, but the description peaked my curiosity: "A pumpkin pie in a pastry".  This was DELICIOUS!!! It was so good, that Erica came back the next day to bring some home! (If you want to know what I think of the service, that's a whole other story...)

This meal hit the spot. Full of delicious food, we returned to my place to take a quick rest. I had read in the Independent that they had a "Latin/Swing/Ballroom" lesson on Saturday nights at the Santa Barbara Dance Center. I'm still new to the area and wanted to try out the place for their Tuesday Salsa classes and asked if Erica was interested in going. We found out it was Lindy Hop night and even though Erica is pretty much an expert at Lindy, she was up for anything.

Don't judge me, but in order for me to make it out that night, I had to take a nap. I'm an awful host, but it just had to happen. To my defense, it was only about 15 minutes.

The lesson turned out to be fun. I learned the basics of a Charleston and Lindy Hop and felt like a Mexican jumping bean with all the hopping that was involved. It ain't called Lindy HOP for nothin'!!

Erica left in the late morning on Sunday after we had breakfast and I took the rest of the day and night to recover. All I gotta say is, what a great weekend!


Saturday, November 5, 2011

Muchas gracias Beto!

Although I haven't mentioned it lately, my "to-do" list has been on my mind. I've been scouring newspapers and googling websites to see if I can fulfill some of those activities that I spoke of several months ago.

Today, I went for my first Zumba class. According to wikipedia, this class was founded by Alberto "Beto" Perez in Columbia. If you know me at all, you know I love to dance. I've been dying to try this class since I heard about it a while ago. It was a mixture of Samba, Tango, Salsa, Cumbia and Cha-Cha. I was the youngest person in there by about 10-15 years. I was fine with that, and had fun taking the class. However, I think I'm looking for a more advanced one. Considering the audience, I feel like I can find a younger crowd that can make the class a wee bit more ... let's say, youthful.

In any case, I think the idea of this class is awesome. What a great way to get some exercise in without feeling like it was a work out. And for that, I say, "Muchas Gracias Beto!" for accidentally creating a fun way to get exposure to different music and dance styles.

I'm still looking into Salsa classes, and other ways to check off that list, but stay tuned. =)


Friday, November 4, 2011

Table for 1

Lately, I've been dining alone. It's not something that I have done a lot in my life, and I used to feel a lot more uncomfortable about it, but when you are alone in a new town, frankly, you just don't have a lot of choice. That is, unless you want to eat a lot of take out.

Anyway, I arrived really late in the evening on my first day in Santa Barbara. Considering my flight arrived in Phoenix at 7:30pm and my connecting flight was due to leave at 8:05pm in a completely different terminal, I had to run like a bat out of hell, barely made my flight, and didn't have time to stop for a bite to eat. (I was just glad I made my plane, although my luggage didn't until a day later.)

Looking on my yelp app, I looked for something that was open at 10:15pm on a Sunday evening. Elephant Bar was the first thing to pop up. I went there, only to see that they changed their hours and closed at 10. My search continued. I found another place and went on my way.

Instead of going there, Takenoya caught my eye since it had a flashing "Open" sign. Also, I had been eating a lot of heavy food, so I thought sushi would be a light meal that would be somewhat healthy.

I walked in and got seated quickly, since it was relatively empty. I ordered a Sprite, but they didn't have it. No worries there, I ordered a milk tea, which I realized I wanted after I ordered anyway.

I then looked at the menu and ordered a Red Dragon Roll: Tuna and avocado on top of a spicy tuna roll, and a Take Tower: Sushi rice, spicy tuna, avocado, crab meat and seared bay scallop with a special sauce.

This was an enormous portion. Even though I hadn't eaten all day, I couldn't finish it all. Well, especially since I realized I'm not a fan of the special sauce on the Take Tower. I spent a good portion of the time scrapping it off. ick! Mayo and sushi to me is like cream cheese and sushi. It's just not right.

Sadly, I have to admit that this meal didn't sit well with me. In fact, it woke me up at 2am and kept me up until about 3:45am. I won't go into detail, but let's just say I'm not going back there... EVER. Oddly, it didn't taste bad, but the combination just upset my digestive system.

This was quite unfortunate, since I had to start work the next day...

Let go of what is gone; be grateful for what remains; look forward to what is coming...

NOTE: Written on March 2, 2020: Pre knowing just how big Covid was... I decided not to rewrite it because it was a simpler time then.  Holy ...