Browse Month: December 2005

More cheese, please

In keeping with the American spirit of gluttony and obesity, Jes, Jason, and I went to The Melting Pot last night for some fondue.
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The only other time I’ve had fondue was in Costa Rica and it was alright. It was more fun just eating with friends. Well, this place has been in Irvine for about 3 years, which is as long as we’ve lived in Irvine. We’ve attempted to try it several times and each time we get thrown out because we don’t have reservations. I must be dumb or just unaware of the popularity because each time the girl at the front desk scowls at me and says, “Uh, guests normally need to make reservations at least a week in advance”. In response to her statement I am sincerely shocked and have actually said to her, “REALLY?!”. Then I walk away saying, “But it’s just fondue!” Apparently fondue IS popular and I really DO need to make a reservation. *sigh*
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Well, I actually picked up the phone last week and made a reservation. When we arrived, the girl at the front shouted out, “Do you have a reservation?!” I smiled and said, “Why yes we do!” At our seat, the waiter was very thorough with his description of the menu and we decided to go with everything…cheese, meats, seafood, chocolate, you name it! Let the gluttony begin!!
The swiss cheese was really good…so good that we asked for more and ended up paying for another whole order. Oh well, the boys managed to finish it anyways. The meats and seafood were cooked in a burgundy wine concoction and I think the butter sauce was the winner out of the 8 choices we had. Dessert included marshmallows, strawberries, pineable, pound cake, brownie, and cheesecake dipped in melted milk chocolate. That was very yummy.
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Overall, the experience was fun and the food was tasty. It’s a nice place for a group of friends on a special occasion. I also wouldn’t recommend going if you’re in a time crunch. You’ll have to plan on a nice long 3-hour dinner at this place and be prepared to waddle your way back to the car with post-gorging discomfort on the ride home.

got change?

I used to think Coinstar was so dumb. Why would you pay someone to count your change? Usually if you throw your change into the machine, they charge you a “coin-counting fee” so that you can get dollar bills in exchange for your coins. Well, they now have a special promotion where you can give them your change and get a gift card back without the fee. So…we jumped all over that on Saturday. Jes and I collected all of our loose change and ran over to the Albertson’s across the street. Out of one spaghetti jar filled with coins, we got back a $76 gift card for Amazon.com! Awesome!! Then we went home and bought stuff that we were already planning to buy…some lens filters, extra battery for my Canon, and a book for Jesse. Gotta love it!

Pre-Christmas Activites

Jason is home for the holidays and he’s staying with us until we leave for Thailand. Since he missed out on the Thanksgiving Roast, Jes made another one this weekend. It was a nice pre-Christmas dinner. The Standing Rib Roast was yummy and Jes made all the fixings including the real Lawry’s recipe for Creamed Corn.
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I also hung out with Marie and Cole for some last minute preparation for her Christmas trip to New York. Cole was in an extremely good mood today, which made shopping and lunch much easier. In fact, during lunch Cole was the life of the party. He sat in his high chair and kept turning around to smile and interact with the people eating at the tables nearby.

Double Ditech

On Thursday night, Jes and I went to The Harp to watch his co-worker play in his band. The group is called “Velicious” and we’ve seen them a couple times now. They play covers all night and some of the songs are good but most of them are just so-so. Jes’ co-worker plays bass guitar and is actually pretty good. Too bad the lead guitarist has a huge ego and plays 10-minute solos and the lead singer has to read the lyrics off of song sheets all night. We still had a good time with a few drinks and some bar food.

On Friday night, Jes took me to his company Christmas party at the House of Blues. We got all gussied up, drove through I-5 traffic, and met up with his co-workers out front. The top floor and stage area were rented out for this shindig and started out rather slow but then it picked up after the Blues Brothers went away and the DJ kicked it up. The party wasn’t bad but it wasn’t very eventful either. It was just nice to get dressed up for a special event.

Santa’s Scary

When I was a little kid I used to be scared of the Disney characters at Disneyland. I was also scared of Santa. I remember when my mom would ask if I wanted to take a picture with Santa I would answer with an immediate “NO!”. Can you blame me?! Imagine being no taller than 3 feet and having to sit on the lap of a big hairy man dressed in all red? Well, I relived those moments today through Cole’s eyes. We parked the stroller, got in line with everyone else, and waited our turn. Cole was in a pretty good mood and didn’t react to the big red man seated before him. But when it came time to actually sit on the dude’s lap, he sorta freaked out. He took one close look at his big white beard and wanted out! Marie just wanted one photo of him with Santa but I think I ended up with 4 shots of him crying and then finally one of him looking semi-calm. Poor Taku-chan…maybe we’ll try Disneyland next year.

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By the way, Marie took me to a Japanese/Asian tapas place in Costa Mesa tonight. It’s called “Oki Doki” and was very tasty. We had the spinach/mushroom salad, albacore salad, kim chee rice soup, blackened cod, and shrimp fried rice. Yum.

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Check it out:
Oki Doki
3033 S. Bristol St. #O
(SW corner at Paularino)
Costa Mesa, CA
714-540-2066

by the numbers

I learned about Su Doku back in May when I went to Borders and found a bunch of different puzzle books on display. It’s an interesting logic game that I was curious about but didn’t get around to trying. When I was in Florida, I bought my first book of puzzles. I tried it on the plane ride home and seems to be a very effective way to pass time. With a couple puzzles under my belt, I’ve come up with a couple tips for beginners:
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1) Try out web-based puzzles to see if you like it. Go to: http://www.websudoku.com for free ones.

2) If you’re ready to buy a book, find one that has the puzzles printed on good quality white paper…avoid the stinky newspaper pages.
3) Use a good mechanical pencil and eraser. I recommend a Zebra-brand pencil and a Pentel click eraser.
4) You’ll probably want to try it on your own at first. It’s hard to do a puzzle with another person…we each have a different way of solving logic puzzles so it can get confusing when there’s another brain involved.
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If you like crossword or word find puzzles, you might enjoy this. I’ll be bringing my book with me to Thailand for sure. Along with my iPod, GameBoy, and laptop, it’ll be kinda nice to have something low-tech too.