Eat Teach Blog

Good morning and Happy Father’s Day! Going to head out soon to the Corona del Mar Farmer’s Market, but before I do, wanted to upload some pictures from this weekend. I did a lot of branching out and tried a few new restaurants!

Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza (El Segundo, CA)

Gina and I came here for lunch on Friday. They just opened up this location recently and I was eager to try it. The restaurant always seems pretty busy, the ambience was really nice, and I love woodfired pizza! Unfortunately, I wasn’t too impressed with the food….

We started off with a Meditteranean tapa (appetizer) – Lebni, Soft Cheese. The description sounded like it’d be really flavorful: exotic spices, tomato, evoo, grilled herb flatbread. So we were looking forward to something really delicious. I think when they said “exotic spices,” they actually just meant “a shit ton of cumin.” It was hard to enjoy the food when it was entirely covered in spice. Not an exaggeration:

We also got a grilled chicken and hummus wrap and a garlic chicken pizza to share. Although the presentation was nice, I was, again, not too impressed with the taste of the food. The wrap had the same exact seasoning/taste as our appetizer. And the pizza was dry and I didn’t taste ANY garlic. C’mon Sammy’s – step up your game. I don’t understand why there were SO many people there….

We ate about 1/3 of it and boxed the rest up – never to come back again. Hahaha. Dramatic. But, probably a little bit true. They didn’t leave a great impression on my palate – sorry about it.

Luckily, we had this nice, chilled bottle of wine waiting at home for us. Made it all better:

Yokohama Sushi (Culver City, CA)

After living in Culver City for nearly two years and no longer a resident, I finally tried this sushi place. In my defense, it’s right next to a Subway, so I’ve never had the desire to eat anything else

He’s not posing. He’s just naturally that prim and proper.

It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t anything unique – just your regular, average sushi place. Hits the sushi craving, but doesn’t really go beyond that. I’m also not too much of a sushi connoisseur. I did, however, enjoy the chilled sake they had. I think I’m much more of a cold-drink drinker. I think red wine should be served chilled and that sake should never be served warm.

The one thing that did stand out was the Gyoza appetizer we ordered. It was really deeply fried, so I only had one, but it was DELICIOUS. The sesame seed sauce it came with was even more delicious and I wanted to dunk my sushi in that, instead of the soy sauce:

Forage (Silver Lake, CA)

Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures from dinner here. Probably because I was too eager to start eating. But I can assure you that no picture could really illustrate how AMAZING this food was. I got a plate of 3 sides: an arugula and kale salad with feta and breadcrumbs, a corn salad, and mac ‘n cheese (two different kinds of cheddar and grana padano). Unbelievable. The food tasted better than it looked – every bite was so, so flavorful and fresh-tasting. Apparently, they used to do this kind of “trading thing” with their customers that if customers brought in fresh produce, they would get a discount on their order. They would then use the produce in their future meals. They stopped doing that for obvious reasons…..but I like the idea. I will definitely be going back here for more…

Intellegentsia Coffee (Silver Lake, CA)

Not really a restaurant, per say. But still a notable mention. It’s a really high-end, exquisite taste type of coffee and espresso. Randy and Kent wanted to come here and splurge on a 1/2 pound of their coffee beans, so we all got a drink to end our amazing dinner. I got a soy latte – it was so creamy and delicious. Pretty expensive – and I thought Starbucks lattes were expensive! But it was a nice treat:

Now, I’m done with restaurants for the week. My goal is to be healthy and homemade for the next 5 days! Expect a lot of recipes on the blog this week…..

Just finished my breakfast: Honey Chobani, chia seeds, slivered almonds, and Farmers Market blueberries. YUM!

Now off to the farmers market to buy more fruits and veggies! I love this farmer’s market because it’s literally steps from the beach:

Corona del Mar, Newport Beach (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Happy Father’s Day to all the wonderful fathers out there….my daddy’s gotta work on Father’s Day, but we will hopefully make something yummy for him to come home to.

What are your plans for Father’s Day?! 

So Saturday night was Arjun’s big graduation party at a restaurant called Cotillion in Jericho.  It was really fun – lots of dancing, drinking, and meeting all of Arjun’s friends from college. But we didn’t get home til past 3am, so Sunday morning was kind of a rough start. Mid-day, we decided to take a walk to Dunkin Donuts to get some coffee. When we got to Austin Street, we noticed they were having their Austin Fall Street Fair/Festival so decided to check it out. So glad we did! It was three blocked off streets of different types of food, live music, jewelry, paintings, etc.

There was so much yummy-looking street food that we wanted to try, but we made our entire rounds before we settled on the few places we’d get stuff from. There were a lot of non-food vendors:

I didn’t realize people still bought beanie babies?

We spun the wheel and won free chips and salsa, a free soft drink, and free dessert!

But there were a LOT of food/drink vendors:

Fried bananas with some creamy like filling?

We finally settled on sharing some Jerk Chicken. The chicken was AMAZING. I wasn’t going to suggest we get it because it didn’t look as appetizing as some of the other chicken we saw. But Jeej was pretty set on it and he knows meat more than I do, so I trusted him. It was INCREDIBLE. So much so that we went around back of the tent and complemented the chef. He said that he marinates the chicken overnight in a mixture of spices and their restaurant’s special jerk sauce. But that he pokes a hole through the entire chicken so that it’s all soaked up in that wonderful sauce. To quote Arjun, “I would bathe in that sauce.” But Arjun became friends with the guy (he somehow always does because he talks to anyone and everyone). And the guy gave him an entire take-out container of the chicken and said, “Since you like it so much, it’s yours.” Pays to complement the chef, I guess!

The picture definitely does not do justice to how tasty this chicken was

Devouring the chicken, licking our fingers. YUM.

We also shared two smoothies because it was H-O-T outside and needed something to keep us cool:

What a coincidence. The straws were the same color as Bhanu’s socks. Not quite sure why he was wearing bright neon green and orange socks….

Don’t mind the sweat dripping from our faces. It was hot and HUMID out!

There was live music on one of the side streets with hundreds of chairs and tables set up for people to watch.

Behind the stage

Sister and I were craving some diet Pepsi (yes, sometimes these cravings hit us as though we are pregnant women). So, we found the closest restaurant (Pizzeria Uno!) that served Diet Pepsi (not Diet Coke), but then walked over to Duane Reade to buy Sister some Minute Maid Pink Lemonade (read her post to see the concoction she creates called P-Splash). We realized, however, that it was more of a sit-down restaurant and less of a grab-and-go kind of place. But we were determined, so we got a table and ordered a pizza that we were going to take home for the moms/dads/uncles/aunts to share.

P-Splash. Don’t worry – she just whipped out the bottle at our table to pour into her drink, no big deal.

Harvest Vegetable Pizza with 9-Grain Crust

Well, the plan WAS to take it home for everyone to share. But……….

All gone!

After little bites and nibbles, we finished off the pizza (there were 5 of us after they all met up with us again. We’re not just being fatties!).

I realized I never got my iced coffee…..but it was worth it. The festival was great!

Have you been to any summer festivals or fairs yet? Do you plan on going to any this summer? 

Happy National Best Friend Day! =)

To start the celebrations off, I took the subway (thank you HopStop!) to meet Alyssa for lunch. We decided to go to Artichoke to get some real NY pizza. I had been here before, but I had never eaten it right out of the oven (the roof of my mouth is still burning FYI. I attacked the pizza. Well, I guess it attacked me). It was incredible. We split a piece of Margherita pizza and their infamous Artichoke pizza. I zoomed in a bit on the artichoke pizza so you can see how deliciously creamy, oily, and fatty it was. Luckily, I walked all across/around, into, over the city today, so I didn’t feel too bad indulging in a slice of pizza.

After lunch, I took the subway uptown to Hunter College to watch Stephen’s graduation ceremony.  Normally, graduations bore the hell out of me. But I really enjoyed this one – it was a little more interactive (the City Year corps members were showing off their chants/cheers they do each morning), the “commencement” speaker was really eloquent and powerful, and it really allowed me to get a sense of what he’s been doing this year. I am so inspired by people who give back. By people who are actively changing the world. By people who see so much potential in children and help them see it in themselves. By people who take the words, “I can’t” and change them into “I did.” Needless to say, I was in tears at the end of the ceremony. Obviously.

He clearly looks thrilled to have graduated.

Just so lucky to have the friends and family I do. The ones that make a difference in my life every day. Yea, National Best Friends Day is today. But I celebrate it EVERY DAY! =) Thank you best friends.