I love food. I think of it like currency. There is the food you eat to live (salads, whole grains, lean proteins) which is like the money you spend on rent, insurance, gas, etc. But then there is the food you eat just for fun (dessert! fried chicken! deep dish pizza!) which is more like the money you spend on manicures, cute shoes and vacations. So eating a bad meal feels like throwing away money both in terms of what I spent on the food itself and the calories I've wasted on crap. Unfortunately, my birthday weekend was filled with regrettable food.
Now the birthday budino was quite luscious. That and a room full of my closest friends screaming at the "Magic Mike" dance sequences was a great way to start things off. (if you haven't seen the film, pay the extra money for the blue ray combo pack which includes the deleted dance sequences. This is not a fine piece of art, my friends. But damn, it is fun to watch as long as they aren't talking!) But before that hubby and I had gone out to the local French restaurant for a nice dinner. Taix is as old school as you can get in LA. It's been around for over 50 year and the waiters are from a bygone era of career waitstaff as opposed to, "Hey, I'm just waiting for my pilot to get picked up then I can quit this job" servers. But the food was equally dated. I had the seafood paella. Paella always sounds good in theory but I have never found it as satisfying as described. Maybe its because i find saffron to be a little soapy. or maybe it's because I had just heard the "This American Life" episode about how pig anuses are masquerading as calamari, and there was A LOT of calamari in the paella. But I didn't enjoy it.
The next day I ate a hasty breakfast of leftovers and left to play a full day of volleyball. I got back, showered and we headed down to Fullerton for my friend's wedding. She had alerted me last year that she would be getting married on m birthday so I was prepared. I knew she spent a ton of money on this and I guess I was just expecting more. the location--gorgeous. the dress--beautiful. the live band--a treat. but the food was typical terrible wedding food: dried chicken breast stuffed with pebbles of frozen vegetables and a little bit of cheese, a tasteless hunk of white fish in soggy breading, bland rice and unseasoned asparagus. There weren't even any hot appetizers. Just some cubed cheese and ritz crackers. I was starving and appalled. We've been to two other weddings this year, not counting our own. Both of them were not as traditional but had awesome food. I really think the food makes the event. Have something special, something unique to the couple. We did a whole roast pig and ten pies that i baked myself. people are still talking about it. NOBODY talks about dried out chicken breast a year later. And worse yet, i was still hungry after all that crappy food. We left the wedding when they started playing Shania Twain and were going to hit a dumpling place on the way back, but decided instead to try The Hat. They advertise their "World Famous" pastrami. Now we live close to Langers, which in my opinion has the tastiest, fattiest, most unbelievably juicy pastrami around town. But I have driven past the Alhambra location of The Hat many times and have always seen a line. So i convinced the hubs to give this location a spin. Mistake. I should have known. Is anything ever labeled as "World Famous" ever the best? The pastrami was like meat flavored loofah and the chili cheese fries we large but dry and flavorless. I was full, but of shitty food. Birthday Fail.
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