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| 3 generations of STRONG women |
simple and elegant. set decor designed by a lil wedding planner.
we spent the morning playing hoops and trying to convince Tim to go to vegas instead of doing this. no dice. man was on a mission to put a ring on her. The location of the proposal would be CEC, a place they’d spent many sundays together and where they spent a lot of time and energy serving the youth.
Tim flew down from norcal to surprise her, and with the help of Chris’ fellow youth advisors, organized a psuedo-advisor meeting.
the video displays the the rest. enjoy!
Kept hearing a zipping sound around the office like one of those little RC cars today. It was zipping up and down the hall and through the cubicles but always at least one cubicle row over. My coworkers are always buying new toys: ipads, iphones, nerf guns…it’s a fun office. Kept going all day though, intermittently, like ever 15-20 minutes.
Finally the childish part of me wants to join in on the fun. I hear it revving in the distance and I get up to hide behind a cubicle corner. Just as it’s about 5 ft away I decide to get a glimpse before jumping out and picking up the car.
Along zooms a new coworker on his electric wheel chair. TG for slow reflexes.
12:30pm – Cindy’s Kitchen, Hacienda Heights
After church in the morning at http://www.ambassadorchurch.org/ we continued our asian food streak. This is Ben’s hole in the wall taiwanese specialty and it was quite well hidden. Located between a 24 hour convenience store and a mixed martial arts center, i’m sure hacienda heights locals have driven by this place countless times.
Delicious!
2:00 pm – Class 302
There is now a distinction between “shaved ice” and “shaved snow”. Very fortunate to have skipped over ice and moved directly into snow fandom. From what I gather it’s frozen yogurt-ish shaved into ribbons. Thus instead of getting just shaved water…it’s shaved sugar water. Sounds pretty negligible but the difference is stunning.
Hats off to Class 302’s decor which really gives the school room vibe. Meals are served in tin boxes and the seats and tables are rickety school desks and chairs. Big Jon reached his hand inside his desk’s cubby and pulled out an old taiwanese student hand book. Had all the Bo Po Mo Fo’s and everything.
The wait can be quite long ~40 minutes. One xue hua bing’s should be able to satisfy 2 people. This really was a surprisingly great dessert. Heard there’s a similar (possibly) related chain in Irvine called ‘the Balcony’…should check that out sometime. At $6-7 per bowl, this was a great eat and a great deal!
4:00 pm
6:00 pm
Good cantonese food and a dessert specialty. Almond Milk + Puff Pastry = best weekend topper. Thanks to Chen family for such great hospitality and always being superb hosts!
Thank you to everyone who made this weekend possible and to everyone who came out and made it a blast!
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| E. Liu and A. Wong |
3:30 PM : Football Work Out
This guy (on the left) taught me a lot of what I know about football. We spent a lot of time over the last few college years throwing around the pigskin and sharing life on and off the field. Running routes, agility workouts, a little bit of ultimate for a few hours…the memories flooded back to more care free days. A totally selfless big brother.
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| Hainan Chicken |
Inexpensive and amazing chinese food…it’s what we came for. Tucked in a corner off Garfield and Valley lies a small cantonese restaurant called Savoy Kitchen. Known for one dish: Hainan Chicken.
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| Edmond’s first attempt at SLR photography on the right. So much better than my shots already! |
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| Indescribable fellowship: E.Liu, J.Yao, J.Fu, M.Listiawan, A.Wong, M.Jiang, B.Chen (missing K.Hsu). |
| Guys, let’s not wait another few years before doing this again! |
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| Strawberry Donut = fresh glazed awesomeness |
Whenever i have an experience that is uberly spectacular, I have a habit of letting out a huge sigh and end up sitting there soaking in the moment. In this case, I took a bite and let a funny moan and just stared in awe at my food…then I slowly nibble away in silence with a grin ear to ear. a combination of an amazing day of catching up with good friends, good food, and a strawberry donut will do that.
I turn to Adam and say, “if we headed home right this instant, I’d say this weekend was a smashing success.” But, we got a few hours of sleep ahead of us and tomorrow…we be at it again!
1:00 PM
Gluttons? yes. Round 2 Lunch. Eat!
There’s something about this place that makes people salivate as soon as you bring up Father’s Office. Don’t know when it started and up until today, didn’t know why.
Not far from Langers but in an entirely different neighborhood altogether, Father’s Office is in quite a nice area called Culver City. I thought it was downtown. nope.
A bouncer checks ID’s at the door (you have to be 21+ to enter) and all waiters have the restaurant’s initials on their shirts with a big bold…F.O. I can’t help but think the bartender’s telling me F*** Off. I order at the bar and take a seat wherever there’s a spot. At 1 pm it isn’t too crowded, parking and seating isn’t an issue.
The menu is as limited as their beer selection is expansive. Every where I turn I see people eating the same thing. The Office Burger. This place doesn’t seem to customize the burger toppings for anyone. It comes prepared one way, and apparently it’s a way everyone here loves. We get ours medium rare.
There’s a caveat with this post. My friends have made some bomb burgers over the years. I’ve yet to eat a restaurant burger that comes remotely close to a home made bacon infused beef patty burger fresh off the grill. So that being said I went in with an open mind but skeptical that it’d live up to its hype. Keep in mind we just had a pastrami sandwich less than 90 minutes ago and that was fresh on our minds and palates.
It was…pretty good. Caramelized onion with bacon on a patty, various types of cheese, and leafy greens on a mini baguette. The bread comes a bit greaser than I’d expect (the bun glistens in the photo below). It’s better than any burger in recent memory than I’ve had in any other restaurant. I can see why people rave about it. The patty is really soft and juicy. my vocabulary is short and limited.
Is it better than a home made bacon burger? A.Wong, M.Chung and I came to consensus that it came pretty close…but not quite. If we had came with empty stomachs and had to wait 30 min, this burger would have tasted like a mound of heaven. But then, I think that’d be true for most burgers, so that doesn’t count. Maybe it’s unfair to pit a restaurant burger against a home made recipe…but on the other hand maybe that speaks to how good this place is, if it can cause me to debate that. At $12 a burger and ~$7 for fries it gets in to the hefty $20/person range for a meal.
Still. If I were in the area and had time to drop by for a burger, I probably would again.
First dropper-byer of LA Eats weekend! Big Jon took a break from tracking at Paramount Studio’s nearby to say hi and order some burgers. 8…to be exact. Some hungry mouths to feed back in the studio. One of his clients came out too, challenged Big J at HORSE. funny girl. she’s gonna get creamed.
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photo by Simplytwo.com
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| photo by Simplytwo.com |
10:30am
It all starts with pastrami. First meal of the day.
This place has been around for over half a century and a friend suggested Langers Deli to me, claiming that it was better than his visit to NY’s famed Carnegie Deli. I haven’t had the east coast experience to validate that claim but it got me intrigued.
quiet and unassuming, this place actually does stand out despite it’s seemingly bland outter appearance. right across macarthur park, let’s just say the area around this is a bit more colorful and shady…if that makes sense.
“Three no. 19’s please and a side of fries”, said M.Chung, our LA resident and pastrami expert. no.19: Pastrami, Swiss Cheese, and cole slaw Russian style dressing. Mike’s had the trinity of Los Angeles pastrami: Langers, the Hat, and Oinkster. His excitement to drive us across town in gritty traffic gave me pretty good assurance I was in for a treat.
I’ve never had pastrami like this before. The stuff I’m used to is thinly sliced, greasy goodness, like the Hat (from my last LA eats trip). This sandwich didn’t leave me feeling gross and had me wishing they’d just stack the pastrami with no end in sight. It was so juicy and flavorful! hold up, wiping the puddle from my keyboard…mouth’s watering just writing this. The thick crust of the rye bread kind of offset the strong pastrami flavor. I’m not a fan of thick hard crusts and next time I’ll go without the cole slaw dressing but it did taste amazing despite that. After finishing just half of the sandwich I was surprised how filling it was.
Knowing we had a full schedule ahead of ourselves, I tried to hold back and thought about wrapping half the sandwich to save for later. Could not do it. Pastrami >> self control. came hungry, left satisfied.
Some will not like the price range of these sandwiches which are significantly more expensive than the Hat’s. They run ~$14. I thought it was well worth it. Give it a try!
