Time seemed to be moving so slow, until one morning I woke up and realized – I’m more than 6 months pregnant!
This is at 25 weeks,2 days. Whoa.
Author: Carrie
Summer Fun Day
Today was wide open and we had an itch to get on the road – Ed sold his beloved Mini this week, but it was happily replaced by his favorite car, a VW Jetta SportWagen! We decided it was a good day to break it in. We decided to head south down PCH and see where the day would take us. Too bad the sun never came out today – but the drive was gorgeous nonetheless …
We were hungry for lunch, so we hit up Yelp to find a new good place to try. We stumbled upon Crab Zone in Laguna Beach. Don’t be fooled by the cheesy name, this place really delivered! It is a seafood restaurant offering traditional type items like Clam Chowder and Seafood Gumbo, but they also have an interesting Asian Fusion twist, too. There was definitely a lot to choose from.
The 5-star ratings were pretty hard to ignore, and everyone seemed to be raving over the Dungeness Crab with Garlic and Pepper Butter Sauce, so Ed went ahead and ordered it. They really weren’t messing around – look at the size of that thing! Although he said it was probably the messiset meal he’s ever eaten, Ed swears it was worth the mess. They actually chop the legs off and cook everything in a wok, and then they “assemble” the crab back on to the plate. You get a lot of attention when its brought out to the table!
I decided to order a cup of the gumbo and get some steamed King Crab Legs. Wow – those did not disappoint either! Everything was delicious! Once again, big thanks to the Yelpers for getting us to a new destination!
After our awesome lunch, we decided to head over to OCMA (Orange County Museum of Art) for their 15 Minutes of Fame: Portraits from Ansel Adams to Andy Warhol exhibition. From OCMA’s website:
15 Minutes of Fame: Portraits from Ansel Adams to Andy Warhol explores a diverse range of photographic portraits from early modernism, to photographs of celebrities from the 1930s to 1960s, photojournalistic street photography from the 1960s, and contemporary portraiture.
All of the photos were fantastic! This photo taken by Lawrence Schiller in 1962 was one of our favorites. See Alfred Hitchcock in the rearview mirror of the car?
They also had a pretty cool photo booth in the exhibit so that you could capture your own 15 minutes of fame. Here we are with our best attempts at celebrity!
We also love OCMA because of its beautifully designed modern space.
Here’s Ed looking dapper in the tulip chair …
And me … looking pregnant!
Foodcation Highlights
Okay, so this is sooo belated, but if we don’t stop posting around here with nothing but Baby updates, people are going to revoke our thosecoolkims license. So, here are a few highlights from the epic FOODCATION we took with Brittany & Wade to celebrate Wade’s 40th Birthday! 2 days in Wine Country, 2 days in San Francisco, and many, many Michelin-star restaurants!
While every single meal we had was simply fantastic – both Ed & I probably agree that our meal at Ad Hoc was the most special somehow. Being that it was one of Thomas Keller’s restaurants makes it very special on its own, but the concept of the place was so warm and inviting. As described on the Ad Hoc website:
The building at 6476 Washington Street was originally intended to be a very different type of restaurant. While we were designing it we thought we’d experiment by opening a temporary restaurant and calling it Ad Hoc, which literally means, “for this purpose.” The idea for Ad Hoc was simple – 5 days a week we’d offer a 4 course family style menu that changed each day, accompanied by a small, accessible wine list in a casual setting reminiscent of home.
Casual and reminiscent of home is exactly what it was. We felt right at home as the servers brought out plates and plates of family-style food. As there is no menu, you literally just get whatever is being served that evening. We really lucked out! Our night was Surf-n-Turf night! Check out all of this meat and lobster!
Also what made things very special is that Thomas Keller has his garden directly across the street from his three restaurants on the street. We literally saw chefs outdoors, picking ingredients from the ground, and going right back into the kitchen to serve them. Our first course at Ad Hoc was a salad served with all produce from the garden! It was amazing to eat something so fresh & natural – it was definitely much more special than a usual salad! We walked the grounds after our meal reveling at each thing we saw growing that we had eaten just hours before!
Yes, we ate plenty of these Fava Beans!
Look, there’s a chef out picking from the garden!
Another very special meal was at Redd. Redd is the very best in “California Cuisine”. A sleek modern setting, a very fun and varied menu and the perfect afternoon to dine al fresco made this a wonderful lunch! Brittany is modeling her gorgeous plate of Pot Roast and I am thrilled with my mini Chinese-style Pork Buns!
Of course, it wouldn’t be a trip to wine country without a wine tasting! Here is Ed looking dapper at Terra Valentine vineyards!
We finished off our time in Napa at Thomas Keller’s other restaurant, Bouchon.
It was very french – I ordered the Poulet Roti …
… and we all indulged in this gluttonous seafood platter!
Leaving Napa was difficult to do, but fortunately we had a lunch at The Slanted Door to look forward to! The Slanted Door has the very best in Asian Fusion cuisine! It was the best I think we’ve ever had!
It was a legendary meal, we just kept ordering food, and they kept bringing out other things they thought we’d enjoy. We felt like rockstars throughout the meal. We can’t wait to return!!!
Beautiful sashimi for everyone but the pregnant girl :(
More oysters for Wade & Ed
Later that evening, we celebrated Ed’s birthday the way he wanted to celebrate it – at an East German restaurant! Everyone knows Ed’s obsession with all things German, but Walzwerk was special because it contained all of the old-school East German communist kitsch that Ed can’t get enough of! The posters, the dishes … everything about the place made you feel like you were in Berlin, circa sometime in the late 60s-early 70s. Anything for the birthday boy!
Ed and his giant plate of Jaegerschnitzel!
My giant plate of traditional schnitzel!
Old posters
The whole gang!
Another foodie stop in SF is none other than the Bi-Rite Creamery.
It just so happened we weren’t far from there after dinner at Walzwerk, so we headed over to try out some of their famous flavors! At Bi-Rite, they’re known for unusual ice cream such as Salted Caramel, Honey Lavender, Balsamic Strawberry and Earl Grey! There was a line wrapped around the corner when we arrived! Being the ice cream enthusiast I am, I wish I could’ve tried them all, but I went with the Salted Caramel and the Malted Vanilla with Peanut Brittle. YUM!
The finale was the big dinner at Hubert Keller‘s restaurant, Fleur de Lys for Wade’s actual 40th birthday. We are all big fans of Chef Keller – he’s been seen a lot as a guest judge on Top Chef, and he also was a finalist in Top Chef Masters.
This was a pretty fancy place, and needless to say, it was a little too fancy for me to bust out my camera at the table! So, there’s not any pics. We had a 4-course menu, and everything from the presentation, to the service, to the food was spectacular. Unfortunately, it doesn’t bode well for blogging purposes – but it was an experience that just can’t be explained! We are grateful to have gone and will remember it as a very special evening always!
I think this wraps up our highlights! We didn’t eat for about a week afterwards, but it was absolutely worth every bite!
Lil’ Rascal!
Things are starting to speed up a little with Baby Kim – after what has seemed like FOREVER, we finally have our appointment for our anatomy scan, AKA “The ultrasound that can reveal if Baby Kim is a boy or a girl!” (Okay wait, first we have to hope that junior cooperates with the ultrasound! Let’s keep our fingers crossed …)
The big day is set for Monday, June 14th at 3:00pm. Just for fun (and to keep us occupied for two more weeks) … we want to know what YOU think Baby Kim will be!
What do YOU think Baby Kim will be?
(polls)
Also, I’m pretty darn sure I’ve been feeling the baby move. Yesterday I was lying around reading a book, and I felt a few little taps. They were really faint, so I didn’t think too much about it. But then this afternoon after lunch I started feeling the same thing, but this time a little more often and a little stronger. Maybe the increase in activity means that Baby likes El Pollo Loco as much as I do? :)
Baby Kim update
Just a quick little update on Baby Kim … aside from being spoiled by mass amounts of gourmet food on our FOODCATION (which still has pics & posts coming – we promise!), this baby is growing and is pretty darn active! Even better, this kid travels well – I didn’t have any troubles on our trip and we’re feeling confident that our new junior member will be able to keep up with thosecoolkims. We take that as a very good sign! :)
We haven’t felt any movement yet (they say its coming in the next few weeks), but at our last appointment the doctor tried to hear the heartbeat using the doppler. She couldn’t quite pick it up, so she said, “Let’s just get out that ultrasound machine and take a look then!” Of course we didn’t complain, and once we saw what was going on inside, the doctor said, “No wonder we couldn’t find the heartbeat, look at how much this baby is moving around in there!” It was true – little Baby Kim was moving those legs and shaking those fists all over the place! We saw the heartbeat on the screen, so all is well … and now we’ve only got 4 weeks to go until we find out if we’re Team Pink or Team Blue!