thosecoolkims – Page 79

Random Road Trip

This is the first weekend in We-don’t-know-how-long that we had not one single plan or obligation. So, we decided to pack a small bag, grab the iPods and the computers and hit the road for a random road trip! We had no specific plan or reservations, we just knew we’d head north and drive ’til we felt like stopping. Starbucks in hand, we were on the freeway by 8:30am.

Santa Barbara was tempting to stop and chill at, but it didn’t seem far enough. So we drove on, towards something a little more kitschy…Solvang.

Carrie had never been to Solvang before. We didn’t have any expectations really, we just knew it would be a fun place to hang out for about 2 hours. We walked along and found some great photo ops – why does the danish theme never get old?

They look a little big…

Cloggin’ (& Bloggin’)

There’s so much more to Holland than the clogs…

We thought we’d see if they were interested in a double date.

[insert caption here]

After we had our fill of Danish-kitsch, we decided to stop in for a yummy ice-cream sundae before getting back in the car…thanks Ingeborg!

So that was Solvang! On the way out of town, we drove by this beautiful stretch of flowers, and we just had to (try to) capture it!

Now we’re in a motel in Morro Bay where we had to get our internet fix! Stay tuned…

Korean Cooking Lesson, number one.

Yesterday we went to Mom’s for a wonderful lesson in Korean cooking. The goal was to learn how to make bulgogi, which is a most scrumptiously marinated, thin, flank-type steak. It’s delicious. We were anxious to learn – Carrie’s gotta know how to make the husband’s comfort food, and Ed enjoys cooking too! In true Korean-mom fashion, she prepared an enormous lunch first before the cooking began – but we certainly weren’t complaining!

Bulgogi ended up being a lot easier to make than we thought…it’s basically onions, sesame oil, soy sauce, sugar, and more green onions! We made so much that mom insisted we take home 2 large tupperware boxes full of individually bagged portions. We’re knee-deep in bulgogi now, so ya’ll come on over and try it before we end up with record setting cholesterol from eating red meat everyday! We had a great time though and we really enjoyed the lesson.

Here is tonight’s dinner:

That’s the bulgogi in the bowl, on top of rice. To the right, we have bindedduk, which are Korean pancakes made out of egg, onions, kimchi and seafood…and the green stuff is our favorite: sauteed spinach.

Look at Ed…so happy!

Carrie feels pretty proud of herself – yum!

L.A. Saturday

Ed just got home from Korea yesterday after being gone all week, so we decided to spend a lil’ quality time together, just the two of us. We decided to get out of the house and head up to L.A. for the day. We wanted to check out the new arty movie theatre that just opened up on Pico at the Westside Pavilion, The Landmark. It was also part of the plan to hit up The Apple Pan, to grab the BEST burger ever! A hickoryburger at the Apple Pan is pure perfection. (Don’t even get us started on the apple pie…)

After the burgers, we were very excited to catch an afternoon matinee of Sicko. It was perfect, not too crowded and completely awesome. We want EVERYONE to see this – it’s not just hype…it’s an eye-opening, heart-wrenching exposure to the Health Care industry that blows your mind. No matter what you think about Michael Moore, you gotta admit he knows how to tell a story…we both think this documentary affected us the most. It’s powerful.

As for the Landmark, it also equaled the hype. It’s a super luxury theatre…very, very similar to the ArcLight, where they assign seating and they escort you to your seat and stuff. It may sound like a little much, but a theatre like that has it’s perks. It’s practically worth it just because you don’t have to deal with the loud, annoying continuous commercials they play at the movies now before the previews even start. But, they also have plushy leather seats and a swankalicious lounge where you can drink wine before the movie. It was cool. We definitely gave it a thumbs-up.

It was late afternoon and it felt so summertime that we decided to see what the scene would be like at the bar at The Standard, on Sunset. We hadn’t been to the one on Sunset in such a long time, that it just sounded fun to lazily hang out and have a cocktail at the pool. We figured we’d hit it up during the day before it turned into a scene at night. Unfortunately, there was already some party going on out by the pool that you had to be “the list” for, so we cruised to the restaurant where it was low-key and cool. We enjoyed a cosmo, some guacamole with banana chips (yum!) and drooled over the understated coolness of the restaurant. A few highlights…

Modern perfection.

View from Carrie’s side o’ the booth.

Ed’s a great model.

Carrie – wishing she could move in.

Plain Wicked.

This past Christmas, Carrie’s parents decided to send the kids & the spouses to see Wicked (the Musical) and have a swanky pre-theatre dinner at Lawry’s Prime Rib. The four of us agreed that it was a pretty slammin’ gift! Yesterday we finally got to redeem our gift, and it didn’t disappoint – the show was absolutely fantastic and the dinner (of course) was superb. We were pretty excited about the evening of course, but we were even more excited to spend some “adult time” with Eric & Shirley (having 5 kids means they don’t get to be sans-children very often!). We talked, told stories & laughed without being distracted by the kids (don’t get us wrong – we love to see the nieces & nephew!). We had a really good time and got a kick out of seeing Eric & Shirley enjoy the show so much.

A few highlights of the evening:

The Kims do Lawry’s.

Eric & Shirley.

Eric is thrilled by the menu.

Ed is anxious to get the grind on.

Carrie’s the big sis, so she was in charge of tha $$$ (cha-ching!).

We love 3-day weekends.

Yesterday we ventured out to Yen to have Japanese food on 2nd Street. We’re sad to report that it was expensive – and it didn’t taste so great, either. We were very underwhelmed and say if you’re gonna get sushi on 2nd, stick with Apengo.
Yen does get points for presentation though…

And they also get points for a sunny outside location that makes you feel like it’s summertime…

We then decided to venture up to MOCA to check out the Poetics of the Handmade exhibit. It was very, very cool. This exhibit featured all Latin-American artists who made things by hand – and it was really fun to see. 100’s of lipsticks carved into intricate chess pieces, giant atomic structures hanging from the ceiling that you could walk through made of glue and q-tips…it was fun…

Downtown LA is cool though – but there’s always this really eerie feeling about it, because it’s always seems deserted. “Nobody walks in LA…” isn’t just a catchy song, we suppose.

Just a few pics from the day…