Tag: cheap food

Umami Burger in the OC!


When we heard Umami Burger opened up a new location in Costa Mesa, we knew we had to get there ASAP. If you’ve never heard of Umami Burger, all you need to know is there’s no other burger quite like it. These folks don’t take their craftsmanship lightly. In a nutshell, “Umami” is an experience, a specific taste. (Click here to learn all about what umami is!) Anyway, we hadn’t been in a few years and we certainly had never taken Ruby, so we figured that was reason enough to get over there today!

We met up with our friends Mark, Lisa + Ollie and had a great lunch date! We started things off with the house pickles. I particularly loved the pickled cauliflower. Then I ordered the original Umami Burger, which comes with shiitake mushroom, caramelized onions, roasted tomato, a parmesan crisp + umami ketchup, and Ed ordered the Hatch Burger which comes with 4 types of green chilies + house cheese.

Ruby was a big fan of the umami ketchup – and she didn’t hesitate to help herself to Daddy’s Hatch Burger either! You should check out the list of burgers and see which combination of umami sounds best to you!

 

Sprinkles Cupcake ATM

This weekend, on our way up to LACMA, we realized that we arrived an hour before it opened and Ruby had fallen asleep in the car. To kill some time, we thought we’d drive by Sprinkles’ new 24/7 Cupcake ATM to see what it was like. We certainly didn’t expect to get a cupcake, especially since all of the coverage on the news was reporting that the lines were hours long!

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Well, we got lucky. Maybe it was because of the pouring rain outside, or maybe it was because it was only 10:30am, but there was no line whatsoever! I hopped out of the car and returned with a perfectly packaged Chocolate Marshmallow cupcake! It was just as delicious as it sounds.

Wanna see how it works? Check out the video!

1st Trip to Disneyland!

Guess who finally made it to Disneyland? That’s right, we took Ruby to the Happiest Place on Earth had a blast on her very 1st visit. Thank goodness, ’cause we were getting some serious heat from the grandparents. :) Even better, Ed + I got Annual Passes, so we’ll be going back quite frequently. Especially with everybody on my side of the family being so into Disneyland, Ruby will undoubtedly get to know the Magic Kingdom very well. We hope she ends up loving it as much as we do.

 

 

We headed straight over to our favorite ride at Disneyland – It’s a Small World. We both got a little misty thinking about how many times we’d been on the ride, how much we love it (and all of its beautiful eye candy by Mary Blair!), and how this would be Ruby’s 1st ride ever! Once we walked up to the line, she couldn’t stop staring at the facade, and I couldn’t even get her to turn around for a photo op! Then she got really into watching the boats and waving to all of the people.She was a little tentative at first once we got inside, but then enjoyed all the sights and waving hello to all the kids inside!

   

I love this pic of her and Daddy:

We also cruised over to ToonTown and met Mickey…

But what Ruby really seemed to love most was watching the River Belle in Frontierland and checking out the ducks!

Mommy + Daddy also had to make a quick stop on Main Street to pick up a Corn Dog. We’re not quite sure why Corn Dogs at Disneyland are so good, but they are – and we hadn’t had one in over 2 years!

We saw a few more things and wrapped up the day by getting Ruby her own set of Mouse Ears. Of course, we wanted the old school ones!
 

The next day, we decided to go back and check out the scene at the California Adventures Park. We had fun there too on all of the little kiddie rides, but what Ruby loved most was the carousel!

   

We’re really looking forward to many more visits!

Museum Double-Header and Foodie Introductions

 

As new members of LACMA, we wanted to plan a little outing to check out the California Design, 1930–1965: “Living in a Modern Way” exhibit, as well as introduce Ruby to one of our favorite L.A. hangouts – Canter’s Deli on Fairfax. So we made our way up for a little food before getting our dose of culture!

Ruby was tantalized by all of the selections available on Canter’s ginormous menu

She was definitely a fan of the pickles!

Ed had to get his Corned Beef Hash, and I went for some old school Cabbage Rolls …

After our Canter’s fix, we headed to LACMA for this awesome mid-century modern delight. We didn’t get to stay quite as long as we wanted, but here are some highlights nonetheless:

We also saw Kienholz’s Five Card Stud installation, which was powerful and shocking.

Probably the most fun part was the giant installation that was there formed of all of these yellow translucent yellow bands. We all had fun playing inside!
 

Then – we decided to take advantage of the Member Appreciation Days that were going on that weekend and visit OCMA as well with free admission! Don’t let the Orange County location fool you … they have some of the edgiest modern art on display and we LOVE their exhibitions! We were lucky enough to catch State of Mind: New California Art circa 1970 and Two Schools of Cool, which were both fantastic!

A few highlights:



We love these kinds of days!

Oktoberfest 2011! Ein Prosit…

My love of Germany and all things German is legendary, so it was with great excitement that we took Ruby to her very first Oktoberfest!  We’d been to other Oktoberfests throughout Southern California before, but they had always come off as pretty cheesy and not very authentic.

As it turns out, having a real German friend to find a good Oktoberfest is very valuable.  Our friend Malte, who lived in Munich for some time, found out that the Phoenix Club, a German cultural center in Anaheim, CA, held a pretty large one, and much more authentic as it was staffed mainly by Germans.  Perfect!

So off we went to this quasi-Munich celebration that originated with Crown Prince Ludwig’s wedding in 1810 with friends (Malte and Amy, and Daniel and Amber) and babies in tow, ready to drink some fine Bavarian beers and eat some hearty food.

As it turned out, the Phoenix Club’s Oktoberfest really was the best local Oktoberfest I’d been to, by a long shot.  It certainly helps when Germans are running the show.  The food selection was great (far beyond the bratwursts that most local Oktoberfests serve), as was the beer selection.

Even the giant tent looked pretty legit!

And how did Ruby and her baby buddies Paloma and Nora do?

Well for starters, Ruby LOVED the pretzel.  But wait…sauerkraut too?  Yes, Ruby DEVOURED the sauerkraut.  She even cried when we’d stop feeding it to her.  Who knew?

Me, Ruby, Daniel, and Nora…kickin’ it Bavarian style.

And the German Tiger and her Cub.

Excellent times.  Bis zum nächsten Jahr!