design – thosecoolkims

Birthday in Vegas!

For my birthday this year, we bucked our Palm Springs tradition and headed to Vegas. We found a groupon we just couldn’t refuse and decided to jump on it. We stayed downtown a few years ago, and loved the old-school vibe, so we were looking forward to going back. Admittedly, this post makes it sound like we did nothing but eat, but what can we say — there’s a lot happening with food in Vegas!

As we drove into town, we headed straight for eat., which is a new breakfast and lunch joint in downtown Las Vegas. It’s a low key place with a super cool vibe, and features fresh, seasonal comfort food. I had the most delicious asparagus + arugula salad, while Ed had an incredible shrimp and grits dish.

After lunch we got settled in to our room at the Golden Nugget, and cruised around Fremont Street awhile. Then we headed out towards The Strip to fulfill a longtime dream of mine: We saw an Elvis impersonator live in Las Vegas! We went to Trent Carlini’s “The King” at the Las Vegas Hotel. I wish I could say the show was better, but at least now I can say I’ve been. The King did oblige me with a pic after the show, but too bad we were in Vegas about a week too early – we could’ve seen CeeLo Green in Loberace, a Liberace tribute show. Dang!

After The King it was late night dinner time! We were headed to José Andrés’ place, China Poblano at The Cosmopolitan. WHOA. The Cosmopolitan is absolutely amazing. A super hip vibe, great design throughout and so much style in everything there! It feels young and expensive all at the same time. We were in awe. China Poblano was an amazing marriage of Mexican + Chinese food. At one point during the meal, I had a lobster taco and a steamed BBQ Pork bun on my plate at the same time. It was so good!

Also in the Cosmopolitan was an amazing Chandelier Bar (click this link for pics that do it much better justice than any of my dumb pics) and Holstein’s where the menu looked super fun — Korean BBQ Hot Dog and Boozy S’mores milkshake, anyone?

The next day, after enjoying a morning where we could actually sleep in, we decided to explore and find a few places in Vegas outside of the usual tourist stuff. We got a great recommendation for a good coffee shop downtown called The Beat Coffeehouse. The vibe is very Seattle – music, vinyl, strong coffee and low-brow art galleries. We dug it and enjoyed the coffee ’cause we’re not afraid to admit we’re too old for morning booze. We skipped the buffet to save room for lunch!

We played a few slots at The D’s “Vintage Vegas” slot room, where you can actually pull the lever on the slot machines and real money spits out (instead of vouchers)! After working up an appetite, we left Downtown and The Strip for Vegas’ Chinatown and enjoyed some super tasty ramen. They say there’s a ramen revolution happening in Vegas, and it’s legit! His + Hers ramen bowls at Monta Ramen:

Also on our food tour of Vegas, we had dinner at Gordon Ramsay’s BURGR on the Strip at Planet Hollywood. Gordon doesn’t mess around — Ed says his burger was one of the top 5 burgers he’s ever had. I can’t argue, mine was incredible as well. Bonus points for his ridiculous mug on the inside of each menu:

After being extremely full, we headed back to our downtown home base for some real fun. I never tire of all the old school glitz of the neon signage downtown. It’s gorgeous.

Things got epic when we spent some time late night at the El Cortez — seriously old school, somewhat seedy and SUPER cheap! Ed and I even played the Blackjack tables and won, thanks to a very friendly and patient Ukranian dealer named Elena and Ed’s former co-worker Jim, who happened to be in Vegas too and met up with us. We hung at the El Cortez until after 2am, and then ended up at The D for an AUTHENTIC American Coney, a real piece of Detroit in Las Vegas! (Don’t worry, we haven’t turned, we still love Lafayette more than American!)

Last stop before heading out was Beijing No. 9 – a stunningly beautiful noodle house in Caesar’s Palace. I’m a sucker for the white + red!

We had a great time, but we sure were ready to get home to our little Bean. It’s always fun to have time together, but we sure missed that little daughter of ours!

Six years

We spent the better part of the day on October 7th up in L.A. doing some of our favorite things to celebrate SIX years as Mr. + Mrs.

//Our Itinerary//
Hammer Museum: Graphic Design: Now In Production
Architecture+Design Museum: Eero Saarinen
Canter’s Deli (matzo ball soup + bagel chips are a MUST!)
LACMA: Stark Bar
Sundance Cinemas, West Hollywood: Detropia

Perfect day. e+c=<3

A new creative outlet

I’ve decided to put myself out there and start a blog just for my crafty stuff and sweet treats. I figured that I’m doing these projects anyway, and it would be fun to see what kind of response I get. So if you’d like to check out all of my projects (or refer someone to me that wants me to make them something!), please subscribe to Four-Eyed Girlie. You can sign up to get updates by email, or you can subscribe to the blog. Hope you’ll check it out!

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!

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!

Palm Springs, Day Two

Oh, yesterday was chock full of perfection! It couldn’t have been better, and we managed to fit in just about everything we love in Palm Springs.

First – it must be mentioned that we SLEPT IN.

Then, it was off to Charles Phoenix‘s retro slideshow: Pools, Patios and BBQs. We had been to his Holiday slideshow before, and it was so fun and super kitschy that we knew we would love the backyard one, too. Basically – he has found and collected the jackpot of kodak chodachrome slides from the ’50-’70s, and has compiled them all into one amazing and hilarious compilation. Here’s just one gem of an example from his slides from the show:

Probably even more of a surprise than his show, was the auditorium and grounds of the Palm Springs Art Museum where the show was held! Yes, we always swoon over the amazing mid-century modernness of Palm Springs, but the museum is super-70s, and we couldn’t have been more thrilled! All orange, very orange … we were dying over it, and took a few pics:

After the slideshow, we headed upstairs to catch the Backyard Oasis: The Swimming Pool in Southern California Photography, 1945-1982 exhibit, which is as amazing as it sounds, and the perfect thing to see while in Palm Springs!

After all the amazing architecture and art, we were starving – so it was time to hit up our favorite place to eat in Palm Springs – Norma’s, which is on the campus of the absolutely fabulous Parker Palm Springs Hotel. There’s not a trip in Palm Springs that has happened that we haven’t stopped at the Parker. We love it there and freak out over Jonathan Adler’s design no matter how many times we’ve seen it. Norma’s has the best brunch ever. I got my usual lobster + asparagus omelette and Ed got a take on eggs benedict with pancakes, canadian bacon + asparagus. Yummmmmmmmmmmm.

We’re always planning our next trip to Palm Springs, even before the current one is over, and I’d heard about a new hotel in town called the Saguaro. Basically, they took over the old Holiday Inn and swanktified it – and now, we are definitely going to stay there next time! It looks amazing with all the colors of the rainbow. We could not get enough of this place as we walked around …

After drooling over the grounds of the Saguaro, we took off to drive around the neighborhoods of Palm Springs to admire the gloriously restored and very well loved mid-century modern homes. We even made a stop by one of our old favorite, Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House, and got a pic of it in my fancy 5-series that I’ve been testing all week!

It was an amazing day!