Category Archives: Travel

We’re a long way from the coast.

Posted on August 22, 2010 by m@| Leave a comment

When we were getting recommendations for places to eat in Palm Springs, Roy’s came up. I really didn’t want to check out a restaurant that is part of a chain, but after striking out at so many other places that were closed for the summer, I figured it was a safe bet. Plus Michelle loves seafood and had never been to Roy’s before.

So familiar. I wonder how seafood handles 115 degree weather.

When making reservations there’s a drop down box to select the occasion for the meal. It’s just enough to make your wife think you actually planned something special.

Roy’s Canoe Appetizer for Two. Hey, there are two of us in this marriage. That’s perfect. Before I’d just have to go ahead and eat two portions.

Michelle, doing everything in her power not to swallow the plate whole.

My Shellfish Sampler.

Yes, dear. I planned the whole thing!

So when you’re stuck in the middle of a sweltering desert and all the locals have gone to cooler places, seafood is an okay choice as long as it’s from Roy’s. The flavors aren’t always my favorite there, but the food is always fresh and cooked perfectly.

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The Minimoon. This is the good part, ya perverts!

Posted on August 20, 2010 by m@| Leave a comment

Somewhere along the way the word “minimoon” became a commonly understood term for short honeymoon. Michelle keeps dropping that word and people just nod in understanding. For our minimoon we went to Palm Springs. This is a quick recap of the trip.

Yeah, it was really hot.

We booked our room at Ace Hotel. This is where all the hipsters go to vacation.

Fortunately for us the pool was open from 6AM to 2AM.

At peak temperature hours, the pools wouldn’t even cool things down enough. We had to hide out in the room. Luckily it had adult entertainment, but because of the high gay population they offer non standard choices. Option two and three are not the same.

We took the Aerial Tramway up to the top of the mountains. If you’re like me and don’t like heights, it’s pretty scary. Still the views were breathtaking. It was also twenty degrees cooler up there. I never thought temperatures in the mid 90′s would feel so cool.

You’d never know there was a desert just down the mountain when you’re up here. It’s green.

Overlooking the desert through the pines.

We stopped into the bar before dinner one night. It’s pretty crowded.

That’s because BINGO was going down. The number caller is an older lady named Irma, who sings between games. She’s awesome.

Michelle actually won one of the games. Here she is with her prize, a bottle of wine and a slice of pie. She’s a lucky girl. Snagged a super guy and some great prizes.

We went to check out The Parker for some brunch.

Everything in Palm Springs is right out of the 1970′s.

After the trip, Michelle was exhausted. You interpret that however you want.

Food pictures will be in another post.

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Beautiful Vancouver

Posted on June 22, 2010 by m@| 2 Comments

I got some more photos from one of my friends of our Vancouver trip. These are the professional shots.

“You kids shouldn’t play so rough. Somebody’s gonna start cryin’.”

“Hang on lady. We going for a ride!”

“I’m rather embarrassed, General Solo, but it appears that you are to be the main course at a banquet in my honor.”

Okay I’ve run out of  movies that these pictures bring to mind.

The circus is in town! I want to see the elephants.

Doing a little bit of boozin’ with my buddies.

Geronimo! Into the cold Canadian waters.

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The time I ate and drank Vancouver.

Posted on June 16, 2010 by m@| 8 Comments

Canada’s immigrant population is heavily Asian. It’s odd being from Southern California and having the working class not be Hispanic. It does have one drawback. There aren’t any taco trucks, but there are plenty of awesome Asian joints. Plenty of other delicious things can be eaten as well.

The izakaya scene in Vancouver is awesome. The next series of pictures are from Hapa Izakaya. I don’t even remember what we ordered, so just use your imagination when you see the pictures.

Do you know what time it is? Sake Time!

How can we really call the izakaya scene a scene unless we stopped into more spots. This next spot was called Gyoza King.

The place lived up to its name. These gyoza were stately and royal.

Of course one of the Koreans had to order kimchi ramen.

Not into the Asian food? There’s still plenty of other things to snack on in the city, with drinks of course.

This is poutine, one of Canada’s national dishes. It consists of french fries covered with beef gravy and cheese curds. It’s serious business in Canada. I personally don’t think  much of it, but I would definitely give it another go as there are all different styles of this dish.

This was the dinner I woke up on the table for at The Keg Steakhouse & Bar. The steak and seafood were cooked perfectly.

Don’t forget the drinks. Shot! Shot! Shot! Shot!

You might not be able to tell, but I am grimacing. Why?

See that stuff floating on top? That is hot sauce…in 151. So it burns going in and coming out.

Last but certainly not least was Japadog! It combines the need for Los Angeles ghetto dogs with Asian flavor. It’s just too bad these guys aren’t open when the bars and clubs let out. They would make a killing.


So who else wants to hit up Vancouver for a food marathon?

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Oh Canada…

Posted on June 15, 2010 by m@| 7 Comments

This weekend was my bachelor party. Michelle and her girlfriends went south of the border on a cruise last weekend. We went north to Canada: the land of beavers, maple syrup, and hockey. We aptly named our trip, “You can’t do that on a boat.”

Vancouver is an awesome city, and it was great to spend the weekend there with a bunch of guys that I’ve known on average for almost seventeen years. Inhibitions go out the door with people that are so comfortable with each other. The first morning one of the guys said to me, “Matt. Pants.” Don’t worry though. I’m comfortable with them, not the entire Internet. This blog post will be kept PG-13.

Being outside of Los Angeles, it becomes apparent once again that everyone else in the world is nicer than the people in our city.

Our limo from the airport. Let the immaturity begin!

Our hotel suite was bigger than my apartment. It had a full kitchen.

It even had what we like to call the Calvin Klein Room.

Being from LA we have to represent. Not sure we were even drinking much at this point.

This picture was taken at 9:30 PM or so. It’s ridiculous how long it stays light in this town.

We crossed a suspension bridge. Can’t do that on a boat. It doesn’t look like much at first.

Until you see how high it is as it sways back and forth. Still it was worth it to cross.

This is what was on the other side. The Ewok Village on the Forest Moon of Endor!

How come we don’t have any of this back in LA?

We even played some golf. Mostly it involved swearing at the clubs while laughing at each other.

After consuming copious amounts of alcohol I was forced to swim out to this platform and ride the slide. Vancouver’s ocean is pretty gross, but it’s nature gross with seaweed and mollusks.

Then Edward 40 Hands happened.

I did so well with the beer they taped some more to my hands.

Then I woke up…on the table at dinner…at a nice restaurant.

If someone wants to plan a trip to Vancouver, let me know. This town is definitely one I would come back to visit. I would come back here just for the food, but that’s a whole other blog post.

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Posted in Photo, Play, Travel

It’s Like Vacation

Posted on November 13, 2009 by m@| Leave a comment

I have spent the last seven out of nine nights in a hotel. The first four nights were in New York. That was fun. These last three were spent in the middle of California for work. I decided to treat it as a little vacation. During every vacation I try to get out of my comfort zone and do something I normally wouldn’t do, but it has particularly been tied to food. Eating adventurously is something I like to try.

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Taco Lengua a la izquierda. Taco Cabeza a la derecha. This was after I finished Taco Carnitas, Taco al Pastor, and Taco Chile Verde. All were delicious, washed down with a couple Modelos.

With delicious eats like this, I’m still glad to be coming home today.

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Kids at Heart

Posted on November 12, 2009 by m@| Leave a comment

Just so you don’t think all I did in New York was eat and drink (although nothing wrong with that), here is a short clip of us in the subway station. They were doing construction so you could hear the jack-hammering. Like any grown adult, some of us decided to make machine gun motions.

The rest of the New York pictures can be viewed here.

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The thing about New York…

Posted on November 11, 2009 by m@| 4 Comments

We knew our last day had to be big, so we started with more eating. After a mixup at Calle Ocho (Boo on Calle Ocho!), we ended up waiting in the cold for Good Enough to Eat.

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Omelet with biscuits and strawberry butter.

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Their waffles are good enough to eat but not that great. I’d get something with bacon in it instead. Their bacon is thick as all bacon should be in life.

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After brunch Alice was kind enough to get some cupcakes for Michelle’s birthday.

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Cupcakes at Alice’s apartment on the Upper West Side, which she claims is the best side.

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Hanging out at The High Line.

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Blue lighting in The High Line.

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Part of the skyline during sunset.

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The elevator in The Standard had this really creepy movie that played scenes of heaven when taking the elevator up and scenes of hell in red when taking it down.

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Michelle’s birthday wish is that everyone drink! She got her wish. After drinking copious amounts of sangria at dinner we headed off to Bowery Electric. They play great music here that makes you want to do terrible 80′s dancing, which really is the best kind of dancing.

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Drunk at Katz’s Deli.

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Meal #3 of the night. No idea what this restaurant is called.

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On the flight home we got to see The Grand Canyon.

It was a great trip, fast and furious. I got to hang out in different scenery with a lot of the LA folks and got to see a lot of my friends temporarily stationed in New York. I say temporarily, because they all come back for the weather. They all do. New York’s a great place for one reason. All its greatness is rolled into one compact, phallic-shaped peninsula. It would drive me nuts to have that much going on so near me all the time. I’ll keep my quiet life, where I eat less than six meals a day.

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Posted in Food, Photo, Play, Travel

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Anything to do in the middle of California?

Posted on November 9, 2009 by m@| Leave a comment

Remember a couple years ago when I wrote this post about work? It resulted in this awesome work. It looks like I couldn’t get someone else to fill in for me for the work. I get to go back tomorrow night, probably for three days instead of two this time. It’s been just over two years since my last energy survey up there. Think there is more to do there now? If not, I know there’s at least Internet. Thank god for Internet, sweet giver of life.

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Milking This Trip for Blog Content

Posted on November 9, 2009 by m@| Leave a comment

I booked a flight for New York for Michelle and myself way back in June. When I originally booked it, it was just the two of us going to visit some friends for a long weekend trip, but it turned out that a lot of our friends had vacation time. They ended up coming out to New York too, and we had a blast. Since I just got back and I’m too tired to post the whole trip, I’ve decided to post a little bit at a time and make it a blog mini series.

Originally Michelle and I were going to stay with Randall. Then Michelle decided to see about getting us a hotel through some work connections. She got us hooked up with a room at The Shoreham Hotel for our entire stay. The place is really nice and is definitely worth checking out if you need a place to stay in the city.

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The chair in the background is a massage chair. Came in handy after long days.

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They even gave us a fruit platter and a complimentary bottle of champagne, which was our first dinner.

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Oh yeah. There were Flaming Hot Cheetos also. Did you know they don’t sell Flaming Hot Cheetos anywhere in Manhattan, maybe in the other boroughs too?

More to come later…

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