Shauna "Vodka is still my #1 Lover" D.'s Profile

After months, I finally made it over to the Gorbals. First, it was hard to get in, then it was closed for a while, then I waited for the elite event that never happened because Gorbals was having so many issues and then I never made it over to Artwalk (where reportedly Ilan Hall was giving freebies on the street). So last night, Libby R and I just decided to just pop in to see.

Well, they welcomed us with open arms, literally. The hostess was so cheerful she mentioned she wanted to give us hugs for coming in. Really.

Then she offered us any seat in the house. We chose a small two-top by the front entrance. I had a great view of all the people coming into the hotel for some fashion shoot next door. My other choice would have been at the bar to watch the kitchen. They also have a large communal table.

The menu has 13 savories and 3 desserts. Libby and I chose 5 of the savories but no dessert. If we hadn't just had bourbon pecan pie around the corner, I would have tried out the sticky toffee pudding. The Israeli cous cous with pumpkin ice cream also sounded interesting.

Prices ranged from $7-15. Desserts were $5 each.

We ordered the marrow topped with King oyster mushrooms and walnuts, bacon-wrapped matzoh balls, octopus & gizzards, Manischewitz-braised pork belly and oxtail with creamy oats and crispy tripe.

Everything came in the reverse order we ordered so we started with the oxtail. I liked it and thought the super thinly sliced tripe was pretty good with it. But then the pork belly came and we gobbled that up. We had too as the octopus was hitting the table.

The octopus with gizzards and lemon was my favorite dish of the night. I've had better octopus but this was pretty good. Actually, the gizzards were better in this dish. Where did they find such plump gizzards? Some may find the octopus to be a little too grilled as it lacked the creaminess of some grilled octopus I've had in the past (perhaps they could marinate it in olive oil?). The citrus really worked well with this dish.

Next came the bacon-wrapped matzoh balls. The bacon was very flavorful. I liked the texture of the matzoh balls and agree with Linden G that it reminded me of polenta. Libby said it had that same grainy texture. Otherwise, the matzoh balls were pretty fluffy.

Finally, we had the marrow which was quite beautiful to look at. But I felt there were too many things wrong with this dish to fully enjoy it. First, the walnuts. They were bitter. They needed to be soaked to be rid of their bitter skins. And they should be chopped as the pieces were way too big but I would get rid of them all together. I liked the mushrooms but I like mushrooms. I can see how some people might think they were overcooked though as they were probably a tad bit chewy. But I like to think they were just "meaty."

I also agree with another reviewer  they should have given us additional silverware to scoop the marrow. I used my knife which I had been using all night to scrape up sauces, oats, gizzards and whatnot. And finally, let's talk about this crostini they gave us with the marrow. There were three triangular pieces that were rather floppy. Turns out they were smeared with tomato. Um, okay? Could that flavor be what was competing against the bitter walnuts and the strongly acidic vinaigrette?

I thought service was very good. They refilled our tiny cups of water often. Gorbals does have a liquor list as well as beer and wine. We met Matt, a manager who got us more crostini when we mentioned we didn't have enough pieces for that bad boy of a marrow.

The server mentioned the plates are small plates but 5 plates were probably too much for two people. Judging from the previous pictures to my pictures from last night, I think the portions are a bit bigger now. Presentation is different as well. It's always good to know the chef is always tweaking the food and welcomes feedback.

Restrooms are outside of the restaurant. The ladies' room is upstairs. Locks seemed to be painted shut but no one came in while we were in there despite the large amount of people floating about. It looks like the Alexandria is still in the middle of renovation. The front entrance is quite nice and then it transitions to the old decor. Gorbals itself was quite dark inside which made the food a bit difficult to see. Still, I enjoyed my meal and would go back. I have to try that sticky toffee pudding after all!

3.5, rounded up

Thai Boat Noodles FACE OFF #2, part 2

A couple of weeks ago, Jenny B and I hit up Thai Town Noodle with the intention of going to Rodded afterwards. We were so full, we never made it. It was a good thing because it was a Wednesday. And originally we were scheduled to go today, another Wednesday. Turns out Rodded is closed on Wednesdays. So, don't go on Wednesdays!

We came in last night just about 7 p.m. and were the only customers. Jenny's been there before and swears by the duck noodles. Going by yelp reviews, I was going to get the boat noodles. Except on the menu, there was no mention of boat noodles. What is this? Why are there 3-4 reviews for Rodded that mention boat noodles? Hm.

In any case, I ordered the pork noodles that seemed like it could be boat noodles. Rodded has five different noodles you can choose from. Both Jenny and I opted for vermicelli and medium spicy.

Woah, it's spicy! Now, my nose was starting to run and my eyes were watering. Her duck noodles had very little duck but my pork had plenty of meat and a few crumbles of deep fried pork rind bits as well as a couple of meatballs. There were no innards or a deeply flavored broth both indicative of boat noodles.

I believe the boat noodles reference comes from a page of beef noodle options that takes up almost an entire page of the menu. You can customize your bowl with all sorts of innards. It seemed too much work for us.

Sarah L ordered the chicken fried noodles which seemed very Chinese to me with the oyster sauce flavoring. It helped calm down my inflamed mouth.

I tasted the duck noodles and agreed they were good but really thought it could use more meat. I liked the broth better here than Sapp's duck noodles.

We also ordered the spring roll covered in sauce. Hm, I didn't like it. Jenny who has had it before said it was better the time she has it previously. But I'm not willing to order this again.

Jenny and I weren't satisfied with our meals (we are noodles fiends after all) and went with another bowl to share, the seafood teo chew noodles. I figured flat rice noodles would be best. The server came by eventually to say something we didn't quite catch but I think she said  they were going to substitute the flat rice noodles for vermicelli as that's what we eventually got.

This soup was okay, no real flavor and there was a hell of a lot of imitation crab which I'm not fond of. There were some squid as well but no shrimp and no fish. I've had teo chew noodles from Malaysian places that are much better. I was pretty disappointed. Yes, it's filling but didn't scratch that noodles itch.

I'm going to officially name Sapp as my best bet for boat noodles then but I feel Rodded had the best service. They constantly refilled our waters and never rushed us. At 8 p.m., they even took in another table though they were about to close.

Ciudad has a new happy hour menu that I tried out last week. I ordered 5 of the 6 tacos; chicken, carne asada, carnitas, chorizo and potato. I didn't order the shishito peppers because it sounded a little weird but now I wish I had tried it.

Chicken- good, but it's chicken, si?
carne asada- interesting with roasted corn kernels
carnitas- my fave, it's a little different from the carnitas they used to have. This one seemed more meaty
chorizo- made with Neiman Ranch pork, this is high-end. Good, very light chorizo spicing though
Potato- rolled almost like a taquito, the thing came with a crema underneath and was quite tasty. Possibly because it was deep fried.

Tacos are $3 each.

They have revved up the cocktails for Happy Hour. I used to always get the white sangria but now I noticed they had caprinhinas. I might almost be willing to try their mojitos too if they've changed them. I got a vodka drink they called "Black gold" which was basically a gold vodka with fresh black pepper in it. It was quite good.

Cocktails are $4.50 each.  

They also have some other items on the HH menu and of course, you can order from the regular menu (at full price) for dessert!

Service was fantastic. I was really surprised. Service, especially during happy hour, had always been hit or miss, mostly miss. I thought our server was doing a great job keeping us 6 ladies full of drink and food.

Then while we were there, a rep from Milagro Tequila was doing a complimentary tasting. Total score! I liked all three I tried; silver, reposado and anejo but they were different from each other. I suppose it depends on what you like.

I'm actually excited to come back for Happy Hour now. I used to make faces whenever someone mentioned it but considering this new menu and great drinks, I'm putting it back into my Happy Hour rotation.

You know how your day goes and you plan to be there early but somehow, you manage to be 30 minutes late?

Yeah, that's how my Sunday went. Still, the upside of being slightly late was there was no line! And I only had to drive around for 5 minutes before I found a spot across the street.

When I walked into the small store, I was overwhelmed by how many women there were. Something like 75+? But why a male photographer? Hm, I can't wait to see the pics though!

Do you go to a makeup store with a face full of makeup? Is it like going to a bar already drunk? I figure no, so I went all out and did my eyes a spectacular orange. As it turned out the beauty services offered were eyebrow waxing and lash tinting.

I didn't get either as I had a bad experience with eyebrow waxing before and the idea of lash tinting scared me.

Food was floating around. I managed to snag one tuna poke and then allowed myself 1 brownie bite and half a chocolate cookie. I am not eating dessert right now but somehow couldn't resist a little taste. I missed the lettuce cups. All food is from La Grand Orange.

I'm not drinking right now either but was much more flexible with allowing myself wine. Three generously poured glasses of Pinot Noir from Barefoot. Ha! The lady serving was so awe-inspiring. I think most of us wondered if we should stop eating and drinking and start playing volleyball like this Gabrielle Reece look-alike. It only made me feel better when she mentioned pinot noir was her favorite wine. This vision of athleticism drinks?

Usually I don't wait in lines but I really wanted to get the lipbalm reading done. Tiffany did ask the psychic to move the line faster. That and the girls leaving the line, I got my reading towards the end of the event. I would have liked to have mingled with all the new girls but I needed my fortune told!

The psychic told me the following after giving her a lip print (I opted for the red color out of the mauve and dark berry):

- strong personality
- people know who I am (not necessarily famous, but people know me)
- life is good
a) work is good, will be where I want to be in the next 6-7 months, financially stable towards end of 2010, early 2011
b) family is good
- will move in a year or two, to be closer to work
- will meet my "soul mate" VERY SOON. not necessarily online, but somehow through someone I know. He's been married before but no kids.

When she asked if I had any questions, I should have asked what he looked like. But yes, she seemed somewhat surprised how soon I was meeting this mysterious guy. Well, we'll see if this soul mate materializes. In the meantime, it was fun to compare readings with the other girls.

Thanks, Tiffany for taking over for Dawson until LA gets another CM. Ladies only events are fun!  I know this event meant a lot to us who bonded for the first time at the book-signing with Dawson at the other Benefits store.

You know what? It's still good.

But after trying many, many dumplings around SGV and beyond, DTF is just good. It's not fantastic. It's not the best. It's kind of expensive compared to other nearby restaurants. But it doesn't mean it's a bad meal. The two of us still walked out of there just under $30 for two. That's like cheap when I spent around that much and left hungry elsewhere on the Westside.

We ordered the appetizer, juicy pork dumplings, pork chop noodles and spicy noodles. I still love the appetizer but could see how it could be a tiny big spicier. Maybe more sliced hot peppers in it could help.

The juicy pork dumplings are tiny! And they were juicy but could have used a bit more soup. Then again, you would get the soggy bottom dumplings that look so ugly.

My pork chop noodles were fine. The broth could have used a bit of white pepper for zing but they only had black pepper on the table.

My friend wanted to get the spicy noodles which turned out to be the exact noodles I had just sitting in some spicy sauce. No protein. No veggie. Hm, they could have at least tossed in some ground pork!

Ah well, at least it wasn't busy last night and we were in and out of there within an hour.

I almost want to do another dumplings crawl. I'm still in search of the ultimate XLBs!

I'm currently cursing the fact my blackberry's scroll button isn't working so I didn't have a chance to check out reviews for this place before dinner last night.

Otherwise, I would have read Matthew K's review and in particular, the bocaditos combo C which is what I ordered. The two fish tacos, two empanaditas and two sopapitos sounded like it should be enough food. Considering it was $16, it would be huge right?

You know what "-ito" means when you add it to the end of a word in Spanish? Eensy. Tiny. Eeenie. Minuscule. It must as well mean "size of a dust mite."

Fish tacos? Tiny. Empanaditas? Smaller than regular empanadas. Sopapitos? OMG, these things were the size of a quarter! I felt so severely deprived, I considered ordering soup but I wasn't willing to spend any more money. That dish plus an iced tea already set me back $25 (with tax and tip).

But how did it taste? Oh, the fish tacos were okay. The empanaditas were pretty good. Considering how it was wrapped around one whole shrimp, it was very "shrimpy." But the scallops sopaditos were fishy tasting and rubbery. Oh for the love of seafood! Sad panda.

The only good thing about this place is it's close to the Westside Pavilion so you can park at the mall if you can't find street parking. The valet guy rushed up to open the door for me but otherwise service is blah. There was a problem with one of the salads ordered, as in they didn't explain they were missing key ingredients that would have made it a tropical salad. It arrived looking suspiciously like a green salad and that's it.

I'm not going back.

The signage out front says Tofuya but my receipt says "Koba House."

The Flower girl and I were in search of the other Tofu Ya but when she drove by this one on National, we just decided to go in because they have their own parking lot and parking is always so troublesome on Sawtelle.

It was a full house but there was only one other table ahead of us and we waited about 10-15 minutes for a table. I explained to the Flower girl how soondobu works. She was hungry so she got a combo. I got just a beef and seafood soup along with the seafood pancake to share.

Our tofu soups arrived first. Then bibim bap. Then the seafood pancake. I was pretty disappointed with the looks and taste of everything except for the bibim bap. The soups were watery and there was only the merest suggestion of beef in my soup. No clams, a couple of shrimp. Oy! I'm not in K-town, I know but this was sad.

And then the seafood pancake was so thick and all batter. Where's the seafood? And the only seafood was squid? They should rename it to squid pancake.

The bibim bap was all right. I let the rice crisp up a bit and added only a bit of sauce since Flower girl never had it before. We ended up taking home all the bibim bap and squid pancake. Both tasted better after a day in the fridge.

Tofu soups are $8.95, combos range from $12-$13.

Our server was pretty funny. The Flower girl only wanted water, with no ice. He brought her a cup with ice. He later said he'll drink because he needed more water anyway. And when we asked for boxes, he swung by later with a terrible look on his face when he realized his fellow servers neglected to bring us boxes.

I might come back to try the $16.99 AYCE option if I was on the Westside. The table next to us was having a merry ol' time. Booze prices are really overpriced. A bottle of Hakutsuru sake was $18!! Geez, this is like $8 on Sawtelle, way less from the grocery store, of course.

Eh, yeah, I'd come back but not without seriously considering a drive to K-town.

The Fenway Tour was right up there with the Sam Adams Brewery Tour as one of our favorite tours.

We were worried we were going to miss the 11 a.m. tour as we got there about 5 minutes after 11 but they allowed us to run to catch up. You pick up your tickets from the store opposite the stadium on Yawkey Way.

Then after running up what seems like many, many levels, you arrive to the top, dazed. They snap a photo of you which they try to of course sell you later.

Our guide was great. A true Bostonian. He remembered going to the ballpark when he was 3 or 4 and let's just say he can collect social security now if he wished. There were many slights and slurs against the Yanks and lots of boasts about the Sox.

I enjoyed hearing how the Green Monster nickname came out, stories about Babe Ruth, going through the Press Box and sitting in the oldest seats at Fenway. I loved the "CITGO" story as well.

If only there was a game going on. Then again, if there was a game, they wouldn't have been able to take us to certain parts of the park.

All in all, a great tour!

When I planned my trip to Boston, I had no idea there would be an elite event going on. I of course, wanted to go and connect with Boston yelpers. Thanks, Leighann for letting me and my plus one, the gay boyfriend tag along!

We got there about 30 minutes after it started. We were coming back from our Fenway tour so we were cutting it close. But I had no worries because Sarah G had been for months telling me how much food and booze there are at elite events in Boston.

Um, well, there was a huge long line for the food and quite the wait for drinks. By the time I was able to order after waiting about 20 minutes, they had ran out of the grapes and kiwi drink. Aw! But the other one packed quite the punch. And the bartender remembered me and gave me another after I finished my first one with a wink.

Because of the line for food, we started talking about where to get food nearby but I'm glad we stuck around to the end because suddenly the line disappeared, more food appeared, bigger plates arrived and I needed a plate to reverse the effects of 3.5 drinks (I had the half from the gay boyfriend's drink when he decided it was too strong). Too strong for a yelper? No such thing.

I really enjoyed the pot roast which I stuffed into tacos. The salad was much appreciated as well. I tried some sort of bloody mary egg thing but didn't taste the flavor. I opted to skip the more carblicious things. Hey, I'm from LA!

I wish we had met more people but we were acting like barflies that day. Wait, we're always barflies. In any case, it was nice to meet some of Boston's elites!

When I flew in last week, I came off the plane making a beeline for the restroom. Oh gah! Someone is changing in one of the two stalls. Then she couldn't get herself out of the stall. Yes, it was a lot of drama.

Finally relieved, I stumbled downstairs to get my luggage. Oh my, it came so quick and everyone had gotten their luggage already. The handler was about to take my bag away but I snatched it from him. You got to be quick in Boston!

I had considered taking the T out to Somerville as it would have been only $2 but since I didn't know the system yet, I opted for a cab. Well, all I can say is ask how much do you think it'll be because it ended up costing almost $50! Yikes!

I took the Silver line back to the airport and it was much better. Security was quick and there were plenty of seats in the terminal.

The overlook of the airport is drab and gray. Reminds me of LAX in a way but on a smaller scale. You check in upstairs but some of the escalators weren't working causing the elevators to be jammed. Baggage claim is downstairs. The bus driver did mention check-in for international flights is downstairs.

Would I fly into Logan again? Yeah. And I'm definitely getting a Charlie ticket!