Virginia "The Food" D.'s Profile

I got into a fight with my friend the other day while we were cooking. I was apparently giving too much cooking "advice". I gave so much advice that she stormed out of the kitchen and told me to finish the Mac and Cheese myself.

I was wronged to tell her what to do. If I wanted to add my flair, I should have cooked. With each of my modification, it slowly becomes my dish and no longer hers.

"No Modifications, No Substitutions. No reservations," is Terroni's model. It is the perfect model when it comes to eating someone's cooking. You want to taste a chef's flavor profile. Each creation should have been perfected before arriving on your table. Adding or removing ingredients could ruin the magic of the chef's creation.  

Terroni located on Beverly Blvd, north of the Grove is a marriage of an old school diner and a modern, trendy LA restaurant.  It is filled with a hodgepodge of decorations - modern wooden booths, old school leather orange bar chairs, beautiful lighting fixtures and cans and bottles of the kitchen ingredients against the wall.

On a Wednesday Night I was quickly seated and we ordered the following for 2 people to share:

Ricchia:  (arugola salad): simple salad with fresh mushroom parmigiano reggiano shavings a light lemon dressing.

Tagliatelle Alla Bolognese: Handmade pasta with a traditional meat sauce that was complex and flavorful like a relationship between a marinara sauce and ground meat that have matured with time in the pot

Ravioli di Burrata con Pesto Siciliano: Homemade Ravioli stuffed with creamy burrata cheese with tomato basil pesto and pieces of sun-dried tomato.

Fritters with Hazelnut Ice Cream: Round, soft, freshly fried doughnuts that are dipped in nutella and served with creamy Hazelnut ice cream.

Terroni's Southern Italian food needs no modifications or substitutions. It is perfect as is.  This was not the most mind blowing Italian meal, but it was solid and well seasoned food that reminded me of my meals in Rome.

My father is a peace loving, Buddhist on most days, but on the days he gets mad, all hell breaks lose.  

I spent one afternoon happily drawing whales with permanent markers.  I showed my dad this new piece of art. Little did 4 year-old me know that my father would not appreciate a picture of Willy on the wall of his newly painted hallway.   My father runs and brings his wooden spoon, waves it around, puts on my the palm of my hand, and slowly raises his arm as I close my eyes, imaging him striking my hand. But he never did. Instead he always walked away.
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On Friday, my lunch crew decided to try Mattie's Southern Kitchen.  

12:20 PM: The lunch crew queues up to order.

12:25 PM: DSD and I ordered the following:
Jambalaya: Well seasoned.  No Kicked. Lacking flavors. Shrimp was naked.
Pull Pork Sandwich:  Not Southern. More CA food. Lightly flavored. Should melt in my mouth from the hours of slow cooking, but it didn't.
Mac and Cheese: Tasted good, but weird consistency.  Not creamy enough.
Creamed Corn: Creamy. Good quality corn.

12:27 PM: The Jambalaya and Pull Pork Sandwich were ready

12:33 PM: I checked on our order. I said we were missing
1. Cream Corn
1. Mac and Cheese

12:34 PM:  I was handed 2 cream corns. Although, cream corn is yellow like the mac and cheese, but if macaroni looks like corn to you, you need glasses, or your macaroni has an identity crisis!  So, I handed the cream corn back.  

12:35 PM:  I waved bye to the rest of my lunch crew as they walk back to the office for a 1 pm meeting.  DSD and I waited, as the rest of my food in topless containers got cold and sprinkled with dust from the wind and cars driving by.

12:37: 2 other people who ordered after us walked away with trays of Mac and Cheese.  I didn't know if I wanted to jump the lady taking orders or the dude walking away with the Mac and Cheese.  

12:38: I grow angry and took a breath in and breath out as I forgave the innocent bystander who happily takes a bit of the Mac and Cheese as he walks away.

12:40: Checked with the lady at the front again, but now she thinks that I'm a liar, and had apparently hid my Mac and Cheese in my Kooba bag. She asks to see the physical receipt to check the order.

12:45: With no apologies, we were handed a tray of Mac and Cheese. We head back to the office with our cold food.  

In the end, the food did have some redeeming qualities. It was good tasting, but please don't pretend it's southern.  It's Southern Cal maybe.

As a calm Yogi, it takes a lot to make me made, but when it does, like with my father -hell will break lose.  So, here I am, passively aggressively taking out my wooden spoon and aiming it at you - Mattie's Southern Kitchen - by giving you 2 stars for bad customer service and mediocre food.

Sometimes you keep going back because of the HOT bartenders.
Sometimes you keep going back because it's a HOT bar.
Sometimes you keep going back because of the HOT boy that you want to run into.
Sometimes you keep going back because of the HOT location.

Who knows why you keep going back, but there's always a reason that brings you back.  But, it's earth shattering when that reason is gone... gone... GONE!

After weeks of boycott, Busby is smart enough not to mess with the HH crew and my one-hour of happiness on Thursdays is back!  

I now want to scream from rooftops, " Happy Hour to 8 at Busby's is BACK! WHOOOHOOO!"

Don't walk, but run to Busby's for a drink and the best nachos in the world to celebrate the return of HH to 8 pm.  See you there!

Westsiders are Westside snob.  Most of us have this disease and the symptom is the reluctance to travel east of the 405.  Maybe someone is pumping something into the air, maybe the temperature is 10 degrees coolers, maybe it's the traffic, who knows, but we all have it. Luckily, my symptoms are mild.  I will leave the Westside, but only after 7:00 pm on the weekdays and on the weekends. When I leave the Westside, I will not drive South of the 90, East of the 5, and North of the 101 (More like North of Hollywood/Sunset Blvd).  There are special exceptions -the airport, Din Tai Fung, Banh Cuon and Ranch 99.

With my Westsider disease, Banh Mi are hard to come by. So, when Nom Nom came to me, I rallied the lunch crew and headed towards the Nom Nom truck. In order to make the most of my experience, DSD and I ordered the Monster Combo.

For 10 dollars, it includes:
-12 inch sandwich (Deli Special with daikon, onions, cucumbers, cilantro, jalapeno peppers and Vietnamese ham, pate, mayo) The Sandwich was okay. The sandwich was good, but can't place my finger on it, but something was missing.
-3 Tacos (2 Lemongrass Chicken and 1 grilled pork) The meats were tasty, but I agree with DSD, the tortillas FAILED.  I used a fork to eat the toppings.
- 1 Vietnamese Ice Coffee (1 dollar extra) The coffee was just like any good Vietnamese Ice Coffee, it got me really WIRED.

Nom Nom is expensive for Banh Mi, but I am paying for the cost of gas for bringing a part of the OC/Alhambra to the Westside.

3 Stars.

Unlike the rest of my people, I am not a cheap date and I was lucky enough not to inherit the Asian glow.  Although, sometimes I do turn white. But, I normally don't show signs of drunkenness until it's too late, so every year on my bday, my friends liquor me up with million of drinks.  But, trying to feed a 5'1 1XX lbs girl even 12 + drinks in the span of 3 hours is basically the same as trying to poison her!  

Of course on my last bday, I got sick. I threw up in a cup at the bar, next to the cab, in a flower pot and on my roommate. As payback, my roommate threw up all over the back seat of my car on her bday. Payback is a btich. The next day, my car REAKED!  I needed to clean the mess ASAP!  Even though I normally prefer to have my car hand washed, but because I was still flu-ish, I headed to the closest and highest yelp rated car wash I found.

I headed to the Overland Car Wash around 3:30 on Sunday afternoon and there were about 5 cars in front of me.

On the car wash menu, the cheapest service that included "Shampoo Interior" was 79.95. It included:
Full Interior Shampoo
Magic Wheel Treatment
Full Interior Vacuum
Odor Eliminator
Full Amor All
Lexol Treatment
Full Exterior Armor All
O.C.W Special Wash

Personally, I did not need the fluff. I wanted the basics. When it was finally my turn, which seemed like forever and a day with the smell of vomit in my car, I asked to have a basic car wash and vacuum and just my back seats and carpets shampooed.  After 1 hour and 10 minutes and 42 dollars later (35 dollars + 7 dollar tip - I never know how much to tip.. someone please help me) my car was shinny, cleaned and smelled like detailed puked.   I was 80% happy. It is now up to time to fix my smelly problem.

The food trucks have added excitement and diversity to my lunchtime meals and I love it. After 2 years, I am over eating sub-par-way or shitty kitchen, and I'm too lazy to leave campus.

The Dosa Truck was in my hood and the lunch crew and I decided to give it a try. There were about 10 people line, but wait was deceptive.  From the time we order to the time we left with our food, it was about 40 minutes.  Apparently Dosas take a while to make.

I ordered the spinach mushroom cheese with a glass of ginger lemonade.   The ginger lemonade was flavorless, but the dosa was very crispy, cheesy and tasty.  Frankly, this was not my cup of tea for lunch. I felt like I should be eating my dosa on the go at an amusement park or as a snack as I tour Indian. But it's just me.   The price was a little high. Dosa + Lemonade = 8.

3 Stars. But, I'll eat it again, on another day, at another time.

It hits you abruptly.  One moment, you're sitting in a bar talking about the Outlier with just a scratchy throat. The next moment, you are in bed sick with the flu for 3 days, feeling like a pig spinning in a rotisserie oven.

What's worst is when you are single with no family in the area and all your close friends are at dinner celebrating your roommate's bday and you wake up hungry to an empty kitchen.    It was day 3 of the flu. The kitchen was filled with empty bowls of chicken noodle soup, rice porridge and bottles of OJ. I had no cooked food and no energy to make food or leave to the house to buy food.  

I was specifically craving Pho.  I have might been delusional and still feverish to think that I could find pho delivery in Culver City, but thanks to Yelp, I did.  I called Phoshow to order 1 small bowl of Pho Ga, but for delivery there was a minimum order of 15.00 dollars in addition to a $3.00 service charge.  I was desperate and doubled my order to 2 large bowls.  There was nothing else to eat and by the time the roommate returned, I would have died of starvation.   At least, this could hold me over until the flu went away.

About 30 minutes later, Phoshow showed up with my bowls of pho.  My taste buds are still not all there, so to me, it tasted like noodles in warm, mediocre, beef soup with piece of over cooked shredded chicken.  But, take out pho never does the restaurant justice; I'll have to judge for taste when I'm better.  Although, $25 (2 bowls of pho, delivery charge, tip, and tax) is the most expensive bowl of pho I've ever eaten, but at that moment, it was exactly what I needed.

I went to the Boiling Crab a few Saturdays ago for my friend's bday.    We put in our name at 7:00 and the wait was 2 hours! I was already starving! You should have at least 1 Michelin Star or 5 stars on yelp for me to even consider being on the brink of starvation. So, we said F you and walked out!   With the help of the handy, dandy iPhone, we found Cajun Corner.

Although, I have family in Texas, they don't let me eat anything but Chinese food, Vietnamese food and sometimes BBQ. So, for being a Cajun food virgin, I loved The Cajun Corner.  

- There's no wait!
- Easy Parking
- Tasty
- Saucy  
- Spicy. I can handle spicy food, maybe not on my roommate's level, but I can hang. We ordered mild and there was still a kick.  I was sniffing
- Messy! They offer plastic gloves, but I like to feel it in between my fingers.
- No frills. There are no plates and the food is served in disposable plastic bags over brown papers.  
- CHEAP seafood!
- Cheap Seafood
- One pound of Shrimp is 8.99 a lb
- House Special Crab is 11.99 a lb
- Free corn and sausage for every 2 lb of seafood
- Bottomless homemade strawberry lemonade for $3.95
- We were able to walk out stuffed from trying everything on the menu for 100 dollars with tip and tax for 5 people.

When I was 4, on a trip to SF, my mom told me that we were going to FAO Schwartz. I was excited. I put all my money into a purse - a total of 5.78. I was a baller and my barbie needed new shoes! Unfortunately, we ran out of time and never made it to FAO Schwartz. I was devastated!  In the middle of the city, I screamed, grabbed onto to my mom's leg and bit her in an attempt to stop my family from going home. I was a disappointed 4-year girl expressing her feelings.  The anger rolled off 30 minutes later and I was fine.

As an adult, I have sufficiently learned to repress my feelings because of my emotionless Chinese-Vietnamese parents and my ISTJ Myers Briggs personality type. With my pent up emotions, occasionally there were outbursts of extreme jump for joy ups, dig me into a hole and shot me now downs and I need anger management classes shouting.

But, yoga has changed my life, specifically, Ally's class. Through each challenging, muscle shaking pose I have learned to breathe and let things go like I did as a child.  Before I let it go, sometimes I want to kick, scream and bite someone, but as a 25 year, it is no longer appropriate. Instead through each breathe in yoga, I am breathing in the anger from the douche bag that cut me off, the frustration of flakey friends, the pressure of an inbox full of never ending work and the temporary physical pain of each challenging yoga pose.   Sequential, with each breathe out, I am letting it go, making me realize that taking in each of these feelings won't actually kill me like my parents said it would.  Instead, it is just temporary.

I thank Ally for changing my life, helping me work on my rock hard abs and inspiring me to practice weekly. Congrats on the new studio! WHOOHOO!

Useful Information
- Ally's class is a sweaty 90 Minute Vinyasa - the perfect balance of a physical and mental workout.
- Ally leads the class, but does not practice with you.
- Plays music during the flow and abs segments
- Bring a towel and a bottle of water to class. You'll need it!
- There's parking on 2nd for $3 between Arizona and Wilshire
- There are 2 hour meters on 2nd and Wilshire. I prefer meters, the parking lot sucks after class!  Bring coins!  There are meters that stop at 6 pm on Ocean
- Yoga Mat for rent are $2
- The class will run over about 5 minute.
- Donation only class- Suggested Donation is $14
- Beautiful Space
- Must Smaller than Santa Monica Power Yoga so come early! I suggest coming to class at least 15 minutes prior
- No sign in and registration.
-There are other classes throughout the day. Check out the schedule!

Bad day.

Half off bottle of wine + 3.00 Sliders (all appetizers between 4 to 7) =  Better