Category Archives: Shows & Concerts

fun. at The Glass House

04/21/2011 – 11:37 PM

Tonight was the fun. show at The Glass House in Pomona. fun. is fronted by Nate Ruess, formerly of The Format. If you do not know already, The Format is one of my favorite bands. In 2008, to my disappointment, the band had announced that they were going on hiatus for an indeterminate amount of time. I had seen the Format in concert previously and enjoyed every minute of it. Nate Ruess has excellent energy when performing. I didn’t know until recently that he had moved on to a new band, fun. fun. has a similar sound to The Format, but I must admit I still prefer the songs and style of The Format more than that of fun. Nevertheless, I was excited to see Nate Ruess perform live again.

The Motel Life and Rachael Cantu opened for fun. I really enjoyed Rachael Cantu’s set (pictured above). I found her music to be reminiscent of Tegan and Sara. It was no surprise to me when I discovered later this evening while researching her online that she had in fact opened for Tegan and Sara in the past.

To my delight, Nate Ruess still has as much energy as ever when he performs. I really enjoyed their set, especially the part where he announced they were doing a cover song. I had a feeling they would play one of The Format’s songs tonight, and they did! Right when Nate sang the first word and paused, I knew immediately that they were performing a song by The Format and got very excited. They performed “Dog Problems.” I wish they had done “The First Single (Cause A Scene),” but I guess I can’t complain. They are not The Format.

My one complaint about this show is that everyone was so young! I suppose it’s no surprise, considering their music style. I had not been to The Glass House since 7 years ago to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, when I was around the ripe young age of the majority of the attendees of tonight’s show. Maybe I’m growing old and boring, but a bunch of teenagers jumping up and down around me is not necessarily my idea of fun (and I don’t mean “fun.” the band). I must admit I felt very old at this show, although I’m sure I blended right in. :[

Tags Concerts, fun., Music, Nate Ruess, Pomona, Rachael Cantu, Shows, Shows & Concerts, The Format, The Glass House | Comment (1)

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Jazz Cat & Girl Talk

03/20/2011 – 11:18 PM

On Saturday, BeiBei and I had lunch and boba with Jona. It’s Jona’s last weekend in California. Next weekend he’ll be moving back to Oregon. We went to Jazz Cat, which is basically an Asian fusion shabu shabu restaurant. I suppose it’s more like a Chinese style hot pot place, except each person gets his/her individual hot pot and they offer many different types of broths, including Japanese miso and Korean kimchi. I really liked the interior design/motif of this restaurant.

Here’s Jona helping me untangle my necklace.

I ordered the Japanese spicy miso broth with beef.

BeiBei had the Taiwanese spicy broth with lamb.

Jona ordered the creamy rose broth with chicken.

Alas, the aftermath.

Each order of shabu shabu/hot pot comes with a generous plate of vegetables and dipping sauce. I loved how they gave a great variety of vegetables, including bok choy and enoki mushrooms. We tried three of the dipping sauces: a sweet soy sauce similar to ponzu, a sesame (or peanut?) based creamy sauce, and what I believe was a slightly spicy satay sauce. My favorite of these was the simple sweet soy sauce, although I wish it were less sweet.

My spicy miso broth was pretty good. It reminded me a bit of typical ramen broth that you’d get at ramen restaurants. Jona’s creamy rose was interesting. I took a little sip of it, and it tasted like steamed milk to me with a hint of flavor. I would be interested in trying it out with a full meal. BeiBei’s Taiwanese spicy broth was your typical Chinese-style hot pot spicy broth. You can’t really go wrong with it, but I felt it wasn’t very unique. It’s the usual spicy broth you can get at a place like Little Fat Sheep (小肥羊). I would definitely want to come eat here again and try out their other broths. I also didn’t order anything from their dessert menu. A lot of the desserts looked really good, so I’d want to try those out next time too.

Following lunch, we headed over to Tea Station. BeiBei ordered the pudding milk tea, I ordered the Japanese macha coffee, and Jona ordered the winter melon milk tea with boba. (These drinks are pictured below in that order). The Japanese macha coffee is one of my favorite drinks here, so I enjoyed it, especially because at that moment, I hadn’t had coffee yet and I was craving it. While waiting for and enjoying our drinks, we played card games, just like everyone else at Tea Station does.

After Tea Station, we stopped by a store at Focus Plaza so BeiBei could buy some stuff, then we proceeded back to BeiBei’s place so I could grab my car and head over to the Girl Talk show at the Fox Theater in Pomona. Doors were to open at 7:00PM and the show was to start at 8:00PM. I met up with Allan, and we headed over to the Fox Theater to meet up with Jeremy, Lamonda, and Nick. Jeremy’s friend Will also showed up later on.

We had tickets for the balcony, and the personnel actually checked tickets to verify people were in their designated areas. This was disappointing because I enjoy being on the floor by the stage for shows, especially upbeat ones. At least we snagged good seats in the second row.

Opening for Girl Talk was Junk Culture, a D.J. backed up by a drummer. I actually really enjoyed their set. They were followed by Max Tundra, a British musician/singer/D.J. At first he as pretty amusing and funny, but later on, I felt his antics were getting a little old. Finally, the set staff began setting up the stage for Girl Talk. Girl Talk is a D.J. specializing in mashups and digital samplings. I had never seen him live before, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

Let’s say that I was pleasantly surprised and entertained. Girl Talk has such great energy and stage presence, and the music was fun and upbeat. He kept me dancing all night! Nobody on the balcony cared that there were seats; we all stood up and danced!

His use of LEDs was pretty awesome. I loved it. He also had a bunch of people from the crowd get onstage and dance throughout the whole set.

Balloons were released from the ceiling during the encore. That was pretty awesome. I wish I had been down on the floor level, though, so I could have messed around with those balloons. There were various other things that were tossed into the crowd throughout the set, such as bigger inflatable balloon-type objects.

It was a great show. I hadn’t been to a show in a while, and it definitely made me miss going to shows more often. I had a lot of fun. I can’t wait for the upcoming shows I’ll be attending in the next couple of months!

This weekend was filled with good food, good events, and great company. I hope this week and next weekend will be just as awesome!

If you’re interested, you can download Girl Talk’s recent album legally here for free!

Tags Allan Chiou, BeiBei Chen, DJs, Friends, Girl Talk, Jazz Cat, Jeremy Nissen, Jonathan Leung, Junk Culture, Lamonda Steele, Max Tundra, Music, People, Restaurants, Restaurants & Cafes, Shabu Shabu, Shows & Concerts, Videos | Comments (2)

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Starbucks Petites and The Submarines

03/18/2011 – 1:23 AM

Apparently Starbucks now has two new additions to their menu to commemorate their 40^th anniversary: Starbucks Petites and the cocoa cappuccino. I stopped by a local Starbucks near work and upon discovering this, I decided to give both of these a try.

I purchased a tall cocoa cappuccino and a peanut butter mini cupcake. (The little Android wanted to be in the picture, that camera hog.) I really wanted to try out the tiramisu cake pop, rocky road cake pop, or birthday cake pop, but the particular Starbucks location I went to didn’t have any of these, so I decided to try the peanut butter mini cupcake instead.

As I had expected, the cocoa cappuccino was too rich and sweet to me. It was pretty much like a mocha with less quantity, seeing as a cappuccino has foamed milk instead of steamed milk. The taste was great — I love chocolate — I just wish it weren’t so sweet. I probably won’t be ordering that again; I typically prefer plain cappuccinos or lattes, sometimes with a flavor shot of vanilla or hazelnut.

The peanut butter mini cupcake, however, was like several bites of Heaven. Don’t let this tiny morsel fool you — it is full of delicious chocolatey, peanut buttery goodness. Reminiscent of a Reese’s peanut butter cup combined with a unique texture due to the cupcake, every bite was enjoyable. The only disappointment I felt was when I was finished with it. This happened quickly, seeing as it is a mini cupcake. I wouldn’t necessarily want it to be any bigger, though. Being so rich and sweet, this portion was actually just right. You can try this delectable sweet treat at your local Starbucks for $1.50.

I’ve been slowly trying to get back into the music scene, seeing as I’ve been out of touch with any new material by bands I used to listen to and just any new music in general for the past three years or so. This Saturday, I’ll be seeing Girl Talk at the Fox Theater in Pomona. On April 21, I’m seeing fun. at The Glasshouse in Pomona. Nate Ruess, the lead singer of The Format, which broke up, is now the lead singer of fun. I’ve been a huge fan of The Format and I love Nate Ruess’s voice, so it’s nice to see that he is still carrying on with other projects. I’ve also purchased tickets to see Yelle at The Music Box in Hollywood on May 21. On Friday, April 8, The Submarines will be having a free show at Fingerprints in Long Beach. If you haven’t heard their music, you should definitely check them out. And if you have heard their music (or haven’t), you should definitely hit up this free show. I’m pretty excited; who could resist good live music for free?

I grabbed this little postcard/flyer the last time I was at Fingerprints. Now you can see their other tour dates, for your viewing pleasure.

Tags Coffee, Dessert, Music, Shows & Concerts, Starbucks, Starbucks Petites, The Submarines | Comments (3)

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Lent, North End Caffe, The Dears, Eulogies, Viento y Agua, and Dean’s Pizza

03/13/2011 – 8:29 PM

Lent

Last Wednesday, March 9, was Ash Wednesday, which is the first day of Lent. Being a practicing Catholic yet having never really taken Lent very seriously (i.e. I’ve never really “given up” anything for Lent), I decided to try it out, with some company. :]

Here we have our list of Lenten sacrifices that we decided would take effect the Thursday after Ash Wednesday:

Mine:

Blog at least 500 words a day. – So I haven’t been doing very well on this one, particularly because I’ve been busy until pretty late at night. This entry is basically my attempt at making up for three days of no blogging.
No purchasing any purses. – I haven’t really been shopping lately, so this shouldn’t prove to be too hard.
No cursing. – This shouldn’t be a problem for me, although once in a while I’ll slip when caught off-guard.
No consumption of burgers or potatoes in fried form. – I rarely get burger cravings, so this shouldn’t be too bad.

His:

No cursing. - For every curse word, he has to put $0.25 in the Lent money pot. ;] Currently, it has $2.25.
No consumption of burgers or potatoes in fried form.

Okay, so those last two items aren’t really targeted toward me obviously, but since he’s decided to take on giving up those two items, which are difficult for him to do, I decided to help out and give them up myself as well. Besides, it’s a great effort; he’s not even Catholic! I have to him props for that. Plus, giving up cursing for Lent was my suggestion, which he agreed to do.

With that said, I think it’ll be a challenge to blog at least 500 words daily while keeping each entry interesting and of value. And so we begin.

North End Caffe

I had planned to write a blog post about this on Thursday, the day of, but didn’t quite get to writing it.

Lately, for lunch, my co-workers and I have been looking up local/nearby restaurants via Yelp so we could try out new places instead of eating at the same old places. We try to find restaurants that have high ratings, usually around four stars. On Thursday, we decided to try out North End Caffe. North End Caffe is a little cafe in the north end of Manhattan Beach, located on the corner of 35th Street and Highland Ave. This little cafe was featured on the Food Network show, Diners, Drive-ins, & Dives. On Yelp, this place received a four-star rating with 239 reviews. With that said, we figured we had to try it.

Allan ordered the special featured on the chalk board, which was the Short Rib sandwich, $13.00. I believe you could choose a side: french fries or a salad. From what he expressed, it seemed that he enjoyed his sandwich, although he wished he had requested the salad with ranch instead of the organic spring greens, which came with some type of vinaigrette.

Ji ordered the Creole Dawg (2 bacon wrapped hot dogs with swiss, creole mojo, crystal hot sauce, tomato, onion, Zatarain’s salt), $9.75. It is served with a side of Belgian fries. The hot dog wasn’t exactly like he had expected; it was long and narrow. Nonetheless, I think he was satisfied with his order. He said the fries were pretty good. From what I remember from the Yelp reviews, the general consensus is that people like their Belgian fries.

I ordered the Carolina Bomb (southern style pulled pork, cheddar, creole mojo, bbq, pickle, served with ranch salad), $12.75. I generally don’t go for pulled pork or any type of western style barbecue, but for some reason, I decided to give it a try this day. I can’t say I was disappointed. The sandwich was pretty tasty, especially when I put some of their “Crystal” hot sauce on it, which basically tasted like Tabasco to me.

In addition to my sandwich, I also ordered a small latte. To my surprise, it was huge! I tend to order espresso drinks (lattes or cappuccinos) from places that have them on the menu so I can compare and contrast the coffee. The latte at North End Caffe is just like any typical latte. I didn’t really notice anything significant, such as a unique flavor or texture.

My overall opinion of North End Caffe is that they have pretty good simple foods, and it’s worth a try if you’ve never been here before. I don’t particularly enjoy the price range though. For my meal, which consisted of the sandwich and a latte, my total came out to be $17 and some cents. I do like the ambiance of the place. We sat at a table outside; the weather was great. It was really nice enjoying a meal while being able to enjoy the sun and the fresh air and to watch people walking along the street. In addition, the cafe is pretty much right at the beach, probably about a block away. You can see the ocean from the corner of the street; it’s great.

The Dears and Eulogies

On Saturday, the bands The Dears and Eulogies had a free show at Fingerprints, an indepedent record store in Long Beach. We hadn’t really heard much of either band’s music, but we decided it would be a fun experience and made sure to get ourselves onto the guest list. Eulogies was on Morning Becomes Eclectic on KCRW just recently, and their music from that set seemed pretty good.

Eulogies played first, as the opening band. I really enjoyed their set. The intros to their songs were fun and upbeat, and the vocalist had a good stage presence. I also really liked his Gibson guitar. I can definitely see myself listening to their new album, Tear the Fences Down, quite often. I especially like their cover art.

Following Eulogies was The Dears. They had a really good stage presence as well. The vocalist was very energetic and put on a great show. I can’t say I’m personally a fan of their music, though, but it was still a lot of fun listening to them and watching them play. I do like the fact that they have a keyboard. I found it amusing how both bands each had one girl member. Eulogies had a female bassist, and The Dears had a female keyboardist.

After the two bands played, they had signings, so we got a Eulogies vinyl signed by Eulogies and a Fingerprints promo poster for The Dears and Eulogies signed by both bands. Both bands were awesome to chat with; they seemed both really down to earth.

All over Long Beach, there are these interesting installations, one of which is this flower. There are a bunch of these flowers near my neighborhood. I have no idea what they’re for (does anyone?), but I really like these installations, actually. Near my neighborhood, there are a bunch of bicycles done in this fashion, which look awesome. I have been meaning to get photos of each of the installations, but for now all I have is this one of me with one of the flowers I saw last night.

Viento y Agua

After the free show at Fingerprints, we went to Viento y Agua, a small coffee shop nearby. The place has four-and-a-half stars on Yelp, so I was very excited to try out their coffee.

I really liked the interior of this place. It was very cozy and filled with lots of interesting things to peruse. They also call themselves a gallery as well as a coffee house, so it is no surprise to find artwork hanging along the walls. What I found extremely amusing are the skeleton wallpieces. You can see them in the photo hanging up on the blue-painted wall. Like most independent coffee shops in Long Beach, Viento y Agua also hosts small gigs for musical artists. It just so happened that there were several gigs that night – a few solo artists. Jesse Thomas, Jake Newton, and Stacy Clark performed. The lounge area is filled with comfy couches and seats. There is a shelf full of books you can read. They even have a box filled with CDs of artists that have performed there. What’s awesome is there’s a sign on this box that says you can borrow any of the CDs so long as you bring it back. Complete honor system. The cafe offers free Wi-Fi. I would definitely love to sit here and lounge for a few hours, reading a book, listening to music, or surfing the web.

We did not lounge, however. The plan was to grab some quick coffee and proceed to find something for dinner seeing as we were both quite hungry. We each got the Mexican Moka, which is basically a mocha with a slight flavor twist. I’m not sure what else was in there, but I could distinctly taste cinnamon. The Mexican Moka was delicious, but like what happens with me and mochas, it got too sweet later on, and I couldn’t finish the whole thing. I do highly recommend this drink though. I’m sure most people would be able to gulp it all down, no problem. I definitely would like to come back to this place, and next time I’ll be sure to try something less sweet – a latte, most likely.

Dean’s Pizza

We had no idea what to eat for dinner, but we knew a few things: we wanted something quick, we wanted something nearby, we wanted pizza, and we wanted it to be unique and delicious. Using my handy dandy Yelp app on my Android phone, I found Dean’s Pizza. This place has a four-star rating on Yelp with 144 reviews, so we decided we had to try it. Dean’s Pizza is a small place located in a small shopping arcade of a few establishments. They had a few small tables, but I would recommend coming here with take-out in mind. It definitely looked like a diamond in the rough. Everyone on Yelp recommends the Thai curry sauce on the pizza, so we ordered a supreme pizza with the Thai curry sauce and took it back to my place to eat. The flavor was interesting. I’m not really a fan of curry, so I didn’t think the pizza was amazing, but I could definitely see how a lot of people could enjoy it. It was a unique combination of flavors for a pizza. They also have garlic cream sauce and marinara sauce, so if I go pick up a pizza at this place again, I want to try the garlic cream sauce. A huge plus is that their food is pretty inexpensive. We ordered a large pizza for $12.99 and ended up with half the pizza left.

Seems like this past week was filled with lots of Yelping, but it proved to be very handy and I had some interesting tasting experiences. I like the idea of looking up random high-rated places on Yelp and trying them out. I love trying new things, and it’s interesting to see what other users recommend at these popular restaurants.

Overall it was a great weekend. My tummy was well-fed as was my mind.