Category Archives: Random

Friday Night on The Strand, Manhattan Beach

04/22/2011 – 11:01 PM

BeiBei, Allan, and I found ourselves restless and directionless Friday evening after we were done at work. After a stop at the nearby mall, Manhattan Village, we decided to drive over to The Strand @ Manhattan Beach to walk around and enjoy house-watching. Specifically, we set out to find a house that Allan had seen previously one evening when he was taking a walk on The Strand. This house has huge, life-size figurines of characters from animated movies, such as Sully from Monsters, Inc., Alvin and the chipmunks, and Donald Duck, on display, which can be seen through the windows. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get any good photos of these figurines because the spotlights (yes, apparently there are spotlights that light up each character) weren’t on tonight. This didn’t stop us from trying, which resulted in the following photos:

We spent the whole time playing around with camera settings, trying to see if we could manage to get photos of the figurines, to no avail.

Check out BeiBei’s post over at her blog; she’s got some awesome photos of the ocean view.

Tags Allan Chiou, Beach, BeiBei Chen, Manhattan Beach, The Strand | Comment (0)

Random

Daisy, Daisy, How Does Your Garden Grow?

04/09/2011 – 8:19 PM

Contrary to my post title, I did not plant any daisies. Nevertheless, I’ve been watering my dear mini plants daily, and it appears to be working wonderfully! My sunflowers are growing like crazy, exploding out of their hard seeds. The basil is sprouting, almost reaching the top of its pot.

Still no signs of growth from the marigold, tomato, or parsley at this point. I thought I had noticed some of the parsley starting to grow, but I guess I was mistaken.

Hopefully the sunflowers and basil will continue to grow as well as they have been, and hopefully the marigold, tomato, and parsley will follow suit!

Tags Gardening, Mini plants | Comment (0)

Friends Random

Thank You, Rachel!

04/08/2011 – 10:10 PM

I came home to find that I had a lovely package from Connecticut, from none other than Rachel Speights!

The little erasers – the gallon of milk and the toast with jam – will be perfect additions to my food collection, which Rachel contributed to while she still worked at Internet Brands.

Thank you so much, Rachel! Hopefully you’ll be able to visit us soon!

Tags Friends, Gifts, Presents, Rachel Speights | Comment (1)

Random

Grow, My Pretties!

04/07/2011 – 9:36 AM

Remember the mini plants I bought from Target, as mentioned in this post: Porto’s Bakery and Cafe & Mini Plant Fun? Well, to my delight, they are growing!

The sunflowers and the basil have the most significant growth. I can’t say I can see the other plants growing, but I”m hoping beneath that soil, they are also bursting out of those seeds. The photos above show how much these little plants can grow overnight. Those sunflowers are out of control! I find it very exciting watching these little plants grow, considering I had planted them from mere tiny seeds.

Tags Gardening, Mini plants | Comment (1)

Food Random Restaurants & Cafes

Porto’s Bakery and Cafe & Mini Plant Fun

03/31/2011 – 9:14 PM

I had Allan carpool me to work today because BeiBei and I had planned to carpool over to wushu straight from work with hopes to make it in the Costa Mesa area early enough to indulge in Ikea’s $1.99 roast chicken meal. With that being said, Allan and I decided to stop by Porto’s Bakery and Cafe in Downey to satiate my Porto’s craving that I had been having all week. I was specifically craving potato balls, mind you, but of course I cannot satisfy such a craving since I had given up potatoes in fried form for Lent. No worries – come April 23 I may eat as I please! Porto’s has three locations in southern California (Downey, Glendale, and Burbank), each of which has a whopping four and a half star rating on Yelp with a significant number of reviews. The Downey location is fairly new and has 397 reviews, but Glendale and Burbank both have nearly 2000 reviews. With that many reviews and that high of a star rating, you know Porto’s must be good. Conveniently, the Downey location is not too far from my house in Lakewood.

I purchased a dozen guava cheese strudels (you get a good deal if you buy a dozen of them), which is a huge favorite. Along with that, I bought BeiBei a few potato balls (even if I can’t enjoy them at the moment, at least she can!), and I bought myself a dulce de leche latte. This time around the latte was perfect; it wasn’t too sweet and the flavor of the espresso was just right. I also ordered a grilled chicken sandwich to bring to work and eat for lunch.

Unfortunately, Porto’s was so crowded when we went (at about 11 AM) and so many people had to-go orders for sandwiches that the wait took forever. Also, remember that the breakfast menu is only available until 11 AM, but the lunch menu is available starting 10 AM; therefore, the prime time to arrive at Porto’s in the morning is 10 AM. You can get the best of both worlds (breakfast AND lunch) while avoiding the crowds. Last time we had gone before work, we arrived before 11 AM, and it wasn’t as crowded and I was able to order off the breakfast menu.

After finally getting our orders and finally getting to work, I shared the goodies for all to enjoy!

Jeremy loves those guava cheese strudels, and he can attest to their deliciousness.

My grilled chicken sandwich was also delicious even though it unfortunately got cold during its transport to work. I loved the dijon mustard; it gives this sandwich a nice kick. I would have definitely preferred it freshly cooked and hot though.

If you’re curious or want to plan your visit, Porto’s has an excellent website that details practically their entire menu: Porto’s Bakery & Cafe

BeiBei and I did not make it to wushu because she ended up getting swamped with work. We did end up going to Ikea for dinner still; however, we went to the Carson location, which did not have the roast chicken available. We instead got the Swedish meatballs; you can never go wrong with these!

After Ikea, we stopped by the Target next door and found these cute mini plant pots with ready-to-grow seeds in the dollar spot! They were so cute, we just couldn’t resist! I purchased a few and immediately planted them upon arriving home. I hope to be able to make a mini Caprese salad some time in the future!