Back in the ’90s, I used to be a tiramisu reviewer. Not for any special publication or anything. Rather, my friend Bernadette and I would go from Italian restaurant to Italian restaurant just to sample this Tuscan trifle. It was our own unofficial quest for the best one out there. Having not found it yet, the search continues even though it’s been on hiatus for many years.
But last night over a catch-up session with good ol’ Bern, we went to Ugo in Culver City for a light dinner and ended up resurrecting this pastime by picking up the Italian cafe’s “pick-me-up.” Ugo makes great pastas and the restaurant is always busy, even on a Sunday night, so we figure tiramisu here would be good. But I could tell just by looking at the dessert as it sat in its refrigerated case that it wasn’t going to be all that impressive. It looked too cakey and dry.
Steve is a 20-something, tall, lanky guy with blonde hair and an easy, friendly smile who tends bar at Ford’s Filling Station in Culver City. He kinda reminds me of some actor in a romantic comedy I’ve seen before. Hmm, Josh Lucas?
I walked up to the bar and asked for the cocktail list and he smiled and, very gentlemanly, came around the bar to make sure I took a seat at one of the tall tables before he handed the menu to me. “What do you like to drink?” he asked me and Dre, leaning forward on our table looking genuinely interested. I told him I like chocolate martinis and he promised to make me the best chocolate martini ever! Sold! For Dre, he found out that she doesn’t like sweet drinks and likes to be surprised.
There are some foods I’m not crazy about, i.e. pickles, tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, deli sandwiches. So when my friend recommended that we go to Italian deli, La Bottega Marino, for lunch, I was like, “Eh.” But Julie has a way of selling me on almost any food because she speaks with such enthusiasm that it makes me feel like my life will improve if I just eat that one thing.
Yay! It’s back! Another one of my favorite summer pastimes: Santa Monica Drive-In at the Pier. What’s summer without a night out at a “drive-in” movie theater? You’ve got your warm summer evening under the stars with your friends, a classic movie, and of course popcorn. But, here, instead of “drive in” you actually just “walk up,” instead of sitting in your car you sit in a beach chair and instead of just popcorn you can get those sinful cinnamon-y churros.Â
Presented by ARTS FIGHTING CANCER AND The Santa Monica Pier Restoration Corporation, the series raises funds to help those fighting cancer. It’s a great success every year because it’s so fun! Last year I watched Top Gun with the masses and had a hoot giggling with the audience through all the homoerotic scenes. That sexual tension between Iceman and Maverick? Palpable!
You can bring anything comfortable to sit on – folding chairs, blankets, inflatable rafts — or rent a folding chair at the Pier for $5. The series is kicking off on Tuesday, August 1 with Superman starring Christopher Reeves. Joy!
Free tickets are available about a week before each movie at the guest services kiosk located on the 2nd floor of the Santa Monica Place mall. Or you can show up to the Pier the night of the movie without a ticket. You just have to wait til after all ticket holders are seated before you’re allowed in.
MOVIE SCHEDULE:
Flickr Shot by Today is a good day
What: Sly and the Family Stone’s “Hot Fun in the Summertime”
Who: Those dying from the heat who have access to a grassy lawn and sprinklers.
When/Where: The Valley, the Inland Empire, suburbia front lawns everywhere or city streets with an open fire hydrant during this scorcher of a summer.
Why: It just sounds like the perfect song for a slow-mo montage of kids running and splashing through sprinklers or a gushing fire hydrant, people sitting on porches laughing and drinking iced tea and riots of water balloon fights. The slow pace of this 1969 hit evokes heat-induced lethargy when you only have enough energy to try to keep cool.
Did you know that New York banned sous vide preparation and that Chicago has an impending law against foie gras? Yeah, I didn’t either and I have to say that until this very second when I googled those food terms, I didn’t even know what any of that meant. But apparently foie gras involves the torture of ducks and geese while sous vide could give you botulism if the food isn’t prepared under controlled conditions.
And yet naughty naughty Noé Restaurant & Bar will be presenting a seven-course Outlaw Dinner with that scandalous cooking method and ingredient, including other forbidden foods like morel mushrooms, absinthe, hemp seeds and gasp! unpasteurized cheeses.
Flickr Shot by Imtrendywendy
The other day I ventured further into the oven by traveling east to Rowland Heights. It was 110 degrees out and hellishly dry. My friend Julie and I were driving around blasting on the A/C and trying to decide what to have for a snack. It felt too hot to ingest heated foods so she suggested SinBaLa, a popular Taiwanese restaurant where they have shaved ice desserts, not to be confused with Hawaiian shaved ice. Rather, the Taiwanese version is similar to halo halo, the Filipino dessert which is a heap of shaved ice doused in condensed milk and sugar, and covered by a variety of sweet beans and fruits. It sounded like the perfect antidote to the heat.
