In my on-going search for new favorite breakfast places on the Westside, I decided to give Amandine Patisserie, located in Santa Monica/Brentwood, a go. It’s just a couple of blocks west of my current fave, Literati Cafe, and it’s gotten a ton of decent reviews on Yelp, The Delicious Life, and Chowhound. I read their online menu and with French toast and omelette specialties and yummy-sounding French pastries galore, how could I go wrong?

Well, turns out I could go a lot wrong. My problem wasn’t so much with the food as it was the entire experience — from counter service to finding a seat to table service to finishing my meal.

(more…)

American Airlines

How is it that with all the advancements in technology to make our lives as comfortable as possible, they still haven’t applied that science to airplanes? In fact it seems like airplanes are increasingly becoming the most uncomfortable way to travel out of the planes-trains-automobiles transportation triad. Case in point: my trip to Maui via American Airlines.

(more…)

Since I now live down the street from Century City, I find myself frequenting it a lot more than I used to. Instead of going there once a year, so far this month alone I’ve gone three times. It’s all redone and fancy now with its brand-new cineplex and swanky food court, and new stores that aren’t really my style. And yet somehow I end up there, wishful window-shopping.

Fantasy shopping central and the main attraction at Century City is Bloomingdales. Oooh, Stuart Weitzman pumps! Oooh, a Diane Von Furstenberg dress!

However, for obvious reasons I never buy anything there. But one weeknight while I was waiting for my friend Kevin to return an unwanted Star Trek-looking shirt, I wandered over to the M.A.C. counter in my ongoing search for a “daytime red.” There weren’t that many people around. “Great!” I thought, “I won’t feel bad enlisting a salesperson in my quest for my new lipstick.”

(more…)

Remember them?

Months ago I wrote about how Shutterfly sent the wrong picture to my mom for Mother’s Day. Instead of an old family portrait she got a 16×20 portrait of unknown twin babies taking a bath. Well, I have been trying to get my hands on this odd canvas picture ever since then but my parents, much to my dismay, thought they threw it away. But when I came back up to Sacramento for the Christmas holiday my mom surprised me by presenting the long-lost portrait.

It’s so hiliarous…and yet kinda cute. But after much thought, I can’t keep it cuz, really, where would I put it? My mom suggested that I put it up in my bathroom but that would be a really weird thing for a single girl who really doesn’t like kids to display, wouldn’t it? So I decided to give this strange bit of PINSMFA “memorabilia” away. So whomever wants it — collectors of cute, Anne Geddes fans, etc. — just leave a comment here or if you want to be more discreet, drop me a line (caro @ carolineoncrack.com), and consider it my Xmas present to you. I think whomever ordered this picture for real must have paid about $140 since that’s how much we paid for the real family portrait, but you can pick this beauty up for free. I just want the kids to go to a good home where someone will appreciate them. Or is this picture too weird for anyone except people who know said twins?

Wow, three PINSMFAs in quick succession. I’m on a bitchy roll. But this had to be said even if it is in Vegas. Coyote Ugly Saloon is only a good place to go to if you’re a single 20-something guy who just can’t get laid. Go to Coyote Ugly where there are plenty of writhing drunk girls for you to rub your junk against.

The bachelorette party from hell went here Saturday night for some dancing after dinner at Gonzalez y Gonzalez in New York New York. It was the only place anyone could think of that had a decent cover price ($10), a short line and proximity. The place was packed and the music loud. We flocked here for the dancing but it looked like the only real dancing was taking place on stage where girls were invited to take the spotlight for a free shot of whatever the MC was pouring. Little did I know that that was the only place where a girl could dance without getting freaked on by Night at the Roxbury rejects.

(more…)

OK, let me preface this by saying this isn’t Vegas’ fault, the fact that I’m currently taking part in what is probably the worst bachelorette-party-in-Vegas experience ever. But it certainly hasn’t endeared Sin City to me either.

First off, I hate bachelorette parties. Drunk girls screaming out the sunroofs of limos, drunk girls pawing strippers, drunk girls playing drinking games, drunk girls dancing on tops of tables and drinking from penis-shaped sippy cups…not my thing. But I went anyway. Dre sold it to me as a good time and since she’s never steered me wrong before, I was game. “We don’t have to do anything we don’t want to,” she promised.

(more…)

I mentioned Yakitoriya briefly yesterday, but for the record I am so not going back there. Quickest assessment ever, I was only in there for 5 minutes but that was enough. Again, this was when Julie and I were starving and looking for a cheap place on Sawtelle to grab some dinner…before the glorious Orris experience. She suggested Yakitoriya since she had gone there before and loved the meats on sticks.

So we ducked in and grabbed a seat at the bar even though there were still plenty of free tables. The waiter handed us the menu, I sat there trying to figure out the offerings, was put off by the prices and disturbed by the thought of gizzards on a stick. Julie decided on the $17 five-stick dish and I opted for a more doable small-size soboro rice bowl with a stick of breast meat. It would add up to about $10. Still more than I wanted to spend here but whatever.

But when the waiter took our order he said that I had to order the five-stick dish. Julie explained to him that I only liked the breast meat and didn’t want the quail egg, thigh, gizzard, or whatever other unsavory part of chicken they were offering.

Unsympathetic to my unadventurous palate, he suggested that we go in on the $27 nine-stick dish. “But that’s too much for me. She doesn’t want anything other than the breast,” Julie explained. “Since she doesn’t want that much can she just get maybe side dishes and…” The waiter shook his head and basically said that wasn’t allowed either.

We got up, said sorry, and left, which was just as well since there was something better waiting for us down the street.

11301 W Olympic Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90064
(310) 479-5400

Flickr Shot by Splorp

I was spending an evening hanging out with my bro and his bf when we got a hankering for some shishkabobs. They decided to order online through L.A. Bite, a delivery service that picks up from restaurants that don’t deliver themselves. Sounds cool, right? Especially if there’s an eatery out in L.A. you want to order in from but who doesn’t deliver.

(more…)

The last time I went to North Hollywood’s Tokyo Delve’s was eons ago (when I was just crack-free “Caroline”) and in all honesty I hated it. It was frat-boy obnoxious and the servers made me stand up on my chair and do the chicken dance when all I really wanted to do was eat my spicy tuna roll in peace. And, no, I didn’t know that’s their thing until it was too late and I was committed to sake bombs and 40s of Sapporo.

So when my new bff Julie invited me to come with her to TD’s, I was willing to give it another chance. Maybe I’ve come out of my shell more since then.

(more…)

Went here on an early Sunday afternoon and since I was alone, I sat at the counter. Right in the middle, not behind the cash register or anything where I could be overlooked. And yet it still took 10 minutes for the waitress, Bambi, to come up to me and take my order.

Starving, I asked one of the servers if I could order and he called out her name asking her to help me but she was in the middle of sorting receipts and yelled over her shoulder, “Inna minute!”

The chef even said something to her and pointed at me, and she said, “I’m moving as fast as I can!” But even though she knew I was waiting, it still took her 5 minutes to mosey on over to me.

(more…)

Flickr Shot by Kam^TM

Planet Blue off Montana Avenue in Santa Monica is having a huge 50% off sale. That means their Diane Von Furstenberg, Citizens of Humanity, James Perse and other chi-chi fashions will be half off. That $600 sweatshirt you had your eye on is now only $300. BUT before you get all excited let me impart a disturbing bit of gossip a friend in the know told me.

She works near the Planet Blue location on Main Street and befriended one of the salespeople there. After noticing on many occasions the PB employees wearing this high-end fashion out and about Main Street during their lunches and smoke breaks with the tags still attached, she asked her Planet Blue salesperson friend what was going on.

Allegedly it’s store policy for the employees to wear these garments, with tags still attached, and then to put them back on the clothes rack. If they happen to get the clothes dirty, they simply send them to the dry cleaners, replace the price tag and return them to the sales floor for purchase by an unsuspecting customer.

In one instance, my friend was about to try on a white top but noticed a red stain on it. She showed it to her PB friend who quietly took it from her and brought it to one of the other salespeople. “You wore this yesterday and got strawberry juice on it!” To which the guilty salesgirl replied, “I did?” And she simply threw the top in a bag and labeled it “dry cleaner.”

And it’s not just this store on Main Street that’s doing it, apparently it’s all the stores: Montana, Malibu and Main — “company policy,” ya see. Seems as if the company believes that salespeople wearing the clothes is a form of advertisement. I can understand that but don’t most clothes stores give their employees a killer discount instead?

“But,” says this PB employee who is leaving the company because they’re sick of this weirdness, “there are actually customers out there who buy the clothes knowing that this is going on.” Ewww! It’s like a subculture of fetishists who get off on paying full price for used and partly soiled couture.

Anyhoo, maybe it’s just me but if I’m going to throw down a couple hundred-plus on an investment piece that many years from now will be considered “vintage” and not “second-hand,” I’d like to be the first one to wear it.

800 14th Street
Santa Monica, California 90265
(310) 394-0135
Cross Street: Montana Avenue

OK, Shutterfly isn’t really a place but you get the idea.

For Mother’s Day, us kids thought it would be an awesome gift for our mom if we took an old family picture, circa 1978, and got it blown up and turned into a canvas print a la Shutterfly. My brother even retouched the photo, taking away imperfections and smoothing out fly-away hairs.

Shutterfly promised to get the print to Mom in time for Mom’s Day if we paid for the 2-day shipping. Our total came out to $140 for a 16×20 canvas print. Mom would get it for the holiday and we’d make her day.

But of course the comedy of errors that is life, the day after placing the order, Shutterfly let us know that they actually wouldn’t be able to get it to her until Monday. That’s right, after Mother’s Day. My bro strongly voiced his disagreement about this and they offered to refund the shipping charge.

Fine, just as long as she got the picture. But come Monday when the package arrived, my parents peeled back the wrapper to reveal the above portrait in a large 16×20 canvas print. “Do you know who these kids are?” my bewildered father asked my bewildered mother. “No! But it IS the right address,” replied Mom. And the caption was correct, “The Family, 1978.”

It’s almost funny. The fact that we made a big deal about the picture coming the day after Mother’s Day and yet it was the wrong one anyway. And the absurdity of the creepy twins in a bathtub passing for our family portrait. WTF? Was it a joke? Maybe their way of getting back at us for getting mad about the gift’s late arrival? Hi-larious.

So how did Shutterfly make this right? They haven’t yet. They said they’d call us back…but we’re still waiting by the phone. So will we use them again? Um, that would be a nope.

POST EDIT: My folks finally got the right picture and they love it. But now they don’t know what to do with the picture of the twins. Any ideas? I already thought about auctioning it off on eBay. Heh.

Flickr shot by disneymike

Asahi Ramen was the first noodle shop I went to on Sawtelle, but once I was introduced to Ramenya around the corner I had forgotten all about it. And with good reason, I found out recently.

One Wednesday when I was craving my fave Ajo Ramen (garlic ramen) from Ramenya, my co-worker and I drove on over to discover that, to our dismay, they were closed on friggin Wednesdays!

Having already driven all that way (OK, 2 miles), I suggested Asahi Ramen to sate our noodle cravings. Bad idea! Looking at the menu posted outside the door, nothing really struck a chord with us. The menu selection was so limited compared to Ramenya, although the prices were cheaper.

Nothing drew me in, and yet I went against my instincts and went inside anyway. I wanted ramen, dammit! Plus, since it was packed during this lunch hour, I figured it must be good stuff.

My co-worker decided on the miso ramen and, frankly, I don’t even remember which one I ordered, I think it was the won ton ramen. All I know is that there were pieces of pork, green onions, a hard boiled egg, and won tons (which seemed like too much noodly texture when combined with the ramen noodles) in a soy sauce soup.

Eh. It was just average. Nothing really stood out about it. My friend felt the same way about her order. She was really disappointed that it didn’t taste the way she had expected it to. And she thought that maybe they mixed up her order since she didn’t get two of the ingredients her soup was listed to have on the menu.

Anyway, suffice it to say that we were less than impressed. No leftovers for us. I only ate about a quarter of the stuff before I just had to chuck it. What was the point in saving it if I didn’t like it the first time?

2027 Sawtelle Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90025
(310) 479-2231

Waiting to be ignored.

Now it’s not because of an embarrassing moment or terrible food. On the contrary, the pizza was pretty good in its sinful and crispy way.

Nope, this place sucked on many other levels:

1) The lights were off so it looked like the restaurant was closed. Fortunately we went during the day so the sun lit the way for us to our booth.

2) Even though a sign hanging overhead said that those who wanted table service should seat themselves, we still had to go to the cash register to get some attention and even then we stood there for 5 minutes in front of three people behind the counter before one of them finally acknowledged us. Sure, two of them were busy trying to open a wine bottle, but a head nod would have sufficed.

3) Even though they have bubblegum soda, ginger beer, celery soda and six different kinds of root beer, they didn’t have any water other than the fancy $3 kind or diet Coke much to the dismay of my grumbling brother.

4) This place is in serious need of a renovation what with sunken-in booths and holes in the seats. I mean, sure it’s a late-night favorite so most of its customers are usually too drunk to care but that doesn’t excuse neglect. I’m really surprised it only got a B grade.

5) Everything from #1 to #4 would have been forgivable had it not taken two slices of sausage and mushroom pizza about 15 minutes to “make.”

412 N Fairfax Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90036-1717
(323) 658-7611
Cross Street: Oakwood Avenue