Archive | October, 2010

Room Service Pizza

20 Oct

I was fortunate to be invited out to our LA offices to meet the rest of my new work team.  I had only been to LA once before, and I was at a conference and then got a great inside tour by my aunt that time, however, I was never on my own schedule.  This time, I spent a week working and then extended through the holiday weekend, and Mike got to join me for his first time in LA.

One night, I was certainly still on East Coast time and really couldn’t pull myself out of the hotel room to find dinner… so I got room service.  The hotel (Le Parc Suites, which was quite lovely by the way) had a “fine restaurant” so I figured it couldn’t be too bad.  They were out of pretty much everything, however, so I wound up ordering a pizza.  As soon as I ordered it, I regretted it.  I mean… I’m from New York… and I ordered PIZZA in LA?  Hmmmmm.

It came and it smelled really great though.

Lots of good mushrooms… crackly cheese.

Ok… it had potential.  The upskirt looked a bit weak though.

And that was where it failed.  The crust was incredibly lackluster.  The toppings were good, but the crust was just too distractingly plain to be worthwhile.  Tasted a bit like fast food pizza crust.  I wound up eating the mushroom, saucy, cheesy goodness with a fork in a way that only you can do alone, in a hotel room, in a city across the country, before falling asleep at 8pm local time.

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(Semi)-Super Sonic

19 Oct

There are a number of food chains that I have seen advertised over the year but have never lived close enough to one to try it out.  Falling into this category are the following: CiCi’s, Joe’s Crab Shack, and Sonic.  Woo!  Officially crossed off the crazy list.

Now I was totally confused.  I’m a rather smart, educated, city girl and I seriously couldn’t figure out how to order from this board.

Thankfully, we had Debbie with us still to guide us.  We ordered some Limeades and Blasts.  My Blast was fine… peanut butter cups and all.  But I still prefer DQ.

I liked Mike’s Limeade.  Especially the cherry sticking out the top.

I was very happy when another friend with us got the tots. 

And they even had a slot to fit the dipping sauce!

Here it is… IN ACTION!

I’m pretty sure this was a shake of some sort.

And the burger looked pretty delicious…

For fast food it was average.  Slightly better than the fastest, not as good as Checkers nor Arby’s (the standards to which I hold all fries).

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IHOP

18 Oct

A trip to visit my good friend Debbie in Jersey would be incomplete without a visit to some large chain restaurant for a meal.  This trip, it was IHOP.  

I haven’t been to an IHOP in years… and what I remember liking most was their flavored syrups.  Seeing as though I was about 14… I think my tastes have changed some.  But… I was up for trying it.  I also forgot that IHOP is now more than just pancakes…

Debbie ordered the chicken fingers and fries.  They were decent for fast food.

Mike went with an omelet.  I remember there were also pancakes on the table, but it’s foggy where they came in.

I chose the 2 poached eggs + hashbrowns + bacon.  I just had 1 request: “burn the bacon.”  I like my bacon super crispy.  There is nothing groser to me than whimpy bacon.  Blech!

Luckily, we had a great waitress who recognized immediately that my bacon wasn’t crispy and sent it right back.  Bravo waitress!

I was concerned about the eggs, however.  They were pretty much sitting in water.  Now I know it’s not easy to fish out a poached egg from the pot of boiling water, but at a restaurant, I’d expect them to do a little bit of draining.  

So I just fished them out myself and set my bowl of water to the side.  They weren’t bad.  I wish they were more runny, but since it was IHOP, I was happy that they were runny at all.

And then… my bacon reappeared.  And it was crispy.  And I was happy.

For a chain, IHOP isn’t terrible.  I’d much prefer a cosy diner, but this was just fine.

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