Pooh and I tried a new place for dinner tonight. We went to Tao since we heard some good things from our co-workers. There was a 20 minute wait but since we couldn’t think of anywhere else to go we decided to TRY and wait patiently. I was starving! My stomach felt like it was going to eat itself. Fortunately, the time passed rather quickly. I liked that they took phone numbers down and called when our table was ready. Next time we’ll just grab a coffee at the Starbucks around the corner while we wait for the call.

Tao is a small humble restaurant but the food is full of big bold flavors. If you’re a fan of spicy foods then you’ll LOVE this place. I absolutely love spicy food so I was very excited. The menu had a large selection but didn’t seem too overwhelming. I was also impressed with their equally large and enticing vegetarian menu. We didn’t order off of the vegetarian menu but I am definitely going to the next time we eat there.

They gave us a complimentary salad while we waited for our orders. It was a refreshing and delicious spring salad with nuts, raspberry vinaigrette, and their amazing homemade tofu. I really enjoyed the salad. It’s definitely a good sign of what’s to come when the house salad tastes delicious.

We both started with the Garlic Chicken Wings Appetizer. They were frikkin awesome! They were deep fried and glazed with the most incredible spicy and tangy sauce. Definitely one of the best chicken wings I’ve ever had. I don’t normally like to eat with my hands, but I was getting down and dirty chowing down those wings! I was more than happy to lick the sauce off of every finger. :)

Pooh ordered the Red Chicken Entree with Brown Rice. I had a couple bites and loved how juicy and tender the chicken was. The sauce packed a punch but wasn’t too spicy where all you can taste is the burning of your tongue. I could taste all of the different flavors in the dish instead of just one muddle spicy note. Delicious!

I ordered the Garlic Fish. I’ve been craving some homemade Fried Talapia lately so I thought I’d try the Garlic Fish. It definitely is nothing like Fried Talapia but omg was it yummy! The outside was nice and crunchy; the inside was soft and buttery. The textures definitely blended well together and so did the flavors. We both ordered our dishes with a spiciness of 9 out of 10 so they were both pretty hot!

I am definitely glad we tried Tao for dinner tonight. We’ll definitely be visiting the place a lot!

After dinner Pooh and I headed to BabyCakes for some Tea and Bread Pudding :) Gotta have yummy desert after yummy dinner!

It’s been a while since Pooh and I had a random trip to LA. Our friends Kelly and Suki moved back up to LA this weekend so we thought we’d go up and party with them. It took me forever to upload my pics so I’m just linking them from facebook.

We left San Diego on Sunday, but before we hit the road, we had lunch at Mo’s.

I had Bacon Eggs Benedict with a side of fries and a side of bacon :)

Sunday night we went to Fiesta Cantina, Mickey’s, and The Abbey. I don’t have very many pics of our night out unfortunately. I was much too drunk to take any pictures.

I did get to take pictures when I sobered up at BCD’s Tofu House though. Pooh had a little too much to drink :X

LOL…POOR POOH :P

Monday morning we dragged ourselves out of bed and had brunch at Porto’s Bakery & Cafe. I absolutely love this place!

Pooh David and I decided to enjoy the rest of the day since we didn’t have any plans. First, one last hurrah at Fiesta Cantina in West Hollywood.

We made a random trip to the Observatory at Griffith Park. I haven’t been there since the 6th grade!

After burning in the sun for a while, we thought we’d take David to Little Tokyo since he’s never been there.

WTF?! RANDOM!

We got hungry so we went to Daikokuya. I got a Tsukemen Combination w/ a bbq pork rice bowl. It’s basically a deconstructed Ramen…and is frikkin amaze balls!

After demolishing my girlish figure, we did a little shopping. David and I picked up some dorky glasses. Pooh picked up a cool camera phone lens attachment that does a blur effect.

I thought I’d test out a new app on my phone that edits photo’s…I like!

It was a fun weekend! I’ve been over working myself lately since I’ve been rehearsing for a performance each night after work. I’m performing for a show in September for Make A Wish Foundation – I’ll expatiate in a later post. Anyway, this LA trip was a nice little mini vacation. It felt like we were gone for a week! BTW, if you are wondering where our buddy Flo was…he had work on Monday so he didn’t get to join us.

I just realized that it’s been a while since I was able to do a post like this. I miss it!

After enjoying ourselves at La Fayette, we headed to Mo’s for lunch.  I love these guys!  It was a great end to a beautiful weekend.  I actually felt refreshed and well rested when I came back to work today.  I hope you all enjoyed your weekend!

We were having amazing San Diego weather this weekend! It was so beautiful out this last Sunday that Pooh and I just wanted to enjoy ourselves out n’ about. We went to Mo’s with our friends Matt and Vincent for brunch and bottomless mimosas.

I had the Mo’s Style French Toast. MMMM!

For Memorial Day, we had a nice potluck bbq dinner with some friends followed by an amazing Kareoke night at Flicks. It was good times :)

Pooh and I had a nice romantic 1 on 1 day for his birthday. After work I took him out to dinner at Avenue 5. It’s a sophisticated restaurant on Fifth Avenue near Balboa Park. The food was incredible! Our co-workers highly recommended the place so we’ve been wanting to check it out for some time now. It kind of felt a little awkward at first because it seemed as though the place was for a much older crowd, but we still enjoyed ourselves. We started with some cocktails, Truffle Fries, and Foie Gras (I’m sorry! I didn’t know exactly what it was until my co-worker told me the next day. I heard of it from Food Network but they never talked about how it’s made!) Pooh had the Duck Confit and I had the Soft Shell Crab. I absolutely loved everything, but most importantly, so did Pooh! He’s just as excited about great food as I am. He told me that he didn’t really want to have a “big to do” for his birthday and just wanted to spend some quality alone time with me. (He’s so sweet!) So I planned for it to be just the two of us all night. For dessert they gave him a Chocolate Decadence….mmmm yummy!

After our incredible dinner, I took Pooh home so I could surprise him with my gifts! As he was changing, I quickly lit a bunch of candles in our living room as well as one atop an Irish Angel cake from Heaven Sent Desserts. He came out of the bedroom with the biggest smile! He was very surprised and wondered where I hid the cake. (Instead of teaching my dance class on Thursday, I used the time to get a cake, his present, and make reservations at Avenue 5. I hid the cake in the back seat of our car because he never looks back there. Since it was at night, I figured that I could leave it there till morning and then put it in the fridge at work, then put it back into the car before we headed to dinner!) After he blew out his candle, I then reached for another surprise and handed him his present. I got him work out gloves since Gizmo chewed up his old pair. I was going to get him weights but I didn’t know which ones he wanted so I told him we’d get them together. He was very happy and delighted with his birthday gift because it was something that he needed and I put a lot of thought into it. We enjoyed drinks and dessert the rest of the night and watched TV together. I loved every second of it :)

Pooh and I went to Long Beach Pride (2010) this past weekend. We were supposed to go with our friends Suki and Kelly to meet up with our bud Flo, but our lady friends were unable to make it. We all had an amazing time! We went out in West Hollywood on Saturday night and went to the Pride festival in Long Beach on Sunday. I love going up to see our buddy Flo because it always feels like a week long vacation in just the 2 days that we visit.

It was unfortunate that our cell phones were unable to get any reception. We couldn’t get a hold of our friends to meet up. (Gian, you’re phone sucks for dying on us…we didn’t get to see you!!!) Some highlights from LB Pride in a nut shell was drinking in our car parked in front of California Pizza Kitchen, dancing for our lives at the Hip Hop stage, watching the hot Go-Go boy pop out of his undies for a long time before he noticed he was letting it all hang loose, and then having All-U-Can-Eat Korean BBQ in Korea Town. It was an awesome time! Thanks Flo for the fun!

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve blogged anything with substance. I was recovering from my awesome birthday celebration and some additional nights of debauchery that followed days after. I definitely should give my liver a rest! Now that things have finally settled down, I can finally blog about my wonderful celebration of me.

I just have to start by saying that I HAVE THE MOST AMAZING BOYFRIEND EVER! He treats me so well and he spoils me even though he doesn’t need to. He always out-does himself every year! He definitely knows how to make me feel special. I love him sooooo much! I already told him that he didn’t have to get me anything and that I really just wanted to have a nice special dinner with him but he went the extra mile and planned an amazing birthday for me.

First, he surprised me with the awesome camera that I wanted.

Well, kind of surprised me. He wanted to surprise me with it but we’re always together, and with our hectic schedule, he didn’t have any time to go to the store to pick it up without me being right there with him. So after work on the Thursday before my birthday, he drove me to Fry’s to pick up my gift. He wanted me to have it so I can record the class I was teaching that night and to take pictures of our weekend. Our good friend Gian was also going to be in town to celebrate his birthday as well, so it was great to have a new camera to record our time together.

On my birthday, Pooh took me out for dinner after work.  He got us reservations at Cucina Urbana, a restaurant I’ve been raving about for quite some time now.  I’m absolutely in love with this place.  The food is incredible, the decor is urban and chic without being pretentious, and the service is great!

It was an amazing dinner with my Poohburr. Sweet, romantic, and the most perfect way to celebrate my birthday! We headed home to rest up so we could meet up with some friends for drinks later that night…or so I thought! Pooh had another surprise up his sleeve for me. When I opened the door to our kitchen to let Gizmo out, I was pleasantly greeted and surprised to see my friends hiding in the kitchen screaming “SURPRISE!”. I was nearly thrown back because they scared the hell out of me!

It’s a great feeling to know that there was so much thought and effort into making my birthday special. I am truly thankful and blessed to have these people in my life, especially Pooh. The people that you surround yourself with help make those special moments in your life. I look back at all the pictures that I took – all of my “digital memories” – and they’re of happy times with people I truly care about and love. I love saving these memories because they’re moments in my life when I was happy, despite how momentous or random they might be. People walk in and out of our lives, as sad as it may seem, but all of those people shape us and have affected us in some way. We’re who we are and where we are because of them. :)

Anyway, enough Hallmark talk. I’ve uploaded all of my pics from my birthday bash to my Facebook. I’ll be adding them to my blog galleries soon. I’m doing my laundry and it’s 1:09am. Perhaps I should sleep soon. Here’s a bunch of photos from the rest of the night…after our surprise party at home we went out after wards to go somewhere…I unfortunately do not remember. I’m told I had a blast!

WE HAVE THE SAME BIRTHDAY!!!

Thanks again for all the birthday wishes everyone! ::big kisses little kisses, big hugs n little hugs::