Category Archives: Restaurants

Vacation Eats – Malibu and Jeff Goldblum

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Places, Restaurants, sandwiches, Travel and tagged with , ,

We have been having some jam-packed days here in LA! I have been so busy that I hardly have time to write. On Monday (August 1st), we headed to Malibu for some beauty and beach time.
We started off the day right with a good breakfast. We went to there’s no place like Home restaurant in Los Feliz. I went here once before when I was in California. Last time, I had the breakfast burrito. It was giant and really good. Erin got the breakfast burrito this time (I think it is her favorite). This place has a good deal on breakfast. There’s a special before 11am – $6.50 for any of the starred menu items – what a deal! And all the starred items looked like they were the best things on the menu to me.
I couldn’t decide what to get so I shared two things with Janeen. We ordered the California breakfast sandwich. It had eggs, two kinds of cheese, tomatoes, avocado, lettuce, and chipotle mayo on sourdough bread. I ordered the side of fruit. It was fresh and full of watermelon, honeydew, blackberries, and cantaloupe.

We also shared the Pomodoro Omelette. It was filled with tomatoes, basil and feta cheese. It also came with sourdough bread and a side of Spanish style home fries that were kind of like short french fries with peppers and onions. I haven’t eaten lunch or dinner here, but I give this restaurant a big thumbs up!


We took highway 101 to Malibu Canyon Road and drove through a deep cut canyon into Malibu. We stopped at a grocery store to get some supplies called Hows Market. Unfortunately, it is going out of business so I don’t know what will be there in the future but it was a deal for us because everything was 20% off. We packed a cooler with goodies and headed to the El Matador state beach.
You have to climb down the cliffs to get to the beach, but it is totally worth it! The beach is rocky and beautiful. There are large outcrops of rocks jutting up out of the water.

There were numerous professional (and unprofessional) photo shoots happening. We took a bunch of pictures and relaxed on the beach.

It became rather windy just as we decided to bust out our discount goods to eat. We made some salami and cheese sandwiches, and I mean SAND-wiches. We also noshed on olives, pickles, and Trader Joe’s black bean dip… awesome beach snacks.

We headed back down to LA after a great day on the beach. We didn’t have that much time to get dinner so we went to Leela Thai, right by Erin’s house in Silver Lake. There are countless Thai places in LA. There are probably two or more per block in some places! So I’m happy we had some since it is so abundant.
Leela Thai is a nice little restaurant with outside seating. I ordered a Thai Iced Tea. Thai Iced Tea is usually too sweet for me but this one was pretty good, it was sweet but not overly done. They also brought us our water in small metal cups that seemed to keep the water ice cold (with no ice in it) the entire time we were eating.


I had the Pad Thai with chicken. It was pretty standard but really good. It really hit the spot after a sunny beach day.

So… we went in to Hollywood for the evening and what we saw was pretty amazing. We walked into a guest only event at Cafe Was… The Jeff Goldblum jazz ensemble. yes, that is correct, Jeff Goldblum has a jazz band, and he plays piano. He is also extremely excited and animated while he is playing the piano.

One thing I noticed about Hollywood places is that they really don’t have a good beer selection. Either people don’t like good beer around here or they are just really into wine and cocktails (probably the latter). We did get to meet Jeff Goldblum at set break. He was pretty excited to take a picture with three hot girls. That was beautiful, yes, thank you…

Janeen had her first In-n-Out Burger experience after the show. We went to the location in Hollywood that was packed late at night. I thought it was pretty funny that we went when we were all dressed up!

We ordered a standard cheese burger with lettuce, tomato, onion, mustard, ketchup and their In-n-Out Burger sauce. While I didn’t love it, it was definitely better than the Whopper/Big Mac. It at least had a real toasted bun and way better lettuce and tomato. People really love In-n-Out Burger here. I don’t know how often I would eat it but I have a feeling I would stop here more then McDonald’s or Burger King, it is way better than those two places. I think we might give it another shot while we are out here and try ordering from the “secret menu” next time.

Vacation Eats – Los Olivos Wine Adventure

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Beer, Restaurants, sandwiches, Travel and tagged with , , , , , , ,

Today we woke up bright and early and decided to go north to wine country. Our pick was the tiny town of Los Olivos, in the Santa Ynez Valley.

We began the morning eating Mexican Breakfast at Tacos Delta in Silver Lake. We split two burritos between the three of us because they were pretty big. We got a bacon-potato-egg-rice-bean burrito and a potato-cheese-egg-rice-bean burrito. The salsa at this place was great! It was not too spicy and it had cilantro in it, a good addition to the burritos.

We grabbed a coffee at Casbah Cafe. I had an iced coffee (which was excellent). The shop was really colorful inside and all of the pastries and foods were carefully set up with care to look beautiful. I loved that they had nice brown hard boiled eggs on the counter top and fresh figs.

We got our coffees to-go and we started our journey north. We made it pretty far before we had to make a pit stop…

We stopped in a small beach town called Summerland and walked into a cafe with lots of lawn ornaments and a nice front porch called Cafe Luna. I am mentioning this place because I thought it was really cool that they had home-brewed Kombucha tea. There’s only one girl that knows how to brew it that works there. Unfortunately, she was on her own vacation and their Kombucha supply ran dry until she gets back. We all got their standard black iced tea. It had a nice clean and slightly sweet flavor (it was unsweetened though) and you didn’t have to add anything to it. It was perfect just how it was.


Next stop, Los Olivos. The drive up was mostly highway that ran through beautiful hills next to the coast then we had to turn inland. We drove amongst golden grassy hills with wiry oak trees that looked like they grew slightly tilted from the wind.

Los Olivos was quaint. It had one market, one coffee shop, and numerous wine tasting rooms from the surrounding vineyards and farms.

We stopped at Andrew Murray Vineyards, Blair Fox, and Kaena wine tasting rooms. I can’t even pretend to know exactly what I am talking about when it comes to wine. I do love tasting them though and I think I learned a lot about wine just in one day!

Andrew Murray wines were my favorite. I realized here that I actually like white wine. We tried a Viognier (which I have never had) that was delicious and fruity and seemed perfect for a hot day. I learned pretty quick that I really like the blended wines. I ended up getting one from here called Eleven, a blend of grenache, cabernet and syrah. It is a reference to Spinal Tap and the amplifier that can crank the volume to Eleven.

The one thing that really stuck out at Blair Fox vineyard is that their wine was very earthy. It was like you could taste the differences in the dirt the grapes were grown in. It made me notice different flavors and definitely remember them.

There was one white wine at Kaena that had a creamy, smooth, fruity flavor to it. It is called Hapa Blanc, a blend of grenache blanc and roussanne. I like it so much that I bought a bottle to take home with me. One thing that I will take away from this wine experience is that I learned I like good white wine. White wine (any kind) isn’t my favorite, but I now realize I was probably just drinking some very low quality ones.

Before we left the town center, we went to Global Gardens for an olive oil tasting! This was my favorite part of this little adventure. Yes, I like wine, but I love olive oil! We tasted a few olive oils from first pressings, blood orange infused olive oil, spice blends, olive spread, and infused vinegars. They gave you a really nice little bread roll to soak up all of the flavors and the woman that poured all of our tastings told you all about each one so it was really informative. Of course… I ended up joining the Olive Oil club (with some gentle pushing from Janeen and Erin). You get a shipment of their products four times a year for a pretty good price. I can’t wait to go home and try them out… my first one will be waiting for me when I get back! Here’s our tasting palate…

We also went to Buttonwood winery, a few miles down from all of the wine tasting rooms in Los Olivos center. Their wine was good but maybe not as good as some of the other places. This winery stop was all about the farm. They had chickens, pigs, goats, a horse, flower gardens, a peach orchard, and all kinds of places outside to sit and take it all in. It was beautiful. We had a really fun time taking pictures here…

We had to start heading back to LA after Buttonwood and we had to get some dinner. Tasting all that wine made us work up an appetite….

We tried to find this place called Cold Spring Tavern… and what a find it was! We took a winding desolate road for a while and just as we thought we went the wrong way, we see all cars lining the skinny roadway on both sides. This place was an oasis in the dry hills, and it was packed! It was part dining room, part biker bar, part BBQ pit, with shacks in the woods from the stage coach era. We went for the beef tri-tip sandwiches. You had to go in to the bar to purchase a ticket, then go outside to the BBQ pit to get your giant sandwiches from a big burly Mexican guy.

He took a giant hunk of meat off the grill and sliced it up for the three of us, placed it on grilled bread, handed over the sandwiches and told us to squish it all together. Erin asked him how he eats it and his reply was “horseradish and salsa.” I chose the barbeque sauce and horseradish sauce on mine.

It was so big, I couldn’t eat it all. I am definitely not used to eating that much meat all in one sitting. It filled me up for the rest of the night.

We made our way back to Los Angeles through stretches of traffic. We stopped in at a party at The Park restaurant, where Erin works. Then we headed into Hollywood for a comedy show. All-in-all a great day in CA!

Vacation Eats- Silver Lake and Hollywood, CA

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Beer, Restaurants, soup, Travel and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Janeen and I made it to California! We came out here to see our really great friend Erin (Hollywood comedy star). We are starting our vacation in Los Angeles. Erin lives in Silver Lake not far from Hollywood,  an awesome part of town.

The first thing we did when we got to LA was hit up a food truck! It was late but we just got off the plane and into Erin’s neighborhood.

This one was called Gus’s Lunch Box. It had standard Mexican food like burritos and tacos. I had the Taco Pastor, which was pork in red sauce. It did not have pineapple, which I was expecting because of how the Mexican place back home makes them.

The tacos hit the spot. I chose the mild sauce because I can’t eat very hot spices anymore… I’m not sure why, but I have developed an allergy to one of the chemicals in hot red peppers. The mild sauce was great though and the corn tortillas were really good.

In the morning, Janeen and I set out on a mini-walking adventure that turned into an all day affair. We walked through Silver Lake and stopped at Local for brunch. As you can see by the menu, it was right up my alley. Everything was fresh and well made.

Even though this menu looks bangin’ and I wanted all of the dishes on it, we chose to eat off the special whole wheat crepe menu.

We ordered the La Razza and a dessert crepe (the one with sweet lemon ricotta) and split them between the two of us.

Here’s the La Razza, cut in half with sour cream, avocado, and some awesome home fries. It also came with a smokey (but not hot) pepper sauce that was really good spread on the home fries.The whole wheat crepes added a new texture that went really well with all of the fillings.

The dessert crepe had lemon ricotta stuffing the crisp whole wheat crepe, topped with cooked fresh strawberries and creme fraiche. Excellent, I still ate a lot of it even though I was a little full from the breakfast crepe.

Sharing the two crepes was a great idea. I was comfortably full after the half of breakfast crepe and stuffed after half the dessert crepe. This place also had excellent iced coffee. They even had soy milk out on the fixins table. I really appreciate this because I always have to ask and usually pay extra for soy milk.

After our excellent brunch, we headed onward to the Silver Lake Farmers Market. Here we found super fresh fruits, veggies, and taste-tested many delightful treats. We got a ginger lime juice to share with cane syrup and found some pretty styling LA hats. Here’s some veggie eye candy from the market…

We started walking down Sunset Blvd. and just kept on going until we hit Hollywood Blvd. We actually walked the whole way to the Chinese Theater. Sightseeing, penny squishing, and stopping for a frozen margarita along the way. We had to call Erin to come pick us up because we had walked 5 miles to get all the way over to the most touristy part of Hollywood. On our way home we stopped at the Griffith Park Observatory for some spectacular views of the city.

After some freshening up it was dinner time! We went to Erin’s favorite place Pho Cafe for Vietnamese.

We shared the #3, spring rolls with shrimp and beef inside and a large Sapporo beer.

I got the Pho Ga #13 – rice noodle soup with free range chicken, ginger sauce, and herbs.

Both dishes are highly recommended. They use really good meat here, the beef and shrimp in the spring rolls and the chicken in the soup were all really good.

After dinner we went to a wine and beer bar. My drink of choice was Russian River Damnation. A smooth Belgian ale with an apple/pear taste to it. Perfect for sipping after a late dinner.

There is only one…

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Restaurants and tagged with ,

I’m going to write about this at the risk of losing my reputation for eating great food… My friend Matt made a statement that he has never eaten a Big Mac or a Whopper. I responded by saying I had also never eaten either of these burgers from the fast food giants, and then I jokingly said we should perform a taste test… and he and some other friends thought that was a great idea.

So I went along with it, not entirely all gung-ho about it. Actually, I was a little nervous about the whole thing. I hadn’t eaten a burger from a fast food joint in a looooong time. Like, not since I was little, and even then I think I always opted for the chicken nuggets. I am really not a big fan of fast food. I have been seeing McDonald’s a lot in the news lately for adding apple slices to their happy meals. I’m not really sure that is going to make a difference because I think they probably have to coat the apples with preservatives or something to keep them from turning brown, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

Here’s how the taste test went…. Our friend James decided to come along because he has never eaten the Big Mac, even though he is the fast food king of all of my friends. We also decided to order both burgers the “original” way, so no extra add-ons were part of the taste test.

Matt, James, and I went to Burger King first, with a coupon for buy-one-get-one-free Whoppers. I was happy about that because I did not want to spend a bunch of money on this. We ordered and picked up our Whoppers and walked across the parking lot to McDonald’s (yes, there is just one small parking lot separating McDonald’s and Burger King). Is it okay to walk into McDonald’s holding a Burger King bag? Probably not, but we didn’t care.

We also had a coupon for a free Big Mac (score!) and we got some fries and drinks to wash it all down… just in case it was gross (I’m glad we got the fries). We also prepared ourselves with about six of those little cups of ketchup, another good idea.

We sat down and cut the Whopper and Big Mac in half – Matt and I shared them because there is no way I would eat two burgers. James was the lucky (or unlucky) one with two whole burgers to himself.

We started with the Whopper. The Whopper has a whopping 670 calories attached to it. It looked much different from the Big Mac. The bun was giant sized and the meat patty matched it. The meat was big, round, flat, and dry. The topping included mushy pickles, shredded iceburg lettuce, crappy tomatoes, cut up onions, mustard, ketchup, and mayo. I think we should have added cheese to it, it might have helped it a little bit. I really don’t like mayonnaise, but I didn’t want to mess up the taste test.

Impression at first bite… dry and boring. I added extra ketchup which did not help.

The Big Mac is much smaller around but is actually taller than the Whopper. It’s not too far behind the Whopper with 540 calories. The most notable difference is that it has three buns, cheese, and a special sauce (which I think might just be Russian dressing). The meat was not as dry. It was actually kind of greasy. It also included the pickles (a little crunchier than the Whopper’s), shredded iceburg lettuce, and onion but no tomatoes or other condiments. I think this burger is supposed to be all about the special sauce.


Impression at first bite… not as dry, not as boring. The special sauce did give it an edge over the Whopper but I still didn’t really like it that much. It’s not something I would eat again, but if I had to choose between the two, the Big Mac would win.

I was happy about having the fries and ketchup. I finished the half of the Big Mac but not the half of the Whopper, it was just straight up bad. Matt agreed with me on choosing the Big Mac as the better of the two. James disagreed and choose the Whopper because he didn’t like McDonald’s special sauce. Two to one, the Big Mac wins.

Overall experience… I had fun, but it is not something I want to do again. I felt kind of gross afterward with the weird feeling you get after you eat Chinese food. You know the feeling… like you’re hungry but you know you just ate a lot. Why does that happen? We noticed both buns had marks on the inside like they were toasted… but they were not toasted. What do they do print marks on the bun? I find that very odd. How can you even do that? One last thing, not to be completely disgusting, but I also couldn’t get the image of large scale cattle farming out of my head. Which is one reason I only by the free-range, grass-feed beef at market.

I am going to go back on the claim that I have not eaten a fast food burger since I was little… I think the actual last time I had a fast food burger was two years ago when I went to California. We stopped at In-n-Out Burger because we had to try it. I am actually visiting sunny California this week, so I’m sure you’re going to see an In-n-Out Burger post. My friend Janeen is coming with me and I know she will have to try it. I’m going to give it another try, but I’m not going animal style this time…

Skydiving Sandwich

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Places, Restaurants, sandwiches, Travel and tagged with , , , ,

Yesterday we went skydiving with Skydive Philadelphia! It was one of the coolest things I have ever done. I actually set everything up for Dan’s 30th birthday last year but we never cashed in the certificates. After almost a year, and one failed attempt because of clouds, yesterday was finally our day. We drove up to the tiny town of Perkasie, Pa to make the leap.

We still have to wait for the video and pictures from the skydive company. I can’t wait to see them, I am sure we probably both look kind of crazy. I yelled the almost the whole way down…not because I was scared, but because it was awesome!

Dan went out of the plane first. I was watching him get ready to go, scoot to the edge, and get ready next to the door… one second I was looking at him and not even a second later he was gone. It was like he got sucked out and went straight down. I didn’t see him again until I was almost landing. Here he is getting closer to the ground:

I thought the free fall felt like plunging through water. It was so exciting to see the ground below me and not be in an airplane. I thought I would be scared but I felt like I was floating and not scared at all. It was like the very first little part of the hill on a roller coaster but it lasted a lot longer.

Once the parachute opened it really felt like I was floating. I could see the Philadelphia skyline from where we were, which was pretty cool because we were about an hour away from there. It was also pretty surreal floating above houses, rivers, and a lake getting closer and closer to it all and then being on the ground before you know it. I think it’s the closest I’ll ever be to being a bird in the sky. That’s me landing in the photo above.

We survived and had a really great time!  After all of that jumping out of airplanes and free falling we worked up quite an appetite. We went to this really great breakfast/lunch place called The Down to Earth Cafe. We it found last time we were in Perkasie about a month ago. We attempted to skydive last month but there was a thunderstorm in the morning and the clouds never cleared, so we didn’t get to jump… but we had a great lunch.

The first time we ate here we both got the special panini made with ham and brie. It was really good and made with very fresh and high quality ingredients. The Down to Earth Cafe uses as many local, organic ingredients as they can. You can tell they really pay attention to quality. They also have a list of daily specials that use in-season ingredients. I wish I could come here of breakfast because all of the breakfast choices looked amazing. They also have a lot of really great drink choices that are made with real sugar and interesting ingredients. I tried this sipp ginger drink that was really good.

This time Dan ordered the fish tacos (one of the signature dishes). They looked nicely put together with flour tortillas, House-made red cabbage cole slaw, deep fried seasonal fish fillets, and slices of tomato and avocado. I actually didn’t taste them, which is weird for me because I always want to taste everything… I must have still been over excited from the fall and wasn’t thinking. Dan said they were really good so I’ll have to trust him.

I got the panini special again. This time it was sautéed spinach, white beans, feta cheese and grilled artichoke hearts all squished between two slices of rye bread. It was a really nice combination. I only added a little bit of salt and pepper. It also came with a side of red potato salad, which was one of the best potato salads I have ever had. The potatoes were cooked perfectly and the dressing was just right, not overly seasoned and not too heavy of the mayonnaise, just a little bit ( I really hate when there is too much mayo on food, I think the consistency is gross).

I also got a side of sesame noodles because I didn’t know I was getting a side of potato salad. The sesame noodles were also really good, with just the right amount of dressing and seasoning to coat the noodles.

Overall, this place is great! I would go back here in a minute if I am ever in Perkasie again. If you find your self in upper Bucks County, it is definitely worth a stop.