Coffee Shop: Intelligentsia
Specialty: Iced Coffee!
Location: Pasadena, California
Company: Skinny Kevin
Overall Experience: new favorite Intelligentsia?





This is the newest Intelligentsia to sprout up in Los Angeles. (Message to Intelligentsia: Keep 'em coming! They're in way high demand by yours truly, Joanna Yeh!) It has a bar-like atmosphere in terms of ordering and receiving coffee. From the front entrance, there an L-shaped counter that heads into the back of the room. At the beginning of the counter, you order your coffee and go through an almost museum-like, live-action demonstration of how they prepare their coffee. You know how when you are waiting in line at Disneyland, notably Star Tours, there are sights and little action-thingys that keep you entertained? It's like that. But with gorgeous siphons, fashionably-dressed baristos/as, and jaw-dropping chemex and drip coffee processes. I'd rather wait in line at Intelligentsia than Star Tours!



So, two drinks were ordered: one hot and the other cold. The iced coffee process, I'd say impressive at this Pasadena location. It is so precise and articulate. They take freshly ground beans and soak them in cool/cold water for a period of an entire day. That's 24 hours! And then they filter it and BAM! (not to steal Emeril's phrase) you've got a delicious cup of coffee! The coffee ends up tasting refreshing, lacking the bitter taste that gets so many individuals angry about coffee, particularly black. Discussing the process with a baristo, I discovered that adding heat to coffee creates that bitter taste. Therefore, he explained, since the process does not add heat at all to the coffee, there is no bitter taste. Genius! I say!

Ice Cream Parlor Name: Sweet Rose Creamery
Cusine: Delicious homemade ice cream!
Location: Santa Monica/Brentwood, California
Company: The Sunday Brunch minus Joanna, Maddie Ota, Panda, Eugene, and Ronald
Overall Experience: so cuuuute! ( :



When you go to your ordinary, emphasis on ordinary, ice cream place, you're kindly given samples in plastic spoon. At Sweet Rose Creamery, definitely your more refined and gourmet ice cream parlor, you're given metal spoons! [Pictured Left] My sample spoon! I sampled their plum sorbet, of course using their metal spoon. It was absolutely delicious. The plum taste was very clean and complemented with the fresh coolness of the sorbet aspect perfectly. The owners of Sweet Rose Creamery, Josh Loeb and Zoe Nathan, also owners of Huckleberry and Rustic Canyon, are definite advocates of farmer's market quality produce and organic "legit" ingredients. Their ice cream is made using not only organic eggs and other goodies, but also with Clover milk!



Susie, my cousin that recommended me this place, told me that their cones are really good. Therefore, although I feel in love with their plum sorbet, I wanted to get something creamier that would complement the cone better. Thus, I got a single scoop of their salted caramel with added sea salt on top to accentuate the flavor. It was only after a lick that I realized that I should not have gotten extra sea salt. The sea salt was good, just too salty for me, for evident reasons! The ice cream itself was extremely extremely good, and I chose a good ice cream to pair with the cone. You could really taste the milk in the sense that it allowed the perfect combination of caramel flavor and creaminess to occur. The cone was ridiculously good. Forget all those store-bought, last-forever, cones that you get from the grocery store. Let's stock up on Sweet Rose Creamery's delicious daily-fresh-awesome-made cones! The cone never grew soggy, a fear I am always faced with that makes me rush through my cone. It chewed up very well. It had enough body that one did not need to use their back teeth to get a chunk, but was deliciate enough that it melted/slash/crumbled in your mouth. So good, so good. Good job Sweet Rose Creamery!



This is Ronald's something sundae. I just remember the brownie. Oh how amazing it was! It made me realize that I had not eaten a delicious brownie in a while and I was happy to stumble upon this one. Sweet Rose Creamery makes their toppings and sauces daily on site. That I believe. The brownie was intensely chocolate-ly but was subdued a bit with the vanilla ice cream.



Eugene ordered a strawberry sundae of some sorts. After trying both of the sundaes, I realized that Sweet Rose Creamery not only does amazing ice creams and sorbets, but also astonishing toppings. Typical ice cream places usually just get sprinkles and break up candy bars, but not Sweet Rose Creamery! The star topping in Eugene's sundae was this delicious unnamed crunchy topping. It tasted like bits and parts of a cone but felt chunkier. Hm..I wonder. I guess I shall just have to visit again ( : Anybody up for a delectable scoop of ice cream on a hot summer day? Call me up! ( :


[Below] I try to keep this a strictly food blog, but this picture of us is so adorable that I just had to share, with the few people who read this ( :

Restaurant Name: Urban Solace
Cusine: New American
Location: North Park, San Diego, California
Company: Skinny Kevin, Kato, Raymond, and Rebecca
Overall Experience: THE place to go for the best freaking sandwiches






Urban Solace calls these their "Famous Warm Cheese Biscuits with Orange-Honey Butter." Everybody should know and taste these delectable light biscuits! They have the flavor and aroma of cheese without the actual presence which would actually weigh these fluffy pillows down. The biscuits are small, but do not let their size deceive you for a couple of these will definitely fill you right up. The orange-honey butter that comes with the biscuits was a bit odd for me. I'm not a huge fan of honey (unless its super delicious and from the farmer's market) and I'm not a huge huge fan of citrus-infused flavors except in my sangria. The biscuits without the special butter are absolutely delectable and don't need butter to make it any better.




I ordered the Chicken Salad sandwich by being convinced that the chicken comes from a local farm (don't quote me) and accompanied with farm fresh ingredients. The chicken meat was very delicious. It had a very clean feeling to it and was lightly accompanied with a typical mayo dressing. I felt that the mayo weighed down the salad a bit but the fresh tomatoes and lettuce helped to counter that. Each sandwich/burger was also accompanied with sweet potato fries that I felt were too deflated and fried. There was too much batter on each fry and it took away from the sweet potato aspect.



Urban Solace's Monte Diego sandwich is a take on a monte cristo, where the bread part is french-toast-like. The Monte Diego comes with smoked ham, fontina cheese, grilled pears, marinated onions, and a strawberry current jam. The sandwich is more like fluffy-french-toast-on-steriods rather than an actual sandwich. It was a bit saltier than I had liked it to be but each element was definitely delicious. The french toast sandwich bread was made to perfection while still holding on to a sandwich-bread-like quality. The pears gave the sandwich an interesting texture while also adding a natural sweetness to it also made possible with the strawberry current jam.



The Smoked Salmon sandwich was a bit salty for me, but it was interesting. It was gently grilled smoked salmon! After being spoiled from the smoked salmon that I tasted in Malmo, Sweden, this smoked salmon bears no competition. However, within the standards of the typical diner at Urban Solace, who did not have this Swedish experience, the salmon is pretty good. The grill also adds a really nice additional smokiness that just brings the whole sandwich together. The sandwich also includes fresh tomatoes and a bed of lettuce that helps counter the salty smoked salmon.




Apparently, Urban Solace's burger is famous and here it is! Their House Burger is comprised of ground Niman Ranch Beef, aged cheddar, and smoked tomato jam and sandwiched between an egg bun. The beef is amazingly delicious and definitely not your Ralph's ground beef. The egg bun also creates an impressive texture that does not over the flavors of the beef and additions. The bun is a bit softer and a bit sweeter than a typical hamburger bun. So good! I would definitely chose this burger over Hodad's any day of the week!


Overall: This lunch keeps me going back to Urban Solace! I had also visited their brunch which is absolutely amazing (possibly another post). I could eat all of their sandwiches any time of day. So good, fresh, and delicious!

Truck Name: Gastrobus
Cusine: Tapas Style
Location: Los Feliz Farmer's Market, Los Angeles, California
Company: Maddie Ota (for her birfaday!)
Overall Experience: cooooooorn




This Gastrobus's Blood Orange Ricky. It was a combination, I believe, of sweet soda water and fresh juice of a blood orange. So good! I thought that it was going to be ordinary, but the ripeness of the blood orange and the balance of the soda water made for an excellent combination. It was very light and refreshing and just absolutely delectable!



Blueberry pancakes paired with honey! I thought that there would be berries within the batter, but as you can see, the berries are more of an after-thought, though a good one at that, rather than included in the pancake itself. Instead of providing a wealthy dosage of maple syrup, we got honey! and powdered sugar which I thought added a nice class aspect to this pancake. The pancake itself was very good, nothing extraordinary, but also not your usual pancake. The blueberries on the side were accompanied very nicely with the honey and provided a nice little twist to blueberry pancakes.



This is the $6 Grits and Fried Egg with McCallis sausage and refrito. OHsogood! This dish, or paper hot-dog-esque container created a home for this delicious combination. The sausage sat on top of the fried egg which sat on top of a bed of slightly creamed corn and with a side of amazing salsa. My favorite part about this was the slighly creamed corn which is hidden under the blanket of egg in the picture. It is not as creamy as creamed corn, therefore I've cleverly nicknamed it "slightly" creamed corn. The corn pieces are also a bit chopped up compared to cream corn which creates a more crumbly texture and feeling in your mouth. You take a piece of the sausage, some egg, and salsa and you've created yourself a wonderful bite! You then take a generous scoop of creamed corn and you've got an amazing dessert ( : Gastrobus is probably one of my favorite food trucks! Seriously, their "slightly" creamed corn is just that good, that or I'm a sucker for creamed corn ( :

Restaurant Name: Olivia
Cusine: Italian
Location: Oslo, Norway
Company: Parents, Brandon and Jessica Yang, and Arthur! (I realize this is my first post where I ate with both of my parents!)
Overall Experience: AHHH! I love Oslo! (:




This is the "Antipasto all'Italiana"! Which as caprese, parma ham, melon, artichoke, olives, finocchiona, pesto genovese, and focaccia. The caprese was super delicious (: I think that Old Vine Cafe (in CAMP in Costa Mesa) has better caprese but Olivia's was still fresh tasting. One of the combinations that I grew to love from my Europe trip was eating melon (or cantaloupe) with ham, which is what this appetizer had. The artichokes were perfectly marinated in olive oil and herbs. The pesto was amazing! I don't know what they did. Everything about it, the combination and balance of the ingredients were flawless! So good. Notice the heart picture with it in the middle (:



Wee! Another appetizer dish that we had! Notice the pesto oozing down the sides?! AWESOME! This is the "Bruschetta con Pesto"! Typical bruschetta with the bread and tomatoes. But this one was special with Olivia's amazing pesto as well as "mozzarella di bufala" which made it unforgetable!




I want to say that this is a plate of Olivia's Pappardelle alla Tabernacolo, which is a pappardelle (noodle) dish with chicken, tomato, chili, onion, garlic, bacon, parmesan and herbs. Their pappardelle noodles were amazing! Whether they make it in-house or get their noodles imported from Italy (at least these are the two options that I'm hoping for!), the chew factor of there noodles worked exceedingly well for this dish. Especially in a pasta dish, I am very particular of my noodles. If the noodles are too soft, everything in your mouth is just all mushy. If the noodles are too hard, then you're working way harder than you should. The noodles in this dish were perfect. Especially pappardelle, which is a broad fettuccine, it could easily be off-balanced. Olivia prepared these noodles amazingly well. The sauce that accompanied it also paired fittingly to the noodles. It was saucy which allowed the pappardelle to act as a dish! Ingenious! Oh so delicious.





We ordered two pizzas. The one on the left is the Proscuitto di Parma. It is topped with tomato, mozzarella, parma ham, pine nuts, rocket (which is known as arugula in the States), and parmesan cheese. The other pizza that we ordered was the Pizza con Funghi, with mozzarella, an assortment of mushrooms, parmesan, parsley, and garlic oil. The pizzas in general were not bad. The toppings where pleasant. If Olivia was striving for a thin crust pizza, I think that they mastered the crispy crust, but failed to deliver on the body of the pizza. The crust was stunning! Extremely crunchy and matched Olivia's scrumptious pesto sauce beautifully. The body was a bit more on the soggy size, at least in comparison to Pizzeria Mozza's crispy and delectable pizza body. The pizza was good and I would definitely order more to try a variety of their yummy toppings, but their pastas, I felt, were much better.




This is Olivia's Panna Cotta. It's a vanilla panna cotta with marinated blackberry and raspberry coulis, which is a thick sauce made of pureed blackberries and raspberries. The panna cotta was delicious, but it didn't quite trump Cafe Hiro's amazing panna cotta. The texture was more jello-like and had a tougher bite to it in relation to Cafe Hiro's which just melts magically in your mouth. The panna cotta slightly disappointed, yet I did arrive with great expectations.





The other dessert that we ordered was their Sufflet al Ciocoolato, or chocolate souffle. It is a chocolate fondant with raspberry coulis and vanilla ice cream. While the panna cotta disappointed, this "sufflet" was extremely impressive! We just kept digging at this mystical delicious chocolate bundle of ooey-goodness! The ice cream was delectable and accompanied the rich chocolate souffle tastly. It was not too creamy but enough to experience a shock in your mouth! The chocolate cake part of the souffle was extremely tender and moist. Oh so good!