Ah, finals week is here.
Like the good studious student that I am, I decided to spend the whole day eating in LA with two of my friends. One of them goes to pharmacy school in Utah and was back in California for her spring break. This is the first time since 7th grade that we haven't been at the same school (yes, we went to the same middle school, high school, AND college), so now our reunions are exceptionally epic and usually include tons of Asian and Mexican food. The other girl is someone I first became friends with when a mutual friend accidentally invited me to their group chat (in the days of AIM) and I randomly started chatting with everyone pretending like I was part of the group. We decided to become Facebook friends (just for fun) but never officially met in person. Then a few years later, I found out that she knew my pharmacy friend and we finally met in person at a birthday party! Small world.
Anyways, the food...
We started off our day at 10am at the famous Din Tai Fung for some juicy soup buns. I had heard horror stories about the long lines, but since we were fairly early, we were seated in just 5 minutes. Even better: the first batch came out 10 minutes after we sat down!
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| yay for ginger, vinegar, and chili sauce |
Next, we made our way to Half & Half, but arrived about 20 minutes before they were open. So we walked down the street and stopped by a Beard Papa for an eclair cream puff. Dessert before dessert.
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| empty shells ready to become cream puffs |
The pastry shell was pretty good, but I would love to be able to buy a tub of that delicious cold cream filling and just eat it like pudding. Also, splitting one cream puff three ways is kind of difficult when you don't have utensils.
After we had spent our 20 minutes, we headed back to Half & Half for delicious oversized buckets of boba.
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| my friend got iced milk with egg pudding and honey boba, and i got a caramel milk tea |
After that, we went to Little Tokyo in search of some musubi. Sadly, they weren't open until 5pm, so we just walked around instead.
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| *pout* |
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| takoyaki! |
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| the ultimate stereotypical Japanese experience: green tea Kit Kats, super cute chibi things, and gundams |
Next stop: LA Arts District.
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| creeper photo of my friend |
Umami Burger! We had to split a burger and fries three way. Also, our waiter was
exceptionally nice. I give him props.
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| the sauces: garlic aioli, diablo sauce, ketchup, and jalapeno ranch. i was partial to the two spicy ones |
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| (a slightly bloody) truffle burger and truffle fries |
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| my third of the burger |
After that, we headed to Downey to get some Cuban baked goods at Porto's.
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| this place is super happenin' |
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| fried potato balls |
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| feta and spinach croissant, chocolate croissant, and cheese rolls |
I kind of regret not getting more meat pastries, like chicken empanadas and meat pies. Next time!
Lastly, we valiantly fought traffic on our way back from LA to enjoy some fried chicken at BBQ Chicken in Irvine. We didn't have time to sit down and eat, so we bought garlic wings and sweet and spicy chicken to go and just split it up.
And that was it! Until next time, LA.
