California Grubbin'

food: 4/5 experience: 2/5 overall: 3/5 To those that say Cafeteria is mediocre I say Ni! Ni ni ni! Just kidding they are pretty mediocre. Sorry but I can't possibly give more than a 3/5, Caf. You just suck in minor ways every time I come. On to the brunch menu! Berry buttermilk pancakes: 4.5/5 Great flavor batter, berries and jam are delicious on top. Whipped cream pretty good but only on the pancakes, not by itself like at Four Sisters (theirs tastes like ice cream). Wasn't sweet enough for that. Though I'm the only one who eats whipped cream by itself. These definitely beat Bacon & Butter. Not nearly as fluffy as theirs though. Chicken & waffle: 2.5/5 Okay this one is actually really mediocre. I'm a huge chicken & waffles stan so this was disappointing. The waffle is 1/5. Honestly Bisquick makes better waffles by miles. It's a malt waffle so maybe that's why? How do you screw up waffles though, they're so easy. Like if you think

California Livin' celebrates Christmas! Dawwww. If Sacramento is good at one thing, it is holidays. You got your Old Sac fireworks on the 4th, Evangeline's Costume Mansion in October, I'm sure there's some cool shit during New Year's (probably see 4th of July), and the motherfucking Christmas lights in East Sac during the holidays. Okay, "holiday lights". Jesus. Or geez. Damn. People are touchy. I think the lights started on 43rd street cus that's like, I dunno, the main rich people street. Then they expanded to pretty much all the 40's streets. They have lights strung all across the streets and around the trees. It's basically mandatory for every house to participate. Or you get snooty looks from the neighbors as they let their French bulldogs "accidentally" shit on your lawn. I assume. I'm too poor to live in East Sac. Be sure to come early, or at like 1 A.M., cus the streets literally go 5mph max. Actuall

Portland, here we come! From California (Livin') to its northern brother, Oregon, I present to you the epic book store that is Powell's, host to about a million books (no, seriously, a million - look it up). Just in time for holiday shopping! (Okay, a little late.) They also have a smaller location in the south-east, but trust... this one. Portland's most notorious bookstore occupies an entire city block and includes all of three stories. They make sure to pack it in, too. Take a gander at these here shelves... Of course I went straight to the cooking section. You know me, I like my food. Four whole aisles of cookbooks and food writing. I found a few titles of interest, specifically detailing the cuisine of Southern California. (I bought the one in the middle.) They have a bunch of memorabilia, of course, including clothes... Several small sections with various merchandise ("Read Rise Resist" seems to be their slogan)... Lots of reus

food: 3/5 experience: n/a got take-out overall: 3/5 Yes a slice of Old Sac sounds like the last thing you'd want to eat. I do have a reputation to uphold but I will take the risk. I hate restaurants that close early because then I have to like, reheat the food for dinner and it's not as fresh. And they close at 5pm. Whatever it's fine ugh. I got a slice of chicken garlic and the slices are pretty big. It tastes garlicky and bacon-y but the cheese has the texture of microwaved Little Caesar's trash even though I didn't microwave it. The crust is fine. Microwave non-stringy cheese is unforgivable though. 3/5. Outside of slices they serve whole pizzas, lame salads, and soda. Oh yeah and they serve alcohol. Beer always seems to magically fix bad pizza.

food: 5/5 experience: 5/5 overall: 5/5 A friend of ours moved to Oregon City in 2016 and we hadn't seen her since. We remembered she was a fan of tapas, though, so I suggested a couple tapas places and we landed on this one. Taste on 23rd. It's in a kinda bougie part of town that is reminiscent of Carmel, with lots of boutiques and yoga studios and stuff. The restaurant is inside what looks like a townhouse, on top of a tea shop (yes, also a lot of these around here). We seated ourselves at a high-top table. Our friend started off with a tall blackberry hard cider. Their wine list is extensive. It is a wine bar, after all. The small plates are secondary to the wine. They were holding a wine tasting while we ate, as a matter of fact. Their food menu is small but executed perfectly. We tried some of the highlights. Two types of bruschetta, burrata, and mac & cheese. We finished off with a dessert. The cherry jam brie bruschetta came out first. The sweet yet ta

food: 2.5/5 experience: 3/5 overall: 2.5/5 Since I was in the north area I decided to take the opportunity to try this highly-rated Indian restaurant. First time I came I thought a basic fish curry masala would be a good start. As you can see it turned out to be pretty damn watery. Surprising since I don't believe I've ever had watery curry; Indian curry is always thick and creamy. Putting that aside I still gave it a shot. They use swai fish, which is fine, I actually eat swai regularly. But this was bad. It's spicy, sure, but 1) the flavor isn't there and 2) it's essentially just fish soup like I said. It did come with a heaping box of their rice which is surprisingly delicious in spite of being plain old white basmati rice. It's spiced with cumin and potentially some other things. If the rice is the star of the show at an Indian restaurant you're doing something wrong. Ah well, I thought I'd give it another shot a few weeks later. This

food: 3.5/5 experience: 4/5 overall: 3.5/5 How cute, a pizza place named after a book. The Life of Pizza-Pie. They recently opened a second location but we went to their flagship one on Williams. They close a little early, at 10pm. Luckily we got there right at 9. I had to read their ingredients menu first due to my laundry list of food allergies but it looked like I was all set, so I ordered one of their three appetizers and a pizza. They have some salads but they're pretty damn basic so we skipped those. No, these are not meatballs. These are risotto croquettes. They're battered and fried balls of cheesy risotto and they're oh-so-delish and creamy inside. Comes with marinara and shredded farm (I think?) on top. Best thing we ate here. Next came the pizza. Ready fairly quickly. Unfortunately it didn't live up to expectations. I had read all over trying to find a thick-crust pizza in Portland and this was the one people recommended. Womp. The crust was