California Grubbin'

Welcome back to my California Livin' Series! For reference,  here  is a list of all my previous posts in this series. Today we'll be browsing the Melrose Trading Post in Los Angeles! Just in time for Halloween, because everyone here is in costume. Say it with me... Hiiiipsterrrr!!!! Oh my goshness. Talk about a study in sociology. I have never seen so many hipsters in one condensed area. Then again I haven't spent much time in Portland. If you are a hipster in LA, you shop here. If you shop here, you are a hipster. Or a tourist. Or both. Entry fee is a whole five bucks, though there are most definitely ways around that. Meaning, around... the parking lot... through the back. Or by buying your own smiley face stamp. :) However, this flea market is worth the five bucks even if you don't buy anything. In itself it is an afternoon's worth of entertainment. Look through the stalls and stalls of used jewelry, marked no lower than ten dollar a p

food: 4/5 experience: 3/5 overall: 3.5/5 Akebono is the most frequented sushi restaurant in Land Park. It's the one that sends out coupons every week for 10% off, 15% off, sometimes 20% off if you're lucky. We've come here from time to time but I'm kinda done with it after about fifteen visits. I will choose Akebono any day over Miso , though. First time here I just tried a bunch of their appetizers. Gyoza, steamed. Shumai, steamed. Wakame salad, ...regular. A light dinner. Dining partner had the shrimp tempura. She always has tempura. I think it all tastes the same but she says it's great. On to my food. Okay so potstickers aren't too impressive. These are small. They taste pretty standard. The sticker part isn't as thick as others I've had. The shumai is made with crab ground meat and is also pretty simple in flavor. It's like a crab cake without the breading. Wakame salad is just seaweed, shredded and marinated in sweet rice v

food: 3.5/5 experience: 2/5 overall: 3/5 Inside a little house on a crowded street resides Boulevard Bistro, which literally was a house (built in 1908) until they converted it into a restaurant. So you can dine in someone's old living room. It's super dark in there (a little too much so) and very intimate so you can eavesdrop on all your neighbors. It's got a weird vibe that way. You feel like you're at someone's weird dinner party where they set up a bunch of fancy tables, created menus, and hired professional servers. Regarding their menu, unfortunately they do not list it on the website so you'll have to call and ask or just wing it. We ordered a salad and lamb. Caprese salad and rack of lamb, to be precise. This Caprese salad is literally a handful of food. Look at it! Those are cherry tomatoes for scale. Pathetic. No matter how good this tastes, it just does not work. The lamb comes with ratatouille and "shishitos" (Asian peppers)

California Livin'! Or rather, European Livin'. I know I've been having a lot of these lately, but this one should take you on vacation at least for a few moments. Parc Monceau in Paris, France.  Here  is a list of my previous CL posts. By far one of Paris's best-kept secrets. We stumbled upon this park purely by coincidence and, as soon as we walked in, felt as though we'd entered a dream. This is what all of Paris should be like. Peaceful, beautiful, plenty of people around but by no means crowded. I only wish I had found this place sooner. It sure could have helped my temperament after dealing with the infamous Parisian snottiness and snootiness encountered everywhere else in the city. There are wide dirt paths running all throughout the park... Lots of kids running around, family and couple picnics... Benches every few meters (remember, we're in Europe, they use metrics)... A lovely pond... Even a little merry-go-round n

food: 4/5 experience: 1/5 overall: 2/5 Went here because this place was highly recommended by a friend of the family I guess. First impression was definitely a big no. Over twenty minutes for some sashimi and even longer for BBQ albacore. Not even good presentation as you can see. Super basic and the same four kinds of fish everyone else uses: salmon, tuna, hamachi. No variety at all. Sashimi should be the easiest thing to prepare and not like it was a task to decorate it either since the presentation was terrible. They legit just forgot about my order. So yeah literally everyone inside the restaurant was eating except me, including people who came after us. Honestly they need to get their shit together. This was just a pathetic experience. No apology sorry for wasting your time, no discount, nothing. I finally got the BBQ albacore but I had to get it to go because it had been about forty-five minutes by this point. It was really good, I have to say, but they could have

Another edition of California Livin'! For reference, here are parts one , two , and three . This time we're going all the way across America to Atlanta, where the hit series The Walking Dead is filmed on location. Zombies bro, zombies !!!! The first stop on the tour is the town of "Woodbury," which is actually called Senoia, but they have some shops dedicated to the namesake. It's a little mountain town that's comparable to Oldtown Folsom, California. Note: the coffee at Walking Dead Cafe sucks. I think it's closed now actually. RIP. The soap store was closed when I went so no comment on that. They also have a Woodbury Museum downstairs to peruse after the tour. And now... the tour. This is "the wall" hiding the community of Alexandria. These are real houses in here, and I think they constructed them just for the show (wow). But no one lives in them. Well, there are four residents in the whole community but basically no one.