California Grubbin'

food: 4/5 experience: 1/5 overall: 3/5 Public House is a sister restaurant to Cafeteria 15L down the street. They are both owned by the same restaurateurs, namely the Wong family. This place is definitely a bar first and a restaurant second. It is noisy as hell. You cannot possibly converse inside without screaming. You think I'm joking, don't you. Go and see for yourself. On to the brunch menu. Malt waffle: 2/5 This waffle is the same as Cafeteria's, which is to say, it sucks. I don't know if it's the malt or what but it's bad and I'm a waffle fanatic so I should know. Cinnamon French toast: 3.5/5 Yes this looks delicious but honestly it was mediocre. The flavor is all in the sauce. Cinnamon vanilla icing. It's made with sourdough bread which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just the flavor wasn't there. At least it wasn't soggy. Pancakes: 5/5 For plain pancakes these were actually delicious. They were fluffy and

food: 4.5/5 experience: 4.5/5 overall: 4.5/5 Italians are outraged because the news is in and Domino's is opening up 600 locations in their country! The nation known for its pizza... subject to Domino's. I feel for ya, guys. So, talk about inconsistency. I remember the first time I had Domino's I was blown away by how good the crust was. The pizza was delicious. I think I just got your basic vegetarian style. Funnily enough shortly after that Michael Che said something on Weekend Update about Domino's trying to trick people into buying cheap pizza with some kinda deal, "but we all know it's still Domino's" (don't quote me on that quote). Which reminded me to try it again. And I did, and it was awful. I asked for light cheese (tryna be a lil healthy here), which to them must have meant heavy tomato sauce. Yuck! Not only that but the crust this time was pretty abysmal. And soggy, obviously. I used to work here and I know the dough is ma

food: 4/5 experience: 3/5 overall: 4/5 Carolina's is a very small "chain", with three locations in Sacramento, that specializes in Mexican food. I came here with late night cravings and since two locations are open 24/7, they were just gonna have to do. It's your basic drive-in selection. No tamales, no sopes, nothing desirable besides fish tacos. I got one of those and a burrito and I drove all the way back home to find they gave me two chicken tacos. So it was an hour total round-trip to get my one fish taco. Waiting an hour for food does not make Kristen a happy crab. The burrito is basically one huge pile of refried beans, maybe 3/4 cup of rice, and one ounce cheese. The tortilla is good though. And the burritos are pretty big. The fishies are nice and crispy but not the best taco fishies I've had. Next I tried the humble quesadilla. It costs six bucks for a plain cheese which seems a leetle bit high but oh well. It's pretty plain b

Back with another episode in the California Livin'  series! And we are also back in California actually this time. Riverside County, to be sure. I've been informed by my native Angeleno amies that pretty much everyone in Los Angeles has or knows or is related to someone who has a condo or house or apartment in Palm Desert or Palm Springs. This, after telling them I had never been to either, and their looking at me like a glacier was hanging out of my nose. Lucky me, I happen to know someone who owns a condo who does not hail from Los Angeles. It is in a gated community. Surprise! And the community contains a golf course, a country club, and about ten individual heated pools. Yeah, Palm Desert's essentially everything you and I would expect it to be. Oh, I forgot to mention the heaps of old people. Here's something you may not have expected: last time I went there were a ton of Canadians there. Cus the Canadian dollar was worth more than ours at one poi

food: 5/5 experience: 4.5/5 overall: 5/5 You may have noticed in a certain section of downtown, specifically around 15th and L St., there is a large portion of very popular restaurants. Station 16 is among these. While most of these restaurants serve brunch, Station 16 is the underdog of the crowd and is considerably less crowded. It is a sports bar, but it is not noisy. Perfect. Blueberry pancakes: 4.5/5 These come with a mountain of whip cream on top. We aren't fans of whip so we scraped it off. Also comes with blueberries on and inside the pancakes. Blueberry pancakes with no berries inside are useless to me so that's a good thing. The pancakes aren't the best I've had but they're nice and fluffy and they taste good. So good I couldn't stop eating them so they must be good. I'm a sucker for fluffy pancakes. Comes with a side of sausage or bacon (we got bacon). French toast pudding: 5/5 Bread pudding is great. French toast is great. Put the

food: 2.5/5 experience: 2/5 overall: 2/5 Decided to check out this little find in Elk Grove. High reviews online but not too many, probably because it's impossible to see in a little strip mall next to Pizza Guys. It was literally empty when we came in. There's like, no ambiance whatsoever. We started out with a cucumber yogurt dip. Must-E-Khiar. I think it's similar to raita. It comes with pita bread which was super chewy and just not good. The dip was aight but I'm not a fan of plain yogurt or cucumber. Next was the bolani, which you have to try if you come here basically. Being only two of us we got a half order which was way too much. As good as the bolani looks in the picture it was rather disappointing. It's just fried potato pretty much. You can get it spicy which I should have, might've tasted more exciting. I also got the Chopan house special lamb kabobs. They have fish on the menu too but it's just fried tilapia which didn't

food: 3.5/5 experience: n/a take-out overall: 3.5/5 Order takeout. This area is jank. Just a note: a small pizza here is about the size of a Pizza Hut personal, maybe an inch bigger in circumference. It's about eight inches, and four slices. It really should be called a personal. But it's piled with toppings so it could probably fill two people with small appetites. My mission in 2017 was to try all the pizza places within a twenty-mile radius of me. That mission did not get accomplished. But long story short (not really long) I ended up here. My standard for pizza lies in the crust, but also, if they have it, which they should, the garlic sauce. So I got the garlic chicken. Their menu is rather small. It was only about six bucks but again it's pretty little. It sure smelled good. The garlic sauce was fine I guess. The crust was nice and soft. Flavor-wise was pretty good. On a scale of Mountain Mike's to Roma's I'd give it a 7.5. Overall t

food: 5/5 experience: 5/5 overall: 5/5 A BBQ place getting a 5/5 brunch rating? Tank House is an unlikely winner in the race for best brunch in Sac. Their brunch menu contains about eight different things, plus one daily special. All of them look good but of course I don't have time to try all of them. I have other places to hit up. Sausage omelette: 5/5 Okay so it's just eggs, onions and bell peppers, but this sausage man. It tastes so smokey and savory. It's probably the best sausage I've had in this whole city. They put parmesan cheese on top of the omelette which is just great. I'm not one to comment on bacon but their bacon is also amazing. Thick cut and nice and spicy. Potatoes: 5/5 Potatoes for breakfast are definitely growing on me. These are nice and crispy and whatever spices they use are just amazing. Yes, this whole dish is a huge winner. Pancakes: 4.5/5 This pancake is pretty big for a "side" but it's also pretty damn de

California Livin' has yet to visit Germany. So, here we go! Lez do it. MyZeil is one of the main malls in Frankfurt and it is one of the biggest malls in Germany in general. It's described as "a shopping and leisure complex." One major thing I remember about this mall is it's got the longest escalator in the country - and Europe! It's 42 meters long (which is like a mile in freedom units). This mall has... wait for it... eight floors! It also features glass roofs and walls for your skyline-viewing pleasure. Oh yeah, the architecture is pretty sweet too. Of course, being a mall (with eight floors), it has a plethora of restaurants for your dining  pleasure. And yes, they serve that sweet, sweet German beer. They also serve  Chipotle , unfortunately. But they also have Dunkin '! Or you could get some grub at the mall supermarket... If you feel like you just got fat, fear not: a fitness center is also located inside the