Yakitori Night!

"Yakitori" became a well-known cusine in the US. It is a grilled chicken speared on stick. "yaki" means grilled or baked or broiled, and "tori" means bird. How simple is that? Nowadays, most Yakitori places not only serves skewered chicken but also serve skewered veggies, quail eggs, and all kinds of meet. "Kushiyaki" is another word which people use to represent such style of cooking. "kushi" is skewer and "yaki" again is grilled, baked, or broiled. :)

"Yakitori" is almost a part of Japanese "salary man's" after-work life. Poeple would say "yakitori de ippai yarouka" meaning "let's have a drink over yakitori."

All of a sudden, I had an urge to make my own yakitori the other night. We skewered chickens, pearl onions, green peppers, quail eggs, and shrimps and BBQed in our backyard. They were just simple and soooooo good!

Oh btw, you can skewer chicken skin and grill it until it gets very crispy. Not my favorite, but my hubby loves it!

Tickle me!

Don't take this wrong. We wern't posing him. gG voluntarily posed this way and kept the pose for a while.

Helms Bakery - Oct 12,2008

As you know, we have been looking for furniture to put in our living room. We went to a party last Saturday and there we were having a precise discussion about where we can find good piece of furniture. People mentioned to me "Helms Bakery." ?? Why bakery? We are talking about furniture here. Apparently it used to be a huge and successful bakery from 1930s up to the late 1960s. Paul Helm is the guy who started it, and it became an official baker of the 1932 Summer Olympics! Find more details here.

Anyway, we finally went there! It was amazing--a huge compelx full of stores and cafe-style restaurants. We went into a rug store, spending a fair amount of time learning about different types of rugs from the owner-like lady. She was very helpful. We didn't buy anything, as we didn't take the measurements :( But, we will definitely go back there. Everything was on sale. We also went into H.D. Buttercup. HUGE! Very good looking furniture. We couldn't find the exact piece we wanted to get, but it is worth visiting.

Santa Monica Swap Meet - Oct 5, 2008

In an attempt to find something good for our living room, we went to this swap meet in Santa Monica. We have been in LA for almost 9 years now, but we only went to a swap meet once; that time it was the Melrose one.

Santa Monica one is famous for the antiques. Hmmm, there is a fine line between "antiques" and "old junks." I have to say most of the items belonged in the category of the latter :( But, we found a couple of items which reminded of our childhood like old tricycle and rollerskate! Rollerskate became pretty popular when I was in elementary school in Japan. I remember wanting a pair so much. And, it was that X'mas my parents bought me a pair as a X'mas present. I used to come home from school around 3pm and head immediately to the side street and practiced. Did I become a great skater? Nope, but I loved the concept of "trying to be a rollerskater."

Tender Greens in Culver City

We had a party to go to in Culver City last night, so we said why not dine out in Culver City? We live only about 20 mins away from Culver City, but we never got around to going there. The area is filled with lots of good-looking restaurants and shops. A beautiful array of trees separates the wide pedestrian walkway from the traffic. Almost all the restaurants have outside seating. It was rainy last night for a change, and there weren't too many out, but it was still beautiful.

We went into this restaurant called Tender Greens. Not too fancy compared to other ones. You order food in advance and wait in line until you get your food. Semi-like fast food + carfeteria mixed together, but the big difference is what you get is much healthier and fancier. The menu choices are really simple. Either you get a "big salad" or "hot stuff from the grill" (four choices there - angus flank steak, "rocky junior" chicken, herb brushed local albacore, and oxnard vegetables). All dishes cost the same - just $10! We ordered angus beef, which came with mashed potatoes and a small salad on the side, and happy vegan salad, which had tabbouleh, green hummus, farro wheat, and some kind of eggplant stuff with lots of greens! Loved it.