11001 Chapman Ave, Garden Grove, CA 92840
Pricing - $ | Dining - Casual, To-Go | Cuisine - Thai
www.cutithai.com

My parents wanted to eat dim sum the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend but we didn't find any places open at the time we went that we were ready for business. I used the handy dandy Yelp app and located a Thai restaurant nearby that had good ratings so we went there. It seemed like such an unassuming place but the inside was very nice and the food great. It looked to be family run. The owner(?) came out to talk to us and was very friendly; it could've been that we were the first customers of the day or he was just super awesome.


After we put in our order, the owner said that he'd give us some papaya salad on the house because he wanted us to try it. How generous of him! It looked great when it came out but I think we're all pansies in the family. It was quite spicy! Nevertheless, the papaya was crisp and delicious. The sauce, though spicy, was very good. I loved that it didn't cross over into being salty or anything. It was just refreshingly savory.


Our first ordered dish was the Crying Tiger Rib-Eye Steak. Yes we did order it because of the name, haha. It was very good actually. I liked how thinly sliced the beef was and how flavorful its marinade was. Full of Thai spices but not crossing over into unbearable, the beef was paired with straw mushrooms that nicely picked up the thick sauce. There was even a dipping sauce to have with it which pleasantly was unnecessary because of how much flavor was in the beef already.


Our next dish was the green curry. I opted for tofu in this. What a load of lemongrass! There was definitely a lot used in making this curry. Now, I'm not a fan of lemongrass but I bore it through the meal because it was dang delicious otherwise. The tofu was thick and hearty, the bamboo a little green but nicely crunchy. My mom really liked the curry so I was happy that she did.


The favorite of dishes for my dad and younger brother was the pineapple fried rice which came out plentifully in their stone pot. It had dried pork, shaped vegetables, and a shrimp on top for some topping. In the rice itself was a mixture of chicken, pineapple, raisins, and magic, apparently. I liked that it wasn't greasy or buttery as fried rice tends to be. Delicious!


When we'd finished, the owner actually said that he was going to treat us to fried ice cream too. How nice of him! We were honestly very fortunate - thank you! The batter was a tad thicker than I like my fried ice cream but I really liked the cookies-and-cream take on it with the Oreo crumbs on top and the vanilla and chocolate ice cream inside. I'm definitely going to have to eat from here again, especially since they deliver!

Duc had never had or heard of couscous before while I love it so I felt that it was time to expose him. We had this light couscous dish for dinner, and he ended up liking it so much that he made it himself the next day. I'd call that a success! It's super simple and quite healthy so give this a shot.

Step 1: Ingredients

• 1/4 red onion, diced
• 1/4 cucumber, diced
• 1/4 orange bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 cup garbanzo beans
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1 gala apple, diced
• 1 tbsp curry powder
• 1 tbsp butter, salted
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1 cup whole wheat couscous, dry
• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked and shredded (or cubed)

Step 2: Making the couscous
In a medium saucepan, bring the chicken broth to a boil with the butter. Add in dry couscous and stir. Turn off heat and fluff with a fork. Mix in curry powder.

Step 3: Finishing
(If you don't have cooked chicken breast pieces, cook before making couscous.) Add in chicken and all vegetables/fruits. Combine thoroughly and enjoy!


Photography provided by Duc Duong.

320 Main St, Seal Beach, CA 90740 
Pricing - $$/$$$ | Dining - Dressy Casual | Cuisine - American
www.320mainsealbeach.com

I feel like I've always how great 320 Main is through any news about amazing cocktails in the general area. Yelp's mentioned them. OC Weekly has too I believe. So I finally decided it was time to head over for their Happy Hour to see what awesome drinks they had. The interior was actually a lot more casual than I had expected. Where we ended up sitting was barely lit except for a few beams that came through the slanted slats so forgive me if my pictures seem too "dramatic." I mean, uh, I purposefully did this, yes...


Anyhow, the first thing that we actually started eating was their duck fries. What a disappointment! Honestly when we had read the description, we were beyond excited but what came out looked like normal fast food fries with some skimpy slices of duck pastrami on top and wimpy pieces of carmelized onions. 'Twas a bad first impression.


The drinks we started off with, however, were fabulous. I had the Pimm's Cup and my friend a tequila based one (I can't recall the name). I actually had been hoping that I'd get some epic pewter cup full of alcoholic wonder based on my drink's name but mine came out in a jar with some girly mint and citrus. I forgave the presentation because it was a delicious, delicious drink. I love gin. Hers was pretty awesome too.


The next out was the shrimp and scallop ceviche which was pretty darn good. Refreshing and oh so fresh in itself, this was the best of the things we had. The citrus kept everything nice and light but the chips made it all feel substantial. We both thoroughly enjoyed it.


Our last appetizer out was the roasted sunchokes which honestly had a much more fantastic description than taste. Well the sunchokes themselves were fairly good but the dip that it came with was an awful misbehavior of flavor. To mix Old Chub ale with a fondue makes sense but topping that off with some truffle was a disaster. We didn't like that one bit.


We finished out the Happy Hour with a Gin Buck and Harvest Moon, drinks on their $5 menu for the hour. Simple but delicious, they slaked our thirst for some alcohol and helped round off the night well. I honestly wouldn't come back to 320 Main unless I were in the area and even then, it'd only be for drinks. Those appetizers didn't please us at all!

Memorial Day is interesting in my hometown because we have our annual Strawberry Festival in this area that looks miniscule when not crowded with carnival games and booths. I realized as my friend and I decided to visit after a Happy Hour out that I didn't have any pictures of it. Of course, it's quite garish, blinding, and generally nothing too special but it's still a tradition.


Throughout high school, since I was very involved in Key Club, I always used to volunteer at the Kiwanis booth which sold funnel cakes. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the booth had moved to a different spot from where I had last remembered and the lines were ridiculously long. I hope they raise a lot of money for their amazing programs.


One of my personal traditions at the Strawberry Festival is to snag a strawberry cheesecake from my high school band's booth. They always stack on loads of strawberries. I bought a slice when I went ($4!) and was sad to discover that though the strawberries were plentiful as always, the cheesecake was terribly chalky, heavy, and small. I actually ended up throwing it away. Bye-bye tradition!


One of the other things I enjoy doing is walking around seeing which booths happened to be in town. I came across a booth that sold balsamic vinegars. Intrigued, my friend and I went over, and the woman running the booth ended up having us sample almost every type she had. They were pretty good and got my gears going on how to use them as marinades or salad dressings. I ended up buying their small 4-pack with their cabernet, six mushroom truffle, raspberry-lime, and chipotle garlic. I hope to post some recipes with those soon!

So during the delicious Grubwithus meal that I had at Slapfish the other day, the hostess mentioned that Gogobot OC was doing a launch party. My friends and I decided that we ought to go because it would probably be a fun time. It was going to be held at Memphis at the Santora in Artists' Village in Santa Ana. There would be food from Dinner with Dave, a band, and a photobooth.


We met up with the hostess and snapped a shot with the lovely Ash before the end of the night. I had a habanero-mango margarita during the time which was pretty good because it had a spicy zing to it. The food was fairly decent but nothing wow-ing. The band was fabulous. The photobooth was loads of fun, and we even came away with souvenir photos. Congrats on a fun launch party Gogobot!

2417 Park Ave, Tustin, CA 92782 (The District at Tustin Legacy)
Pricing - $$ | Dining - Casual, Dressy Casual | Cuisine - Thai
www.thaibamboobistro.com

Duc set up a double date with his friend and had asked me to find a suitable place for us to eat. I hadn't had Thai food in a while and knew that my previous boss had eaten here a lot so I looked it up on Yelp. Pretty fair ratings. Why not? The menu looked great. We went in and the ambiance was quite nice. It was like stepping into a whole other place compared to the rest of The District. I liked it.


Our drinks for the night were the Thai tea and the coconut pineapple smoothie. Thai tea was delicious but not the best I've had. It still slaked my thirst pretty well. That coconut pineapple smoothie was amazing! It tasted so pineapple-y with some bits of coconut. Also, what a huge drink it was. Very nice. 


The first thing to come out was their papaya salad. I had been craving it since I realized that I was going to get Thai food. Green papaya is oh so crunchy but not ridiculously sour. The accompanying sauce was just the right amount of savory and salty. I also greatly enjoyed the huge shrimp that came with it which was fairly plentiful in quantity.


The appetizer that we had ordered was the "rocket shrimp," basically because of the name. It was actually quite creative of a name and dish because they did look like little rockets! Shrimp with wonton wrappers wrapped around the top part made a straight "rocket" body while the bright orange tails made the rocket flames. The whole concoction was deep-fried into golden-crisp bliss. I liked the concept a whole lot but it was fairly standard in terms of fried shrimp. Still good though.


Our delicious main entree was the Massaman chicken at level 5 heat (I'm a pansy). My oh my was this some curry-licious pleasure in my mouth. The curry itself was slightly sweet but with a slow spicy burn. Smothering the rice, it was the perfect thing to coat my tongue in. The chicken was tender but not overcooked. The potatoes helped cool the burn. I loved it.


Our other entree was the "Crazy Cashew with Vegetables." It was full of some of my favorite things: mushrooms, bamboo, sugar snap peas, tofu, baby corn, and cashews. This one had a slightly tangy but spicy sauce (level 5 again!) that was light enough to make you feel the healthiness of a vegetarian dish. Love love love. I'm definitely coming back!

Wow, I just got so excited because I saw something super awesome on my Twitter feed. Bon Appetit, the amazing food magazine, was inspired by pub crawls to create a GRUB CRAWL! They only have three cities up so far on their website for this year but can you believe it? The Los Angeles one is happening on my birthday weekend. Uh, yes please? I say that if you were planning on getting me a gift, you should contribute to the grub crawl because it's $350 for the entire weekend. I'd say that was nuts but check out the schedule and places! Who's joining me? Let's do this!
FRIDAY
6 pm-10 pm (4 stops) - Downtown

• Cole's
• Umamicatessen
• Las Perlas
• Seven Grand

SATURDAY
4pm-9pm (5 stops) - Hollywood/WeHo (9pm-11pm (dj/concert))

• Mozza Scuola Di Pizza
• Pour Vous
• Street
• The Spare Room
• Night + Market
• The Roxy

SUNDAY
11:30am-4:30pm (5 stops) - Culver City/Venice/Abbot Kinney

• Father's Office
• Sunny Spot
• Picca
• Lukshon
• TBD

So I don't know how many of you that I've already told but I started a new job two weeks ago. I used to work as an event design assistant at an events company that did mostly Indian weddings. I loved my job and didn't really think about leaving it so soon but I was fortunate enough to get into the running for a new job. After much interviewing, I got it! So now I'm working at an amazing non-profit as a chapter relations manager, and it's fabulous.


I just wanted to share with you that we had our spring/summer cleaning yesterday where we moved furniture around and cleaned out as much as we could, getting rid of unnecessary papers and materials. We really did a lot of work. As a nice reward, our executive director brought in some home-cooked Pakistani food and boy was it delicious. I love basmati rice. I loved how clean and fresh tasting it all was as well as how many flavors collided into a great mouth experience. Our chief financial officer also brought in cupcakes from Sweet Embellishments. I had a pink lemonade one that was pretty decent though there was a tad too much frosting. I'm not a big frosting person. Anyhow, what a productive and fun food-treat day! It'll be my turn soon enough to lavish food upon the others.

19696 Beach Blvd, Huntington Beach, CA 92648
Pricing - $/$$ | Dining - Casual | Cuisine - Seafood
www.slapfishsocal.com

Remember that post a loooooong time ago that I did on the inception of Grubwithus? Well I finally found a meal that was being hosted in Orange County so finally signed up. It was sort of held in conjunction with Gogobot (well Ash, the OC manager, created it) which meant that we got a tiny bit of too-adorable swag (buttons! with bears!). Anyhow, we got a whole slew of amazing food in the period of time we were there; it really was almost too much but boy was it delicious. I love Slapfish's philosophy and practice on sustainability. Must come back!


The first two appetizers that came out (well, they pretty much all came out simultaneously to be honest) were their freshly shucked oysters from Carlsbad and the buffalo fish. I'm definitely not an expert on oysters since I had only had my first ones in January but I liked these. They weren't too briney and the toppings gave it a nice, easy swallow. The buffalo fish were such in that they were just like buffalo chicken in terms of seasoning but were fish. I didn't think much of it only because it was just a different meat to the typical buffalo style.


The next two appetizers were my favorite of the four. The tower of wasabi tuna was very delightful but man does that wasabi kick you in the face! It slapped me with some nostril-clearing spice but oh so ninja-like. I mean, it seemed to be mixed in well enough into the sauce and overall meal that I didn't even spot it. The tuna was perfect, soft and flavorful. As for the chowder fries, wow. Whoever thought of smothering golden crisp fries in creamy clam chowder was a genius. The top-off with bacon perfected the whole dish. I need to come back for this.


In terms of entree, my friend got the SLAPfish and chips. What a huge portion! The fish came away bright white and flaky when I snagged a sample. Delish. My entree was the spicy lobster-shrimp grinder which I fell in love with. The creamy habanero sauce gave enough spiciness to let me know it was there but not so much that I wanted to cry into my napkin. The lobster was plentiful and meaty. The green apple addition to the entire mix lightened everything and helped balance the creamy spiciness with some tart crunchiness. Great touch there!


Lastly, they came out with desserts which I didn't even see on the normal menu. Was this just a Grubwithus special? I didn't care; I just wanted to eat. A carrot cake with some rich flavor was presented nicely in a large cupcake-like form. The star for me was the coffee stout chocolate cake. I love stouts, and this cake must have been loaded with it. I could smell it. I could taste it. I could even feel it (alcohol in my system!). Bravo on the dessert choices.


I came away with a great experience from Slapfish and having met new people. They even let us walk away with a free bottle of their sauces. I chose the Caribbean lime. Now to come up with something to do with it! Thanks to Grubwithus, Gogobot, and Slapfish!