Weekends & holidays | Hip to be Mom

So how did your Mother’s Day go? I came down with a chronic migraine shortly after breakfast and cradling my head, dived back into bed before lunch. With that and the blazing 90+ temperatures, I was eager to avoid the kitchen at all cost. Dinner out sounded like a great idea. It wasn’t meant to be a Mother’s Day dinner per se, more of a regular Sunday dinner.

We were trying to beat the crowd and thought if we got there early, we might be able to snag a table. As expected, the crowds had beat us to it and there were long lines everywhere. So we decided to try Chicago Ribs, a restaurant that’s new to us. We were in luck because they weren’t even offering a Mother’s Day menu and we got a table right away. No waiting.

For starters, we had Buffalo Wings which were okay but not nearly spicy enough for us. The girls still prefer my homemade Buffalo Wings, I think.

Their Nachos were scrumptious. As Raine says, topping the nachos with pulled pork is pure genius. When something is this good, you can bet the next I’m going to be doing is to replicate this at home.

This is the Rattle Snake Chicken Pasta. Interesting name but the rattle snake somehow failed to jump out at us. The chicken was toasty but flavorless but we didn’t mind that. But then the pasta didn’t exactly ss-sing out with flavor either.

The Pork Tenderloin with Cinnamon Applesauce, well, the meat was dry and bland, the veggies soft and overcooked and that plain old baked potato would’ve done a lot better with a handful of bacon bits and a ton more chives.

Skye’s choice of Fish and Fries turned out great. The portion of fish was generous, crispy and not greasy. And my potato lover somehow 2 potato sides.

Their food definitely could use a lot more flavor, more toppings and bigger portions for the price they charge. Most places go crazy with their salt and fat. This is probably one of the few places I’ve dined at that’s low-sodium, and that’s really great.

Of course, we went to watch The Avengers. Did you really think we were going to miss it? For a coupla weeks, we’ve all been holding onto our toenails waiting for it. Man, how long has it been since we were at the movies again? Too long, chorus my two movie buffs. Think it’s been like over a year.

Okay, The Avengers. Well, the plot is simple. It’s the sort of good guys teaming up against One Major Bad Guy movie that the 10-year-old in me loves. We love Iron Man (snazzy geekery and Pepper Potts) and Captain America (6-pack and all!). But that’s pretty much all I’m going to say about the movie. I don’t want to spoil it for you guys who haven’t seen it yet.

So yes, we loved The Avengers. In a world of hypocrites, leeches and piranhas, we sure could use a couple of hours of superheroes. And the fact that our cushy Gold Class movie tickets fell from the sky and came with free popcorn, Coke and these…

Woah, at 18 and 16, you would think my lovely teens are long done with toys. But you should’ve seen the giant grins on their faces when they were handed these 5 mini muggs (as they are called?) and since then, The Avengers have been making surprise appearances on my desk, my dresser, my dashboard …

Here’s Thor, in my kitchen, keeping an eye on our Bratwurst sausages. Don’t anyone move or I’ll hammer your fingers to a pulp, heh heh heh!!

It’s a great movie to bring the whole family. Lots of action. A plot that’s simple enough even for kids to understand. The girls and I may just go watch it again. Have you watched it yet? If so, what do you think?

1. Either someone’s playing tricks with my eyelids or the weather is truly, madly, incredibly hot because in the afternoon, my eyelids just seem to go flooop.

2. Discovered a new Vietnamese restaurant and we’ve been there twice this past week. Vietnamese food reminds me of lazy college weekends in Cali. That’s where I first discovered beef ball noodle soup could taste so good.

3. Someone please remind me to avoid the mall on weekends. Weekends are rudeness magnified at the mall. Somehow one thing or another would make me head out there and then I end up kicking myself!

4. After a 2 weekend break from the kitchen, our bakery was back into action. We made 2 pound cakes for Skye’s recess. Just for fun, I decided to funky this one up with some strawberry puree. Actually it’s not half bad, just a little more cracked than usual but still very moist.

I’m constantly amazed at the people I’ve met on my travels. I mean, you would think the nicest folks are the ones you would meet on a mom forum or somewhere within your realm but I’ve met some of the most interesting and nicest people while traveling alone.

Once I was in line behind a guy at the information counter at LAX. As you may know, LA Airport is massive and getting from one terminal to another is like trying to navigate a whole city and when you have a flight to catch, the last thing you want is to lose your way and miss your flight.

So happened the guy in front of me was asking directions to the same terminal I was. I overheard the lady at the desk giving him directions and when he turned around, I mentioned I was headed there too and he suggested we should try to find our way there together.

I had a crazy heavy backpack on me at the time. My check-in luggage was overweight on my earlier flight and I’d had to offload some of my stuff to my carry-on backpack.

As we walked, I could feel he was giving my backpack a boost from behind so it would be less heavy on me. And when we reached a point where we weren’t sure if we should keep going or take the escalator up, he made me wait while he went upstairs to scout around. What a nice guy!

He was headed to Peru for a 2-week trekking thingy that he’d been planning for months and I was flying to the opposite side of the planet. We parted ways soon afterwards. Strange how you meet someone for just a few minutes, talk like you’ve known each other your entire lives and then you go your separate ways and you never see each other again.

Has this ever happened to you?

The weekend felt like 4 days instead of 2. I basically closed down my weekend bakery, told my neighbor sweetly that I was too busy to check out that new industrial rubber hose she wanted to rave to me about, grabbed the lovelies and we absconded to the mall. Where we unashamedly camped out for, I don’t know, maybe 2 hours, maybe a whole day, I don’t remember, it’s all a blur to me now .

Did someone ask, hey, what do all you boring city folks do for fun? Y’all cooped up in a concrete jungle, ranting about the traffic all day. Indeed! Just so happens the fashion shows are in town, y’all and that is rare bit of excitement for us!

This year, the crowds were relatively smaller, not that we’re complaining, no no no. We practically owned the front row seats. I think there was like a fashion show every hour on the hour or something like that. I don’t worry about the little details. My lovelies take care of those. I just pay for the food. Fashion chasers have such sweet fun !

While I’m known to rant quite a bit, I always give credit where credit is due. It’s just that there’s very little here that truly jumps out at me, ya know. So when something like this happens, it gets me giddy with excitement and I can’t wait to blog all about it.

In a city bursting with restaurants, there are only a handful that we frequent. We tend to avoid the ones that come highly recommended because from experience, those are usually the ones that fail our standards of food quality, hygiene, customer service and/or the Hip to be Picky Eater Index.

At the handful of restaurants where we are regulars, it strikes me as really weird that their staff always act as if they’ve never seen us before. They don’t acknowledge us. They don’t remember how we like our orders. They don’t remember where we like to sit. Not only do we not get any preferential treatment – whatsoever, the service can sometimes be frustrating.

Friday lunchtime, the girls and I went to our favorite Nando’s restaurant outlet. This is the only one of all their franchise outlets that we go to simply because it’s probably the only place in town we know of where the staff are always smiling and happy to see us.

Mind you, this is not a Mom and Pop joint where friendly, personal service is a given. These guys just work there but still they would greet us loudly, sometimes in chorus, every time we walk through the door. They would nod us to “our” table with knowing smiles. Yes, we even have our own table!

Last Friday, we noticed our portions were super-sized. Our plates were heaped high, higher than usual, with our favorite grilled vegetables and peri chips, and they brought us an extra drink on the house. The girls and I usually share drinks (because we hate going to public restrooms) and these guys said, no, go ahead, have a drink on us.

When the check came, we were in for an even bigger surprise. We eat there so often we practically know how much our meal would come to. Only this time, the figure was wa-ay lower than what we normally pay. A surprise discount!

Okay, if I’ve ever doubted that good customer service exists, I take it back! This is definitely one for the record, and in case you’re wondering, the answer is no, we didn’t ask for a discount, we’re not on back-slapping terms with the staff though they always seem happy to see us, and I’m not getting paid to write this.