the weekend at a glance

A little glimpse of life lately…

I don’t know why I bother buying Teddy stuffed animals when he rips them to shreds. To be fair, I only buy his toys at Ross or T.J. Maxx so they’re much cheaper and he’s painfully adorable when he first meets his new toy, but this particular one lasted one day before Teddy ripped an ear off. On Sunday, he ripped the other ear off. Poor blue pup.

My cousin came to visit Friday to Saturday and now that we finally have a handle on interesting and delicious food spots, we basically did a food crawl from a fish taco truck (below) to ice cream sandwiches at Baked Bear to Thai food at Sab-e-lee. We ordered a spice level of four there, and I’m still coping with the ramifications of that choice. (I’d get a 2 or 3 at most!)

I hopped over — actually, it was a nearly four-hour drive — to L.A. on Saturday to cover an Emmy nominee event for Entertainment Weekly. I stayed for the rest of the weekend to spend time with one of my oldest friends who now lives in the city. The event just so happened to be near uber-trendy bakery/restaurant Bottega Louie, so after my reporting duties were complete, I walked over to grab myself a rose cream macaroon (delightful!) and a couple of mini cakes for my friend.

On Sunday, we hit up the Brentwood farmer’s market, which put our Hillcrest neighborhood market to shame. There was dragon fruit, chili peppers, green beans and tons more I can find only in grocery and specialty stores in San Diego. There was also a petting zoo; not sure how I felt about that. (Look at the tufts of hair on these ducks!)

My friend’s birthday is in two weeks and since I can’t make it back up for her day, I took her to lunch anywhere she wanted. She chose Sun Cafe, a raw vegan restaurant in Studio City that also happens to be the #3 raw restaurant in the world. We were joking about how overzealous the Yelp reviews sounded, calling the food a “party in my mouth,” but Yelp, you were right this time around. Any raw and/or vegan meals I’ve had in the past have been pretty bland, but Sun Cafe does such a wonderful job with flavors and spices here. I highly recommend the lettuce tacos and strawberry shake made with strawberry, goji, cashew and agave. The shakes are out of this world and probably the best thing I’ve had in SoCal since I moved here.

And because driving in L.A. makes us both totally crazy, we ditched plans to explore Silverlake and Los Feliz and instead went back to her apartment and watched The Real Housewives of Orange County. In my defense, I don’t have a TV and it’s pretty much the only thing I can’t find online. Don’t hate.

Hope you had a lovely weekend!