3 Thirty 3
333 Bayside Dr
Newport Beach, CA 92660
949.673.8464
http://www.3thirty3nb.com/home.htm

Happy New Year everyone!

What's the best way to start a fabulous 2007? A yummy brekkie!

Soooo, a group of us (post-NYE celebrations) met up at 3-Thirty-3 in Newport for some pretty freakin awesome breakfast burritos.

It's a pretty amazing concept...you get a little sheet of paper with a list of all sorts of goodies you can throw in your burrito, including but not limited to sausages, bacon, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, the list goes on & on...but you get the gist. You can also get it "wet" or dry with yummy red enchilada sauce. Holy crap, my tummy just got really excited writing that! Hehe :) AND best part...they have a pretty amazing bloody mary bar!!!! You can add all your own garnishes...spicy green beans, celery, olives, salt, salt & more salt :) I should probably also mention that the view here isn't too shabby either..it's right on the water...gotta love that ;)

Needless to say, HAPPY TUMMY & HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Pearl Oyster Bar
18 Cornelia Street
New York, NY 10014
212.691.8211
www.pearloysterbar.com

Pearl was by far my favorite eating adventure during my visit in NY. Small little joint in the West Village (but then again, isn't everything small in NYC?) that had some amazing seafood!! We had to wait awhile for our table, but it was well worth it! We ordered a bottle of Vouvray Chenin Blanc (as suggested by the host) and plopped ourselves onto a bench t to patiently wait for our table :)

Um...may I first comment on the wine...it was really good! It's a white wine that's a tad sweeter than Savignon Blanc but not quite as fruity as a Pinot Grigio. It was a lovely wine...light & fresh...compliments to the host for suggesting a good one!

Now to the food...after we waited for about 45 minutes for our miniscule table, we ordered a pletheora of yummy eats! We started with the pot of steamers, YUM!!! These clams still had their sock on, so they were served with a bowl of warm water to clean the sand out before popping them in your mouth :) Very exciting stuff lemme tell you :) Alongside the clams was a big ole bowl of yummy melted butter to dip the clams in. I prefer a dash of tabasco on them as well :) SOOOO good!!!! After the clams we got a round of oysters! tasty. fresh. meaty. delicious. I love oysters :) Then we moved on to our main courses...the thing to get at Pearl is their lobster roll (apparently, it's one of the few places where you can supposedly get an authentic lobster roll outside of New England). Yum & yummier! Fresh baked toasted white roll, with a huge mound of a mayonaisey lobster concoction on top, sooooo good!!! I'm not even a big mayonaise fan and I thought this roll was a little bite of heaven! The lobster roll was served with a humungalo heap of shoestring fries...quite tasty in and of itself, but I tried not to fill up too much on them :) We also had the whole fish (seabass) grilled. It was served with fennel, bell peppers, asapragus & haircot verts. Super good and great dish to share...b/c one person eating this might get sick of it :) Fish was very fresh! Yummy again! Last main dish we had was the pan-seared scallops served with roasted potatoes...I heart scallops and even if you mess 'em up, I'd still eat all of them...so good. Just buttery and tender and melts in your mouth :) Finally dessert...we kept it simple and ordered the apple crumble dessert served with vanilla ice cream to share...served warm...need I say more?

Awesome dining experience :) oh...and there were four of us eating, so don't think that Viv and I just packed it away ourselves...though we probably could have :)

Naka Naka
458 West 17th Street (10th Avenue)
New York, NY 10011
(212) 929-8544

My next eating adventure with Viv took me to Naka Naka in Chelsea! This place is just about the cutest Japanese joint ever!! First of all, it's tiny, but in a good way :) There's little wooden stools around a stage with eating trays for every guest. Placed on each tray was a little origami crane that served as a chopstick rest for your chopsticks, which were wrapped in Japanese pattern-printed paper in the shape of an airplane (pictured above). The stools were a little uncomfortable, but they were all part of the experience :) EVERYTHING was sooooo good here!!!

Sooo, don't laugh but Viv and I ordered alotta food :) It's just more fun, really ;)

We started with cold soba and sauteed lotus root. Yum & Yummier! Both dishes were served cold and complimented each other quite nicely. Lotus root has the same texture as a cucumber, but with holes. It's sauteed in what I think was soy sauce and a rice wine vinegar...definately different, but quite tasty :) Next we had some shrimp shu mai, which are basically shrimp dumplings. I very much liked the dumpling wrap they used here...it's much thinner than what you might find in Chinese restaurants so you can taste the flavors of the shrimp better :) No Japanese meal is complete without some sushi, so we ordered some of that too...we tried the uni (sea urchin) which was very fresh! I'm not the biggest uni fan, and I've been waiting to fall in love with it...but I think it's just one of those things that you either love or hate...and for me, I don't love nor do I hate...it's just whatever. But the uni here was probably some of the freshest I've had...other than straight from the ocean, but that's another story ;) Then we basically played it safe and ordered some basic rolls.

Dessert! Dessert was probably my favorite part of this delicious meal...we ordered the black sesame ice cream rather than the more popular & more well known green tea ice cream and it was sooooooo yummy!!! It was nutty and light and refreshing after all that food! Definately glad we decided to try some the new flavor :)

Bao
111 Ave. C,
New York, NY 10009
between 7th and 8th Sts.
212-254-7773

So, work's brought me to lovely New York!!! I swear the past couple of times I've been here it's been butt freezing cold...ick! This is why I don't live back east and why my heart and home will always be where the sun shines the majority of the year :)

Um, New York basically goes hand in hand with eating adventures with Viv!!!!! I heart Viv, and I really wish she'd move back to California, and back to SoCal especially :) So Viv, I know you're reading this...move home already!

My first evening in New York brought me to this charming little Vietnamese restaurant by the name of Bao in the East Village where I dined with the lovely Vivian, her man Mark, his sis Trixie (short for Patricia) and her colleague from work Stefano (I think that's what his name is). Lovely company and a lovely meal!

We wll know how I adore Vietnamese food...so where shall I begin?!?!? First of all, I was thoroughly impressed with how authentic all the food was! It's not often you come to a big fancy city and experience authentic Vietnamese food, so props!!! We ate family style and started with the summer shrimp rolls...they were quite plump and delicious! Shrimp, noodles, lettuce, asian herbs wrapped in rice paper and served with peanut sauce, YUMM!!!! For the main course, we had pork belly, braised seabass with noodles & strip steak. All were very tasty and flavorful! I can't say that I had a favorite of the three however...they all brought something different to the palate...pork was sweet, fish was light & fresh, and the steak was tender & salty :)

For dessert we all shared the red bean plate with peanut butter ice cream. It's basically a spin on che dau do without all the coconut milk and jellies. It wasn't what I'd chosen off the menu (I tend to lean towards anything with chocolate), but I was pleasantly surprised! Sweet, not heavy and definately satiated the sweet craving I get after a hearty meal :)

Can't wait for my next eating adventure tomorrow :)

Tyler Florence!

Earlier today I met Tyler Florence! WOOT WOOT! He was having a book signing at Williams Sonoma in South Coast Plaza :) YAY! I heart him :)

Super fun :)

Katsuya
11777 San Vicente Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90049
310.207.8744
www.sbent.com/katsuya

Happy Birthday Erica! For the lovely Erica's birthday we dined at the uber-shee shee Katsuya in B-wood last night. Located where Armadillo's and El Dorado used to, this new restaurant is quite the posh and swanky place to be. Think Viceroy meets sushi joint. Please note: there's nothing wrong with swanky...I love swanky :) Food was alright too...not the best sushi, but really...do you go to posh places to enjoy their mastery of the culinary arts? um, no.

Soooo...the food...I had dined on a couple things here...ordered some hand rolls, which were just fine...oooh, but the best handroll I had all night was the blue crab handroll...YUM! Lots of crab meat...can't ever go wrong with that! Also had some yellowtail sashimi served with very thinly sliced jalpeno that was quite lovely. A lot of the girls at my table really liked the crispy rice with spicy tuna, I tried it and it was nice...though I'm not a huge spicy tuna fan, so I'm a bit biased. The creamy rock shrimp tempura was really good...interesting combination, but it worked :)

For the record...they make a lovely dirty martini and have a nice selection of sakes :) Definately a fun place to go out to for some drinks and appetizers! They have cool lounge-y tables in the back with sofas and stuff...not so great for eating, but definately good to hang out :)

Happy Birthday Erica!! XOXO

Jack Sprat's Grille
10668 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90064
310.837.6662
www.jackspratsgrille.com

My roomie and I lunched here earlier today, one of our favorite lunch places in LA :)

They have a pretty tasty breakfast, and in my opinion a better lunch :) Really great salads here...I always get the cobb salad and my roomie gets grilled veggies :) It never disappoints :) When you eat at the restaurant, rather than having bread & butter with your meal, you get pretzels and mustard :) Their mustards are amazing, I gotta find where I can buy them :) They also have really great air fries and some pasta dishes :)

Parking is kind of a bitch around here, so just a heads up on that :)

Glad to have reintroduced Jack's to my eating circuit :)