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Entries Tagged as 'damien'

Nation’s Giant Hamburgers

December 2nd, 2011 · 1 Comment

Allison and Herm live in the East Bay very close to Billy & Ging and we were looking forward to visiting them on our trip out west. Unfortunately, they were on a trip to Iceland for our whole stay! Before we came out, though, Allison told us to try the burgers at Nation’s in Orinda, not far from where Billy & Ging live. She said they were even better than In-N-Out. GASP!

On our last day in the Bay Area we finally got a chance to visit Nation’s Giant Hamburgers (Since 1952!). We ordered a cheeseburger and two bacon cheeseburgers, fries, and a side of chili. Well, two sides of fries, but the woman working the counter wasn’t the greatest at taking an order, so we only got one. Plus, it was taking a long time to get the food and the line at the counter was long, so we just stuck with the one order of fries. Which stinks, because I thought the fries were great. Definitely better than In-N-Out.

As far as the burger? The consensus was that it was just a bit too big. Billy and Ging shared one. I mean, GIANT is in their name. Also, the way it was assembled made it hard to hang on to without it sliding around. I also added grilled onions and pickles to mine, which I thought was a great addition. I hardly ever eat beef hamburgers, so I thought it was great. Everyone else enjoyed what they had, but thought that the burger itself, under all the cheese, bacon and condiments, was lacking. Good, but not better than In-N-Out?

Not a bad lunch, though. Also, it looked like they had some amazing pies, but we were all too stuffed to try them.

West Coast Fast Food Favorites

December 1st, 2011 · No Comments

So, while we were in California we had two fast food weaknesses that we had to take care of. 1. In-N-Out Burger. Everyone knows about this one. Everyone has to make it a destination. Every time I kick myself for not going enough when I lived in San Diego. This was actually our first stop after we arrived at the airport!

2. L&L Drive Inn, which serves Hawaiian food and is based out of Honolulu. L&L is a chain scattered all over the islands and also has expanded to some areas of the mainland, but not Chicago. I actually ordered the healthy plate (gasp!) which had brown rice and a salad instead of white rice and mac salad, which is on a traditional Hawaiian plate lunch. It wasn’t as good, but at least I wasn’t feeling as guilty!

Dallas also wanted to go to Jack in the Box, but we didn’t. Can’t beat the Sourdough Jack, though. Dallas and I very rarely eat at any fast food restaurants at home, I don’t know what gets into us when we travel! We had Krispy Kreme‘s too!

Ferries, Trains and Cable Cars

November 30th, 2011 · No Comments

Ferry

Damien, Rachelle

Looking back at Sausalito

Another view from the ferry

…. and we’re off!

After hanging out in Sausalito, Dallas and Billy drove home while Ging, Damien and I took the ferry to San Francisco. Damien loves all forms of transportation – train, boat, airplane, cable car – probably because his mom specializes in transportation and traffic management! Oh, except the car. He hates his car seat (“Ouchie, too tight!” haha).

Golden Gate Bridge

San Francisco

Alcatraz Island

Pulling into the Port of San Francisco

Bay Bridge

The ferry is a passenger ferry (no cars like the ferries I took around Seattle and Maine) and goes from Sausalito across the bay to San Francisco. Damien was super excited to ride on “the big boat”! Ging said they’d never taken the ferry before, so I was glad to do something they hadn’t done 100 times.

Ferry Building

Boccalone – I liked their tagline, “Tasty Salted Pig Parts”

Blue Bottle Coffee

Latte from Blue Bottle Coffee

The ferry we took is also a commuter ferry on weekdays for people who live in Sausalito and work in San Francisco, or vice versa. On the San Francisco side you get out by the Ferry Building, which has an awesome high-end marketplace. It would be so nice to get out here and grab dinner or flowers or coffee or whatever every day. So nice, and so broke. I happened to see Blue Bottle Coffee, which I knew from Steve is all the rage in San Francisco these days. The line was obnoxious, but Ging wanted to get Damien some Caio Bella sorbet anyway, so I gave it a whirl. I got a latte and a decaf latte for Ging (and the baby!). They were so delicious! I also grabbed 2 bags of whole-bean coffee for home.

The Embarcadero

Ferry Building

Occupy San Francisco

Ging and I had a loose plan to walk up to Telegraph Hill to check out the wild parrots, but it was getting late.. and dark. We ended up just walking along The Embarcadero for a bit then taking the cable car (Damien’s favorite after airplanes) back to the Ferry Building where we got on the BART train (Damien’s favorite after cable cars) back out to the East Bay. Oh, and before the BART ride we passed through Occupy San Francisco, which Ging said has been very peaceful, organized, self-sustaining and clean. No run-ins with police like in other cities.

Hawaiian Thanksgiving with Billy and Ging Ging

November 28th, 2011 · 4 Comments

Billy & Dallas

Dallas

Two Hawaiian guys, slippers, Hawaiian t-shirts, hibachi, kalbi. Yep, looks like a Hawaiian-themed Thanksgiving!

Hawaiian-Themed Thanksgiving Dinner

For the holiday we went to visit Billy and Ging Ging in the East Bay. We’d originally planned on skipping all the traditional Thanksgiving food and just ordering Hawaiian platters from L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, but whattaya know? L&L is closed on Thanksgiving. So we ended up making Thanksgiving dinner, but still tried for Hawaiian style instead of the American classics.

Hawaiian-Themed Thanksgiving Dinner

Dallas and Billy took care of the meats: Kalbi Korean short ribs and chicken katsu. Ging and I made the rest. Mostly Ging, ok at least under her supervision. We made a chinese salad with ramen crunchies, a warmed spinach/cranberry/pecan salad, tofu, mac salad (with and without wahoo/ono), mashed sweet potato, and fresh pineapple with li hing powder. For dessert we made haupia and a pumpkin mochi.

Damien & Matt

Matt and Amy joined us for dinner. Made made lemon meringue pie and they brought a couple bottles of wine as well.

Damien & Billy

Matt, Amy, Billy

Ging Ging, Damien, Dallas, Rachelle

Amy wasn’t sure what Billy and Ging meant when they said we were having Hawaiian foods for Thanksgiving but when we told her the menu she told us she was looking forward to all of that more than turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes!

Matt’s beautiful lemon meringue pie.

Lemon meringue pie, haupia, pumpkin mochi.

Ging and I prepared dessert plates for everyone. Each got a slice of Matt’s lemon meringue pie, a piece of haupia topped with chocolate pudding and freshly-whipped cream (kind of like haupia pie with no crust), and a piece of pumpkin mochi. The mochi didn’t really stand up to the sweetness of the pie or haupia, but when we ate it the next day on it’s own it was much better. The lemon mirengue pie was so delicious. I ate it for breakfast the next day too! And the haupia reminded me of Hawaii. I made it the night before. It was simple with a mix that Ging had from Lihue.

Ging (talking to her family & rubbing baby #2 due in April!), Matt, Amy, Billy, Damien, Dallas

After dinner and after Damien went to bed we watched a couple of movies: Super 8 and 50/50. I saw 50/50 in the theater and really liked it. I thought Super 8 was pretty good too.

I love turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and pecan pie, but this was a good alternative dinner and I was glad we did it! Also, remind us to tell you the story about how Billy and Ging don’t have a TV but borrowed one (+Direct TV). And then Dallas and Billy had to configure it so we could watch the football games on Thanksgiving. Craziness!

Professional Wedding Photos

March 30th, 2011 · 1 Comment

We were lucky enough to have Steve Koo, an award-winning Chicago photographer (and friend), come out with us to Kauai and photograph our wedding. Steve did such a good job on our engagement photographs in Logan Square. I was excited to see what he’d come up with for the wedding.

We could not be more happy with how Steve captured the spirit of the day and all the little moments and emotions. We love Steve’s style, how saturated the photos are. It went really nicely in the tropical setting. I could not pick just a few favorite photos from the day, so I posted a whole bunch below!