about 8:30 or so I became exceptionally bored and hungry again. I decided I wanted Scoops, an ice cream shop that makes unusual flavor pairings like chocolate guinness, strawberry balsamic, and brownbread. They are cash only, run out of flavors fast and have a following worthy of cult membership.

All I needed was a partner in crime.
My friend Steven likes bikes and ice cream even more than most 10 year olds so I sent him a picture of my bike and then dropped my desire for Scoops into casual conversation. He was the perfect victim for my ploy and was in front of my place within 10 minutes. Or at least I thought he would be the perfect victim until he cruised up in a god-damn rape-friendly kidnapper mobile:

clearly i was the only potential victim in sight.
we got to scoops and steven asked for a scoop of the Spicy Pecan. He was warned against ordering this by the scooper behind the counter because, frankly, it wasn’t spicy. Steven said it was the pecan flavor he was after more than the spice and would’ve ordered it even if it was called Dull Pecan. Besides, nothing rainbow sprinkles couldn’t spice up a little:

There were two vegan flavors in effect: banana peanut butter and coffee molasses. I went for the latter.

We eat our ice cream differently. He eats one side first from top to bottom and I remove one layer at a time:

We got back in his van, aka the Eurofag, and headed to a gas station to pump some air into my bike, which apparently is way cooler than I ever realized. If I’m going to get up at 6 to ride it, then it’s time for bed. The lesson of the day?
You absolutely DO get rewarded with sweet treats by getting into a strange man’s van.

Saturday 2pm date with Caitlin at Susina. I’m forcing her to participate in a school project that is making her noticably nervous and uncomfortable. My way of cajoling friends into volunteering is by making them meet me at Susina so I can buy them treats. I always imagine them wanting a piece of red velvet cake or a giant macaroon but it never happens that way.

Cait parked her batmobile in front, ordered herself a salad, and followed me to the most awkward seat I could have possibly chosen for us.

It’s a new seat the owner added because the ratio of the number of people that want to eat here is always greater than the number of chairs. So now there is a table squished between a giant couch and the window. I chose it because I thought it would provide us with some privacy since I knew I would be asking some personal questions. Unbeknownst to us, Hacidic Jewperv would be taking a break from observing the Sabbath to position himself just outside the window and continually turn 180 degrees to flash the creep smile. Caitlin gestured for him to beat it but I’m pretty sure he thought she meant she wanted him to make love to her through a hole in the sheet. He’s one of a handful of regular offenders at Susina.

I ordered a fruit salad. Susina is home to one of my favorite fruit salads in town. It’s always fresh, always has only melon and berries, and is just plain reliable and delicious:

I used to study at Susina every Sunday but the droves of Korean youth committees that had just gotten out of church usually talked loud enough that their grandparents could hear them overseas, making it especially hard to concentrate.

I guess it makes more sense for me to study at a library then to ask them to be quiet in a cafe. At least that’s what I’ve been told.

Yesterday morning I not only had my alarm set for 7am to go for a run, but when it went off, I actually went through with it. I got up that early because I was meeting a friend of mine from school, Denise, for breakfast at 9:45. She’s from South Africa, hates being in pictures and is in the process of becoming an amazing therapist.

We met at Le Pain Quotidien on Larchmont, in the old La Luna space. Rest in Peace, La Luna, forgive me for frequenting the chain restaurant that replaced you.

While I waited for Denise, I ordered a cup of coffee and enjoyed the perfect weather.

It’s been so long since I’ve been this happy to be on Larchmont. The glory days of my childhood are long gone and it has since been overrun by the Los Angeles equivalent of bridge and tunnel assholes, making it nearly impossible to park. Most of the original stores have been pushed out and replaced by chains. Larchmont Video lost a battle with Blockbuster. MRX and Larchmont pharmacy lost their fight with what is now Rite-Aid. Sam’s has been competing with Noah’s Bagels. Cafe Chapeau is now Pinkberry. The list goes on and frankly, it hurts to even talk about.
Le Pain Quotidien doesn’t have a chain restaurant feel to it and offers up simple, fresh and organic dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They also put a calorie count next to each dish for people that are watching their intake. I noticed the mediterranean platter contained 1140 calories which seemed kinda gnarly until Denise interjected to explain a platter is for sharing, not for one person. Don’t platter yourself!

I ordered a wild mushroom omelette and a small fruit salad:

It came with mesclun and fresh daily bread and was fresh and flavorful.
Denise ordered an avocado and tomato omelette to which she added wild mushrooms:

Next time I want to try the steel cut berry oatmeal with soy milk and flax seeds. They had some dinner specials that sounded good, too, like Tuscan white bean bread salad and a green tea pistachio dessert that was sugar and dairy free. This place is right up my alley. And by MY alley, I mean mine. I can’t help but feel like growing up on Larchmont and knowing it as it was in it’s original form entitle me to some sense of ownership. As my friend’s sister once shouted from her jeep after driving in circles looking for parking for 30 minutes, “GET THE FUCK OFF MY STREET!!!” My sentiments exactly.

come friday night, I like to make sure my sister and her husband have a romantic date planned and then find a way to ruin it. One way is to join them and spend the entire time talking about myself, embarrassing them by taking pictures of everything everywhere we go, and forcing them to get dessert when they’re not hungry.

last friday was no different.

first michelle and i made tracy watch us shop. he’s a tremendous sport. then we wandered over to the farmer’s market, where tracy ordered tacos and a burrito for the two of them from loteria and i ordered vegan soy pizza on wheat crust with kalamata olives, artichoke hearts and mushrooms.

you know what we didn’t order, though? a side of karaoke.

doesn’t matter. came free anyway.
somebody needs to give the emcee a ride back to double rainbow circa 1993. OR, better yet, just tell him open bar at 3 of Clubs. Then maybe we’ll get some peace and quiet around here.

first up after the Dickie McSwingerson was Joe Pesci:

Then Vanilla Ice took a break from the butcher shop and did his thing:

apparently some crazy nice nice lady went up to the ice ice baby and told him his delivery was incredible.
I’m not a huge karaoke fan, especially at that volume in an outdoor market early on a friday night.
we walked around and found the origin of the unbelievably huge mango that can be found at ice pan:

hey where’d my sister go?
oh there she is:

my favorite thing about farmer’s market is the plethora of old-timey treats at my disposal.
you know what i really need in my life?:

or maybe a:

or even a:

then I forced michelle and tracy to go to Ice Pan where I fought the urge to get the soy milk coffee banana coconut concoction I got last time so that I could try yet another ingenious mixture: green tea strawberry coconut. say word!

then they punished me for wanting to hang out with them every five minutes by spending 50 minutes debating which thermos was right for each of them. The only redemption in sight was the potential for a photograph of a bag lady on her way out of Target. And when I say bag lady I don’t mean like the one Erikah Badu sang about and I don’t mean like a lady with tons of shit. I mean a lady with lots of plastic bags tied around her feet and arms:

Photo quality would’ve been better if my sister hadn’t tackled me to the ground in an effort to get me to stop taking pictures of strangers. Thanks asshole. See you next Friday? no?

Mayra is my partner in crime here at the office. We are infamous for going to the bathroom together an unusual number of times per day and she’s always up to no good. Not me; I’m all business. She’s trouble, though.

Come Fridays we at least try to try something new for lunch. Today we went to Rowdy Red, at the bottom of the National Bank building.

Rowdy Red is not only the newly-opened burger and wine bar in this food court, but also the place that made me wait almost twenty minutes before they graciously got around to pouring the stupid cup of Peet’s coffee I ordered from them. I reviewed it on yelp and then got a lot of heat for reviewing a burger joint without actually eating a burger. I guess that’s fair.

We sort of rush ordered without giving it a lot of thought, and for me this means failing to properly customize. I should know better.

We both ordered the salad with the burger on top, hers with swiss, mine no cheese. It said it comes with a vinaigrette, but I’m pretty sure they just meant watered down mayo. Barf:

I complained my way through the tiny patty and picked around the lettuce. Mayra thinks I’m equal parts crazy and picky and loves to guess before we get to a restuarant what I’d be willing to eat and what I wouldn’t. She is always right. Always.
Tony: “Let’s go to Wockano!”
Mayra: “Lauren won’t eat that shit! You crazy?!”
Me: “Yeah I’m not eating that shit.”

Her burger:

Half way through our meal, Mayra looked at another table, got a glimpse of a certain dish and looked back at me. “Hey,” she whispered, “what kind of animal is that?!”

Um I looked over to see what could only be a fucking pig hoof!
Immediately looked at the menu and saw no such thing. And then it occurred to me: fish ‘n’ chips.

On the way out, I accosted two lovely ladies who had ordered the same thing and forced my camera phone upon them so I could share this rareity with you:

Her friend had a regular looking piece of fish, just for comparison’s sake:

K, so now I’ve had the coffee AND the burger and I can safely say, this place fucking sucks. Don’t be a burger place and have your burger be that boring. Blow me away with your motherfucking beef or don’t be a burger joint.

p.s. obviously i’m not good at being a vegetarian.
p.p.s. you spelled heineken wrong:

Yesterday Joanna and I met at Runyan Canyon, unknowingly about to interrupt B-list celebrity smoke pot and run uphill day. At first we couldn’t figure out how we slipped past the bouncer, but then we remembered, everyday at Runyan is this kind of affair.

After our hike, I stopped at M Cafe to pick up dinner since I have been solidly boycotting cooking since September.

I had a roommate senior year in college who cooked elaborate, romantic meals for one, but that’s just not my style. And in all honesty, judging by the candlelight and the tablesettings, I think she imagined she was cooking for two. Besides, who makes “Charles Dickins Figgy Pudding” just for the hell of it?

One of my old favorites at M is the seasonal chickpea dandelion salad, which has celery, frizzled onions, and a tahini dressing. I also like their falafel wrap and their gingersnap cookies. And they used to have fake ice cream with unusual flavors like sesame and green tea. I assume they took those away because the texture was as unusual as the flavors themselves.

My new favorite, though, is the M chopped salad–two kinds of beets (which I used to hate but now i just hate to love), almonds, tofu, dill, chickpeas, and some other shit. The important thing is, it doesn’t have anything gross that a normal chopped salad would have like salami or eggs. The other important thing is that no salad is perfect in my mind until I have altered it in some way and so I substitute whatever faux creamy dressing they put on it for a red wine shallot viniagrette. If I hate creamy shit in the world of dairy, I certainly don’t want to mess with any substitutes (ahem, veganaise, I’m talking to you).

This place wins the prize for absolute worst crowd nationwide and that’s why I like to hit it during off hours and take it to go. Never, has one restaurant, been host to so many sets of elevator eyes.

Oh and it’s next to Pinkberry for people who don’t think yogurt tastes like shit. To each his own.

After my parents forced me to eat beef, I abandoned Mission Don’t Eat Meat altogether. It’s sort of like that lady in your office that has one cookie and thinks, well, I guess I ruined my day, I might as well go apeshit and eat ALL the cookies!

It didn’t occur to me immediately that I could go back to not eating meat. So on Tuesday I threw in the towel and ordered one of my old favorites for lunch, the carne asada caesar salad from Pacific Grille Express, minus the caesar dressing, plus the lemon dressing that normally comes with their greek salad. Yes, I am as big a fan of customization as Xzibit.

Here it is before the removal of tortilla chips and red onions and pre-toss:

Here it is after:

Maybe the photo doesn’t convey how good the salad is. It really is good, especially after my modifications, but I felt like shit after eating it which is why I’m back to my beef break for a while. When I used to eat dairy, I would order their “burrito del dia,” which is premade and fucking amazingly perfect. Now that I don’t eat dairy and it still comes with cheese I find it flawed, but you might not. This place is the weird glass hut on Wilshire and Figueroa. Come visit me and then eat a burrito. Unless I don’t know you in which case just eat the burrito.