Gas Lite Karaoke Bar

Our free margarita, courtesy of Travis.

Tinx, every night we drive home together: OOOOOOOOH let's go to Gas Lite!!!
Me: OK, maybe this weekend.

But it never happened. Until one fateful Friday when we decided to walk Simon's puppy for him first and then hit up the karaoke bar on the way back. Tinx and I both like to sing, and when we perform we like to get dolled up. So we got semi-dolled up (our final outfits that we walked out the door with were actually quite scaled back from our original ones), walked the dog in our heels, and then headed over.

They have a parking lot, and we found a spot. Incredible. I felt like I was in Peoria, Illinois, not fucking Wilshire Blvd. Amazing.

We walked in to a divey bar where someone was singing an Offspring song. There were books strewn about with songs in them, but after seeing the rather shabby clientele and nary a skirt nor high heel in sight, I decided liquid courage was in order so we got drinks. Then we chose our songs. Tinx: Kelly Clarkson's Never Again. I sing a mean, mean No Doubt, so I put in Bathwater originally, but then re-gauged the crowd and changed my song to Madonna's Like A Prayer. It was that sort of karaoke bar. You know, where white chicks "sing" California Love (she actually really brought it - I was impressed) and a random scary white guy sings Possum Kingdom by the Toadies. If you don't know this song, the refrain is "DOOOO YOU WANNA DIE?? DOOOO YOU WANNA DIE???"

Anyway, I had been burned by karaoke bars in the past where the DJ won't play your song unless you tip them, so I put in our two songs and tipped him ten bux. The DJ was CUTE! A mix between John Mayer and Joaquin Phoenix, but cuter than both. I confirmed with him that my song had not been sung yet (to re-sing a song is a definite faux pas and a definite danger with that song). He said no with a smile and I further tipped him with a smile and a wink and single shoulder shrug.

And we sat. And waited. The drinks were good, except for the warm shot of Stoli Vanil that we did blech. We were awkwardly seated, so people kept coming in between us to order drinks/bother us. Example 1: Some girl named Laura and her friends, for whom I took several very good pictures, who were called up TWICE to sing. Example 2: Some high-powered white cougar lady who worked for Oprah. I have here in my drunken post-bar notes "fucking ugly terrible extensions." My guess is that she was rude to us. Example 3: A guy who said, "Good work!" when I popped my birth control pill at midnight. I said, "No babies!" and he flashed me a thumbs up.

Tinx is...not a patient girl. So she was getting visibly irritated and flustered (probably also due to the three thousand degree heat - goddamn), so our very cute bartender named Travis gave us free margaritas. Thanks, Travis! But then he, too, betrayed us by being called up to sing (seriously - can't the patrons sing before the staff??), where he performed a passably sexy Usher.

Like a silly, idealistic fool, I didn't want to pee in case our songs came up. But I could wait no longer so I ran into the bathroom and peed, and ran out, where I was stopped by a man named Max H., who gave me his card and asked me out. On his card he has some terrible clip art on one side, and it says his title is "Web Programmer and Rock Singer." lol. And a 323 number. He would have a 323 number. Also - weakest handshake ever, which makes me think it unlikely that he shreds anything in his rock band or can even type faster than 5 wpm when programming.

Anyway, I'm sure you can predict how the story ended. Last call and the DJ saying, "Sorry guys! That was the last song." OMGWTFBBQ?!? Does tipping mean nothing in this world anymore? Piece of shitty shit cute DJ. We drove home in a perfumed, curly-haired self-righteous huff and jotted down furious, drunken, bitchy notes, to be blogged at some later point. Done.

Gas Lite
(I see your spelling is as good as your karaoke DJ-ing)
2030 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90403
310.829.2382

No Cookie Left Behind

As part of the Share Our Strength Great American Bake Sale, my friend Connie invited me and Burtis to her friend's 2nd Annual No Cookie Left Behind bake sale. In my head, it was a sleek, Billion Dollar Babes-esque sample sale of a bake sale. It was in Silverlake, after all. In truth, it was a darling/charming ("darming?") normal, normal bake sale on a sidewalk.



But first, Burtis, bless his heart, started whining for tacos. Every dirty, divey taco stand we drove by he would start crying like a very cute puppy. He kept asking Connie "But what are we going to eat for LUUUUNCH?" and she would keep saying, "CUPCAKES!" and he would keep replying, "NOOOOOOOO TACOOOOS!"

So we set out on foot, away from the bake sale, to score some tacos first. We walked around a couple blocks and then, like the clouds parting to let through glorious sunlight, we saw it.

Que Ricos.

It was a cross between a McDonald's and a taco shack. Love it. The menu, pictured above, is not me inadvertently stretching the picture out width-wise. That was literally their menu. (The same thing happens on their business card, I see. Someone should teach them to click "lock aspect ratio.")



It was one of those places where they have mysterious desserts that have likely existed for decades, untouched, by the register. The marshmallow-ey things on top piqued my interest, but good sense overruled this train of thought and I stuck with an asada taco with a side of rice y beans.



Drinks, made from pure cane sugar. Mmmmm. I wanted to save my cash for the baked goods, so I declined the tamarind soda, but seriously tamarind is like crack, no? I did help myself to copious amounts of their homemade salsas. They had those pickled carrot things that I really love, too.



I'm sure you could imagine exactly how this tasted. Like every other taco truck taco - fresh and perfect. The rice was freaking yum, too. It had CORN and POTATOES! I loved it.

Over our taco lunch, Burtis happily chattered away about how he had learned the art of hypnosis, and we talked about what craft he should learn next. I believe we agreed on American Sign Language for the both of us so we could (a) talk shit about people during seminars across the room at each other; and (b) go to bars and "game" girls, with he acting the part of a deaf guy and me being the translator, making girls' hearts melt with his gentle sensitivity and poeticism in his eyes.


Back to the bake sale. Why is it that the homemade goods are so much more appealing at bake sales? There were cakes and cookies from profesh shops, but the things that went first were the big cookies in good ol' ziplock bags. That's what Connie got.


I settled on three items. 1. Baklava; 2. Carrot Cake Cupcake with Cream Cheese Frosting (they should call it the CCCCCC); 3. Sour Cream Fudge Cookie.

All three were winners~! I have been on a crazy workout schedule this summer, and I believe my body is screaming at me to consume more glucose, and my usual salt-tooth was gone and replaced with a normal person's tooth. The baklava - what's that seasoning baklava that makes it baklava? Tinx says cardamom. Whatever it was, it was SO INTENSE that it went straight up my nose into my brain pleasure neurons.

The sour cream fudge cookie was tiny (the size of a silver dollar) and was neither fudgey nor cookie-ey - almost cakey, but velvety smooth and with a nice sticky sour cream smell.



Connie says this bundt looks huge and that we should have held up a dollar bill next to it for scale. This bundt cake is actually TINY, thus making the baby baby bundt cakes behind it squealingly microscopic. These were on sale courtesy of a new bakery called Kiss My Bundt bakery. Whatever you need, we've got your BUNDT covered! is their tagline. Love it.



All of this took place in front of Scoops, a gelato joint. So after the sugar bomb on the sidewalk, we went inside to explore the crazy mindfuck gelato flavors that they had to offer. Behold:

-Brown Bread
-Chocolate Guinness
-Lemon Hefeweizen
-Avocado Vanilla
-Blueberry Lychee
-Salty Dulce de Leche
-Horchata
-Pear Champagne
-Watermelon Triple Sec
-Maple Oreo
-Orange Rootbeer
-White Chocolate Jim Beam
-Raspberry Balsamic
-Almond Honey Ginger
-Green Tea Irish Cream

I sampled the salty caramel and my eyes rolled back into my head. Burtis got a scoop of the watermelon triple sec from one of the two hotties behind the counter, which was refreshing, though I'm not a fan of triple sec. I appreciated that refills were a mere $1.75, which we were going to exploit by eating multiple flavors among the three of us. But...the insulin spike was killing me, so we didn't.

While we lounged around, nursing our sugar comas, I turned to Vani and said, "These gelato attendants are SO freaking adorable!" From all the way across the fucking store, one of them looked up and smiled at me and half-waved. Eagle ears! I was embarrassed.

I don't know why. I should have owned it. Like "YEAH MOTHERFUCKER YOU HOTT!"

End childhood hunger by donating here

Que Ricos
712 N. Vermont Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90029

Kiss My Bundt
8104 West Third Street
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Scoops

712 N. Heliotrope Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90029

RIP Tongue Piercing. And also Pizza Protein Stick.

Dr. D, my dentist, just can't get enough of ruining my life. Now he wants to take out my wisdom teeth with only local anesthetic. Not only that, but he says I have to take out my tongue piercing for the procedure and the entire time while I heal. I guess he doesn't understand (I mean why would he when he's a FUCKING DENTIST) that the mouth is the fastest healing organ, and even having the piercing out for several hours can close it, let alone several days. Boo. Cry. Hiss. More cry.

Further, I worry about Dr. D's skills. When he said my three wisdom teeth (I only have three? I guess I'm evolutionarily advanced) needed to come out, he said - well, here is a transcript:

Friday, June 20th, 10:02 am Pacific Daylight Time
Dr. D: Do you want to take them out today? Let's just do it right now.
Me: Ummmm, really? I mean, I drove here alone so I don't know...
Dr. D: No, no, you'll be fine.
Me: Actually, I teach aerobics today so there's no way I can do it.
Dr. D: What time is your class?
Me: Noon?
Dr. D: Oh, you'll be fine.
Me: Ummmmm, actually, no I think I'll wait.

What the fuck and are you fucking serious me. This man is crazygonuts.

Then I had to take the piercing out for the fancy X-ray where you stand up and the thingies go around your head. So, rather than be sentimental about my tongue piercing (which I've had for [sniff] eight years), I just said "FUCK IT!" and took it out and never looked back. Except right now as I recreate it for CM.

No one, and I mean no one, has noticed anyway that it's gone.

Oh, and a side story about my dentist being a dummy. He was looking at my teeth and was like, "Janet, I think you are grinding your teeth at night. There should be pointy peaks here but they are ground down, and right here your tooth is chipped. I think you should get a mouthguard." Of course the mouthguard costs $450, but more importantly, all of this damage is because of my tongue piercing clanking around in my mouth. I wonder why it didn't occur to him that the HUGE METAL THINGIE in my mouth was to blame for all this tooth damage?

Anyway, it was a sad week overall, as I must end with a lament about Jamba Juice's glorious Pizza Protein Stick, which has been discontinued. Oh, OK, so in the ENTIRE interweb there is not a single photograph of the fucking pizza protein stick? This post just gets sadder and sadder.

The PPS was the hidden gem of JJ. It sounds gross but it was really deceptively delicious. Warm, chewy, with delightful hidden chunks of tartness with sundried tomato and a nice whiff of oregano. Everyone I coaxed into trying it loved it, too.

So, RIP, PPS. Here is a poem that I worked really hard on to commemorate your life.

Oh, peppery, pitiful Pizza Protein Stick.
Who discontinued you? What a dick!
Life without you makes me sick.
PS Did I tell you my dentist sucks balls?

Bacon Flavored Floss

By way of Geekologie by way of OhGizmo by way of NerdApproved by way of Archie McPhee [phreeew exhausted!] comes...

BACON FLOSS! OMG best idea ever! Only, it's a terrible idea. But still, the bacon-loving, floss-loving (no shitting you I love how my gums feel hurty/itchy after I floss - creepy?) gal in me is so intrigued. This is the kind of gag gift that people might give me like, "haha" but then I would actually use. In fact, I wonder what it would be like if I threaded it through my recently-deceased tongue piercing hole? That would make for the ultimate bacon experience.

Buy it here.

Spoonriver

A Happy Hatch Day to Liz. I'm just going to go ahead and publish on the interweb her age: 40. I think she is handling it well. I think the word "aplomb" is a good one to describe it.

Speaking of Liz, this is a wall post that I got from her:

at 6:17pm on May 15th, 2008

What about our lovely meal at Spoonriver?

Indeed, what about our lovely meal at Spoonriver?

Sometimes, when the light is low and I have forgotten my mini tripod, the pictures take a lot of finessing before they are CM-ready. It's funny because this gives rise to a phenomenon where all my lunches get posted quickly (sunlight = good light, no finessing), whereas my dinners take longer to go to press. Not that it's that much finessing. It's seriously just clicking, like, 3 buttons in Picasa. But still.

Also - isn't "Finesse" a type of shampoo? Whatever happened to that shampoo brand?

Before I get too off-track and risk Tinx saying, "You're so random" from across the living room as she reads my posts on her laptop, let me get back to Spoonriver. It is a resto in Minneapolis, and the fancy meal that Liz took me to whilst on my visit there (...in January...sometimes when finessing is saved for later, the entire post gets forgotten about...)

Liz's kids were safely with their excellent sitter (whom they were trusting, for the first time, to actually put their kids to bed rather than just the post-school-fun-crafts-type of babysitting. I was honored that our meal was that important). We were joined by the sweet Alfred (a mutual friend) and by Liz's husband Jamie. Alfred ordered the above cocktail, which is so amazing it deserves its own paragraph for the description.

Fall Monk: Butternut squash martini, Benedictine, Frangelico, and maple syrup, with a toasted walnut rim.

I'm sure you can imagine how good this tasted. I love egg nog and it tasted like egg nog to me. But if you hate egg nog, don't worry - the others at the table didn't taste egg nog at all.

Ok, like "finesse," the word "nog" is looking funny to me now.

To start, we ordered the Caspian, pictured top - Humous and roasted red pepper walnut spreads, vegetables, olives, foccacia. There were more exciting apps, but after much angst, Jamie decided to combine two appetizers into his entree, so we were anticipating tasting his food.

The humous was great but we were all feeling polite about the accompanying bread and were smearing it on the veggies, which was not as great of a combo. If I could nitpick this appetizer I would say that the crostini was in the weird middle ground between regular soft and appropriately toasted, and the red pepper spread was just this side of slimy (rather than smooth walnuty) but it had a very delightful carbonation fizziness to it.




You know when someone else orders something that you instantly crave? This is Liz's Fischer Farms Pork Tenderloin with miso caramel glaze, apple slaw, and root mash. ROOT MASH! I mean, what the hell was I thinking not ordering this? Goddamnit. I had one bite of everything on her plate, and briefly considered knocking my own entree onto the floor and getting it replaced with this pork dish. Failing that, I could always knock Liz unconscious and steal her food.




Luckily, I was then distracted by Alfred's Minnesota Lamb and Vegetable Stew in Moroccan flavors. Spoonriver is organic and all that, but surprisingly un-local. Good for Alfred, therefore, for choosing this. I contemplated stealing a taste, but he was kitty-corner from me, and it looked just too too complicated to get a perfect bite without hacking at it with a knife. Pity. It's 10:30 pm right now as I write and with no dinner in my tum, I would give anything to have a taste of this.




Jamie ordered both the Savory Wild Mushroom & Pistachio Terrine with fruit chutney, mustard sauce, croutons, and cornichons as well as the Quesadilla with local free range smoked chicken, greek Keseri cheese, mango, and cranberry coulis. No amount of finessing could make my quesadilla photos presentable. The terrine was a bit dry (I would have gone for the Wild Acres Duck & Chicken Liver Pate myself - no prospect of dryness when there's liver involved). However, the terrine is nowhere near as dry as my "dinner" is a microwaved Boca burger with ketchup on top, so I should just shut the fuck up.

Oh, also - cornichons: surprisingly tasty.



So what did I order? I went local as well, with the Minnesota Farm Raised Lamb Burger with house Bois Boudran sauce. Bois Boudran sauce = schmancy ketchup.

Initial thoughts: Why is this patty so shriveled? Looks dry. Why the fuck are there tortilla chips on this plate? Weirdage. I should have fucking gotten the pork tenderloin.

Then, these thoughts: Holy flavorful! How did they put so much flavor into this? One ounce of this lamb basically necessitates its own bun! Oh, and what is this ketchup-like substance? Oh, my goodness! I'd like to take a pint of this home and eat it with a spoon, like soup!

After our entrees, Jamie got all excited. "If we skip dessert, we can get home in time to give the kids a good night kiss before they go to bed!!!" To which Liz said, "I'm not fucking skipping dessert!" which is why I love her.




Spoonriver's website is failing me now by not listing their desserts. But so are my iPhone notes, which end after "...toasted walnut rim." Great. My note-taking abilities died with the cocktails, apparently. Well. It is clearly some sort of mousse. With chocolate shavings. And what is that? Pineapple? No, mango. Peach? What is that? Also, there appears to be some...poo? Just kidding. That's clearly caramel. I do remember the poo being the most amazing part of it. As we dug our spoons through the goo, the caramel became even more poo-like by smearing up the sides of the glass.

After dessert, we contemplated walking around the Guthrie (immediately across the street). This conversation, however, put such a pained look on Jamie's face (10 minutes to bedtime! STILL time for a goodnight kiss!!!!) that we skipped it. We rushed home, where Jamie successfully planted kisses on their totally unappreciative boys' faces.

Spoonriver
750 S 2nd St.
Minneapolis, MN 55401
612.436.2236

Frogo - Rhymes with Frodo

Frogo is a new, under-chattered frozen yogurt joint that opened just two blocks from my house (Stalkers: 1, Janet: 0). Tinx and I were coming back from school laaate, and even though she had to pee something fierce, she obliged my wishes and went there with me. We weren't even sure if they were open, but indeed it is open until 11 pm weekdays, midnite on Saturday, 10pm Sunday (this is not yet etched on the doors but that's what the hours are).

The decor was the requisite ultra sleek / ultra modern combination, though Frogo has a million plasma screens on the wall. One of these was playing what looked to be a Michael McDonald concert, which gives them major points if they are being ironic, a la 40-Year-Old Virgin, but major minus points if it was just straight up.


Tinx had done some earlier reconnaissance and discovered that their berry yogurt is fantastic. So I followed suit. Hers sits front; mine in back with the kiwi.

Frogo attempts to differentiate themselves by using fructose. Not high fructose corn syrup, which is the root of all evil according to some, but bonafide, true fructose. An information sheet detailing the benefits of fructose (doesn't spike blood sugar [in fact, fructose is metabolized without the use of insulin so it's good for diabetics], helps you feel full, "healthy," etc.) sits on the counter.

The kiwi was underripe. You shouldn't need your teeth for kiwi - just your tongue. But that is nitpicking, I gues. The yogurt itself is not quite "like Yoplait, but frozen!" like Tinx claimed, but is exactly in between Red Mango and Pinkberry in terms of its tart/ice-ness.

To be honest, I was really distracted while eating it, because we were (albeit nicely) accosted by an Asian dude named Jason - the owner. I am usually a little more on the down low when it comes to snapping photos, but at 10pm on a weekday I really didn't think that any higher-ups would be around (indeed, upon first glance, it was just two really cute employees who looked like they should be working at Abercrombie instead). He just appeared out of nowhere.

Jason: I noticed you're taking pictures. Can I ask you why?
Janet: Oooooh, well, you know, it's a hobby of mine - I just like to take pictures of my food.
Jason: Oh, because you know you're taking pictures of my store, too, so I was just curious you know why is this girl taking pictures?
Janet: Haha yeah well it's just what I do. Haha I'm not a journalist or anything. [Hello defensive.]
Jason: [Not buying it for a minute] It's ok if you want to take pictures and put it up on a blog. I just wanted to tell you more about our product.
Janet: Well you can tell me about it if you want but I'm not a blogger or anything! [Dig dig dig]
Tinx: Giggle. [Squeezing legs together to avoid peeing]

So he told us about the miracles of fructose, the fact that he got out of a career in banking to open this shop, chatted with us about what we did (he's a fellow UCLA alum!) and then offered us another yogurt. I had hit my sweetness threshold .75 yogurts ago, so I declined, and Tinx did as well. So then he gave us...free crack tea!



If you read the few reviews of Frogo on the interweb, people talk more about the coffee than the yogurt. This tea was fucking awesome. You don't often see people's eyes light up when they sip on iced tea. But Tinx (despite her full bladder) bounced up and said, "MMM!" so I tried it as well. Tangy, but not sour. Mellow, but not sweet. Full of crack, but not heroin.

The reason we think it is full of crack is because (a) it tastes so good, and (b) Tinx was ricocheting off the walls of our apartment when we got home [I took mini sips and saved the rest for the following morning - so fucking AZN].

I hope they make it, because the employees, beginning with Jason the owner, are so nice, and their products are good. And Silverlake is far too far to go for crack - this is much more convenient.

Frogo
1300 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90403
310.395.6794

Lucid

On the last night of our last Vegas trip, Simon busted out the good stuff. Absinthe made from actual wormwood was illegal for a long time in the US, but now this Lucid stuff can be bought here.

I felt very Nicole Kidman (or, rather, Kylie Minogue?) as I gazed at the bottle.

But, to be honest, not a single one of us was glamorous or sophisticated when it came to absinthe. More like bumbling and stupid. The three of us with iPhones whipped them out and googled "absinthe how."

I think you, like, pour it in and then dump a sugar cube inside?

No, dude, you light the sugar cube first, and then the burning sugar is green and that's why it's the green fairy.

Damnit fucker, why you so stupid? First you take the slotted spoon, crack open the sugar, and then pour the absinthe over it and then shake it with cold water.

Fail, fail, epic fail.

In truth, you are supposed to take a slotted spoon, put a sugar cube on it, and pour ice cold water through it into a waiting glass of absinthe.



Where the fuck were we going to get a slotted spoon in the middle of Vegas??? Luckily, Dr. Z had brought (well, actually it's on his person, always) his Leatherman and craftily (he's very crafty - he made a house from scratch that was later bought by Miley Cyrus) created a faux slotted spoon by punching holes into the cap of a water bottle.

Not only did this work great, but the sugar cube nestled in quite a lovely way at the bottom of the cap. The pliers doubled as a spoon handle, and I saw Dr. Z smiling, pleased as punch. Cute.



A short detour to talk about the silliness of the bottle. The bottom of it looks cool and mysterious, but the eyes on it look like a slightly ree-ree Siamese cat. Like, "DER! Pour water in me and I turn milkay! Droooooool!"



Here is a photo of the whole shebang, ready to go (with GaeRae busting a move in the periphery). Not sure why the coins were necessary but it seemed important that I put them in the picture. Only at the gorgeous and decadent GVR would we be able to scare up this many glasses from just two rooms.


We did not have ice water. Why didn't we? It would have been easy with the ice machine just down the hall...fail again. As promised, the clear, greenish liquid turned milky (or as Nation would say, "melky") with the addition of warm Arrowhead. We giggled and clapped our hands.

After we took the requisite "sexy" photo (epic fail here again with the sexy photo) with our fingers casually clutching the stems of our glasses, everyone took a sip and immediately turned into 3-year-old pussies.

Ewwwwwwwww it tastes grooooooooooosssss!

Yuuuuuck I can't drink this whole thinnnnnng!

Ick I need to add some Vitamin Water to thissssss!

Please. I rolled my eyes so hard my right contact kind of popped out. It tastes fine. GOOD, even. It tastes like licorice - but like the intense Swedish licorice that turns your teeth black. I agree that the warm water wasn't helping things, but I would never mewl in the way everyone else was.

I wish I could say that we went on to hallucinate and freak the fuck out in the casino, but we didn't. I think it was because between the 10 of us, we drank maybe a third of the bottle, and then we proceeded to do half a million shots afterwards so everything got kind of muddled. I think I need to give it a proper try with the proper tools and ingredients. Oh, and without 9 lamezors crying about it.

Buy it here, DERRR!