4/2/07 - Lunch

Picked up Patty in Ojai and we surfed a double-over-ankle C Street. Then we went on a tour of downtown Ventura eateries for lunch and found a hole in the wall Taqueria Vallarta (unrelated to the Santa Cruz venues) on the main drag. Perfect.

The lovely Patty Williams, waiting for her tacos, knocking back a Modelo.

I dug into some nachos: chips, sour cream, cheese, beans, chicken, salsa and guacamole. After a beer, this dish said 'nap time.' Back at the Williams residence we dozed on the deck, drank tea and ate cookies.

With the light waning, we rode bikes through town and ate dinner at a roadhouse on the outskirts of Ojai. We both ordered buffalo burgers with fries. No photographic evidence exists of this conquest but I confess that the burgers were dynamite. How does one follow a day of this sort?

03/19/07 - Dinner

After the previous night's debacle, I had to make my own food. I think this was the pork, green chili sausage from whole foods. Not that great. French fries were pretty good though. The ketchup I used is kind of suspect too (whole foods 365 brand). I think I need to stick with Heinz.

I'm currently looking for a better way to cook inside. When I cook stuff like sausage on the skillet, the entire apartment stinks and I hate that. When I cook the stuff on the george foreman, it just tastes kind of funny and I'm not a big fan of that. What can I do? I know I need to start actually BBQ'ing. Suggestions?

03/18/07 - Dinner

We arrived at about 7:30, and left at 9:30. Two hours. This was a debacle. It was the 9/11 of dinners. Rebecca and I get there, Allison and Scott are arguing about a bike lock or something. And we wait for 15 or 20 minutes for the table. We get seated, probably around 8-ish nothing out of the ordinary so far. Order, everything's still cool. But once 8:45 rolls around, we start to wonder 'didn't we order food?' Yeah, we did order food, that's right. We got the salad and breadsticks we ordered, but beyond that we were left to stare longingly at other tables' bountiful pizzas. Kristin was also supposed to get a salad, but she never did.

At 8:56 the waitress comes to us and proudly declares "I heard you should have you food in 4 minutes!" I tell her I'm timing her - not joking. Fifteen minutes later no food. Seventeen minutes later, the food starts to trickle out. First it's Rebecca's baked eggplant thing. Looked like mush. Then it's Alex's slices. Then everyone elses. Lost in all of this are my slices. "Don't worry, they're coming," the waitress tells me. They don't come. She comes back with one slice and says my meal is free. She asks what my other slice was, Sausage. A different waitress comes back with the wrong slice, that I think someone takes quickly. I'm still left with one slice. Eventually my slice comes.

As I'm trying to finish up and get the hell out of there, someone is trying Rebecca's Eggplant Bake and extracts a sizable piece of parchment paper. WTFWTFWTFW FA:SLKJDHALJHWTF IS GOING ON HERE. I can't believe this. This is the worst experience ever. The whole meal is free and we leave. Absurd. Ridiculous. Unfathomable. Ludicrous. Amazing. Retarded. Confounding (yes, confounding). etc etc etc.

The love affair with Telegraph Lanesplitters is over. We even knew two people in the kitchen! One came out and talked to us and we asked if it was busy that night and he said 'no not really.' What? Seriously? Then why did it take so long? At least lie to us to make us feel better. As Allison said, this place has become too cool. A meeting place for mongrels.

3/22/07 - Dinner

I swore off Zoccoli's deli (a mediocre delicatessen that's usually overcrowded and has poor service) a year ago, yet I found myself ordering a feta sandwich at dinnertime. I was bored with burritos and decided on this old standby, one of the few decent items on the menu.

It's a francesi roll (stale by this time of day, unfortunately), with cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, red peppers, feta cheese and tapenade sauce. I don't know what tapenade sauce is, but they definitely over-slathered this sandwhich. It was too salty and it made me feel ill. Zoccoli's does that to you. There's a weird vibe at that place and it creeps into your food.

Lucky for me, Lyds and Kallie were around for comic relief.

03/15/07 - Dinner

Rebecca wanted Chinese. It was her turn to decide where we eat. After my last experience with Chinese food (vomiting in the bathroom), I was slightly hesitant, but it all turned out great. We (she) picked a random place on Solano, and I'm happy to report I did not throw up later that night. I got the Kung Pao Beef, with peanuts. Instead of throwing up, we watched Anchorman. Great movie.

03/13/07 - Dinner

"j & r:
my dinner is going to be lots of tortilla pizzas. yours could be too if
you want!
i've got fresh mozzarella, parmesan, tomatoes, sauce, basil, garlic,
etc., and you can decide what you want on your very own.
eating at 7:30.
lemme know if you're in, i might need to get some more tomatoes. and i
could be convinced to get some meat for ryan the veggie lover!" Leigh's email proclaimed. I was invited. I went. I ate. Above, you see my tortizza creation. It was extremely greasy, but the cheese was amazing.

If I don't post a lunch, assume it's pizza.

03/10/07 - Dinner

Before I got this Burrito from Cancun in Berkeley, my stomach started hurting. I have a feeling it was from lunch. Everytime I go to McDonald's I tell myself I won't go there again. This time - this blog as my witness - I think I mean it. Now this is a burrito. Finally. After having to suffer through Baja Fresh's incompetence in making a simple burrito, I can get this (with superior bottled coke - though I'm not sure if it's better than McDonald's). In any case, a fabulous burrito, but I think I ate it too soon after lunch, and my stomach still hurts. bleh.

03/08/07 - Dinner

Went to Olive Garden tonight with Sam and got lasagna and breadsticks.. When I'm there, I'm family. I went to Lunch with my dad, but I was too embarrassed to take a picture of my food with him. He would have slapped the camera out of my hand and promptly walked out.

03/07/07 - Dinner

After a disastrous lunch, it was nice to have something simple. Raviolis with ciabatta bread.

03/06/07 - Dinner

Hot dogs from shopper's corner for dinner!