January: Foodie Adventures Part 1

January was the month to try new restaurants in San Diego because of San Diego Restaurant Week! Lots of yummy food. Some of the places weren't during restaurant week but I thought I'd add them into this post anyways.

Devine Pastabilities

The first place I tried this month was Devine Pastabilities in San Diego. I'm a huge fan of pasta so I was super excited to try this place since they put pasta in a sandwich. I was actually pleasantly surprised! The sandwiches were super good and it's definitely a place I would return to. I think it would be perfect for a night in watching movies. Totally a comfort food for me.

garlic parmesan fries. believe me, my breath smelled delicious afterwards lol

sausage and penne torpasta

tony got some kind of  special one

lasagna torpasta

Brooklyn Girl

After seeing an article in the Westways magazine and it was also named number 5 in Troy Johnson's Best of 2012 list in San Diego Magazine, we decided to give this place a try. We tried to go to this place on either Thursday or Saturday night but they were booked for the night! They have community tables and also a bar area but it's first come first serve and even when we dropped by, there was nothing available. When we found out they were also doing restaurant week, we decided to go back. We invited Tony's cousin and her fiance to come along and made a same day reservation at about 5pm and the only available reservation was at 9:30pm. We grabbed some drinks at the community tables since we had gotten there early and our table wasn't quite ready yet. Their "Back Pocket Mule" was super good! I would definitely go back to try more of their specialty cocktails. And we also got some popcorn to snack on as we waited.

For the first course, we really wanted to try the Oyster Sliders but they were completely out since we had the last reservation of the night :( so we ended up going with the Bacon Wrapped Vietnamese Meatballs. They were actually really good and a lot spicier than I thought they would be.

bacon wrapped vietnamese meatballs

first courses

popcorn and my back pocket mule

restaurant week menu

tony got the fire roasted poblano chili

course #2: seafood stew
very good! good for those that like spicy foods and seafood.
there was A LOT of everything so they aren't skimping out on the good stuff.

course #2 for tony: kung pao short ribs

creme brulee

banana cheesecake

The meal started off great with the food and drinks tasting great however, the dessert really killed it. I don't usually get desserts so if this wasn't a San Diego Restaurant Week thing, I probably would have been more satisfied with the meal. The appetizer and the main course were very tasty and flavorful so I would recommend going elsewhere for dessert. This would be a good place for drinks and appetizers with co-workers or to hang out with friends. Probably would head back to try some more of their specialty cocktails and try their friend oyster sliders!

Happy Valentine's Day!

brunch at brockton villa in la jolla for chinese new year

Happy Valentine's Day to you and yours :) 

Also, since I missed out on a Lunar New Year post on here, Happy Lunar New Year! 

May you all have great health, lots of happiness, and no worries in the money department.

Concert: Muse

January 21st, 2013

Muse at the Valley View Casino Center (San Diego Sports Arena)

the tickets

our seats

(I apologize, when I uploaded the pictures, they got out of order)

What an amazing concert! I've heard they were really good live but this was beyond what I had imagined. I was really blown away by the stage set up and the lighting. The sound was amazing as well. I would definitely     recommend seeing them if you ever have the chance. The only thing that was missing was they didn't play "Big Freeze" which is my favorite song off the new album but other than that, they played the classics like Hysteria, Starlight, Time is Running Out, etc. The pictures and footage seriously don't do it justice but here are some of the videos.







Big thanks to YouTube for stabilizing my videos :D lol. I'm still uploading a few more videos but each video takes almost an hour so I'll continue to post as those go live!

Anti-Aging Agents Mini-Haul

Happy New Year friends! Super tardy to the party on that one lol but life has been super duper busy. January is a crazy month in the pharmacy and it's even crazier at this volume that we do but we are surviving. It's Sunday so the man is watching football (and I'm half watching) so that means I get to do a little blogging.

I had to work on New Year's Day so we didn't end up doing anything too crazy on NYE. We spent it with some close friends at Tony's grandmother's house. Super fun night and we ended up watching the countdown at home. After celebrating the New Year, I spent the next 10 days working. It was absolutely crazy and I was feeling super burnt out. Thankfully I had the next 3 weekends off to catch up on some r&r. 

For the first 3-day weekend I had, I spent most of my Friday at the mall. After a stressful 10-days of work, I was seriously stressing out about wrinkles! I know, I know what you're thinking, but prevention is key. After hearing about all the warnings from my co-workers about showing me before and after pictures of my old manager, I definitely wanted to make sure to purchase all the anti-aging stuff I could. I started the trip off at Sephora. I got to talking to a representative from GLAMGLOW. They have two masks and I ended up getting the SUPERMUD and the representative ended giving me a couple of samples of the YOUTHMUD.

   

[Sephora: SUPERMUD; YOUTHMUD]

Both use a ton of natural ingredients and the thing I liked about the SUPERMUD is that it even contains something for acne. I was breaking out a ton because it was that time of the month and also from the stress so I definitely wanted something to target both acne and aging. So far the I really like the SUPERMUD. It seriously rejuvenates my skin. I keep in in the shower and I've been trying to use it twice a week.


I also ended up getting a daily anti-aging cream/gel(?) at Sephora. I got the Origins, A Perfect World Age-defense skin guardian with White Tea.

I really love the texture of this. It goes on very satin smooth almost like a primer so I feel like it evens out my skin. According to the guy at Sephora, this should go on prior to your regular moisturizer. I've been using the Clinique Dramatically Different Lotion but the weather has been super dry in San Diego so I decided to get a new moisturizer as well. I meant to get the Josie Maran Argan Oil Serum but I ended up getting the Daily Moisturizer Lotion instead because it was much cheaper. The Argan Oil Serum was like $48 and the Daily Moisturizer was $12 for the travel size in the checkout area. For both the Origins and the Josie Maran products, I love the pump feature. Very sanitary.

After getting those items, I was getting a tad thirsty and decided to try Nordstrom Ebar since I've been having Starbucks pretty much every day. I ended up getting the Honey Almond Latte. Soooo good! I think that's my new favorite drink. It's very light and I love the taste of almond drinks. If you like almond milk tea, you'll love this drink.

While I was at Nordstrom, I thought I'd stop by and take a look at their cosmetics and skin care area. I was still looking for an eye cream to get rid of my under eye circles. I ended up getting this new (to me) brand called Rodial. The cream is called GlamTox Eye with SPF 15.

I feel like it instantly brightens up my eye area. One of the most impressive things about this eye cream to me is that it actually contains arnica. Apparently, according to the lady that was helping me, arnica is actually recommended by plastic surgeons to help with bruising. She was telling me how dark under eye circles are due to the fact that the blood vessels under the eyes are tiny and so it's not getting enough circulation. Arnica happens to increase circulation so it really helps with under eye darkness. So far, I've really liked it. I love how it feels on the skin and it also comes in a pump form! I've just been on a pump purchasing spree.


Another pump product I got was the Rodial Dragon's Blood Cleansing Water.

I actually have this right on my bedside table so that when I'm too lazy to remove my eye makeup, I just use a cotton ball and wha-la, all gone. It feels super nice and refreshing but I'm sure you can just put cold water on your face or any other makeup remover on and it would feel just as refreshing. I've been using the Aveeno makeup remover wipes but I feel like it's still sting-y around the eyes even though it says it's "sensitive". This cleansing water actually doesn't sting at all.


So far I've been loving everything I've gotten and I've really felt a change in my skin for the better but I'm not sure if it's just because I'm starting to take care of it or if it's the products I've been using. Hopefully I can give ya'lls an update after a month of using them and we can see how it goes! Hope everyone is having a good weekend. I shall be posting a food blog soon. We went to a couple of places for San Diego Restaurant Week so that's the next post I'll be working on.

Happy MLK Weekend and have a great week!