i heart LA

We went to LA for the weekend for the purpose of attending the 2009 Spring Oaxacan Family Festival, which would've been really fun if it weren't cancelled for some unknown reason.

So. . . it's us and a bunch of parking lots. What to do instead?

1. Seek out Oaxaca anyway. We went to a popular Oaxacan restaurant in Koreatown called Guelaguetza (named after an annual celebration known for dancing in costumes). We can attest to its authenticity—there they serve gigantic tlayudas slathered with asiento (essentially liquid pork rinds, very healthy) and dishes covered with a variety of moles. The front of the restaurant has a little shop where you can buy mole paste, chocolate, meats, and cheese. We picked up some of the mole negro paste to cook up at home—very excited about that.
   
   
2. Seek out the motherland. I haven't had Filipino food as often as I'd like since moving away from home, and it's not everyday that I'm surrounded by opportunities for someone else to make it for me. So we dropped by Glendale and had dinner at Max's of Manila (which is actually famous for its fried chicken—eaten with banana ketchup, naturally). I ordered one of my favorite dishes, pinakbet, which usually consists of meat and mixed veggies like eggplant, string beans, squash, okra, and the hard-to-love ampalaya, or bitter melon. I think Max's version of pinakbet is really similar to the kind my mom makes, which is pretty awesome.
   
   We also had a dessert called buko pandan—it's a coconut salad flavored with pandan leaves, which are commonly used in Southeast Asian cooking. This one had a scoop of creamy coconut ice cream on the top. You know that a coconut dessert is good when even TJ eats it and likes it.
   
   Then we went to a Goldilocks bakery to stock up on Filipino bread rolls called pandesal, sweet rolls filled with ube (purple yam) and coconut, and boat tarts.
   
   
3. Do several of the 10-minute yoga/aerobics/ab-strengthening workouts provided for free on the hotel TV.
   
   
4. Attend church in Spanish. I like finding different ways to improve my listening comprehension, so this has become one of my favorite activities.
   
   
5. Stroll the farmer's market at 3rd and Fairfax. Picked up some fresh-churned peanut butter here.
   
   
6. Stop by an Apple Store and drool over the MacPro and cinema display of your dreams. Unfortunately, those items are slightly out of our price range, but we did finally get our AirPort Express so we could wirelessly stream songs from our MacBook to a set of external speakers that previously have been sitting around collecting dust in the closet. Seriously, listening to music just got 100x better. This has also made connecting the laptop to the printer via USB cable everytime we need to print a document a thing of the past. Hooray for wireless!
   

More obligatory food pics:

From Little Tokyo with love

There is an old Chinese proverb that says, "Have a mouth as sharp as a dagger, but a heart as soft as tofu.” I don't really know what that means. But what I do know is that tofu is perhaps one of the greatest foods ever made. And that I would sit through LA traffic for only about three things, and one of those things is the LA Tofu Festival.

This was our first year at the Tofu Fest (and sadly, possibly our last, if what LAist says is true) and it did not disappoint. First of all, it had to be the most well-organized city gathering I've attended. They provided free parking and Subaru shuttles to take us from the parking lot to the festival area. Everyone was really friendly. Everything was reasonably priced (although I'd be willing to pay more if it meant bringing the festival back for another year). And as a double bonus, all the proceeds went to charity.

But back to the food. I will attempt to list the top five things I consumed (in no particular order).

• Tofu Okonomiyaki. Some call it a Japanese pancake. Others call it a Japanese pizza. I call it a fiesta in my boca.

• Tofu Tostada. So tasty, yet so simple to make. They were giving away the recipe with one purchase of a tostada, which made me happy.

• Fried Tofu with Peanut Sauce. I know what some of you are thinking. Tofu + Peanut Butter Flavor Drizzled on Top = ??? Let me solve that for you: Mmm.

• Young Coconut. Ok, technically not tofu—at all—but a nice refreshing beverage that I got to drink out of an actual coconut. With a straw, even.
  

• Tofu Teriyaki. Really flavorful. Goes well with Rooster chili garlic sauce.

We missed out on the Tofu Cheesecake, but fortunately I got hold of a recipe that I intend to try out sometime soon.

Also picked up a couple of t-shirts, a Soy What?! poster, the official festival cookbook, and a hardy plant that requires no water and thrives solely on solar power.

Overall, it was time and money well-spent.