There’s a great Russian Cafe & Deli in Campbell. The deli section has a meat counter with some awesome meats.

And some meats with pictures of kids on the packaging.

Am I the only one to find this kinda creepy?

No, a “Micro Rice Cooker” is not a rice cooker for really small rice. Rather, it’s a single serving rice cooker for the microwave and it’s awesome.

I love rice. All sorts, really… but sometimes you need some good old fashioned sticky rice. However, I didn’t want to get and use a full-sized rice cooker for single servings of rice. Clean up after dinner is already chore enough.

Enter the “Micro Rice Cooker” from straight from Japan. (Straight, by way of Compact Impact in New York that is… but that’s nit picking.) Basically, it’s just a specially designed bowl perfect for microwaving rice. Add rice to the first fill line, water to the second. Let sit for 10-15, and then microwave for 15.

I got mine a few days ago and tried it out last night. It works great. Simple to use, easy to clean…and it produces good, fluffy, sticky rice. Couldn’t ask for much more. Well, instructions in English woulda been nice, but I was able to get them from the site where I bought the cooker.

Blue Moon - Montery, originally uploaded by r3v||cls.

Saturday, we drove down to Monterey to take Liam to the Aquarium. When he passed out, we feasted at the Blue Moon. I yelped it here. It’s my favorite restaurant in Monterey. That’s a prestigious award, because it’s up against “that bacon place” (a great little diner-ish breakfast spot that probably is known by another name in the Yellow Pages).

Pictured here is some sort of crab, mango, and other stuff sculpture they served Annette. Eating here is like being served art on a plate.

Edit/PS: Also yelped the Beach Hotel we stayed at during the Monterey Wine N Whales Extravaganza.

Edit/PS2: Hey, lookit that. I blogged the true name of the bacon place… Laguna’s Cafe. Even diary type blog entries are actually useful for something occasionally. Neat. Too bad it looks like that cafe might be gone…

I yelped about Los Gatos Meats & Smoke House. Check out the review here.

Oh, and make an account and review something you lazy bastards.

(ref: Prior post about teh meat.)

ugh.

stuffed.

good kind.

Korean Palace. I highly recommend ‘em if you’re in the mood for Korean BBQ. Also, I highly recommend OB beer to go with the meal. Very refreshing.

Thursday, TheGirl™ and I drove down to Monterey. We stopped for lunch at Sapporo’s Sushi and Steakhouse on Fisherman’s Wharf. We had sashimi, sushi, teriyaki and, of course, (Sapporo) beer. Then we drove down to Cannery Row and hit the The Official Regional Wine Visitors’ Center. Lots of fun tasting wine there, since they represent the Monterey region winemakers and have lots of different wines to taste. (Of course we left with several bottles.) Next stop was the Blue Moon, as Annette was wanting some oysters. Six oysters and two pints later, we were headed to check into our hotel.

We stayed at The Beach Resort where we had a room with an ocean view. (Allow me to rephrase: …where we had a room with a fucking kick ass ocean view.) The sound of the ocean was a constant background noise and I already kind of miss it. It was perfect to fall asleep to. The room itself was, in a word, ugly. Comicly ugly, even. Everything was clean and functioning, but well… we took a picture because words don’t describe it…. (link forthcoming)

That evening, we had dinner at the hotel. (Um, for the record, while I recommend the view, I do not recommend the retaraunt.) Afterwards, we hit the lounge/bar for some cocktails. We made friends with the bartender and she poured some really strong Long Island Iced Teas. She was very good to us. (So, to recap on the hotel… view: AWESOME, room: funny, restaraunt: bad, bartender: KICKASS. )

Amazingly enough, on Friday, we were able to rouse ourselves in time for breakfast. We ate at a little place called Laguna’s Cafe. Great food, nice staff, and an excellent, cozy atmosphere. After food, we headed back out to Fisherman’s Wharf for a whale watching trip with Monterey Bay Whale Watch. We had a blast on this little ocean voyage. We saw a school (… herd? …pride? …murder?) of Risso’s Dolphins hunting for food and two or three humpback whales. (Not to mention the sea lions, otters and dive-bombing pelicans.) Despite the cold and sun (resulting in a very sunburned me…forgot the sunblock, doh), it was an absolute blast. I highly recommend whale watching and I thoroughly enjoyed our guide, Captain Leon.

Afterwards, we shopped on the wharf and then went back to Cannery Row to visit the wine center again. (Mostly because a bottle rolled out of our hotel room fridge and broke. Luckily it was the cheapest bottle we bought. heh) Then we went back to the Blue Moon and had a real dinner. I had the sesame-encrusted Ahi and she had the (World Famous) Crab Risoto. I can’t recommend this place enough. The food and the view were both phenomenal.

Saturday morning, another breakfast at Laguna’s and we headed home. All and all, it was an excellent couple of days. I can’t even imagine spending it with anyone else. The last year with her has been excellent and Monterey was a great way to spend it.

Happy 1 year to us. :)

…I didn’t even have to use my AK.

Ok, actually it was yesterday that was the good day, but I wanted to quote Ice Cube. Anyhow, the girl came over and helped me take some stuff down to Los Gatos (after we had a pint at The Rose & Crown in Palo Alto*). Later, we had dinner at Nola’s which is a cool little New Orleans-ean restaraunt in Palo Alto. (Why, yes, of course it has a website.) Great food and a fun atmosphere. I recommend their Blackened Chicken Penne Pasta. Annette said the oysters were only ok. (She wasn’t able to get me to try them. :P )

It was fun having a somewhat normal day for a change, since our schedules are so wh4ck3d.

*=I finally had Boddington’s, which a friend of mine just loves. It was ok. I wasn’t overly impressed. (Sorry, Ron.)

MmMMmm. Margaritas at Left at Albuquerque (Coolest name for a restaurant EVER!). Yum. Oh, the steak tostada was good too.