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Designer Girlfriend's Big Sunday Adventure

At dinner on Friday,we promised Designer Girlfriend a nice relaxing Sunday. She totally deserved it after getting us into the VIP tent at the Sacramento Pinkberry launch. Besides, we like having her around. Nothing beats having someone with you who can point out all of the code violations in every building where you eat.

We started the day with breakfast at The Original Pancake House. You see, Designer Girlfriend has a serious issue. There are serious holes in her culinary history. In this case, she loves breakfast food but until today hadn't been to The Original Pancake House. That's like a steak lover never having been to Peter Luger's, or Tiger Woods forgetting to take a trip to the Mustang Ranch when he's in Vegas. 

During the twenty minute wait for a table at OPH on Sunday morning (whose great idea was it to go right when all the churches let out... especially the megachurch down the street? Oh wait, me!) we headed down to Goodwill so I could scrounge for cameras. The only thing they had was an old Kodak Folding Vest, which doesn't even take film that they make anymore. 

Eventually we made it back to OPH and sat down. Apparently the menu was overwhelming for Designer Girlfriend.

 

In my sleepy state I tried to explain to her that the menu isn't that scary, and besides, she already knew what she wanted. Actual told me to post this picture because she says it properly expresses what it looks like when I spout useless food trivia while we're waiting for food.

 

Since this was Designer's first time at OPH, Actual decided to order them two dishes to share, one savory and one sweet. The winner of the savory dish derby was OPH's eggs florentine. This was sort of an odd choice since Designer likes her scrambled eggs cooked until they are almost powder, so a poached egg was a huge departure for her. She liked the dish anyway.

 

Of course we had to get a Dutch Baby, which is a giant puffed pancake. This Dutch Baby has already been dressed with the Dutch Baby Accessory Kit that consists of lemons, powdered sugar, and butter. Actual and Designer massacred this poor thing. They ripped it part like famished hyenas. I don't blame them. The Dutch Baby is very tasty. Plus, I think the pancake said some rude things to them about shopping at Goodwill. The nerve!

 

Once we were done with breakfast, we headed to Whole Foods to get raw cashews. During breakfast, Designer mentioned that her favorite breakfast dish in the world was from a place called Nut Tree. It was a bowl of sliced bananas and cashews onto which you poured a small pitcher of cream. The dish was called "bananas and cashews" and Designer after all these years had never been able to replicate it. She said every time she tried to make it the cashews were too soft and not sweet enough. I was pretty sure the difference was that the Nut Tree was probably using raw cashews. 

While we were at Whole Foods, Designer decided to end another one of her food mysteries. She apparently has an old piece of cheese that's been in her fridge for as long as she can remember. Every once in a while, she scrapes off a little piece to eat. The pieces keep getting smaller because the cheese is almost gone. The label from Whole Foods has faded so that only the logo is visible. What follows is perhaps the most entertaining 20 minutes I've ever had in Whole Foods:

Desginer Girlfriend: I need a cheese but I don't know what it is.
Cheesemonger: Tell me what you know.
DG: I bought it here. It's hard. Tasty. Little crunchies. Italian. The rind has red stuff.
CM: Hm. It's this one [points to bright orange Dutch gouda] or this one [another gouda].
DG: No, it's.. no, really?
Actual: Can we try these?
CM: One sec, let me carve these up...
[much cheese sampling]
[five minutes later]
DG: OMG this is it!
CM: Told you it was one of those!

Once again proving that 1) cheesemongers love challenges and 2) Designer Girlfriend gets special treatment everywhere!

 

After a stop at the trail mix bar and grabbing a bag of Wehani rice, we headed to Lollicup. Turns out Designer is addicted to boba tea. Actual is addicted to drinks with no boba made by boba tea places. Fair enough. Besides, Lollicup is next to the nail salon!

 
  

Designer fell victim to a sudden and debilitating craving for lumpia. Thankfully we were in a Filipino establishment that had lumpia on the menu. They came out fresh from the fryer. Designer wasn't expecting the mouth sploding heat. 

 

Next stop was the nail salon next door. We all got pedicures. I even got my toenails buffed. Designer and Actual decided to go for the pimpin' toe designs. 

 

After all that we came back to Chomple HQ to sit around and harass my cat. After a few hours of cat harassment, we decided it was time for dinner. Hey... we have a fridge of leftovers! SCORE!

The appetizer course consisted of Chinese rice noodle rolls in XO sauce and a bowl of Actual's custom blend Whole Foods trail mix.

 

And then the main course: more of Daddy Actual's BBQ from Easter. Sooooo gooood. More for me, none for you. Better reheated than everyone else's stuff fresh off the grill.

 

Here's Designer's plate. See? We shared our BBQ! Granted, it was only with one person, but whatever! See you next time!

 
     

Our Octagonal Easter

Girlfriend Actual's dad lives in an octagon. No joke. Daddy Actual decided he was done with us suburban folk and moved up into the foothills and into a giant octagonal house. Luckily for us, he took all of his meat preparation equipment with him. On most holidays we make the drive into the foothills for delicious foodage. We have a Prius, so the deliciousness per gallon rating of the meals stays pretty high, although we would obviously still make the drive if we drove a Camaro.

 

It was, of course, Easter. The official holiday of garish colors. We began the celebrations by putting hot pick Soft Paws on Ebby.

 

Daddy Actual's new cats got a text from Ebby warning them that we were headed up armed with hot pink cat accessories. They regarded us with extreme caution and kept their distance.

 

Like all holiday meals at the Octagon, Mortgage Mom made her famous deviled eggs. Girlfriend Actual enjoys these a lot as they cause me to act very erratically. I love deviled eggs. I love them so much that I ate two deviled eggs EVERY DAY for THREE MONTHS in seventh grade (they sold them in the cafeteria). Pretty sure my cholesterol was pretty epic that year. Mortgage Mom's deviled eggs are the best I have ever had. I'm pretty sure she's given me the recipe about 50 times but I'm usually too busy inhaling the eggs to hear what she's saying. Of course, I have to be polite, so I just eat an egg then rock back and forth for a while trying to fight the craving.

 

And then the (not very long, but very painful) wait for the tri-tip in the indirect smoker. You can smell the stuff cooking coming up the driveway. But you can't have it yet. So you just stand there and... inhale.

 

If that wasn't torture enough, Daddy Actual decided to put some baby back ribs in the smoker too. You know, just for good measure.

Side note: I posted some pictures of a previous family holiday with a picture of Daddy Actual labeled as "Dad". One of you readers was stupid enough to ask me whether that was my father or Girlfriend Actual's. Quick genetics lesson for everyone: tall white people have tall white kids. Short Asian people have short Asian kids. 

 
       

Daddy Actual took pity on me standing there doing my best PLAINTIVE YOD IS PLAINTIVE look. He actually had a surprise course. Tequila-lime marinated jumbo shrimp. These were as succulent as they look in the picture. We each had a skewer of shrimp the size of Ebby's head.

 

We broke out one of our favorite wines: Noceto OGP (the '06, not the impossible to find '05).

 
  

Time for the meal itself! Situated to the left of me I found Meat Extravaganza Platter #1. On the left is Daddy Actual's famous Santa Maria style tri-tip. Month long family feuds have been started over who gets the leftovers of this stuff. It's so juicy, so flavorful, so mouth bombingly good that family members have thrown entire gatherings just to convince Daddy Actual to make some of it. ANY sliced beef dish you have after this point is just crud. This is one of those genre-defining, it's all downhill from here sorts of dishes.

On the right are the aforementioned smoked baby back ribs. Watch out, Chili's and Applebee's. One of these days, Daddy Actual is going to take to the road on his Harley with his saddlebags full of these ribs. He's going to hand them out to America all Johnny Appleseed style and America is going to figure out that they've been ripped off all this time eating chain restaurant ribs. I'll have to coin him a memorable name. Maybe something like The Rib Whisperer.

 

And then there was Meat Extravaganza Platter #2. In the background is a spiced and cedar planked salmon fillet. Mortgage Mom doesn't eat land animals that don't cluck or gobble. We all tried the salmon and it was phenomenal. The flav... oh, hey. Actual... hey, those are my ribs. There are plenty for everyone. HEY. HANDS OFF. HE'S YOUR PARENT SO YOU CAN COME BACK ANYTIME, I CAN'T CLAIM A BLOOD RELATION IN ORDER TO GET MORE RIBS. I WANT MY RIBS NOW. 

Oh, hm, where was I? Lamb! Yes. A wonderful marinated frenched rack of lamb. Daddy Actual claimed that the rack of lamb had some of mishap and had spontaneously combusted. That had to be something he imagined. It had a perfect char on the outside and the inside was a juicy, silky, medium-rare. Little known fact: the pastured lamb he cooked for us at Thanksgiving was the first time he ever ate "the other cute meat". Sorry little lambs. He knows about you guys now. Run!

 
 

Here's my assembled plate. I would love to say that I took my time eating this, but that would be a complete lie.

 

Dessert came about an hour later. After all of this spectacular food, Girlfriend Actual wasn't about to use canned whipped cream on her dessert. She whipped it fresh with a hint of Mexican vanilla and sugar.

 

Final dessert product. The whipped cream went on fresh strawberries. In the background there is a carrot cake muffin from Trader Joe's. You can't have Easter without carrot cake!

 

We wrapped it all up with port and dark chocolate. A dessert even a Yod could love.

 

Best Easter meal EVER. I didn't even notice not having ham. That's saying something, because I miss not having ham at just about any meal I eat that doesn't have ham. 

Finally, I leave you with this picture of Girlfriend Actual and Mortgage Mom using napkin rings to demonstrate what style of sunglasses Daddy Actual and I should buy them for Christmas.