TBA
Crankyflier Dorkfest
Hanging out with airplane nerds at Crankyflier Dorkfest, this year held at the little park right next to In-N-Out at LAX. Nick made it out as well-- I think Dr. Bauch realized he had found his people during the event. Official highlights include LAWA (Los Angeles World Airports)' CEO in attendance and the LAX airport controllers giving us a shoutout and flash of the tower lights, Spirit and Alaska representatives in obvious attendance, and some cool prizes from United and American to top it off.
Part two of the day was a food crawl with Geography dorks. Dr. Bauch, of course, is the most official Geography dork in the group, and Dr. Lori Wong also joined (sadly her better half, Dr. Miller, wasn't available!). Started off with the delicious roast pork and not-quite-as-good BBQ pork at Hao Vi, eaten outside in the parking lot because they are strictly a to-go operation. Classy I know.
Garlic noodles with prawns at Vox Kitchen are always a hit, the pear salad was an unexpected surprise-- loaded with soft cheese, pears, and nuts. Brodard is in the same plaza, their spring rolls are always a hit; their mango sticky rice is good but skippable. The Roasting Water location we chose was in an oddly dated and very quiet strip mall. Not quite as fun as some of the other Roasting Water locations, but the drinks/smoothies/boba are still good. Plastic bottles instead of fancy glass ones were the only significant disappointment.
Shifted from Westminster/Garden Grove to Cerritos to finish off the food crawl. Lunasia does a very nice Chinese dinner, we stuck to the bean curd/crab sauce/gai lan, which was very pretty, plus the sauteed eggplant with garlic. Both fairly mild dishes, subtle in flavor for the former, a bit stronger for the latter. Added on some har gow just to try (tasty as always, Lunasia is quite consistent about this!) and ginger tripe, which was served as a massive dinner portion-- yum! Final stop of the day was Bakers and Baristas. Had to get what little they had left as it was close to closing. Apple chiffon cake was okay, light enough with layers of apple crumble (I think?), it was the chocolate-tea-Oreo that was the better option. Wasn't sure how it would work out, but the density of the Oreo was a unique touch alongside the hints of tea.