Bananas for Beating the Bruins

Friday was a big day for all of my besties on the Women's Varsity Tennis Team.  The women of troy defeated cross town rival, UCLA on their home courts to finish up their PAC12 tournament.  The killed them 6-1 and ended the tournament with a 10-0 record.  That's right, they're beastly.  Of course I went to the match to show my support.  I even brought my sign that I made for them!  I love cheering for Sabrina (my freshman roommate) and GuGu!  They are both amazing players to watch.  They've inspired me to want to play on the club tennis team next year.

My signs! 

As mentioned before, Gugu loves sweets.  She is also a big fan of pancakes.  Her favorite restaurant is Jacks N Joe, the "Breakfast All Day Kind of Place" right on Figueroa by campus.  When the owners and staff know you at the restaurant, you know you're a regular.  GuGu is usually joined by Michael Tang, a member of the boys tennis team, for their love of the most important meal of the day.

To celebrate her victory, I met both of them at Jacks N Joe early friday morning.  If you visit this restaurant Saturday or Sunday you can have a wait up to an hour and forty five minutes.  It's very popular with SC students.  It is also one of the top restaurant that comes up when you searching for breakfast on Yelp in DTLA.

Even though we showed up around 8:45 on a Friday, we still had a 30 min wait.  When we were finally seated at the counter, I noticed that a lot of the tables were actually empty.  The food is always delivered quite quickly, they must just have a really slow turnaround for the seating.  People like to talk a lot over their breakfast, and I think they are a little understaffed in waiters/busboys.

The second the waiter came over to ask for our drink orders, we already knew what we wanted.  Michael ordered the  Combo #1.  He is usually Gluten Free, but thought it would be ok to celebrate with some pancakes, just for GuGu's sake.  GuGu ordered The Pudgie Elvis.  A lot of the pancakes are named after the owner's dogs, but this one is dedicated to the King and his love for peanut butter.  She also asked for some chocolate chips to be sprinkled in the batter.  Who doesn't love the chocolate peanut butter combo?  I've had it before and I must say, it's pretty delicious.  Very rich and heavy, but if you're in the mood for peanut butter, it is definitely the way to go.

Jack's Banana Pancakes
3 pancakes with banana puree topped w/ fresh bananas, walnuts & powdered sugar.

I ordered Jack's Banana Pancakes, without the walnuts.  I've never tried this dish before, but was intrigued by the banana puree inside the cakes.  I must say that I really enjoyed them.  The puree adds some sweetness to the dish, making it not require much syrup.  I usually get the Chloe's Blues dish, with blueberry puree and sweet lemon butter, but I wanted to mix it up.

Besides the Pudgie Elvis, some of the favorite dishes on the menu are the "Fight On!" pancakes (containing bacon in the mix) and the 7 minutes in Heaven French Toast, sweet hawaiian bread covered in Nutella and fresh fruit.  I know a lot of the boys also like to order the Loaded Hash Browns (actually not on the menu).  Which is some potato mix with bacon, sausage, egg, and cheese (I believe?).

Michael, GuGu and I at the counter!

It's really nice having a good breakfast place close to campus.  Because we are mainly surrounded by fast food chain restaurants, Jacks N Joe is a fun and family owned nice establishment.  The service is always very friendly, especially because we are regulars.  I'd really like to try some breakfast/brunch places downtown, in Beverly Hills, and Hollywood, but Jacks N Joe is great for meeting up with school friends!

Insomnia Insanity

You might think I'm insane.  I start by explaining the circumstances, so I don't seem completely out of it.  Yesterday I had a really big lunch around 3:00pm, it wasn't that good, but I was starving.  Around 9, when I was getting ready for bed, (yes it was early, but I was tired), I just ate a small salad and then some peppermint pretzel slims from Trader Joes (They are amazing by the way!).

After starting to watch a movie, I fell asleep around 10.  Then, around 2:00 am, I woke up dying with thirst.  I went downstairs, got some water and went to the bathroom as well.  Then when I tried to go back to bed, nothing was working, I just kept tossing and turning with one thing on my mind.  I was hungry.  I knew if I went back to sleep and woke up at a normal hour I would be fine, but I couldn't stop thinking about breakfast! I had eaten a lot of salty food in the past two days (korean BBQ and a fried chicken sandwich, and I was just craving something sweet).   I went on Facebook and even watched another 30 min of my movie, but nothing seemed to work.  Around 4:00am, when it started getting ridiculous, and I realized I was completely awake, I got up and dressed. Got in the car and headed downtown to The Original Pantry Cafe.  This restaurant is open 24/7.  If you pass it during the normal hours of the morning there is usually a line out the door and around the block.  I walked straight into the diner and sat at the bar.

I took this opportunity to get a good real meal, because I usually don't get the chance to eat decadent breakfasts (crazy diving schedule).  I ordered the 3 pancakes, and an orange juice (needed the vitamin C because I've been feeling a cold coming on.  The restaurant had a good 15-20 people in it, but my pancakes still arrived with 5 or so minutes.  They were light and fluffy but still very filling.  I asked if they had any chocolate chips or bananas to put on top, but it was an unfortunate no.  I smothered them in butter and about 1/3 of the syrup dispenser.  When they first arrived I asked my stomach if it was actually hungry at 4:15 in the morning.  I actually kind of hesitated, but once I took the first bite I was able to finish the rest within about 20 min.  I had a really relaxing breakfast, surrounded but he other interesting 4am crowd, but never less enjoyed it.  I drove back to my apartment (must have been tired because I started driving on the wrong direction on Fig, a one way street), then did some laundry and wrote this blog.  Maybe I'll try and start studying for finals, or watch the rest of my movie? Either way, my stomach is satisfied with the breakfast that I was craving.

Bagel Lover

After waking up, my dad follows a very specific ritual each morning.  He goes downstairs and sits in front of our Apple computer on the kitchen table to watch his stocks go up and down.  This coincides with his two cups of coffee and bagel with cream cheese.  Although sometimes he may have some scrambled eggs, or on a special occasion, huevos rancheros, you can almost always count on a bagel popping out of the toaster.  This is then followed by him yelling "Gail, where is the cream cheese?", when it is on the first shelf in the fridge.  Now my family is very picky when it comes to bagels, bread bagels from the grocery store or Starbucks won't cut it.  Instead, we stock our freezer every week with fresh bagels from the Eltana bagel shop on Capitol Hill. They start by boiling the dough in honeyed water.  And then wood-fire them to perfection.  This gives them that sweet yet smokey taste. Their chewy and crunchy outer shell goes perfectly with simple philadelphia cream cheese any day of the week (and sometimes locks, when we have them).

The only bagels I have found to remotely enjoy since moving to cali are those from Western Bagels.  I've been to to the one in North Hollywood, and the location by my aunts house in Calabassas.  Western Bagels offers the original, but best, bagel flavors along with a few specials (I noticed they currently have pumpkin bagels and spread).  I've tried their cream cheese and lox, pretty good.  And their wild berry cream cheese, good when you're in the mood for something sweet.  Must say my favorite is still the everything bagel toasted with cream cheese.

Everything bagel toasted with plain cream
cheese and a Naked Orange Juice.

This weekend my mom and I stayed the night at my aunts house in Calabassas.  We had to wake up early to drive back to school for my dive meet on Saturday morning.  We stopped at the Western Bagels right by the freeway entrance and got our breakfast for the drive back down south.  Just hit the spot.  I was feeling like something salty rather than sweet, especially because I had my meet in the next hour.  Didn't want to load up on sugar.  I decided to get my favorite.  Although it was ready quite quickly, I would have liked the bagel to be toasted a little more. It was still basically room tenperature. They do glob on the cream cheese like you haven't had it in months. When I was younger I used to put half a container on one bagel, but I've leaned to use it more sparingly as I entered high school.   I definitely think this is ok every once in a while, but with a good bagel, you even need that much. Here's my pre-competition breakfast:

Whole Foods sells Western Bagels.  I will definitely have to start buying packs there because the bread bagels they give to the athletes for free aren't up to par.