Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Dirty Thirty Birthday day 4

Woke up Tuesday morning and my friend Son and I headed out for some coffee and food. Nothing like a nice bowl of egg noodle won ton soup. 
After lunch we headed back to Son's home and just relaxed. We were about to head out for an early dinner before my flight home when I received a text from Southwest informing me that my flight was cancelled. So I called them and the next flight was already sold out. The ended up putting me on the last flight home at 9pm. So we postponed the dinner for another 2 hrs.

We ended up heading to Maki Zushi in Tustin. Which is one of the best sushi places I have ever been to.

It's not the fancy that are covered in mayo that I'm impressed about, but it's the quality of the fish and shellfish. Also the Sushi chef would tell us if we should dip it in soy sauce or not.

Red Snapper Sashimi.

Tuna and Salmon Belly. The Salmon was so buttery.

I think this was yellow tail toro.

One of those big fancy rolls.

The sushi was so good that we had to have some alcohol with it. Kirin and sake.



Bluefin Toro

I forget what fish this was.

Scallops. Served with some sea salt and lemon. No dipping needed.

This was a different type of Mackerel than what's usually served. It was good and didn't have the usual fishy taste associated to Mackerel.

A lot of the fish and shellfish are at market price and the chef will let you know where they got the fish in for the day. They gave me a free desert for my birthday and some of the sushi was comped by the chef also.


That's it. The birthday is over and I can't wait for my next trip. Next is Knott's Scary Farm. Check back then for some pics from our traditional Halloween trip to SoCal in October. You can also subscribe! Have a question? Just leave a comment and I'll reply.

Friday, August 24, 2012

Dirty Thirty Birthday Day 3

Woke up around 10am on Monday morning. We checked out of our room and headed out to meet Brandon for lunch.

We stopped off at this small Italian/pizza joint. The food looked amazing, but my stomach was really pissed off and I couldn't even look at food without making me feel sick.

I ate like 3 garlic tots and called it quits.

Lasagna


Sloppy Joe sliders


Finished around 12:30pm. It was time for Son and I to head back to Irvine. The rest of the group stayed in San Diego for a few hours before hopping on their flight home. I extended my trip for one more day with my buddy Son.



I didn't have an appetite for anything until around 5pm. I have been hearing a lot about Chick-Fil-A since the bay area was about to get one real soon. I thought I would try it.

It's a chicken sandwich. It was okay. I still think the spicy chicken sandwich from Jack in the box is way better. Even the waffle fries are plain compared to Carl's Jr. Chick-Fil-A in my opinion is pretty overrated, but I guess since we don't have one in our area yet people want it more.

My friend Kim drove down from LA and met us for dinner. She always attempts to visit me when I'm in the area. We ended up having dinner at Brodard which is known for their "nem nuong" which is like a spring roll but with BBQ pork meatball.

I also got the BBQ pork and Egg roll vermicelli.

After dinner we headed out to a sports bar. I had no intention on drinking, but since Kim drove an hour out to visit I had a drink with her and the bartender bought me a birthday shot. Totally forgot to snap pics. It was a mellow day and I was still recovering. Son originally planned on taking me to a Vietnamese bar to continue our drink. Good thing we didn't. We called it a night by 10:30pm.

Oh didn't I mention that Parker and Son got into a wrestling match the night before and when we got back to Son's place he noticed that his ankle was severely swollen. No wonder he was limping. LOL

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Dirty Thirty Birthday Day 2

We woke up around 10:30am. Gathered up the troops and headed out to the pool party. Don Lynch had set up a cabana for us at Intervention pool party at the Hard Rock. We had a $2k spending limit to hit between 8 people. So we decided that we would just eat at the cabana to help ring up the tab.

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When we arrived it was quite empty. They told us that it doesn't usually get packed until around 3pm. We had plenty of time to drink.



There are only 4 cabanas and they are quite nice. They're somewhat similar to the cabanas in Vegas, but not as extravagant. I'm pretty sure Vegas has a lot more money to play with, but the cabanas do have access to both sides of the pool area. One side is the pool and the back porch can see the stage and lawn. It's nice because the back porch is separated by glass so you can watch the DJ and not have to worry about anyone coming into your area. It's like having a table right in the middle of the party.



Each Cabana also included it's own day bed, but we rarely used it. Of the 4 cabanas we probably had the best one. It had a great view of the stage and on the other side we had a tree that provided a bit of shade on our day bed and also provided a bit of seating area to anyone that want to hand out there.


We originally started off with some Ultimat 750ml which was around $350 a bottle, but when we realized we could get a 1 liter bottle of Belvedere for $25 dollars more. We went with that. Who would want to supersize their bottle 25% more for just $25 bucks?



We ordered two plates of sliders, two plates of fish tacos, and two plates of chicken tenders. That was more than enough to kill our appetites.

We also got a pitcher of Raspberry Mojito to ease the pain of last night and to slowly get us back into the rhythm of drinking.


The Foods here!!!








There are also 4 hotel rooms that have access to the pool. You can see the cabana set up on their porch. I heard that usually the promoters book out those rooms on Intervention days, but that must be nice to just open your backyard door and have instant access to a party! I don't remember seeing anyone doing bottle service over there though. Actually there wasn't that many people doing bottler service in general. Of the 4 cabanas one other person got one next to us later in the day, but it wasn't until like 3 or 4pm. I think I might have seen about 2 to 3 tables and that's about it. I guess I'm just used to Vegas pool parties being mad packed and bottles everywhere.


Our shaded day bed.

That's our server. I totally forgot her name. She was really nice and super attentive.




Once again once the shots came it. It got real..

Starting to get busy.


You can see all those tables that were sectioned off, but nobody had table service.

That's our runner Whitney. He was awesome and a funny guy too. Service was great.


Eventually Don Lynch's manager showed up and he brought along some friends.



Son looks to be in auto pilot.





Don Lynch was out by 4 pm. Eventually he called it quits and snuck off to the room.



Pierce and Phat. Party buddies for life!


I believe this was one of DL's manager's friend. I was like dude you're freakin tall. Take a picture with me bro!



This was the Cocktail server that was serving the cabana next door.









Some of our other friends that were in town showed up. Someone was passing these glasses out. So we grabbed a bunch.










PKO at his finest!


Cali and her friend. I horrible with names. Have you noticed?
















At one point in the day our server told us we had barely rung in $1k. I was like damn this is going to be impossible to meet the $2k minimum. When all said and done. $3.3k was spent. WTF happened? LOL

Pool party eventually ended. 6:30pm I think . So we headed back to our room. DL was sleeping. Not when were around!

I think we ended up leaving to get some food and then came back and slept. I still haven't confirmed if we actually left the hotel or not. I'm just guessing cause I remember have some left over thai food. Just not sure if that was from Saturday or Sunday.

We all fell asleep and were rudely awoke by a pillow beating to the face. Peter was in rage mode and wanted to get everyone up to go drinking. It ended up being just 4 of use. DL, Brian, Peter, and me. Believe me it took a lot of convincing to get up again to go out.

We walked down stairs to 207. Which is a club/lounge at the Hard Rock. DL knew the DJ and so DL stepped for a few minutes while the DJ was getting us a round of drinks.

Eventually we got our second wind and started drinking. Hung outside on the patio for a bit of time.



and then flash forward the night is over and the club closes. It was pretty dead. It was a Sunday though.


We were hungry so we went out for food. I remember getting pizza, but I don't remember taking a picture with the cashier.




There was this drunk girl that was crushing on Brian. She told Brian that she was a DJ. DJ Suzie Q and that she was trained by Kaskade. I think she bad mouthed Deadmau5 too. She's totally legit LOL.



Well that's the last picture of the night. Our drunk shenanigans is over. Tomorrow I head to Irvine for one more night of vacation.