Skip to main content

A sizzling Thanksgiving

A sizzle is personal - what I might find sizzling may not be another man’s steak but so is Thanksgiving!

For some it’s about thanking friends and family to some it’s their health and some the excitement of waking in the wee hours to get themselves that deal on the latest flat screen to ‘replace’ the living room drywall.  Ya. The screens are now so big even Home Depot is selling more screens than drywall sheets.  Why mount it when your entire wall is a screen?

 For us it’s a bit of this and that but most importantly it is a big Thank you to America where we -

1.  Celebrate this holiday and enjoy time as a family which inevitably means a chance to
2.  Travel the great big country in search of adventure and history and FOOD - the holy trifecta

At times big traffic aka carmageddon-ish scenes combined with atrocious parking fees or lack of space to park our chariot scenario notwithstanding we love to hit the open highways as a threesome and check out that One More Thing.

So it was back to Los Angeles - departure 7 am sharp from the east bay for 400 mile migration south. Just for three nights before heading back home - enough time to get some history and culture soak to last us till the next holiday.  For starters to further explain the Sizzzle this weekend - the high for Thanksgiving in LA at the beach was a cool 96 degrees.  Good news is that the skies were an azure blue and if you go early the sand is cool even though the weather is hot.  Good day to take pictures.

3.  So we drove straight down (with a brief stop to empty our tank and fill the car’s) to a 50 year old Cuban establishment called Porto’s in Burbank for the afternoon meal  for which we are thankful.  What amazing pastries and a spicy burger along with some sweet plantain and pulled pork - perfect nourishment for navigating through traffic for five hours.

Cream Canoli

4.  We are thankful for internal combustion and Honda’s reliable air conditioned transportation solution in which the five hours flew quick before hitting Porto’s

5. We are thankful for great accommodation also air cooled to beat the 90s in late innings of 2017, and for Marriott to provide us with the Warm Bubbles (outdoor jacuzzi)


6.  Thankful to Indra Nooyi to provide us the Cold Bubbles



7.  The trip also was eventful where we visited four ethnic neighborhoods and we are thankful for their coexistence in a 10 mile radius allowing us a chance to gorge on it within 3 short days

Starting with a trip into KT or Korea Town to feast on meat - sounds to the ear like Super Cheap but it is spelled Soot Bull Jeep - go figure - the words translate to a Smoke house in Korean  - this place did not disappoint - the smell of charcoal fired meat right at table side was a treat.

Korean - Soot Bull Jeep

Ban Chan

Thai take on Crispy Corn and Basil @ Coconut Rabbit in Cypress

Rasraj Mithai - little India (Artesia)
Olvera Street for a little Mexican flair followed by a walk in China Town to eat Dim Sum pretty much sums up the feast-a-vaganza this Thanksgiving!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the go(zay masta) in Japan again

Cool cat the Japanese are Tokyo at dusk  My second visit to this land of the rising sun after almost a decade. Back then clearly I was wet behind the ears product manager and likely didn’t pay attention to all (efficient) things Japanese. But today I did and of course continue to be impressed. It is as much the obvious stuff like on time travel that is both clean and comfortable and all that which makes it possible. The impressive landmark and landscapes that these humans have put together despite their cramped (or because of it) surroundings and precarious geological conditions could amaze a novice architect among us. But it’s also the little things that someone had to think about which have a phenomenal impact on day to day lives that make the Japanese stand apart. Below are few random examples- 1. Providing a very fine machined wooden toothpick in every packet of wooden chopsticks. The said chapsticks are simply set on the To Go counter of any food vendor/ convenience store wher...
Post a Comment
Read more

A few good books

 On an informal mission to read one book a week as long as the eyes allow for such ambition. Fiction or non is not important as long as it entertains and /or educates. To that end the past few weeks have brought a bounty in the form of some wonderful and then not so engaging literature. Among the notables are - Non fiction category: 1. Good arguments by Bo Seo (how to handle a dispute or debate the most efficient way possible) 2. Genesis by Eric Schmidt (and former US Secy of State Henry Kissinger, who recently passed) - how AI might affect our lives as we know it 3. One in a billion - Zarna Garg (an autobiographical look at an Indian born American woman with a bindi narrated in a standup format - yes it is at times cliched but still funny) Fiction: 1. Personal by Lee Child (a vigilante story with Jack Reacher the giant, nomad protagonist of Child's novels goes hunting for a sniper) 2. Ramayana unraveled by Ami Ganatra (she might disagree about it being a work of fiction but oh wel...
Post a Comment
Read more

Back in DC

This time for a tech conference in the realm of what else? AI. But applied to an oft neglected space called Knowledge Management. The latter is a community of practice that focuses on analyzing, organizing and making available reams of data that have been gathered over time by various functions within an organization for anyone in the company to utilize. This function or process is ripe for applying AI agents (or agentic AI framework) and optimize for better outcomes. It was informative. More rewarding was getting acquainted with folks who practice this craft as well as learning of what they see in the corporate or public sectors. Since the venue was Washington DC it also afforded me the chance to take evening strolls albeit the weather was trying. With wind chill in the single digit it still is a glamorous place to perambulate through history absorbing what this country has been through since its founding days. I was able to visit the place Lincoln was killed along with his monument t...
Post a Comment
Read more