You'll have to excuse the slowness of this article. My brain is rather sluggish right now after driving over an hour to Santa Monica beach with SF for just 1 hour of sand time. But Christ was it windy! It was very chilly and blew sand all over my body while I was on my towel and it stung my skin! SF even went into the water and went full blown paddling with frothy (cold!!) waves. The boy is crazy, I swear. I was a bit of a Debbie Downer since I was too cold to do much but sit on my towel and watch.
Then, once we were utterly starving and exhausted (me) from sun and aggressive wind, we drove down a few blocks to a plaza where there were more restaurants to choose from than nail polish colors. The first one we came across after strolling out of the parking garage was Buddha Belly (or is it Buddha's Belly?) and I asked if he was into Chinese. We looked at the menu and I was very impressed by their variety of Vegan choices. Inward!
It took about 5 minutes for me to choose, but I wound up ordering a Thai ramen, which is very different from Japanese ramen, as I found out. SF ordered ginger fried rice. Sounds fairly simple, right? I wondered why he would even bother when there were so many other fantastic sounding items like Pad Thai, Ahi Tuna Burger with sweet potato fries, and vegetarian bento box.
A couple minutes later, our dishes arrived: my big steaming bowl of lemongrass broth, tomato slices, wavy rice noodles, stem mushrooms, and pink shrimp with a side of lime and coconut milk, and SF's plate of rich, orange rice with shrimp, steak, tomato, onions, mushrooms, and herbs.
The first thing I ate was a mushroom. My face lit up like the fourth of July. SF plucked a tomato out of my broth and ate it in one big bite. His face took different shapes and then came, "...Wow... wow.... It doesn't even taste like a tomato." Really? I had the other tomato (after blowing on it profusely). He was right! It tasted like tomato, but spicier and juicier and fresher. I took a clump of his rice. "Oh my gosh!" I exclaimed. It was so dimensional and rich and...like the most unexpected, best fried rice flavor ever. Ever, ever.
I ate half my bowl and then SF and I switched plates and picked for a while longer.
When our waitress came, SF ordered the dark chocolate fondu for dessert once I told him I'd never had fondu. "You have to have fondu," he told me. It came in a small tower of a dish with a candle underneath and a long plate of cut strawberries, bananas, oranges, and cheesecake triangles. Magic. Especially the juicy, other worldly orange pieces. I've never had such a bite of orange on this earth.
And again, it was just for the low cost of 19 bucks. I say yes to that.
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