Day 68 (Mother’s Day)
For lunch we went to Daikokuya, a Japanese ramen joint highly recommended by many friends that they have excellent tonkotsu ramen (pork bone broth). They open at 12pm on Sundays and we arrived at 11:40am and there were already two other parties waiting. As we were waiting for the doors to open, a line continued to form, maybe 10-12 other parties. When they did open, they were ulatra efficient. They seated everyone then one waitress came to take drink orders then food orders and the cooks started to cook so everything came out quickly.
We ordered the ramen, one bowl regular and one with kotteri broth (more fragrant, made with pork back fat). One was a combo with the shredded pork bowl. The ramen was so yummy! I usually do not to drink the broth but this one I wanted to drink it all… but was too full so couldn’t. The shredded pork bowl was interesting, sort of like the grilled eel sauce on pork. It is worth waiting in line for this ramen.
After lunch, we headed to The Grove and The Farmers Market. It was probably a mistaken to go so soon after lunch since we were stuffed but we just walked around and explored. The Farmers Market is sort of like a food court with many different food stalls. We walked around The Grove shopping center to make ourselves less full for Bennett’s ice cream. They were doing a promotional event for the movie Despicable Me so we got our picture taken against with this backdrop. Simon is yawning as he had just woken up.
There were also this little people dressed up as the minions in the movie. Kind of hilarious.
After working up a bit of an appetite, we went back for ice cream. The top is cabernet sauvignon sorbet and the bottom is peach ice cream. The cab sorbet was yummy and refreshing. The peach only so-so. Simon looks like he wants some, doesn’t he?
We drove to Pasadena to have dinner in the evening. We tried this place called Daisy Mint that was recommended by Betty for their Daisy Noodles. So we ordered the duck roll, kind of like mushu skin wrapped duck.
This is the Daisy Noodles. It is sort of drenched in a sweet coconut curry-like sauce. It tasted good except the noodles were congeeled together so hard to separate to eat. It was like they let the noodles sit in the pot too long and they got all stuck together.
We also had the Green Jungle curry with chicken. It also had eggplant, green beans, green and red bell peppers. Nice and spicy. Served with brown rice.
The restaurant closes at 9pm but they let us stay there until 9:45pm. They have this little back patio with heat lamps which was nice since it seemed quieter than inside the restaurant. Once again, Simon slept through dinner. I hope this is a pattern but I doubt it. He got extremely fussy before we left for dinner and was screaming and wasn’t easy to calm down. He had been sleeping before we arrived to the hotel and I suggested to Ron to move him from his car seat to the bed to be more comfortable. Bad idea as he woke up and started screaming. We know never to do that now, just leave him to sleep where he is sleeping. He eventually calmed down and fell asleep again but spent quite some time whimpering. It makes me so sad when we can’t figure out how to make him content again.
Oh yes, it is Mother’s Day! We didn’t really celebrate since Ron says that it is Simon’s job when he’s older. I look forward to receiving my first Mother’s Day wish from Simon.
