The Huntington Beach Cherry Blossom Festival was this month, so gem and I went to check it out. Ironically, most of the cherry blossoms had come and gone by the time of the festival.
Luckily there were some, so we still got to enjoy the cherry blossoms.
The other flowers were still blooming, which was nice. We stopped to take a few photos with them.
One more in the flower garden for good measure. It was pretty in there!
We finished off the day by making some origami cherry blossoms! They perfectly complemented the sparse cherry blossoms on the trees!
I had a super awesome 29th birthday weekend! My birthday was Friday, and I worked from home. After work, I took Alice’s yoga class, which was really great. Anela was covering someone’s shift, so I got to see her while I was there too. After yoga, I met with gem for dinner. She gave me these guns that might or might not have been bananas. She’s good at Snapchat edits.
We went to Sake 2 Me and ate way too much sushi.
I don’t remember exactly what the one on the left is called, but it has fried onions on top and is tasty. The one on the right is the Green Goblin. It’s amazing; sorry people who don’t like cilantro!
For dessert, I got a cherry pie from Polly’s Pies. gem lit this candle for me and sang to me!
Mmmmm.
On Saturday, gem and I had lunch with our friends Matt and Katie. They were in town from the Bay area to go to Disneyland! We ate at the Anaheim Packing House. I forgot to get a picture of us, but I did get a picture of the crepe we split. I guess we know my priorities 🙁
Later that night, Jonathan came to the house. He joined me and the other roommates in a game of Power Grid. It was pretty fun!
Sunday was a day for Huntington Beach! This mailbox looked pretty cool.
Looks beautiful, huh? It was actually pretty chilly and overcast most of the day, but it was still fun.
Anela and Edward ended up meeting gem and me there. We had some tacos at Sancho’s Tacos. They pretty much make the best tacos ever.
I also tried their nachos for the first time. The nachos were good, but I still wouldn’t dare order something without getting the O.G. tacos.
After we finished eating, we decided to go to a restaurant and get more food. Don’t worry, it makes perfect sense. This was some sort of tangerine ice cream with a chocolate chip cookie from Zimzala.
And ganache! So rich!
I tried an apple blossom cocktail with apple brandy, apple juice, lemon, and cinnamon syrup; a cucumber cooler cocktail with Grey Goose pear vodka, agave, cucumber, lime, and soda; and tequila shots. The apple blossom was good, and the tequila shot was surprisingly smooth, but the cucumber cooler was absolutely delicious and quite refreshing and crisp!
The main reason I wanted to go Sunday instead of Saturday was because Danny Maika performs on Sunday. I requested some Sublime.
gem asked for some ukulele music. It’s no surprise that this was one of the songs he played!
gem also asked him to sing me “Happy Birthday!” Yay, thanks gem and Danny!
There was a Connect Four board out, so we had to play some games. Edward had left by this time, but the three of us had fun playing. Anela is better than gem or me!
The Shorebreak Hotel also had these neat little fires outside. gem noticed they look like sunflowers!
On the way back to our cars, we also two cats. One didn’t want to hang out with us, but one was super friendly. We got to pet him a bunch!
From left to right, here’s Anela, gem, Danny, and myself. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to get a photo until after Edward left. It was a rad day and a super fun weekend! Thanks to everyone that made it great!
Sunday was the Huntington Beach Historical Society’s 20th annual Civil War Days Living History and Reenactment in Huntington Beach Central Park. I heard about it on Reddit and thought it sounded fun. Luckily, I was right!
After finishing picnic preparations, I picked up gem and Anela and headed to the park. After seeing some tents set up, we saw some troops marching into battle!
We kept walking toward the loud noises. Where are explosions, that’s where the action is, right?
The loud noises were definitely cannons!
As the armies got closer, there were more and more casualties. For some reason, people kept dying in the shade. The shade must be deadly. Eventually the reenactment ended, and it was time for us to do something else…
Picnic Time, c’mon grab your friends…
We had all sorts of delicious foods! I made Caprese salad and three variations of salami snacks – rolled salami with one of two types of cream cheese and either a pepperoncini, pickle, or cucumbers). I also packed Caprisun drinks, two kinds of potato chips, brie, crackers, and some chocolate bread! gem and Anela brought an arugula dip, a chicken dip, celery, hummus, and multiple kinds of pastries. I might be missing something, but there was a lot of food.
Mmmm, snacks.
After eating, we just relaxed on the blanket for a while. Mostly we talked and sent each other stickers on Facebook. Also, I apparently can’t say “sticker” because it kept coming out “Snickers.”
Anela said this series of stickers represented me – before the picnic, during the picnic, and after the picnic. Yep, that’s pretty much how I felt.
She also added this bottom sticker to represent gem since gem was playing her ukulele for us!
When we finally had the energy to get up, we checked out this field hospital. As usual, I’d be content to look without talking, but gem got us into a tent and chatting with some of the performers. It was a lot of fun and pretty informative. There was also quite a bit of music-talk due to the ukulele.
We saw this peep show box, and it was obviously appropriate for me to look if I wanted to act the part, right? When in Rome!
Matilda the goat was very friendly. And by friendly, I mean willing to let us pet her a little while she continued to munch the grass.
When gem saw a man with a banjo, it was time to go talk to him. They talked about their instruments for a minute, and then decided to play together a little. gem used her tuner app to get him in tune, and then they played music for us while we all chatted. It was very nice!
I don’t know a better way to celebrate the end of the Civil War than eating ice cream! We went to Afters, which is somewhere both Anela and gem have mentioned and I’d been wanting to try. I sampled five-or-so flavors before ordering a Milky Bun with Cookie Monster ice cream. The Milky Bun is a donut, either glazed or unglazed, filled with ice cream. I went with the unglazed, but I think I might try glazed next time. All the flavors were super delicious. Obviously I liked Cookie Monster best of the ones I tried, but Milk and Cereal, which includes cereal on top, was a close second. I’ll need to come again!
With our bellies full, we went to the Outlets at Orange for some shopping. There wasn’t really anything I wanted, and nothing jumped out at me, but I had fun shopping with them. Also, a woman working at Forever 21 commented on my Aquabats 20th anniversary tour t-shirt! It was fun chatting with her about them for a minute.
U.S. Taco Co. is a new fast-casual restaurant owned by Taco Bell featuring classic American classics reimagined as tacos. After seeing a Reddit post about an LA Times article previewing the restaurant, I knew I had to try it. It opened on the 11th in Huntington Beach, and despite a rather lackluster review from OC Weekly, I went Wednesday night.
Unfortunately, I was too hungry to take photos of the decor. It was a bright, open location perfect for people watching. The prices were roughly $3 to $4 per taco (for most of them). You’ll have to excuse the quality of my photos because, like I mentioned, I was pretty hungry.
They all had interesting names. The most basic taco I tried was the Wanna Get Lei’d, a grilled mahi mahi taco with corn tortilla, Polynesian sauce, slaw, poblano crema, pico de gallo, and cilantro. To be honest, it was nothing special.
Not My First Rodeo is a smoked brisket taco with flour tortilla, molcajete salsa, slaw, pickled onions, and cilantro. It was pretty good, and there was a lot of brisket in it.
My favorite taco is the one featured at the top of this article, the Southern Squealer. Looking at the menu, I quickly knew that this was the taco for me. The Southern Squealer features pulled pork, peach jalapeño BBQ sauce, corn cake, slaw, jalapeño, and cilantro in a flour tortilla. These flavors went well together, forming a delicious taco. I particularly enjoyed the corn cake in the taco. If I eat at U.S. Taco Co. again, I’d likely order the Southern Squealer once more while trying other tacos for the first time as well.
The Papa’s Fritas, potato wedges basically, were also excellent. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and fresh tasting, they were a great side. The fries came with jalapeño ranch as well as ghost chile ketchup dipping sauces. I preferred the jalapeño ranch, but both were good.
U.S. Taco Co.’s biggest problem is its location. It’s a fantastic location near the pier in Huntington Beach. It’s such a fantastic location that it’s just a few doors down from Bruxie, across the street from Zimzala in the Shorebreak Hotel, and a couple minutes walk from Sancho’s Tacos. While I do think I’ll eat here again, after my friend gem and I finished splitting the food I discussed here, I felt satisfied – not stuffed, but definitely not hungry. And then I walked to Sancho’s Tacos, because there was no way I was going home without getting an O.G. or a federale taco! If it was closer to home, I’d definitely drive a few minutes to eat there, but if I’m going to drive a half hour to Huntington Beach for a single meal, I’m more likely to eat at Zimzala or Sancho’s Tacos. However, the addition of another interesting restaurant in the area means that the idea of spending the day at the beach, which would include having multiple meals, sounds even more appealing. An appetizer and drinks from Zimzala, a couple O.G. tacos from Sancho’s Tacos while sitting on the beach, and completing the afternoon at U.S. Taco Co. sounds like an awesome day.
U.S. Taco Co. is located at 150 5th St., Huntington Beach, CA 92648. http://ustacos.com/
Zimzala is located at 500 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach, CA 92648.
Sancho’s Tacos is located at 602 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach, CA 92648.
I had MLK, Jr. Day off, so I went to Zimzala for lunch after biking, working out, and doing some chores. (Funny, before posting this I noticed that my very last post was also about Zimzala.) I chatted with Andrew and had a delicious barbecue chicken flatbread.
Afterward I headed to the beach to walk in the water and lie in the sand. I brought some books with me and got a lot further in The Complete Maus. I also reread the Tao Te Ching, which is pretty short. There was also a decent chunk of time during which I did nothing but thought and listened to the water.
By the time I was ready to leave, I was getting a little hungry again. I grabbed a taco from Sancho’s Tacos, which is an amazing taco place just one block from Zimzala.
Oh, and when I heard some weird noise above me, I saw a squirrel munching on a nut. Cute!
I had lunch at Zimzala today. My friend’s the Sous-Chef there, and I had something to bring him. Lunch was delicious, and I had a good time chatting over the food. I had a burger that I ate too quickly to photograph, but I did manage to get a picture of the amazing ice cream. The desserts are always great.
Because I was right there in Huntington Beach anyways, I went for a walk down the pier. It was a very nice day, and sometimes it’s good to do some nothing and clear your mind.
The water was looking beautiful too.
Some people were walking through a design in the sand. I assume they had just finished making it, but maybe they just found it. Anyways, it was a lovely day!
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