Disneyland's Halloween Time

This is BY FAR my favorite Disneyland celebration - Fantasmic, Halloween fireworks, "Nightmare Before Christmas" Haunted Mansion, Ghost Galaxy Space Mountain. There are some pretty decent videos of the fireworks show online...like these...

Thank goodness for annual passes and conference tickets!

No New Candy?!

I've been conducting my usual search for new candy (you know, every time I go to a store that sells candy), and I haven't found anything new in a while. This is driving me nuts! Usually I will find some sort of special edition of a candy bar as soon as they start selling holiday candy, but I've had no luck this year.

Maybe I'm just not searching hard enough...or maybe candy makers are slacking off!
Let me know if there's something out there that I need to try.

New Godiva Treats

So Godiva makes a suitable Reese's peanut butter cup substitution for me, and they're pretty tasty. I joined their club so I can get a piece every month for free. But now Godiva is trying to raise my sugar levels with other products - they now offer cupcakes and brownies.

They finally jumped in on the cupcake fad with these chocolate cupcakes (with a chocolate center) and vanilla or chocolate buttercream. Sorry kids, these treats are only available online and by catalog order (not in stores), so you'll have to plan ahead if you want these.

Free KFC - Take Two

KFC is trying for a second time to give their chicken away. On Monday, October 26, they will give one piece of their Kentucky Grilled Chicken to anyone who visits their stores. No coupon is necessary and they promise that they will have enough for everyone.

So if you're in the mood for KFC, but are not interested in the grilled chicken giveaway, I would recommend that you plan to satisfy your craving on any day but Monday.

Homemade Deliciousness

My brothers surprised me this past weekend with their cooking skills. The bros and one cousin decided that they wanted to cook...and cook they did.

We were treated to several flavors of homemade buffalo wings, garlic fries, and a pizzookie (a cookie baked in a deep dish, but they used a regular sheet pan) with ice cream for dessert!

Big thumbs up to the boys...for exercising cooking skills and for saving us from having to go out to a restaurant. I think they should do it more often. We just have to find a place to sneak in some veggies...

Just Say No

...to the Buffaloco wings at El Pollo Loco. Well, I can only talk about the Buffalo flavor, since that's the only one I tried. It may be that their BBQ flavor may be tasty and delicious, but I have yet to try them.

So I got the 5-piece buffalo wings...opened the container and got a whiff of the sauce. Yep, something got me. Good? Bad? I wasn't completely sure yet. So I proceeded to the visual inspection of the wings. It was a weird color for buffalo wings...a little too yellow...but maybe I'm just too used to the reddish sauce of the bar food in the area. The real test was to actually taste the sauce. Oh. I quickly discovered that I should have paid more attention to the initial indicators (smell and looks). They have this weird taste...some additional herb or seasoning that gave it a weird taste. My first guess was there was too much oregano or rotisserie seasoning that was competing with the buffalo sauce. But the wings didn't keep me interested long enough to figure it out.

Maybe I got a bad batch, or maybe I'm spoiled with the other good wings nearby. Whatever the reason, I'll stick with the restaurant wings when I allow myself to indulge.

Oh Romanos...

Guppy Tea House

We've found the perfect place to have a fat kids party. It's called the Guppy Tea House. If you thought that the food at Claim Jumpers was giant, this will blow your mind. Giant toast, giant shaved ice, it's crazy! I'll post pictures as soon as I get them.

San Diego Food continued...

So I had the chance to visit Fashion Valley Mall in San Diego, and this gave me the chance to have some good food.

D-Lush
One of the employees did a really good marketing job on me. I was walking by with Dippin' Dots in my hand. He took one look at me and said, "Dippin' Dots? Oh honey, why don't you try something healthy. Here's a sample of our Strawberry Banana smoothie." I tasted it, put my ice cream in the trash (before you freak out, it was almost done!), and decided to give them a try. I chose their Lemon Lover Jello Shot. Tasty! It was basically frozen lemonade with Jello snack packs blended in...it was big and I didn't finish the whole thing. So if you come across one of these places, you'll probably be lured in by the samples, coupons, and crazy fun employees. I hope whatever you try is good.

There's one here at Hollywood & Highland...if the mood ever strikes again.

Uno Chicago Grill
Chicago Pizza. Just the basics...nothing fancy. So delish. After lunch today, my grandfather made sure that there was still some pizza for his mid-afternoon snack. :)

Oh, and I can't forget the visit to Neiman Marcus so the employees would have an opportunity to be stuck up and ignore me once again. All for the love of the Yoku Moku. Thank goodness the people that helped me were friendly!

Have You Ever Tried To...

...find a Mexican restaurant in San Diego? They're not hard to find. In fact, you'd probably have some trouble finding the RIGHT one...if you were looking for a specific restaurant. If you drive through Old Town San Diego, almost every restaurant there is a Mexican restaurant! (This is actually what happened tonight.) And they're probably all awesome.

San Diego Foooooood

So it's more than a week into October and I haven't posted about food yet?! Shocking, I know. But I've been saving it up for this trip that I'm on. I'm in San Diego at a conference...and so I can eat. What have I had so far? Let's see....

Village Pizzeria at the Coronado Ferry Landing
New York-style pizza from those geniuses who decided to ship NY water to San Diego to make the crust as authentic as possible on the west coast! Yum.

Bloomingdale's 59th and Lex Cafe
So cute - a small cafe on the top floor of Bloomingdale's. I tried their frozen yogurt - swirled their plain and their raspberry/strawberry (that supposedly had rosewater...for your health?) - with their raspberry sauce. The sauce was really sweet, but strangely addicting...at least while I was eating the yogurt. I had to throw the cup away so I wouldn't look pathetic trying to scrape it all out.

More tomorrow, I think. I believe the stop is Uno Chicago Grill for some Chicago-style pizza!