Keothip Restaurant

This is a goodie, I love Thai food;introduced to me by my aunt, who was married to a man who was Thai.

My favorite dish her is Larb, whether it is beef or chicken I don't care it is so good, it is a simple dish to make so if it is bad... that is sad. Now when you go into the Keothip it is smallish and a little dark not overdone. They sit you pretty fast, I am not into thai tea's and things so I can't tell you about that (I'm a pepsi girl). The service is not the fastest or the greatest but they don't abuse you or anything and they bring great food, so that's the compromise. Order ahead if you are in a hurry though or call in for to go if you are on a lunch break.

I order the larb always when I am alone, but about 10 of us went there for a birthday/dinner thing and it was so much fun. The food came family style, which is something that restaurants are really missing out on I think; it was super fun pass this, pass that, hey where did that come from gimme that. They have these things my daughter really likes called shrimp nest basically some kind of noodle wrapped around a shrimp and deep fried mmm mmm. I didn't really like there curry. Chicken Satay was also yummy it had a nice peanut-ty flavor that I really enjoyed. And of course the Larb (Laab) Chicken can I say yummy enough here... it is a bit of citrus, and spicy with some soft and crunchy textures in it. The crunchy is from the toasted, ground rice that is mixed in, all in all my sugesstion is go to this place they are fabulous... and yummy.

Lets Talk Pizza Buffet!

Before I get started Happy Birthday Kim... love ya sister!

I should start off with I loooooove pizza, like I really love pizza. Now I am not a fan of New York Style, I love the cheese, and misc confetti of random toppings slapped together to make a special treat that requires no dishes to wash, really how can you go wrong with that.... I ask you... how?

So Pizza Buffets, you can imagine is mmm mmm good in my eyes, cause you can have as much as you want, and for me that works great. I am a bit of a gluten. My favorite part about pizza buffet is you get salad, and there is no fighting over what pizza to get. So this is a two-fer because it is really important to know about the good, the okay, and the ugly.

The Good: Round Table Pizza

I have been to a couple of them in the valley just to make sure... And let me tell you their pizza is so good, they kick all the kinds of pizza, not just the cheap pizzas, this is where I finally discovered the Maui Zaui, it is a hawaiian style pizza but you can get a choice of sauce. The other sauce choice is a sweet chili sauce (I buy it at the Thai Grocery Store), oh man this is truly good.

It is a good time to try new pizzas and their salad bar is really good, the lettuce is really fresh, and there is so many toppings to choose from, I think I counted 15 or so toppings. I almost forgot about the cheesy breads and cinnamon stick... 2 words Sticky Goodness, by far the best I had ever had, they are that good if they stopped selling the pizza, and served only those I would be super fine with that.

Everything is real nice, the set up at the Mary's Vineyard is a little small but it seems that everyone is real patient about it, and well its worth it. They keep the place real clean no visible signs of grossness, and the customer service has always been really good, and that is pretty hard.

The Mom & Pop: There is a pizza place with a sports theme on Ben Maddox and Douglass kind there is a Git & Go there. I found that the pizza there was okay, Pepperoni seemed to be the theme of the day, which I am not saying thats bad, a good pepperoni is fine with me, but at a buffet I expect variety. I believe that is the whole point of it. The place was uncluttered and could use an updating but all in all clean from my side.

The pizza was good, and the salad bar, though the variety was few, I thought it was good. The place is huge though, and the price is real good cause it includes the drink.

The Ugly: Man I hate these, the ugly that are disguised, I went into Pizza Hut and expected good pizza, after all I use to eat at the one on Mooney Blvd, like all the time as a teenager. So I bop in, sit down, situate, and ready myself for the mission at hand. The restaurant was super clean and decorated really cute with a mural on the wall. I knew I was in for a treat.

I hate being wrong, what kid of trickery was this. I always come in at the beginning of buffet time when there is a lot of people and the pizzas are constantly being changed out, for freshness reasons. The pizzas looked alot like the frozen variety you buy at the store. I had hoped that it would be different. I wasn't bad like frozen, but certainly not good like restaurant, which was odd, again no variety there was a veg, a peperoni, and a meat. No specialties, like hey try this one you may want to order it for dinner this weekend. The salad bar was also nothing to get excited about. The breadsticks and cinnasticks.... sad, they were just cut up pieces of crust with seasoning sprinkled lightly on top of them, not pleasing to the eye or the taste buds. So disappointing, and also proves that corporate rules and guidelines don't make for good food for sure.

So there you have it a small sampling of pizza buffets, what's your favorite and why, which ones do you hate. Just keep it clean, this is a family channel... Comments will be moderated in the sense of, if it is not appropriate for a everyone then I just can't put it on...sorry

The Corner Cafe

There's nothing a-typical about the setup a row of counter space filled with random fella's looking more like the local dairymen, the booths are at the perimeter with mini booths squeezed up the center. Apple decor trimmed the windows, tables, and edgings, pretty much everywhere, though it changes with the season or holiday.

The decor is country, the food is country, the clientele... is a wide array of citizens. From cowboy hats and senior citizens to tattooed and pierced, and everything in between. It's a have a seat anywhere kind of place, so you do, and one of the waitress' follow you ours was Tenille who by the way is hilarious, as with all of them the owners are right there on spot chatting, laughing, and working right along with everyone else.

So I order the special cause I like special things... It was an scramble with jack cheese, and red onions with country potatoes, biscuits & gravy, and coffee, you know stay with the theme.

It was busy in fact it is always busy... so this is not really a shocker. It didn't seem like it was too long before the food arrived, mmmm it smelled like cheesy goodness, the eggs was perfectly cooked, no brownness or crustyness. The red onions were so bright and fred, not too much cheese but enough to leave a nice layer of white on top. When I scooped up the eggs there was a stringy and wow I was impressed, this is super good you can actually taste the cheese and the onions were sweetish which was nice contrast with the eggs and cheese.

Now I am funny about country potatoes because my grandmother was from Booneville Kentucky and made the best potatoes ever. I really hate when you order country potatoes and you get those little square things as if you ordered them from Burger King or something and they spray painted them tan. Now these were real potatoes with onions, and other little goodies mixed all over, WOW they were so good, I mean really good. perfectly seasoned not lacking salt. The potatoes were tender perfect not mushy. The biscuits were soft, flaky, very airy, and hot.... mmmmm

Anyhow this is my review of The Corner Cafe, my advice go there 2 thumbs up for sure. I will eat there a hundred times over.

The Corner Cafe is located at 1718 E Mineral King Ave, Visalia, CA.

Wednesday discussion: homemade gifts for men

Ahhhh the holidays are coming... red alert, red alert...

Well I have decided to make gifts this year, which can be scary. I mean you don't really want to go through all the trouble to make something just to get that look on the face of "oh, wow thanks" we want "OH WOW! THANKS" and "how cool" etc. You know what I mean, yes it is a nice stroke to the ego, but you don't want to give someone something that they can't use or don't like; make them feel like they have to love it, or set it somewhere in there house.

So lets vow today to help each other out. So I thought we would start out with something tough get it out of the way. Men, they work hard, they love us, and we love them, we just want them to be happy so whatever it is must have some guidelines much the same when buying...

1. Useful; most men are not knick-knack kind of guys, make sure it is something that they could use
2. Tailored to that particular man
ie: I know I won't give my dad a tool caddy because he thinks an "allen wrench" is a tool that belongs to someone named allen.
3. Themed; race, sports, TV shows, or movie fans; use this to your advantage

I am thinking of of a gift givee' who tinkers in the garage, so I am thinking a bucket tool organizer so I will be looking for a pattern for that.

For the car enthusiast I am thinking of wheel covers they sell them in the store but if you make it with canvas and cover that canvas in a team fabric...

these patterns are all over the Internet and for free so look around

anyhoo let me know what you think and also post your own thoughts

Hospital Food Short and sweet

Well this edition comes to you after a stint in the hospital, I think generally the local hospital gets a bad rep for food because your sick, by the time it gets to you it has been in a little red plastic dome for at least an hour, and eating in bed may sound good but really it is a pain in the butt.

But I have eaten in the cafeteria, and a few years ago they changed it around and it's not bad, they try and make it look like a bistro and they will have special Taco Salad bars, but the food is fresh and if you want something special the staff is kind of good about helping you out. I like the salad bar the best and they have pretty good clam chowder too.

Sooo long

Well I want to thank everyone for being patient. Since I last blogged the plumbing went in the house and we had to move... can I just say it awwww! Oh yeah and the old house took the computer and it died.... my poor mac, I miss it, he is in the hospital right now but I had this HP computer still but I hate it and I want to do bad things to it.

Imagine living in a world where you can work on a computer without error messages, "freezing", or crashing. Well I was in that world my mac was on for three years straight without a problem. As soon as I look at a windows computer it freaks out and shuts down..... I only wish teenagers feared me that way.

Well I am back the new place is super fantastic, its funny what I put up with because I loved the front porch and location of a house. The new place may not have a front porch but I set up my small outdoor set there and it is great.

Thanks again everyone, and I will be posting a less boring post today including some ideas I have, hopefully you can give me some feedback on.

oh yeah... follow this link to this super funny youtube video, I laughed so hard I cried.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4Y4keqTV6w

Friday Fill-Ins #86 follow me to the link

1. Dancing to the sound of the ceiling fan while working makes me mispell words.

2. The last time I sang I nearly broke the windows.

3. When I drive I tell people they are number one.

4. I saw elvis standing next to me in an elevator.

5. Give me pepsi, give me more pepsi, give me happiness.

6. Next week I am looking forward to ending the madness.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to getting , tomorrow my plans include working and Sunday, I want to sleeeep!  I am the mecca of excitement

Help! I am stuck in the car with my parents -Or- Prozak is my friend

Yesterday was insane, yeah I had a busier than normal agenda but hey that happens.  So after I had finished teaching art yesterday, I had to run to a new clients to confirm the date of completion for their remodel.  My teaching partner was sick so I took my mother to help me with setup/tear down... do you see where this is going.  Now since my dad was the initial sales contact for this client I had to pick him up too, mom decided to go to... Danger Will Robinson, Danger!  

So here I am innocently cruising along, (we had to go to the next city) to make it shorter we got there, handled it, and came back.  My mom began the debate of where dad was taking us to lunch, where are we going, etc.  Which sparked a wave of jokes and funny innuendoes from dad, this is just how dad is you can say "scotch tape" and he always has something, not a problem with me, but for mom... not so much.  

They began to "bicker"  well not so much that, more like kids going back and forth.  Me I am just fighting the urge to not turn around and say "don't make me turn this thing around"  though how fun would that be.  So I keep driving back home... and the van did a little stumble hmmm, I looked at my mileage chart (the fuel gauge stopped working) and determined in can't be that because I still have about 20 miles or so before I have to panic, we had only 3 miles to a gas station.

Driving, driving, dada dada,  it did it again then she began to sloooow down... oh man.  Now I should stop and say that my math skills are a little hairy... okay maybe a giant gorilla.  Math is just not my thing, God gave me calculators and a smart husband so really why should I be rude and not thankfully use these gifts... thank you very much.  Except I forgot to have my husband check my mileage chart, shoot!  

So I eased over and and looked took a couple of deep breaths thinking about what was about to come of this.  I looked over to my parents and said I ran out of gas... now at this point you would have thought that WWIII had just broke out, I wish I was kidding.  I said it's okay I will just walk down to the gas station and take care of it.  "Oh no you can't do that" "stay here" blah blah blah!  I was a Marine, we used to run that for lunch.  

But to make this shorter after 40 minutes of trying to find someone dad realized his insurance would cover this, so we got a tow (yeah dad)... took us to the gas station, got gas, and started it to ensure we were okay, I went inside to wipe off my hands, the doors were left open, the emergency lights still on, and my weak battery all spelled a dead battery for my van... awwww we got a jump I dropped everyone off, and ran home and went to bed.

oi! I am tired just typing this.

snoooze!

My dear sweet daughter was extra snuggly this morning, and turned on the tv to watch cartoons.... when I realized that Author was on I freaked because if he is on then we are late.  It turns out she turned off the alarm so that we wouldn't be disturbed... how nice.  So of course I went to warp drive, but we still missed the bus.  So now that means we have to sit and wait for school to start... yeah for me quiet time with the kid that didn't involve video games, a movie, or roller-skating, just me and her... chillin' ! 

So my first day of my quest for getting back into my ultra-organized state of life is starting off a little shaky... but I am not worried.  If I did it once I can do it again.... right

I did however make some great changes on Sunday, I finally completed my Family Org-Board and it is in its testing phase.  I think it will be great asset for me, you see I have my ICAL which I use for everything and print out daily for my schedule which saves me time... Anything in pencil I type that night...  This system works well for my work schedule and while I am out.  

But I wanted kind of a station that was the focal point for everyone.  So far I post things on the Org-Board that usually apply to the family as a whole or doctor appts, etc...  we will see how that goes.  I will probably add chore lists for everyone next....

If only I could organize personally like I organize my events, I wonder if other planners and event coordinators find that true in their own lives as well.  I hope I am not the only one.... that would stink!

In the words of my hero...

   The way I run this thing you'd think I knew something about it -  Bugs Bunny

Photohunt: Colorful

My Husband made this it is a lighted stained glass chessboard.... he is so awesome.