Tag Archives: wine

Birthday Evening (or What Happened After 4pm)

Posted on August 13, 2013 | 2 comments

So, the adventures of my 30th birthday continue.

After getting my hair done, I went home to get dressed for my party at Bodega Wine Bar. I had rented a cute sparkly top from Gwynnie Bee and I was super excited to wear it! The only problem was, the top was now a little too big on me (guess I have been losing a bit of weight). So I ended up wearing a sweater on top to cover up the too-big arm holes. But I think I looked pretty cute.

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The actual party was pretty chill, which is exactly how I wanted it. My friend Rayshell came over to my house early (since she works very close to where I live), so we hung out for a bit before heading over to the bar.

When we got to Bodega, we saw the reserved sign right away.

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The area we got was right next to the bar (we had a waitress so that didn’t matter too much) and right by a window looking out onto the street (that will come into play a bit later).

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Over the course of the evening, about 15 people made it out to celebrate with me. But it was nice that everyone wasn’t there at once so I actually had a chance to chat with everyone who made it.

As I mentioned before, Rayshell was there.

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So were my friends Kate and Beth.

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And my friend Jennifer who was married earlier this year (her husband came too!).

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As well as a bunch of other people (too many pictures to include everyone on here!).

I ended up drinking Prosecco the entire evening (it is one of my favorite things), but our waitress also brought over some celebratory shots for the group to enjoy as well (one was a Soju pineapple mint thing and I don’t remember what the other was). We also got some food for the table.

While the entire evening was fun, one of the funniest things that happened was when one of my co-workers tried to come by. I guess that she forgot to grab her ID with her when she came, so the bouncer wouldn’t let her in. As she was leaving, she noticed me in the window and I guess either she was waving or pointing at me (my back was to the window, so I only heard from my friends that someone was trying to get my attention). I saw her, walked over to the bouncer, and we finally convinced him to let her in without an ID. I was getting a good laugh from that.

Eventually, the evening came to a close (it was pretty close to midnight and I had to work the next morning).

I’m usually not the sort of person who has birthday parties. I normally just do a bunch of little events. Those seem easier to organize and are less stressful. But I have to say that this party was so much fun! I didn’t feel stressed at all (thanks Bodega for making things easy on us!) and I got to see a bunch of friends!

To everyone who said happy birthday to me (in person, on Facebook, on twitter, via email, on the phone), thank you! I had an amazing birthday and you were all a part of it!

Now, I get to move on with my life as a 30-something!

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Almost The End Of A Decade For Me (or The Birthday Countdown Has Begun)

Posted on July 29, 2013 | Comments Off on Almost The End Of A Decade For Me (or The Birthday Countdown Has Begun)

My 30th birthday is in less than 2 weeks! I’m so excited to be turning 30 (and I say that with no sarcasm at all)!

You may recall how much I enjoyed my birthday last year. I had a bunch of little celebrations, which is how I’ve spent many of my past birthdays. It’s just easier to organize a couple of friends at a time and spread out the birthday fun.

This year will be a little different. I will still be doing some of my smaller birthday celebrations (like my free meals at Truxton’s, Benihana, and Marie Callendar’s), but I’m planning a big 30th birthday celebration too!

I figure you only turn 30 once (technically, I guess that is true with any age), so I might as well make this a party to remember!

I thought about a couple of places where I would like to have a party, but I kept thinking about how fun it would be at Bodega Wine Bar. I really love it there, and the food and drinks aren’t too horribly expensive.

When I looked at their reservation information, there was something that made me realize I might need a backup plan. If you have a reservation on a Friday or Saturday (my birthday happens to fall on a Friday this year), you must have a minimum bar charge on one tab. That’s pretty tough to do when most of my friends will be dropping in for part of the evening and will want to be able to pay for their own drinks on their own credit cards.

So I came up with a few backup locations before I called Bodega to see about having the minimum charge rule dropped (it can’t hurt to ask, right?).

I spoke with the manager, Charity, and I have to say that she was so incredibly nice! I was prepared to have to convince her to drop the minimum. But after I explained that it was my 30th birthday and how much I love the bar, it was all taken care of!

So now I get to look forward to an amazing birthday party in 11 more days! I think I have an outfit picked out (something I rented from Gwynnie Bee) and I’m most likely having the day after my birthday off at my day job (since we have to work a long shift on Sundays when we normally have a day off).

All in all, I think this plan is coming together very nicely and will be the perfect way to say goodbye to my 20’s and hello to my 30’s!

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Wine and Mustaches (or Drinking Reckless Love)

Posted on July 15, 2013 | Comments Off on Wine and Mustaches (or Drinking Reckless Love)

Last week, I was invited to attend a wine launch party for Rebel Coast Winery. I had tried their sparkling wine at the LA Wine Fest I went to earlier this year, but this party was for a wine that they didn’t have at the other event.

The party was held at Bodega Wine Bar, which is one of my favorite happy hour spots. I invited a bunch of my friends to come with me, but Kate was the only one who had that evening free. After checking in, we took a picture in front of the step-and-repeat.

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The wine that the party was for is called Reckless Love.

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It is a blend wine with a mix of Cabernet and Syrah. I typically don’t drink red wine (I like to stick to sparkling wines most of the time), but I have to say that I really enjoyed this one! It was nice and refreshing and not nearly as heavy as I expected it to be. And the bottle was pretty cute too (the label is even glow-in-the-dark!).

Since the wine bottle has a mustache on it, a lot of the party had mustaches. One of the sponsors was Lyft (whose drivers mark their cars with giant pink fuzzy mustaches). There were also mustache temporary tattoos (I grabbed a bunch and brought them to work the next day for my co-workers) and mustache trims available at the party.

And the wine glasses for the event were Mason jars with mustaches on them!

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(I really tried to line up the mustache on the glass to my face)

After drinking our drinks and checking out the event a bit, Bodega started to get really crowded. Kate and I wanted to let other people have a chance to take our seats so they could enjoy their drinks, so we headed out.

I had such a fun time that night! It was actually right after the failed beach attempt, so it was nice to have something fun in the day that didn’t get rained out. Thank you to Rebel Coast Winery and LA Wonders for inviting me to check out Reckless Love. I’ll totally be on the lookout for the wine the next time I go wine shopping!

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LA Wine Fest (or A Fun After Work Activity)

Posted on June 11, 2013 | 1 comment

This past weekend, it was LA Wine Fest. I like wine, but I’m not a wine lover like some people. But I saw some half priced tickets online, so I invited my friend Kate. And her roommate Beth came as our designated driver (she had an early training run the next morning and didn’t really want to drink).

So on Saturday right after I was done with work, the three of us headed out. The fest was held at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood. I’ve been there a couple of times in the past, but this was the first big event I had gone to there.

First, we all had to get wristbands. Since Beth was the designated driver, she got a bright one that let everyone know to not let her drink.

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Then we were off to see what wines were out there. After Kate and I grabbed our first tastes, we decided to take a quick before picture.

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While Kate likes most wines, I pretty much only drink sparkling or white wines. Kate was on the lookout for me for all sparkling wines, and I tried a couple of interesting ones. There was a sparkling wine that was infused with raspberry. It was really sweet, but I liked it. I tried a couple of rose sparkling wines that were pretty awesome too.

Then there was one called Pink Panda. Of course I had to try it! And it tasted exactly how I image a cartoon character would taste (it was pretty much like liquid cotton candy). I didn’t like that one at all. I made Kate try it too, and she wasn’t a fan as well.

Besides all the wine, there were food booths. Beth and I tried a couple of fancy cheeses. And all three of us really liked the balsamic vinegar and olive oil tastings. We all ended up buying some (I got some fancy balsamic as well as olive oil infused with basil, garlic, and parmesan cheese).

After drinking all the tastings, Kate and I wanted to get some food in our stomachs. So Kate, Beth, and I headed over to the food truck area. We saw a truck for Sweet Arleen Cupcakes and decided to split a couple.

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The dark one is a cookies and cream cupcake and the light one is a lemon raspberry one. They were both delicious and really hit the spot!

After being at LA Wine Fest for about 2 hours, we decided to head home. It was really hot and crowded and we had checked out all the wineries we wanted to taste.

Of course, we got an after photo as well (this time, Beth was in it too!).

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Overall, it was a great event! I got to try a bunch of new wines that I don’t know if I would have tried otherwise. And I have a new wine glass to add to my collection. If I see half price tickets again next year, I’ll probably check it out again.

Thanks Kate for being my wine guide at the event! And thanks Beth for driving so we didn’t have to pay for a cab!

PS: Today is the last day to enter my Food Should Taste Good giveaway! Make sure you comment before midnight to enter!

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Aria V Wine Shop (or Another Living Social Win!)

Posted on December 6, 2012 | 1 comment

I’ve had some good Living Social deals and some pretty awful ones. And over the summer, I had seen a deal for 12 wine tastings plus 2 appetizers at Aria V Wine Shop in Culver City. Seemed like a decent deal to me since it only cost me $25.

The deal was going to expire next week, so yesterday my friend Kate and I decided to finally test it out. It was located in a kind of weird area of Culver City (almost under the 405 and right next to a shut down hospital). But we managed to find some free street parking around the block and headed inside.

It’s actually located inside the Polentoni restaurant (so if you are going look for that sign), but inside a little private room. When Kate and I got there, we were the only ones in that room, but it quickly filled up.

We explained to our waiter that we were here for the Living Social deal and he explained that we could choose 2 appetizers that were priced at $12.50 or under and then 6 wines each to taste that were priced at $42 a bottle or under. Anything over that and we would just have to pay the difference.

We checked out the menus.

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I asked our waiter if I could get the Prosecco as 2 of my tastings and then pick 4 more and he was ok with that.

We got our food.

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(I ate lightly earlier in the day to save up for these calories).

And when our “tastings” arrived, we were shocked by how generous the pour was.

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I’m a pretty lightweight when it comes to alcohol, and there is no way I could do 6 tastings like that!

In the end, I had 2 glasses of Prosecco and one glass of a rose that the waiter had selected for me. And Kate had 3 glasses of Italian reds that the waiter had selected for her (one was called a Super Tuscan, but I don’t know the rest).

As we were brought the bill, the waiter also brought us glasses of their special holiday mulled wine.

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It looked and smelled delicious, but personally I didn’t like it very much.

And when our bill arrived, it proved that we got our moneys worth on this deal.

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We left a very nice tip.

I’ll totally go back to Aria V, even if I don’t have a deal for it. It was yummy, the atmosphere was fun, and it’s pretty close to my house.

And I’ve been in a bit of a funk the last few days (the work schedule and lack of sleep is getting to me a bit). But nothing can bust you out of a funk better than hanging out with your best friend and having moments where you are laughing so hard that you are crying.

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Maybe I Should Be A Wine Drinker (or How We Spent My Grandma’s Birthday Dinner)

Posted on November 27, 2012 | Comments Off on Maybe I Should Be A Wine Drinker (or How We Spent My Grandma’s Birthday Dinner)

One of my family’s traditions at Thanksgiving is to go out for a really nice dinner for my grandma’s birthday. Her birthday falls around Thanksgiving, and we either go out the night before or the night after Thanksgiving.

This year for my grandma’s birthday, we went to Plumed Horse in downtown Saratoga. This is totally a place that I could not afford on my own (the menus didn’t have prices on it, so you know it was very expensive).

The food was unbelievably good. We could order up to 4 courses, but most of us seemed to get 3 (appetizer, entrée, dessert). But since there were 2 appetizer courses, if you hadn’t ordered something to go for that course, they brought out a treat. My first appetizer was a green salad (my choice), my second appetizer was a parmesan black pepper soufflé (their choice), my entrée was a steak, and for dessert I had the Meyer lemon soufflé. The portions were on the smaller side, so even though I felt stuffed after the meal, it wasn’t too bad.

One of the highlights of the restaurant was their wine cellar. The head waiter for our private room gave us a tour of it. There are hundreds of bottles and the floor is clear so you can see everything in the basement.

 

For the meal, we had some red and white wines for the table. I really don’t like red, so I had a little of the white. But I really wish I could have ordered one of the yummy sparkling wine bottles I had seen in the cellar.

 

It was a great evening. Almost the entire family made it (one of my cousins wasn’t able to fly in until Thanksgiving day). And I’m glad I had a super cute little black dress to wear too (I got several compliments on it).

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