American Girl Cafe at the Grove

American Girl Place is every marketers dream. From the moment you walk in to the time you leave, moms, dads, and grandmas are plunking down credit cards all over the store. It's a place where the average visit lasts 4 hours, the average purchase tops $300 per girl, and because it's usually centered around a birthday, the money flows all year long.

Oh, and if you want to eat there on a weekend, you need to call months in advance. It's a hotter reservation than El Bulli.

Well, that's not entirely true. You can eat there on very little notice if you pick the 9:30AM breakfast seating, which is exactly what I picked to celebrate the 11th birthday of my little sis, K.

K and I showed up bright and early, right as the store was opening at 9AM. That gave us a little time to peek around and decide what she, her doll Lily, and I would do after breakfast. Just as we were oohing and aahhing over the doll-sized shoes and dress hangers, an attendant rang a bell and asked the 9:30AM group to form a line outside the cafe door. It's funny when little girls go to a faux grown-up restaurant: you could tell they all wanted to rush up and push and shove their way to the front of the line, but because it was the American Girl Cafe, they were on their best behaviour and (im)patiently bounced and fidgeted until it was their turn to be seated.

The American Girl Cafe couldn't possibly be any cuter. Designed to look like a fancy restaurant that's just for girls, they have both indoor and outdoor seating, plus special chairs that allow your doll to sit next to you at the table. K and I decided to sit outside on the patio, where we had the entire balcony to ourselves.


While the restaurant decor is special by itself, it's all the little details that really take it to the next level. For example, the napkin holders are pretty hair scrunchies, there's a fresh pot of pink sunflowers on each table (they're fake), and a polka dot gift box holds a set of "conversation starters" designed to provoke the thoughts of girls and big sisters alike.


The food is nothing to write home about, but it's certainly cute and a lot of fun. To start, mini cinnamon buns - these were probably the best part of the meal.


K had heart-shaped waffles, which came garnished with star-shaped fruit. I'm sure they'd make the sausages a special shape too if that were possible, but then again, let's not give them any funny ideas.


I had a quiche. I think. I've never seen a quiche that looked like this before - it was more like an eggy doughy puffy soggy thing.


The grapes were good! Oh well, I had some of K's waffles to curb my appetite.
At the end of the meal, out comes dessert: chocolate mousse topped with Oreo cookie crumbs, plus a little daisy. Cute, cute, and cute.


I remember when American Girl first launched in 1986. Even though I thought I was too old to play with the dolls, I still loved reading the books and looking through the catalogue. Today, American Girl has grown from just a few historical doll characters to a dozen, plus an entirely new line of dolls that are "just like you" (in case you're wondering what I look like, check out GT25H).


After our meal, we decided to take Lily (the doll) on a little spa day. First we'd style her up, then we'd do a photo shoot with her and K. Here Lily is getting her hair done:


Yes, there really was a 60 minute wait to get your doll's hair done. Don't worry, you can always shop while you're waiting! (hmmm... methinks the wait is on purpose)

After the hair salon, we headed upstairs for a photo shoot, then headed home.
All in all, it was a very special day with a very special girl! Love you, K!

Dylan Noodles with Tony Bourdain

I have the coolest foodblogging friends! Go check out my buddy Dylan's unbelievable moment of fame, serving as a noodle guide to food legend Anthony Bourdain.


(photo from EatDrinknbMerry)

Fun fact - that's actually what Dylan looks like in real life. He has a strange disease called pixelitis.

Go Dylan! We're all very jealous, but very happy for you!

USC vs. UCLA Chips

Do people really care THIS much?

I've never been much of a sports fan, and the cross-town UCLA vs. USC rivalry always kind of confused me. Wouldn't it be more fun if the two schools liked each other and had fun parties together, and maybe even created a Los Angeles all-star team by bringing their top players together for Olympic-style football? I guess that's why women have such a rare place in politics - we'd be doing too much teambuilding and socializing, not even war.

I do have a stake in the matter - I went to UCLA for both undergrad and grad school. But somehow I can't ever see myself in the grocery store, coming across UCLA chips and thinking "Hell YES! I've GOT to have these! And let's smash all the USC chips into smitherines!"

I could understand if they actually gave each chip a different flavour... then I could line them up side-by-side and tell you who'd have the better season, based solely on the taste of blue corn vs. red corn. But no, it's just red food coloring vs. blue food coloring, and that's not very interesting for a food lover OR a football fan.

Pinkberry Koreatown Opens

When it rains, it pours...

Yes friends, the long-awaited Koreatown Pinkberry is now open, and I dare say it's the best Pinkberry yet.

Why?

Because it's freakin' HUGE!

At nearly four times the size of the West Hollywood location, the Koreatown Pinkberry has a row of about 15 tables you can fight over, seating for nearly 40 (lots of long benches), and an entire public street where you can line up without being harrassed by angry neighbors. The place appears custom-built for a yogurt-frenzied mob, and if the first opening hours are any indication, it will be very soon.

Their yogurt machines are fully stocked, and when I arrived Friday evening, an army of super-pretty-cute yogurtista trainees shouted a warm hello to all who walked in. Now that's something the WeHo location could take a lesson from...

On to the yogurt. You know the drill.
It the best thing you'll ever put in your mouth... manna from heaven... crackberry... heroin... etc. etc.



But last night I discovered something new.

Now, I really shouldn't be telling you this, but you can get the green tea and original yogurt flavors swirled! It's not on the menu, but if you pay the higher green tea price and ask really really nicely, they just might hook you up. The combination of both flavours is awesome and I wouldn't be surprised if it pops up as a secret menu item in the coming days (think In n' Out).

When you've eaten as much yogurt as you can handle (which in my case was a medium plain, then a small swirl, then 30 bites of Brian's large), you can shop. The baselit glass shelves are stocked with the world's cutest kitchen and home furnishings from Italian super-design store Alessi.



Right now they're just on display, but the plan is that everything will be available for purchase very soon.

They also have plans to expand the space, with room for a cafe next door and possibly even a salon of some sort. Before you know it, you'll be fully indoctrinated into the Pinkberry lifestyle, which, actually, would be a pretty awesome thing.

But the best part about the Koreatown Pinkberry? You've got an entire parking garage to clog up...



Pinkberry Koreatown
6th St at Berendo
Los Angeles, CA

Pinkberry OPEN at La Brea and Melrose

Yes, it’s true, Pinkberry’s second Los Angeles location has opened at La Brea and Melrose!

My favourite celebrity blogger – Perez Hilton – posted the news last night.

I can’t believe I got scooped (I’m the yogurt reporter for goodness sakes!). But at least now I know that Perez shares my Pinkberry addiction.

Perez, I love you. See you at Pinkberry!

24 Hours in Montreal

Do you ever claim to hate something when, secretly, you love it? In my case, that list is populated by jury duty, fast food, Peeps, and business travel.

Take jury duty for example. Of course I hate jury duty, right? Everyone does. Endless hours of just sitting, waiting around. All that time to do nothing but read, daydream, and take two hour lunches... who on earth would enjoy that?

I complain about business travel too. Gosh it's so hard living out of a suitcase. Being away from the office, with no phones, no meetings, no copy machines... having to eat out for all your meals, which, by the way, are paid for. Terrible.

So when business took me up to Montreal, I tried to contain what would certainly appear as an unnatural excitement to leave the office. I mean, it's not like I was going to Bentonville, AR. Montreal is one of the world's premier cities, a magical world where people speak French, even though the U.S. is mere miles away, where the food is divine, the shopping, amazing, the people, diverse, the food, divine (oh wait, I said that), where... oh! I've run out of breath.

Since this was a last minute trip, I didn't have too much time to prepare my itinerary, but I knew that walking around the city would lead to culinary treasures galore.

Maybe I should've planned better.

It's not that I didn't like the food - I did - it's just that I don't feel I really got the best the city had to offer. Oh well, next time. Hopefully next time I'll be able to eat and enjoy it with someone else, and not alone. Because dining alone is something I say I love, but secretly hate.


First of all, dining alone always brings the dreaded and pitiful "just one?" question. And even when you're not "just one" in everyday life, being reminded that you're "just one" in a bigger city is a sad and kind of, well, lonely realization. It's not that I want to be "just one," I just am.

I didn't really want to eat at [restaurant I can't even remember the name of]. I just did. And certainly I didn't want to be reminded that I was at a not-my-top-choice restaurant... alone.


Oh yeah. I had a rack of lamb. It was decent.

Lunch at the hotel the next day was a little better. For one, the hotel was adorable, beautiful, and perfect. And supposedly its restaurant - "S" - was one of the better dining spots in the city.

I don't remember who exactly I heard that from, but I suspect it might have been the hotel's own Web site, because the food was slightly better than decent, and a little more than overdone.


OK, I can't make fun of this dish too much. It was only $4! But I seriously thought it was going to attack me. That's a mango avocado parfait, dressed up as Chewbacca. With vinaigrette.

For the main course, I had a fish, delightfully less garnished.


It was decent (recurring theme).

After lunch, before my plane left at 5PM, I had a few hours to shop and take in the city. Boulevard Saint Laurent is a popular shopping and eating district, and it didn't disappoint. I was expecting it to feel a bit like Soho, but it reminded me more of LA's Melrose Ave., minus the bums and Eurotrash. Tons of cute boutiques, lots of fun places to eat, almost all of it pretty cheap.

I was more in the mood for shopping than eating, so I didn't have too many blog-worthy adventures. I was lucky enough to stumble upon one bright spot on the walk home... Ripples home-made ice cream. I sampled a few flavours and instantly knew my new love - lemon chiffon.


Lemon chiffon ice cream really is sunshine in a cup. It's lemony, tart and flowery - it made me want to dance and skip all the way home!

Of course I couldn't leave Canada without some canady (haaha! get it? nevermind). Why do the Canucks get such yummy things that we don't get in the States? Do they think we can't handle it? Probably not...


All of these were pretty good. CandyBlog - one of my favourite blogs - has more in-depth reviews on Coffee Crisp and Aero... so I'll defer to her expertise. Wunderbar was a new one for me. It's essentially a peanut butter, caramel, chocolate and crisped rice concoction, similar (I think) to the 100 Grand bar and the UK's Star Bar.

And, fortunately, I was able to eat and enjoy these * not * alone. It was good to be home.

I'm a Pinkberry Addict: Redux

Remember how I vowed to stop blogging about frozen yogurt?
Yeah, me neither.

Check out today's New York Magazine restaurant page which features a link to yours truly and my fellow foodblogging friend Jeni from Oiishi Eats. You go yogurt girl!


If this keeps up, I may have to rename the site Colleen Eats a Lot of Yogurt and Sometimes Other Things.

LA County Fair - I Didn't Go for the Food (or did I?)

Here's proof that advertising (sometimes) works: a work friend of mine mentioned a funny TV commercial for the L.A. County Fair, which I didn't see, but it prompted me to go to YouTube and look up their past commercials, which I found, which made me laugh, and made me decide to go to the Fair this weekend. For whatever millions of dollars they spent in media, I was happy to contribute my $10 share.

In case you haven't seen them, these TV spots are pretty clever...

TVC 1: Does Cashmere Come From Cows?


TVC 2: What Comes From a Cow?


Iced caramel macchiato!! Precious!

I have fond memories of the Fair - my first "real" job was working the cash register for Grant's Hamburgers at the Orange County Fair, age 15. Not only did it indoctrinate me to the working world (as a carnie, nonetheless), it gave me a special nostalgia for the lights, sounds, tastes, and smells you only find at the Fair.

So when Brian and I decided to hit the LA County Fair Friday night, I went partially for the memories, and partially for the food. I mean, where else do you have an excuse to eat really, REALLY unhealthy food, then go shop for a jacuzzi or a ski-doo? (besides Wal-Mart)

Friday-night traffic aside, we got to the Pomona Fairgrounds fairly quickly, and we hit the ground running. For our first course, we started with a corn dog, nachos, frozen banana, and chocolate-dipped cone (not pictured). Sorry, I was so excited I forgot to take out my camera!

Then we moved on to some freshly fried potato chips, accurately named "Tasti Chips."


After gorging on all that food, we took a spin on the Zipper, the swings, the Moscow Circus fun house, the Euroslide.com (sadly, not a real Web site), and the Orbiter. Uggh. Maybe we should've held off on the food until after the rides... why do all carnival rides have to involve so much spinning? And spinning... and spinning...


After what seemed like an hour of spinning, we decided to settle our tummies with some dessert.

First a funnel cake. I didn't realize there were two different varieties of funnel cake: Pennsylvanian Dutch Funnel Cake, which is the kind pictured below, and Mexican Funnel Cake, which resembles churros squeezed through a much thinner, longer tube. Take your pick.


After that (what? you think we were full?), we split a caramel apple. Plain, no nuts, fresh from the bottom row.


It was at the end of all this gorging that I caught sight of the food miracle I wanted to try most: Deep Fried Oreos and Deep Fried Twinkies. I mean, really...


Despite their claims - "Try Me I'm So Good" - I was too full to stomache even one more bite. Too bad, I would've really liked to give you an update and some photos.

Maybe you can go to the LA Country Fair, try them, and update me. Then we'd really push the new media advertising bubble full circle.

LA County Fair
Ends October 1st
Wed-Thurs: 11AM-10PM
Fri: 11AM-midnight
Sat: 10AM-midnight
Sun: 10AM-10PM

Located at the Pomona Fairplex
1101 W. McKinley Ave.
Pomona, CA 91768

Bartering a Trend: Sprinkles Bites Pinkberry's Dust

I woke up this morning and vowed to myself that I would stop blogging about frozen yogurt... I mean, I'm starting to get a reputation and I wouldn't want that.

But then I was in line tonight at Pinkberry and something happened.

It was 10:55PM and the Pinkberry line was still about 20 people deep. A Pinkberry employee came out to cut off the line, right as a couple women were walking up. "I'm sorry, we close at 11PM and I have to cut off the line - no more people," she said.

The women, clearly devastated, started begging to be let in line to no avail. "Can I just go in and look at the yogurt? I've never even seen it before," one asked. "Oh please, oh please, oh please?"

What happened next would stick in my mind for the rest of the evening: one of the women proceeded to run back to her car and pull out a box of 4 Sprinkles cupcakes. "I'll give you these Sprinkles cupcakes if you let me get in line." The Pinkberry employee, who was clearly unwanting of the bribe, relinquished (I think she felt badly), and the women took their place in the queue.

Victory achieved.

Four Sprinkles cupcakes in exchange for a spot in line at Pinkberry... the cupcakes ended up on the ground (see photo, left), the women left smiling, yogurt in hand.

I think it's safe to say that the Sprinkles trend has officially bit the dust.

Fiore is King

With more than 100 unique votes (nearly twice that of its closest competitor), Fiore All-Natural Italian Frozen Yogurt has emerged as the people's choice for best real frozen yogurt in Los Angeles (see poll: Who's the Fairest of Them All?)



I'm sure many Pinkberry and Kiwiberri fans will be shocked at how a non-descript, quiet little blip on the radar managed to outshine not just their yogurt, but also their public and very vocal rivalry. I'll continue to leave the poll open, but I doubt either Pinkberry or Kiwiberri will be able to catch the momentum of what was certainly an "email everyone you know and get them to vote on this random foodblog poll" campaign. However, if the results change by the end of the month and Fiore is unseated, I'll announce the new reigning yogurt king.

Your official L.A. Yogurt Reporter, signing off...