Wednesday Dinner 2/23/2012

Good morning, boy what a sluggish morning I had! Anyway, I hope you all are well and looking forward to a grand weekend. This weeks "Wednesday Dinner" was very special to me because I got a chance to hang out with one of my really good friends, Pooh. She is such an amazing woman and friend! Hey Pooh! Thanks for dinner and our talk last night! You are appreciated! Anyway Pooh and I met up in Lakewood at the "Elephant Bar" (http://www.elephantbar.com/) now I have to be honest, I have not been a huge fan of the "Elephant Bar" for many years because my 1st experience there years ago was horrible. But over the years it has grown on me. I do appreciate their modern decorum of Asian fusion in the restaurant and there customer service is good. I think what had me turned off was the food, but it appears their menu has gotten better. So Pooh and I sat at the bar and I was kind of disappointed that there were NOT any cute guys in the area! Hahaha! I kid I kid. Pooh was already seated and had her 1st drink poppin by the time I got there, once I sat down the drinks, food and conversation started to flow! Here is what we ate & drank:

Ashley- 1 skinny margarita, spinach & artichoke dip & a wedge salad
Pooh- 1 regular margarita, one skinny margarita & chicken in lettuce wraps

I have fallen in love with the skinny margarita! Where has it been all my life, haha. It has less calories then your traditional margarita which I love. So over dinner Pooh and I just caught up on life and had a really good conversation about friends and life. And I have to say being her friend I am a firm believer that God puts people in your life for an amazing reasons! I have found a true friend in her! All in all dinner was good! I am sure you all are familiar with the "Elephant Bar" if not your lame! If you would like to get a "Wednesday Dinner" friendship bracelet drop me a line wednesdaydinnerwithash@yahoo.com and follow on Twitter www.twitter.com/wednesdaydinner . In closing I'd like to leave you with this "I didn't change, I grew up" until next week -Ashley

Wednesday Dinner 2/8/2012

Good morning and happy Thursday!! Lets all push through these next two days and get ready for the weekend, ayyyyeeee. This weeks "Wednesday Dinner" was a little weird! I had dinner with a friend of mine who I won't name, I'll just refer to him as he, him and his (hahaha). But having dinner with him wasn't weird the place were we ate was weird. So I had purchased a whole bunch of gift certificates from Restaurant.com (http://www.restaurant.com/). One of the gift cards I purchased for a place called "Magic Skewers" (http://www.magicskewers.com/home.html) located in Manhattan Beach on 22nd Street and Marine, walking in we were a little surprised! This is truly a whole in the wall, which is cool because I love those type of places. So here is were it got weird; there was no one there to greet us, we had to seat ourselves, and it took about 15 minutes for the guy to come over and get our drink orders and then another 15 minutes for him to come back with the drinks. There was about 2 other families that were dinning as well and it appeared that the guy who helped us was the only guy working. So by the time we got our drinks we were ready to order, here is what we got:

Ashley- Chicken Kabob and Shrimp
Him- Chicken Curry and Chicken Kabob

It took about 25 minutes for the food to come out, while waiting I was checking out the decorum of the place and it was really weird! It seems like this place has really been hit by the recession and maybe back in the day they had it going on but as of last night not so much! So the food came and the plate set up was really cute! It was very vintage! But a little too much food for the plate. All meals come with rice, pita bread and salad. I got the additional onions and mushrooms with mine but that was a total waste! It tasted really bad! The shrimp was ok, it was suppose to be shrimp scampi but it sure didn't taste like it! The pita bread was HARD, I took one bite and was off that! The best part was the chicken kabob and the salad. The chicken was juicy and a pretty nice size! It wasn't over or under cooked and it was seasoned very well! His food was ok too, the curry was a little weird and a little dark for curry but whatever. All in all it was good. The guy who served us was extremely friendly! The other thing I didn't like was that they only took cash or checks? Who the hell takes checks at a restaurant?! I don't think I'll be going back to "Magic Skewers" anytime soon but I am glad I tried them out. The total came up to $53 and some change, I had a gift certificate for $25 off so it brought the total down to $28 and some change. Not sure how we spent $53 on dinner before the coupon because sadly those kabobs weren't worth that much. I did enjoy myself and I left full however I didn't have any left overs but oh well! If you want to make a "Wednesday Dinner" kabob drop me a line wednesdaydinnerwithash@yahoo.com and follow on Twitter www.twitter.com/wednesdaydinner in closing I'd like to leave you with this "Good people bring out the good in you" until next week -Ashley

Wednesday Dinner 2/1/2012

Good morning and happy Thursday!! Hope you are all well and looking forward to the weekend. This weeks "Wednesday Dinner" was so disappointing!!!!! So my original plan was to go to dinner with my good friend Jesse but Jesse got stuck at work doing over time so that was a no go! So by the time I looked at the clock it was damn near 8:30pm and I was just getting to dinner, I never eat that late but ehh well shit happens. Anyway, so I decided I would give "FreeBirds" (http://freebirds.com/) a try. I heard about them and seen them around, what I really wanted to try was their fish taco but the location I went to didn't have fish! This was the 1st of my many disappointments! I went to the location on Jefferson & Figueroa and parking over there is for the birds. Good thing there is a parking lot in the back! So I walked in and noticed it was very colorful inside! The menu is very straight forward but very Chipotle like! However they do offer a few different things like (flavored tortillas, queso sauce, mixed cheese and different sized burritos). They are a little cheaper than Chipotle also. So once I noticed they didn't have fish I should have walked out but I decided to give it a try and here is what I ate:

Chicken Salad

My chicken salad came with ranch dressing, chicken, cheese, corn mixture, black beans, tomatoes, spring mixture of lettuce and sour cream. The salad was pretty big and I didn't finish it all. The total for the salad came up to $7.06 which wasn't bad at all. So I took my salad home, but getting out of the parking lot was a process. Apparently the pay machine was down and everyone got free parking last night!!!!! SCORE!!! So I got home and it was time to eat! So the salad smelled really good but ummmm it wasn't at all!!!!! The chicken kind of had a funny taste to it, there was barely any ranch dressing on the salad so I had to use my own. The salad was just definitely missing something, I finished about half of the salad and I was done. Maybe I need to give them a try again and try something else who knows. The set up in there was very college like. No one had on uniforms and everyone was wearing a baseball hat?? Not sure what that was all about and my salad bowl didn't have a plastic top they covered it with foil. Anyway I wouldn't recommend "FreeBirds" to anyone because I was very disappointed. If you would like to be a "Wednesday Dinner" free spirit drop me a line wednesdaydinnerwithash@yahoo.com and follow on Twitter www.twitter.com/wednesday dinner. In closing I would like to leave you with this "God gave you 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason....... Listen more talk less" until next week -Ashley