foodie

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Oliver the Geek…Four Square, Yelp, and Checking In

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You’re where? Where did you get that? Oh my gosh, are you really checking in?

Those are a few of the things that I get asked almost on a daily basis. Following me on Four Square or Yelp can be an interesting study of my habits. I check in everywhere and I mean everywhere. The reason being is so that I can document my own habits.

I promise I will try to limit the posting on Facebook. I don’t do it normally and I only post on super special occasions.

My habit for checking is because I want to know where I go and what I do most often. I think a lot of us kind of know what we do almost daily but I really want to know and have the numbers and documentation for it. Call me a geek but I love those things. I’m curious to see where I go and how often. I always thought it would be interesting to see the pattern. I’m still working on getting a plot of each data point on a map. And it is seeing this on a map is the reason that I check in anywhere. In all honesty I don’t do it to share what and where I eat but rather to show myself a pattern.

Here’s some stats so far:

Four Square
8 Mayorships
90 check ins at my place of work
Food & Drink is my most checked in category
14 times I’ve eaten at a burger joint
41 Four Square badges

Yelp
2740 Check Ins
24 Badges
34 reviews

The fact that I’m a foodie and a traveler has help me gain a reputation among friends of the people to ask about food and where to take visitors. I like to be able to do this because first, I get to help them find and discover new things and places they haven’t been before, secondly it keeps me motivated to keep continuing to explore and try out new things.

The fun thing that I have enjoyed about the checking process is that you do get a title if you happen to check in often. With four square it is Mayor and with yelp it is Duke. Yes, those are just bragging rights and they don’t really get you anything special except bragging rights. But I do see them as a achievements because you do have to frequent these places and keep up with each individual location. In one way it helps you build relationships with the owners and people that work there. And over time you can build that into a good friendship. And from these friendships you can get some interesting opportunities that you would have otherwise.

So I encourage you all to check in into places and explore your surroundings. Get lost and discover because you might be surprise on what you might find.

Coffee and Tea Collective Cold Brew Growler

Oliver the Foodie…The CoffeeHouse

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There are places in our daily lives where we do some of our best work.  That can be anywhere really and it is up to each and everyone to decide that.  It can be your bedroom, the office, the den, the park, and or the coffeehouse.

Nostalgia and just about anyone that romanticizes about doing some writing at one time or another will picture themselves sitting in a coffeehouse sipping a latte as they work on their next masterpiece.  I’m pretty confident that you might have this same picture in your head when I mentioned coffeehouse.  The aroma and sounds of the clinging glasses and the sound of pressure of the espresso machine producing the elixir of caffeination that fuel many creatives, businesses, and thought thinkers throughout the day.  But have you ever wondered why?  Why do so many people romanticize and flock to such places as a coffeehouse?  I don’t have an answer for you but my theory is that some go to be seen and others go because it truly is the place where their masterpieces are created.  I believe in the latter.

Coffeehouses have such an appeal in our lifestyle these days.  Just look at the number of coffeehouses you see.  Look around they are everywhere.  Starbucks for one is at every corner, every nook and cranny of this world.  So there is something about coffeehouses.

There is even an app called Coffitivity, that allows you to be a coffeehouse anywhere anytime.  You can now partially share the coffeehouse with this app.  I have used the app and I have enjoyed it.  The app works by playing the ambient sounds of coffeehouses, which if you do like the “white noise” of coffeehouse can work well for you.  I do admit that I use it when I’m at work so can I get work done and disconnect for my cubicle.  Sometimes you just have too.  The one thing though that it lack from its real counterpart is the smells of a coffeehouse.  But it is a great substitute for one until you head off to your favorite coffeehouse.

coffitivity

What’s your favorite coffeehouse?  It’s okay if you say Starbucks.  I’m not going to judge you.  I do have part take in Starbucks.  For a good three years and still here and there, I went to Starbucks daily Monday through Friday just so I can get my coffee fix and so I can be like all the working peeps around the world.  However as of late, my coffee places have changed.  What I have done lately is go to more local coffeehouses.  The places that you can only find here in good old San Diego.  To me these places are the true places where creativity comes alive.  They have character, they have charm, and its the place the locals hang out.  Of the local joints, my favorite of them all is the Coffee and Tea Collective on El Cajon Blvd in the North Park neighborhood of San Diego.

Coffee And Tea Collective Storefront

I make it a habit to go here at least once a week.  I traditionally like to go here on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.  For me, its the time that I have scheduled for myself to have some “me” time.  It is the hour or two that I have just for myself.  It is the time that I get to collect my thoughts, write my list, converse with others, do some catch up, or write a blog post (I’m not writing this particular one there).  But it is the time and place that I have just for myself.  Which to me is important.  I believe that everyone has to make time for that.  It’s not being selfish but it is the time that everyone needs so that they can recollect themselves.  You can’t do anything for yourself or others if you yourself are not happy.  So you have to find and schedule that time, whether it be in the a coffeehouse or not.  But you NEED to DO IT.

Coffee and Tea Collective Cold Brew Growler

For me the Coffee and Tea Collective is the place that I go and do that.  The reason that I like it there is because the coffeehouse is a welcoming place.  I really enjoy the minimalist designed space.  It’s clean and organized, not too much clutter, and there is always artwork that is going in and out of the space.  Secondly the people that work there are simply the friendliest people around.  They all know you by name, especially when you become one of the regulars.  They enjoy your company.  They have fun always smiling and always joking around.  And they all take pride in their work and coffee that they make for you.  And a coffeehouse isn’t complete without the coffee.  The Coffee and Tea Collective makes and roasts their own coffee in house.  Everything is made, measured, and served in house.  They make coffee and teas.  Their menu is small but there’s something there for everyone.  My favorite thing on their menu is their Cold Brew coffee.  It is by far the best cold brew around.  I’m pretty sure it’s popular because a few months ago they started a cold crew growler refill program.  You can now go to Coffee and Tea and get your 32oz or 64oz cold brew growler filled and refilled with them.  See it’s that good!  So if you are ever find yourself in North Park (San Diego), give Coffee and Tea Collective a try.  And get their cold brew.

But what this post comes down to is find a place that works for you.  Find that place or thing that you do for your “me” time.  It’s important to do that.  Trust me.

Food & Photographs… Oliver the Foodie, the Photographer

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Sunday was for sure a foodie day.  It was one of those days that wasn’t planned at all but you just went with it.  The foodie day began with me waking early around 9am to see what I had to do for the day.  I soon realized that I didn’t have that much to do today so I dug up some old pictures and worked on them.  My home headed to church and then shortly after my dad came home from he’s round of golf that he plays every Sunday.  With it being really close to lunch, I asked what he wanted to eat and he immediately mentioned that he wanted to try out a cheeseburger in Pt. Loma.  So I said okay.  At first I was like hmmm, this isn’t what I had planned exactly for eating but it will do.  Eventually I considered this another opportunity to find another place to eat.  My mentioned that the place was called; Jimmy Famous American Tavern.  So to yelp I went to find out where it was and what people would recommend from that place because I had  no idea.  After yelping it I found that it had some favorable reviews.   So it was go.  Now we just had to wait for my mom to get home from church and then we were off.

Finally arriving at Jimmy Famous, I saw that it was in one of the newly renovated seafront properties near the airport.  The buildings were new and modern.  It had a clean, maritime look, that made it completely different from the other building around.

Jimmy Famous is located on the lower level of one of the buildings in the new complex.  The entry was relatively small but once you entered you were greet to a very awesome open space that the daylight filled.  The venue was filled with woodsy, metal, oversize letter, and retro chic decor; I would say it was a pinterest board come alive.

Jimmy Famous is known for the burgers.  From their reviews on yelp a lot of people recommended getting their classic or cowboy burger.  I remember seeing a picture of the burger with a knife in it and I thought fancy.  So we were sitted and we looked over the menu.  The menu was simple and straight forward.  The service was quick.  After a few minutes of deciding what to get, we placed our order, and then what didn’t seem like more than 5 minutes our food was there.  I was it was a; Wow that was fast moment!  When we got our food the photography of food commence as always.  It took me a bit longer than usual to take the photograph.  But I managed after a few tries to get the picture.  I got the cowboy burger.  It was good and filling.  The burger also had a nice bite to it as it did have jalapeno pepper in it.  I ordered a green salad to go with it, I figure it would be better than getting the fries which are good as well ( I had a few from my dad).  Overall it was nice Sunday lunch to have and enjoy.  The place was full of people that were enjoy the beautiful Sunday afternoon in San Diego.   It was just one of those laid back days in the city.

After finishing lunch we headed home to chill out for the rest of the afternoon.  My parents both passed out and nap while I did some work on the computer, editing more pictures.  Those pictures are finally being uploaded as I am writing this post.  So with the quiet afternoon, I got another good set of pictures out of the way and shared.  It was also during the afternoon that I realized that today was the deadline to enter photos from the workshop that I did last week.  So I finally downloaded those pictures from my camera that has been sitting on the floor for awhile ( I have some other photo jobs that I need to get sent out so personal photo project get pushed back).

Now with the afternoon almost over my parents woke up and one of the first things that came out of their mouths was what was for dinner.  So the normal conversation of what to eat ensued and like most afternoons, the respond of; I don’t know was blurred out, and would remain unresolved or stay until someone mention a place and either there is an agreement or a reason for a veto on that idea.  Then the; I don’t knows usually commence further and this is usually my cue to go away for a bit and thing about it.  Today my dad mentions that he would like Chinese food.  Hearing that I knew it meant one thing, Chow Mein from Golden Chopsticks.

There is one thing you should know about my family and that is that we are pretty consistent on eating / getting food from places that we have come to love and we pretty much stay consistent with that place.  So any mention of any of these places usually makes figuring out what to eat a lot more easier than usual.  So when I heard Chinese food I knew that I would be calling one of our favs and that it would be done and ready in about 15 minutes and would require a drive to National City.  A drive you say?  Yup, a drive.  I really don’t mind driving.  I usually figure out how to avoid traffic if there is traffic and usually Sundays are pretty chill in the city so it wasn’t a problem.  And plus I would do anything for my parents, sister, and friends to help them out.  It is the least that I could do for the people that keep up humble and support me in my endeavors.

Now with that decided, I ordered – Beef Chow Mein, House Fried Rice, and their house salt and pepper chicken.  All delicious and I highly recommend them all.  FYI, I know if you are reading this post and you read yesterday’s post, you are thinking piggy or man you ate a lot this weekend.  It may seem like that but I do eat them in moderation and usually i haven’t over indulged since changing to the modified palieo diet.  Okay back to the story.  With the order placed.  My mom and I got in the car and headed down.

The drive down was pretty chill.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Mom and I just talked, caught up on things and just drove.  Good times and mom and son hang out time.

After picking up dinner and some Filipino treats at the Goldilocks near the Chinese food place.  BTW, I am now the Duke of that place on yelp.  🙂  We headed home and soon after ate.

During and after dinner I worked on two pictures that I needed to enter to the competition.  And worked I did.  It’s been awhile since I have some images my signature look but I knew what I wanted to do so I had to do the work.  Luckily enough I got to practice some of the techiques over the last few months and in those months too, I got to learn a few new tools for the belt.   So I used those and in little under a hour I got “signature” edits done on the images that I was planning in submitting to the competition.  And once I did, I sent them off.  On my soon to be new website / blog I will discuss and show how I do my “signature” edits and how they differ from the normal edits.  And with those pictures out of the way I finished a few more pictures from my trip to Austin and San Antonio from this last Thanksgivings holiday and finally posted them on my Flickr gallery.  And as of this writing they are about 90% done uploading.  So if you are reading this you can check them out here: http://www.flickr.com/olasis.

Well until tomorrow.  Have a great one and thanks for reading.  🙂

Groceries, Friends, and Food … Oliver the cook, the friend, the foodie

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Saturdays are my traditional sleep in days.  So sleep in I did.  Which was good because I was up late reading and I fell asleep with the lights on and the book resting on my bed.

Traditionally on Saturday is the lunch time hang out with my mom and dad but today was a bit different.  My traditional lunch hangout was not done outside of the house but at home.  My dad went to play golf and my mom decided that grocery shopping was needed. So I went grocery shopping at the Commissary.  And for those that don’t know what the commissary is, it is basically you traditional supermarket but military style.  Commissaries were a part of my life for about 23 years.  It wasn’t until I lost my military ID that I started shopping in “civilian” supermarkets.  So far the transition has been relatively good.  Although I have once again started looking for other ways to purchase food such as farmer’s markets.

Today’s visit to the commissary was a good one.  My mom and I just shopped around looking for the foods we needed to get.  Plus I get an opportunity to help them with their eating habits.  And since I usually cook for them I usually do the shopping for them and I try to introduce them to new food.  So it was cool talking to my mom about the stuff that they shouldn’t eat.  Which my mom always reacts to “Everything is bad for you,” my mom  kidding of course.  We both know that moderation is the best way to go and also just to make eating a healthy way.  So we shopped for an hour or so.  This kind of shopping was our traditional Saturday hangout before we did the lunch thing.  So much good memories doing that while I grew up.  It might also explain why I have my foodie side.  🙂

After doing the grocery shopping, we headed off and bought some lunch.  A good old traditional Filipino lunch.

Soon after lunch I headed off to meetup some of the coolest peeps around.  A few weeks ago I had such an amazing time at a conference in Portland called the World Domination Summit (WDS).  It was the World Domination summit that planted the seeds for me to start this blog.  This meetup was special because it was made up of the people that went to WDS and live in San Diego!  It was a great afternoon of hanging out with them.  It definitely brought the feel and excitement of WDS home.  Hanging out with them was cool not because they went to WDS but they are equally as nice and genuine and all believe in living their life the way they want to live it.  These guys are truly my peeps.  When I’m around them I don’t have feel like I’m the oddball or just feel weird when people just don’t understand.  It is these people that I strongly believe will make great GOOD in the world.  It’s exciting to know that I have set of people, wait scratch that, it is exciting to know that I have a set of friends that will be there to help support me and I will support them.  During our meetup / hangout we all got to introduce ourselves to each other.  It was awesome find out that we all have different interest collectively but we all have the same goal of making ourselves happy.  For sure we will be hanging out more often and making plans to work together to get stuff done.  Also an interesting fact was that none of us have yet to figure out what we are going to do with our $100 investment that we got from the World Domination Summit.  Currently we had the idea of doing community gardens and helping with people locally.  We will see were our ideas go.  Excitement for sure is in the air.

After an exciting afternoon, I headed home.  When I got home I ask my mom and dad what they wanted for dinner.  And I remember that my dad mention a restaurant that he wanted to try out.  So I ask him and then I went to the internet to search it out and to try to make reservation.  And so I did.  The place that we headed too for dinner was a new restaurant called Burlap in Del Mar.  Burlap as it turns out is the brainchild of Bravo’s Top Chefs finalist Brian Malarkey.  It’s a place were East meets West and described as “Asian Cowboy.”  The place was an awesome mix of atmosphere and modern and a bit abstract.  The food overall was good.  I had the braised short rib with some cowboy corn ( corn with a kick ).  It was good overall.  The only complaint I had about it that it was a bit noisy but that’s what you expect if you go to a place to go and be seen.  It’s definitely a place where the young go to hang out and enjoy each other’s company.  Good experience overall.  Just a bit pricy so not your everyday foodie place to go.  🙂

With dinner all over, we all headed home where I decided to chill out and spend the rest of the evening relaxing with tea and a traditional Marathon watch of the Ghost Whisper.  That will have to wait for another post.  🙂  Until then.  Thanks for reading.

Dinner…Oliver the Foodie

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Note:  First I’m writing this post on Saturday morning.  The reason I’m writing this on Saturday is that I simply forgot.  Yesterday was a good evening of good food and good friends.  And when I got home I decided the chill and read a book.  Then about 5 minutes into my book I fell asleep.  Oops!  So I guess today I will be writing two post.  Okay now on to the post.

Yesterday was awesome because it was Friday.  Fridays are the day at work where can you actually almost get away with murder because of the fact that it is the last day of the work week and for the most part a lot of people don’t show up.  Not because they don’t want to but because a lot of people are on their 9/80 work schedule.  So parking is easy and actually productivity levels go up.  Not a lot of people in the building means that its quiet.

Also another tradition at work happens on Friday.  It’s Hawaiian Shirt day.  Every Friday my coworkers and I wear a Hawaiian shirt and impose the same rules as Tie Tuesdays.  And so far no one has gotten a free lunch out of the deal.  So I’m working on changing it up and trying to change a few rules to make it happen.  But so far I have not been successful.

It being the end of the week also meant that I was finally going to have some dinner with some really good friends that I’ve been trying to schedule dinner with for the past few months.  And today was the day that everything worked out for us to have dinner.

My friends Barb and Rowell are married.  I was fortunate enough to meet Rowell when I was starting in my photography pursues.  He was the first photographer friend I made and he was the first one to believe in my abilities to photograph a wedding.  I’ve second shot for him several times.  He truly help me more than he’ll know in my photography.

And I met Barb via Rowell, obviously.  Now that I think about it, I met Rowell when he was still single and they were dating.  But back to Barb.  I met Barb via Rowell but via social media.  I think it was a conversation either on Facebook or Twitter, I can remember.  But I think we started talking about some food and gave some suggestions on where to eat.  Well from there we struck a conversation and eventually a friendship.  I think the first time we met in person was when I was meeting Rowell for a payment from a photography a gig I did with him.

So fast forward to today, Barb and Rowell are married, and they have their first child, Gabe.  And Gabe is freaking awesome.  Kind of reminds me of when I was young, doesn’t cry and always seems just happy, at least that what my mom tells me.  So how can you not believe in what your mom tells you.

So being fellow foodies themselves, Barb, Rowell, Gabe, and I decided to meetup at Prep Kitchen in Little Italy.  Prep Kitchen is an amazing place that brings the food from farm to table.  What a great concept, like Miho Gastrotruck, they get their food ingredients from local resources.  Love the concept and hope it continues.

Prep Kitchen has such a cool vibe.  I said it looked a pinterest board come alive.  The board would be a restoration warehouse inspired style board.  The ceiling of the place that we sat in had a recycled wood boarding that was made into a rib-like structure.  And one of the walls was made up of recycle stair railing supports.  Great vide and design.

Other than great design the food was awesome!  It definately was stuff that I didn’t have before.  I started out with a Chilled gazpahco of Watermelon and Tomato with some mint.  Talk about a nice and refreshing for the summer.  Definitely a must try if they have it on their menu.  Between the four of us we shared a cutting board of olives, cured meats, cheeses and nuts.  For my main course I had Prep Kitchen’s WNL Burger which had Gruyere, Cured Bacon, Caramelized Onion & Farm Egg.  With a side of fries. OMG talk about delicious!!!  I had the burger cooked on medium.  All of the ingredients blended very well.  The farm egg was perfectly cooked and the yolk had a delicious cheesy flavor that added so much more to the food.  The bacon was just off the hook.  Egg and Bacon is one of my favorite food combos ever!  The onion and gruyere add that extra kick in the mouth that made the burger just out of this world.  The fries where also well seasoned with I believed was some truffle oil and some good salt.  To go along with my dinner I had a cocktail called the somersault.  Watermelon with some pepper, oh man was it good!  I would highly recommend Prep Kitchen for a good evening out to dinner.  After dinner we grab some gelato at Cafe Zuchero.

The evening couldn’t have gone any better.  It was filled with good food, good friends, and good conversation.  What else could you ask for on a Friday evening.  And to end the evening I did a act of random kindness.  When I got to the parking lot where I parked my car I noticed that a couple had just arrived and haven’t bought their parking ticket yet.  Knowing that it cost $12 to park there, when I arrived at my car, I asked if they just arrived and if they bought their ticket yet.  They said no.  So I just told them, let me give you mind.  So I did.  I just save someone $12 and I knew that my ticket wouldn’t go to waste.  Spreading a good is a nice thing.  So when the opportunity presents itself I do it without thinking about it.  So the Friday evening was a great success.  Hopefully soon I will be able to do one again soon.  🙂