The Great British Bake-Off + eating and drinking through Echo Park.
Living life a quarter mile at a time.
Filling our buckets in Los Angeles.
In honor of MLK Jr. day, Stacy and I packed our bags, dropped our puppy off and headed south to visit Megan and Robert in the City of Angels.
It was our first time heading there since these two have been dating. We were shown a great time by our hosts, but one of the more lasting things given to us [other than heart burn] was the recommendation of The Great British Bake Off.
The Great British Bake Off, often referred to as Bake Off or GBBO, is a British television baking competition produced by Love Productions, in which a group of amateur bakers compete against each other in a series of rounds, attempting to impress a group of judges with their baking skills, with a contestant being eliminated in each round, with the winner being selected from the remaining contestants that make it to the finals. — Wikipedia, of course.
Basically, Chopped, but with amateur bakers rather than professionals.
The contestants are all quite endearing.
It could be because they’re all amateurs and just do this for the love of baking, but mostly, it is because of their British accents.
After competing to get a post amongst the 12 bake-off contestants, and spending 9 weeks sweating it out in the tent of technicals the best baker of the show will be announced and awarded with a cake stand — and maybe some flowers.
That’s it. — probably Wikipedia.
It is a light-hearted show and apparently one of the more popular shows in the UK.
Stacy and I must have been more invested than even we knew. I’m pretty sure we both teared up when, after some criticism from the judges, contestant, Diana Beard shrugged, “I guess I’m just a home-baker.”
After four episodes, we are excited to keep this on the bench of tv shows when we need a pick-me-up.
Wedding planning with the newlyweds to be.
Megan and Robert are tying the knot on April 7. After getting engaged in December there weren’t many weekends to spare to finalize the details.
This played into our favor as we got to tag along for a few wedding planning activities. When we arrived, they were meeting with the photographer and took a few ‘get to know you’ pics.
We even snuck in one.
Ah, yes. Here it is.
We were there when they excitedly sent the official Save The Date.
But the real treat was our invitation to take part in the dinner reception tasting catered by East Side Tacos.
The tasting was at La Blanquita Carniceria Super Market [Mercado?] in Boyle Heights.
Yes, please.
They rolled out the red carpet for us.
We were in an odd, back room of the market with a bunch of old money counting machines and Quinceañera dresses to compliment our table set for four.
The food was plentiful and delicious. The al pastor taco was the star of the show but it was stiff competition for that title.
It felt like we were getting away with something or possibly about to get whacked. Even more so once our host said this feast was free [included].
We made sure we ordered the eco-friendly plates and utensils and we were on our way for an impromptu photo-shoot at the mural outside the market.
The rest of the trip.
We ate like kings.
The quick run down of amazing places we tried:
- Pastries from Dinette. Megan and Robert ordered from Postmates which immediately made it known we were in LA from the moment the Uber dropped us off.
- Lunch at Semi-Tropic. Hipster coffee bar. Actually, let’s just save time and assume all these place have varying degrees of hipster vibes. I actually ordered a salad. But to be fair, I had at least four pastries immediately before.
- Tintorera for pre-dinner drinks and chips and guac. They said the patio was full but Megan successfully negotiated us a table for 50 minutes which was plenty of time for a round of drinks. Typical lawyer.
She’s arguing, she’s making an argument.
- Alimento for dinner. Pro-Tip: Never ask a waitress if you’ve ordered enough for the group. She is biased.
- Breakfast at the Beacon at the Boat House at Echo Park Lake. [Pictured. Megan and Robert weren’t with us so we didn’t feel bad about about photographing our food]
- Lunch at the aforementioned East Side Tacos.
- Dinner at Manuela with a few of Megan and Robert’s friends, Ben and Neal.
- Ice cream at Salt & Straw as if we needed it. Plus a short walk to see the New Girl apartment.
- And for our final meal, Acai Bowl at Glowing Juices just to make sure we got the full, Echo Park experience.
That felt like a proper sampling of LA.
No wasted meals.
Living life a quarter mile at a time, by foot.
Since all we did was eat, we had to get in some sight-seeing by foot.
Good times. We’ll be back.
