Birthday Food Extravaganza 2012

Last, last Sunday (March 4) was my birthday. I turned 29... one more year before the big three-zero.
There was no big celebrations or parties this year. Well, actually there usually is never a big party or celebration for my birthday, not since I was little anyway. I'm over birthday parties.

That didn't mean I didn't celebrate. I thought of how I wanted to celebrate my birthday this year. What better way to celebrate than with yummy goodness in your tummy??? So we made a plan of a weekend trip to fatten ourselves with delicious food. The way to Josie's heart IS through her stomach...

First stop was LA for Indonesian food. We went to Simpang Asia, known for its simple, cafeteria-style food as well as its grocery store full of Indonesian snacks. We had Nasi Mantep (Indonesian rice dish with egg, curried chicken, collard greens, beef. chili sauce wrapped in banana leaves), Rendang (beef curry with coconut milk), Ketoprak (tofu, potatoes, rice cakes, sprouts, thin noodles, chips and spicy peanut sauce).  I wanted to order more, but I had to control myself....

Ketoprak on bottom left, Nasi Mantep on top and beef curry on bottom right.

After eating, we obviously had to buy some Indonesian groceries. Unfortunately since we were going to be out and about all day long, I could not buy some of the homemade Indonesian pastries/cakes since they would probably go bad being left in the car all day.

Next stop: Claremont. We had to work on our appetite for dinner so we went on a hike first with the dogs. Two hours and five miles later, with a trip to Petco and Target as well, we were ready for dinner. Eureka Burger! is the only reason we came back to this town. Originally started in Redlands, California, Eureka Burger has a variety of gourmet burger selection like the Pearl Street Blues burger with melted bleu cheese, herb-sauteed wild mushrooms, grilled onions, chipotle ketchup with added bacon on top on freshly-baked buns. And fries, with spicy ranch dressing. Oh, and they also serve Hangar 24, local beer brewed in Redlands: our FAVORITE beer.

Pearl Street Blues Burger: 

Hangar 24 Orange Wheat

The night came to an end, and so did our food extravaganza day one.

The next day we stayed around in Oxnard at the Marina. Food galore continued with fresh, sweet strawberries from the farmers' market, and Toppers Pizza for lunch.

jalapeno, red pepper and chorizo pizza

big and sweet!

 We finished off our celebration by having seafood dinner (naturally, since we were right by the ocean) at Sea Fresh. Unlike Simpang Asia and Eureka Burger!, we've never been here so this one was quite a gamble. It was pretty good, I was not disappointed with my dinner, but it was definitely not as good as Eureka Burger!

ahi tuna with rice pilaf and vegetables

And that marked the end of our weekend food extravaganza. Well, sort of. I had one more food item I wanted: fruit tart, my favorite dessert. I did sort of demand this one shamelessly. And a good husband Jerrad is, after typically forgetting to buy one for two days, he managed eventually to get one for me.

There it was:

yum.

Perfect way to end my birthday food extravaganza...

~josie