literati, rustic canyon & air conditioned supper club

after staying up till 2AM to write a super funny blog entry, i was DEVASTATED when i lost the WHOLE thing. i must admit that this wasn't the first time it's happened, so i really should've been more careful. but seeing as how i'd had the loooooooongest day (what w/taking my uber challenging PT exam at 8:30 in the morning, not eating anything substantial until 2PM, and being out at bachelorette activities ill 1AM), i was soooooooo not having any of this blog entry being erased business. ARGH!!

needless to say, i'm feeling a bit calmer now, but definitely not as excited as i was last night about writing. plus i'm groggy from only 5.5 hours of sleep, seeing as how i'd been up so late. (ARGH!! lingering bitterness. can you tell?)

let's start by saying that my PT exam was TOUGH. not that i'd expected any less, but it was HARD. i wish i could've left saying i aced it, but god knows that wasn't going to happen. the biggest thing was that i was STRESSED OUT. i don't think any of us seriously thought we'd need the whole time. but when the old guy next to me left w/30 minutes on the clock, i started to worry. and that's when most of the second guessing happens. i wish i'd stuck with some of my instinct answers, but then again, when your instinct doesn't read all the answer choices (*sigh*), that's not always the best way to go either. all in all, i think it went OK. but i wished i'd left feeling more confident about it. when you're left counting how many questions you might've gotten wrong and wanting to go through your textbook, that's just not a good sign. at any rate, i'm prepared to re-take the exam in glendale this summer. i'm just not as prepared to dish out another $285!! i mean, that's a whole plane ticket! *sigh* at least i know this will all blow over before the summer's out! or at least i hope so.... AUGH! i wish i could get it out of my head! like eri says, maybe i need hypnosis....

anyways, moving on.... considering that i took the exam on 1/2 a mocha and a biscotti, i was starving by 2PM when i met up w/netta for a late lunch. we decided to head to literati, which i found out later she'd never been to before! i guess mel and i had been talking it up at some point, so i'm glad we settled on going there, especially since i hadn't been in AGES. i decided on the iced tea and the portabello panini w/roasted red peppers on wheat. a PERFECT summer veggie combo. we sat outside in the sun and gabbed about all the nonsense in our lives. of course, we were simultaneously distracted by the nonsense in the street (wilshire & bundy, i believe) where a BARQ's 2-tiered monstrosity sat in the middle of the intersection for a VERY LONG TIME. worse became worst when the idiots on the top tier started squirting stuff from the top windows onto the passing cars below. CAN WE SAY JUVENILE?! i swear i was up in arms and totally ready to call the police. unfortunately, i only had the UCLA PD on speed dial, so i guess that was that. eventually, the bus moved. thankfully, my back was turned, so i wasn't even paying attention after a while. i swear i can't stand idiots. (like the one in my PT class, who shall remain nameless, though anyone who from class who reads this blog should know FULL well who i'm talking about. UGH!) at any rate, back to my food tale. the last thing that i want to mention about literati (beyond the fact that i've never had anything NOT yummy here -- love the double negative) is that the desserts are AMAZING. i was still hungry after i inhaled my lunch, so i ran back in and picked up the chocolate chip banana bread, which i swore to netta that i wouldn't finish, but which inevitably i found room for in my tummy. totally moist and deliciously filling. mmm....

oh! before i forget, literati has an adorable fine dining restaurant in the back of the cafe. i've been and it's delicious. if you go, you MUST order the duck. you MUST.

literati cafe
http://www.literaticafe.com/

after getting through several loads of laundry (WOOHOO!) and a quick run (which i SO needed), i was out of the house again for casey's bachelorette activities. after asking me for some recs, casey settled on rustic canyon, which i'd been waiting FOREVER to go to. considering that the plans had been on the calendar for a while, i really should've saved more room in my tummy. thankfully for my wallet, i was still pretty full from lunch and settled on a lighter meal for dinner. btw, considering that we were 30-60 minutes late for dinner (don't even ASK), i found the waitress to be quite helpful and accommodating. unlike the hostess who came off as an uppity sorority girl when she advised us that we needed to be out before the 9PM seating (who didn't even show up on time! if at all!) btw, why does EVERYONE eat so late?? isn't it bad for digestion??

at any rate, the food was DELISH. i chose the sweet corn soup and the baby gem lettuces, both of which were perfectly light and summery. amy and jenny both went for the homemade pastas, which the waitress had warned would be quite small, so they both ordered the soup as well. the waitress was definitely NOT lying about the portions. even though they were quite miniature, the girls definitely enjoyed the flavors and i definitely enjoyed the scent of the bolognese wafting over from amy's plate! since we were in a bit of a rush to get out of there, casey and megan decided to end w/the cookie plate. considering that amy was still hungry, normally i would've gone all out for dessert. but given the state of my tummy and wallet, it was probably a good idea that we stuck with the cookies. there was enough for everyone to have 2 bites, and i decided on the shortbread and the chocolate -- both of which were quite delectable.

even though the food was good, i must admit that i found the menu quite uninteresting. i mean, i must've been impressed by SOMETHING if i'd wanted to go there so badly. but i'm guessing the inconsistency is due to the fact that the menus change over the seasons. granted, any good restaurant should really have menu items that appeal throughout the year. however, i'm willing to give rustic canyon another chance -- provided that i won't be disappointed!

rustic canyon wine bar
http://www.rusticcanyonwinebar.com/

after many attempts to find the address for this place (umm.... i believe some folks were in serious need of blackberry tutorials. i mean, what ever happened to 411?!), we finally located the air conditioned supper club in venice. granted, we COULD'VE gone to the one in SM if i'd actually KNOWN about the one in SM. (of course, i only found out that there when i was googling the website for this blog entry.) thankfully, our little adventure to the venice location was QUITE memorable. aside from casey being decked out in a tiara, a boa, and a "write on me" pink t-shirt, the rest of us were also nicely attired by megan in fluffy boas and blinking bracelets. yes yes, we were QUITE the crew. we spent much of the night going up to random gentlemen to ask whether they'd perform bachelorette-worthy tasks and sign off on casey's shirt. thankfully, we did get SOME dancing in. especially at the end of the night when some really fun tunes came on. my one goal for the night was to get casey and the girls up on stage -- and it was MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, BABY. WOOHOO!! anything to not have to watch the she-man show off his/her non-existent rhythm. ick! to be honest, the club was actually quite fabulous, considering that there was no cover before $10, the music was totally awesome, and only a few of us were randomly groped by disgusting men. (i mean, that's inevitable, right? oh, how i hate that that's true. *sigh* it's just so gross!) plus, casey ended up getting the attention of this really REALLY hot guy. i swear all of us were breathing a little heavy -- single or not!

air conditioned supper club
http://www.airconditionedbar.com/home.html