LA Visit: Day 1

Met up with a friend at California Chicken Cafe. Such delicious rotisserie chicken! Then we both drove to UCLA to see our friend's PhD defense. We took a bunch of pictures before she actually started speaking. Her uncle filmed most of her hour-long presentation. The room was fully packed when she started her presentation. The defense was more of a formality so thankfully she passed!

After her celebration, we went to try out Pinkberry since people have been raving. It tastes like a certain Asian yogurt drink so it was lighter and more tangy than regular froyo. We got toppings of rice cakes, strawberry, and pineapple. The rice cakes tasted exactly like Botan rice candy. I think it was hyped for me so I didn't find it particularly amazing but it was quite good.

In the evening, we had dinner at Osteria Mozza with friends we hadn't seen in a long long time. (Since I've seen her, she's graduated from law school, passed the bar, and got married.) The food was a bit on the greasy side but the taste was amazing. For appetizer, we had the grilled octopus (very meaty) and burricotti (cheese with braised artichokes, pine nuts, currants & mint pesto on toast) If I had a bigger stomach, I would've ordered more from the mozza bar. For entrees, we had orecchiette with sausage & Swiss chard and tagliatelle with oxtail ragu. The orecchiette had a very strong taste and I thought it was better than the tagliatelle.