usa: the food report

Holy fuX0ring crap! I have just been in the US for two weeks, and once again completely failed to eat any Krispy Kreme donuts. How the aytch-ee-double-hockey-sticks did THAT happen?! When I was in Cali for E3 in May I had failed to get my way toward one of those Atkins-hostile shops, and wrap my somewhat overlarge lips around one of those glazed rings of bliss.

It's clear enough to me that I ate enough of everything I wanted; I must have gained five pounds in two weeks.

• In-and-Out Burger was savaged, and I may have turned my sibling onto the joy of the shop; it offers the best US$1.60 cheeseburger I've ever had. It compares quite favorably to a Johnny Rockets burger, at about 1/3 the price.
• So much Mexican food was plowed that one would think it unavailable where I live in Japan. For all intents and purposes, it is. In Osaka, I'm able to find hard shells (corn) of Old El Paso, and nothing else. In Japan I am generally relegated to those to make my own tacos. On the very first day, I was able to get a massive platter of steak nachos from Baja Fresh. I had a homemade pork carnitas tamale with salsa verde at a farmer's market. I had soft tacos and homemade salsa at Aqui, my favorite cali-mex grill. I even had homemade green chile pan-fried quesadillas for my last breakfast.
• Pizza. Real pizza. No squid. No corn. No mayo. O! Bliss! I was able to get pizza no less than four times, with one of them being a batch of reheated mushroom-pepperoni from Willow Street Woodfired Pizza. I also had my first piece of Pizza My Heart in five years or so: feta cheese and olive thick crust (they were temporarily out of pesto...). One, giant, pizza-fest was even paid for by other parties (thanks, timmeh!)
• Sushi: Yes, it is unusual to go to California and then eat something that is not only readily available, but generally better in Japan. My excuse is that there are some places in Cali that will go weird with the stuff, and invent interesting combinations that no-one in their right mind would ever generate. Well, that, and the tendency that whenever my parents see me, they think about Japan, and then have an urge to eat Japanese food. Sometimes that gets my goat, but my brother-in-law knows a neat (and way weird) sushi shop (yes, in a mini-mall) that was quite good and very interesting.
• Fusion: E&O Trading Company's azn-Cali goodness was a treat, though we kinda ran up the Bar Bill from Hell. I recommend Bailey's and espresso both before and after a good meal.
• Baked goods: Leaving aside the scones and ginger cookies sampled at various coffeeshops that could not grok my wild-eyed stares at their bread-laden display racks, my sister and I both benefited from the baking ministrations of super_nyanko and epiphaniesrus. I'm not going to point fingers, because I asked for it, but I'm pretty sure a goodly portion of the weight I put on is due to the oatmeal cookies, cinnamon-sugar cookies, chocolate chip tollhouse cookies, banana bread, and other goodies they provided. Bless their charming, oven-centric hearts.

Note: most of this was written on the return flight, using XJournal for OS X on my iBook. So there.