Fanime 2012: What I Ate & Drank (Sunday/Monday)

Because we were such fat ponies during Fanime I had to split my post into two parts.  This is part 2.  Part 1 is here.

SUNDAY

Back to La Victoria!  I told you this was our favorite.  Due to this being morning time, I got a breakfast burrito this time.  With bacon!  (Usually I go with chorizo, but I felt the chorizo might be a tad heavier than what I wanted that morning.)

Besides the Magic Orange Sauce they also have Magic Green Sauce which is very very good as well.  Plus an horchata.

And then to wake us up, Malvitas’s friends took us to a new coffee place, Philz Coffee.  This is sort of tucked away in a little shopping area so we hadn’t seen it before.  It’s at 118 Paseo de San Antonio.

It had a line both days we went, and it’s somewhat disorganized.  You stand in line, and tell the barista what you want, but the barista doesn’t write down anything, and just makes your order.  Sometimes they take several orders at once.  It’s inevitable they will mess up (as they did with Fongus).  After ordering you proceed down the counter and pay.  Then you have to fight back through the line to pick up your order from the barista you ordered from.  It’s not a very good system.

But the thing I had was VERY good.  I got what’s called an Istanbul Treat.  It’s black tea (don’t know what kind) and green tea (don’t know what kind) with cardamom.  And I add honey to make it “medium sweet” and a splash of cream.  SO GOOD.  I’m so mad there’s not Philz down here, because now I want more.  It’s strictly a Bay Area thing.

We couldn’t make up our mind for lunch, but then I remembered I had a PF Chang’s gift card that was like five years old and unused since PF Chang’s is not a place I ever go to.  We figured what the heck.  San Jose’s PF Chang’s is at 2nd and San Fernando, so 4 blocks from the con.

It was surprisingly good.  I’ve always been underwhelmed by their food, but this time it was quite tasty.  Maybe because we didn’t get the ubiquitous lettuce wraps.  I’m so over those.

Instead we got:  crispy green beans (always a favorite, can’t go wrong with tempura green beans), double pan fried veggie noodles (Fongus loves this style), lemon scented brussels sprouts with ginger, garlic, and basil (yummmmm, I love shredded brussels sprouts!), and Sichuan asparagus.  Maybe vegetarian is the way to go for PF Chang’s.  I also got something called a Sichaun Mary, but it tasted exactly like a Bloody Mary.  I don’t know what was Sichuan about it.

Killing time for dinner (Malvitas bailed on us to go visit a local friend), Fongus and I ended back in the Fairmont Lobby Lounge for drinks.  The drink menu, I realized was HUGE.  The martini pages were crazy.  After paging through it, I discovered the Girl Scout Cookie-tini.

Look at that!  Chocolate syrup drizzled in the glass, vodka, creme de menthe, creme de cacao… maybe some other stuff.  It tasted like a thin mint dipped in vodka.  Super super tasty.  Fongus got a negroni, which is that red thing in the back.  It looks like a maraschino cherry.  He said it had a cherry flavor to it, but sour.  My brain got stuck on maraschino cherry and I had a sip expecting something somewhat sweetish.  It actually made me shriek a little from the sheer bitterness.  Fongus thought that was hilarious.

For my second drink, after much more paging and eyeballing the Creme Brulee-tini, my eye fell on a Strawhat.  Well.  Being at an anime convention, I HAD to get that.

The Straw Hat Pirates from One Piece

Here’s my Strawhat martini!  It had Dekruyper’s, vodka, uh… a strawberry garnish, some other stuff, and it was DELICIOUS.  Yum!  I may have drank it too fast, or the bartender was super generous, because I was incredibly drunk after these two drinks.  Fongus had a Manhattan.  And then Katrina joined us and had a Frankenberry (blueberry martini) which was also really good (so good that we shared another after dinner).

For dinner, considering our wobbly precariousness, we decided to try the Indian place we saw during one of our other excursions.  First we had to get out of the hotel lobby, which was more difficult than we thought.  Once we finally figured out which door it was, off we went to Tandoori Oven.

Tandoori Oven is also attached to the hotel, on the opposite side of the hotel doors from Bijan.  It was late, and they were almost closed, but we got our orders.  I got a spicy seekh kabob wrap, which is ground chicken with all sorts of delicious spices shaped like a sausage and placed in a wrap with a mint chutney.  I also got a potato salad on the side to help cut the spiciness.  It reminded me of this place I used to go in Davis, the Chaat Cafe, which had a spicy seekh lamb kabob wrap.  It was really good!  I want to go here again next year.

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MONDAY

Our last day in San Jose.  We finished it off with breakfast, once again, at La Victoria (I told you we loved this place.)

Since I already ate my breakfast burrito on Sunday, I kinda wasn’t feeling it.  So I got a lengua regular taco this time, which just comes with beans and salsa, instead of all that other stuff.  I think this became my new favorite thing at La Vic.

(Boy, doesn’t this drawing look tasty?  Too bad I deleted the photo of an actual taco from the place due to fear of copyright issues.)

I could not get over at how good it was.  Alternating with the orange sauce and the green sauce, this was heavenly.  My mouth waters just thinking of it again.

After breakfast, we went back to Philz on the way back to the con, where they totally forgot, then messed up Fongus’s order, and he was furious.  I hope this doesn’t sour him on Philz, because I really want to go back and get more Istanbul Treats.

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And that completes my Fanime 2012 wrap up!  I hope to do something similar again for Anime Expo (June 29-July 2), with the same categories.

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Part 1: Fanime 2012: What I Watched is here.

Part 2: Fanime 2012: What I Saw is here.

Part 3: Fanime 2012: What I Got is here.

Part 4A: Fanime 2012: What I Ate & Drank (Friday/Saturday) is here.