i have a confession.

i love chain restaurants.

mimi's cafe, marie callender's, macaroni grill, chili's, cheesecake factory, red lobster, IHOP, you name it - i dig it. well, with the exception of olive garden. that place is ass on a stick. and not claim jumper, either. that's just a ginormous plate of bland food. ew.

and why do i bring this up? well, mostly because i'm sitting here killing time before i meet up with the hub's mom, gram, and great-gram for dinner at mimi's. i love mimi's so much, i already know what i'm going to have - petite cobb salad tossed with blue cheese dressing and a buttermilk spice muffin. i'm such a creature of habit, it's ridiculous. sometimes, when i'm feeling crazy, i'll change it up and get a grilled ham stack sandwich (formerly known as the l'express, but maybe folks had too much trouble pronouncing it en français) and some french onion soup. mmmmmmm. [drooling]

this is a shameful confession mainly because it's pretty much the opposite of fine dining, and i know that a lot of my friends would rather go anywhere but a chain restaurant. and for the most part, if i have a choice between trying out some fabulous new place vs. hitting up an old standard, i'll take door #1. i guess it's kind of comforting, though, to walk into one of those joints and just know what i'll be having.

and this comes on the heels of hitting up a new place for lunch today with my friends A and WeezerMonkey. along with lilcee, we spent a relaxing hour (or so) getting our digits and tootsies done at bellacures. it was quite a lovely time - comfy chairs, friendly and competent staff (although i didn't escape unscathed - one of my fingers got nicked and is a little sore), toni braxton on continuous loop, and air conditioning! oh, the air conditioning was so wonderful. it was ridiculously hot (and still is). ick.

lilcee's hub came to pick her up and brought their adorable doggy, teddy. i was really relaxed and too zoned out to grab my camera, but WeezerMonkey did, and i bet if you check her blog, she'll have pictures up in a day or so. teddy had a mohawk! he's such a rock star. now i wish i'd have taken at least one picture. oh, well.

so the remaining three of us decided to feed our parking meters and walk up the street a few blocks to newsroom cafe. of course, by the time we got there, we'd damn near melted into a puddle (or at least, two of us were) and sat down to try and cool off a little. holy hell, it was hot. anyway, none of us had been there before, so we were pleasantly surprised to find that the menu offered quite a large variety of healthy choices. A and i went for the carved turkey breast sandwich on whole-grain bread, while WeezerMonkey chose the tandoori chicken sandwich. and while i'm typically all about eating as much processed food as i can get my grubby hands on, i really enjoyed my choice. i was fairly proud of myself, considering i'd had donuts for breakfast. :X

it was quite a fun afternoon, and we particularly enjoyed eyeballing the other diners in the restaurant, as well as the plethora of wannabes who flocked to kitson and lisa kline, just across the street. the ivy was right across the street as well, impossibly busy and overly impressed with itself. heh.

ah, i love l.a.