Back when I used to live in Illinois, I never had a build-your-own pizza because … well, the concept didn’t really exist in the Chicagoland suburbs. Or, at least, I didn’t really go out enough to figure out whether or not such a restaurant was available. Usually, when I ordered pizza, it was through a place like Lou Malnati’s, where you pick what you want off of a pre-made menu.

In the early days when I first arrived in California, I was exposed to Blaze Pizza, a restaurant that provides custom-built pizzas on the spot. You would select your dough, ask the employees to put particular ingredients on your pizza, then watch as your pizza gets put in the oven and cooked right in front of your eyes.

The Blaze Pizza I went to was in Los Angeles county, and I live closer to the eastern edge of Orange County, so I didn’t really go there too often … until I realized that a place called Pieology Pizzeria was nearby, and it operated on the same build-your-own system. So, I went there earlier today with one of our players.

I’m disappointed that this concept doesn’t exist in Illinois, because I’m great at picking ingredients for my pizza … at least to satisfy my own tastebuds. I get wheat dough with spicy tomato sauce, pepperoni, sausage, and sometimes small bits of bacon. Then I add in a whole lot of fresh basil, red onions, and garlic. To finish off the pizza, they brush some basil pesto along the crust before throwing it into the oven.

I think the key point that makes this pizza so satisfying is that it has lots of garlic (which I love) and red onions (which I also love). The extra leaves of basil help give it a rich taste, as well.

(The picture I took of my pizza is a little blurry because I was photographing it with greasy hands. As you can see, I had already finished a slice before I wanted to snap a photo, so I was trying to balance my phone with my greasy hands without trying to get it too dirty.)

Based on my past experiences, I tend to associate “double cheeseburger” as a small, non-premium burger that you would get off a dollar menu (I would assume McDonald’s is primarily responsible for that). When my friend and I ordered a bunch of food from Corky’s, the waitress warned us that Corky’s has really big portions, so we got a bit less food … and I’m glad we did.

The portion size of the double cheeseburger you see above from Corky’s is quite literally the amount of about four double cheeseburgers from McDonald’s. It may not actually seem that huge in the photo, but that might be because the French fries were also huge and broad.

… I finished half of that burger in the restaurant and brought the rest home to finish for another entire meal.

… Okay, not really. I actually feel slightly, marginally bad because all I’ve been doing is posting photos of the stuff I’ve been eating, rather than actually providing quality content. But then again, nobody’s saying that endless photographs of food isn’t quality content.

So this time, I decided to save photos from two restaurants’ worth of visits before posting them.

A handful of days ago, I went to a Thai restaurant called the Seven Seas. I ordered my classic orange chicken dish (which I believe is my favorite method of prepared chicken), in addition to a Crying Tiger, which is a Thai dish that I had never had before.

I requested the Crying Tiger to be cooked medium rare (which I generally do for all meat), but it ended up being closer to medium well. Regardless, I think this is now one of my top favorite meat dishes. I’m generally good at justifying my statements, but for this, I actually have no idea why, but it tasted great. I also like raw onions, and the sauce having chopped raw red onions inside made the whole thing even better.

Today, I went to a different restaurant – a dumpling house closer to the city of Los Angeles. I ordered some dumplings, obviously, but I also ordered some Chinese beef rolls, which is a dish I’ve only had once before. The first time I tried it, the meat tasted a bit overcooked and it was covered in a strong smell of grease (maybe because it was very fried and very greasy), but my friend with whom I went to this restaurant insisted that the beef rolls here were much better.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, as the beef rolls here were also somewhat dry on the inside and dripping grease on the outside.

… At least it made for a good photo opportunity.

I went back and scrolled through my past handful of blog posts and realized that, out of my seven most recent posts, six of them are about food or some form of hunger:

• Going to get food from Chipotle and encountering a brawl
• Ed’s tragic experience of eating a late lunch
• The affordability of sushi in Illinois
• Photos of scenes out the window of an airplane
• Flying first class on an airline is like a mobile restaurant
• My first self-grill all-you-can-eat KBBQ experience
• The non-affordability of sushi in California

Why break the streak now? Here’s a photo of a filet mignon dish I ordered earlier today at a Vietnamese restaurant.

My friend wanted to get phở with me today. I personally hate burning-hot liquid dishes, so instead, I looked for a more dry dish on their menu, and came across this house special – a Vietnamese-style filet mignon meal for only around US$10.00.

A whole lot more food and a whole lot more value than the sushi I got last night.

I hadn’t had any sushi since that day at the all-you-can-eat buffet, so I searched out a sushi place nearby so I could enjoy some delectable raw fish. I ordered one rainbow roll and one California roll … and the total came out to over US$20.00.

I think I just picked the wrong restaurant. When I did some research on Google Maps and other location review websites, I found some other places around my area that supposedly had much cheaper sushi, but this location happened to be the only one that was open during the late hours at which I went for some sushi. If I had to pay that much for some strips of the finest quality of sashimi, or rich, full, long pillows of nigiri, then I would’ve been less irked by it … but that much just for rolls??

The restaurant seemed to be a mix between a sushi restaurant and a bar. Just from the looks of the interior, it seemed to be an upper-end restaurant, but I still didn’t really expect to pay that much. I’m also pretty sure the “crab” was imitation crab – not that there is anything wrong with imitation crab (or “surimi”), as a lot of restaurants use imitation crab anyway, but it’s just that surimi is significantly cheaper than real crab.

I’m obviously not returning again, but if you’re bleeding money out of your ears (which I am not) (yet), this may just seem like a regular nice restaurant. However, for someone as youthful as me who is trying to save up for my future … it was expensive enough that I decided to write about it.