After the post I made yesterday evening of my trip to Irvine, CA, we went out to get some dinner with the other attendees of the event. We claimed our spot in line for an all-you-can-eat self-cook Korean barbecue restaurant, then went across the street to a bubble tea restaurant.

I personally think single-serve drinks (like bubble tea, Starbucks-style coffee, etc.) are overpriced, so I didn’t get any of my own (although I did sample some of my friends’ drinks). Instead, I took this photograph of some earl grey macarons that were on display.

After a decently long wait (because there were so many of us), enough tables freed up for us to start eating KBBQ.

Because pretty much everyone attending the event was at the KBBQ restaurant and everyone attending has a big part in Internet culture (including social media), there were a lot of photos of cooking meat going up on Twitter. One of my friends sitting in front of me Tweeted “my entire Twitter feed is filled with KBBQ pictures,” so in response to that, I took the following photograph and sent it to him:

That all happened yesterday. After a long night of work, I slept pretty late.

Although, again, I cannot reveal anything about the actual reason for the event itself due to confidentiality agreements, I can share some more generic photos. For today’s dinner, I again ate food from Eats Kitchen & Bakery on the first floor of the hotel (except this time, I got takeout instead of eating in). I got another burger today, but a different one than yesterday, and apparently, I picked one that literally has potato chips inside the hamburger.

The event itself was only one day long (although most people are staying for three, to include two travel days), but I will most likely leave tonight, seeing as I am local to Irvine and don’t need to wait for a flight to depart tomorrow. Because tomorrow is Monday, I’d rather drive at around 4 AM to avoid traffic, rather than leaving at regular hotel check-out time tomorrow and making a 30-minute drive take an hour and a half.

I never got around to figuring out whether or not we actually got the benefits of that special hotel club for being on this floor (because normally you have to pay extra per room to get on this floor), but then again, I never actually really needed those extra amenities. At least I got to experience this nice view; I got one last photo of it during sunset today.

One of my family members is having a birthday tomorrow, but they live right around 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) away from me, so I decided to snap some photos of cakes for them while a friend and I stopped by a bakery to look at some bread. You can look at the photos too, in case tomorrow (or today) is also your birthday.

While we were out shopping, we stopped by a restaurant for some dinner. My favorite type of prepared chicken is orange chicken, and I like spicy foods, so I was pretty excited when I saw that spicy orange chicken was on the menu.

That looks delicious until you actually start eating it and realize that it’s about 85% breading.

I’m not really much of a fan of Korean food. Even though my parents are Korean and I grew up in a Korean-culture family, my preferred type of food has usually been any kind of food except for Korean.

Apart from 김치, Korean food is known for its boiling hot liquids to go along with rice.

There is where the problem lies – I hate hot liquids. I’m pretty sure I just have an overall relatively high body temperature and I emit a lot of heat, so I usually like eating cold things. One of my favorite snacks is ice cream, and my favorite drink is actually just fresh, filtered water at the freezing point. A majority of the items on a Korean menu comes with flusteringly hot soup that makes my body feel itchy from the inside, so I usually opt to get a dry meat-rice-vegetables dish instead.

Since moving to California and being away from my parents, there has been no reason for me to eat Korean food. There aren’t any Korean restaurants around where I live, and when I cook, I just buy raw meat and season it with a bit of salt, pepper, and Italian herbs, so I hadn’t had Korean food for a while.

If you saw my blog post from yesterday, you’ll see that I went to visit my aunt and uncle; while I was at their farm, we drove down to the main city area and stopped by a Korean restaurant.

Then, earlier today, I went to Los Angeles with one of my friends so she could meet up with her childhood best friend. There’s a lot more Asian food in Los Angeles than there is where I live, so we went to a Korean tofu house (I got some meat, vegetables, and rice, rather than the stew).

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.