Eating around LA

I used to live in Orange County so I would go to LA pretty often.  With the great weather and beautiful beaches, it's always great to make a quick weekend trip there to relax.

Whenever I visit LA now, it's all about food.  I'm always so torn between going back to my favorite places or trying new places.  I could easily fill up a trip by just going back to all of my favorites.  This time, I'm glad I got to try a handful of new ones.

Omusubis

Office Burger

Smoked Eel

Sea Urchin Cream Udon and Beef Tataki

Galbi Poutine

da KFC

One of the best meals I've had was at Bestia.  A fantastic Italian restaurant that is in an old industrial building.  We ordered as much as we could and stuffed our faces.  If you ever find yourself in the LA area, I would highly recommend making a stop here.

Chicken Liver Crostino

Slow Roasted Lamb Neck

Pan-Roasted Chicken Gizzards

Roasted Marrow Bone

Mussels and Clams

Spaghetti Rustichella

Strozzapreti al Nero di Seppia

Tagliatelle alla Zafferano

Agnolotti alla Vaccinara

Rainbow Light Tunnels

I paid a visit to Birmingham, AL for a trade show.  Although I didn't have enough time to really explore the city, I did stumble upon an amazing art installation by Bill Fitzgibbons called LightRails.  It is thousands of programmed LEDs that light up an underpass right in downtown.  The lights change throughout the night giving the tunnel a different feel throughout the night.

Cityscape Nights

Growing up in suburbs of Houston, I didn't come to downtown Houston much, so I never got the impression that Houston had the big city, New York or Chicago skyscraper feeling.  I have lately been getting more into cityscapes and now that I'm more familiar with the city, there are definitely some impressive views to be had.

Umbrella

Every once in a while, I take blog photos for my friend, Liz.  It's much less frequent now that she moved to Chicago, but we always try to create great images whenever we are in the same city.

I've been wanting to do this shoot for a while.  I've tried it once before with another model, but my technique was wrong and it failed horribly, resulting in images that I don't care to share.  This second time around, I absolutely nailed the look I was going for. 

Lovin the negative space

So lonely...

Snowboarding at Big Sky Montana

I've been hearing great things about Big Sky Montana for a while and the rumors are true... it's GORGEOUS!! 

Even the airport has a great view

I finally got the chance to go snowboarding at this resort.  Aside from having some of the most beautiful views I've seen on a resort, the resort itself wasn't very crowded at all.  Bombing runs with no lines at the lift was a snowboarding heaven.

On the last day, we took a break from snowboarding to make a quick drive down the the edge of Yellowstone National Park.  Even though we didn't really go into the main area of the park, it was still great scenery.

The view from the back patio of our cabin was amazing.  The sky was lit up with stars at night, which is something you definitely don't see living in a big city.