I have the aluminum insert All Clad and love it. It's been about three years, and a few months ago had some issues with the warming function, but customer service was great. No complaints, it's been a fantastic add to my kitchen, especially in the last year and a half since I've had twins and went back to work... By the way, love your profile picture. Our dogs are named Waldorf and Statler!

It's not fancy, but the food is good... BeaBeas in Burbank has great brunch/breakfast...

...for areas for your toddlers to run around, you could go over to the Rose Bowl. There's a park area right next to the KidSpace museum. We also have a nice park in South Pasadena, not too far away called Garfield Park located on Mission Street.

For something a little different, and maybe a little fun for them, you could take the metro down to South Pasadena (depending on where you get on, it's one to two stops), get off on Mission, and then do breakfast at either Buster's or Heirloom (they are right at that stop). May be more logistics than you want to handle in the AM though.

Then Red Medicine it may be... the votes are solid, and I love the idea of the creation of a restaurant in the midst of bleary post evening shift. Thanks for all the great advice... Urasawa will now be placed high on the list for an anniversary dinner, and- J.L., your Chowpup is such a lucky, lucky little bear. We'll need to explore the beautiful cuisine of Spain with the munchkins very, very soon!

I've had phenomenal success with this recipe (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/megans-g...), but subbing out vegetable oil with grapeseed oil. I've also subbed agave nectar for the maple syrup with good results as well. The nuts and dried fruit are pretty interchangeable... generally I have to make double batches since my husband tends to scarf the whole thing himself!

Thanks for the recommendations and congratulations! We actually popped out two little future foodies who I am slowly moving from pureed food to... hopefully uni and foie in the not too distant future (hmm. I wonder when little ones can start to eat such good stuff?)

My sister and her husband loved their experience at Alinea and will be actually going to Next in a few months. Red Medicine would be interesting- but I wonder if she's done the whole Grant A. thing, this would seem similar? Thoughts?

To Andy's point, I should probably be a little more specific. Budget-wise, I'm not looking to blow the roof off Aschatz style, so probably topping out at $30-40 an entree. Small plates are great, and we really do love all cuisines and are pretty adventurous. While we love our fine dining, the bigger goal is just great, tasty food, and we're not ones to necessarily care about the scene as long as you hand us something delicious. To give you an idea of the role of food in our lives, my sister got married at Spiaggia last fall in Chicago, and I got married at a winery up in Sonoma.

If it's helpful, seafood is always a top notch choice for us (we grew up in the Mid-Atlantic). No one mentioned Son of A Gun- how does that fall in the list above? Stick with Urasawa?

...been out of the loop on new LA restaurants since giving birth to twins eight months ago. My husband is giving me a get out of jail free card to go out for an evening with my out-of-town sister, who, like myself, really enjoys a great eating experience.

Any new and interesting restaurants we should consider? Would be great to not only get a fun atmosphere, but also some interesting and well done food and drink offerings (a'la Animal) or unique (a'la Alinea in Chicago, where my sister is visiting from, but we'd probably like to not spend quite as much!) There's really nothing we don't eat, and love pretty much all cuisines and types of food. Fancy drinks aren't important, but a nice solid wine list would be great.

We live on the East side of LA, but would be willing to cart ourselves to the Westside for something to shake up my mommyfied, cheerio-laden, pureed everything existence as of late.

Thanks in advance!!!!!

Have you tried using the csa delivery on Saturdays in Pasadena? The small box is $22 and has great seasonal organic variety. I'm not vegan, but use a lot of it to make food for my twins. You can look up the details at abundantharvestorganics.com... for me cheaper than buying at the so pas farmer's mkt and more convenient,

I absolutely love the dark chocolate ice cream at Fosselman's in Alhambra. I'm generally not a big ice cream fan, but this one really does it for me...

Thanks for the recommendations- yes, we are definitely thinking dinner, not lunch. Good call on the private room, I hadn't thought of that! Thank you ipsedixit!

Carter- we have done Newport before. For whatever reason, I thought the one in Santa Ana was better than the one on Las Tunas, not sure why, perhaps the better ambiance threw me off? :0)

Good to know about Hunan Seafood, I haven't tried that one... now I'm very curious and looking it up!

We are HUGE Christmas seafood eaters... there's always some steamed crab to be found, usually (since it's winter) in the form of king crab, and definitely mussels, but usually done with white wine & herbs. Mmmm. I love it!

My family is invading town for the holidays, and for Christmas Day we'd like to go out for a Chinese meal (Dad can only go so long before he needs his Chinese food after a week of traditional Western fare). My dad and uncle are huge seafood fans, so recommendations for Chinese Seafood would be great.

Ambiance is less important than quality food. We live in the Pasadena area, so San Gabriel/Monterey Park/Arcadia area would be ideal.

On a separate note, my dad is also a big niu rou mien and dan dan mien guy. I'll gladly welcome any reco's on places in the same area I can take him for a lunchtime fix!!

Thank you!!

Mmm I love fried dace! On congee... mixed in with a ton of peanuts, pickled whatever... but I have no qualms eating all of that in front of people...

Of course, I do try and hide my love of cheese and peanut butter sandwiches... or cheese and jelly sandwiches. Fried dace, on the other hand, I'm open with my love!

Have to third Julienne's in San Marino. We live down the street and we never get there often enough... if they make it for brunch they do have some killer dishes!

If they are coming off of the 134 or the 110, there is also Le Grande Orange on Del Mar and Raymond. Lots of patio space and easy parking in the Archstone apartments...

My husband and I got married in Sonoma last year at Kunde Winery. Wines aside, if you need a break from tasting, it's a beautiful winery that offers hiking and walking tours on many of the weekends. Kunde is where they shot Bottleshock (speaking of Chateau Montelena)- and if nothing else, they are super friendly. I would also agree on skipping V. Sattui and Castello di Amorosa in Napa, adding in Frogs Leap, Domaine Carneros, and Schramsberg....

Have a great time!!!!

-----
Domaine Carneros
1240 Duhig Rd, Napa, CA

I recently came into a bunch of fresh stevia in my CSA box... and am completely stymied with what to do with it. I am only familiar with stevia that comes in liquid form or powder, but never the real stuff. Does anyone use fresh stevia, and if so, what do you do with it????

We've done that chicken several times and I've actually found it to be less smoky (for whatever reason) when I do it in a shallow pan filled with veggies in my countertop convection oven- I don't know exactly why, but it seems to work better than my standard oven. The salt does get overpowering if you get nuts, but the crispy butt as you said, is totally worth it!

Agreed- we had a good time hanging out with friends but spent an inordinate amount of time standing in line for food trucks just for the opportunity to shell out MORE money after our general admission ticket. There was certainly a lot of room for improvement from an organizational standpoint (what the heck were the tickets for? No one seemed to know) and nothing extraordinary when it came to the food offerings or demonstrations. Oh well.

Yes - I'm definitely not the one to ask when it comes to frozen yogurt... on the other hand, I do very much like the dark chocolate ice cream at Fosselman's on Main in Alhambra- definitely not far from Pas.

My husband and I are big fans of the sushi chefs at Bluefish on Colorado (Tony & Eric are great)- they almost always do an omakase for us and are great with simplicty, especially fresh sashimi... I can't help you much with great yogurt, but I do hear a lot of people really liking Cherry on Top on Green, near PCC...

I'm so glad you enjoyed it! It's been over a year since we got this as a gift, and it's still one of my absolute favorite appliances... (Burgeoningfoodie... definitely a great one to put on the registry!)

Good thing I didn't offer that to my husband- he would have chucked our clothes and filled our luggage with sachertorte and pastries!

Hope you like it! The Kahlua worked well... but now I'm getting greedy and thinking of adding in Mint Bailey's. Or... chocolate port... mmmm.

Hmm... will have to try it warmed... I did a warm avocado soup once and I think I overheated it because it turned bitter. In any case, I've been slurping this one down cold, no leftovers to heat up!!!

I'm definitely NOT an ice cream making expert, but I've been having a lot of fun with my Kitchen Aid ice cream attachment. I found a recipe on Allrecipes the other day that worked out really well for me: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chocolat.... It came out incredibly smooth, even when I added finely chopped (in the food processor) nuts and peanut butter chips... I also added a little bit of Kahlua...

My husband thought he'd died and gone to heaven.

We also had the hot-dog-in-bread-hole experience in Vienna on our honeymoon last year... definitely practical, totally hysterical to watch my husband's face when they poked the hole in the bread... but probably a tad too much bread by the end of the snarfing. (Then again, it might be because we felt completely sick eating hot dogs AND the five million fabulous pastries they have there)

DItto on the avocado soup- Sara Foster has a fantastic one called Chilled Avocado Soup out of her Fresh Everyday Cookbook... I made it all the time in the summer when avocados are in the house long enough that we have too many (rarely happens sadly. I love avocados)

3 ripe Haas Avocados, peeled, pitted and roughly chopped
1 med cucumber, peeled, seeded, roughly chopped
5 scallions, roughly chopped (white and green parts)
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
4c chicken or veggie broth
1c well-shaken buttermilk
Grated zest & juice of 2 limes
1c spinach leaves, stems removed, washed and drained
1/4c fresh cilantro leaves, plus more for garnish
2 t sea salt, plus more to toaste
1/2t freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste

Put avocado, cucumber, scallions, garlic, 1c chicken broth, buttermilk, lime zest, lime juice, spinach, cilantro, 2t salt, and 1/2t pepper in bowl of food processor fitted with a metal blade or jar of a blender and process until smooth. (Depending on size of the food processor, you may need to go in batches)

Pour soup into large plastic container. Gradually stir in remaining broth until soup reaches a smooth, soupy consistency. Season with additional salt and pepper to taste. Cover and chill for 1 hour. Best served day it's made.

Also agreed with the tiramisu- we've purchased it for birthdays as well and it went over ridiculously well for my FIL's birthday a few years ago. I'm also a sucker for their Media Noche Preparadas and to one of the earlier posters' comment, agree with their guava strudel!!!!

My KitchenAid mixer in Duke Blue from my boyfriend, now-husband (who incidentally went to Duke's rival school) I'd ogled it for years... It was the first Christmas we were together, and I'm pretty confident he sealed the deal when I unwrapped the box. Talk about legendary!

All things that everyone has already stated... with the addition of all the ridiculously flavorful roe and yellow gunk (I think some people call this the tamale) inside a blue crab or lobster... seriously my favorite...