Just like a Double Double

So I heard my friend on twitter showed a link to an article on LAist about a new burger place opening near us in Cerritos called Five Guys Burgers and Fries. It compared it to In-N-OutFive Guys is located in the city of Cerritos across from the Los Cerritos Mall at the Cerritos Promenade (Corner of South and Gridley). It’s a busy location because of all the great food places in the promenade as well as the shopping across the street. Only problem though is that parking in the Promenade is horrible. Utterly horrible. It’s almost always full. With that aside I’ll get to the restaurant and food.

Upon walking up to Five Guys on that Black Friday afternoon, I was greeted with a simple sign just saying “Five Guys.” No frills, symbols, or any type of exciting font. Just a super simple sans-serif. I walked in to see a line of about seven people. This gave me time to pick of something to eat. Looking at the menu, there was a lot to choose from. Not as many as McDonalds but way more than In-N-Out. There were Burgers of all varieties, little burgers, hot dogs, and fries. I was planning to get a burger like I usually do at these places, so I thought to go with a regular cheeseburger. Then came the toppings. I was amazed at the variety of toppings, all free. There were a lot like relish, grilled onions, A1 sauce, and sauteed mushrooms. Wanting just a semi-normal burger, I opted for the grilled onions, pickles and the normal stuff that comes with burgers. Moving up the line I saw a comment board on the wall with comments and praise by some customers. I thought that was pretty cool. By then it was time for me to order. I told it to the cashier and also ordered a drink and regular fries as well. My total came to about 10 dollars. After I paid she yelled out “TWO PATTIES” and I left wondering what’d I be getting.

I left off to get my drink and something different caught my eye. I saw malt vinegar. I was surprised, but I guess it’s an East Coast thing to do that with fries. After I saw that, another thing caught my other eye. Peanuts. Yes, peanuts. I thought to myself,”WTH HAHA Peanuts!” I gotta get some even though I don’t like them much. Walking over to the drink station I was overjoyed to see that they had raspberry iced tea. Got that as well as some peanuts, took a table, and started waiting.

This gave me time to look around the place and get how it feels and runs. I noticed that everyone’s orders came in a brown paper bag and their burgers were wrapped in foil. I thought of Chipotle. Haha. Eventually my order number was called and I went up to the counter and picked it up.

The bag was heavy. I was wondering what was going to be inside. I walked back to my table and opened the bag. The first thing I saw were the fries, and a lot of them. I ordered a regular sized cup of fries, but the cup was full and it overflowed into the rest of the bag. I had around 1 1/2 of the fries. I love it when places do that!!

Then I took out the foil-wrapped burger. That’s what was so heavy. It was seemed pretty tiny for a burger that heavy though. As I unfolded the foil I was greeted with a so-so sized burger. It was pretty thick though. I checked it out and it looked pretty good with all of the extra toppings I opted for. I noticed there were two patties instead of the one I was hoping for. Big burger. I took a bite of the burger and it tasted great. The meat was done pretty well and all of the other ingredients tasted fresh. It was a nice difference from other place’s burgers.

Around half-way through my burger I started to go for my fries. They were looked good and tasted better. The potatoes are fresh and are brought in from Idaho as I saw on a sign in the kitchen area. The fries were a nice golden brown with just the right amount of salt and also had a nice crunch to them. They felt a bit greasy though as if all the oil hadn’t been drained out, but at least I know that it just came out of the fryer or something.

My only gripes about the burger though is that it was hard to hold and eat. All the stuff I put on it as well as the type of bun they use make it so that it get’s kinda slippery while eating. I would see liquid from the relish and pickles dripping out, which made the bun a little soggy and no place to put my burger down on the foil without it touching the juices.

Aside from that though, Five Guys is a welcome addition to my selection of burgers here in Southern California. It was an OK price for a burger, fries, and drink (~10), but I don’t think it can replace SoCal’s love for In-N-Out’s small menu, cheaper price, and great burgers.

Check out the pics from my phone too:

I know, I know. Fast food is bad! Did you read Fast food nation? Did you watch Supersize Me?!?! 

Yes and yes. But still. I don’t mind. I don’t overeat and splurge myself on the biggest thing there. I’ve never supersized and never get anything bigger than a small. They seem to taste unusually good for some unusual reason. Hahaha.

With that aside, I do occasionally like to eat out at some fast food places. Heres my list of my perfect fast food meal.

1. Burger

In-N-Out Cheeseburger, Animal Style

In-n-out no doubt has the best fast food burger around. Then when you make it animal style it makes the best even better. Adding grilled onions, extra spread, pickles (yummm) and a mustard grilled pattie just makes me want to eat it I just get the cheeseburger instead of the double double since it’s a smaller portion.

2. Fries

Carl’s Jr. Natural Cut Fries

As I said in the previous post, Carl’s Jr. fries are good haha.

3. Drink/Shake/Smoothie

Jack In the Box Orange Sunrise Smoothie

Though not on par with other smoothie places like Jamba Juice or Juice it up, and hardly a real smoothie itself, it tastes pretty good and I like the flavor. It tastes like an orange creamsickle. I could probably blend that up with some ice and get the exact same thing haha.

So my perfect fast food meal would be a Cheeseburger from In-N-Out, Animal Style; French Fries from Carl’s Jr; and an Orange Sunrise Shake from Jack in the Box. If only that could happen without going to three different places…

So it’s almost election day. Just one day left. The country may change for the best or repeat for the worst. I’m personally excited about it as well. 

This is my first time exercising my right to vote. I just turned 18 this past summer in August and I registered to vote that same month. I seem to be kinda apathetic about some things, but voting has gotten me to care. Knowing that I have a say and that my vote will count towards something bigger gives me reason to do so. I do hope so anyways. Dang electoral college.

Anyways, I will vote. No matter what. Long lines or whatever. I’ll definitely exercise my right to vote and make sure it’s right. I’ve been reading about people who’ve had problems with the electronic voting machines switching votes or not registering peoples votes. So I’m ready to do a few things to make sure my vote and the process is correct. I’ll be using using twittervotereport.com and the different hash tags and calling in to the Election Protection number from the rockthevote.com website. Then of course there’s the 1-877-GO-CNN-08 voter help line. They all seem like awesome ways to make sure and help you that the voting process is fair and working properly. 

There are a lot of controversial things for me to vote on as well. Being in California, there’s Proposition 8. And I’ll tell you right now, I’m voting no on it. That means I don’t support the ban on gay marriage. I believe that we as a society should have the same rights as each other. Whatever happened to separation of church and state. Marriage in today’s society is under the law now; yet numerous people and organizations still oppose that view. Priests and ministers aren’t the only ones who can legally marry people. You can be a judge or a county clerk and legally marry people. So what’s the difference? There is none. Marriage is now a legal issue. Not a religious or moral one like Prop 8 supporters are making it to be. 

Then there’s the choice for President of the United States of America. My choice is for change, Obama. That’s all I’m going to say for now. Since I’m tired, sleepy, and have school in a few hours. Good night.

The Elevator.
The floor light is all we see.
Going up or down.

I’ve noticed that at school, when I get into an elevator with a lot of people that don’t know each other, they look at the elevator floor light to prevent any type of conversation. Seriously, like EVERYONE was looking up at the elevator floor light. Kinda weird. But that’s just me. haha.

I broke two glass stirring rods in my Chemistry 100 Lab today. It was funny. 

First one broke when I was cleaning one with a cleaner strip paper thing. I was putting too much pressure on it and snapped it in half.

Second time was probably like five minutes after. I brought the stirring rod over to our lab counter from the fume hood then set it down on it. I moved my body towards the counter so it wouldnt roll off, but it beat me to it. So it fell to the floor and cracked into three pieces. 

Haha. That was funny. =.=

I had to go get a replacement for $1.

What a fun day in chemistry.

Cafe Hiro is a Japanese, French, and Italian fusion restaurant in Cypress, CA on Valley View and some other street I cant remember at the moment. I found out about Cafe Hiro through my cousin and yelp. My family was going out for my high school graduation dinner and were picking a place to eat. I hadn’t had Thai food for a while and so I picked a restaurant called Sweetee Thai. I’ve eaten there multiple times before, always with family. I really like the pad thai and california curry. But anyways, while waiting my cousin mentioned Cafe Hiro and how he always takes the girls he really likes out to dinner there. My mind changed on the food and I asked if we could go there. My mom reluctantly said yes since my cousin said the prices were more expensive than Sweetee and that they were indiviual plates not family style. I walked over and peered inside and sadly it was closed. They’re closed on Mondays and that was a bummer for me. Soon after I was reading reviews on Yelp.com and found this place again. Everyone pretty much loved the place. Everyone was recommending the Jidori Chicken and the Osso Bucco with panna cotta for dessert. I couldnt wait to try it.

Fast forward around 2 1/2 months later to today, September 9th. I finally ate at my long awaited trip to Cafe Hiro. I went with a friend inside and asked for a table for two. We got seated immediately, particularly because the whole place was empty and we were the only ones there other than the staff. The whole place is pretty small and cozy-like. The tables near the walls have a wooden bench with seat cushions. I was pretty comfortable, but I think other people would prefer a normal seat. Table was small as it was only for two. It had utensils wrapped in a napkin, chopsticks on a rest, mini salt and pepper shakers, and a flower in what seemed to be a mini oil/vinegar container with the top off. The whole place had a nice ambiance to it. There were pretty cool paintings on the wall of waves. Colors really worked well for me in the whole place. You could also see directly into the kitchen.

Now for what you’ve been waiting for: the food.

First up was an appetizer we ordered: edamame. I like edamame. I’ve had it pan-fried, steamed, and boiled, even microwaved . This was pretty much the same. Steamed or boiled and sprinkled with kosher salt. It was a pretty decent amount as well.

Next to come was our salad, which came with the entree. Chopped romaine lettuce with a nice tangy dressing. We weren’t sure of what is was made of, but we think it was carrots, garlic, and some citrus-y flavor. It was a pretty interesting combination.

They served us brocolli cream soup next. It was kinda pureered brocolii soup with some sliced/fried tortilla strips in the center. Also tasty.

Now came for the main course. I ordered what most people absolutely loved. The Jidori “free-range” chicken cutlet. It came on a round plate with carrots, potatoes, cabbage, and eggplant. Theres a few more but I don’t remember them. There was a decent amount of chicken too. It was very moist and the skin had a nice crunch to it as well. There’s a lot to say about it, pretty much all good stuff too!

I was too full for dessert.

Price came out to around 40 dollars for two people and appetizer. 

When we left we were given thank yous by everyone in the place. Pretty nice. I recommend this place.  I’ll definitely be eating there again.

I’m now officially a college student; and a freshman to boot. College has just started for me at Cal State Fullerton. Aside from the horrible parking situation every morning, I really like it there. Everyone I’ve met so far is pretty nice and the professors are pretty interesting as well. I’ve been asked every day about how my first/second/third/… day/week was. Every time I saw a person I knew they asked that. It’s kind of annoying after a while but it’s nice to know that they care. So how was my college experience so far? Haha. It was pretty great. 

On the first day of school I lost my wallet before my first class.I was pretty sad haha. I couldn’t buy my books with out my wallet. So I had to wait until I knew its whereabouts.  Luckily, some guy named Josh found it, messaged me on facebook and gave it to me a couple of days later. I haven’t lost it since! Haha.

Parking is horrible at CSUF. It’s a commuter school of around 37,000 students total. Imagine trying to get to school in the morning. I leave for school about two hours before my class starts at 9 AM and get there in about 15-20 minutes. By then, the five story parking structure is about half full. If I leave at 7:30 AM then the only options are to park on the 4th floor or the Roof Top floor. This is on the bigger of the two parking structures on campus. All other parking places are lots. Oh yeah, a problem for me is that I haven’t been driving there either. I’ve been carpooling with my friend since I’m learning to drive a manual transmission car. Future post about that.

I really like my professors as well. My math professor is funny. History is pretty entertaining and looks like my high school history teacher, Mrs. Dyle. Public Speaking class is fun and interactive. I like interactive. Chem Lab so far is pretty simple. I’ve done all these labs in High School. And finally the chem lecture… Zzzz. That is all. 

Getting involved with campus activities was pretty simple for me. FBLA-PBL. Future Business Leaders of America Phi Beta Lambda. I’m now in PBL. It’s been fun. I went to an officer training day where we learned some pretty useful things. My favorite topics of the day was about membership and fees and social media. I could say though that I was most interested in social media.

Then last weekend I volunteered at the NASCAR Pepsi 500. It was fun. We got t-shirts, bandana things, water bottle holder, and earplugs to wear for the event. All day I was on a tram being tram ambassadors. I greeted people along the way and even got to control the tram and the tram driver with some cool little hand signals. People would be cheering when we went by or squirting us with a water gun or unleashing their water bottle of doom. The day was pretty tiring since I was standing on a tram the whole time, but it was a nice experience getting into some NASCAR culture.

Textbooks are expensive. That pretty much sums it up quite nicely. Campus bookstore is overpriced but is the only place that we could rent the book since I didn’t want to pay for the new book. (It was a new book as well, so I couldn’t buy used.) Around the corner from campus is a textbook store called Little Professor. Their books are definitely cheaper. They’re pretty nice in there and the books are even easier to find than in the campus bookstore. I looked online on places like half.com as well, but they were pretty much the same price once you included shipping My experience so far has been a pleasant one. I really hope my college career will be fruitful. I hope to make many new friends, find out more about myself, and learn what I need to know in life.

Hey there,

I’m Patrick Tomas. For those of you who are reading this, congratulations! You’re reading my long-awaited (by me, anyways) web blog or for short, blog. It’s called a View of Me, well since it’s my blog and such. So yeah. There’s my reasoning. This is just going to be a blog about my regular happenings of life, reviews on places I go, things I eat, things I’m going to do or did, making long lists, and oh so much more. Yay! There’s the ‘of me’ part explained now.