Santa Monica

New things of the day - saw the LA landmark Randy's Donuts, toured the new Santa Monica mall, ate off the pier at The Lobster and saw the movie RED.

It was a family day in Santa Monica. As we were driving, we passed by the LA landmark Randy's Donuts. I'd never seen it before so it was super cool to see it up close. We didn't stop by, but it was cool to actually be at the famous landmark. 

Next we wanted to check out the new Santa Monica mall. It was a really nice. The old mall was indoors and small and outdated. This one was an outdoor mall, with lots of pretty shops. There was a string quartet playing classic rock music such as Wonderwall, Smells like Teen Spirit and Sweet Child of Mine. Ha ha. Some photos below of the views from the mall of the pier and 3rd street promenade.

Next we decided to splurge and have a nice seafood dinner out at The Lobster off the Santa Monica Pier. It's the restaurant at the beginning of the pier before you walk down the walkway. It has great clear glass views of the beach, but unfortunately it was very cloudy that day. 

We ordered grilled lobster, cheese ravioli, chicken, wild rice and a seafood pasta. Overall food was good but not great. The sourdough wheat bread and pesto appetizer were not good. The grilled lobster with butter garlic was delish. The ravioli, chicken and wild rice were also highlights. The seafood pasta had a paella look to it, but tasted more like spaghetti O's with seafood. Our waiter was awful and inattentive. At the end he even gave us the wrong check 3 times the cost of our meal. About an hour after eating there, we all had stomach aches. We all came out of it ok, but considering we shared all the food, we're not sure what caused our ailment. We'll probably never go back. Just not worth it and didn't have the best experience. 

Last, we ended our evening with a movie - RED - Retired Extremely Dangerous. Our friends/family who did see it said they liked it. It was a lot more comedy and talking then I expected, but it was good. The family really liked it which was most important. Also, I am a HUGE Bruce Willis fan. He is, probably the sexiest most awesome action movie star in my opinion. He is probably the one movie star I would get all excited to see in person.  

The movie was more assassin sassy than action I would say. I thought it was a very stylish cool Oceans 11 type vibe but with very cool assassin characters and actors. Though there wasn't much action, it's like they cut out all the crap action and only left the coolest/best pieces of action in. My favorite scene was where Bruce Willis gets out of the cop car while shooting at his adversary here in this trailer. I also really like his adversary Karl Urban - the guy who plays Eomer from Lord of the Rings and Bones from Star Trek. He's becoming one of my favorite actors.  

Overall lots of new things of the day. Thank you Santa Monica.