at the corner of green street and lake

enjoy your summer sunday!

fast food

this stretch of north lake also includes a bunch of other chain options (and some pretty cool local joints as well).

plaza

north lake avenue, home of several wonderful little places to find some food including polkatots cupcakes, and slaw dogs.

cabrera's mexican

just one of the many local establishments along north lake avenue.

north lake avenue

looking down on altadena, and further down pasadena.

kogi bbq truck

any good visit from friends requires sampling the local cuisine.  one of my college roommates was in town and wanted to try and hit up the korean taco truck that started the gourmet food truck revolution.  the last time he was here we missed a truck on the night he was leaving town.  this time we were able to track one down that was parked just up lake avenue at the coffee gallery.

as usual, the food was great.  and because the fad has faded a bit, it no longer takes hours to receive some of their tasty food - only 10-15 minutes now.

guest photographer #2

i'm excited to show you some photography from the second special guest photographer, mr. timmy morgan.  the guy can do comedy, acting, voice over work, and apparently can take great photos too!  tim shot this image on sunday morning after a night of very cold temperatures, and precipitation.

check out that so-cal snow!

jersey mike's

one of pasadena's newest sandwich shops is also part of a cross-country chain of establishments known as jersey mike's.  we stopped by the other day and enjoyed our subs immensely - although for the price ($7-9 for the regular size), we were left wishing they were either a bit larger, or a bit cheaper.

still, a nice addition to the pasadena neon scene.

el pollo unico

some consider this the place for chicken in pasadena.  just the yelp reviews alone meant that i should have visited this place a long time ago.  but it wasn't until this week that i finally jumped in and experienced el pollo unico.

the menu is stripped down and simple.  you choose how many pieces of chicken you want and choose from a handful of sides - tortillas automatically included.  while we weren't blown away with the side dishes, the chicken was wonderful - clearly some of the best i've ever had. 

el pollo unico used to be across north lake avenue in the 7-11 plaza, but has moved to a refurbished newer location (which includes this odd poster, seen below).

fatburger pasadena - coming soon?

a few weeks ago, an immovable feast pointed out that fatburger was set to move in to a old pasadena restaurant on lake avenue.  i was excited.  i'm always up for a new burger place in town, and the few times i've eaten at fatburger have been delicious.

but finding info about when it is actually opening has proven difficult.  their facebook page claimed they would be open by october 15th (which is clearly not the case), and the coming soon sign has been hanging out for quite some time.

while out for a walk last night, i bumped into an employee who said they would be open by monday, november 1.  we'll just have to see about that.

shrooms!

this magnificent display was taken at the new(ish) south lake avenue farmers market a few weeks ago.  the south lake farmers market has been in a trial phase for the summer on wednesday afternoons and evenings.

i wonder if it has been successful enough that it will continue on...

what do you think?  if you are a pasadena farmers market fanatic, which one do you go to?  how do you feel about the south lake location?  is there a section of the city that needs a farmers market?

indoor fountain along lake avenue

seriously? 

the other day i walked in to this group of shops along lake avenue and discovered this indoor fountain and spiral staircase.

i never would have guess it was here.  it just goes to show that there are still many things about pasadena that i have yet to discover...

the slaw dogs

i kept hearing great things about the slaw dogs. even their yelp page has some pretty amazing reviews. living in virginia meant that i was no stranger to putting coleslaw on a hot dog, and after checking out the reviews i discovered that there was more to them than just that.

on thursday we decided we needed to go check it out for ourselves. their menu was incredibly large, and almost overwhelming, but after deciding it took only a few minutes for our order to arrive. the dogs were excellent, and so were the sweet potato fries. at about $20 for two people, it certainly isn't too expensive. although I did find myself still wanting something more after polishing off my "thai slaw dog" and sharing an order of fries. it is worth checking out.


as noted in the comments, the slaw dogs was just selected as a la times "find".

the cookie monster cupcake

i've been curious about polkatots cupcakes since i heard that they won some awards at an l.a. cupcake challenge. it took me a while to venture a few blocks down the street to sample their confectionary delights, but i was happy i did. as the title of this post suggests, i ordered their "cookie monster cupcake" - a delicious chocolate cupcake with cookies and cream frosting. kind of pricey at $3, but pretty delicious washed down with a tall glass of cold milk. check them out at the corner of lake and orange grove.

lake avenue metro stop

an off-balance shot of pasadena's lake avenue metro station make-over. this station is apparently utilizing solar panels in the finished product, as i recently learned from brigham yen's blog.

(the clock tower is new for those who are wondering)

ten thousand villages

i'm ashamed it took me so long to post about pasadena's lovely little fair trade store. not only is this a fantastic little place to shop that is filled with fair trade artwork and handicrafts from around the globe, it is connected to me through my church tradition - yup, the pasadena location of ten thousand villages is actually part of a larger chain of stores that is operated by mennonite central committee, the mission arm of the mennonite church.

check out this not-so-recent la times article on the ten thousand villages movement.

7-11 at the corner of orange grove and lake

not my best composed image, but i like it.

christmas lights and purple trees

the jacaranda trees are back in purple force, and wouldn't you know it, the trees along lake avenue still have their lights on. which creates quite a unique effect as you drive along.

and along with the purple blossoms come the purple blog posts...

glimpses of south pasadena
hometown pasadena
pasadena daily photo
stan's blog
here's a new one - hoecki in usa
and this one - eye level pasadena
and one more - like narnia

and even our friends jill and nate in kenya

let me know if you also have shots of the blooming jacaranda and i'll add you to the list!

may gray

for our first spring in pasadena we kept hearing that we were avoiding the dreaded "may gray" which turns into "june gloom". we didn't really know what that meant, but we do now. we're smack in the middle of scenes like this one - this image is of our mountains (which usually look something like this) but you can barely tell because of this facinating marine layer that decends on pasadena every day.

climbing up lake avenue

this photo is actually above pasadena - in altadena actually - a town which some of my fellow area bloggers recently raved about.