A very nice guy named Carlos , an animator, invited us to the Pixar studio for a tour and to review the employee cafe for lunch.  Carlos had sent me, through a man that works with my dad, a signed DVD of Ratatouille last year when I was in the hospital.  Ratatouille was the movie that gave me the idea to become a food critic.  So thank you Pixar for making that movie and Carlos for working on it.  Right now, Carlos is busy working on Toy Story 3 but he took some time out to take my family on a tour.  The tour was really, really cool.  We took some pictures, saw where they screen the movies, saw where all the animators and everyone works.  Then we had lunch.  In the cafe, there were tons of pictures of the movie, UP! all around you. When a movie comes out, the pictures change.  Everything on the cafe menu looked really good.  I finally decided on the angel hair pasta with pesto. It was warm and light and the sauce was good.  My mom ordered the chilled asparagus soup and she loved it!  My dad made a salad at the salad bar and he let me have some of his croutons. They were super crunchy and yummy.  They had yummy seasoning and soft bread in the middle.  The softness of the middle made me really like these croutons.  Also, at the salad bar, the bread was very nice and soft.  My dad ordered the vegetarian plate. It had heirloom tomatoes, cheesy mashed potatoes with the skins on and vegetables.  My dad said he loved it!  My brother ordered the cheese pizza. It was a really big pizza with warm, great cheese. The cheese was nice and gooey.  My brother and I thought it was excellent.  I stole two pieces from him (he let me).  For dessert, we had chocolate chip cookies. They were very good and large, seriously large!  I think Pixar is a great place to work.  Their cafe is more like a restaurant than a cafeteria and the food is excellent!  There were tons of menu choices, lots of soups, a salad bar and delicious fresh plates to choose from.  I really want to thank Carlos for letting me have a tour!  I never knew Pixar would be that wonderful!  Thanks!

Every year we go to Yosemite with our friends.  One of they days that we were there, we drove down into Yosemite Valley.  We went to a restaurant called Degnans Loft which is above a deli and some shops.  Its nice to look down at all the pretty oak trees outside the windows and the animals and people walking by.  We were all very hungry from hiking around.  My mom ordered a Caesar salad. It had really crunchy croutons and rich, sweet dressing and it was nice and leafy.  We shared a half cheese and half veggie pizza. It wasn’t my favorite, too much sauce for me and the cheese was okay, but my brother really loved it!  My brother and I usually have opposite taste in pizza.  We also got some cheese bread. It had really soft tasty cheese. Everybody loved it.  My parents loved the veggie pizza.  If you are in Yosemite Valley and you are hungry, you should definitely go here.  Its really nice to look out the window and look at the pretty mountains and trees and enjoy the beauty of Yosemite and a nice lunch!

We went, with some friends, to Ghirardelli On the Go for ice cream sundaes!  Its smells really wonderful, sweet and delicious in the shop.  You can buy chocolates–there were tons of chocolates on the shelves with different things inside like peanut butter, caramel or mint.  My mom and I shared a Gold Rush Sundae.  It was vanilla ice cream with peanut butter sauce and hot fudge, whipped cream and a cherry on top with nuts.  The peanut butter tasted really creamy and soft.  I’ve never tried a sundae with peanut butter as tasty as that!  My dad and brother shared a brownie sundae. The brownie was warm and gooey and the ice cream and hot fudge were yummy.  Everyone loved their sundaes and we will sure go back there again!

We went to Marnee Thai in San Francisco with some of our friends.  Some of our other friends recommended it too–its their favorite Thai place.  It was a small place on 9th Ave. with lots of pretty orchids on the bar and tables.  My mom ordered the vegetarian pad thai.  It was a little spicy to me but I sort of liked it.  My mom loved it!  My dad ordered thai fried rice with prawns and pineapple. It was yummy and flavorful.  I ordered the corncakes.  They were thin fried cakes with corm kernels in them.  My mom and dad really loved them.  I thought they were okay  but I think other kids would enjoy eating them because they are fried and you eat them with your fingers.  I had a lot of white rice.  I had never tried soy sauce before because I usually have sweet and sour sauce on my rice, but I liked the soy sauce a lot.  I tend to like salty things.  I think the service was really great and even though Thai food isn’t my favorite thing right now,  I liked trying new things, my family and friends loved it and I think it was very kid-friendly and fun.

Turtles is a cute little shop in Old Sacramento.  They have delicious ice cream, scrumptious chocolates and really funny practical joke toys as well as about a million turtles–stuffed turtles, turtle staplers, turtle figurines, all sorts of turtles.  Of course, I love turtles because of my favorite place The painted Turtle Camp.  Also, because I think turtles are really cute.  I ordered a cotton candy ice cream.  It is a nice pink color with rainbow chocolate chips in it. It tasted really sweet.  I ordered a kid’s scoop and it was pretty big.  My brother choose a milk chocolate truffle from the big case of yummy case of chocolates.  I tasted it and I thought it was very chocolately and it was very nice and rich and creamy and soft on the inside with a harder chocolate shell.  My dad got a piece of his favorite kind of fudge–maple fudge.  It was very soft and rich, creamy and it tasted a little bit like my mother’s chocolate chip cookie dough with some maple syrup–in a really good way.  I think Turtles is a great place to go if people like ice cream and chocolates and if they like turtles of course!

My brother and I wanted to go to the all-you-can-eat Round Table lunch buffet.  So my dad took us to the Round Table in East Sac on Folsom Blvd.  We bought the buffet and drinks and then when we went to the buffet, there was no plain cheese or vegetarian pizza. Every pizza had meat on it.  We asked if they could put out a plain cheese but they said they couldn’t until the other pizzas were gone.  So, we decided to go to the Round Table in Old Sacramento.  They were very nice and made us a cheese pizza for the buffet.  First from the buffet, we got some garlic bread and pizza.  The garlic bread was warm, soft and had just the right amount of garlic. They were so good, I could not stop myself from eating lots and lots of them!  They were just too good to resist.  The pizza was cheesy and had just the right amount of sauce. It had a nice thin crust and my brother said it was 1000 stars (out of 5). After that, we went to the salad bar. They had cute baby carrots, like a little bit smaller than my pinkie.  They were fun for kids to eat and dip in dressing.  For dessert, at the buffet, we got cinnamon twists. They were soft, sweet, warm and had nice, sweet, gooey cinnamon.  Just like the garlic bread I could have eaten a thousand of them.  I think the lunch buffet is a wonderful place for people to go to.  They have excellent food, as much of it as you want, fun arcade games in the restaurant to play and kind employees.  It was a great Round Table to visit!