The Cheesecake Factory.

It may be the weather but as I spend my afternoon researching exemplary damages I have found myself craving sweet potato fries. Not just any sweet potato fries, but specifically those from The Cheesecake Factory.

The Cheesecake Factory is a chain of "dining restaurants" found throughout the US. We stopped by the one at The Grove shopping complex (one of my favourite places in LA!!) on our most recent trip, and it was definitely an interesting experience. The portions of food, as tends to be the case in the US are HUGE! When I looked up The Cheesecake Factory online, reviewers (who I'm assuming to be US residents) complained that the service was bad and the food incredibly overpriced. While I understand that Americans may find food in their own country expensive, I beg to differ. By Australian standards to food is so cheap! Mains were not more than $25!!

The food was absolute deliciousness. We had The Incredible Grilled Eggplant Sandwich, which contains a large chunk of grilled Japanes Eggplant, Roasted Red Peppers, Red Onion, Melted Mozzarella (yum!) and Garlic Aioli on a Toasted Bun - it's really more of a burger than a sandwich. The best part (which we didn't pay much attention to when ordering) is it comes with a generous side of crispy, delicious French Fries AND a salad.

The other dish we had was the Grilled Salmon. Like the Sandwich we weren't sure what to expect when ordering, and the dish came out with a generous piece of Salmon and a pile of spaghetti. It was served with a basic butter sauce and some mushrooms.

(Apologies for the blurriness of the photo, can you tell I was in a hurry to eat?)

Not realising how much food we would be getting, we decided to order a side of sweet potato fries (just to be safe and make sure we wouldn't leave hungry lol). I seriously could have skipped the rest and just had the entire serve of fries to myself - they were so incredibly delicious (no joke, yum x 1000000!!).

The piece de resistance!

Needless to say, we couldn't finish the food (and there was no way I was leaving the sweet potato fries behind) so our lovely server packed them up for us. Sadly, we didn't try any of the iconic Cheesecake Factory cheesecakes. Next time, I guess.

LA

Since I'm super stressed out at the moment with exams, all I can think about is how much I want to be overseas asap! So I thought I'd procrastinate and take a trip down memory lane in the process...the destination - LA!

First stop of our trip to the USA earlier this year was the lovely city of Los Angeles.

However, unlike NYC I feel it necessary to add, that I do not love LA...I kind of like it. As my sister would agree, our time in LA did not start out on the right note. It consisted of a pretty nerve-wrecking journey on the LA suburban metro system. Now I'm not saying that the trains are all bad, but travelling from the airport on them may not have been the best of ideas, as it takes you on a journey which consists of 3 train changes and many stops through slightly unsavoury parts of town.

By the time we had reached Hollywood and Vine I was close to tears (I may or may not have broken out into sobs...maybe) and my sister looked like she wanted to murder me for ever having suggested catching the train into Hollywood - especially when the concierge had even warned us against it. The journey had seen us come across a slightly, crazy ranting guy who looked like he could (and would) kill you if you so much as made eye contact with him. Then there was "bug man" who was a homeless guy that was asking for money to get medicine for the bugs that he had (I think he meant knits) and all the locals on that particular train starting freaking out...so I did too! It didn't help that, from the the perplexed looks on our faces to the Qantas Frequent Flyer member tag hanging off our bags, we screamed TOURIST!

So we arrived at Hollywood and were stumped as to what our next move should be...we were at the beginning of the Hollywood Walk of Fame but by beginning I mean nowhere near the tourist-y parts of town like the Kodak Theatre or Grauman's Chinese Theatre...we were literally at the brink between Hollywood and the notorious Downtown LA area (where I'm told even locals don't go unless they have to). We stumbled into one of those tourist tour bus type places (and normally I avoid these tour groups as they tend to rip you off). However, the owner was so sympathetic towards us - what with me having been in tears and my sister in a thunderous mood - so he let us on the tour for a really low price. I think we may have paid just $20! And it sure was the best $20 we spent. The tour guide took us to all the famous places (and even historical, yet not typical tourist places) including -

Kodak Theatre

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Paramount Pictures Studios

We saw and did a fair bit during our time in LA but my favourite place, by far, was The Grove "Shopping and Entertainment Resort" which is located at the famous Farmer's Market.

This place is THE ULTIMATE for shopping and has fantastic places to eat (not to mention a great-looking cinema if you have time to check out a movie). You can easily spend a day at this place and not even notice!

Overall, LA is a pretty cool place to visit (even if I do not love it as much as NYC), and it's not a bad place if you like to celeb-spot :P I would definitely go back but maybe just for a stopover kind-of holiday.