Build Your Own Bento at Chaya Downtown's Cherry Blossom Festival

Now until April 19, Chaya Downtown is celebrating Cherry Blossom Festival with a build-your-own hanami bento. You can choose among ten items ($22 for 3 items or $28 for 4 items) including vegetable tempura served with pink salt, maple leaf duck confit spring rolls, or snapper temari sushi.

I would recommend the Coffee BBQ mini pork shank with chipotle miso, or the salmon gravlax with sakura creme fraiche and vegetable pickles (both pictured above).

For $4 more you can also substitute the items with a Koji Marinated Black Cod with bok choy and soy balsamic ginger broth (this and the pork shank were probably my two favorites!)

You can also substitute for the grilled Black Angus flat iron steak with wasabi butter and haricot vert.

There are also two cherry cocktails for the festival. We all preferred the refreshing Sakura Bellini (cherry sorbet, luxardo, champagne, $12), perfect to wind down after a day of work. They also have a Cherry Manhattan with Tullamore Dew, sweet vermouth and cherries.

Travel: Tour The San Andreas Fault with Red Jeep Tours (Palm Springs,CA)

One thing I love about Palm Springs Restaurant Week is the Eat.See.Stay deal they have going on. It's not just deals on restaurants but also hotels and attractions like museums, the Living Desert zoo, and tours of the San Andreas fault. During the Restaurant Week, Desert Adventures Red Jeep Tours is doing a combo package with an Indian Canyon eco-tour and lunch at select restaurants ($125), or a San Andreas Fault stargazing/nightwatch tour with dinner ($150).

During our media trip to Palm Springs, we got a chance to experience the San Andreas fault tour.

The red jeeps taking us on the tour

Our tour guide has been with the company for a long time and was very knowledgeable. Our first stop was the oasis. Oasis in the middle of the desert? Yep, apparently there's over 40 billion acres of water underneath this desert and there are palm trees everywhere in this oasis.

Palm Springs Oasis

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Where to Eat for Palm Springs Restaurant Week: Catalan (Rancho Mirage, CA)

Catalan in Rancho Mirage opened in 2012 by father and son Mark and Drew Davis. Drew had worked in New York and moved to Los Angeles to be a private chef to Steven Spielberg before finally deciding to open a restaurant in the Palm Springs area. Catalan is a Mediterranean restaurant, emphasizing on Italian and Spanish influences.

For Palm Springs Restaurant Week, Catalan is offering a $38 menu that has not been determined and will probably change between the 2 weeks of May 31-June 16, in line with their policy to use local, seasonal products. We tried a lot of great dishes during our media visit, though, and you can probably expect the same for the prix fixe menu.

The entire table loved the Chicken liver flatbread, caramelized onions, roasted pears, smoked mozzarella ($17)

I mean, you eat chicken liver with bread anyway right? So why not put it on top and bake it together, add on some roasted pears and caramelized onions as "condiments"? So good.

More chicken liver? Why not! Especially when they're fried, like these Buttermilk crispy chicken livers, manchego polenta, wild mushroom port reduction, herbs ($15)

I wondered if the typical Palm Springs audience is adventurous enough for chicken liver but either way I'm glad the chef isn't shying away from it.

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