Honey, Bees, and Outdoor Dinner at Fairmont Newport

It's a little known fact that some of the Fairmont hotels have started honey bee hives on their rooftops, wherever it was possible. This has included the Fairmont in Newport Beach, Seattle, and San Francisco (where you can also try the honey beers made by a local brewery with their honey). I was invited to a dinner at Fairmont Newport a few months ago and got to check out the rooftop bees with a view of the sunset! The hives at Fairmont Newport and maintained and harvested with the help of Backyard Bees.

We had a honey tasting in the small room on the rooftop. Little did I know just how different honey can taste, until you compare two side by side. The black pan was harvested from these hives in June. This early summer honey is more floral than the August harvest. Both of them were excellent, by the way, and I'm glad they gave us a little jar to take home.

After some cocktails and arancini, we had an al fresco dinner in their beautiful garden, a picture perfect spot for a small wedding with the white gazebo in the back.

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Fresh Dish: Your New Prep Cook

Fresh Dish is another "meal delivery service", but it's a bit different. Instead of sending you prepared meals, they send you meal kits that you can cook/prepare in 30 minutes. They run from $8-12 per person ($32 for a meal for 4 or $24 for 2) and they've included everything in the kit, from the big ingredients to small packets of salt and pepper.

The meats and vegetables are raw, and most things are already pre-measured in their own containers.

The fajita was super easy to make. Just season the meat with salt and pepper and cook on both sides. The tortillas just needed some heating up and then all the toppings like guacamole and salsa were already prepared. The most labor I had to do was probably slicing the steak up.

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Mini Food Cart Crawl: Nong's Khao Man Gai and The People's Pig (Portland, OR)

On my second trip to Portland, a food cart visit was a must, and why not try what is perhaps the most famous of them all: Hainanese chicken and rice at Nong's Khao Man Gai ($6.75)

The order I shared with e*starLA was breast meat. It was tender, but not incredibly special. Instead, the garlicky sauce is really what it's all about! Douse the meat and rice with plenty of it (extra sauce goes for $1).

I don't normally like chicken breast that much, though, and I should've been wiser and ordered like Eat Recklessly did. She asked for dark meat and said yes to the crispy skin! Her plate was 10x better than mine was. I am definitely asking for dark meat and getting the skin next time around.

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