TBA
Long Beach Marathon Expo
Saturday morning at the Long Beach Marathon pre-race expo. Having it outside on the Marina Green is kind of nice compared to the previous one inside in the convention center, although the bathroom situation is a bit worse and the DJ setup this year was really annoying, I felt bad for the food area stands/trucks being blasted all day. Bib pick-up was quick, t-shirt pickup a bit longer (please have two pick-up lines for unisex medium next time?), and some bottlenecks in the shopping areas. Still not the worst, although notable omissions/areas of neglect were the lack of a Kool-N-Fit booth (did they bail?), and the loyalty program (Beach Bum) was sadly underwhelming this year.
Ran off to the BMW Ultimate Driving Experience at Angel Stadium later with Chris and Gerald. Then after that, had a quick dinner with Chris at Mama's Lu and Meet Fresh in Tustin. The Mama Lu's might have been in this sleepy corner of Tustin for a bit, but the Meet Fresh co-located with it is apparently brand-new. It's the standard Mama Lu's menu so pretty solid food. Xiao long bao not quite as delicate as Din Tai Fung, the Shanghainese rice cakes with pork hit the spot for Chris, and the fish filet with black beans and bell pepper was solid. They also sell frozen dumplings here, still in the old school bags of 50, but price is now up to $32 for a bag of napa and pork.
Meet Fresh was a bit slow being brand-new (they literally have the grand-opening stuff still up), but the strawberry smoothie came with some sort of jelly and was pretty good, and Chris seemed pleased with his egg waffle. Not sure I'd come back given how out of the way it is for us, but was still a nice stop to have, and it's barely ten minutes from Angel Stadium in Anaheim.