I can think of three ways in which we specifically made a dining decision as it related to the heatwave.
1 - We went to our local ramen spot (Moto Ramen) specifically to eat cold noodles. I had the Tan Ten Men. It’s a dish I like anyway, but when my better half asked “what do you want for dinner, it’s too hot to cook.” I said “Let’s get some cold noodles.”
2 - We had dinner in the mall. We live near Culver City so we went to the Fox Hills Mall specifically because the mall was air conditioned. Our house is not and we needed to cool off. So, we went to Lucille’s Bar BQ. It’s the one “mall chain” I like. I originally liked it because they have a full bar and not every BBQ spot in L.A. has one. There are times when our entire dinner discussion is “Honey, I’ll go anywhere there is a bar” because there are times I want a cocktail, not a beer. I had the pulled pork sandwich and – ha ha – an 805 because I try not to drink cocktails on weeknights/work nights. (Our second choice would have been BJs – where we like some of the salads. It’s for another thread if anyone wants to start it, but to me there are occasions when I actually want mall chain meal where the food has been refined by an algorithm. I guess there is something to be said for the familiar sometimes.
3 - We had Hollywood Bowl tickets last night and instead of eating at home then heading over or having dinner at the Bowl (which is what we usually do – we usually bring our food and eat before the show startts) we decided to drive halfway and eat dinner in an air conditioned restaurant before driving the rest of the way to the Bowl. We sort of randomly picked Inti, which is a low-key Peruvian spot we like. It’s only a block from Mario’s Peruvian which seems to get bigger crowds, but we prefer Inti for reasons I no longer remember. I had Pollo en Salsa Ostion (Chicken chunks sauteed with vegetables, and oyster sauce served with white rice) which happened to be prepared with a nice amount of fresh ginger.
Anyone else make dining decisions based more on the heat than anything else?