after a casual social hangout down the street at social fox brewing, we picked up dinner from james beard award-winning masterpiece. this spot was recommended by our friend liz, and this time around i followed her advice and ordered the double cooked pork. a bite of pork with a bite of white rice was perfectly balanced and flavorful. i also had several dumplings and pot stickers, which alone were just okay but with that red sauce were quite scrumptious. philip, who only fully finishes a meal when he really loves it, cleared his whole container of chicken fried rice in record time, and jenn said her stir fried diced chicken with broccoli wasn’t bad at all.

although there will always be plenty of new restaurants for us to try, we are rounding third and heading home with our mcu journey, and this week we fired up avengers: infinity war on disney+. now, many folks have told me how much they love this movie, and i vowed to stay awake the whole time to see if i could appreciate it like my friends. well, with so much happening in this film, i decided i needed to watch it a second time before i could give it a proper review, and instead of providing a semi-high-level review, i decided to blog about it while watching it again. there’s just so much that happened in those 2.5 hours! with a lot going on, i decided to categorize my thoughts into four general groupings. i hope you enjoy this approach!

badass things that helped me appreciate the mcu

• thor getting his new hammer
• tony being perceptive enough to understand that if the time stone is the avengers’ greatest weapon then it can be thanos’ greatest weapon, too
• the 678 area code in steve rogers’ number
• dr. strange showing off his powers
• spider-man’s new suit from tony
• the scene when iron man and spider-man free dr. strange
• iron man understanding that they need to take the fight to thanos (even though thanos ends up on earth anyway)
• strange understanding he needed to keep tony alive for the end game
• thor getting a new eye 🙂
• spider-man officially becoming an avenger

confusing/annoying things that made me go “whatever”

• trying to understanding why they never just chopped off thanos’ arm rather than trying to pull the gauntlet off
• captain america’s unnecessary facial hair
• no other bad guys on that ship that took dr. strange, but hey, i’ll take it
• quill not controlling himself after he hears about gamora’s death and wanda leaving vision’s side during the fight in wakanda – you had one job! although, i am also human and cannot say i would have done any different
• thanos’ minions finding the time stone and mind stone on earth awfully fast
• thor being able to breathe regardless of the atmosphere (but i guess he is a god, so sure)

funny things that made me lol

• quill imitating thor
• mantis asking if the avengers are mighty heroes like kevin bacon
• the ben & jerry’s flavors named after bruce and tony
• spider-man’s friend causing a distraction on the bus
• thor referring to rocket as rabbit
• everyone admiring thor’s muscles
• drax creeping on quill and gamora
• no one following quill’s directions during their attacks
• rhodey telling bruce to bow when they arrive at wakanda
• all of spider-man’s pop culture references
• just about anything drax says
• angsty, teenage groot
• rocket wanting to buy bucky’s arm

oh damn things that made me go, well, “oh, damn”

• thanos overall being a freaking lunatic
• thanos killing loki
• vision getting stabbed
• finding out more about gamora’s past and what thanos did to her planet
• poor nebula’s punishment
• redskull making a reappearance on vormir
• everything about the soul stone, including gamora dying (i actually went “oh, shit” on this one)
• those nasty-ass creatures that attack wakanda
• when thanos shows up on earth
• thanos reversing time to take the mind stone – yikes!
• realizing that thanos snapped his fingers to destroy half of all life; they were freaking ruthless with that

at the end of the day, though, here’s what i might like most about this film: that for me iron man and thor have solidified themselves as my favorite avengers and that the avengers finally met their match. i mean, my heart was beating plenty throughout, and i truly look forward to seeing how things go down from here. i feel like the stakes are higher than ever now!

EATS

1. trader joe’s
2. sweet octopus
3. alessio’s
4. gordo’s pizza
5. alebrije mexican restaurant
6. jim’n’nick’s
7. burger 21
8. masterpiece
9. jerusalem bakery
10. armando’s caribe
11. honeypig
12. sonny’s bbq
13. cue barbecue
14. lon u
15. rose and olive
16. wayback burger
17. 2 nyers pizza
18. tokyo shokudo

MOVIES

1. iron man
2. avengers: infinity war
3. ant-man
4. spider-man: homecoming
5. guardians of the galaxy
6. captain america: the first avenger
7. black panther
8. thor: ragnarok
9. thor: the dark world
10. captain america: civil war
11. guardians of the galaxy vol. 2
12. thor
13. avengers: age of ultron
14. captain america: the winter soldier
15. doctor strange
16. iron man 3
17. the avengers
18. iron man 2