I finally got to go out to Westwood last weekend after finishing all of my midterms. It was an exciting day for me, not only because I had finished my exams, but also because I got to meet one of my brother’s friends from Hawaii. Until last weekend, I had only contacted him through email and had never seen him in real life. But when I met him and talked to him, he was like how I had envisioned him. As a student in medical school, he has helped me through my transition from high school to entering college as premed. I am so thankful for his every thoughtful advice and his concern. I feel so blessed to know such an inspiring person.

So we met up for lunch on Saturday and we had to pick a place to eat.

Picking a place to eat is one of the hardest decisions to make, primarily because there are so many wonderful eateries around campus. There is a little town nearby on Sawtelle Blvd called Little Osaka, where they have various Japanese cuisines. If you are ever craving sushi, curry, dimsum, or just Asian food in general, visit Little Osaka. It’s only about a 10-min drive from UCLA. My favorite place to go in Little Osaka is Blockheads(Asian shaved ice) and Coco’s(Boba milk tea).

Due to bad traffic, we had to skip on Little Osaka and decided to look for a place in Westwood instead, and we found 800 Degrees Nepolitan Pizzeria. I had heard about the place from other people but had never actually gone there myself, so I wanted to try it.

The place is very unique in the way that they are very engaging in how they take orders and make their pizzas. The customers can pick the toppings they would like on their individual 12-inch pizza and they get to see the process of making the pizza. It’s basically like subway, but pizza instead of sandwich. It was interesting to see the process of a piece of dough transforming into a delicious pizza. Plus, I got to try toppings that I’ve never tried before, like ricotta and fontina cheese. They bake each pizza in their wood-fired ovens and serve it to the customer very fresh and hot. The whole process didn’t take very long either. It took us about 15 mins to see our pizzas being made. It felt shorter because it was so amusing to look at.

The atmosphere inside the restaurant was good too. We were sitting right by the window with the sun pleasantly shining through. Although it was a bit crowded, it was a nice, casual place to enjoy our lunch. Thanks to 800 Degrees Pizzeria, I had a nice lunch date with my brother and his friend 😀 Definitely going back there someday.