Hope everyone is having an awesome Halloween weekend.  I started the festivities a day ahead, scavenging for Hello Kitty themed desserts, foods and collectible pins with this lady.  That’s Ashling Gabig… all kittied out for the Hello Kitty Hungry Hunt. If you don’t know what that is, brace yourself.  This is a near-month long excuse to explore LA, stuff your cheeks and collect limited edition enamel Hello Kitty pins.

So Ashling is going to be a famous puppy -styling, craft-making cupcaketeer one day.  But in the meantime, she’s a project manager like me.  Hence, we began our hunt with one of Ashling’s carefully curated, overly planned spreadsheets. She had of course called all the restaurants ahead of time to check the probability of us actually getting a pin from each location and ordered each destination on her spreadsheet based on those probabilities. Neurosis certainly gets things done.  We ate at 3 locations and received 3 pins.  Easy. By 5pm, we were in massage chairs getting our mani pedi’s on. Perfect because this is also Ash’s birthday weekend and 2  hungry women wandering aimlessly around LA would not be pretty.

Our first stop was Charm City Cakes West in Hollywood.  This adorable Hello Kitty bow’d up  cupcake was the first thing we ate that morning. Despite us being absolutely ravenous, this was by far the BEST CUPCAKE I’ve ever had.  Ever.  The frosting was a dreamy cloud of wishes coming true. Not surprised that our cupcakes tasted so incredibly good since Charm City Cakes is founded by the talented Chef Duff Goldman. Wish I could eat these every day.

You would think we’d have something a little more substantial next.  Well that’s not what The Spreadsheet dictated. According to our itinerary, our next destination was Dylan’s Candy Bar, a confection paradise… for an ice cream sundae.

Not just any sundae – this was multiple scoops of cookies & cream ice cream, chunks of strawberry, with peanut butter cups, topped with a Hello Kitty cookie.  Oh my.

Sugar. Rush. Overload.

Too much?  Nope, we went back to purchase chocolate bars after.  Because they’re so pretty! It would be a crime not to. This candy bar rainbow was pure happiness. I feel so inspired to bake and craft and build a house in the forest.

Okay time for an actual meal. Our last destination of the day… Plan Check Kitchen in Downtown LA, where we indulged in their modern take on a bento box.  This was the first place on our list with a big line, but the staff was super prepared and had us all seated and served quickly. They knew better than to keep hungry, crazed Hello Kitty fans waiting.  We had a delicious burger topped with PINK CHEESE, a delightful detail.  Ash said her meat was cooked perfectly and I believe her.  I had my burger with a veggie patty and it was amazing – I love it when restaurants offer options for us veggies.  Even better, they make their own veggie patty.  At least it certainly tasted like they made it – plenty of mushrooms, good texture and very substantial. Nothing like the stuff I have in my freezer.

The meal also included fragrant truffle fries, a perfect little seared ahi salad and most importantly… a green tea Hello Kitty latte. That latte was so incredibly good.  Not too sweet, with a thick, heavenly cream on top.  And how can you not be happy when Hello Kitty’s face is looking up at you from your cup. You just know you’re making good choices.

Yup. So glad we took the day off from work to do this.  No regrets.

Bonus… as if this day wasn’t already maxed out on amazing… we had the sweetest waiter who brought us 2 extra Hello Kitty lattes. Of course, Ash’s “beautiful smile” helped. He had a bit of a crush on her.

We can’t seem to escape the sugar.  The meal ended with a light, crispy donut topped with whipped cream and strawberries.  We had to pack those to go.

Our prized loot. Hello Kitty with piece of cake, a sundae and a hamburger.  Success!

That was just the tip of the iceberg.  We also had Hello Kitty Con to look forward to. Stay tuned for pictures and our feature coming soon!