Tofu Villa

Owen and I went to an art show opening at GR2 a few weeks back - for an artist I really like (BoyGirlParty). So cute! I love her stuff. Anyways, afterwards, we wanted to get a quick bite to eat, around Sawtelle. A new place, called Tofu Villa, (which had taken the place of a boba shop that used to be there) had opened up near Beard Papa, so I decided to give it a shot. Owen was a bit skeptical, as he thought it was only going to be tofu, but I assured him it was not. We were quickly seated inside, made our decisions quickly and made our order, and instantly, this arrived at the table...

Amazing Korean Pancakes and a sort of salad with tasty dressing. I say amazing, because these pancakes were perfectly crispy but soft and gooey in the middle, and freshly served off the grill (they were pretty hot when they got to our table.) They were the right size, the big ones get a little too undercooked and flabby, whereas these had that extra crunch from being small enough to be cooked to a crisp exterior. Owen and I loved these, I could say that these are the best Korean pancakes I've had yet.

Tons of banchan arrived, enough to cover almost every bit of retail space we had on our small 2 person table. There's pleny to see here, but Owen especially seemed to like the black beans (not pictured), and the tofu spinach (upper left), I liked the japchae (middle), but really we liked everything and getting to try a variety of little dishes.

I got the Korean bbq rib bimibap, a simple platter with two pieces of Korean style rib meat, different kinds of chopped veggies, two pieces of tofu and a perfect sunny side up egg. I prefer the bimibap where it's mixed in a hot stone, so the rice gets a bit crispy, but this version wasn't bad either. I wish there had been more of the spicy red paste to mix everything together (I like my bimibap SPICY) but everything was fresh, so I couldn't complain too much.

Owen got a sizzling platter of bulgolgi. It was basically Korean style fajitas, and you can't go wrong with fajitas, heh. This also came with a small metal bowl of white rice. This was pretty tasty, as marinated meat goes, but not the best bulgolgi I've ever had. Still good though.

When we finished and asked for the check, we were each given one of these - a small looking, but deceptively large amount of frozen yogurt (pinkberry style, "natural" yogurt) in a sampler cup. I actually liked this yogurt better than pinkberry! The yogurt, when eaten, had the first taste of the sourish yogurt, but then sweetened to a honey aftertaste. Owen loved this, and I agreed, it was a very nice surprise ending to our meal.

The service was really good, but I wish they had refilled our waters at least once. They were attentive otherwise. I think we'll be back, as this is a much more convenient place to get our Korean food fix on, instead of Koreatown.

Tofu Villa
2130 Sawtelle Blvd
Ste 112A
Los Angeles, CA 90025