Drink your milk...and eat your greens!

Lemonade

2012-01-09T23:44:00.000-08:00

We stopped off at Lemonade after stopping at Urbanic (very pretty stationary, by the way.) This place caught our eye...

Salted caramel macaron. Nice and chewy on the inside. I ate half and saved the rest for later...not too much later, I couldn't resist, haha.

Wanted to get their signature drink (after all, the place IS named Lemonade...) This was blueberry lemonade. A bit pricey but very delicious. I would definitely get this as my beverage again...the tart of the blueberry and lemonade are very harmonious, and the sweetness of the berry comes through at the end.

Owen's dessert, a pot de creme - chocolate. Super rich.

Owen's arnold palmer drink. Refreshing.

Owen's sandwich - turkey, with nice panini grill marks. Nice light salad side.

I got their ridiculous pot roast panini sandwich, with mac and cheese on the INSIDE of the sandwich. On the side, a cauliflower soup. Everything was so good, but very filling.

Flying Pig Food Truck

2012-01-04T20:50:00.000-08:00

Flying pig truck, I caught this truck while we were at Abbot Kinney, getting supplies for our invitations (so long ago).

I got their sliders. Small little buns, pickled red onions, burgery patties.

Not bad, but the patties were honestly a bit overdone and almost charred-dry. I still ate them, the taste was pretty good.

The truck has quite a line.

I haven't tried their brick and mortar location yet, but I had food from their popup at Unique LA. It was good that time as well - I think I had some kurobuta fried rice. Worth giving a try, next time I want to try their duck taco and pork belly bun.

Border Grill

2012-01-04T20:43:00.000-08:00

As promised, I am posting regarding my wedding reception food, and after my experience with RM Seafood, I had a meeting with the event planner over at Mandalay Bay, and she suggested that I might go with Border Grill, as the location of the restaurant is very close to the chapel. The contact at Border Grill was so nice...she set up a tasting for me and my parents. This was the complete polar opposite of the customer experience I got at RM Seafood - I didn't even know I could DO a tasting. When we got there, she discussed all the options, which could be customized. The chef, Michael Minor, even came out and greeted us at one point, and agreed to do POTSTICKERS for us...not even on the menu! It was so great for my parents to get this treatment as well, they were so impressed.

Chips and salsa, with guacamole. Everything was very fresh tasting, I especially liked the guacamole.

They brought out so many alcoholic drinks, unfortunately my parents and I don't really drink. I felt bad, but they insisted on giving them to us anyways, for us to see how they would be served to the guests. I think this was some sort of margarita.

I think this was a mango margarita. My parents and I settled on having watermelon lemonades, which were served during our wedding, along with the alcoholic drinks of course.

A delicious spread of appetizers. From the right: Southwestern eggroll, ceviche chip, quesadilla, a beef sopes, a chicken sopes and a plantain empanada.

First close up - southwestern eggroll and ceviche chip. Both were excellent.

More ceviche chip - hawaiian fish, red onions, cilantro, jalepeno chile sauce on a plantain chip, topped with avocado.

Quesadilla - I don't recall what kind of meat was in there, but a well done quesadilla slice is always welcome in my book.

The two sopes were alright, but the mazo boat cups they came in were a bit dense and heavy. It was a good way to have them as little bites but I couldn't have all of it. The plantain empanada was very good, great texture.

A bacon wrapped fig is on this plate - one of my favorites of the day. Fig is filled with a strong cheese, wrapped in bacon...a perfect sweet savory bite.

More alcoholic drinks we didn't drink...agh, sometimes I really wish I could drink just a little (I'm very allergic to alcohol.)

A classic margarita.

So as I said earlier, we ended up using Border Grill as our lunch reception venue. It worked out really well, and we had a great time - we even had a HUGE Paella station, manned by the Chef himself! More photos to come later. Thanks for sticking with me.

RM Seafood

2012-01-02T02:45:00.000-08:00

These are extremely old photos, but I wanted to post them to show some of the reason why I had been away for so long from the blog...well, the reason I had a few years ago anyways. (after that, it was work, laziness, lack of motivation - I am probably going to beat myself up for awhile in the next few weeks of posting, it is part of the process, heh.)

I had been planning my wedding in Vegas for ages - it was somewhat stressful, as I am a person who likes planning things out a lot. My wedding venue was at Mandalay Bay Casino Hotel Resort. Owen and I loved the chapel's simple and contemporary design. Once location was set, we had to decide on the food. I had booked RM Seafood initially, just based on what they had on the menu - my parents and I had discussed how important it was to be able to offer wedding guests delicious seafood options.

My parents and I ended up visiting Vegas on our own around the new year, staying at Encore through a special deal (in a beautiful suite room, so amazing!) We decided to try out RM Seafood to see what kind of food offerings they had.

The outside of the restaurant. A very neat water running over glass effect is seen as you enter, if you look up. Also, my parents are in this shot! Hey mom and dad! :D

Upon entering, I talked to our waiter and explained that we were trying different dishes to determine what we were going to serve our guests at the wedding. He tried to point out different dishes that were on the separate catering menu.

We ordered the clam chowder to start. Creamy, however I remember thinking it could have been more flavorful.

Steak, eggs and fries. A pretty great offering of the three. I loved how the egg was presented in a little cast iron dish, separate from everything else - perfect to keep the deliciously runny eggs in their place. Crispy light fries, great to dip into the broken egg yolk. I expected the cut of the steak to be tough but it was actually quite tender and nice!

Burger and fries. Good and satisfying. More fries. My weakness.

Crab cake, the thing that we definitely needed to try, as it would have been the main thing to serve to wedding guests. I remember it not being very hot when it arrived to the table though. The crab cake itself was decent, not very much filler. The slaw was a nice contrast.

Okay, so we tried some dishes, but this ended up NOT being the location of our lunch wedding reception for a couple of reasons...please remember that I was figuring out wedding event reception details and this is not normally how I would judge a restaurant.

1. The tepid reception of the waiter and manager when telling them that I was trying out dishes for my wedding reception.

I was treated pleasantly, but no special treatment or separate presentation of each dish. I didn't expect a red carpet reception but the general attitude was cold towards me and my parents. I asked to see the area where the reception was going to be held and they pointed to an area behind a curtain. They didn't show me around or give me a tour.

2. The distance of RM Seafood from the chapel

People were probably going to get lost in the casino on the way there. It was a little confusing to find for the older folks (It was hard for me to find at first!)

3. The AMAZING reception I got from Border Grill. That will be an upcoming post. But it was everything I wanted it to be.

Based on the food itself, RM Seafood was very tasty, and I would gladly go again for a special occasion lunch or dinner with friends or just me and Owen. However, for our reception, it just didn't make the cut.

Five Guys Burgers and Fries

2012-01-02T02:00:00.000-08:00

I like burgers a lot, as you can tell. When I heard about Five Guys trying to battle the In N Out market out here, I was intrigued - I needed to try these burgers to compare!

Drinks after we ordered. I like that I can have unsweetened ice tea (sweetened is too sweet!)

Their seasoned fries. To be honest, as much as I like seasoned fries I think these were too seasoned/salty and could have been crispier. Next time I will probably stick to just the burger. I'm amazed at how my palate has been changing as I am edging closer to the age of 30!

Owen's burger. One patty, bacon and cheese.

My burger. I think I just got cheese.

My opinion - I still like In n out better. I liked the customization (mushrooms! swiss cheese!) and the size of the burger (not too big, not too small) but I honestly did not like the taste as much as I thought I would. If I closed my eyes I would have thought it was a Carl's Jr. burger. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but this does not defeat In n Out as my favorite fast food burger. Maybe I should try it again to reassess.

Cafe Doma

2012-01-02T01:50:00.000-08:00

Again, had this meal so long ago, hard to remember what went on, but wanted to post and catch up a little.

Miso soup - nice touch with the enoki mushroom shards, but they didn't add that much flavor to the soup I think, it was mostly a texture thing.

Lunch bento box. Generous with the white meat chicken and I remember liking the salad ok- the dressing was nice, flavorful and light. However, I remember that the tempura was not my favorite...but it was still edible.

Daphne and I ordered an extra roll to share.

Close up - a lot of sauce and tempura batter shards. I don't recall what the name of the sushi roll was. It was huge, we shared it - decent accompaniment to our bentos.

Twain's restaurant

2012-01-02T01:44:00.000-08:00

Note: I wrote this circa 2009, and it was sitting in my drafts for ages. I'll post this but I don't know what it's like now, or if they have changed their food or policies. Please bear this in mind when reading this. Thanks!

Late night eats at Twain’s – back when I had the night shift with Louisa, I had looked up this place Twains on restaurant.com, I had wanted to use a gift certificate to try out a new place to eat that managed to still be open late. Twain’s wasn’t too hard to find, the place itself was very retro and had an awesome old atmosphere and seating – the cash register was of special interest, as it was super old, and had those big mechanical buttons…so fun.

The place started getting more crowded as the night went on, and it really looked like only 3 people were manning the whole place – one cook, one waiter/cashier/host, one busboy. They did what they could but with all the people starting to stream in and sit on the patio, they were swamped.

This is what we got:

Louisa’s salad that was instantly delivered to the table after ordering, I’m guessing pre-made. Iceberg lettuce, huge chunk of cucumber, dinky croutons, ranch salad– pretty standard diner fare.

My usual order of an Arnold palmer – note the ice chunks. I have a weird appeal for the mini ice chunks, I think mainly because they usually give you so much of it and it turns your drink super cold. Love that.

Louisa’s roast beef dinner, glistening and covered in brown gravy. Really, it’s a marvel of diner food, this is what diner food should look like. She was pretty mediocre on the meat itself, and picked through the vegetables, but she absolutely adored the mashed potatoes. She had said that she was willing to revisit Twain’s just for a whole plate of mashed potatoes and gravy. That’s a serious endorsement.

Garlic bread came with Louisa’s dinner. She ate it. I don’t think there was anything much else to it.

My dinner – well, here’s some wheat toast, buttered. Not much to say about that, I like toast, this was toast….

And here’s the rest of my dinner – or rather, breakfast for dinner – Corned beef hash, with poached eggs, and hash browns. Yep, it’s a trip down carbohydrate street, but I think a good measure for how good a breakfast place is, is how they do their corned beef hash plate. This wasn’t a bad version – Poached eggs were very good, runny in the middle and mixed with the corned beef well, the corned beef itself was a little too salty, but nicely offset by egg yolk and toast. The hash browns were not my favorite– I like the grated potato style and not…well, I guess you can say these potatoes were flaked? They had a decent amount of crispiness and griddle time, definitely edible, but hash browns are not the thing to get here, for me.

Dessert, I wanted to try their dessert after reading about some of it online. Totally a mistake on both our parts.

When we asked our waiter about the available pies, I wasn’t really jazzed at the flavors, so I got a carrot cake slice, not bad, but I really was too full to eat much of it. I ate about a quarter of it before giving up. I feel bad for wasting it.

The travesty which was Louisa’s peach pie slice was unforgivable. The only edible thing was the crust, and even that wasn’t very good. Not flaky enough. The filling of the pie was so disgusting that I think it was a crime against pie. The peach slices were held completely suspended in place by a stiff glutinous substance, I guess it was supposed to be the syrupy sweetener, but it was plain gross. Never, ever again on dessert.

Also, the ending of the meal was further ruined when we tried to use the 25 dollar gift certificate, and the waiter insisted that we could not use it yet, as the computer system mistakenly let us buy the certificate. So, no 25 dollars off.

That was upsetting. But maybe we can use it later?
Twain's Restaurant
12905 Ventura Blvd
Studio City, CA 91604
Neighborhood: Studio City

Ocean Avenue Seafood

2012-01-02T01:34:00.000-08:00

Another DineLA dinner from a couple years back. I'm embarrassed, and resolve to catch up with posting some highlights from the last couple (!) of years that I've been away. They'll probably be quick posts to share some photos of the food, but I really am resolving to 1. post more. 2. finally post the redesign of the blog. Please bear with me.

Ocean Ave Seafood, located in Santa Monica, special Dine LA dinner -

Bread and butter, very good

Clam Chowder - with Applewood smoked bacon. Very rich and creamy.

Oyster Sampler, 1/2 Dozen - Chef’s selection of fresh oysters.

A close up. I don't have raw oysters too often as Owen does not like them, but I think I will admit that I prefer their preparation either fried or Rockefeller'd. These were decent though, very briny and fresh tasting.

Mixed Seafood Pasta - Handmade linguine pasta tossed with clams, mussels, shrimp, scallop and calamari in fresh marinara sauce. Daphne got this and she seemed to like this a lot.

I think it was some sort of dessert wine, a muscato. Daphne loves this kind of dessert wine.

Grilled Salmon - with mashed potatoes, asparagus, and pinot noir reduction. I love me some salmon, and mashed potatoes were excellent. The skin was nice and crispy on this preparation, and thankfully not overdone. Very good.

Traditional Crème Brulee - Caramelized and served with raspberry. Rich, sweet, although could have used more crunchy caramelized topping.

Warm Chocolate Bread Pudding - Served with Vanilla Bean Sauce. I think Owen would love loved this, as these are two things he loves the most.

Ocean Ave Seafood
1401 Ocean Ave.
Santa Monica CA 90401
310-394-5669
www.oceanave.com

Jer-ne (DineLA dinner menu)

2010-01-10T23:45:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone! I hope this year brings you good fortune, good times and good food :) I am so behind on posts, and am currently trying to catch up like crazy. I hope you will enjoy what I've got to share!

Dine LA! I look forward to these special two times of the year, with specially priced menus and a great way to try out restaurants that I wouldn't have necessarily tried out before, but give me a set menu and price, I'm always down to try new things in that kind of environment.

Jer-ne is inside the Ritz Carlton in Marina del Rey, so the place is already very high end. (forced valet, which I dislike, but at least there was a small validation for eating at the restaurant.) I liked the seating and ambiance, very relaxed romantic style. Daphne, Eric and I met up for a late dinner, and it happened to be Eric's birthday as well, so it was a nice treat for him. We all ordered from the Dine LA menu.

My usual drink order, the arnold palmer. A good one, I think. Not much else to say about it, but I remember I didn't get a refill...I stuck with water after I finished this.

Eric and I chose the prawn appetizer- grilled ocean prawns, lime, chiles, cilantro. Huge, huge prawns, atop a grilled piece of french bread, with soft roasted sweet tomatoes, microgreens, and a delicious sauce. I really enjoyed this, and each prawn was massive, which was a joy to eat. This was great, but after seeing/tasting what Daphne got...

...which was the soup - butternut squash, frangelico, pumpkin oil, I wish I had gotten that instead. The taste of her soup was so flavorful, so fragrant - just something special.

Eric got the lamb - t-bone, spinach, feta, kalamata, lemon. The server had suggested it, and it was a great choice. I tried a piece and it was super juicy. Eric seemed very happy with this, I think he finished everything, down to the painted artful sauce on the plate.

I remember craving beef that day, so I ordered the filet - chanterelles, brussel sprouts, zinfandel jus. I remember it being good, but not as juicy as Eric's lamb. Actually, maybe it was more on the dry side than what I would have preferred, but everything was still pretty good. The chanterelles and brussel sprouts were delicious, and everything was very artfully presented.

Daphne ordered the bass. I'm actually not sure what was with it, some spinach and veggies? This differed from what they said was going to be online for DINELA. This was very nice, Daphne gets giddy when she has some awesome fish, and this was some awesome fish.

Daph was really on a roll with her ordering...she ordered the brulee - pumpkin with maple walnut ice cream. The taste I had was so amazing that I ordered one of these to go for Owen to try at home. This was one of the best creme brulees I've had, definitely on the top 5.

Eric and I decided to go with the cheese plate- cypress grove truffle tremor, midnight moon and lamb chopper. I can't remember exactly how each one tasted, but I remember almost all of them were super strong and I almost wanted the cheese to keep going.

A super excellent meal. I will come back sometime for a special occasion.

Jer-ne (inside the Ritz Carlton)
4375 Admiralty Way
Marina del Rey, CA 90292
310-574-4333
www.ritzcarlton.com

Hide Sushi

2009-12-30T20:30:00.000-08:00

Sushi! I love me my sushi, and I've passed by Hide Sushi enough to see that this place is super popular (I see people waiting outside for a table at all hours of the day!) I was forewarned about their cash only policy, so I made sure to get some cash that day when I met up with Daphne, Robert and Owen.

We snagged a seat in the back and quickly ordered, we were very hungry. They were very fast in delivering our food to the table, considering the amount of people in the restaurant at the time.

Two sets of each kind of roll, spicy tuna and spicy yellowtail, arrived first. These were delicious rolls, very freshly made, great quality fish, good texture on the rice. We devoured these very quickly, so tasty!

From the left: salmon skin roll, California roll, and then a spicy salmon roll to round out the plate. The salmon skin was Robert's favorite, he always orders it, and I definitely agreed with his decision. We described the salmon skin as "salmon candy", crunchy, fishy and savory, I wish more places had it as a fast food item (KFC could try to go out on a limb to try to get more asian customers?). California rolls aren't really my favorite, but this version was nice, very generous with the avocado. Salmon was good, I could have had more of those too.

Some nigiri - from the left front - unagi, (eel), sweet shrimp, and salmon. Starting with eel, which is my favorite meal ender, I love the sweet sauce and the savory taste it has, I always have one to end my sushi meal. Salmon nigiri was very good, no overly fishy taste (which is Owen's judge of good salmon), and super tender once eaten. They went quickly.

Daphne had ordered the sweet shrimp, as she had heard to order this (later, you will see the fried shrimp heads), they do not waste any of the huge sweet shrimp. However, she tasted it and instantly did not like it, so she gave the other one to me. Honestly, I am not the biggest fan either (raw sweet shrimp has an interesting texture when eaten, the best way I can describe it is it makes my mouth feel...fuzzy and powdery), but I don't like letting things go to waste, so I had it. I think I'll stick to cooked shrimp from now on.

The fried shrimp heads were the redeeming factor to the sweet shrimp sushi, after turning their bodies into sushi, the heads are fried whole. Snapping off little bits of antennae and legs, each piece tasted like the best shrimp chip I've ever had. I would devour a plate of these, given the chance. Please don't judge me...sometimes I'm a glutton...

Last plate...more spicy tuna and a tuna roll. I already chatted about the spicy tuna, so the tuna roll, good ratio of cucumber and tuna (very generous with the tuna). I liked that it was cucumber bits instead a big chunk of cucumber like I'm used to, it gives a great cucumber flavor to the roll instead of overpowering everything.

We were super full after all these rolls, and I remember that the bill was quite reasonable. Great quality, great price, really nothing more I can ask for. I need to go back soon.

Hide Sushi
2040 Sawtelle Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90025-6230
(310) 477-7242

Truxton's American Bistro

2009-12-30T20:00:00.000-08:00

I hadn't seen Brook in awhile, and met up with her for lunch one weekday. Since I had never tried it, I wanted to give Truxton's Bistro a shot (last time I had tried to eat there, it was completely bogged down with a party, and we never even got to be seated - no one ever showed up at the front - a huge negative, there always should be someone greeting, right?) I decided to give the place another chance, after all, there were a lot of people there, that's at least a good sign right?

Scanning the menu, I noted that a lot of the menu items were pretty pricey, but I was still willing to try, if anything to check out the quality. Of course, my usual drink order...

A nice frosty arnold palmer, very welcome on that hot day.

Brook got a meatball(?) pizza, I think it was meatball anyways. The other toppings included red bell pepper, onion and a slight dusting of parsley. The pizza crust was impressive, very thin but still managed to keep all the toppings secure and didn't bend under the weight of itself when picking up a piece. Brook only ate like, a quarter of this, and saved the rest, it was rather big.

I got a turkey club sandwich, with sweet potato fries. I think I got this mainly because this would be Owen's order of choice if we were to go again, and I wanted to gauge how good his order would be, plus I wanted to bring half of this home for him, as he was sick that day (yes, he's sick a lot...a lot of headaches :( ) I remember enjoying the sweet potatoes a lot, as they were crispy, well seasoned and the perfect fry size. The sandwich itself was made of fresh carved turkey breast, a pleasant surprise (I dislike the water packed stuff but have come to terms with it when served this at restaurants, Owen DETESTS water packed turkey and will completely reject a sandwich if it contains it), good mixed baby greens and tomato, with bacon, but I could be wrong as this was awhile ago. This was a very decent sandwich, however, very pricey (I think it was around 12-13 for the sandwich, and an extra dollar or two for the upgrade to sweet potato fries.)

The atmosphere was nice and very busy, I'm sure a neighborhood restaurant is very welcome around these parts, in terms of variety (oddly, there are 3 Mexican restaurants within spitting distance of each other around here...). The price point is a bit high for my taste, but I can see myself coming here once and awhile.

UPDATE: I went here again with Owen and my parents this past week, to get some breakfast. I had gotten a breakfast burrito, with chicken sausage, scrambled eggs, pico de gallo and cheese. My side dish was fresh fruit (I had a choice of potatoes but went with fruit.) Owen got their french toast, my parents got scrambled eggs and toast, and bacon, and snacked off each others' and my plate. The food was pretty good, the fruit was very sweet and my mom really liked my breakfast burrito. However, one thing was driving me nuts - there was this annoying loud squeaky noise whenever the servers went through the door to the kitchen, which was very often. I know it was a little thing but it bothered my experience enough to ask the server to fix the squeak, which didn't happen during the busy morning rush. I hope they fix it by the time I go back next time.

Truxton's American Bistro
8611 Truxton Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90045-3910
(310) 417-8789
www.truxtonsmaericanbistro.com

Koreatown Galleria

2009-12-30T18:30:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post (I have much to catch up on, and it's almost the new year..!), but one hot summer day, I decided to stop into Koreatown Galleria for a quick lunch after I had gotten my haircut.

Don't exactly remember what the name of the little stand was in the food mart, but I craved Korean cold noodles. This was a really great combo - Korean cold noodles and Korean bbq marinated beef ribs over rice combo. The springy, cold and tangy noodles make slurping them a joy...I am instantly refreshed after eating these. The beef was very tender, I didn't really finish all the rice but the meat was great, and with the kimchi-ed bean sprouts, kimchi cabbage, and pickled veggies, it was a perfect meal. I should have taken my leftovers back home but I had some more shopping to do, so I figured it would be a waste...I'll remember to do that next time.

Koreatown Galleria Food Court
3250 West Olympic Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90006-2367
(323) 733-6000
koreatowngalleria.com

Sugarfish

2009-12-07T18:00:00.000-08:00

This is from when Marcie and I finally got together one day to celebrate both our belated birthdays. She had wanted to try Sugarfish for ages, and we finally made it there, early enough so we were the first customers of the day on a sunny Saturday mid-morning.

I'm most intrigued by Nozawa's "Trust Me" menus, how for the most part, that's all they offer, you can get a few things more a-la-carte but that's it. Marcie and I both went with the "Trust Me" menu selection (not the Trust me lite, I wanted to try the crab roll!).

A plate of edaname was brought out for each of us to nibble on. Tasty pods of edaname are always fun and a great way to start a meal.

Second dish, a chopped tuna sashimi, with green onions and ponzu sauce. Each piece of tuna was like a glistening ruby, so tasty and fresh. I'd have to say the quality of fish was excellent across the board, very clean and tasty flavors. The portion was quite small, but a great start.

Next up, 2 pieces each of Albacore and Salmon Sushi. Same thing all around - super fresh and tasty. I remember the rice being nice as well, although it was a little more crumbly than I would have liked (a lot of grains fell off en-route from plate to soy sauce to mouth), but the fish more than made up for any minor complaints about rice.

Another small plate arrived - one piece each of Yellowtail and Halibut Sushi. Nothing more can be said about the quality that I haven't said before, just top notch and very delicious.

As the waitress put down this plate, she cautioned us to eat this sooner than later, as the seaweed is crisp and fresh. The Toro Hand Roll was really amazing, the fish was very luscious on the tongue, and the rice issue was resolved by this method of eating, as the rice was enveloped by the seaweed. I could have had 2 more of these.

Last plate was the Crab Hand Roll, same rules applied as the toro handroll. The crab meat was SO sweet, each bite was just like fireworks in my mouth. Hrm, in a good way.

I felt pretty good after that lunch but I think I probably could have done even more, maybe some a-la-carte items to finish it off. I am definitely going again soon.

Sugarfish
4722 1/4 Admiralty Way
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292-6905
(310) 306-6300
www.sugarfishsushi.com

Kuru Kuru Sushi

2009-11-27T17:30:00.000-08:00

This is awhile ago, when I had a different schedule at work (nights). Louisa and I met up with Bryan at Kuru Kuru sushi, as Bryan had a craving, and we were up for anything. I had gotten some takeout here before (decent) and was willing to give them a shot. The place was pretty full with people from the studios having their dinner, so space was limited. We initially sat at the sushi bar, but moved to a table once one cleared up.

Bryan and I were intrigued by a particular item on the menu - called "Monkey brains". Whaa? So, I HAD to order this - after all, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is one of my favorite movies of all time. This is what arrived at the table...

...hrmm. I guess...monkey brain-ish. Kinda. Far as I can decipher (the waitress wasn't very descriptive, and the menu literally only said "Monkey brains") it was a mushroom, stuffed with tuna or other fish meats, tempura fried and covered in a siracha and teriyaki sauce. The novelty of the name was pretty much the best thing about it, I mean, it was edible but I don't think I'll order it again. The mix of fish meat became quite overcooked in the frying process, the mushroom itself was fine. I guess they did the best they could with presentation.

This was Louisa's salad that came along with her dish. Sad iceberg lettuce leaves covered in ginger-y dressing. Serviceable, but very much a great example of "camp salad" (Owen's reference to how it's cheap lettuce in a bag, that came with purple lettuce and carrot shreds, that he was forced to eat during YMCA summer camp. Oh, the stuff that we endure as kids.)

This was the rest of Louisa's dish, the Chicken Teriyaki dinner. The char-grilled chicken is over a bed of noodles, and white rice on the side. Louisa liked this, I've had it for that one time I had takeout and it's pretty decent. Good grilling on the chicken.

Bryan's sushi cravings were satiated by this roll, I'm not sure what they called it, but considering they named the last dish Monkey Brains, I'm going to call it "Snake Surprise". I think it's a California roll topped with pieces of salmon sashimi. He was fairly happy with this roll, although Bryan is pretty much happy with most things he orders.

I got a chirashi sushi box, scattered pieces of sashimi fish over a bed of sushi rice. From what I remember, it had tuna, salmon, whitefish, shrimp, and flying fish roe. The quality of the fish was not extremely great but it was ok. The salmon was a bit stringy. They were fairly generous with portions though, so I guess I can't complain too much.

I definitely have to try some more sushi places in Burbank to compare but this place falls neatly in the mid-low range of sushi places, but service was friendly and the turnover seemed pretty frequent so I would be willing to come here again.

Kuru Kuru Sushi
521 N Hollywood Way
Burbank, CA 91505-4983
(818) 846-6552

Mozza to go

2009-11-25T23:50:00.000-08:00

Whew, finally a moment to catch up on posts! Thanksgiving vacation is such a blessing.

I was eagerly awaiting the opening of Mozza to go - so exciting to be able to get the amazing pizza at Pizzeria Mozza in a take out window instead of at the restaurant, which is usually very crowded and busy. It's also nice to be able to call them beforehand and have the pizza ready right when I walk up...it's great! The nice part of this very small space is the products you can get, here's a wall of stuff you can buy from Mozza to go...

Dry pastas, canned tomatoes, really high quality products available for purchase. I even hear you can buy soap that they make from their used cooking oil. Sweet!

Bryan tried the Pizza alla Benno: Speck, pineapple, jalapenos, mozzarella & tomato. Bryan's not a picky eater but he loved this enough to want to go back a few days later, and get the same pizza. Once he likes something, he usually sticks with it always. Note the delicious bubbly edges on the crust - one of the best things about Mozza pizza!

I got a Coach Farm goat cheese, leeks, scallions, garlic & bacon pizza. The leeks and scallions added a nice fresh contrast to the creamy goat cheese, and the saltiness of the bacon and mellowness of the roasted garlic. A perfect pizza? I might have to submit this one up for a nomination, for sure.

I got this pizza to go for Owen, his favorite Fennel sausage, panna & red onion pizza. The house made sausage, laced with fennel, with delicate red onion strands, it really stands out as a classic favorite with high end ingredients.

I wish I lived closer to this place so I could actually order delivery from here. Mozza to go is a welcome addition to my "special treat" take out rotation. Oh, I also got a butterscotch budino to go as well, I forgot to take a picture of it cuz I scarfed it down too quick...I think it tasted even better because I was in my PJ's instead of in the crowded restaurant. Do yourself a favor and try some takeout from this place!

Mozza to Go
6610 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90038
323-297-1130
http://www.mozza2go.com/

Umami Burger

2009-10-31T00:30:00.000-07:00

Quick quick post on Umami burger, as I'm completely embarrassed that I haven't posted this and I went here around the 4th of July (Oh MAN I've been backlogged on the posts...) My friend Brian was in town for Anime Expo, where we had a booth at Artist's alley, where I sold some of my prints. We met up for dinner with some of his friends at Umami burger, where I had been very interested in going to, as I passed it daily going to work, but hadn't gotten a chance to go to, up until then!

Brian's friends were really nice, and we chatted it up while waiting for our table. And we waited. And waited some more. We eyed the lucky groups of people that had gotten there before us. People were basically camped out there for ages...there were birthday celebrations, big groups of people eating, talking, then ordering SECONDS on their burgers...it got to ridiculous levels. I think we ended up waiting about 2 and a half hours. That was beyond my limit, even for a really hot restaurant, but I guess I really can't blame the restaurant, they just had a lot of people, and not very much space.

Anyways, on to the burgers.

I think this was Brian's burger, he got a Manly burger - beer cheddar cheese, smoked salted onion strings, and bacon lardons. Sorry for the blurriness, we were starving and disjointed at this point. He and I shared our burgers, so we each got a taste. The quality of the meat was very good, the shiny bun encased the ingredients very well. I think the burger was rather small for the price, but I admit I wasn't hungry after eating a full one, so I guess it was satisfying enough. The bacon and onion strings on this one were very nice, added a lot of texture and savoriness (the signature flavor of umami...right?)

This was my burger, the Pork and Stilton burger - blue cheese, pocas port carmelized onions. I actually liked Brian's burger better, I'm glad we agreed to share. It didn't have enough of the poppy flavors that I expected (like a knock your socks off amount of flavorful blue cheese, I think they were rather light handed in the blue cheese generosity department), although I still liked it - again, the quality of the meat was excellent, but I could have used more intense flavors.

This was the truffle burger, and my favorite one that I tried, definitely worthy of an "umami" label. Very savory, deep flavors that stuck with you after you took a bite, and very unique. If I were to go again I would get this burger. Maybe two. Okay I'm a glutton.

Brian's friends insisted to us that their fries were not worth ordering, but I didn't even get a chance to see for myself as they had run out of fries for the night. Oh well. I got the onion rings instead. These were tasty, lots of tempura batter, not too greasy, with their "special" ketchup, I liked it but only about 4 rings for 4 dollars was a little steep for me. I might just rock another burger next time.

Again, I don't blame Umami for the overloaded dining room that night, so I'll be back again at some point, hopefully when they're not so overloaded with other guests.

Umami Burger
850 La Brea Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90036
323-931-3000
http://www.umamiburger.com/

Portos Bakery and Cafe

2009-10-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

Louisa hadn't tried Porto's before and that was a crying shame, so we headed there one day to experience the magic (well, by the way people talk about this place, it's practically epic). A HUGE line was winding around for the bakery section, luckily, we were going to the cafe line which was a lot shorter. The prices were quite cheap for sandwiches and their signature items, I am not sure about each of the cake prices but I think I paid around 25 dollars for everything...here goes...

I got this pretty little chocolate cake with mousse inside for Owen. I think it looked prettier than it tasted, but Owen liked it fine- it's chocolate, after all, and a dark chocolate, at that.

One of the things Porto's is famous for - their cheese rolls. They're really affordable, and really tasty. They're what I want cheese danishes to taste like - flaky, the cheese is not too sweet or heavy, and airy bites of sugar coated pastry. So good as a breakfast or anytime snack.

The second thing that Portos is famous for - their potato balls. These breadcrumb coated balls are pretty dang addicting...I'd liken them to mini portable shepherd's pies....

Here's a shot of the insides. Meaty meat mixture, surrounded in mashed potato, with a fried coating. I think this is the American answer to the Chinese dumpling.

And this is my sandwich, a turkey on a croissant sandwich. It came with plantain chips, a fun twist on the usual potato chip that would usually come with a sandwich, but I still prefer potato chips. These plantain chips had a nice satisfying crunch, though, and a faint taste of plantain, I think when you cut plantains this thin then fry them, you lose most of that flavor that goes along with it. The turkey croissant-wich was great, freshly baked croissant and yummy turkey is pretty much awesome. Also, at a price around 4 dollars, it was a nice change from the usual 9 dollar or more sandwiches I've come to begrudgingly pay for at other restaurants.

I'd definitely go again to sample some more of their baked goods - I had an unpictured mango mousse, which was very tasty and refreshing, with good mango flavor. It reminded me of mango pudding from Chinese restaurants, with more tartness, which I enjoyed. I'll be back again!

Porto's Bakery and Cafe
3614 W Magnolia Blvd
Burbank, CA 91505
www.portosbakery.com

Back home in Lahaina

2009-10-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

I’ve been here many times but I don’t think I’ve blogged about it yet. Sometimes I get a crazy Hawaiian food craving, and this is our restaurant of choice to satisfy that craving. The restaurant is hard to see from the street, as the entrance faces the back and not street front, but upon entrance, it’s quite festively decorated, taking the Hawaiian theme to heart, with fake foliage, vines and even a fake tree in the middle of the dining room.

I can’t help myself, when there’s Spam musubi, I order it…

Okay, my view on Spam- well, it’s not so bad. My mom and dad used to fry up thin slices of it, and then put sugar on them (because they felt like Spam was way too salty, which it is…but the addition of granulated sugar on top is not a great addition). We’d have this with rice, so this is not that much removed from spam musubi. I admit the Spam slime (the gooey slimy gelatin that encases the Spam in the can) is the most unpleasant part, and would deter most people upon experiencing “Spam in the raw”. Upon opening the can, I would suggest immediately rinsing and blotting the gelatin away, as it does not add or detract from the overall experience, and slicing it up and frying it to get a good crust on it.

Back to the spam musubi, they do a decent one, with a bit of teriyaki and green onion chopped on top. Nice little snacky appetizers to start the meal.

Plate lunch is very popular in Hawaii (from what I remember when I went in, ah, 8th grade!) so they have something similar with their lunch specials, choose one or two chicken or beef or pork, each plate comes with their ramen salad, rice and a scoop of mac salad. Here are the variations that we ordered:

Julian got the lahaina fried chicken and upgraded his rice to bacon fried rice. Almost all food is better when you add bacon. I think the lahaina fried chicken is the thing to get here, the marinade for the chicken is sweet, fried perfectly with fried crunchy bits all over it. The ramen salad is interesting - straight from the package ramen, crumpled up over thinly sliced cabbage, green onion and a tangy dressing. The mac salad is a nice texture contrast, very creamy and overwhelmingly ginger flavored, that's the only thing that I don't really like about their mac salad, how strongly the ginger taste is. The sauce was a teriyaki sauce, but I don't use much of it myself, I usually douse my plate with siracha sauce.

My plate lunch combo was very similar, lahaina fried chicken, BBQ Hawaiian chicken, plain white rice, ramen salad and that scoop of mac salad. Whenever I'm here, I'm quite drawn to this order, but I've gotten variations on this before - I think last time I ended up switching out my ramen salad for gyoza (very freshly fried!), and sometimes I get chicken long rice on the side (not pictured, but think, salty chicken noodle soup with rice noodle instead of thick pasta noodle, with a lot of green onions). I've also had their salmon, which was decent as well.

Also, on another visit, I've tried their premium Hawaiian ice cream. Owen couldn't help himself when he saw that they offered a chocolate, coconut and macadamia nut ice cream. (not pictured.) The generous scoop more than satisfied his cravings, the coconut made the whole scoop very rich, and the macadamia nuts were fun to crunch into. I didn't have much at all, since I'm not really a fan of chocolate ice cream (I know, it's a thing...), but if I did like it, I would choose this one.

This place is one of our favorites and we usually have excellent service. Highly recommended!

Back Home in Lahaina
916 N Sepulveda Blvd, Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles, California
http://www.backhomeinlahaina.com
310-374-0111

Made this at home: Apple Pandowdy

2009-10-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

I actually cook quite a bit, but I don’t share enough of my own cooking pictures on this blog…every so often I make something super special and it’s so pretty that I photograph it. So this is one of those things, a apple pandowdy, cooling off from its’ stint in the oven. I had wanted to make something a little special for dessert for board game night, and had gotten a bag of granny smith apples….so apple pie was the obvious choice. However, I was still a bit nervous about pie-making…especially about a bottom layer of pie I had to par-bake.

I had gotten a great recipe from America’s test kitchen, for an apple pandowdy, which was a lot easier than having to make a whole pie, and could be a lot juicier and have less complicated cooking time. Peeled apples, some lemon juice, a bit of maple syrup, butter, pie crust, egg white and some sugar sprinkled on top – and here we are. Warm from the oven, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, it was a perfect sweet ending to game night.

Fritto Misto

2009-10-07T20:20:00.000-07:00

I had been wanting to try this place for awhile, after passing it many times on my way back home from 3rd Street Promenade, and had heard great things about it, so I set up a lunch with Daphne and her brother to meet up here. The place was bustling crowded, filled with office workers from nearby. They wouldn’t seat us until we were all there, so I waited a spell and eyed their desserts (I guess all premade and precut, everything was pre-plated and saran-wrapped).

When we sat down, we were immediately served this basket of warm bread. The texture of this bread was not entirely unpleasant but nothing special, as was the crust. The best part about this bread was the fact it was very warm, and was refilled even though there was only one piece left (the lone piece of bread, no one wants to take it…)

My usual drink order, the Arnold palmer. Good ratio of lemonade to iced tea.

As I eyed the menu, I had really wanted to order the namesake of the restaurant, the Fritto Misto. We agreed to order one as an appetizer and share it. When this dish landed on the table, it was a massive mound of fried goods – fresh and hot – containing pieces of broccoli, zucchini, shrimp, carrot, scallop, and eggplant. Cocktail and tartar sauce were provided for dipping. This really ended up being too much, a more appropriate amount for 6 people instead of 3. We could not finish this, which was a shame because re-heated fried food is never the same, so it was a waste. Ahh, waste….don’t tell my mother, please.

This was Daphne’s gnocchi pasta balls, with mini shrimps, in a cream sauce. This was deceptively a big portion, as each little gnocchi dumpling was filled with…

…ricotta cheese, as Daphne is proudly displaying here. She liked it a lot, I think.

This was what Eric ordered, a ravioli in a pink cream sauce, with sundried tomatoes. I think the ravioli was filled with chicken (he insisted that he “needed meat”, so I think that’s what they offered), and he got “full enough” from this dish (a major concern he had when ordering), so I think it was a success.

ordered the lunch special, which that day happened to be lasagna. Lunch specials come with a side salad, and I requested it to be a walnut gorgonzola salad (extra charge) instead of the usual choices of Caesar or house salad, and I’m glad I made the choice – the gorgonzola salad was enough to be a meal in itself. The lasagna had a really rich tasty sauce, which I enjoyed greatly, but I managed to control myself and only have half of this plate, the rest went to Owen who was sick at home and appreciated the treat.

At this point, I was too full to even look at desserts, so I guess that will have to wait for the next time I go! I think I’ll try dinner here next time…

Fritto Misto

601 Colorado Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90407
(310) 458-2829

Casitas Taco Al Carbon

2009-10-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

It feels like ages ago since I went to this place with Fernando and Louisa, but I’m finally getting around to showing the pictures for it (don’t hate me, please…) As I do not know many places in Burbank to eat, Fern drove us down to Casitas for some Mexican food, in a tiny strip mall close to Downtown Burbank.

The place itself is extremely small, the kitchen consists of a cramped grill operating directly behind a short counter with a cash register.

The salsa bar is quite attractive for a small place – plenty of ice and a few romaine lettuce heads for display purposes. I just hope they don’t necessarily use those later for people’s salads. I filled up little containers full of pico de gallo, red and green salsa, and chipotle, and waited outside, as there was pretty much no room to linger in the doorway with other people ordering their food.

This is what we unearthed once we got back to work to eat our takeout food…

Louisa and I got steak nachos – my eyes popped out of my head when I opened the Styrofoam container. Generous amounts of pico de gallo, guacamole, and sour cream completely concealed the equally generous mound of tortilla chips, melted Monterey jack cheese, pinto beans and thick cuts of flank steak. There was no way to finish these all in one sitting, and unfortunately a lot of this got wasted, as tortilla chips do not withstand the test of time or slowly congealing cold cheese. The portion was just…ridiculous.

Close up of the meaty cheesy bean-y stuff...

I doubt even the manliest of men could tackle this nacho monster before it becomes inedible and fuses all into one piece. Taste wise, it was pretty decent, although with any kind of nacho consumption, all of it kinda starts tasting the same (gloppy cheesy slightly crunchy spicy.)

Fern decided to go “healthier” and got a chicken Caesar salad, which he claims is the only salad that leaves him satisfied. This clear takeout container must have held at least 3-4 char-grilled chicken breasts, atop chopped romaine lettuce (agh, from the salsa bar?!), and quartered tomatoes. This came with a few salad dressing containers, and one container of shredded parmesan cheese. He threw everything in the container and shook it all around, ‘till it was all mixed up. He finished the whole thing, and seemed pretty happy.

To be honest, (this might be too much information…)my stomach hurt something bad after I ate the nachos, but I didn’t want to blame the nachos for it, and I don’t like lambasting a place unless i give it a second chance (I have grown as a foodblogger….right??), so that’s exactly what I did – I gave it a second chance, and got the chicken Caesar salad that Fern seemed to like so much. The taste was fine, the chicken was a bit on the dry side, the dressing was creamy and tasty enough, and I would have liked the tomatoes to have been chopped instead of just quartered (making them difficult to bite while covered with dressing). The portion was again, generous.

However, I again got stomach distress. Two times I've gone, two times I've been in massive pain. So in the end, as great of a portion and as decently tasty as it was going down...I can't recommend this place. By all means, maybe it was two flukes, just random chances that I got sick both times - but I don't think I can go another round on Casitas.

Casitas Taco Al Carbon
405 N Victory Blvd
Burbank, CA 91502
(818) 848-3242

Ciao Christina

2009-08-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

Ciao Christina is a small little restaurant, just recently reopened after a long refurbishment, within walking distance of work, so Louisa and I decided to give it a try. We had heard that they had great gelato, and the gelato case is what instantly drew my eyes when I walked in. After a quick review of what flavors they had, I decided on:

A scoop of hazelnut and a scoop of pistachio. I actually am not usually a pistachio flavor kinda gal, but this was an excellent pistachio gelato, although I think the real pistachios were quite stale and I had wished they had excluded them. The hazelnut was a rich nutty flavor, it was a good accompaniment to the pistachio. I ate this pretty quick - isn't gelato best eaten fairly quickly, before it gets soupy?

The rest of our dinner (yes, we had dessert first while waiting for our "to-go" order, sometimes, dessert first is a necessity) was unearthed when we arrived back at work, and what a pretty sight it was...

This was Louisa's chicken parm sandwich (sorry for the blurriness). The bread was thick, and possibly could have been made in house, it was so good. The chicken had a nice breading to it, and held up its' crispness against the tomato sauce. There were even some olive slices in the sandwich. The potato chips were a real treat - they were freshly fried! Not out of a bag! Extra crispy crunchy, and really fun to eat. (I ended up ordering this the next time I went!)

I had decided on a chicken sausage stromboli (they also have calzones, but strombolis have mozzarella cheese on the inside, instead of ricotta, and for me, it was not a ricotta kinda day.), which was freshly made by request, and it showed. First off, this thing was huge - like, football sized. The bread was really great, not too much chew, not too hard of a crust. I neglected to take a picture of the insides, but the chicken sausage was where all the flavor was, and the cheese held it all together.

This also came with my stromboli - tomato sauce. This was excellent sauce - great to dip pieces of the stromboli in, I was almost eating this as if it was tomato soup. Louisa gave her approval, as an Italian - she mentioned it was "good gravy" (I guess tomato sauce is known as gravy in her family?)

Louisa also had gotten a cannoli to go, as her snack/dessert for later. I should have gotten one too, but I figured my stromboli was going to kick my ass (which it did.) I tried a bit of the creamy ricotta insides...sweet, tangy but mild, with bits of chocolate chips and dried fruit in the filling. I should have gotten one.

The proximity of this place pretty much assures the fact I will return, but I am also pleased it has great food, although I admit it is a little pricey (cept the gelato, which is a steal at 3 dollars for their biggest cup.) I will have to try their pizza next time.

Ciao Christina
4201 W. Olive Ave.
Burbank, CA 91505
(818) 563-2426
http://www.ciaocristina.com/

Vegas getaway

2009-08-06T15:00:00.000-07:00

A mini trip to Vegas! Literally, we went here just to go to a room, sleep all day, and then sleep some more. Is that weird? A vacation to sleep? Considering we live behind a car lot, and a really busy street, I don’t really get to experience pure silence very often, and better yet, air conditioning on a hot day. A hotel provides all these things, and I found a great deal to stay at Caesar’s Palace, so we booked a few days here.

We got off our flight extremely early (well, extremely early, relative to me and Owen) – our flight was annoyingly scheduled for 7 in the morning or something – by the time we rolled into Payard Patisserie, we were ready for a good meal to start us off on a better foot for the rest of our mini-break.

The seating is very interesting here – the cook is in the middle, where he makes everything to order, and the patrons are all seated around him in a circular design. It’s a very different kind of setup, but I found it was fascinating watching the cook make everything, (picking up some cooking tips, hah.) Our waiter was very good, very attentive but not too bothersome. We both ordered a glass of orange juice to start.

I really liked this juice! It tasted fresh squeezed, I think Owen mentioned it was the “best fresh squeezed orange juice he’s had”. It was a really tall glass, as well…I guess in Vegas, go big or go home, right?

Owen and I decided to get two plates, and halfway through, to switch and share. He ordered the French toast with Berry compote. This was amazing, this dish managed to be rich, yet light at the same time. The berries were my favorite kinds – raspberry, blueberry and blackberry, in their own juices, were not sweetened, so it didn’t feel like a over-sugared mess we usually get for something like this. This dish was overall NOT sweet, which I actually loved! And I USUALLY hate French toast, (weird hang-up, I know.), but I liked this a lot – the bread was almost custardy in the middle, the whipped cream was really freshly whipped cream, and not just sugary junk. If there was ever a perfect French toast plate, this would be it for me.

I ordered a croque madame – a ham and swiss sandwich, toasted, topped with béchamel sauce and a sunny side up egg. The plate was rounded out with a stuffed tomato, and mixed baby greens with a vinaigrette. I only had half of this and secretly wished I could have eaten the whole thing, heh. Again, the richness was not too rich, balanced by the tartness of the vinaigrette on the greens, and the tomato, and the bechamel was not globbed on, like other places I've had this before - this was almost toasted into the sandwich already, so it was more a flavorful crunch on the outside of the bread. Excellent meal, and we will definitely be back.

We also picked up some croissants - Owen got a chocolate croissant, and I got a regular plain one. I didn't take a picture of these, but I SWEAR they were some of the best croissants I've ever eaten.

A bit later, while Owen was asleep (I had napped earlier, as I slept much less than him the night before), I went off on my own and walked around the Caesar's Palace gambling area on my own. I was pretty hungry (this was around dinnertime, and I didn't eat since around 10am at Payard), so I grabbed something at the food court. This is what I got...

A Lobster roll with fries. Uh...well, I guess I can't say that my expectations were extremely high, but the bread was extremely burnt, which was a shame because it was a nice amount of buttered brioche. The lobster itself..a cold mash of seafood tasting stuff, but lobster meat was definitely lacking. I don't know if it WAS actually lobster, but...what should I expect from a food court, right? The fries were addicting, but I made an effort to only eat a few, because I knew Owen would be hungry later that night. I also got an iced tea, which was not pictured. I got a lot of mileage out of that iced tea, as you could refill your drinks from the soft serve machine yourself, so during the whole of our stay, I would go back to refill the drink with the same cup...awesome!

After a few games of Monopoly Penny Slots (ahhh, so mindless, those slot machines), a bit of shopping (the Forum shops are MASSIVE!), I went back to check on Owen, who I think, could have slept the whole night if I hadn't had walked back in the room. At that point, it was pretty late, but I knew there was a 24 hour restaurant at Caesar's, and I had gotten a 20 dollar food coupon for the cafe, because I had signed up for their rewards club (might as well, it's free, right?)

At the Augustus Cafe, I felt like it took forever to get our food...a lot of waiting, and then everything came at once. We weren't in a hurry but it really took an abnormal amount of time to get what we ordered.

First off, onion rings. These were really tasty, actually - beer battered, thick, dusted with parmesan cheese, and two dipping sauces (red pepper aioli and ranch). Addicting, and a huge amount of them, we wanted to finish these off because we couldn't save them for later.

Whenever there's a club sandwich available on the menu, Owen will almost always order it. This was pretty standard, oddly with the addition of roast beef, but they were heavy on the bacon (awesome!). These fries were very fresh, oddly better than the other fries with the other sandwich (which came later than this one.) We saved half of this sandwich for later, which was happily devoured by us in our hotel room the next morning.

I had a hankering for french onion soup, which made this an onion heavy meal. This was mouthwatering when they set it down - melty gruyere cheese, on top of a french bread piece, with savory beef broth, and tons of carmelized onions. A huge amount of soup, again, Vegas does not skimp on quantity. I made an extra effort to finish this because there's no way to save this soup for later.

Last thing we ordered (we definitely ordered too much) was a prime rib dip sandwich, which was piled high with quality beef, a little saucer of au-jus, and fries. Oddly, these fries were not the seasoned ones, pretty much the same fries from the food court that I had had earlier. We only managed a quarter of this sandwich, and saved the rest.

We had a few other meals in Vegas but it had been places we had been to before (Bouchon, although it was a dinner instead of the brunch we usually have, I remember sharing a roasted chicken, mixed green salad and creme brulee, all delicious of course). It was a pretty successful trip, I'd say, aside from the horrible early plane flights. Of course, another trip to Vegas will be in the future, so stay tuned!

Payard Patisserie, Caesar's Palace Food Court, Augustus Cafe, all at:
Caesar's Palace
E Flamingo Rd & Las Vegas Blvd South
Las Vegas, NV 89109

Bouchon is at Venetian Hotel
Spring Mountain Rd & Las Vegas Blvd South
Las Vegas, NV 89109

Gyenari

2009-08-04T12:00:00.000-07:00

I met up with Annette, for her birthday, at Gyenari, on a really hot day. Culver City was hopping, as usual – tons of people milling around for lunch on a weekday, which made it almost impossible to park in the lots around the area. I lucked out (squeezing in-between two huge SUVs…), snagged a table at the restaurant and sipped on an Arnold Palmer while waiting for Annette.

A decent Arnold Palmer, especially welcome on such a hot day!

Looking around the place, first thing I noticed, I felt really under dressed to be here – really trendy and contemporary, super clean lines, but the ambiance was nice, and the waitstaff weren’t acting snooty, so it was comforting.

Annette arrived soon after I was seated, so they brought some banchan (small plate appetizers) to the table. I’ve been to a lot more Korean restaurants over the years, and I admit, I am used to a lot more of a variety of banchan. I had to remind myself that this was more of an American style kind of place.

From the upper left, going clockwise – bean sprouts, broccoli, kimchi, and a scoop of potato salad. We polished these off pretty quick, as we were pretty hungry. The potato salad was the best, I’d say, with the broccoli a close second. The kimchi had a nice bite to it, not too shabby. Again, I would have liked more of a variety (maybe some daikon, or some spinach? Maybe some japchae? But I guess that’s a separate dish here.)

For an appetizer, I ordered some shrimp and kimchi Korean style pancakes. Not the best I’ve had, (I like more of a crunch on the outside, these were bigger, so they were softer all around) but these were flavorful enough, from the kimchi flavor. I can’t say I tasted any of the shrimp at all…maybe they pureed it so it was just the flavor? The dipping sauce was nice and tangy, the carrot shreds were a nice fresh and crunchy flavor contrast. Overall, filling and tasty, did a great job as an appetizer (even though it came as the same time as our main meal...)

Annette and I each ordered our own bimibap -Korean rice bowls. This is a picture of my choice, the bulgolgi style marinated meat. I love the presentation – all the different veggies neatly placed around the hot stone bowl, with a pretty sunny side up egg on top. I forgot to shoot a picture of the spicy paste that I added to the top of all this (the spicer the better!) and gave everything a quick mix. Rice plus veggies and meat, a perfect combination. I think if I had anything to complain about here, would be that I don’t remember the hot stone being very hot, so the rice didn’t crisp up very much (getting those crispy rice bits is one of the reasons why bimibap is so good!) , but it was a minor complaint.

The prices were pretty fair for lunch, although I suspect they skyrocket, come dinnertime. I might have to come back to try their real Korean bbq, just to see how it compares to my other more “authentic” experiences in K-Town.

Gyenari Korean BBQ
9540 Culver Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232

(310) 838-3131
www.gyenari.com

Andrew's Cheese Shop

2009-08-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

Daphne had introduced me to this place, insisting I HAD to check it out. And I'm sure glad she did. When we opened the door, a strong pungent smell wafted in our faces. Andrew, the owner, is an extremely patient and experienced cheese connoisseur, and basically, we would ask him for suggestions, which he would happily give, once we told him what kind of cheese we were looking for. I usually ask for "runny" and "strong" cheese, and every suggestion he's given has been spot on delicious. Samples are key to cheese, when I'm at a supermarket, I never know what a cheese is going to taste like when it's wrapped and packaged in a noisy open case refrigerator. Andrew, on the other hand, insists on samples. I'm in heaven. I love cheese.

Now that I've been back a couple of times, I've got a nice little collection of photos from this place. I usually get a sandwich...

This is the first one I've had, the turkey sandwich. I don't know what cheese is in it, but it's nice and sharp, and it's a hard cheese. The bread is a drier, yielding bread, good as a background accompaniment but not the star of the show. The turkey was a little thicker cut than I like, a bit reminiscent of water packed turkey that I avoid, but still good and turkey-ish. The cheese was definitely the best part, great bite to it.

On this occasion I got a bit of the cheese Picolo...a very soft creamy cheese that had the texture of a dry goat cheese, but the taste of a creme fraiche. Mmm.

Every cheese comes with an informational card to remind me what I got for next time. So thoughtful!

The next time I went, I got this awesome smoked salmon sandwich, which is amazing. The capers add a great briny surprise with every bite, the creme fraiche cheese is the perfect pairing with the smoked salmon, the red bell pepper adds the balance of freshness that the sandwich needs. Definitely try this one.

I went with Daphne this past time, and got some Mini flatbreads, on a whim, to go with the cheese I got. They were a bit expensive - 5 dollars for this small package, but they were crispy, savory, and the perfect accompaniment to...

...the small, SMALL wedge of Stinking Bishop that I got! This is not a cheese for the weary, it's definitely stinky, super soft...Daphne mentioned it tasted like a "wet brush". I found it really interesting and tasty on my tongue, but my fingers smelled of Stinking Bishop for the rest of the day...ugh. I would STILL get this again next time, hah.

Another smoked salmon sandwich, this time, there was pesto smear on it! That was like, taking this sandwich to the next LEVEL!

Daphne got the Italian sandwich, a mix of cold cuts, and a strong sharp cheese. I like the arugala greenery, added a nice peppery taste to the sandwich, a great contrast. I might try this next time if they happen to run out of smoked salmon (which they do!)

Hank's Root Beer...this is some seriously good root beer. Andrew swears by it, and I trust his opinion completely. Deep flavors, not very fizzy, less of a "bite" than I'm used to, but more of a rolling sweetness on the tongue. Only enjoy when it's frosty cold.

And Daphne's drink, Curiousity cola. Totally not the usual kind of cola, it was almost like a thick fizzy brew, I tasted much more ginger in this than cola. I love the design of this bottle...I'd probably buy it more for that than anything else.

Andrew's Cheese shop is a must visit...I think Andrew himself is a great guy, he does what he loves to do (share his love of cheeses to the world), and the shop is just a testament to his love of food and cheese.

Andrew's Cheese Shop (look for the big sign - 'This place stinks!")
728 Montana Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90403-1404
(310) 393-3308
andrewscheese.com

Acapulco

2009-07-31T23:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't really go to chain restaurants very often as a personal rule (with so many other places to eat, why bother with chains?), this time I broke my own rule for two reasons: 1. It was at Acapulco, a place made infamous by the Tonight Show with Jay Leno (I remember jokes where they would offer to "send" an audience member to Acapulco, and then reveal that it was really this particular restaurant, across the street from the studio) and 2., it was open later than a lot of other restaurants in the area, and I was meeting up with Bryan for a late dinner. I was waiting for Bryan for a long while, and I ended up ordering for him, because the kitchen was going to close...I made a guess as to what he wanted...

My usual drink order, an Arnold Palmer. Free refills abound.

Chips and salsa, complementary right as I sat down. I remember these chips being very brittle and kind of tasteless. Salsa was okay but not spicy at all.

And here's what I got, an appetizer platter (as my meal...). Pretty blurry, sorry for the bad photo. Going from the top, clockwise: boneless buffalo chicken strips, some sort of pork plantain concoction with sour cream (I think?) on top, southwestern eggrolls, sauce, and then repeat around the wheel. In the middle was some nachos. This was way too much food, I packed more than half of this away for home. That's the thing about chain restaurants, they really give you a ton of food for the price, but this whole plate was horribly heavy food. Nothing was extremely bad, but I can't remember it being super good either. It was okay for what it was.

This was the chicken fajitas I ordered for Bryan, who was not hungry at all (he had eaten before he got to the restaurant, drat!) These came on a sizzling hot platter, which was suspended above the table on a wire stand. I think this is one of the more popular things to order at this restaurant, as it looks super impressive when they take it out from the kitchen. This also came with a plate of condiments (lettuce, tomato, sour cream, guacamole), and tortillas, which I neglected to take a picture of because of it's mediocrity. The chicken was nice and hot, but again, not particularly memorable or flavorful.

I still avoid chains like the plague, if anything for the pre-packaged taste of everything (I have a sneaking suspicion that everything comes in freezer bags, cooked at some huge factory, and then just reheated in the kitchen, but maybe I shouldn't be so cynical?), and my want to support smaller local businesses, but sometimes it's good to maybe mix it up, and have something I wouldn't have very often. Again, it was okay for what it was, and reasonably priced...maybe if I drank alcohol I would probably enjoy their margaritas.

Acapulco Restaurant
3133 W. Olive Avenue
Burbank CA 91505
818-841-4433
www.acapulcorestaurants.com

Huckleberry Cafe

2009-07-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

Huckleberry was white hot when I went to visit it, it had only been open for a week or two, and the lines were insane. Daphne and I still braved the lines and managed to barely snag a table (un-bussed, messy). The queue to order was massive, but I was excitedly checking out their menu, written on huge chalkboards stationed high above the cashier. We ordered, and I also got a few things to go.

I love their logo. Cute and simple.

Water here is not just water, it's refrigerated filtered water, in individual bottles with fun cork style tops. Water here is also serve yourself, so drink up!

Daphne got a caramelized banana creme mini pie. So deliciously good, I know this now because I got this myself on another visit...the crust was perfect, the whipped cream freshly whipped and luscious, banana slices on top of rich banana pudding, on top of caramel sauce. Get this, you won't be sorry.

A insane chocolate croissant, that I got for Owen, to go. The chocolate was oozing out of it, super great quality, he noted one of the top 5 chocolate croissants he's had, and that's saying a lot (he loves his chocolate croissants.)

My treat for later, a ham and gruyere croissant, I love my savory snacks, and this was exactly what I wanted - a flaky pastry salty cheesy kinda snack. Not exactly great for me but a real treat.

And here's what I ate right out of the box when I sat down - a chocolate elcair. Pretty tasty, the custard tasted just right, and the chocolate was dark and creamy. This was pretty much gone in a few bites - I was really hungry! We had to wait a long while for our sandwiches, a server finally came by with our sandwiches after locating our number on our table...

My sandwich - the turkey meatball, that came with a fresh side salad of greenery, lightly coated in salad oil. I liked my sandwich ok but the bread was overwhelming, a lot of bread for not a ton of meatball. The tomatoes were great quality, added a nice tartness to the sandwich, but I found myself tiring of the taste of the meatball - I think they needed a bit more salt. I loved the salad, and left most of the bread.

Daphne's roast beef sandwich fared much better, lots of thinly sliced roast beef (I think, roasted in house), a good strong mustard spread, just a pretty lookin' and good tasting sandwich all around. I think I'll get this next time.

I've been back once, since, just to pick up some baked goods. I love the feel of this place and hopefully the rush has died down a bit during lunch hours, and they have gotten a few things more organized. I'll definitely be back to try that roast beef.

Huckleberry Cafe
1014 Wilshire Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA
huckleberrycafe.com

Tudor House Restaurant

2009-07-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

I took Owen's grandma, Nannie, here, because she loves her British food and she can't cook, and this is one of the better places to go (along with enjoying a nice sunny day close to the ocean). We were one of two occupied tables at this place, on a weekday early afternoon, but I think this place gets pretty crowded on the weekends, for people wanting afternoon tea. The one waitress was extremely British, and nice, but it was a lot for her to handle when other people started arriving to eat. Nannie, of course, has to have:

...her tea, she always has to have tea or coffee. I snapped this because of the nice tea set that came with her tea, that creamer is just too awesome.

And here's a cup of Nannie's tea (no sugar, only cream), she chose orange pekoe. After checking out the extensive menu (everything looked so tempting! Fish and chips were strongly calling my name...) I decided upon something I've never had before.

I got bangers and mash, with a choice of beans as my side. This was so delicious - I have never had sausages like this - all perfectly burnished on the outside, the grind of meat on the inside was very smooth, no nubbins of fat (yeah I know, gross, but that's sausage for you), it was just all around tasty. The mash was really nice as well, and the gravy was something to behold. The British definitely know their gravy. Beans were nothing to scream home about but added a nice flavor contrast to the meat and potatoes.

Nannie got the same thing, bangers and mash, but wanted mushy peas as her side. I just think the name is hilarious - "mushy peas"? I think mushy peas need to talk to their marketing department, maybe they can jazz their name up to something less...baby food sounding. Well, mushy peas are very descriptive of what they are - when I saw them on Nannie's plate it was pretty much what I expected. Didn't try them, but didn't really want to try them either. Nannie was quite content with her food, (which was great because she otherwise, I've only seen her eat grilled cheese sandwiches and quesadillas...seriously.)

Tudor House is pretty cool because there's also a store attached to the restaurant, where you can buy British goods, plus they sell pastries and pies, which are awesome to get for later. British candy is also awesome (Cadbury's makes some decent stuff, try a "Flake" bar!)

Tudor House Restaurant (and store)
1403 2nd St
Santa Monica, CA 90401-2301
(310) 451-4107
www.thetudorhouse.com

Hungry Fox

2009-07-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

A visit to my friend Mike in the valley, and I took him out to breakfast to escape his house. We went around the corner to his neighborhood breakfast place, Hungry Fox. I remember coming here during the first year of college, when I was around the valley a fair amount of time. Since then, I've usually avoided going over the hill, thusly, haven't visited Hungry Fox in ages. The place is really welcoming, more of a mom and pop diner style, with mini booths and chairs. A lot of locals come here, and they tout their "homemade jam". This is what we got...

A glass of orange juice. Nothing special, I doubt it was fresh squeezed, but did the job.

Mike ordered pigs in a blanket, three pancakes with sausage rolled in the middle. He scarfed them down pretty quick so I guess they were good, I don't care for pancakes much so I didn't have a taste.

And here's the inside shot of the "pig" in the blanket. They used sausage patty instead of the usual sausage, interesting choice, I don't think it deterred much from the flavor or anything, it just makes it harder to roll up.

I felt like lunch at that point so I ordered me a gyro with fries. This was actually pretty tasty, the yogurt sauce was tasty, the gyro meat grilled again after sliced off the meat cone. Fries were crinkle cut, a fry style I enjoy. Overall, a solid lunch.

Hungry Fox is a cute little place with nice friendly folks. If anything, I'll be back for a breakfast-for-lunch if I'm in the area.

Hungry Fox
13359 Sherman Way
North Hollywood, CA 91605-4442
(818) 765-7111

It's It - the ice cream sandwich of my youth

2009-07-17T12:00:00.000-07:00

Let's have a blast from the past, well for me anyways - It's it was the ice cream sandwich of my junior high youth. They sold these, individually from the cafeteria, for 75 cents each, with a variety of flavors to choose from - vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, coffee, mint. It's been a long time since then, but I realized that Southern Californians did not even know what an It's it was, much less had access to them. I naively thought that everyone had access to these! I guess it's more of a bay area thing, since the only It's it factory that I know of is off 101, right outside of San Francisco. However, one day while perusing the aisles of a...Vons? Ralphs? I forget now, but I saw a 3 pack of It's It! I blindly grabbed at it, and brought it home to share.
Here's a snap of the wrapper - vanilla flavor, old school illustration, same old lettering. I love it.

And here it is, bitten into. The chocolate coating, the oatmeal cookies, the vanilla ice cream. It really is the perfect ice cream sandwich. I think I can only have one once a year though...don't exactly still have that junior high school metabolism anymore, heh.

http://www.itsiticecream.com/
Supposedly, they're available at Albertsons in Southern California, but I don't recall where I got these!

Smokehouse Restaurant

2009-07-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

So, I work next to this old timey restaurant called the Smokehouse, which is supposedly one of George Clooney's haunts. Can't say I've seen him there (but when I do, I will give him a piece of my mind! One of my first questions - "How do you get your eyelashes to be so amazing?"), but Louisa and I have stopped in on numerous occasions now, mainly to take advantage of their $12.99 Prime rib Monday special. Yes, folks, you read it right - 13 dollas' for a sweet slice of prime rib, complete with 2 sides. If that isn't recession friendly, I don't know what is.

But they gotta make their money's worth as well, right? They're known for their famous garlic bread, as shown by their take out aluminum foil bread loaf bag...(this is another time, when I got take out garlic bread by itself...)

"Worlds Greatest Garlic bread" huh? We'll see about that...

And this is what a half order looks like. Old school artery clogging goodness. The topping, Owen has noted, looks and tastes like contents of those Kraft Macaroni and Cheese sauce packets. Processed, powderized cheese and garlic bits. Well, I guess they USED to be garlic and cheese at some point...right? Well, it's all pretty damn tasty still (again, my love for fake nacho cheese probably helps with this). This is where they get yer money's worth out of you, bread isn't free at Smokehouse, half order is like 4 bucks, and full order is like 6 bucks. Hrm, digging into the pockets now for that extra change...okay, back to the rest of the meal...

Here's my Prime rib special, (cooked to my specifications, medium) with my two chosen sides of creamed spinach and mashed potatoes. They have those little extras that are always nice with a prime rib - horseradish sauce, and a little gravy boat of au jus. Tasty...very tasty. This is a usual item on the menu, that costs, oh, 23 dollars? So this isn't that gross cheap 2 dollar prime rib from a shady casino in Vegas (oh so suspicious! why does it cost 2 dollars?!) I'd also like to mention that the service is LIGHTING FAST here. Once you order, I say it takes about 5 minutes for them to deliver your meal to the table. But I guess I'm speaking for myself, since I usually only go on Mondays, when there's less people. But every single time - super fast service.

Louisa's plate looks pretty similar to mine, except she chose the asparagus spears and the rice pilaf. She raves about their rice pilaf, someday I will get it instead of my power combo above.

Smokehouse feels fancy, like taking your grandparents out to a nice birthday meal, but with a deal like that, the fanciness is just the icing on the cake to a great meal. Clooney, I'll meet you there, when, next Monday? Yeah, prime rib's on me, hah.

Smokehouse Restaurant
4420 West Lakeside Drive
Burbank, California 91505
(818) 845-3731

IKEA cafeteria

2009-07-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

One of life's simple pleasures...

...The swedish meatballs plate from IKEA's cafeteria. Hello, gorgeous. I love the little things about this well constructed, filling dish - the little Swedish flag, the lingonberry sauce, the way they exactly count out how many meatballs per plate, the splash of gravy from a gallon vat, complete with that gravy skin that is oh-so-disgusting/appealing. If you have 5 dollars, it's enough to score you this wondrous product of Swedish ingenuity. But bus your own plates...this ain't the Gordon Ramsay.

IKEA (various locations, but this one happened to be at)
IKEA Burbank, CA
600 N. San Fernando Blvd,
Burbank, CA
818-842-4532

Baby Blues BBQ

2009-07-14T17:35:00.001-07:00

BBQ is a tricky thing. Good BBQ is even trickier. I can't say I'm a connoisseur of BBQ, but I heard great things about Baby Blues BBQ, in Venice, so as a test, I picked up a number of pulled pork sandwiches for my coworkers (since I live way closer to the westside) and we all tried it at the same time. I admit that I probably shouldn't judge too harshly, since by the time I got to taste my pulled pork sandwich, it was rather cold. Anyways, here's a picture of it.

The pulled pork sandwich, which came unsauced, and with a small coleslaw topping as the vegetable crunch. First off, the bun - which was really big for what I was expecting, more of a big unruly grilled on the bottom foccacia style roll thing, which was a lot of bread. I understand the necessity of adding your own bbq sauce right before consumption but since it had cooled, the bbq sauce did not coat everything evenly, like I would have liked, but I really can't blame Baby blues for that. The meat was tender enough, and even though I'm really not a fan of cole slaw, it went well as the crunchy vegetable texture to distract from just the meat.

Here's a slightly closer look...very unsauced. Huge amount of bread. I don't remember finishing all the bread.

Louisa got a bbq chicken sandwich, which really was the same deal as the pulled pork - same bread, just different meat. I remember her liking it.

And here's Louisa's mouth eating some mac and cheese. It was nice and cheesy but I think that it actually needed more seasoning - it needed to be more salty and less creamy. Still good though.

I'm going to give Baby blues another chance - perhaps their ribs - and to eat there next time, so I can get a better assessment of their famed bbq prowess. They were very efficient with my order, though, I had called a few hours beforehand and they had everything packed up and ready to go when I arrived.

Baby Blues BBQ
444 Lincoln Blvd
Venice, CA 90291
babybluesvenice.com

B and B Ristorante - Las Vegas, NV

2009-07-14T00:56:00.000-07:00

Vegas trip, a few months ago - as a celebration for Obray and Will's 30th birthday (a momentous event!) we wanted to go somewhere good for dinner, but we were in a bit of a rush as well, as we were going to see Blue Man Group that night. We decided on the B and B Ristorante, really close to the Blue Man group theater, and in the "Restaurant Row" area between Venetian and Palazzo. I've been wanting to go here for awhile but I think they are only open for dinner, so I was really pleased that everyone went along with it (we had a fairly large group, and the restaurant was happy to accomidate us.)

Our waiter was superb - really patient with us, wanted to go over any questions we had about the menu, really great suggestions. After a long deliberation, we made our choices..I was totally excited when they placed these plates in the middle of the table...

...A small appetizer from the kitchen - chickpeas, mixed with olive tapenade, over toasted bread. The chickpeas, oozing with the tapenade, glowed with flavor. I loved the finish with olive oil over the whole thing, it was really flavorful olive oil, and perfect toast. We were off to a great start.

Our waiter circled the table and individually placed a piece of french bread on our bread plates. -the crust was very crispy and crunchy, the inside soft. We dipped this in olive oil. Wished we got more than one piece each but wasn't going to complain.

Owen and I started with an order of Vegetable misto - Different kinds of veggies - carrot strips, eggplant, green onions, and onions, from what I remember - quickly fried, with a tomatoy dipping sauce. This was excellently fried, the delicate veggies were still fairly crunchy, but by the end of it, it was a bit much. I think we finished most of it, but by the end we were kind of tired of the taste of...fried. I know! How could I ever be tired of the taste of fried stuff?

Owen got The special of the day - Nettle paparadelle, with wild boar. This was a huge winner, Owen ordered this, along with a few people at the table. The meat was really tender, the noodles flavorful. The bite I had, reminded me of a stew my mom would make when I was a kid. Really wish I had gotten this one to have more bites of it.

Beef Cheek Ravioli with Black Truffles and Crushed Duck Liver Cheek meat, in general, is really tops. I tried a piece of this, it was very rich. I think this was a pretty small portion though...that'd be my only complaint.

Horribly blurry picture of my Duck with Cherry and Green Almond Conserva. This was just right, crispy skin, some of the best duck (that's not asian style peking duck) that I've had. I picked these bones clean.

I think this was Bryan's pasta dish, which had all sorts of seafood in it. He had no complaints. I like how all the pasta was very fresh (they made this in house, right?), but I have no idea how it tasted, so moving right along...

Pappardelle Bolognese was Obray's choice, sorry for the blurry ass picture. Not everyone is used to my snapping of pictures, and all of us were pretty hungry. I love papparadelle...I'm sure this was a tasty version, Obray certainly enjoyed it, I think.

And, for dessert, as it was Obray's 30th birthday, he got himself a bananas foster cake, with a nice "Happy birthday" written in chocolate sauce. Festive, fancy, and delicious. I can't think of a better combo.

And to finish the whole meal off, a plate of mignardises. There were little brownie bite things, awesome orange jelly things, and biscotti bites. My favorite out of all these were the orange jellies, very soft and homemade tasting, with fruity flavor.

Service, as I mentioned earlier, was excellent, and I definitely wouldn't mind coming here again, but there are so many places for me to try still...and it's difficult because they are only open for dinner, no lunch service.

B and B Ristorante
website
at the Venetian
3355 Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV
(702) 266-9977

Lemon Moon

2009-06-22T03:00:00.000-07:00

Restaurants that are only open on weekdays are so frustrating, especially on my schedule. Even worse, is when they're only open for breakfast and lunch. Why should I ever need to jump through both of those hoops to get a meal? Well, I made the hoop jump one of those days to go to Lemon Moon. The place is almost a secret, residing at the bottom of an office complex, only open during the exclusive hours of breakfast and lunch on weekdays only. Really dang tough to get to, but I think it's worth the effort once in awhile...

It's one of those places where you order, get your number and sit down, and then they bring the food out to you. We snagged a seat outdoors (I love outdoor seating!), in their secluded patio area. Chatting for awhile, our food arrived - it looked really tasty and we dug right in...

Daphne got a Pulled Pork sandwich, with cole slaw, and a side of mushroom polenta. The mushroom polenta was super rich, each bite was like eating savory cheesecake. So good. She was fairly pleased with the pulled pork, although probably there's places that taste better, this was quite serviceable, and she finished off the whole thing.

I got a turkey burger, with teriyaki sauce, and french fries. This was pretty tasty, actually! The turkey burger was moist, flavorful (especially with the teriyaki sauce), and the bread to meat ratio was pretty good, usually there's too much bread. Fries were decent. This was overall a decent plate o' food.

Not saying this place merits a "skip work to try this restaurant" kind of aura, but it's definitely a "I wish this place was closer to my workplace so I could eat here more often" kind of vibe.

Cafe Paradiso

2009-05-29T00:30:00.000-07:00

Way too much catching up to do, I know. I'm doing my best...I have so much to share still!

Daphne and I went on another food adventure, using another Restaurant.com certificate. Cafe Paradiso was fairly close to her place, but was a bit hard to park around that area. We managed to find metered street parking, which I am always paranoid about. Ah, well, we found it okay.

We walked into an empty restaurant...which was a little worrisome, this was during major lunch rush hours. Our server was very friendly though, and was quite attentive. Daphne was STARVING that day, so she was ready to chow down.

I got an arnold palmer, my usual drink order. It was presented in a vibrant pink grapefruit cup, which is kind of misleading, but almost made my drink taste better - I love the design on it, makes me want to drink pink grapefruit juice!

A bottle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar was placed on the table, this was some decent balsamic, very flavorful. This would be great on a salad.

Fresh bread, placed at the table. The bread was pretty fresh, chopped focaccia, the same kind that would later be on my sandwich.

Daphne ordered a minestrone soup to start, I had a small taste and thought it was decently tasty, veggies were well cooked, and good deep veggie flavor. The serving size was just right, I think - not too much where it's an overload and not too little to make you feel like you only got a taste.

Daph got the catch of the day - I think it was red snapper - which came with some simple pasta with butter sauce, topped with red pepper flakes. The fish was really good - cooked just right, moist, topped with fresh veggies. She cleaned off this whole plate.

I got a steak panini, and honestly, I wasn't digging on this sandwich. The steak was overloaded with balsamic flavor, and I think the problem was that it WAS just steak, pretty much. I think a slice of tomato was in there. I just wouldn't order this again, I only ate half and I wasn't looking forward to eating the other half. The caesar salad was good, standard caesar salad, heavy on the parmesan cheese which I liked.

Close up of the half of panini sandwich I ate...see...just meat stuff and tomato. I need a little more variety, maybe some greenery?

For dessert, Daph and I shared a lemony tart thing. The texture was nice, it was drier than I thought it should taste, but sufficient as a dessert. I like the raspberry sauce, which tasted fresh.

Overall, it was an ok lunch but I think they overcharged us (as in, they didn't apply the restaurant.com coupon properly or something). I don't think I'll go out of my way to come here, but it might be better for dinner, and Daph's meal looked good, so maybe I'd give it another chance.

Cafe Paradiso
2408 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90403
(310) 828-0218

Getty Villa Cafe (revisit)

2009-05-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks back, Daphne had mentioned that she had never been to the Getty Villa, and I was hankering to do a drive next to the ocean, so we made our reservations and headed on down the PCH to the Villa. I usually never head this way in general, so it was a treat to go. After taking some fun pictures, admiring the handiwork of artisans of many different eras, and stopping at the gift shop to yearn over some books, we headed to the Getty Cafe.

I had been here before, but wanted to try something new. I went with...

..a Greek chicken wrap. This was quite delicious, a lot of fresh veggies (I mostly remember the bell peppers, onions and spinach), feta cheese and moist roasted chicken. The garlic fries were good too. I ended up eating half of the wrap and giving the rest to Daphne, because this is what she ordered:

A penne pasta with butternut squash. Fail fail fail on this. These noodles were way overcooked, and the 'sauce' was nonexistent. The butternut squash itself was okay though, Daphne did her best to pick all of those pieces out and eat them, but that was really the only thing worth eating on this plate. It was gross, do not order this if you go. Also, this dish took an extremely long time to arrive to the table, I was slowly eating my food and offered Daphne my fries to satiate her hunger as we watched the servers serve everyone else around us.

Luckily, to make up for her pasta, Daphne had shrewdly ordered dessert beforehand, which was a pumpkin flan, with a bit of caramel sauce, and came with two brownie bites. This made up for the lack of edible matter in Daphne's pasta dish. The flan was excellent, really tasty, and had a great texture which I attribute to the pumpkin flavored puree. The brownie bites were an odd choice to be paired with this, I thought - texture and flavor wise, completely contrasted with each other, but they were good on their own.

I think for the amount of volume this cafe has to run through, they are doing a decent job, but that pasta dish was a travesty. Perhaps just a fluke in the otherwise solid Getty Cafe.

Getty Villa Cafe
17985 Pacific Coast Hwy
Malibu, CA

Fords Filling Station -DINELA lunch

2009-04-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

Another DINELA lunch, this time with Amber at Ford's Filling Station, as she had never been there before and wanted to use this chance to try some of the things I've been raving about to her about this place. I got there a bit early, and had to wait till Amber got there before being seated - it was quite busy inside. We were immediately handed the cool die cut menus, which prominently displayed the DINE LA lunch menu option.

Amber chose the Sturgeon Confit - thyme, lemon and country bread as her appetizer. She enjoyed this a lot, I think the bread was nicely toasted, and the sturgeon was perfectly salted and cooked, not overdone. Nice.

I went for the Goose Rillette - with micro rocket greens and whole grain mustard. A small smear of the goose rillette (kind of like a goose flavored mash of meatiness, with a touch of liver flavor) on one of those little toasts, and a small bit of mustard....quite excellent. Pretty rich, though, maybe I shouldn't have started with this considering what was to come...

...as Amber and I both got the Fish and Chips - beer battered cod with all the fixins, pickled carrots, and "ooo-eee" sauce. Man, what a fry bucket this was. I loved the way they fried the fish, which was nice and flaky, not overdone at all - tempura batter, and generous portions. I love their onion rings here, but this was almost overload. The salad was nice to eat, basically because it was one of the few not fried things on the plate. Heh.

Now for desserts - Amber got the Profiteroles with in house made nutella ice cream. The nutella ice cream was the star of this plate, a rich deep chocolatey hazelnutty flavor, really well balanced.

I couldn't help myself, I got the Butterscotch Pudding with a bit of mascarpone cream on top. This was heavenly. I love butterscotch pudding and this was really the pinnacle of butterscotch. I loved the chopped nuts on top, it gave a nice contrast to the pudding.

Chef Ben Ford happened to be walking around asking each table what they thought of the meal, and I couldn't help but gush to him about how much I enjoyed everything. I'll definitely be back.

Ford's Filling Station
9531 Culver Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232
(310) 202-1470

Chaya Venice - DINELA lunch

2009-03-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

Finally, catching up to some old posts - a little late for posts on DINE LA, but wanted to share anyways. I wanted to really try some new restaurants, with a discounted price tag, and I had heard good things about Chaya Venice - well, the place looks dang nice from the outside, in any case.

Service was brisk and pleasant. I think I stuck with water but Owen got some iced tea.

Bread basket landed first to the table. A good crusty white bread, and oddly enough, a raisin bread. These were both amazing in their olive oil/finely minced olive dip. The raisins really shone through!

Owen kicked my ass in the healthy department that day, he ordered the
Wakame Seaweed and Organic Green Salad with Ginger Vinaigrette as his starter. I didn't think there was anything particularly special about this salad, honestly, I can eat this at home from a bag of organic salad from Trader Joe's. Owen's not really a fan of seaweed in this fashion so I took advantage of that by sneaking as much as I could on my plate, heh.

So of course, I order the most unhealthiest thing you can order from the appetizer list, the Fried Calamari with Cajun Spice and Spicy Marinara, with Curry dipping sauce. The batter was nice and light, very Japanese tempura style. The squid was nice and supple, not overcooked, this is actually one of the best preparations of calamari I can remember in recent days. The curry dipping sauce is what catapulted this to another level - a bit of a kick, and a different flavor that I'm used to having with calamari. I really enjoyed the combination.

Owen's main course was the Spicy Lobster Roll - Lobster, Shrimp, Smelt Egg, Cucumber, Avocado, which came with more of that salad. If he had known, he would have gotten the soup of the day for an appetizer instead! On to the rolls themselves...

...here's a blurry closeup. I tried one, and I didn't think it was any kind of special at all. I didn't really taste anything that resembled lobster, the roll was pretty dry and uninspired. I doubt I would ever get sushi here if I came back.

However, my meal was much more to my liking - a Kobe Beef Burger - Grilled Kobe Beef with Lettuce, Tomato, Grilled Onion, Aged White Cheddar, Mango Chutney, Spicy Mayonnaise and served with Beer Battered French Fries. This is serious stuff. First off, LOVED the fries. Why aren't all fries beer battered ones? The crispy flavorful texture on the outside, and the warm soft potatoey insides. The person manning the fryer here is a masterful one.

Here's a close up on that burger. It's a decent one, the meat was great quality (although, was it really Kobe? Will I really know?) It was a lot more done than I had asked for (medium), but it didn't detract from the juiciness and the overall satisfuying experience of the burger as a whole. The bun held up well against all the burger ingredients. A solid, filling burger, I only ate half and let Owen eat the rest of it later, which he throughly enjoyed.

Dessert! Owen's favorite part of the meal, he ordered the Profiteroles with Candied Pecan Ice Cream and Hot Fudge. He absolutely loved this. The creamy ice cream was distinctly pecan flavored, but had a subtle burnt sugar taste in the background. The hot fudge was just the right amount, and aided in the melting of the ice cream, which brought it to just the right temperature, soft enough to cut through with a spoon but still frozen enough to let you know it's still ice cream. I think Owen would order this again, definitely.

I decided to get SOME sort of healthy nutrition in me, so I opted for the Fresh Fruit with Green Tea Ice Cream. Nothing special, some of the fruit was off season and tongue punishingly tart, but the green tea ice cream healed all wounds. A welcome light finish to a heavy meal.

I would definitely come here again, even without the special DineLA menu, but I think it's best to stay away from the sushi here. This might be an asian food inspired place but it's no sushi bar.

Chaya Venice
110 Navy St
Venice, CA 90291
thechaya.com

VIP Harbor Seafood Restaurant

2009-03-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

I had thought dimsum on the westside was almost completely nonexistent, but then I was taken to VIP Harbor Seafood by my coworker Kevin a few years back. I was pleasantly surprised - cart service, Cantonese speakers and lots and lots of shrimp...and it took me this long to go back and do a proper review of the place! A dimsum craving hit both me and Daphne, and we headed there to use a restaurant.com coupon. Here's some of the stuff we got:

My best guess was that these were supposed to be Xiao long baos, but these dumplings pretty much had no soup in them, so I'm just going to say these were pork dumplings. They were alright, but everything was pretty soggy. The filling wasn't horribly memorable but filled a dumpling craving.

Next up, Pork siu mai, one of my "must haves" when I have dim sum. These were not too shabby at all. Good sized, lots of meaty filling, these fared much better than the fake xiao long baos.

The other must have in my dimsum meal, Shrimp dumplings - har gao. These were good! The translucent wrapper was not too thick, which, I was told by my grandpa, is an indication of a "skilled dumpling maker". A dunk in some chinese hot mustard, a bit of soy sauce, and I'm tasting a bit of my childhood.

And what's dimsum without a bit of fried stuff? On one of the carts, there was a plate of Wu gok- fried taro crispy dumplings. I love how the fried outside is wafer thin crispy, nestling the bit of taro meat filling on the inside. This fried dumpling is all about the fried texture...how do they fry these? What are they made of? I have no idea but I'm happy to eat them.

This is my dessert of choice, Dan Taat-Egg tarts, but we got these before the end of our meal anyway. These could have been better - a bit overcooked, I like the eggy part to be almost a bit underdone, so when I bite into the delicate tart part, the insides spill out...this was definitely not the case here. It filled a craving but I've definitely had better.

Turnip pancakes were next. I think these are quite filling (the turnip paste is heavy!), but Daphne was curious about them. They weren't bad, but I like these to be really hot and crisp, which these were not. A lot of other dimsum places I've been to serve this dish from a specialized cart, that fries them to hot crispy perfection, tableside. Not the case here, they just came on a plate, amongst other choices on a cart. Eh.

Sticky rice in lotus leaf. I think Daphne and I were really gunning for these, and were really glad to find they had them. Really comforting dimsum food, the sticky rice encases a meaty mushroomy filling, with one duck egg yolk inside. So very good.

Another favorite - Rice noodle, with shrimp. The sweet soy mixture that they pour over the rolled noodles is what really makes this dish, although the slippery thin rice noodle is just a joy to eat. More shrimp, which I was a fan of. I'd get this over and over again.

We ordered a few more things that weren't pictured, to go - I got some sesame balls for Owen, which one of the cart ladies was nice enough to go to the kitchen to get for me, when I asked her if they had any. Nice and freshly fried, the insides were filled with sweet white bean paste that Owen was happy to eat later.

The service was actually very good, parking was forced valet but the lot was small so I was glad to not have to fight for a spot. A great option for dimsum on the westside, which is so very lacking in good Chinese food.

Huntington Gardens Tea Room

2009-03-10T12:15:00.000-07:00

Daphne and I were planning to go to Huntington Gardens (she's a member!) and I had heard of their amazing tea room. Daphne insisted we needed reservations way in advance, but I checked their website the night before and snagged a 1:45pm seating for the next day! Whoo! What luck! (by the way, the reservation system is really a crapshoot...I would have to enter a time in, and it would look up in the system if it was available, and if it wasn't, it would say, sorry, not available, but not give you other times when they DID have availability. So you'd have to just keep trying different times till you got something that was free. DIFFICULT system, guys. Although a plus for having online reservations.)

After wandering around bonsai trees, Chinese gardens, sakura blossoms and fields of greenery, we were starving by the time we got to the tea room. We were immediately seated, and our server was very nice, and mentioned the special tea of the month was a raspberry tea. We both chose that to drink. This was what was here when we were seated...

Cream, jams and marmalade, and butter for the scones. Nice that they had freshly whipped cream, and I really liked the blackberry jam that we opened in the little mini jar.

The scones...these were fresh and warm from the kitchen, nestled in a cloth napkin. Ooo, these were tasty, and of different variety. Some were cranberry, some had bits of orange, one I had was studded with chocolate chips! These were some of the best scones I've had, and I've had my share of scones. Yummy, and not too big and filling, so I didn't feel too guilty having...I think 3...um...maybe I feel guilty now. With the blackberry jam, a quick smear of whipped cream, this was a taste of heaven.

My first plate from their high tea buffet. Yes. This high tea is a buffet, any kind of sandwiches, cheeses, pastries, salads...whatever you liked, and as much as you liked. A great set up. For some reason, I usually worry about getting full during high tea, but whenever I have had high tea, I always leave way too full. I think it's the high ingestion of liquids, perhaps? Okay, I'm feeling guilty again. Let's focus on the food...this plate had water table crackers, a smoked salmon finger sandwich, and various cheeses (blue cheese, smoked gouda, muenster, from what I remember.) I loved everything on this plate, but the smoked salmon was exquisite, and the smoked gouda I remember being especially memorable.

Second plate of sandwiches - from the front, a cucumber mint sandwich atop of some pasta salad, then a chicken salad sandwich, then a watercress sandwich, and way in the back, a prosciutto sandwich. I wanted to try every kind of sandwich they had, even though at this point I was starting to get a bit full, even from these little sandwiches. Everything was tasty, but I think out of this bunch, I especially liked the cucumber mint sandwich, which surprised myself. The bright flavors of the mint shone against the cucumber, and the bread was soft and delicate.

Last plate of savories. Some spinach salad, and cracker and pita, with some caviar. The salty caviar was REALLY salty, the cracker barely cut the intensity of the salt. Eating the salad helped though - the salad was pretty good. I felt bad leaving any caviar (cuz...it's caviar...I mean, I doubt this was the expensive kind but caviar sure is expensive) so I managed to eat most of it, even though I could have probably been good with a quarter of what I put on this plate. Argh, I can't waste anything...

A shot of our raspberry tea, with a bit of milk and sugar in it. Delicious and warming, I noted that this tea was at the PERFECT sipping temperature, not too hot or too cold. I was quite impressed!

Okay, the last plate. At this point I was pretty full but I HAD to get some dessert. On this plate, starting from the left going clockwise, I got: one more smoked salmon finger sandwich, a fruit tart with mandarin orange, raspberry and a blueberry, one more piece of smoked gouda, strawberry and watermelon. The fruit tart was really tasty, a perfect bite of sweet, fruit and custard. The strawberry was perfectly The strawberry was ripe, maybe not as sweet as the sweetest strawberry I've ever had but not too bad, and watermelon was good. A nice ending to a pleasant meal.

I think this high tea experience was really nice, and seeing the perfectly manicured roses outside the window was a nice touch. When I get the chance, I think I'll be making another reservation for this place!

Huntington Gardens Rose Garden Tea Room
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
(626) 405-2100

Wakasan

2009-03-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

One late evening, I wanted to give Owen and his mom some time to hang out, so I went out to dinner with Scott to catch up. He had mentioned how he had indulged at Wakasan a few weeks earlier, and I had been hearing about their stellar budget omakase dinner, so I leaped at the chance to go.

The restaurant was pretty full, but I also noted that there weren't very many seats...which would be difficult during busier hours, but the nice part was that the restaurant was open a bit later than I'm used to, (which is one of the reasons why we went here.) As we were being seated, we were handed a drink menu, but I just wanted water. The only thing to order here is the omakase, so we chatted and waited for our meal to arrive...

Part 1 of Wakasan's Omakase - a bit of cooked veggies (mushrooms, spinach, carrot shreds), and some dried bonito flakes on top, in a light clear sauce. Yummy and light, this was a nice start to our dinner. The veggies weren't overcooked to mush and it was just fun to eat.

Part 2 of Wakasan's Omakase - shaved pickled slices of carrot and daikon, in a tangy vinagrette with some sesame seeds on top. This was just okay to me, pickled stuff is pickled stuff, and I wouldn't necessarily order this anywhere. A filler dish.

Part 3 of Wakasan's Omakase - Mini spaghetti "mac salad" - spaghetti noodles made into a cold noodle salad, with mayo and seasoned up mac salad style. Spaghetti mac salad? Well, why not - I think it was actually pretty tasty. The mayo wasn't too thick and it coated the noodles well. I finished this off pretty quick...what's next?

Part 4 of Wakasan's Omakase - Sashimi selection. From the left - scallop, medium tuna, and some sort of white fish (I forgot what it was.) Out of all of these, the scallop was the best, as the others had a lot of tendon going through them, which made eating them not as good. I had to pick out the tendon membrane from my teeth. Gross...but...well, since this is part of a omakase, leaving stuff on the plate is pretty insulting...so I ate what I could eat of the sashimi, but really, in any other case, I would have left the fish on this plate right where it was. Ah, well. Not every plate has to be a winner.

Part 5 of Wakasan's Omakase - Salmon, and a bit of bean sprout stirfry. Pretty tasty, nice grill on the salmon, didn't know what that gourd looking thing was but ate it anyways, bean stirfy was nice.

Part 6 of Wakasan's Omakase - Legs and part of the body part of a crab, the ponzu sauce was on the bottom of this dish. Yum, crab was quite a surprise, when it was brought to the table. The ponzu sauce was great to dip the crab meat in, a fun little interactive dish.

Part 7 of Wakasan's Omakase - Fishcakes and tofu in an oden stew. A little bundle of noodles, tied up, can be seen in the upper left corner. A smear of hot mustard adornes the lower left of this dish. I'm not really a fan of oden but I like tofu and fishcakes enough to ignore any misgivings I had about oden stew. I loved the little bundle of noodles, although maybe I should have untied them before eating? I just popped the whole thing in my mouth and it was gone in a second...drat, is there a knot of noodles in my stomach?? Also, hot mustard makes EVERYTHING better. (this is coming from someone who can eat wasabi by the spoonful though...)

Part 8 of Wakasan's Omakase - Tempura. Assorted tempura, nice that they included two shrimp tempura! Freshly fried, not greasy, and completely delicious! Yay!

Part 9 of Wakasan's Omakase - Chanwanmushi. Savory steamed egg, with special stuff at the bottom, like fishcake. The top is adorned with cilantro, which is not my favorite but I ate around it. Savory egg custard, I love it. It was such a nice flavor and delicately steamed, the consistency was like soft silken tofu. Awesome!

Part 10 of Wakasan's Omakase - miso soup with clams in it, the clams gave the miso soup broth a nice rich flavor. A nice little surprise and treat.

This is the last savory dish...by this time, I was pretty full...Part 11 of Wakasan's Omakase - Mini Beef shortrib bowl. The sauce really made this dish, as it flavored the rice underneat the meat. The ribs were good, a little fatty but the sauce made up for it. Nice way to end the savories.

Dessert! Part 12 of Wakasan's Omakase - one cute scoop of red bean ice cream. Love the dish that this was in, and love the adorable little scoop which matched the sakura blossom design in the bowl. Sweet, but not too sweet, I was DONE after eating this.

What a fun little place...I felt like I was eating at someone's house, with dish after dish arriving from the kitchen. On top of that, a pretty good deal, 35 dollars each. I'll be back!

Wakasan
1929 Westwood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 446-5241

Food adventures in the Bay Area

2009-03-03T00:49:00.000-08:00

Okay, a long post here, and of course, a late post, as I'm still catching up on meals I mostly had late last year and right around New Years 2009. I was back in the bay area for the holidays, and wanted to partake in many of the restaurant offerings around my hometown, but for the most part, I actually ate at home. I did miss my mom's cooking, but I managed to ah, sneak out here and there and get a meal out at a restaurant. Here are a few things I ate...(sneakily...)

Brian and I went to visit Jay at his new workplace at Santana Row, where he's a sous chef. We went during off hours, inbetween lunch and dinner, so the restaurant was pretty empty and Jay got to leave the kitchen and chat with us a little, which was awesome. Brian and I just wanted a bit of a snack, so we decided to order the soup of the day, which was cream of mushroom soup, and share it. This was a really good soup, actually - deep meaty mushroom flavors, rich cream, nice and comforting and savory. Brian and I kept dipping pieces of bread into this, even though he usually has an aversion to carbs. Heh.

Along with our order of soup, I wanted something really bad for me. Since we were eat a seafood-east coast themed restaurant, I decided to order some fried calamari. This was a decent fry up - breading wasn't too heavy, wasn't too oily. Good pieces of calamari, although I would have liked more of the "squiddy" parts. Yey.

Another outing with Brian, we went down the street to House of Falafel, and to get some frozen yogurt at Yogurtland. I think I went to Yogurtland 3 or 4 times while I was at home - I love this place! But I had neglected to take pictures of it each time, as it wasn't horribly photogenic - it's a serve yourself kind of place, and a huge mixture of different kinds of flavors of yogurt isn't...appealing to look at, but it sure was tasty. Okay so back to the things I DID take pictures of...

This is an order of the falafel appetizer at House of Falafel. These are great! The crispy outsides were the best part. I think they could have used more seasoning on the chickpeas but Brian noted that sometimes they taste better, so it depends on the day. But they always have that really good crispy texture.

Here's a shot of one of the insides of the falafel. The chickpeas are mixed with parsley, which gives the insides that greenish hue. Could have used more salt or some sort of delicious seasoning, as I said before, but these would have been so good to have in a pita.

Just to try, I also ordered a chicken shwarma pita. The chicken was a bit dry, but the rest of it was nice. I liked how they also grilled the outside of the pita as well - gave it a nice charred taste.

Here's a close up on the wrap, after a few bites have been taken. They do not hold back on the amount of chicken, but as I was saying before, kinda dry, and all white meat (which is good for some, but I like dark meat better!). A bit of veggies and a bit of white sauce (what is in the white sauce? I don't know?), and there you have it. I think the falafel is definitely better, but this is not horrible.

Later in the week, we went to San Francisco, to meet up with a few friends of Brians' from UC Davis. Brian knew of a great sandwich place, so we met up in the Castro, at Ike's Sandwiches. We luckily snagged a table (there's like, 4 SMALL tables there, and no room to eat inside), and ordered our sandwiches. I was ready for some deliciousness!

This was Brian's sandwich, which, I THINK was named the MILF sandwich. (giggle.) I think it was a chicken mixture, with an amazing sauce, (I don't know what sauce it was), with lettuce, pickles, and tomatoes. The nice part about this sandwich is that if you request, they can scoop out some of the soft part of the bread so there's more room for the filling (as Brian says, so there's "less carbs!") This was so freakin' good! I really wish I had ordered this sandwich, (there are so many choices!) but I got a few bites of his sandwich, so I was pretty happy.

I don't know what the name of this sandwich was, but it's a tuna sandwich of some sort. This looked good, so i'm going to assume it was good.

I ordered a sandwich with turkey and bacon - basically a turkey club, with lettuce, tomatoes and hot peppers, on dutch style french bread. It was a good sandwich, although it was overshadowed by Brian's greater sandwich. The sauce really made his sandwich memorable.

Of course, we could not stop with our food-adventures in this area, so we walked down the street and went to Bi-Rite Creamery, which I was extremely excited about trying. The ice cream slingers were really nice, and let me try 3 flavors (the cooler part was that they gave me the samples with regular spoons - part of their whole "not making waste" thing, I think). I tried their three most popular flavors - snickerdoodle, lavender, and salted caramel. It was hard to choose, but with the line swelling behind me, I had to pick quickly. The salted caramel edged out the others!

I just got a kids cone of the salted caramel, and boy, was it delicious. The salt was an amazing activator of all the flavors of the caramel, making a great mix of savory and sweet. The quality of the cream used to make the ice cream was truly exemplary, some of the best I've had. I really enjoyed this small cone, even though I was quite full by then.

Brian got the snickerdoodle flavor, which was a departure for him because he swore by the lavender flavor every other time he's been here, but he tried the snickerdoodle and fell in love with it! BiRite makes their own snickerdoodle cookies that go into this ice cream, so the cookies were deliciously fresh and of equal quality to the ice cream. I love the whole design package too - the biodegradable cup, the printed-on ice cream tongue depressor. Totally nice.

After this, we took a little stroll down the street, and of course had to pop in to Tartine Bakery. Unfortunately, by this point, we were truly too full to even think about eating anything, but...well, that didn't mean that we couldn't get something for later right?

OMG look at the cakes...look at the tarts...eek....

why, hello quiche...I would love to be friends with you...

More quiches and tarts...but in the end, we ended up getting a gougere to go. I honestly couldn't have told you what a gougere was before that day. It ended up being a sort of savory puff - not filled with anything (like a cream puff), but the nice flavor of the outside puff was great enough itself. They used really good quality gruyere and black pepper, the two things I really remember when snacking on it while walking around. I will totally get another one when I visit again.

Our wanderings led us to Japantown, which I actually had never been to before in San Francisco. I can't believe that, either! We wandered around the indoor malls (so fun!) and bookstores, and ended up at Shabu Sen to eat. I hadn't had Shabu shabu for a long while, and I was excited to experience it at a "real" shabu shabu house (I've been to the one in Hollywood, but, I don't think I can truly call that an authentic experience).

I wanted to get a shot of the cool induction stove. Really neat! The surface of the stovetop wasn't hot at all, and didn't add too much excess heat, which was also a plus. Agh, I kinda want one now! Shabu shabu party, anyone?

The broth heats up instantly...so cool...

First, a delightful plate of mixed veggies. All these veggies were super fresh and of high quality, so everything really shone through with a quick dip in the boiling broth. I think the fresh chinese cabbage, shitake mushrooms, and udon were my favorites.

Dipping sauces! One is ponzu and the other was a sesame sauce. Way refreshing to dip the meats and veggies in here before quickly consuming your freshly boiled bounty. And the sesame dipping sauce was a nice tangy flavor. Awesome.

Now, to the meats! This is a small beef serving, that I ordered, as I was still fairly full from all the foodaventures earlier in the day, but everyone else ordered regular plates of beef, or combos. This was just the perfect amount for me. So the method of attack - carefully take a piece of beef from the plate. Quickly douse in hot broth. Swidge it around a bit, make sure it's nice and cooked. Dunk in dipping sauces, and ENJOY!

The bubbling boiling wok o' broth, doing its' job by cooking the veggies and meat and udon noodles. Pretty awesome. I'd love to go back.

A few days later, I took Vicky out for a late birthday celebration. We decided to go to Tomi Sushi, which came highly recommended by Brian and Owen, when they went there while I was at Judy's rehearsal lunch. The place was bustling with people when we got there, as it was during the busy lunch hour. We navigated the menu but in the end, I was swayed by the daily special. More on that in a few...

Miso soup came out first. Nothing to scream about but nice and savory, a good start.

Green tea came out, branded with the restaurant's logo. That's kinda nice.

Here's a thing of beauty - the lunch special. It comes with a salad, a small chirashi bowl, and various tempura. Just having this set in front of me made me extremely happy. Each section of this set deserves more exploration, in my opinion....so here we go...

The chirashi part of the set was the main focus, and contained, from the front going clockwise: 2 pieces of tamago egg, 2 pieces of overseared/overcooked (but still good) albacore, 2 pieces of salmon, topped with finely chopped seaweed, and rounding out the bowl, ginger and wasabi. I remember everything being very good, and although it was a smaller chirashi than I usually rock, this was perfect, because of the other stuff that came with it...

The other stuff, being the plate of fried stuff. Whoo! A plate of fried stuff, especially if it's Japanese style fried stuff, is especially appealing! A potato croquette, a fried shrimp, and a fried white fish gave me a lot of great things to try. These guys were experts at frying - nothing was oily, everything was perfectly crisp on the outside and moist on the inside. I really enjoyed this, especially with the chirashi - what a great and varied combo!

And just for good measure, there's a salad that came along with it. Iceberg lettuce, shreds of red cabbage and carrot? Looks like Owen's most hated "camp salad" to me (named that because he had this style of gross cheap salad while he was at day camp at the Y, when he was a kid.) Pretty unimpressive, but added a nice counterpoint to the rest of the meal.

Vicky had a nice sushi box set, which came with tuna roll (six of them, nice!), looks like whitefish and octopus sushi are also in that compartment. To the right, more sushi - shrimp, salmon, tuna, squid, another kind of whitefish. Clockwise, more of that "camp salad", an orange slice and a broccoli floret, and grilled saba (makarel) fish. I think she liked most of the sushi but didn't like the saba, but I admit, saba is a hard fish to like if you're not a fan of really fishy tasting stuff. I totally would have eaten it for her if I wasn't so full from my meal...heh.

We had also ordered some agedashi tofu, but it came the same time as everything else, even though I ordered it as an appetizer. It was good, but I wished it had come earlier, so we could have enjoyed it more before all the other food came. It was really delicious though, I could have had this on its' own as a meal, with some rice perhaps.

Another day, another different place - Hubert was home for the holidays from New York, and I really wanted to chat with him, over a meal, so we headed to this place that Brian had looked up - Harvest. It is one of those places where you order up at the front register, bring a number to your table and they bring the food to you. Here's the scoop on what we ordered...

Brian ordered some BBQ Chicken Sliders, which came with a side of beans. It looked okay and he seemed to enjoy it, but I don't know if I would order these myself. Maybe it's because when I think of sliders, they really should only be mini burgers. Ah, well. I think Brian ended up deconstructing these to ingest less carbs. Heh.

Hubert went the whole hog and got steak with green beans, mashed potatoes and mushroom sauce. Not too shabby, and the price point was okay, for a full dinner type meal. I don't know if I would order this myself (I like grilling my own steaks :) but Hubert tore into this so I'm assuming it was a slice of a-okay.

Bread! This bread just came with our meal, for no particular reason. We liked this a lot, actually - the nice zesty cheesy spread that came with it was a pleasant surprise!

I ordered some fondue for the table, which we liked dipping the aforementioned free bread they gave us. The things they actually gave us to dip into the fondue (whicih mostly consisted of gruyere) were kinda weird - a few piece of chopped tomatoes, and chopped bread (which was not as good as the free bread.). Fondue is naturally fun - and cheese plus anything is usually good. I like the setup, with the little ramekin over an open flame, to keep the cheese hot, but I don't think I'd order this again. I'd like a few other things to be able to dip into cheese.

My order was a cheeseburger with avocado, with fries. This was blah. The burger patty wasn't very flavorful or cooked medium as I asked (pretty much well done), the cheese wasn't very eventful or added anything to the burger. The nice part was the bunch of veggies that went with it (the pickle and avocado were especially nice), and the fries were decent. I should have ordered something else, drat.

One of my last days in the Bay area, I went to visit Judy and Kelvin, and our friend Krang came along too (a combo of his full name, no, he's not Krang of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fame.). We went to Stacks, which was close to their apartment in Campbell. The place was super busy, we got seated way in the back. I guess a lot of breakfast places are pretty bumpin' during holiday times, as people have time off. I liked the fact they gave out a whole carafe of coffee if you ordered coffe, and the coat racks next to the booths. That's always fun.

Even though I went to a breakfast place, I ordered me a club sandwich with a side of hash browns. That's how I roll! Half breakfast, half lunch. Aw yeah. The club was overwhelming, a turkey, ham, bacon, tomato and lettuce explosion. I removed the ham - what the heck is this doing in this sandwich? It added too much saltiness. After the removal, it was much improved. Hash browns were okay but not really crispy or browned enough. The salad AND fruit salad combination that came with it was something nice to chew on when all the savoriness got overwhelming, but really this whole plate was too much food.

Of course, there's more food. Judy got a single waffle for the table, to try. This was a waste of carbs. Not crunchy or crispy on the outside, the whole thing was soggy and uneventful. Never order waffles from this place.

Krang got himself steak and eggs, a protein combination of champions. (ha, insert snide remark HERE.) It came with white toast and hash browns. I didn't try any, but he cleaned off the plate so I'm thinking they were good.

Kelvin got a spanish omelet, I think. I assumed it was "spanish" because of the salsa, I honestly don't know what's in this omelet other than cheese, I wasn't paying attention when he was ordering. It came with sourdough toast (again, I think?) and hash browns (pretty sure of that.) He rocked this plate pretty hard so I think he enjoyed it.

Judy's plate o' breakfast - scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns, and a whole bagel. This was way too much food for her and she took home half of it. Quite generous with those portions.

My parents drove me to Santa Barbara, where Owen met up with us to drive me the rest of the way back to Los Angeles. We turned it into a sort of mini vacation, and did our best to find fresh fish for my mom (who LOVES getting fresh fish in Santa Barbara...) We went to Opal Restaurant at the beginning of State Street, the main touristy street of Santa Barbara. I had looked this place up on yelp, and it had gotten really high ratings, so I directed us there...the place really seemed like a place for locals, and we got excellent service.

Our bread basket, with white and wheat bread. Nothing spectacular but I was pretty hungry, so it was welcome. Wish they had warmed up the bread but wasn't going to complain.

We asked our server for a suggestion for the appetizers, and he recommended the shredded phyllo wrapped tiger prawns, flash fried, served with a coconut curry dipping sauce, on napa cabbage salad with mandarin oranges, toasted almonds, julienned vegetables and sesame asian vinaigrette. This was a great choice! We each had a tiger prawn, which were excellently fried, and the salad was nice and crunchy and flavorful. It kinda reminded me of having the chinese banquet staple, honey walnut shrimp, but Americanized.

I got the paella dish, as I wanted to enjoy some of Santa Barbara's amazing seafood. It included steamed mussels, manilla clams, tiger shrimp, chicken and chorizo sausage, on saffron rice with a garlic herb broth. (sorry for the blurry pictures, I didn't want to use flash and of course it leads to blurry snaps). All the clams and shrimp were plump, really fresh and flavorful. I was a bit disappointed with the rice, as it was swimming in a tomato based broth, which drowned out any hint of saffron they supposedly used. Plus, where's the use of a crispy pan, to get those crispy edges on that rice? This was more like cioppino, with rice. Disappointing for paella, but a thumbs up for seafood.

Owen got one of their specials of the night, a chicken pesto and bacon pizza. He gave me a slice and I was pretty impressed- the crust wasn't too thick and doughy, the toppings were generous, and the flavors worked really well with each other. He was quite happy with this.

Dad got another shrimp dish, their homemade basil fettucine with sauteed tiger prawns, with homemade pesto, tomatoes, fire roasted red pepper and smoked mozzerella cream sauce. I'm not always a pasta fan but these noodles were pretty good, al dente, and more of those tiger prawns, which are always welcome! The sauce was not overly rich. Yum.

Mom got a pizza as well - a prosciutto, goat cheese and garlic spinach pizza. As with Owen's pizza, the crust was good, the toppings fresh and flavorful. The prosciutto was really hard to eat though, because when you bit into it, you usually had to take the whole piece with you, which made a hassle of eating it. Also, the prosciutto was overly salty, even the goat cheese and spinach couldn't mellow it out. I still think this was a decent pizza, just maybe if they had cut up the prosciutto a bit more, to make it easier to eat.

Dessert! We got some peach sorbet, to clean the palate. The peach flavor in this sorbet was intense, and really tasted, like everything else that night, fresh. I really enjoyed this dessert, also, the chocolate "enjoy" written on my plate was a nice touch.

To appease Owen's chocolate cravings, we got the chocolate pecan tart slice, with vanilla bean drizzle and fresh whipped cream. The crust on this tart was nice, and the chocolate and pecan flavors meshed well together. This was demolished in a second.

One last shot - I made a dinner the next night, of breaded fresh red snapper (that my parents went and bought!), salad and bread. Yes, pretty simple, but sometimes, isn't simple best?

Now, back to our regularly Southern California-y scheduled program.

Yankee Pier
www.yankeepier.com
378 Santana Row # 1100
San Jose, CA 95128
(408) 244-1244

Yogurtland
19700 Stevens Creek Blvd
Cupertino CA 95014
(408) 996-1776

www.yogurt-land.com

House of Falafel
www.houseoffalafel.com
19590 Stevens Creek Blvd
Cupertino, CA 95014
(408) 446-2411

Ike's Place (sandwiches)
3506 16th Street
(between Sanchez St & Prosper St)
San Francisco, CA 94114
(415) 553-6888

www.ilikeikesplace.com

Bi-Rite Creamery
http://biritecreamery.com/
3692 18th Street
(@ Dolores)
San Francisco CA 94110

Tartine Bakery
www.tartinebakery.com
600 Guerrero St
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 487-2600

Shabu Sen
www.somethingsfishyrestaurant.com
1726 Buchanan St
San Francisco, CA 94115
(415) 440-0466

Tomi Sushi
4336 Moorpark Ave
San Jose, CA 95129
(408) 257-4722

Harvest Restaurant
10630 S. De Anza Blvd., Cupertino CA
(408) 996-9700

Stacks Restaurant
139 E Campbell Ave
Campbell, CA 95008

www.stacksbreakfast.com

Opal Restaurant
http://www.opalrestaurantandbar.com/
1325 State St
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
(805) 966-9676

Tortilla Grill

2009-02-17T08:00:00.000-08:00

A quick meetup for lunch with Owen a few weeks ago, and we wanted to eat somewhere not RIGHT next to his workplace (he's quickly exhausting all the options around him), so I drove down to Abbot Kinney, which was close enough to his workplace but not close enough for him to walk to. We settled on Tortilla Grill, as we hadn't been there in awhile and I didn't feel like pizza that day.

I had been here a few times during college, but not recently. I was a bit apprehensive, because I remembered their meat to be way dry and overcooked, but I was willing to give them another chance. After ordering at the front, awkardly, in front of a large glass case filled with salsas, flan and other random things that needed to be refridgerated. We sat in the small eating area - and when our food was ready, this is what we got...

I ordered a carnitas torta, which came with some chips. They don't have a salsa bar, you have to ask them for small prepacked salsas that are stored in that case, which was a bit bothersome, as I had to flag someone down so I could get my pico de gallo on. Other than that - this was one of the best carinitas tortas I've ever had in my life, hands down. The carnitas meat was amazingly moist, with crunchy porky skin bits in it. Oh MAN. That was good. The veggies were nice and fresh, it was hard for me to even pause this long to take this picture. I really enjoyed this, and want another one soon!

Owen got a grilled chicken plate, which came with a few tortillas. I was really suspect of the white meat grilled chicken, but when I tried a piece, it was super moist and flavorful! I was pleasantly surprised! They also gave a generous amount. The pinto beans, rice, and sour cream were good accompaniments, this whole plate was a win, and Owen scraped it clean (well, most of the sour cream still remained, he doesn't really like it.)

I was completely satisfied with the meal, and I'll be back soon, I hope, to get another torta!

Tortilla Grill
1357 Abbot Kinney Blvd
Venice, CA 90291
(310) 581-9953

California Roll Factory

2009-02-15T14:48:00.000-08:00

When looking through my archives, I realized I hadn't done a review of California Roll Factory - how in the world could I not have reviewed this place properly?! This place was an old haunt for Amber and I back when we were in college, as it was across the street from the Art Store (back then, now it's renamed Dick Blick and down the street from its' original location).

Since then, I've been back periodically, a craving that I never really shaken, even though I've eaten at much better sushi places since my old college days when I was really pinching pennies (although, I'm STILL pinching pennies!). I think mainly it's because their California rolls are an exact copy of the kind of California rolls I fell in love with back in San Jose, at Miyake. (by the way, that place was great in high school, not so much now. Just saying.) The crab mixture is spot on, not too much mayo, generous on the crab, sweet tasting. I mean, of course it's not REAL crab or anything, but it's a nostalgic taste that I can't hate.

This is not a place for people who are sushi aficionados. This is a place for people who want huge, filling, unconventional rolls. I had taken Owen here a lot when he was warming up to the idea of sushi (can you believe he used to HATE sushi? He hated raw fish...I'm glad he has since changed his mind, hah), because they have a lot of varieties of rolls that include cooked stuff instead of just raw. The walls are lined with little pieces of paper, with funny names and descriptions of rolls ("420 Roll"? Nice.), the waitstaff usually consists of one person who is also manning the cash register. This is not a place for ambiance and romance. The business here is to get rolls into you as fast as possible.

Daphne and I were sharing a few rolls, and honestly I don't remember exactly what the name of these rolls were. I'm horrible! But from what I remember: The roll to the upper right was a tempura roll, with a baked salmon filling on the inside, with eel sauce on top. The lower left roll was a roll with a spicy salmon mixture. Both were huge rolls, with substantial fillings. I liked the tempura one just a tiny bit more, I think mainly because I liked how they did the tempura seaweed, and the salmon mixture had a few tendons laced among it. Both of these were plenty for us to chow down on, but we also ordered...

...a sashimi tempura roll. This is one of my favorite things here, especially when they do it right. It's a salmon and tuna sashimi, with some asparagus, rolled into some seaweed, rolled into tempura batter and quickly fried. The dipping sauce for this is a spicy mayo with roe and green onion.

Here's a close up of one of the pieces of the roll. The frying process makes the outside slightly cooked, sometimes they cook it too much so a lot of the fish is cooked, but they did it right today. It's really filling, there's a lot of good fish in there, and it's just a delicious treat. Worth every bite.

Again, this is place is not for hardcore sushi fans. If you want that, go elsewhere. This is a place for filling rolls!

California Roll Factory
11629 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 996-2366
www.calrollfactory.com

Buddha's Belly Part 2

2009-02-13T20:30:00.000-08:00

So remember when I went to Buddha's Belly the first time? Maybe I was a bit harsh. No, I am pretty sure I was just hungry. I went with Daphne to the Santa Monica location of Buddha's Belly to celebrate getting back into town after the holidays, because it is one of her favorite places. I was willing to give it another shot. And to not order a salad.

The space in the Santa Monica location is much nicer than the one on Beverly, I think. More space, cooler materials, and a chill atmosphere that I dug. Good start...

Daph and I ordered some drinks...she got an herbal tonic, which was served "sparkling, on ice". I don't remember exactly which tonic it was that she got (I suspect the "depth recharger" or the "power plant") but she liked it a lot either way. I liked that it was a sparkling drink! I got my usual arnold palmer, which was spot on, and nice to drink out of those bamboo fashioned glasses again.

I decided I wanted to give an appetizer a try, and after some hesitation, I went with the Chilled Vietnamese Rolls - shrimp, chicken breast, rice vermicelli, mint, cilantro, fried onion rolled in tender rice paper, sweet chili & sake reduction dipping sauces. The fusion part of this roll is the chicken breast, which I don't think is traditionally in vietnamese spring rolls. They were decent, everything was fresh, and I liked the dipping sauces. Yum.

Daphne ordered the same dish Evan had the last time I was at Buddha's Belly - the Spicy Peanut Noodles -shrimp, chicken breast, flat rice noodles, celery, mushrooms, edamame, spicy peanut sauce. Again, they smelled and tasted great, I had a bite and swore to myself next time that I'd order this dish. She barely managed to finish the whole thing, which was a feat because the serving was generous (the shrimp especially looked appetizing.)

I decided on the Ahi Tuna Burger with Sweet Potato Fries - medium-rare ground sushi-grade ahi tuna patty, sweet hawaiian bun, lettuce, tomato, avocado, spicy mayo, sesame seeds, with a side of sweet potato fries. This was a much better choice than my salad last time. I liked the ahi tuna, although it wasn't really medium rare, or medium anything. It was pretty much cooked all the way through, what's the point of having ahi if it's going to be fully cooked? It was still decently spiced, and good as the patty between the quality bun. The sweet potato fries were delicious, I am a great fan of sweet potato fries - they're better for you, right? Heh.

Dipping sauces for the burger and fries - spicy mayo and ketchup. The spicy mayo really wasn't very spicy, but it was good to dip the sweet potatoes in there anyways. Good texture.

Buddha's Belly has redeemed itself, but maybe it's because of the different location. I can see myself coming back to this location, service was friendly and quick, and afterwards, I can walk around the stores at 3rd Street promenade.

205 Broadway, Santa Monica, CA 90401
Phone: (310)458-2500
http://www.bbfood.com

My mom's "french toast"

2009-02-12T18:31:00.000-08:00

I had forgotten to post this, but I have a little bit of a story to share with the few readers I have of this blog. I don't know if I've discussed my dislike of french toast with this blog, but if I haven't, now you know - I hate french toast. And not really because french toast is gross, or off putting. Most french toast looks and tastes amazing. I mainly hate french toast because my mom would make "french toast". Let me delve deeper.

My mom did a lot for us growing up, although I didn't appreciate it at the time, as most kids don't. She stressed the importance of having breakfast before going to school, which was one of the last things we wanted to do, as we wanted to sleep more. One of the things she would make for us, when the Wonder Bread was starting to go bad, was "French Toast". I truly dreaded those days. It was more like a slightly coated, soggy abomination to bread, and topped with...a kraft cheese slice. How is this french toast, I don't know, but that's what she called it. I would try to choke that down, but honestly, it was disgusting. Really disgusting.

Fast forward to today. Owen loves french toast, but I'm very adverse to it, I usually have MAYBE a bite, and just don't feel like having any more. It's not logical, I know, as what my mom made was completely different than an order of french toast at a diner...but...I still don't like it.

I went home for the holidays this past Christmas, and one morning I woke up...to the sound of mom saying, "GET UP! Hurry up and eat because I made FRENCH TOAST!" My insides did a somersault, I was filled with dread. My dad saw my hesitation, and he said, "Just think of it as "Chinese Toast". I think that helped. And I think my mom has gotten better at making it, or the bread wasn't as stale as it was in the past...here's a shot of it...

I admit, it's not so bad. No Kraft singles in sight this time too. I still don't like it. Don't ask me why. I'm never going to like french toast. Sorry mom.

Cafe Flore

2009-02-11T17:00:00.000-08:00

One of my ex-coworkers Victor and I decided to meet up for a lunch, to catch up and chat. He suggested we go to Cafe Flore, as he had heard great things about it and read some good reviews. I eagerly jumped at the chance to try something new, outside of the usual haunts I hit up.

I don't know why Cafe Flore touts its' vast amount of parking spaces on its' own writeup on restaurant.com, as there is only metered parking in front. There is parking in the back streets but gets crowded when school lets out (which is when I was there.) Anyhow, as I sat down, I was greeted by the waiter, and initially sat outside to wait for Victor. I ordered an arnold palmer to enjoy while I waited...

They used a different kind of iced tea, very flowery tasting. I think the ratio of iced tea to lemonade was a bit strong, (too much lemonade, which made it a bit more sweet that I like) but it was still refreshing.

To start, I ordered a french onion soup. I figured, well, this is a French restaurant, they should do french onion soup right, right? Well...I mean..not exactly. It's more like french onion soup, deconstructed. The onion soup itself had a deep rich flavor, dark brown, with lovely cooked down onions. But just a onion soup does not a french onion soup make. They gave this to me on the side...

...a plate of mini toasts, with cheese on them. What? Am I suppose to dunk these toasts in myself? This isn't...really...the way french onion soup is supposed to be. The toasts were also pretty cold by the time they got to the table. Thumbs up on the soup, thumbs down on these toasts.

Victor had done his homework and had ordered their famous duck and apple ravioli. I guess they run out of this dish sometimes, but luckily, they had it today. The taste I had was spectacular. I haven't been to France yet, but the decadence of this dish was is what I think French cooking should be! The cream sauce was perfect tasting, the duck meat was awesome, everything was awesome. Yum.

I felt like going for some smoked salmon, so I ordered a Open-faced salmon sandwich - Smoked salmon, tomatoes with a sour cream, chive, and dill sauce, all on toasted French Olive bread, with fries on the side. The fries were heavily covered in dried dill, which was not necessary but it didn't bother me too much. There was a generous amount of smoked salmon, although it was a bit more fishy tasting than usual smoked salmon I get from other places. The olive bread was quite nice, the toasting of the bread gave it a nice texture on the outside, and it was soft in the middle, studded with flavorful olives. It was good, but in comparison to the ravioli, this paled in comparison, deliciousness wise. Note to self, order the ravioli next time!

We couldn't skip out on dessert, so we each got one, to try out. Victor got the really pretty looking one - some sort of creamy pudding in a pretty glass cup presentation, complete with little glass lid! Lying atop the pudding, was a chocolate wafer with a fleur de lis printed on it. All in all, the taste of the dessert was nothing to scream home about but the presentation was very nice.

I chose the bread pudding, which came with a sliced up strawberry, which was surprisingly sweet. I admit that the bread pudding wasn't exactly much to my liking - too much honey, and not enough baked crunch and not soft and delicious in the middle. I should have opted for the raspberry tart, which also looked good. Ah, well.

I might come back here, but only if I'm in the area - but there's a lot of other places I need to try in the area first. Maybe just for the duck ravioli! Thanks for meeting up Victor!

Cafe Flore
214 S Robertson Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
(310) 659-6877
http://www.cafeflore.us

Uncle Darrows

2009-02-03T18:57:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of saving money, I've been using those restaurant.com coupons here and there, as I did a few posts ago. I didn't feel like cooking one night, so we decided to use a coupon I had for Uncle Darrows, a small place right off of Lincoln Blvd, and fairly close to Owen's workplace.

We walked in, and it was basically a ghost town - the only person there was the cashier/cook. I guess this place isn't too hopping on a weeknight. We were pretty straightforward with our orders, as they didn't have some things we wanted (didn't have oysters, or gumbo that night, no wonder, as there wasn't anyone there).

Owen wanted a po'boy, and the cashier/cook suggested the "Zeke Po'Boy", which contained catfish and shrimp, with potato salad as a binder/condiment substitute. The bread was just right, as most po'boy bread should be - light, not crusty bread. The fillings were good in the sandwich, I'll discuss more about fillings in a sec...because I basically got...

...the same thing, reconstructed. It was a catfish and shrimp plate, that comes with two sides, and I chose potato salad and red beans and rice. It came with one piece of bread, cut up, instead of a whole roll. The red beans and rice were excellent, a decent facsimile of the kind we had in New Orleans. Potato salad was a bit sweet. Here's close up of the catfish and shrimp...

The breading on the catfish and shrimp was all cornmeal. This was a very generous portion of both, but the taste got a ittle tiresome after awhile, as the fried cornmeal got heavy to eat. The catfish and shrimp were much better in the sandwich, eaten all together in one bite, with the potato salad. The desconstructed version I ate forced me to eat each part separately, so it wasn't as tasty as big bites of this between bread. I doused the fish with a ton of hot sauce, but I wish I had some tartar sauce - is that sacrilidge?

Uncle Darrows is a pretty quick little place to get some New Orleans style food, but it really doesn't hold a candle to the real thing. It'll do to fulfill your fix though.

Uncle Darrows
2560 Lincoln Blvd
Venice, CA 90291
(310) 306-4862
www.uncledarrows.com

Hop Woo

2009-02-03T16:17:00.000-08:00

I took a bookmaking class at Nucleus Gallery, so I happened to be out in Alhambra. Stupidly, I didn't really eat lunch before class, and ended up out of class at 6:30pm, starving and ready to keel over. Bryan was cool enough to hang around until after my class ended, and we walked down the street to go to Hop Woo, which had some sort of red egg and ginger ceremony going on. They assured us there was seating in the back, and we were lead to a tiny table underneath a flatscreen playing a basketball game. I wasn't going to complain too much though, I was starving!

Our first order was honey walnut shrimp. The shrimp they used were jumbo sized, so they had a lot of meat to them, and they were PERFECTLY fried. Not too much mayo either. The candied walnuts were great too. A well done version of this dish, I hope to have it again soon.

Dry flat beef noodles, a favorite of my brothers' (me too!). This was also a very good version, good "wok hay", noodles were noodley tasty, nice and coated with the XO-soy sauce, and the beef was nice and tender. Good amount of sprouts, too. Delicious.

Because I was craving something super comforting, I ordered a hot pot - beef and turnip stew. The rich gravy kept me going back for more. The turnips were soft to bite into, and slightly sweet tasting. The tendons of the beef were the best part of this hotpot - cooked down, they had soaked up all of the flavors of the sauce. The texture of the tendons were like savory jello...that doesn't SOUND good but it sure tastes good.

I was pleasantly content with the place, even though they had a huge banquet going on, they were fairly prompt and the food was great. If I'm back in Alhambra again I want to come back!

Hop Woo
1 W. Main St. (Garfield Ave.)
Alhambra, CA 91801
626-289-7938

Kings Head Pub and Restaurant (Part 2)

2009-01-30T12:30:00.000-08:00

Whenever I think "Fish and chips", I first think about some of the fish and chips I had in England. And then I think of the fish and chips from King's Head in Santa Monica. Daphne and I headed there one night, before going to my friend Annette's show (Random Ninjas rule, by the way!) I was ready to try something new tonight though...and that new thing was this:

...a scotch egg! I had only read about these, and was determined to try one that night. I was not disappointed, it was a really filling appetizer. The boiled egg was perfectly boiled, not a hint of grey around the yolk, and super creamy. The sausage that was wrapped around it was nicely seasoned, not spicy at all, and almost melted in my mouth upon trying a piece. The breading was not greasy, and the gravy went perfectly with this. What an amazing food invention, the British think of everything!

Daphne got the special of the night, corned beef and cabbage,(in this picture, the cabbage is hidden underneath the mound of corned beef and gravy) which also came with a side of veggies. This place does gravy extremely well, I wanted to mention. This dish also came with...

...randomly, some raisin bread. I tried some of the corned beef, very nice and tender. Corned beef is one of my favorite meats, but after having the scotch egg, I was already pretty full.

And this is the king size order of the fish and chips at King's Head. Daphne and I split this, as all the fried stuff was starting to get to me (and my arteries). This was excellent as always, the fish itself was tender and flaky, and not mushy. The batter was crispy, light, and flavorful. Love these fish and chips!

I also love the atmosphere here as well, and the waitresses are actually British and it adds to the whole English feeling in there. I'll be back!

King's Head
132 Santa Monica Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 451-1402
www.yeoldekingshead.com

Chicago for Ribs

2009-01-19T22:47:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to tone down some of the spending recently, as times are tough, and one of my methods to save some cash is to buy gift certificates from restaurant.com to restaurants around my area. They were having a killer deal on gift certificates during the holiday season (80% off their regular prices...I think I paid maybe 2 dollars for each 25 dollar gift certificate), so I bought a bunch of them, in the hopes I will use them to get some deals. It might not be the most frugal thing I've done but at the same time, I gotta have some vices in my life right?

Well anyways, I used a gift certificate the other day to go to Chicago for Ribs, which I had only been to a long time ago (during college, this place was down the street from us.) It's a chain, which I usually stay away from, but desperate financial times call for desperate measures!! Bryan and I went here for a lunch, while he had jury duty. Seated in a booth, I had to get my usual drink...

...an arnold palmer. The glass screamed out the logo for Chicago for Ribs, I guess it's justifiable, since we're eating there. A decent arnold palmer.

Bryan got the cheeseburger, well done (his usual lunch order at a place like this.) It came with waffle fries, coleslaw, and a wedge of pickle. He managed to finish this (it was like a mission, the determination was in his eyes!), no small feat because this burger was I think a full half of a pound before cooking. I particularly like the waffle fries here, but then again, I just generally like waffle fries. I'm sure the burger was decent, again, Bryan didn't leave a bit of burger at all.

Here's some cornbread that came with my meal. I didn't really eat it, as I'm not really the biggest cornbread fan, so I took it home and it got stuck in the back of the fridge, and by the time I unearthed it, it was a pale, mummified and hard as a rock. Sorry poor cornbread, for your untimely waste.

I got the chicken fingers plate, with waffle fries and baked potato. I know, heavy on the carbs, but I only ate half of this meal, as I was feeling a little too full from some soup I had earlier in the day. The waffle fries - again, awesome. The amount of chicken on this plate was way more than I was expecting, so that was nice. A few dipping sauces came along with this - ranch and bbq, and I asked for some honey mustard, which they were really cool about. If I'm going to eat like a kid, I might as well have some fun with it, right? I was getting flashbacks of grade school, dipping my chicken nuggets in all those sauces, which was fun! The baked potato was alright, just a baked potato.

So another chain restaurant under my belt, and really, not so bad. I mean, you probably still won't see me at an Applebees' (will. not. go.) but for a quick lunch with no fuss, I'd go again.

Chicago for Ribs
8311 Lincoln Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90045
(310) 670-7427

www.chicagoforribs.com

Wako Restaurant

2009-01-13T19:32:00.000-08:00

I met up with a few friends at Wako, at Ray and Kue's recommendation. I got there a bit early, so I wandered around a bit. The plaza that this place is in is directly transported from Korea - I was blown away at the arcade, where I really felt I was back in Hong Kong, when I visited there with my family long ago - they even had seats at the arcade terminals, so you could be comfortable while you kicked someones' ass at Street Fighter! Anyways, back to Wako...

The place was pretty well lit, and service was friendly and quick. We were seated and gave our orders - their signature dish - and were instantly given these bowls with sesame seeds at the bottom..

A mortar and pestle set, which we then used to crush all the sesame seeds while we talked. It was kinda fun, just absentmindedly mashing the seeds, and it gave off a nice aroma. Once we were done, our waiter came around and poured a very GENEROUS amount of donkatsu sauce over the crushed seeds. And then he brought this plate out...

A tray of awesomeness! My pork cutlet donkatsu, fried to perfection, conveniently pre-sliced so I don't have to bother with a knife. The little metal mesh that the donkatsu sits on is crucial to the secret of keeping the fried pork crispy, as the bottom of the cutlet doesn't get soggy if it's slightly off the plate. Ingenious! The salad is quite simple, shredded cabbage with a bit of dressing, I wasn't wowed by this dressing but it wasn't horrible. Side dishes include a bowl or white rice, a bowl of miso soup, and some kimchi-ed radish bites. I really like the combination of kimchi to this dish, it added some needed spice and heat.

This was a delicious choice. However, the only cruddy thing is the parking - it's a minimal fee valet situation in the parking lot with validation, but they were extremely slow and quite...angry. Someone got so fed up they angrily grabbed their own keys while the parking attendant owner was telling him off...I dunno, I'd say if you can score street parking it might be suggested but maybe it's just because I was there on a really busy night.

Wako Donkatsu Restaurant
3377 Wilshire Blvd
Ste 112
Los Angeles, CA 90010
(213) 381-9256

Niko Niko Sushi Restaurant

2009-01-13T02:51:00.000-08:00

Yes, I've been horrible, I'm STILL catching up on my posts from the holidays. But here's a quick one for everyone. I met up with the future in-laws for a pre Thanksgiving sushi meal at Niko Niko Sushi Restaurant. Parking is a bit tight here, as they share a parking lot with Winchells' Donuts (I think), but we managed to get a spot.

Service was quick, and we ordered a bunch of rolls...get ready for the amazing spread that was presented before us...

Dude. That's a pretty handsome looking variety of rolls. Trying my best to remember what was on this platter...starting from lower left, going clockwise - yellowtail sushi, salmon sushi, albacore sushi, california roll handroll, california rolls, tempura shrimp roll (times 2!), spicy salmon rolls and spicy tuna rolls. Whew! That's a lotta sushi - we didn't even finish it all, and we had Owen's brother with us (he's in high school, so he has that voracious high school appetite still!) Everything was pretty tasty, so I was impressed. I don't think the prices were too horrible either, so I think I will be back.

Niko Niko Sushi Restaurant
10839 National Blvd
Los Angeles, CA

Grace Restaurant - Appetite Stimulus Dinner

2009-01-13T02:34:00.000-08:00

The other Appetite Stimulus meal that I had through Open Table had to be somewhere where I wanted to go for a long time, and so I chose Grace Restaurant. I was really jazzed to be able to go to a restaurant I knew would normally cost me an arm and a leg...the appetite stimulus price was still a bit more than I'd like to pay for a usual meal out, but to have the chance to eat here! Whoo! Anyways, enough griping about my food budget (which is pitiful nowadays!)...let's get on with the post!

The restaurant had accidentally canceled my appointment right before I was about to leave the house...I frantically called them back and said, YES I'M GOING TO BE THERE please do not deny me a seat OMG...! They brusquely apologized and reinstated my reservation...whew...! Upon arrival, they even made light of the situation, mentioning that yes, in fact I WAS there, heh.

The place itself had very dim lighting, which is not really my preference in lighting schemes (I like seeing my food, maybe not in blaring fluorescent lights or anything, but maybe a little more lighting would have been nice), and we luckily had a table instead of being seated along the half booth, half chair side of the wall. The other patrons there looked rather cramped and sitting very close to one another. Sometimes I like that, but I didn't feel too chatty that night. I was there for the food, and ready to chow down...

A very nice glass vase full of water (still) was set at our table, so we could easily refill our water glasses when we so chose. Props to the nice choice of glassware - I love the shape of this carafe. I also got an iced tea, as they did not have lemonade to make arnold palmer. Owen got the wine pairing, but I neglected to take pictures of that, as it was...wine in wine glasses. But I'll discuss what he had, from what I remember...

The appetizers started coming. I can't resist any kind of salmon, especially if it's a raw or smoked kind. And when I saw this on the menu, I absolutely had to order it - House Cured Salmon, which consisted of roasted beets, heirloom tomatoes, horseradish crème fraiche, and of course, the house cured salmon. The creme fraiche added a nice contrast to the flavors of the salmon and tomatoes. I usually don't care for beets but these were done very well, and didn't mind them. I also noted the nice use of microgreens on top- very pretty!

Owen got the Fall Squash Soup, with a topping of duck confit and pistachios. The wine that came with this soup was a glass of 2005 Silvaner “Trocken,” Wittmann, Rheinhessen, Germany. Owen really loved the this course, everything worked really well together. The texture of the soup was beautiful, the duck was the salty that the slightly sweet soup needed. I even think I liked this more than my salmon dish - and I love salmon, so that's saying something. The wine was very well matched to this soup (says Owen).

Owen's choice was Oven Roasted Leg of Colorado Lamb, with Byaldi confit, and olive infused lamb jus. I knew he'd order this one, whenever he sees lamb on a menu he'll usually go for it. The lamb was super moist and cooked perfectly. The taste that I had was excellent. The au jus that came with it was the perfect accompaniment, as were the very thinly mandolin-sliced veggies. The wine, however, Owen did not like as much as the first one that came with the soup:
2003 Madiran “Vielles Vignes,” Château Peyros Southwestern France.

The beef dish (I forget the exact name of the dish!), an additional 10 dollars add on to the appetite stimulus meal but worth it. Cheese and onions were melted over the top of really succulent beef (very small amount though, a few more bites would have been perfect!) The green beans were good too. I wiped this plate clean.

A blown out photo of Owen's cappuccino, which was a pretty sight - love the way the foam curls like a cartoon version of fresh snow. I'm sure it was good, but I don't really like foam too much. My loss, I know.

Dessert! Owen's choice was obvious to me, right when I saw it on the menu: Boca Negra Cake Affogato - dark chocolate cake, vanilla malt ice cream, espresso, brandied orange slice. Chocolate PLUS espresso? That's melding two things Owen loves dearly. However, he could not finish this, as it was way too rich. The one tiny bite I had overwhelmed me with flavors - I personally like more subtle flavors, so this wasn't for me. The wine that went with this was a
2005 Banyuls Rimage, Les Clos de Paulilles, Languedoc, France. Owen did not finish his glass. He was way too full at this point.

I went with the Apple Upside Down Bread Pudding - buttermilk ice cream, apple cider syrup, cranberries, brown sugar walnuts. The carmelization on the top of the pudding stuck to my teeth immediately, so I was concentrating on trying to dislodge the stuck caramel from my poor molars after the first bite. Also - maybe it was a bit TOO tart for me...I don't think I'd order this again if I had the choice, maybe a simple sorbet or ice cream would have done the trick.

I would love to revisit this restaurant, perhaps for one of those burger nights on Sunday I saw advertised on their website...anyone interested in joining me for a Grace burger night?

Grace Restaurant
www.gracerestaurant.com
7360 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 934-4400

Panera Bread

2009-01-08T13:21:00.000-08:00

For a quick lunch fix before making a major grocery shopping run at Trader Joe's (I heart Trader Joe's so much, but going grocery shopping while you're hungry is probably the worst thing you can do - and especially in a place that has some of the best frozen food I've ever had), I usually stop into Panera Bread, located right next door. There's usually a ton of people here during the day, typing away on their laptops - I guess free wi-fi is just that awesome (well, it IS pretty awesome, heh.)

This is a standard order at the register, and pick up yourself kind of place. And this is what I usually order:

A "You pick two" combo - A half sandwich, Bacon Turkey Bravo, on focaccia, and a bowl of broccoli cheddar soup. You get a choice of a side, and I usually pick the whole wheat grain baguette. This is a filling meal - their sandwiches are usually something I can only eat half of anyways. The bread in the sandwich is fresh, the turkey is pretty tasty. The soup is pretty comforting. The cheese flavor is pretty nice, and has a lot of broccoli florets and shredded carrots running through it, which adds pleasant texture.

All the bread here seems to be baked fresh here daily. I've always had a decent and satisfying meal here. It's probably one of my top fast service food places to go to.

Panera Bread
8647 South Sepulveda Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90045
(310) 641-9200

Akasha Appetite Stimulus lunch

2008-12-28T01:30:00.000-08:00

Once I heard about this Appetite Stimulus promotion that Open Table was offering, I was determined to take advantage of it by going to a few restaurants that I've been dying to go to for ages. Akasha was on that list, because I had seen it go from abandoned boarded up retail space for sale to a modern classy looking restaurant. Amber insisted it was some good eats so I was definitely IN, and convinced her to join me for lunch. Good company always makes lunch better!

Once we got there, there was a major line to get seated - the restaurant had enough spaces, but the hostess was lagging. Isn't she supposed to stay there, and someone else leads patrons to their tables so the front is never abandoned? I thought that was a bit odd. We finally got led to our seats, and was presented with the Appetite Stimulus lunch menu.
Three courses, 24 dollars total. Seems like a pretty good deal, considering their regular menu is quite expensive! For instance...

...We each got an arnold palmer, which was quite expensive for its' own good, but still very tasty. I think they used some special iced tea or something, however, I don't think it constitutes such a high price for one glass, no refills. Ah well.

Amber and I both chose the canneleni bean hummus, truffle salt, flatbread and carmelized onions. Embedded in the hummus, was some really flavorful olives, however, the hummus had a huge deficiency in salt. It REALLY needed more salt, it was quite bland. The flatbread and carmelized onions were excellent, I really enjoyed those. Amber had quite a time trying to pick off all the onions though (she dislikes onions - yes, she's nuts :)) but I think they were great. I was actually pretty full after eating this (all those beans.)

Amber chose the grilled shrimp salad - local greens, pistachios, yogurt chutney dressing. Amber asked for them to hold off on the pickled onions that would have come with the salad. The shrimp was quite tasty, and what made this dish was the smattering of pistachios in the salad. The dressing was very good, not too heavy even though it was creamy (I attribute this to the yogurt). Amber admitted it was quite filling, and she was surprised she finished all of it.

I chose the grilled steak salad - bibb lettuce, pickled red onions, gorgonzola, tarragon mustard vinagrette. The grilled steak deliciously tasted like a Hong Kong style beef jerky! I know that can be construed as an insult, but believe me, it's not at all. The marinade they used was quite sweet, the taste was a great combo of savory and sweet. The salad itself was studded with gorgonzola bits, which I loved, and everything was quite enjoyable all together. I was quite satisfied with the size of the salad and maybe I should give it another shot as a regular thing I should order at restaurants...well, maybe.

Dessert time! Amber got a slice of apple pie. The bite I sneaked was very tasty, and I almost wished I had gotten the apple pie instead, if solely for the virtue of having some vanilla ice cream, which looked very appealing to me at the time. Instead, I had gotten...

...the pumpkin pie slice, with a dollop of freshly whipped cream. This was pretty good in its' own right though, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. The fresh whipped cream was a nice touch, the spices very spot on, the crust was really good. I saved exactly half of this pie for Owen who majorly appreciated it.

I think I'll be back here to try their burger, and also to maybe try some of their other appetizers. I like the interiors of this place a lot, but I think some of their service issues were a bit odd, as this place has been open for awhile, and their drinks a bit overpriced for what you get. I am still willing to overlook that for the superior quality of their food.

Akasha Restaurant
www.akasharestaurant.com
9543 Culver Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232
(310) 845-1700

Take a Bao

2008-12-13T01:43:00.000-08:00

I had heard there was a bit of a buzz around the new food court restaurant in the Century City Westfield mall, Take a Bao, mostly good but some not so good. I was super skeptical because most fusion asian food places just disappoint me, and taste like Panda Express lite. Hey, I know everyone breaks down and gets a Panda craving every so often, but it's a case of lowered expectations - I walk through the doors of a Panda Express (not recently, believe me), and I already know I'm dooming myself to a rock in my stomach and a frown on my face...anyway, that's not THIS review, maybe another time when I want to torture myself!

So Take a Bao! It had been under construction for ages, and I admit it looks like they did a good job. Everything is nice, clean and new, the kitchen is exposed and the cooks were quickly cooking up orders as they were being taken. We placed our orders, I remember Owen getting a really tasty iced tea (I think their coffee and tea supply were from LAMILL, one day I will head there, I have been hearing some really great stuff about that place), and their buzzer that indicated that our food was ready had a really cute slogan on it - "Take a seat"...I think it said. It buzzed and we balanced the trays to our table. Maybe I should have gotten the baos, the namesake of the restaurant, but baos hold a special place in my heart, and I decided to go with...

...here's the Chinese Chicken Salad. This was surprisingly really tasty. The thing that made it was the light dressing, which wasn't too sweet and gave the right amount of tang to the greenery. The chicken was a bit bland, but with a bit of the dressing, it was miraculously saved. Magical dressing, perhaps?! Iceberg is something I avoid usually, but is perfect for Chinese Chicken salad. I kept catching myself picking up more and more of the salad. I'd get this again if I was feeling in a salad-y mood (a rare occurence, but sometimes it happens!)

I had a weird craving for some chicken noodles, so that's what I ordered. What a mistake. The taste was so bland and the sauce here was the exact opposite of the Chinese chicken salad - it was thick, weird tasting and didn't really add the necessary flavor to the dish. The noodles were a lo mein type noodle, okay but again blander than heck. I know it was part of the presentation, but to have to mix the noodles myself were a bit tasking - the noodles were long and the sauce (the only source of unappealing flavor) was sitting on top of the noodles but below the toppings, so it was hard to coat everything. I would definitely not order this again.

Next time, I will muster up enough indifference to get the baos. Maybe I can get over my extreme caution and finally take the dang bao.

Take a Bao
10250 Santa Monica Blvd Los Angeles ca 90067
phone 310 551 1100
http://www.takeabao.com/

Oyako Japanese Restaurant

2008-12-06T23:58:00.000-08:00

I met up with Owen for lunch not too long ago near his workplace in Venice. He had mentioned a Japanese place where he enjoyed a lunch bento box, so we headed there. It ended up being a place called Oyako. The interior was pretty cute, the seats were little cubed ottomans (although, a few of them were a bit stained, which was a bit...gross...) and had a laid back vibe (as most places seem to have in Venice.) On to the food!
An arnold palmer, my usual drink of choice. They used a different kind of tea, one with more flowery notes in it, so the taste was really nice and refreshing.

Miso soup, it was okay, nothing special but I don't remember too much tofu in it, which was unfortunate. I prefer more tofu and seaweed, personally, but I think as long as the miso isn't too salty, it's passable.

The main event - the lunch bento box - I chose teriyaki salmon. It came with a choice of 2 pieces of california rolls or 2 pieces of spicy tuna rolls (I chose spicy tuna), shrimp and vegetable tempura, salad and rice. The salmon was good, the teriyaki was rich and sticky, but tasted right. The tempura was freshly fried, but I've had better tempura battered things. The shrimp in particular was a bit weird, it was only half a piece of shrimp instead of what I'm usually used to, which is the whole shrimp fried with the tail. I think mine was just a fluke though, as Owen had a proper full shrimp piece. The spicy tuna was good. This didn't seem like a lot of food but in the end, I was really full.

The place is pretty good, nice for a little lunch spot but I admit I've had better and more satisfying lunch bentos, not to mention cheaper, but I am paying for the ambience and location. I'd go back to try their sushi rolls, but I wouldn't necessarily make a trip out to Venice/Santa Monica just for this place.

Oyako
2915 Main St
Santa Monica, CA 90405
(310) 581-3525

Sushi King

2008-12-01T01:33:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks back, Daphne wanted to show me the awesomeness which was Sushi King (she has had nothing but good things to say about this place), and so Owen and I met up with her there. The place is small, bustling, darkly lit and busy, but I suspected it would be on a Friday night. We managed to get a very squished table for three (more like for 2, but we squeezed in.) A quick glance at the menu, and with a few suggestions from Daph, food started to arrive at the table...

Sea Bass Misoyaki, one of the house specials that Daphne ordered. This is one of her favorites. I tried a bite and it really was good, the sauce was really tasty and it was not overcooked. I think it's a bit pricey for the amount you get but it might still be worth it for the flavor and preparation.

Owen and I ordered 2 sushis to start - salmon and I think, albacore. I'm not exactly sure that was albacore. Both were excellent though. Soft, tasty and creamy.

Another starter - spicy tuna tempura. It was basically a flat pressed amount of spicy tuna, run through batter and quickly fried. Almost anything fried is delicious, so this was no exception. I don't know that I would necessarily order this again (as there were many other things on the menu that were intriguing to me) but it was a solid starter.

Owen and I shared an order of a sushi set - from the top clockwise: tuna, whitefish, salmon, yellowtail, cut rolls were cucumber and tuna, makarel, shrimp, octopus and tamago. Everything was pretty tasty - we shared each piece, and it really was good, each piece was solid. (sorry about the bluriness of the photo, it was dark and I didn't want to bother any of the other diners with the flash of the camera).

We also ordered a rainbow roll, which was really good, great to try all the different kinds of fish. The California roll that all the fresh fish sat upon was fresh, and the crab inside was tasty. We made quick work of this roll.

Daph suggested for us to try the yellowtail, so we asked for 3 more, one for each of us. It really was amazing, a big succulent bite of fish. Melted in your mouth, just something special.

I think that Sushi King was a good middle of the road place that has really good quality fish. I know there are better places around, but in this price range (about 40 each, and we were stuffed) it was one of the better sit down Japanese restaurants I've been to in awhile.

Sushi King
1330 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90403-5411
Phone: (310) 395-0120

Empress Pavillion

2008-11-27T22:26:00.000-08:00

One of my relatives was in town, so I took her and her daughter (well, she's about one year old, so I mean she was taken out but didn't really eat very much) out for Dim Sum, and the most convenient place I know of is always Empress Pavilion, mainly for their easy parking situation (Empress is located in Bamboo Plaza, and has tons of parking in their structure.) I know that I have to get there super early (usually, I leave my place around 9am to get there by 10am, around 11:30am it's completely packed and the wait time swells to around 30-40 minutes). This place is popular! Mainly I think it's because they stop dim sum service around 1pm so it's always a rush to get there on time.

This is a traditional dim sum place, ladies with huge dangerous steaming carts, showing their wares as they wheel on by. I usually get a few staples that I must get when I go to dim sum...

Hargao, or shrimp crystal dumplings, are the number one thing I always look for when going to dimsum. My grandpa judges these by the thickness of their skin (the more see through and thin the skin is, the better the dumpling), and these are pretty decent. I love dipping these in hot mustard before biting them in half. They're definitely best when they're fresh (most things are, aren't they?)

Next up, in the foreground, fung gyiao (phoenix legs, or better known as chicken feet), and in the background, siu mai dumplings. I don't always get chicken feet but they're alright, the chewing around the bones is almost fun. The sauce is pretty good this dish, although one of the pieces that I had, still had a claw they hadn't clipped off yet. Kinda..ew. Siu mai awas good, as usual, meaty and succulent. Again, they're really good after a dip in some hot mustard.

Last up, some dessert - egg tarts, which are usually my favorite, and cha-siu bao,(pork buns) the steamed kind. These egg tarts were way lame - the egg mixture had been way too overcooked, so the texture wasn't right. And it tasted just...off. Plus, as a super special surprise, as I lifted my egg tart to my mouth, I noticed there was a huge gnarly hair sitting underneat my tart. Awesome! Ah, well, such is restaurant eating. The Pork buns were ordered mostly for my little cousin, who ate little bits of it dipped in the chicken feet sauce (she loved it!)

I usually head here for dim sum but I admit this was one of the less awesome trips I've had. I was completely stuffed afterwards though, it was mostly just to two of us eating so we didn't get as many dishes as I'd get if we had more people with us. However, it was relaxing and we weren't rushed or anything, so that was nice.

By the way, Happy thanksgiving! I know this is a very un-Thanksgivingish post, but there you have it :)

Empress Pavilion
988 N Hill St (in Bamboo Plaza)
Ste 201
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 617-9898
http://www.empresspavilion.com/

Kabuki Japanese Restaurant

2008-11-23T01:18:00.000-08:00

Julian and I met up for a lunch, because we both had the day off (me for an indefinite amount of time, him for just the day). We met up at Howard Hughes Center, so we could catch a movie afterwards (RocknRolla - you've seen one Guy Ritchie movie, you've seen 'em all). We love sushi so we went to Kabuki, the only place at Howard Hughes Center that has it. More sushi posts, I know! I think I need a sushi line directly IVed into my bloodstream...

I started off with an arnold palmer, with green tea instead of regular tea. This was pretty tasty and was refilled once, so I was happy. Love the color on green tea...so pleasant!

Complimentary edaname was brought to the table, also with an extra bowl so we could discard the edaname shells. It's edaname..hard to mess up.

We each got a bowl of miso soup to start, nice and warm, and not too salty. Fresh green onion and tofu and seaweed permeated this soup. One of the better miso soups I've had recently.

Now to the main event. We ordered a number of rolls to share - from the closest roll to the end - BCD Roll, Baked Scallop Roll, and Spicy Tuna roll. All of these were quite tasty and very fresh. The BCD roll had a mixture of veggies like shredded carrots and crabmeat, it was good but probably my least favorite of the bunch. The Baked Scallop roll was basically a California Roll, but had scallops on top. The scallops were a bit addicting - they weren't overcooked and had a good bite. Even the California rolls they were atop of were solid, with real crabmeat, or at least a close proximity to that. The spicy tuna was great, really tasty.

This is an order of the Kabuki Omakase Deluxe lunch. There were more cut spicy tuna rolls, and from the left - shrimp, albacore, tuna belly (?), salmon and tuna. Again, spicy tuna was solid, and I remember having the tuna and shrimp. They were okay, not melt in your mouth, but decent quality.

We wanted to try out one more cut roll, so we ordered the tempura roll, which was basically a california roll dipped in tempura batter and then deep fried. I was disappointed with this one, as it was a bit cold, and obviously deep fried earlier in the day, so the fried bits were not fresh. What's the point of deep frying a california roll if it isn't even fresh??

Overall, the lunch was pleasant and good company always makes food better. Kabuki is not my favorite sushi place, but service was quick and the sushi was overall good. I'll probably be back here again.

Kabuki Japanese Restaurant
6081 Center Dr
Ste 203
Los Angeles, CA 90045
(310) 641-5524

www.kabukirestaurants.com

Bobbi's Coffee Shop

2008-11-17T09:00:00.000-08:00

Back in San Jose for Judy's wedding, and stopped off for breakfast at Bobbi's Coffee shop with a few friends before heading back. Brian had never been here before! I couldn't believe it. This place has quite a soft spot in my heart, sometimes we'd come here before late date days at school. It was worth getting up early for this.

The place is pretty small, and you seat yourself. The booths are covered in old pleather (real? I dunno), the chairs are those old chairs that you see in old bingo halls. The menus are laminated, and the prices are super reasonable. A waitress asks who wants coffee...I opted out that morning, but a few of us wanted it. I chose orange juice. We made our orders and the food started piling in...

Owen got a pancake combo, that came with 2 pancakes, 1 egg over easy, 2 sausages and that's pretty much it. It doesn't seem like much but it was pretty filling - pancakes expand in your tummy! He liked these a lot.

Jay ordered a linguica special - 3 halves of linguica sausage, criss-cross cut and grilled, with 2 eggs over easy, hash browns and wheat toast. A moment to chat about the hash browns - these are the hash browns of my dreams. Every hash brown I have had, or ever had, must be compared to these hash browns from Bobbi's. They are seriously good, crunchy, crispy, potato-y, with a shot of ketchup these are a piece of heaven.

This is my plate of corned beef hash - corned beef hash, hash browns, poached eggs, rye bread toast. Kind of a carb fest, but I so rarely get to come here, so I went all out. This is like the perfect breakfast. Perfectly poached eggs, nice and runny, superb hash browns of course, corned beef hash that wasn't too salty, and rye bread, already buttered. I can think of nothing better.

Brian got something different than he usually gets "just for fun" (Brian's catchphrase when he orders something different) - biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs and fruit instead of hash browns. The gravy is a sausage gravy, and it's not too salty either. This seems like a small amount of food, but once you started eating it, it was so rich and filling. Brian only ate most of one of the biscuits, and kept encouraging the rest of us to eat it. (he always does this - his enemy is carbs!) It was pretty tasty but I don't think I would order this myself. I only like biscuits and gravy a small percentage of how much I like corned beef hash.

Bobbi's is an institution to me. I hope it never closes.

Bobbi's Coffee Shop
1361 S De Anza Blvd
Cupertino, CA 95014
(408) 257-4040

Orange Sponge!

2008-11-15T10:00:00.000-08:00

Okay, this only slightly has to do with food, but I could not resist...check out how cute this sponge is...

It's an ORANGE SPONGE. Orange. As a sponge. Happy and smiling. I am doing my best to not use it and gunk it up with food bits and stuff, but it IS still a sponge. It still makes me smile though...how could you not??
This was spotted, and immediately bought, at the Bargain store on Sawtelle - I don't know what it's called but it's next to Volcano Tea on Sawtelle and Olympic.

Ma Dang Gook Soo

2008-11-14T09:00:00.000-08:00

We had lunchtime adventure in Koreatown the other day, and I got to try Sul Lung Tang for the first time. Kurt wasn't feeling so well, and sul lung tang is his version of chicken noodle soup. Ma Dang Gook Soo doesn't have any english signs in the front - is that a good sign?

Ordering was a bit difficult, I didn't really know what to order, so I just got the most popular thing according to Ray and Kurt. This is the stuff sitting at the table...

Spicy paste, a huge bowl of salt, spicy seasonings, and special pink salt from Australia. I think they expect you to use a bunch of salt here.

A pitcher of barley tea was set down for the table, and poured into these cool metal cups. I like that the pitcher had a faded picture of Snoopy on it - Snoopy rules! This tea was nice and refreshing.

Now here's my bowl of sul lung tang. The flavor was very light, it actually tastes a lot like many other Chinese soups I've had in the past. Adding salt was definitely necessary. Rice noodles floated around the soup, which were light and slurpable. I added a ton of...

...green onion to the soup as well. It added a nice texture and flavor to the mild soup.

Here's a close up of the huge bowl of salt, and in the backgroun, kimchi of two kinds - cabbage style and radish style. Both were good and had that nice tingle when it hit the tongue, from fermentation. We got refills of this...I think twice.

Kurt got the hotter kimichi style of noodles. This stuff was super spicy, I tried a small taste and my whole mouth was on fire. He finished this and was whole face was sweating. I think this would burn a whole in my stomach, and even I have a pretty big tolerance to spicy!

All in all, cute place that has a very mom and pop type feeling to it. Not my favorite kind of Korean food but maybe I'll have it again when I'm feeling under the weather.

Ma Dang Gook Soo
869 S Western Ave
Ste 1
Los Angeles, CA 90005
(213) 487-6008

Din Tai Fung - Post 2, another visit

2008-11-13T18:33:00.000-08:00

I think one of my favorite comfort foods is dumplings. They're just so perfect - the right amount of wrapper and meat filling, steamed, boiled and in soup, panfried, fried, just so many ways to enjoy a dumpling. And so many kinds! Different fillings, different ways to enjoy them. There's no limits to where you can take a dumpling. One evening, I was craving them bad, as were some of my (ex)coworkers, Ray and Kurt. So we took the trek to enjoy them at the mecca of soup dumpling establishments, Din Tai Fung.

I've been here before (post is here) but hadn't enjoyed this place in awhile, and thought it deserved another post. This time around, I noticed that Din Tai Fung had renovated a bit and had a little more room - I guess they had taken over the space next door, so there were fresh new booths in the back and a surprisingly nice and modern bathroom.

There was a crowd outside the door, as always, when we arrived. I was expecting a gnarly wait time (30 minutes and above, my guesstimation) but the hostess said we would have a ZERO wait time if we decided to share a table with another group. Heck yeah! We were seated immediately at a big table, already being half occupied by 3 other diners. Admittedly, this is not the optimal dining experience, as we don't know these other diners yet are in this small space with them, but for a zero wait time, we were all willing to compromise.

The menu is also the tally for which the wait staff tear off a copy, and use to keep track of what to bring to the table. We made a bunch of choices and soon food started arriving at the table...

The traditional xiao long bao - pork soup dumplings. I noticed one of them had already burst, spilling out its' precious guts all over itself. Sad! But it was still tasty! Ha! You know the drill - carefully lift dumpling into soup spoon, dress it up with some soy sauce, vinegar and thinly sliced ginger threads, bite at the top, slurp out the soup, then devour whole dumpling. The process of eating is even fun, and the taste is just killer - savory, thin skins, porky innard goodness.

One does not live on dumplings alone (although I probably could!) We also ordered some noodles, I think they were with pork pieces. The noodles themselves were pretty good, I don't usually prefer this noodles style (lo mein) but at a place that makes their own dumpling skins, I guess it was good to take a chance on these. The veggies that accompanied the noodles balanced out the soy sauce flavor. Kurt really liked these noodles a lot.

We gotta have some veggies too, right? Ray suggested we get some veggies, and we had a choice of spinach or chinese broccoli. Ray chose spinach, and I commend him, it was a great pick. The veggies had a great flavor to them - lots of garlic - just really tasty.

More dumplings! These were crab and pork, I think. Solid and good as the other dumplings, though I prefer the ones with with soup in them, from here.

To round out our carbs, we got pork chop fried rice. The pork chop was a little dried out, but I thought it was still edible. The rice was nice and fluffy. This was really good with the aforementioned cooked spinach.

This place is always hopping, but I'm glad we got to skip the wait time this time around. I will be back, I'm sure.

Sushi Kushi Imai

2008-11-13T09:00:00.000-08:00

More sushi posts? I guess I've been on a sushi kick recently, or have been just really lazy about getting around to posting about sushi joints. Seriously though, if someone told me I had to choose one food type to have for the rest of my life - I think I would choose sushi (before dying of sweet sweet mercury overdose.) Sushi Kushi Imai was within walking distance of my former company (weird to say that, I got laid off recently so it is now my "former" company instead of my "current place of employment"...but I digress), so we would frequent there because of their decent sushi and lunch specials.

The place is usually always hopping with people during lunch, and sometimes the service can get a little slow (especially when the check is supposed to come.) But it didn't deter me too much, again, their specials were hard to beat.

Every lunch special comes with miso soup, every time I went there it was always too salty but I always gulped it down without too much complaint.

A bowl of rice is set down before actually getting your combo plate, for some reason. I am always tempted, at this point, to start eating the rice out of hunger. But I do my best to hold myself back because I know what's coming...

...the combo lunch. My choice that day was kushi and sushi, just like the name of the restaurant, conveniently. The kushi (skewers) are chef's choice, that day was fish, okra and chicken. Pretty tasty, especially if you dip it in a special kushi sauce they have - a mayo based sauce. For the sushi, I got spicy tuna roll. Solid showing of spicy tuna. A mixed green salad comes with the lunch, as does some steamed veggies in ponzu sauce. It's a lot of food, and there's plenty of choices to tailor it to your liking - there's teriyaki of all kinds, handrolls, sashimi, tempura - you choose 2 for the lunch combination.

On another visit to Sushi Kushi, Stacey got the salmon bowl - the special of the month. It was coho salmon sashimi from Alaska, atop sushi rice. They were quite generous with the salmon sashimi so that was much appreciated, I'm sure.

This is a thing of beauty to look upon - this is the chirashi set, which also comes with the salad and miso soup. Generous cuts of sashimi, including tuna, salmon, albacore, a mound of spicy tuna, whitefish - all attractively displayed in a box, the bottom filled with sushi rice. This is a SERIOUS amount of fish, and the quality is pretty good too (I mean, yeah it's not like, Sushi Sasabune or anything, but for $11.80 for all this fish,it's way worth it!) Looking at it again makes me want to go tomorrow...

I've never gone for dinner, so I can't vouch for the prices then, but there's a happy hour from 5:30 pm to 7:30pm. Sounds good to me...!

Sushi Kushi Imai
8300 Wilshire Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
tel: 323.655.2253
http://www.sushiandkushiimai.com/

Sushi Kaiten Daichan

2008-11-12T21:00:00.000-08:00

Whenever we're craving sushi, at a reasonable price, we usually end up going to Kaiten Sushi Daichan. We've yet to find another place that's as quick, decent quality and with as friendly service as Kaiten! Kaiten means conveyor belt sushi, so this is what you usually see when you're seated at the counter...

Different sushi and cut rolls go by in front of you, and each plate is a different color, indicating how much it costs. The more pricier rolls are usually the more elaborate plates, or you can order directly from the sushi chef (usually, Chef Bruce! He's way cool and nice!) Anyways, these are a few cut rolls that we grabbed this one time we went...

Spicy tuna roll, delicious and fresh. The yellow plate indicates it's the cheapest price point plate, I forgot how much it is exactly but it's not too bad.

And California Rolls, just for the heck of it too.

Iced tea, I usually get green but this time I got regular. I love their big ice cubes, shaped like top hats. The waitstaff is always very quick with the refills.

Albacore sushi, always a treat.

These little fried seafood balls are always tasty. They're filled with mostly fish, and topped with a bit of roe and chopped green onion. Watch for these right as they go on the conveyor belt, they're great when they're super fresh.

Salmon sushi is always welcome in my book. Whenever Chef Bruce sets a few of these down, they're always gone in a flash.

I felt like getting some Tamago sushi, but Owen wasn't in the mood to have any so I got to have both! Yum.

We ordered this special roll directly from Chef Bruce. It's called a "Tuna Meet Ball" and it's one of Owen's favorites. A salad with tasty dressing is in the middle, and surrounding it, is a few cut roll pieces, the filling is fresh ripe avocado. Perched on top of each avocado roll is a "ball" of spicy tuna. The creaminess of the avocado is really rich but not overpowering, and the generous portion of spicy tuna is a kick in the mouth. This is delicious and we've ordered this a number of times already. A few other rolls we might get on other visits are the (unpictured) "My Roll", or "Your Roll"...funny names, great sushi.

When you're ready to go, Chef Bruce presents his "dessert" - some sort of cut fruit. This time it was plum, I've had orange and white peach other times. It depends on what season it is! This is seriously some good plum, very sweet. Chef Bruce knows how to pick them!

Again, it's so nice that we have a place to go to whenever we're craving sushi, and we can really go all out without worrying too much about how much the bill will end up being (if we go sparingly, we usually end up spending, oh, 20 dollars each maybe, but if we "go all out", it's never more than 30 dollars each). Hooray for Kaiten!

Kaiten Sushi Daichan

11301 Olympic Blvd
Ste 203
Los Angeles, CA 90064

(310) 914-5028

Sushi Kura

2008-11-12T12:15:00.000-08:00

Recently, I decided to try a place I hadn't tried in ages - since school, in fact. I wanted to try out Sushi Kura, which was a mainstay while I was at Otis, one of my favorite places to go, actually, for cheap Japanese sushi combos. A smiling old Japanese lady would take my order, rush behind a curtain, and present me with fresh, delicious nigiri, and maybe a side of tempura, perfectly fried. One day, while at my first job, I discovered that Sushi Kura was under new ownership - I walked in, and everything was different...gone were the simple old faded framed pictures of different kinds of sushi, it was decidedly dark inside and owned by a new family. Well, not one to judge immediately by the book of the cover, I ordered my usual, and it was...disgusting. Totally a disappointment, and I hadn't been back...until now.

I was going to give it a test run, maybe things got better and I could start going there again. I placed an order for pickup, and stopped by. The parking lot was bustling, and I managed to get one of the last spots in the lot. There's a lot of other little fast food places in the same lot, and it gets busy during the day. The decor of Sushi Kura was still cheesy, a far cry from the simplicity I remember. I hurriedly picked up my food and ran outta there... and opened up the takeout containers to reveal...

...one spicy tuna handroll. This wasn't too good. There was way too much roe - I mean, I like roe but isn't this a spicy tuna handroll? Tuna. Not roe. Yeah, it was edible but nothing special.

This mess was a teriyaki chicken bowl that I ordered. Not good at all. Way too big pieces of onion, the sauce was too gloppy, the chicken was just not my bag.

Unfortunately, it looks like I'm probably not going to come back here again. It's just a shadow of the awesome Sushi Kura I remember from my past.

Sushi Kura
5567 W Manchester Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90045
(310) 568-9800

Dynasty Chinese Restaurant

2008-11-10T15:26:00.000-08:00

Judy's bridal shower was at Dynasty Seafood restaurant, mainly because us bridesmaids were planning this on the fly, and wanted to choose somewhere where they'd have a private room. I tease about the name of this place, as I call it "Dy-NASTY", but it's actually okay, a bit more upscale than the usual Chinese restaurant. Anna had wanted to get dim sum, but it ended up being a banquet type meal, because we were required to spend a certain amount of money to have the private room. Ah, well, at least we get to grub on banquet food that I don't get to have very often...

First up was a cold appetizer platter with, starting from the right - seaweed salad, cold cut pork, jellyfish, another kind of cold sliced pork, and in the middle, little red squiddie things. Jellyfish is something I haven't had in ages, so it was a nice treat. Seaweed salad was good too.

Seafood soup was up next, or was it sharks' fin? Or fake shark's fin? Anyways, it was tasty and seafoody, with soft tofu and those Chinese button cap mushrooms from a can. Yum.

Everyone's favorite banquet food, Honey Walnut Shrimp. This was a pretty well done version of it, even though it looks drenched in mayo it was not too bad. I like the candied sesamed walnuts a lot too.

This tender beef dish was a surprising win, I usually don't like the way they make beef dishes in these Chinese banquets, but this was really delicious. With a bit of rice, this was amazing. I would order this again, for sure.

This combination veggie meat seafood dish contained sugar snap peas, thinly sliced white chicken breast meat, squid slices, carrot and mushroom slices, all cooked together in a light starchy sauce. Pretty standard banquet dish, decently done, the squid was nice and springy, and I like any form of sugar snap peas. Solid dish.

This dish was fried fish filets with spicy salt. Pretty tasty, I really liked the spicy salt on this one, and the fish filets were yummy and free of any bones. I guess you could call them Fish McNuggets, as they were cut into bite size pieces.

Chinese style Fried chicken, all chopped up and ready to be attacked by chopsticks. This was pretty good, actually one of the better fried chicken I've had in awhile, with nice and crispy skin, and moist chicken meat. Wish this was in front of me right now.

One of the more decadent dishes of the banquet was Lobster, chopped up and cooked Chinese style, with scallions and ginger. It was good but not very many people ate it, as at this point, we were all getting pretty full (there were only 8 of us, eating a banquet made for 10.) I ended up bringing home a bunch of this for my parents as leftovers, which I think they appreciated. Look at those little lobster eyes staring back at me as I eat it! I think that makes the lobster taste even better, haha...

A mountain of fried rice, with shrimp, charshu pork pieces, scallons and egg. Tasty, but again at this point, we were getting a bit too stuffed.

This is the cake that I had bought from La Patisserie, one of the best bakeries in the world, in my opinion. Their cakes are consistently moist, super tasty and classically pretty. My mom picked this one out - I think it was their Black Magic cake - Chocolate cake, truffle and chocolate chip fudge fillings, iced with fudge and ganache. Can there be any more chocolate on one cake?? This was super delicious, and I usually don't really like sweets. It's that good. Funny story about the personalization part - so I asked for them to write, "Happy Bridal Shower Judy" on it, and when the lady first did it, and showed it to me - it said, "Happy BRIDLE shower Judy" on it...and I had to ask her to redo it...and she had to ask someone else how to spell "Bridal". Nice!!

Anyway, I think everyone had a good time and enjoyed the food, and DyNasty was actually very good to us - but I don't think I could ever stop calling it DyNasty, it's just too much fun.

Dynasty Seafood Restaurant
10123 N Wolfe Rd
Cupertino, CA 95014
(408) 996-1680

TGI Fridays

2008-11-10T10:15:00.000-08:00

Jay, Owen and I went to do a bit of bowling at Strikes, (way trendy, it felt like we were supposed to dress up and then bowl) and decided to grab a quick bite to eat afterwards. Since almost nothing is open after 9pm in San Jose, Jay suggested we hit up TGI Fridays, which is open to the wee hours of the morning (I actually have no idea when they close.) We basically got an appetizer each and shared it 3 ways. Get ready to look at some horribly fattening food. Looking at it again, it makes me feel incredibly guilty...
Spinach Artichoke dip, with multicolored tortilla chips. This is a favorite of Owen's so he had to order it. Globby, cheesy, caloric, it's all there in one bowl.
One of Jay's favorite things in the world is Irish Nachos (nachos with fries instead of using tortilla chips), but I think second favorite is loaded potato skins. Baked potatoes, split in half and hollowed out a bit, then melty cheddar cheese and bacon bits are placed on top, and you top each potato with your desired amount of sour cream and chives. These are not for the faint of heart. Actually, after eating a few of these, it can grease the arteries of your heart for a lifetime.

My order was an order of nachos, which was unlike most "real" nachos I've had here in LA. Each wedge of nacho chip had its' own spread of refried beans, cheese and one jalepeno, with guacamole, salsa and sour cream in the middle of the plate to dip. Ugh. Too much cheese. Yes, that is possible. The chips got way soggy really quickly, too.

I think I'm still digesting this meal today. And this was almost a month and a half ago when I was actually there.

TGI Fridays, various locations worldwide, but I went to:
10343 North Wolfe Road
Cupertino, CA 95014
(408) 257-2050
www.fridays.com

Halu Ramen

2008-11-09T21:41:00.000-08:00

I met up with Judy and Anna for a quick bite to discuss Judy's upcoming wedding, and to quickly go over with Anna the next days' bridal shower plans. They suggested to meet up at Halu Ramen, which was supposedly pretty decent. I'm always down to try somewhere new in San Jose (back when I was living there, I thought Chili's was fine dining. Yeah. I've learned.).

Halu Ramen's interior was cute, but a bit cramped. Anna was saving us a table by the time we got there so we didn't have to wait any - sweet!
I ordered a strawberry Ramune "marble soda". I don't think I've had one of these since high school. I don't know if everyone has had one of these, but the basic concept is, the bottle has a little marble in the top, and you push it down with a little plastic ring, which forces the marble in the top area, and lets you drink the soda. The marble then rolls around when you tip the bottle up to sip. It's totally gimmicky, and the soda itself is not amazing or anything, but it's still kinda fun. I hadn't had strawberry soda in ages so it was a treat.

I ordered the small size Halu Ramen. It consisted of the broth, ear mushroom, green onion, bamboo shoots, a tiny amount of chashu, an egg and seaweed. The broth was super salty. They only gave me one piece of chasu, wtf. The egg was awesome though, worth the extra dollar to add it, as it was all runny on the inside. The noodles were much thicker than usual ramen noodles, like a cross between regular ramen and udon.

Anna ordered "The Works" plate on the side, for her ramen, which consisted of cabbage, ear mushrooms, chashu (more than I got, definitely, probably because they didn't try to hide it in the broth), corn, seaweed, bamboo shoots and spinach. This looked really tasty, especially all laid out on a plate.

This is the ramen that Anna ordered with her "works" plate, you can see some of the ramen noodles. She requested less salt in her broth, which was the way to go, I think. If I come back, I'm getting less salt for sure.

It was a cute little place but I like some of the ramen I've had in LA better, and of course, Japan. Still, those boiled eggs are awesome, and might come back just for those.

Halu Ramen
375 Saratoga Ave # M
San Jose, CA 95129
(408) 246-3933
http://www.ramenhalu.com