Mitsuwa Food Court (Torrance)

The food court at Mitsuwa always has something good I want to eat, and since we were there to check out their gift shops and meet up with Dean and Ryan, we decided to eat there for lunch as well. The variety in choices and the quality of food is such a treat, even though it's a bit of a drive from our usual radius of "food we're willing to waste precious gas money on". Anyways, I love that we all can get what we want and compare food...maybe I'll get THAT (pointing at someone else's tray of awesome food) next time! Here are some of the things we got...

Bryan got a ham sandwich combo from Italian Tomato. I've only ever gotten slices of cake from here (when they have it in their display case, sometimes they don't though), so it's nice to see what they have for meals too. The sandwich looked very dainty and diner-like. The sandwich was on white bread, with ham, egg, cheese, cucumber, lettuce and tomato. The set comes with a side salad and some sort of creamy soup (Bryan didn't eat it and it formed quite a nasty layer of skin on top of the bowl).

Here's what Dean got from Curry Club - a port cutlet curry.



This is what Ryan got, a variation on the special of the day - curry with fried shrimp, sausage, a fried egg, and fried tofu, with a drink and a little styrofoam cup to come back and get soft serve ice cream after you're done with your meal. This looks awesome! And like a good amount of food...

...as was mine, which was also the special (fried shrimp, sausage, curry rice), but I added a "crokke" - fried potato. I shared the crokke with Owen, and couldn't finish this plate. The sausage itself was WAY too salty, to the point of unpleasant salty, so after 2 pieces I was done with those. The curry and rice are always spot on - I love Curry Club for that - and again, being able to get the soft serve after the meal is freakin' awesome. More on that later...

This is part of Owen's ramen set - a plate of stuff. Near the top, going clockwise: cha-su pork, a naruto fish cake, green onion with an ume plum, bamboo shoots, and in the middle, some black..uh, fungusy stuff. You eat all this along with...

...this, a bowl of ramen noodles (salt ramen soup flavor). Owen said he was cool with the noodles but the plate of toppings was not to his liking.

Owen got this coffee float from Curry Club, when I went to get my soft serve after I finished my meal. He loved this - the simplicity of having cold coffee, then soft serve on top acting as the cream and sugar in the coffee as it was melting - it was very good. He is sure to get this again.

Another trip to Mitsuwa yielded a plate of fried stuff. I forgot what number combo this is but it had pork cutlet, 2 pieces of fried shrimp and a crab crokke. The combo also comes with rice (probably some of the best rice in the store, they really do a good job of cooking rice here, all really good quality), miso soup, cabbage shreds, pickled cucumber and napa cabbage, dipping sauces, fruit cup and tea. It's an amazing spread.

Here's a close up of the fried action. This pork cutlet rivals all other pork cutlets I've had in my lifein the top 3 spots of the best I've ever had. Juicy, crispy on the outside, seasoned well, everything is perfect about this pork cutlet. Paired with amazing rice, it really is a flavor combo out of this world. Also, the fried shrimp are great, and the creamy crab crokke's insides are what you think they would be - creamy, delicious, savory, around a fried outside. That's some good fried stuff.

I love Mitsuwa - where else is there a one stop shop for good Japanese food, and shopping for little Japanese toys or trinkets, or Japanese dishes or tea sets, or perhaps some Japanese art books? And then to do the weeks' grocery shopping on top of that? It really is the best.

Mitsuwa (Torrance Location)
1815 W 213th St # 235
Torrance, CA 90501
(310) 782-680

Tokyo Table
50 N. La Cienega Blvd.
Ground Floor North End
Beverly Hills, CA 90211

More catching up to do. I know I'm beating myself up over it, but foodblogging is so calming, so fun - and I really should do more of it, for myself AND anyone who reads this. So here I am, still catching up from months ago.

Tokyo Table had opened recently when we went there to celebrate my birthday. When we walked in, the decor was...stunning. I couldn't believe that this place used to be a Tony Roma's. Clean lines, running water in a fountain-wall in the front, this place was trying to be as ZEN as possible. I liked it - great start.

Here's the setup - I liked the cozy booths, but we were seated at a bigger table. I liked the chairs, pretty comfy. Everything seemed really clean. One notable thing - check out the bathrooms, they're really sleek!
My usual Arnold Palmer. Pretty good one, I think they used green tea instead of the usual Lipton's. Fruity and refreshing, the perfect combo.
These monster chicken wings were brought to our table. I think these wings came from descendants of chicken/dinosaur hybrids - seriously, these things were monsters. They weren't, however, as meaty as some of the smaller chicken wings I've had in the past. The skin was covered with sweet soy teriyaki sauce, a bit crunchy in places, and doused at the end with a smattering of sesame seeds.
A plate of potstickers arrived - two kinds, pork and shrimp. They were just....ok. Basically what I could buy from the frozen food section at any Japanese market - sufficient but nothing special.
There were two choices of rice - 5 grain type of rice or regular white rice. I chose multigrain - fragrant, good texture, with a few other colors of rice mixed in, I thought it was a nice change from the usual big grains of white rice.

Miso soup, pretty standard. Love me those hunks of tofu knocking around the bottom. Miso soup has such a deep rich flavor - so delicious.

This is where Steven's Beef Sukiyaki Bibimbap looked like before mixing. The rice and other ingredients are placed in a heated stone bowl...muddled and mixed together until bits of the rice get crispy and the egg gets cooked....to produce...
...Bimbap! Steven likes his extra spicy so they put a fair amount of spicy paste inside the bowl. It's nice that they even offer this, as it is a Korean dish and not really something you'd see at "Tokyo table". I liked how the EXTREMELY HOT bowl was enclosed in its own designy box, safe from fingers possibly getting burned. In another instance when I've had bimbap, the hot bowl was not enclosed, and a friend got an unfortunate surprise when she tried to pick up the bowl to give someone another helping!! So the enclosure is nice and appreciated.
This is Dawn's Spicy Tuna bowl. I don't think she liked this very much because she didn't eat very much of it. So I guess this was a thumbs down.

Albacore Tuna on Crispy Rice was one of their specialties. The rice underneath the slab of fish was toasted and crunchy. I wish it could have been more spicy, as the jalepeno didn't knock my socks off, but considering that I can eat wasabi like ice cream, as I've stated before, this was super mild to me. This was pretty good, though. Not the best I've had, but decent.

This was Victor's Teriyaki chicken. The white stuff on top was kewpie mayo - of course. Mayo isn't the first thing I would think to put on top of chicken, but I guess on Japanese food, Kewpie mayo as a topping on anything is totally acceptable (case in point - takoyaki and okonomiyaki.) Victor seemed to like this. I like the nice touch of having broccoli heads and potatoes - gotta get your greens in there somehow.
Kevin's dish came sizzling hot to the table - Garlic Ribeye Steak on Hot Plate. They weren't joking - this stone platter plate was insanely hot, effectively keeping the steak at tongue burning temperatures. The garlic slivers were a great little addition, although I think they were most likely cooked separately from the steak and added as a topping later. Kevin liked this dish a lot but kept having to pause to cool down his seared mouth.
Finally finally, what did I have? I had a pork cutlet curry, of course. I can't help myself when I find this item on the menu - I must try it everytime. The curry itself was a lot sweeter than I expected - I like a more savory curry myself - but it was edible. Not as good as Curry House or Hurry Curry, my personal gold standard in curry. The pork cutlet was the highlight of this dish - juicy succulent meat, crispy panko breading, everything that I could ask for in a pork cutlet.
Since it was my birthday, they brought out a banana flambe with vanilla ice cream. They lit the banana halves on fire, which definitely gave it a nice effect. The bananas themselves were grilled already, to give them a nice little crust around the edges. The ice cream melted into the bananas, sweetening them even further. This was a good dish to share.

A sour note at the end of the meal - a waiter spilled a whole glass of ice cold water down Steven's back. It was an accident, of course, but no one likes being doused with a whole cup of water by surprise! So they compensated us a bit in gift certificates, which we applied to the meal.

I agree with some of the comments that have been made about Tokyo Table - that it's like a Japanese version of Denny's in the US. But I think that this place really tries its' hardest to give their patrons a good experience, and the decor really plays up to a finer dining feel. It's hard for me to hate Japanese food, as well, so I am biased. Give Tokyo Table a shot...just dodge the falling glasses of ice water!

Yashima Japanese Restaurant
Sawtelle and Olympic - 2nd floor

Where to eat on Halloween...Amber and I searched for a place to go during lunch. We had wanted to try the new rotating sushi bar...but upon arrival at the door, found that they were CLOSED on Halloween?? What self respecting business closes their doors on HALLOWEEN? I would understand every Sunday, or even MLK Jr. Day...but Halloween? Suspicious...

So we continued our search. Amber mentioned this small restaurant around the corner in the same complex...so we went there. Yashima has sparse decor - oddly enough, I would describe it as 80's minimalist. Trust me, you just have to see it for yourself.

We were seated quickly and presented with a menu that mostly consisted of udons, soba and rice bowls. Water was quickly served. This place was fast. Awesome.
I chose the special of the day - shrimp curry rice, small bowl of udon, tempura, a few nuggets of chicken karage, and mixed greens salad with one slice of tuna on top. This was a great set! So many different flavors, not too much of anything, nothing too overwhelming. The salad was perfect, a tangy Japanese dressing with delicious mixed greens, and the piece of tuna on top was such a great bonus! Tempura was hot and crispy, udon was supple and chewy in that good way. The two bites of karage were a nice little bite. Here's a close up of the shrimp tempura curry rice. The shrimp was alright but the curry was just okay. I mean, it was alright but nothing to go out of my way for.
Amber got the Beef Bowl set. This thing was huge for her - she only ate maybe a third of it - but loved every bite. Nice use of egg, and those shreds of seaweed! So perfect.

This is a top view of her set. Her miso soup looked really good!

Yashima was a nice little place to eat during lunch. I'm going again!