Koreatown Galleria

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

Buddha's Belly Part 2

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

Hop Woo

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

Take a Bao

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/

Din Tai Fung - Post 2, another visit

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.

Toe Bang

A birthday celebration for my coworker Kue ended up being a great culinary trip for me - I only know the outer limits of Korean cuisine, and have barely begun to experience the full force of what Korean food has to offer to me. Initially, we were going to go to a more, ah, upscale looking place, but all of us felt like we were underdressed to eat there (It was more like being in a club and being watched while you eat in clubbing clothes). Kue took one look at the place, then went back down the stairs and headed to this place....Toe Bang.

Yes. Toe. Bang. Weird name. Good food. We all ordered a bunch of dishes to share with everyone at the table (like, 10 of us!) Here's how it all started...

Chopped cucumber and carrot wedges in little dishes, with a salty bean paste as dip. They had a few plates of these sitting out on the table as we were sitting down. Next to the cucumber and carrots were the radishes and salt that go with Korean fried chicken, which you will see later on...

The first dish of the night: Spicy rice cake with ramen noodle, cabbage, fish balls and green onion. The spice on this is much more spicy than I'm used to for dishes, so it got my tongue burning already. I made sure to only eat sparingly of this dish, as rice cakes expand in your stomach, and I knew we had a lot of courses to go, however, this dish was very tasty and a good start to the dinner.

Korean fried chicken, we meet again...still seems like Chinese fried chicken to me, but fried chicken, regardless of nationality, is always welcome in my book! This went along with the seasoned salt and radishes in the first picture. I had a small piece of this, and it was pretty solid.

This is one of the weirder dishes I've seen at a restaurant, something I would maybe make at home if I had nothing in the fridge. This is a ramen dish, with spam, hot dogs, spinach, tofu, green onions and enoki mushrooms. I guess this is a "wartime" treat, where there actually wouldn't be any access to regular meats or poultry. It was actually pretty good, as good as any spam/hot dog dish can be. It's just such a novelty to see it being served here!

Korean sausage up next. I was warned by the others that this sausage is an acquired taste, but I thought it would taste more like chinese sausage. It didn't. It was...odd. I don't think I have acquired that taste yet, but at least I tried it. I think it tasted like...dry organ meats with vermicelli noodles running through it as the thing keeping it together. That's what I remember it tasting like, anyways.

Sorry for the blurry picture, but I was in a rush to take this one - a Korean seafood pancake. I was excited to try this, as Korean pancakes are super delicious, but I think this one fell a bit flat. The seafood was ok, but the edges weren't crispy enough, just barely browned really. The pancake texture was just soft and yuck. I still ate it but...eh. Could have been better. Maybe if the pancake diameter hadn't been so big. The dipping sauce was okay, soy sauce and green onion and minced garlic and stuff.

A massive, impressive plate was placed in the middle of the table, containing an order of their skewer combination. From the salad, going clockwise - rice cakes with hot sauce drizzled on it, prawns, mini wieners, beef skewer, goji berries (I think), halved fishcake balls, mushroom and bell pepper, chicken hearts, chicken white meat with teriyaki sweet sauce on it, roasted garlic cloves, intestine of some sort, and scallops. Whew. That's a lot of skewers. Everything I tried (a little of this, a little of that) was pretty tasty. I did NOT try the intestine. Eh. I've had it, I only like the chinese version of it. Otherwise, everything was good.

Kalbi Ribs over onions on a skillet. Can't go wrong with that. A little chewy, which made it a bit harder to eat but decent marinade. Again, can't go wrong.

Here's a remnant of a spicy kimchi pancake that I had forgotten to take a picture of before it became a pale shadow if its' former self - you can see how it broke apart really easily (a shame), and how it is completely embedded with jalepeno slices, making this a minefield for your tongue. I thought I could take it, but I really couldn't - my eyes were watering with pain. This is a REALLY spicy pancake.

The last savory dish of the night - some sort of "Chinese inspired" beef stirfry thing - I'm kind of mystified as to why that they called it that, because I have never had anything like this in all my Chinese food filled life- they took slivers of beef, fried it in tempura, then stirfried it in a sweet savory sauce with mushrooms, zuccini and cabbage. Really random, not my favorite. The batter was just too much for the beef, the ratio of batter to beef was 2 to 1.

This was our dessert of the night, fresh lychee and maraschino cherries over ice, which was treated to us by the manager, along with a bottle of soju. The ice kept the fruit really refreshingly cold, and every piece of lychee I had was really good. This is a great way to end quite a marathon of eating (and drinking, but since I'm allergic to the alcohol, I'm resigned to being the designated driver, not that I mind too much). Thanks to everyone who went and picked out the food to eat, and happy birthday again, Kue!

Toe Bang
3465 W Sixth Street
(inside Chapman Plaza)
Los Angeles, CA 90020

Korean Food Mart (Koreatown Plaza)

Our lunchtime adventures at work have expanded their radius all the way to Korea town! One of our favorite places to go for lunch is in this Korean food mall, within Koreatown Plaza, because of the variety and quality...I'll just go over some of the usual things everyone gets...

This is the dumpling and soup combination at Chew Young Roo. They make fresh dumplings/baos here, right in front of your eyes. From the left - King Dumpling, Red Bean dumpling, and then 2 shrimp dumplings (warning: they're pretty spicy!) This combo also comes with a brothy soup. I've never gotten this combo so I can't tell you what the soup tastes like but it looks like miso soup.

The King Dumplings (in one order, you get 4 of them for 6 dollars) is something that we usually order then share as a group. They're really good- fresh, bursting with meat and veggies, and great with a little bit of soy sauce drizzled in over them before taking a big bite.

Here's what I've gotten a few times - cold noodles and kalbi ribs combo. This is a combination that is the best of all worlds - delicious meat and onions on a sizzling plate, contrasted with cold noodles, which are extremely refreshing. I like the addition of the half egg as well. With a side of kimchi and sliced radish, this is a filling meal but the noodles are pretty light. Highly recommended.

Right outside the foodcourt, there's a Kyedong Fried Chicken. This is a box containing a "whole fried chicken", chopped up into pieces.

I just like the picture of Chef Kyedong...he seems so proud of his chicken.

And here it is, the reveal of what's inside the box...they really chopped up the whole chicken, into little bits even. It also comes with radishes, a common accompaniment to Korean Fried chicken.

Here's the delicious close up. The taste of the fried chicken is surprisingly sweet - after frying, they poured some sort of glaze on it, which was an interesting taste combination. It was like eating candied fried chicken. Pleasant, but not necessarily my bag. I think I prefer a spicier coating or plain, but this was still pretty tasty. My favorite pieces were the drumsticks, of course.

Koreatown Plaza really feels like a transplanted part of Korea in LA. They even have a grocery store, selling meats of all kinds that I will indulge in someday. Oh, they also have really good melon and mango popsicles - I can find them nowhere else.

Koreatown Plaza
928 S. Western Avenue
Los Angeles, CA

Via Cafe

Gai Ling Way in Chinatown

Stopping to eat during a busy day can be a chore sometimes, 'cuz there's too much to do during the day and not enough hours to do it in. Taking a break from the busy organization of the upcoming art show (can I plug this art show any more??) we went around the corner to Via Cafe for a bite to eat.

The atmosphere is pleasant, playing trendy music and art on the vaulted celings. The restaurant is a narrow format but it doesn't feel too crowded. Choosing whereever we wanted to sit, glasses of water with lime in it were immediately served to us. Awesome. The waitress was friendly and took our orders promptly.

After we placed our order, the waitress came back and placed this on our table...whoo...mint and sprouts. I'm ready to eat...This was our order of Spring Rolls W/ shrimp, lettuce, cucumber, noodle, basils & sprouts. I loved the peanut buttery tangy dipping sauce that accompanied this appetizer. All the veggies in this were fresh and crunchy, and the shrimp was good. A major plus in my book. This was gone in like 2 seconds.
This was my dish, the #24 - Grilled Lemongrass Steak, Egg Rolls, Shrimp W/ rice vermicelli. I liked this dish a lot, although I haven't had enough Vietnamese food in my life to make the distinction between really good Vietnamese food and not so good Vietnamese food. Regardless, I took no prisoners as I plowed through this bowl of hearty, slightly chewy dry noodles, slightly lubricated by the spicy soupy stuff they included with my meal. I threw a bunch of spicy red hot sauce on here, which made my tongue dance with happiness (I love me some hot sauce). Everything in this bowl was good and felt freshly prepared. I loved the thin slices of beef, finding a few chopped green onion pieces in the mix. The shrimp was plain but the trusty hot sauce did the trick. The egg roll was, well, an egg roll.This is Owen's Chicken Rice Noodle soup, which I later found out was boiling hot when served to him, so when he took the first bite he burned his tongue (this happens too much!) When it cooled down enough it was a great bowl of noodles, good pieces of chicken freshly torn, and the soup was richly chicken flavored.
Ryan got the Beef Ball Soup, probably very similar to Owen's dish except sans chicken - substitute beef meatballs, vietnamese style.
Dean got the Rare beef and beef ball bowl. I think this is really interesting, as the rare beef that is placed in the soup keeps cooking in the boiling broth, so it's perfectly cooked as you carefully lift it to your mouth to eat.

I know this place isn't as cheap as other, more authentic Vietnamese places, but they're still very reasonably priced and the atmosphere is cool (I love the artwork on the walls.)