Baby Blues BBQ

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

Lemon Moon

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. 

Wako Restaurant

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