Tia Juana
11785 W Olympic Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90064-1211

Sometimes, taking a chance can bite you in the ass. There's some favorite Mexican places I haunt, after careful review reading, recommendations from other people and general feelings at the moment. But when I just dive into going somewhere...then...I have no idea what to expect. Tia Juana was one of these places.

We got there late, so after sitting down, we found that our table mates had already ordered...cactus. Whaaa...? Cactus? Not my cup of tea. I didn't have any, although it looked a lot like stewed chewy bell peppers more than anything else.
I had the albondigas soup. Totally not that great. Everything in here was boiled wayyy to long, and felt half digested as I was trying to drink it.
This is my "river of food", as I called it - the two beef burrito plate, with rice and beans. Y'know when more is not really GOOD more, it's just more? This is in the same vein. It was just a ton of food, but not good food. I ate some. The rest went in a take out box, which I didn't eat out of again.
More rivers of food. I think this was the carne asada plate, half eaten. By half, I mean the most anyone can eat without bursting, and then this is what's left on the plate still.
Owen got the two chicken taco plate. Nothing spectacular, but at least more managable.
Here's a nuclear looking flash filled close up on the chicken taco. Sorry guys. Still dealing with camera issues. You weren't missing much though. Shredded dry white chicken meat, iceburg lettuce, tortillas. The tortillas were handmade, at least.
This is Tim's calamari plate. I think it looks like the skin of the arm of the Predator from the movie, The Predator. Tim was expecting the calamari to be something more like what he had from Casablanca...but that obviously was not the case. In addition to it not looking very appetizing, Tim was completely not digging on how it tasted. He actually SENT IT BACK. Now, I don't know if I've discussed my feelings on sending back food. Mainly, I would never do it. The fear of getting saliva laden gross food back is too much of a deterrent for me. What are your thoughts? Anyways, Tim has no fear and sent it back, and got the carne asada instead. And here it is. Looks okay. I still wouldn't eat it.

This place wasn't THE WORST PLACE EVER or anything. It just...didn't do anything for me, when I've been spoiled by other, cheaper, more delicious places around. Eh. Go for your Mexican food fix elsewhere, I'd say.

Ford's Filling Station
9531 Culver Blvd (Cross Street: Washington Boulevard)
Culver City, CA 90232

Ford's Filling station, right next to Tender Greens (a place I frequent as often as I can) has been quite a mystery to me. The place fills up with people until they filter out the door. The space is tiny. But I was told they have good food (and who passes up a recommendation? Not me...) so I called up to get a reservation.

When I sat down at my table, I was squished in a cluster of tables very close to one another. Space is definitely a commodity here. There's hardly enough room for me to scoot my chair out to get up. The lighting is dark, and since I was in a center table, I felt like all the people sitting on the side were watching me. (Then again they had nothing else to look at, as they were situated in a position as if they were watching a movie...of the center tables, which I was the star of!!)

But enough griping about the scene. Let's get to the food.
We ordered a shrimp, white bean and microgreens flatbread. This was delicious - crispy thin layer of bread with decent sized shrimp perched on top. The microgreens were fresh, the bean paste mash on the bottom was flavored well. I would get this again.
This was Jared's split pea soup. I tried a little bit - not bad, but split pea soup is not my thing. It was thick and had a pleasant green color (as far as I could tell with the dim lighting). Jared's comment was, "well, it's basically like every other pea soup I've had before". So I guess nothing special.
I got the burger. Ooo, this is a delicious burger, with the maytag blue cheese bits, grilled onions, meat dripping itself into the bun, roma tomatoes with the skins peeled off. Thumbs up from me. Also, it came with huge onion rings - heavily battered.
This was Brian's flattened chicken. He really enjoyed it, said the chicken was moist with good flavor, and basically cleaned his plate except for the potatoes. Because he's afraid of carbs. So I gladly dug in and had me a few fork-fulls of some mash. A little sweeter than I like mashed potatoes to be, but they were completely edible. Jared's Fry bucket, aka. Fish and chips. This was not what he expected. It wasn't just chips (i.e. fried potatoes) it was fried...mishmash of veggies. One of the onion rings like on my plate, I think there was a few asparagus spears in there....it was definitely more like a tempura platter. He noted that he didn't feel bloated and greasy after eating most of this, (how one usually feels after eating only fried food) but given the chance he would not order this again.

All in all Ford's Filling Station is a treat, but ambience is a little lacking in my opinion. I need space to stretch!!

I also had been here for lunch. So here's clearer pictures of the food (there was actual LIGHT!)
Here's that beautiful burger. And those rings! Can't beat em!Here's a shrimp po-boy. I felt that the shrimps were a little bit small (like, I was eating SHRIMP BABIES omg) but not a bad sandwich. I liked the toasted roll and the fingerling potato salad, which was nicely coated with mustard seeds and dijon.

I say go for lunch. It's a lot calmer during the day, as there isn't a ton of people vying for a drink from the bar, and I can actually see what I'm eating.

Penguin Fish and Chips
5952 W Pico Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90035

If you know me, you know I enjoy a good fry bucket every once and awhile. (My definition of a "fry bucket", is when 85% of your meal is completely fried...give or take 10% for sides) Penguin fits the bill for a day when all you want to do is grease your insides with fried goodness.

When I first heard the name of this place, I instantly thought...frozen yogurt? Then it was explained to me that it was a fish place...I then thought...Why on earth would someone name their restaurant Penguin?! Do they serve penguin? I mean, if they serve fish, and the place is named "Penguin" because Penguins eat fish (I'm just trying to go through their thought process...), why don't I see more places named, "Chinese middle aged American person", or "Middle Class Italian Guy"? You just don't see that (although it'd be a great experiment...heck, I'd eat at Chinese Middle Aged American Person restaurant!)

Okay, so enough making fun of the name. Penguin is located on Pico...in a small mini mall shopping center, with a 7-11. I never would have guessed that it would have anything decent in it. I was wrong...so wrong.
First off, they have their own fish refrigerator, fishmonger style. That, to me, is the ultimate sign of quality. They're grabbing the fresh fish pieces to throw in the fryer right after you place your order! They're not hiding the fish in the back, grabbing whatever slab of fish that's about to go bad - they're confident enough to show you exactly what their fish looks like and where they're taking it from. Awesome.

They have TONS of choices in fish - fillet sole, trout, sand dabs, salmon, catfish, perch...that's honestly not even all the choices they have.

Hands down, their lunch prices are spectacular. For a meager $6.79, with tax, (for most of the cuts of fish - shrimp and orange roughy is more expensive) you get 3 pieces of fish, a mess of crinkle cut fries, 2 pieces of hushpuppies and a choice of cole slaw, potato salad or macaroni salad.
Okay, honestly, it's hard to tell what fish this is, as fried fish pieces look identical after being dunked in batter and frying it in hot oil. But I think this is Owen's salmon. Look at those huge pieces, nestled in the mountain of fries....
I THINK this was Victor's Red Snapper. Same deal. Just red snapper.
And I THINK this was my orange roughy. I don't think I had ever tried orange roughy before, and this was a good experience with it...tender white fish. Very good. Also, there were hushpuppies hidden somewhere on this platter. These are the most flavorful hushpuppies I have ever had. And I've had Honey's Kettle's hushpuppies. These are, in fact, better. Here's a close up on a serving of cole slaw. Since cole slaw is my enemy, I have no comment on it. However, Owen seemed to like it. I had the potato salad, which was ok. It was nice to have this to offset all the fried items I was ingesting, but I don't think the quality of the potato salad was anything special - I'd choose potato salad from Ralph's or Vons before choosing this potato salad (Ralph's or Vons being the kind of potato salad that is very acceptable but not something that one craves or desires unless someone gets it for a potluck or a picnic).

Okay, so the fried-goodness is not in the same category as Honey's Kettle. This is more in the Louisiana style category of fried food, and in this division, Penguin wins. I definitely can't go here more than once every month or so, but this place is a definite must try for anyone who hasn't gone...penguin or not!

C&O Trattoria
31 Washington Boulevard
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292

Say what? C&O's for breakfast?!

Yes! It's true! They serve breakfast! I found out about half a year ago myself...I couldn't believe it when the words "breakfast" and "C&O's" were put together in the same sentence. Luckily, I was shown the error of my assumption. I finally went back, during breakfast time, to do a proper rundown.

First off, C&O's Trattoria is extremely crowded during dinnertime, and forces you to valet park your car, which is the worst, because valet parking near the beach is 6 bucks, that's not including tip. During the earlier morning hours, there's a chance you can grab one of the metered parking spots in front of the restaurant and spend about a dollar in change to park your car. Also, during breakfast at C&O's, you can sit in the coveted open air patio spots, although it might be a little chilly on a cold morning (remedied by heat lamps, which you can request for someone to turn on.)

Breakfast at C&O's is not like dinner at C&O's...where they have the regular servings and "gargantuan" servings. Breakfast is a lot more normal, with manageable servings. Garlic rolls, which are one of my favorite things here, are only served after noon. Blast. But, there are plenty of other things to fill the void...
Owen got the special: Apple Crepes with nuts and marscapone cheese. It came with 2 eggs (over easy) and choice of meat (2 slices of bacon was his choice.) I have to say, the apple crepes were some of the best I've had- thin delicate crispy on the edges but softer near the middle crepes, filled with fresh, thick apple pie-like filling, topped off with that delicate slightly sweet and creamy marscapone cheese and a few crunches of crumbled nuts. So good. This combo was a great "sweet and salty" combination, as eggs and bacon aren't usually included in sweet dishes. (i.e. ever wanted some french toast, but not like, ONLY french toast? Once they set a huge plate of french toast and nothing else in front of you, and you go, oh crap, now I have to eat all this french toast. Kinda like a burger without fries....well I digress. Back to the food.)
Here's my monstrous plate of C&O's version of an egg benedict. Now, I don't usually order eggs benedict, (actually, almost never) but this time, I felt adventurous. And hungry. First off, I loved the potatoes. Good solid crunch all around each piece, and seasoned as well. Now to the benedict itself... A perfectly poached egg on top of prosciutto (their version of Canadian bacon), on top of focaccia, douse the whole thing with hollandaise. Yep. This is not for wimps. This is going ALL OUT for maximum deliciousness.
Wow. Just check out that runny innards of the yolk - not TOO runny where it just splats all over your plate, but firm enough to the point where the yolk consistency is thick, and sticks to itself. There's just something about a delicious poached egg in the morning. The focaccia was surprisingly good with this combination, (correct me if I'm wrong, but the carbs in this are supposed to be english muffins...right?) because it withstood all the punishment from the hollandaise and the yolk runoff, and was still nice and bready, even till the last bite. The prosciutto was very salty, which at first was great, but as I attacked the meal, it became almost TOO salty. I mean, there's nothing to offset all the saltiness going on, on the plate. I think next time, as much as I liked the potatoes, I'll get fresh fruit, as a counterpoint to all of the savory.

I really liked C&O's breakfast - it's definitely not a place that one would think of for that greasy spoon diner breakfast experience, so that's what makes it more special when you roll into the restaurant on these morning off hours. I say give it a chance and perhaps try to get there during the later morning hours...so you can fulfill your fix of those sinfully good "killer" garlic rolls. What a way to start the day...

Kaya Sushi
13400 Washington Blvd Ste 102
Marina del Rey

"Let's have sushi for lunch".

I am a no-holdsbar, unabashed lover of all kinds of sushi...especially the wasabi that goes with it (hooray for spicy!) So when someone mentions sushi for lunch...I am all ears. And stomach.

I went to Kaya with my friend Marcie, as it is close and has its' own underground parking (a necessity in Marina del Rey - actually, probably all of Southern California, parking is a virtue). We rushed in for a seat as we were only about 45 minutes away from their lunch siesta. (Although I understand why a lot of Japanese restaurants close during the time inbetween lunch and dinner, it makes it very frustrating when I take later lunches. Which I usually do.)

On to the food!
Marcie got the udon and roll lunch special. Her udon was a huge, steaming bowl of noodles, chock full of broth, sesame seeds and scallions. Dried tofu slices floated around the top. Marcie seemed to enjoy this a lot.
Check out these GINORMOUS California Rolls!! I do like how the crab is not that chunky imitation stuff - seems like the real thing, and is flavored well. The rice was actually really tasty, perfect, translucent little grains of white sushi rice that you come to expect from any good Japanese restaurant, but get really disppointed when you happen upon a place that uses crusty old rice from yesterday's batch. Yuck. Anyways these California Rolls are great. Fresh sweet cucumber, creamy avacado and the aformentioned crab. Here's my sushi lunch combo - chicken teriyaki, 4 pieces of sushi (tuna, whitefish, salmon, sweet shrimp), and 3 pieces each of california roll and tuna roll. This is a LARGE amount of food...the fish was of very decent quality, the teriyaki chicken was pretty standard, not especially great but not bad.

The decor to the restaurant is actually noteworthy as well - the sushi bar is situated on TOP of a huge aquarium with live fish inside. I wonder, do they resort to them if they're running low on specials for the day? Also, they have a waterfall wall, and a drum next to the door with a sign that says, "Hit if you enjoyed the service!!" I hit the drum. So hit up this place!

Three Square Bakery
1121 Abbot Kinney Blvd
Venice, CA

Venice has that extremely laid back vibe, with its ocean breeze, trendy couples that walk dogs, sun-tanned surfers. Abbot Kinney is a great street for chachkey stores, GREAT coffee...and home to a new Rockenwagner Bakery called Three Square.

Clean construction, clean lines - design is solid. Love the wood elements for the glass case. But I don't think they thought the chairs all the way through - as I found out, when we sat down to eat our purchases - the chairs were too highly situated, and the table then cut into our legs as we tried to eat. Thumbs down boo!!
Aside from that, I love this wall - floor to celing blackboard paint, with the specials written in colored chalk. Nice touch. So here's the sandwich that we shared - a Chicken Club Sandwich. I thought they were going to have made to order sandwiches, but they didn't - all of their sandwiches were pre-made, sitting in their open air refridgerator. Personally...I am not a huge fan of premade sandwiches. If I was going to get a premade sandwich at an upscale type place, I'd be much more satisfied with Bay Cities' version.
This sandwich was nothing special for the price tag. Standard chicken breast slices, (not horribly flavorful but at least moist), avocado (not brown...points for that) and thick bacon, with mayo and lettuce. A good sandwich...but not amazing. And check out the bread- this is bread I could have gotten from a white bread loaf at Mitsuwa! It might have been fresher but it sure tasted the same.
Here's a glance at their special, which I did not try - a weiner dog special, it seems, with the worthwhile whole mustard seed mustard, and a good lookin' roll. Maybe I should have gotten this instead, then I wouldn't have felt so ripped off.


I also got this - a breakfast muffin. I really liked the concept of it - more like a quiche-y portable baked good, it had egg, cheese and sausage embedded in its' carby innards. The sausage was delicious inside - good burst of flavor, with a nice snap to its' casing. Wish there was more of it in there - actually, wish there was more of it in general, as it was very pricey for something smaller than the palm of my hand (and I have really oddly small hands.) I should have warmed it up before I ate it, but I definitely got the sense of decadence in a baked good, cold or not.

Owen got an espresso brownie. (no picture, yes, drat.) He devoured it and loved it, although it's hard to beat the combo of coffee and chocolate for him.

What is the big deal about this place? Yes, location. Yes, decent baked goods. But I've had better and richer, other places, and for less moolah. So it gets a "eh...it's okay" from me.

Hop Li
10974 W Pico Blvd (Cross Street: Greenfield Avenue)
Los Angeles, CA 90064-2115

"Why isn't there any good Chinese food on the westside??"
I've heard this phrase uttered in disgust over a dozen times. And yes, I agree, the best Chinese food is located in Monterey Park, Alhambra and Chinatown. But there HAS to be something closer, to satiate that craving for some crispy noodles on a cold day. And I'm not talking Panda Express, or (shrudder) PF Chang's (Blasphemy!!) Enter: Hop Li.

I know, I know. Hop Li isn't AS CHEAP or AS GOOD as its' competitors on the other side of town. But we all can't have our cake and eat it too. (anyone ever see that SNL skit, "Lothar of the Hill People"? Where they pick apart that saying, but instead of "cake" they substitute "flagon of mead". "I don't understand that saying at all. If I had mead, would I not drink it?" Man I miss that skit. ANYWAYS.)
First up was Wonton Soup. Not bad. The broth was that oily-ish chicken stock, alright but not that intense chicken flavor that some other restaurants have. Those button-mushrooms-from-a-can really give me some nostalgia...I only eat these kind of mushrooms at chinese restaurants. The shrimp floating around were decent sized - not mini, but not monster. The wonton themselves were...okay. Not amazing. Nothing to write home about. Small, not filled with too much flavor. Next up, a banquet favorite: Honey-walnut shrimp. These are the ultimate in indulgence. Fried, very minimally battered jumbo prawns, doused on the outside with honey-mayonaise, on a bed of iceburg lettuce, with honey covered walnut pieces. A little too much mayo - there shouldn't be big gobs of the stuff all over each piece. It's a subtle flavor, and needs the right ratio of each. So while the pieces of shrimp were spot on - huge, at least two bites each - the overwhelming mayo needed to be scraped off.

Tofu clay pot. I LOVE clay pot dishes, there's something so comforting about having that thick sauce, embedded with a mix of fried, soft sauce soaked tofu, chicken pieces, slices of BBQ pork, smaller pieces of shrimp and slices of scallion. It's hard for me to hate any version of this, as I mentioned before, is one of my favorite dishes. They did this very sufficiently.

House special pan fried noodles...YUM. The noodles were just right - crispy, fried, soft when covered with the gravy sauce, covered in tons of toppings - slices of beef, BBQ pork, chicken, canned mushrooms, and bok choy. This is classic - like I remember it from back home.

Hop Li is my answer to edible chinese food on the west side. Not too shabby, although a little overpriced for dinner. The lunch special is the best, because you get one of these dishes, but with a bowl of either hot and sour soup or egg drop soup, and rice, for around 8 bucks.

Bay Area Holidays - a retrospect

I've been seriously behind on my postings...so here's a quick post that's basically going to quickly go through my food adventures when I went back home to the Bay area for the holidays. I had some great food and I wanted to at least point these places out...at least, before the next holiday season comes around!First stop, St. John's Grill. I came here with almost all my immediate family members, and chowed down on some of the best burgers I've ever had. This is one of the places that I really wish they had in Southern California. Unfortunately, there's only one St. John's. And this is it.
Garlic fries will give you a kick start in the head...or in the gut. This plate of heaven is loaded with garlic, parsley, parmesan cheese and crispy - not oily - fries. The skin of the potato actually adds a really nice texture to each fry.
More bar food...fried zucchini rounds, with ranch sauce. Fried goodness. Enough said about those. These onion rings are to-die-for. Battered, fried, crispy, golden, sweet. Everything you want in a onion ring.
Owen went all out with his bacon-guacamole burger. Juicy meat, creamy avocado and thick bacon. Can't get any better thaDid I mention that on Saturdays, St. John's burgers are half priced?? Here's a blown out flash close up. Gotta work on my camera skills. I had a mushroom swiss burger. It was soo filling, I didn't even eat half of my burger. I think I filled up on fries. I guess the burgers USED to be bigger...although maybe it's better that they're smaller now...less gluttony. Each burger comes with a bag of Lay's original potato chips. I don't think any of us opened one. But we saved all of them (ew the bags were covered in burger grease) and took them home for later. Waste not want not!!!Next up with Frankie, Johnnie and Luigi's. We went to the original location in Mountain View. Great place, I've been to the other location closer to my house, but this is the ORIGINAL!! These are what was left of a plate of Ravoil Compare - Breaded cheese ravioli, deep fried, served with a chipotle-ranch sauce. The plate that came to us had more ravioli, but everyone took one before I remember to snap a picture. The plate was practically licked clean 2 minutes after taking this picture.
Horribly blurry picture of bread. This bread is awesome, (white, good crust, carby, warm) but what makes this an amazing bread is the butter herb spread. It's soft, light as air, easily spreadable, and completely delicious. We were warned not to eat too much of it because we had this coming up...
A MASSIVE beautiful pizza. This is the Stromboli, holding the holy trinity of meats - Sausage, pepperoni and salami, with some mushrooms thrown on there for good measure. The sausage is amazing, not that fake crap from Domino's or Pizza hut. It's freshly made, huge chunks of meat with great flavor. This pizza is meat-coma inducing. The crust is great too - chewy, crunchy, flavorful.
We also got a Fresh Tomato, Basil and Garlic pizza to balance out the Stromboli. I thought it was a great choice and really highlighted the perfection of the bread.
During Christmas break, I went to Rosie McCann's, an Irish Pub restaurant to meet up with some old friends. I ordered some garlic fries for the table. This was not as good as the garlic fries I got from St. John's during Thanksgiving break, but they were still of decent quality and consumed quickly.
Here's a crappy picture of Krang's California Chicken burger. Grilled chicken, avocado, bacon, rabbit food and fries. He seemed to enjoy it.
Here's an extremely blurry picture of Jay's Irish Nachos. I think Irish nachos are Jay's favorite comfort/junk food, because I remember him ordering irish nachos often at THE ROWS (Carrows...the only 24 hour restaurant open close to my house in San Jose.) back in high school. Basically, Irish nachos are just like regular Mexican nachos...but instead of tortilla chips, they use sliced baked/fried/extreme potatoes. They're sinfully good.
Chris and I decided to be good and split a plate of Wild Salmon fish and chips, with wasabi mayo. If anyone knows me, they know that I love wasabi infused...anything. So the wasabi mayo was great. The fried fish was alright...it had a crispy panko-crumb outside. I prefer the thicker batter type of fried fish, like from King's Head, but this wasn't bad. I liked the salmon itself, which was a decent cut of fish. The fries were alright. Slaw was edible but I don't really love slaw. Saved the WORST for last. Vicky and I met up and had a quick bite at The Village: California Bistro and Wine Bar. For a trendy space and dark mood lighting, the food was completely lacking. I got the Crispy Monterey Calamari with Garlic Aioli. The word to describe this was: Whatever. Not special, not outstanding, but not completely unedible. I've had better, but I've had worse. I guess I was just hoping for...something more special.
Vicky chose the Curried Seared Tofu - "Lightly Breaded & Seared Tofu, Jasmine Rice, Bok Choy, Garlic, Carrot & Tomato, Thai Red Curry Broth, Bean Sprouts, Peanuts". This was totally and completely lacking of flavor! How could anyone mess up tofu! AND to use curry, and to not even infuse the tofu with something so flavorful as curry...lame! For a 15 dollar vegetarian plate, this was supposed to be knock your socks off, but instead it was a waste of bean curd. Shame on you "The Village". (Doesn't help that the restaurant is named after an M. Night Shymalan movie. I hate his movies. And his ego.)

I had a great time during the holidays - it was good to get away for awhile. How I miss the bay area.