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Archive for Sawtelle Boulevard

Tatsu – Ramen with a Soul

Feb18

Location: 2123 Sawtelle Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025. (310) 684-2889

Date: Fall, 2014

Cuisine: Japanese Ramen

Rating: Nice modernization

These days, Sawtelle is crawling with Ramen joints. From the uber specialized and rich Tsujita to the old school Daikokuya.

Tatsu does things a bit differently, with a sleek updated look and modernized take on the classics.

They even have ipad based ordering, down to minute customizations!

The modern interior.

Chashu bun. Sweet BBQ pork in a peking duck style bun with lettuce and green onion and mayo-like sauce. Really really tasty. Good stuff.

Chashu rice. More or less the same pork on rice.

Soul Ramen. Their signature ramen! Homemade Tonkotsu broth, black garlic oil and sweet umami sauce. Served with ground beef and a choice of pork, chicken or tofu.

Bold ramen. Their most popular ramen! Homemade Tonkotsu broth with 11 bold ingredients. Not for the timid! Served with seasoned soft-boiled egg & a choice of pork, chicken or tofu. A real tasty zesty sauce (not hot).

Red ramen. Homemade Tonkotsu broth spiked with our sweet and savory red sauce. Served with ground beef.

Ground beef. This extra side of ground beef showed off the flavors naked. Certainly a really tasty soft meat with a bit of a kick and a hint of sweetness.

Kurobuta Pork Chashu. The usual fatty pork.

All-natural Chicken Breast. The California alternative to fatty pork.

Seasoned Soft-Boiled Egg.

Garlic! There are whole garlic bulbs on the table.

And a press.

Plus nori strips and other seasonings.

Overall, I was impressed. Tatsu is a bit lighter than some ramens (Tsujita, here’s looking at you — even if the dipping ramen is to die for). But the flavors here are bold, fresh, and tasty. Good stuff, particularly if you are an old hat and want to jazz it up. Plus, if you had vegetarians or the like they can join you: Hippy Ramen + tofu!

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Some friendly folk at the communal table passed us this mysterious confection:

Green tea kitkat. Kinda pasty. Not nearly as good as the original (which isn’t that great).

So we had to clear the taste by heading across the street to Beard Papa for cream puffs, like this original with vanilla creme.

And this cookie shell with caramel creme. The caramel creme tasted exactly like butterscotch pudding.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Beard Papa, Garlic, Japanese cuisine, kitkat, noodles, ramen, Sawtelle Boulevard, Tatsu Ramen, Tonkotsu

From Noodles to Fish

Oct13

Restaurant: Sushi Tsujita

Location: 2006 Sawtelle Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025. 310.231.1177

Date: October 9, 2014

Cuisine: Japanese Sushi

Rating: Classic Fish

One of the busiest and yummiest spots on the busy Sawtelle Blvd is Tsujita Artisan Noodles (and annex), which serve up an insanely rich and delicious porky ramen. The owner, Takehiro Tsujita, was cooked up a third place just down the street — well actually cooked isn’t the right word since this is a high end, omakase focused, traditional sushi joint helmed by chef Shigeru Kato.

Sushi Tsujita specializes in traditional sushi preparations that involve a lot of subtle salting, curing, and marinating.

The interior has been jazzed up since its previous engagement as Orris.

2000 Bouchard Père et Fils Chevalier-Montrachet La Cabotte. Burghound 95. While discreet, there is a trace of wood that sits atop the ever-so-mildly exotic fruit and wonderfully layered aromas that are still admirably fresh even though they now display some mature notes. The exceptionally rich and overtly muscular flavors are quite forward though powerful as a still firm and prominent acid spine keeps everything in perfect balance on the magnificently persistent finish. This is classy juice that is knocking on the door of its prime drinkability.

agavin: our bottle was unfortunately badly premoxed

Stewed motomara tomato.

A bit of everything. Persimmon with tofu (back in the sub-dish). Sea pike cooked with sake, soy sauce, & ginger (back left). Shrimp cooked with sake and black cod roe (front left). Oyster & baby abalone (front). Ginko nuts. Crispy rice (center back).

Steamed Abalone with mizuna mustard greens. Marinated with bonito broth.

Dobin-mushi. Matsutake mushroom, sea eel, chicken, mitsuba, ginko nuts, sudachi.

Very Japanese, this soup is in a little teapot with the cup (and yuzu) on top.

First one pours out and drinks the light dashi broth.

Then one can pick out the eel, shrimp, chicken and the like.

Sashimi. Nodo kuro (black sea perch), blue fin tuna, tai.

Snapper (tai).

Kinmedai (golden eye snapper).

Grouper (hata).

Scallop with truffle.

1995 Robert Ampeau & Fils Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Combettes. 92 points. Tis is medium gold. Nose is very ripe fruit and honey, but not boytritis. Sweet and satiny and weighty, acid is failing. Finishes with baked apples and pastry.

Steamed golden snapper head. With silky tofu. This was rather delicious, and was dipped in a light sauce zested with green onion and daikon.

Ginger. Chunks of very strong and tasty ginger.

Egg with eggplant caviar. Gooey!

Sea robin. (Hobo).

Sea pike? (sanma). It can be hard to remember which fish is which.

Chu-toro.

O-Toro. Awesome.

Kanpachi (amberjack).

Waygu beef. Delicious and melt in the mouth.

Halibut.

A pretty double course.

King crab (kani).

Salmon roe (ikura) and sea urchin (uni). Fabulous.

Sweet shrimp (ebi). The heads were still moving.

But not after being turned into shrimp head miso!

Mackerel (saba).

Sea bass (suzuki). Marinated in kelp.

Egg (tamago).

Melon for dessert.

And roasted tea.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Tsujita, but the meal proved to be quite interesting. Absolutely first rate sushi, and of a somewhat different ilk than most of the less cured or particularly heavy vinegar style places (like Sushi Zo). It wasn’t cheap, offering omakase in the $120, $150, and $180 ranges (above is more or less a $180), but this is pretty comparable to other top sushi houses in LA. It’s also on my favorite lunch street, giving Kiriko some competition in the serious sushi world.

For more LA sushi reviews click here.

By: agavin
Comments (8)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Japanese cuisine, Sawtelle Blvd, Sawtelle Boulevard, Sushi, Sushi Tsujita, West Los Angeles

Cholesterol Check

Feb21

Restaurant: Plan Check Kitchen

Location: 1800 Sawtelle Blvd. Los Angeles, Ca 90025. 310-288-6500

Date: Febuary 11, 2014

Cuisine: Gastropub

Rating: the crullers and chicken were worth the heart attack

Hidden between the Korean BBQ and Japanese noodle joints on Sawtelle the relatively new gastropub style American eatery, Plan Check Kitchen.

The lunch menu.

Chorizo sausage, green garlic. I don’t really see the garlic, but this is fine fresh chorizo (if said dish can ever be called fresh).

Cucumber, kombu, dill. Nice crunchy modern pickles.

Stuffed mushroom. Roasted portobello, swiss cheese fondue, crispy kale, roasted garlic steak sauce. It was all about the sauce for this baby. And the sauce was same good.

Smokey fried chicken. Jidori chicken, smoked milk gravy, yam preserves, spicy pickled okra. This was some damn good fried chicken. There were no bones, just really moist chicken bits and crunch fry. The gravy was, well gravy, and the yam preserves (looked and tasted not far off from apricot jam) really made the whole sizzling chicken fat thing work. Up there with the Ad Hoc Chicken for recent fried chicken greats.

Cruller donuts. Cooked to order with cream and fruit. Wow. Just pure sugar, cinnamon, and fried goodness. Very soft and under cooked. LOTS of sugar.

Plan Check subscribes to the Gastropub “fast = flavor” style of cooking, but it pickles that with a little vinegar, and does it well.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
Comments (3)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Donuts, fried chicken, gastropub, Plan Check, Sawtelle Boulevard

XLB – Soup Dumplings!

Jan31

Restaurant: Roc

Location: 2049 Sawtelle Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90025. (310) 235-2089

Date: January 24, 2014

Cuisine: Taiwanese Chinese

Rating: Awesome XLB

Among lovers of Chinese food the Xia Long Bao, or XLB for short, is a particular favorite. These little thin skinned dumplings stuffed with (usually) pork and a hot broth are quite delicious. So when a friend told me than one of the managers from Din Tai Fung (an SGV Taiwanese XLB palace) had opened a place on the Westside I waited all of about 24 hours before trying it.

Sleek space is nothing to write home about, but that’s not why we came.

Here is the menu. The top left corner in the red are all variants on the XLB.

Dumplings need their sauces. Here soy sauce, vinegar, chili oil, and ginger are available at all times.

Scallion pancake with ginger soy dipping sauce. Fried and tasty.

Beef roll. Cucumbers, green onions & cilantro. These monster burritos were filled with sweet BBQ beef and quite delicious.

Garlic dungeness crab fried rice. garlic, egg, & green onions. This was a fabulous fried rice. There were real chunks of sweet dungeness crab in here, making it a bit like certain rice dishes I would get in Japan.

Shrimp and pork spicy dumplings. I expected a more traditional wonton in chili oil (the Schezuan classic often called “numb taste wonton.”) These were more like potstickers with sirachi. Not my favorite dish of the day, although certainly fine.

Pan-fried dumplings, Shrimp and pork. These are the more fried, less spicy version of above. They were superior, pretty much classed fried potstickers.

Crispy balls. I can’t even remember what was inside.

Steamed bun. Same pork center, thicker coating.

Lobster & pork XLB. An interesting blend of the traditional savory pork with a bit of lobster sweetness.

Lobster, crab & fish XLB. Much more seafoody, with a sweet and briny taste.

Classic pork XLB. There is a reason these are classic. All the XLB were scrumptious, but these in particular are amazing.

You load one of these babies on a spoon and add some sauce (usually through a small hole). This helps cool down the boiling broth inside. Then pop in your mouth for an explosion of flavor. Don’t ever bite them, you’ll just make a mess — rookie mistake.

Pepper beef. Cubed filet mignon, red onions & bell peppers. The beef was tasty, but this is a pretty straight up, almost American Chinese style dish.

Pork chop. Great with the fried rice.

Shrimp and peppers. Light shrimp with shisito peppers.

Kale. Greens.

Chinese mustard greens sautéed with ginger. I think they mean steamed with ginger, because these were close to just steamed greens. They are what they are, but being a fat is flavor man, they didn’t do it for me.

Baby bok choy. Sauteed with garlic & shitake mushrooms. Better than the Chinese greens for sure, these had some actual flavor.

Overall, the XLB (all 3) and the fried rice made this meal. I want to try some of the other things on the menu, and next time I will, but my brother and I polished off all this just the two of us — that’s 15 dumplings each! I’d be perfectly happy to come in myself and order some rice and a steamer (or two) of XLB. Yum yum!

The menu is a little smaller than Din Tai Fung. The dumplings were just as good, but I miss a few of the other dishes at DTF: like the noodles, hot & sour, and chili wontons — but Roc is about 40 minutes closer, right in my hood, so I’ll be going a lot!

For more LA dining reviews click here

or, for my index of Chinese Food, here.

By: agavin
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Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, Din Tai Fung, Fried rice, Roc, Sawtelle Boulevard, Xiao Long Bao, XLB

Cheesy Pork Cutlet

Jan20

Restaurant: Kimukatsu

Location: 2121 Sawtelle Blvd, Los Angels, CA 90025. 310-477-1129

Date: January 13 and October 20, 2014

Cuisine: Japanese Pork Cutlet

Rating: Tasty fry

One of the first things I noticed spending a lot of time in Japan was that restaurants specialized. I mean, really specialized. Some served sushi. Some served BBQ eel. Some tempura. Some Udon. And, of course, some served Tonkatsu, or deep fried pork cutlet. This is traditional accompanied by cabbage and its own special sauce.

The menu.

Condiments like sauces and salad dressing.

Unlimited cabbage and a tangy vinaigrette, surprisingly tasty (plus, traditional).

Taco Yaki. Translates more or less as “Octopus fried yummy”. This was literally the first food I had in Japan. Fresh off the plane 25 years ago I got some on the street — and burned my mouth badly with the 212 degree temp. This wasn’t as hot, but it tasted pretty much the same!

Red miso soup.

Rice in a cute little bucket.

Traditional Japanese pickles, which you eat with the rice. I love these guys actually.

The cute little pork cutlet. Check out that fuzzy fry.

I ordered the “cheesy cutlet”. Layers of folded pork with a bit of cheesy goodness in the center. The meat is unusually folded, and therefore lighter and fluffier. I’ve had this a bunch in Japan and it’s generally much denser and more chewy.

Here is a bit with the tangy (tamarind based?) tonkatsu sauce, which cuts the fat.

Curry Tonkatsu. The fried pork cutlet is on rice, but surrounded by an island of rich Japanese curry and accompanied by crunchy pickles and miso soup. This was one of the best curry rices I’ve had not only was the cutlet fabulous, but the curry was perfectly done and smooth and the pickles extra lovely.

Yuzu sorbet hit the spot — and it was free with a Facebook like, certainly no hardship.

This is a nice little spot, focused, as is typical in Japan, but certainly serving up top flight Tonkatsu in a way both traditional and souped up.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

By: agavin
Comments (2)

Posted in: Food

Tagged as: Cutlet, Japan, Japanese cuisine, Miso soup, Sawtelle Boulevard, Tonkatsu, Worcestershire sauce

Tsujita LA – Artisan Noodles

Sep20

Restaurant: Tsujita LA

Location: 2057 Sawtelle Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025. Tel. 310-231-7373 Fax. 310-231-7375

Date: September 5, 2013 (original) and August 8, 2014 (annex)

Cuisine: Japanese Ramen

Rating: Really, really tasty

For a year I’ve been noticing this “artisan noodle” join on Sawtelle with the huge line, so I figured I needed to try it.

At lunch they have a simple menu with basically two dishes (both will be pictured below).

On the table are the condiments. Various pickled ginger and the like.

Char Sui Tsukemen. This is a version of Tsukemen, which is basically noodles with a dipping sauce/soup (below). The noodles above are served along with super fatty (but super tasty) sliced BBQ pork.

Here is the “soup.” It’s a flavorful, almost curry-like pork broth. There is a pickled egg in there too (ajitama). You take the noodles above and dip them in the soup then eat. It coats them thickly. Delicious. You can dip the pork too.

The Tsukemen was a new thing for me, and I have to say I love it. I wrote this 10 days after trying it and I crave it so much I’ve returned at least once a month for over a year!

Or add condiments if you like. Seaweed on the right. Green onion on top. Bamboo shoots and wood ear mushroom on the right.

Spicy tuna don. A bowl of rice with said tuna.

This is Hakata Nagahama Tonkotsu Ramen, the other dish (you can order variants). It’s a rice pork broth slowly simmered for 60 hours. Thin ramen, boiled egg, and various condiments go in. I used to get this stuff at 2am in Fukuoka with my former boss. Yum! One of the best ramen types. I like to jazz it up with the red pickled ginger. It’s excellent on a cold day.

Tsujita is so popular they opened another location right across the street, called the “Annex.” This, somewhat mysteriously, offers a slightly different take on porky ramen.

Two versions of it here. With char sui pork, egg, sprouts, and onions.

And with peppers. This is a good ramen, but it just doesn’t have that incredible luscious porkiness of the dipping noodles (Tsukemen) at the original.

Tsujita really is all about the Tsukemen dipping noodles. This just isn’t quite like regular ramen and has an intense pork quality that is really mind bogglingly good. No wonder there are huge lines! They need to change up the single song they play (loudly) though. It was great the first 3 times, but the 30th?

For more LA dining reviews click here.