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Archive for Sawtelle Little Tokyo

Quick Eats – Big Boi

Mar21

Restaurant: Big Boi

Location:2027 Sawtelle Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025. (424) 832-7199

Date: January 26, 2018

Cuisine: Filipino

Rating: Quick and tasty

_

I’ve periodically been going to B-Sweet on Sawtelle, which despite it’s very odd hours (closed Mondays and Tuesdays), is a really tasty Filipino-esque dessert place.

The owners are branching out down the block with this savory Filipino comfort food spot.

It’s super fast casual. Order at the counter, get your food in a plastic container.

Take out (which I hate) or sit in the cut but tiny space with self serve silverware.
Basically you build a bowl or plate of Filipino stuff. You can pick which starches go underneath too like rice, garlic rice, pancit noodles.

This two protein plate is Longanisa, house-made pork sausage links known for its distinctively sweet taste and Pork Sisig, tasty crispy chopped pork belly with a little lick, drizzled with a spicy mayo. Underneath was a hella-of-a-lot of garlic rice. Both mains were tasty and rich, with grease oozing into the rice (yum).

This second plate was garlic rice and noodles. On top was BBQ Skewers, thin marinated top sirloin steak, and Pork Tocino, thinly sliced pork shoulder cured in soy, salt, sugar, and garlic. The sweet red BBQ was particularly tasty. Surprisingly, the roll was very good too, a bit sweet. I can see that there is a sugar factor here. Hey, B-Sweet.

Overall, this is a funny little place, but tasty and very reasonable. Plus it’s EXTREMELY Fast. So if you just want to grab some fast yummy grub, not bad. I wish the limpia came in smaller batches so you could realistically have it as one person (13 egg rolls!). Also, one of my serious foodie Filipino friends thinks it isn’t terribly “authentic.” I would have no idea.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Quick Eats – Tasty Noodle
  2. Quick Eats – Flaming Pot
  3. Quick Eats – Popcorn Chicken
  4. Quick Eats: Tofu Ya
  5. Quick Eats: Panini at Home
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Big Boi, Filipino Cuisine, lunch, pork, Sawtelle Little Tokyo

Quick Eats – Tasty Noodle

Jan25

Restaurant: Tasty Noodle House

Location: 2117 Sawtelle Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025. (424) 248-3232

Date: November 27 & December 15, 2017 and January 5 & February 23 & March 16, 2018 and February 12, 2020

Cuisine: Shanghai Chinese

Rating: Large menu modern Chinese Cafe

_

Sawtelle Blvd is on fire and has 4-5 new opening in the last 2 months. One of the latest is Tasty Noodle House which is a very Chinese, SGV style, modern Chinese cafe. Pretty much appealing to 20 year old Chinese — and me. A bunch of these new openings are actually Chinese so the street focus is drifting from all Japanese to pan-Asian.

I think it used to be the Okonomiyaki place. The interior looks exactly like all these cheaper Chinese places on the street. Basically how to get a hint of decor while spending the least money possible.

But they did spend some bucks on the gigantic menu. It’s pretty much broad modern mainland Chinese with favorites, a lot of Shanghai and Beijing dishes.

Slightly spiced peanuts on the table to start.

 Strawberry smoothie. Mango slushie. For some reason they don’t have boba!

7U1A8021
Spicy Cold Cucumber Salad (2/12/20). Good crunch and a bit of garlicky spice.
7U1A8019
Cold Spicy Chicken (2/12/20). Very nice. No bones, juicy meat, and a savory/sweet/spicy sauce with excellent flavor.

7U1A8029

Xiao Lao Bao (XLB) pork soup dumplings (everytime). These are the best XLB I’ve had on the westside. They were considerably better than at nearby ROC which actually specializes in them. They had a tastier filling. You add the vinegar and soy sauce to the ginger bowl above.
IMG_8336
Pan fried Shanghai Dumplings. These are the breadier, more fried version of the pork soup dumplings — awesomely tasty too.

7U1A8036
Sticky Rice Shu-Mai (2/12/20). Interesting carb on carb action as these felt like dumplings filled with brown sticky rice!

House Sauce Noodles w/ Pork. Translation leaves a bit to be desired.

Mixed up. I enjoyed this dish a lot. The sauce is very sweet with a broad bean base and a TON of pork. If you mixed in a cup of Szechuan chili oil, some sesame paste, and used less sauce it would basically be a dan dan mein. I’m not sure they have real dan dan here.  I’ll look next time. But this one, despite being sweet, did have a flavor profile I really liked. Noodles were a touch thin.

 Plain noodles for my son.

7U1A8053

Pan-seared green chili pepper w/ minced pork black bean sauce (many times and 2/12/20). Probably the same sauce as the house special noodles, but delicious just the same. I really liked this dish. Prawn with spicy minced pork sauce noodle soup. The soup itself is a mild light pork broth like a super mild cabbage ramen. Actually fairly tasty. Then the prawns come on the side like this. The sauce for the prawns is that goopy, garlicky, slightly spicy sauce that is often used for shrimp and I LOVE. It went well enough in the soup, but I will have to get this dish in a variant with lots of the sauce over rice on a return trip.
IMG_8341
And here it is a few weeks later, the full sized prawns doused in sauce all by themselves (comes with a bowl of rice on the side) — yum!

7U1A8034
Fish, shrimp, crab, and squid with crab sauce and snake gourd (2/12/20). Snake Gourd turns out to just be a green Chinese squash. Nice light garlicky seafood mush with slightly crunchy vegetable.
IMG_8719
Spicy fish filet and tofu with rice (2/23/18). Pretty much similar to the Szechuan boiled dish below, but a sauce over rice. Almost more successful in this format, I enjoyed the soft textures.

Fish Fillet & Beef w/ Spicy Sauce. This is a Szechuan dish, but it’s not really a Szechuan place. There was plenty of garlic, but not much mala. The chili oil was too one note for my taste, it should have been fried with aromatics. So this dish turned out to be like a 6/10 for it’s type (which is a very typical Szechuan type). They actually have a better one across the street at Popcorn Chicken (and that one isn’t that great either). But as I said, this isn’t a Szechuan restaurant and you can bet the chef isn’t central Chinese (but more likely from Shanghai or Taiwan).7U1A8049

Spicy Beef with Tofu (3/16/18 and 2/12/20). Slightly spicy variant on the brown sauce. Nice texture with the firm bean curd. A touch salty.

7U1A8041
Pork Belly with preserved vegetables (2/12/20). Meat was a touch dry and the vegetables not as salty/umami as they are in the best forms of this dish, but still enjoyable.

7U1A8055
Cumin Lamb (2/12/20). Not very spicy, or massively cumined, but nice.
7U1A8063
Pork with Leeks (2/12/20). Perhaps a twice cooked pork? Very nice smoked flavor and porky grease tone to the dish. Made the leeks delicious too.
7U1A8070
On 2/12/20 I brought some gelato too:

Raspberry Sorbetto — French Raspberries and a touch of lime juice — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — Unusual for me to go so “straight” with my flavors but I wanted a complement to a complex flavor — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #sorbetto #raspberry

Crackerjack Gelato – Smooth Peanut Base with homemade Dulce de Leche Ribbon, Toffee Peanuts, and Caramel Popcorn! — made by me for @sweetmilkgelato — oh my! — #SweetMilkGelato #gelato #dessert #icecream #FrozenDessert #nomnom #dessertlovers #dessertporn #icecreamlovers #gelatoitaliano #foodporn #gelatolover #food #foodgasm #foodblogger #dessertgasm #desserttime #foodphotography #gelatoartigianale #gelatomania #dessertlover #icecream #icecreamlovers #peanut #caramel #DulceDeLeche #Popcorn #CaramelCorn
7U1A8080
In the bowl you can see that Dulce de Leche.
7U1A8084
Wines from 2/12/20.

Overall, I’m glad to have so many real Chinese dishes move to the westside. This is a cafe style restaurant, like Northern Cafe, and as such has more casual cooking at a lower level than a big menu more “dinner” restaurant like Beijing Tasty House. But it’s very welcome because it gives yet another great option to an already awesome area. It’s slightly Shanghai in style but with a lot of Beijing type and lightweight Szechuan dishes in the way that’s very popular in China now.

I do have to say that on my 2/12/20 visit the food had really sharpened up. It wasn’t perfect, or again as good as a very good “higher end” SGV place, but execution was pretty on point and we had many delicious dishes.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

Wines from 2/12/20:

7U1A8014
7U1A8026
7U1A8039
7U1A8060
7U1A8067
7U1A8082

Related posts:

  1. Quick Eats – Qin
  2. Quick Eats – Popcorn Chicken
  3. Quick Eats: Tofu Ya
  4. Quick Eats – Little Sister
  5. Quick Eats – Flaming Pot
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, Sawtelle Little Tokyo, Tasty Noodle, XLB

Quick Eats – Flaming Pot

Jan15

Restaurant: Flaming Pot

Location: 2222 Sawtelle Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90064

Date: December 1, 2017

Cuisine: Taiwanese Hot Pot

Rating: Simple

_

In the SGV both “medium end” and cheap hot pots are plentiful and mobbed. My favorite of the higher end ones in Hai di Lao, and it and similar level are cheap enough that I never have seen fit to go to Boiling Pot or the other super crowded cheap ones.

But a Taiwanese variant has opened on Sawtelle right next to Popcorn Chicken (same owners).

The interior is about $20k above nothing much.

Extremely minimalist space, and I don’t even think they have a hood.

The menu is simple. A few fixed hot pots with some minimal options.

Ice tea. Seems to default sweetened. Ick.

Spicy Flaming Pot. Packaged noodles, beef, fish balls, tofu, pig intestine. Doesn’t look that spicy either. Unlike the more elaborate hot pot where you cook yourself this is just a pot you heat up and heat. It’s actually easier, but takes a bit of the fun out of it.

Curry Pot. Pork, veggies, corn, imitation crab, fish balls, mushrooms. The curry flavor was very mild. Just some curry powder really. It didn’t taste bad.

Boiled lamb slices. They did add some flavor and protein to the pot. But aren’t exactly high quality.

Rice.
 Rice noodles. Turn into super thin glass noodles.

Overall, very mediocre. I might come back if desperate. It’s not bad. And it’s fairly cheap (although mysteriously more than ramen). Service was TERRIBLE. They were very confused young Chinese kids. Nice enough. Unless you love hot pot and are really don’t want to drive, not too much reason to frequent.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Quick Eats – Popcorn Chicken
  2. Quick Eats: Chan Dara
  3. Quick Eats – Sushi Burrito
  4. Quick Eats – Venice Ramen
  5. Quick Eats: Tofu Ya
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: China Cuisine, Flaming Pot, hot pot, Sawtelle Blvd, Sawtelle Little Tokyo

Hurry Curry

Sep07

Restaurant: Hurry Curry

Location:2131 Sawtelle Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025. (310) 473-1640

Date: June 30, 2015

Cuisine: Japanese Curry

Rating: Solid curry

_

I’ve been to Hurry Curry many times but a friend of mine really strongly recommended trying the fried chicken curry.

Hurry Curry is located in Sawtelle Little Tokyo like so many other Japanese lunch spots.



The menu.

Typical Japanese salad.

Gyoza. Japanese-style fried pork & chicken dumplings. Ultra crispy.

Croquette. Ground beef. Two hand crafted mashed potato patties fried to a golden brown and served with tonkatsu sauce. These puppies were HOT HOT.

And a little too much mushy mashed potato for my taste.

Fried Chicken Curry. Sake marinated chicken battered and fried, served with curry. Not as fried as I would have expected.


The curry. There were two of us. We ordered 4. You can never have enough curry.


Red pickles. For me, these are key.

Fried tofu. We also ordered some fried tofu up to throw into the mix.


The chicken smothered. It was pretty good.

Truth is though, I love rice pickles and curry together. That’s probably my favorite.

Overall, Hurry Curry is a fine curry place, although one of three on the street. I still think neighbor Kimukatsu has a slightly better kitchen.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Akbar – Curry not so Hurry
  2. Cheesy Pork Cutlet
  3. Hannosuke Tempura
  4. Cholesterol Check
  5. Quick Eats: Tofu Ya
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Hurry Curry, Japanese cuisine, Sawtelle Little Tokyo
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