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Archive for Taiwanese Cuisine

Lunch Quest – Dai Ho

Dec07

Restaurant: Dai Ho Restaurant

Location: 9148 Las Tunas Dr, Temple City, CA 91780. (626) 291-2295

Date: May 27, 2022

Cuisine: Taiwanese Chinese

Rating: Notoriously reasonably priced

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Dai Ho has been on my “to try” list forever (maybe close to 10 years). It’s a very small menu Taiwanese lunch place known for noodles and being incredibly cheap (and tasty).
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Typical old school SGV frontage.
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The extremely casual interior space.
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Tubs for sale.
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Bean curd and anchovies. Nice texture and a bit savory.
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Mustard greens with Bean Curd.
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Mixed “spicy”. Peanuts, peppers, bean curd, garlic.
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Tripe and Bean Curd. Pretty good for tripe.
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Ground Pork Dry Noodles.
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Ground Beef Dry Noodles.
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Sesame Dry Noodles. Like a dan dan with less spice. Probably my favorite of the noodles — although not as strong as a good dan dan.
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Beef Noodle Soup.

We pretty much ordered everything. There are some variants of above, but we covered our bases. Everything we had was very tasty and the bill was ridiculously low, but I do like a restaurant more more variety!

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Lunch Quest – Happy Valley Village
  2. Lunch Quest – Da Long Yi
  3. Lunch Quest — Xiang La Hui
  4. Eating Xi’an – Warrior Lunch
  5. Cocoa Island – Languorous Lunch
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: AFF, Hai ho, lunch, Lunch Quest, noodles, Taiwanese Cuisine

Kato West Final Act

May24

Restaurant: Kato [1, 2, 3]

Location: 11925 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025. (424) 535-3041

Date: October 1, 2021

Cuisine: Omakase Asian

Rating: Really interesting and different

_

It’s hard to describe Kato. Located in one of the ubiquitous Santa Monica Blvd mini-malls it serves a sort of modern Asian omakase/kaiseki. It won a Michelin star recently and at the 2021-22 junction moved downtown. Now this last bit I’m bummed about as I loved having it on the westside. But their audience is predominantly young hip Asian couples who mostly live in the SGV. Sigh.

Given what was in the fall of 2021 an imminent move much further, Erick and I went twice to collect the tasty memory data from the late period at this westside location. This is the final report (before heading downtown to try the new spot).

Fit in there with the Mexican places, the cheap sushi, the massage joints.

The decor is minimalist but attractive. The crowd is young and predominantly Asian.
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The menu tonight.
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2002 Billecart-Salmon Champagne Cuvée Nicolas-François Billecart. VM 96. The 2002 Cuvée Nicolas François Billecart is outrageously beautiful. The ripeness of the Chardonnay is front and center in a Champagne that delivers the goods, big-time. An infusion of apricot, orange peel, crème brûlée, chamomile, hazelnut and honey give the 2002 its racy, exotic personality. I enjoy it most with bottle age, but the 2002 is undeniably beautiful right now. The 2002 is a stunning NFB. The blend is 60% Pinot Noir from the Montagne de Reims and the Vallée de la Marne and 40% Chardonnay from the Côte des Blancs, done partially in oak (20%). Dosage is 4 grams per liter. (Drink between 2020-2030)
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From my cellar: 2002 Bruno Paillard Champagne Nec Plus Ultra. JG 97. The newest vintage of Bruno Paillard’s N.P.U. is utterly brilliant and a glorious example of the magical vintage of 2002. The bouquet soars from the glass in a very refined blend of apple, white peach, stony minerality, hazelnut, fresh-baked bread and a lovely touch of orange peel in the upper register. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and displays marvelous mid-palate depth, with racy acids, very elegant mousse, laser-like focus and a very, very long, complex and simply stunning finish. This wine is young, precise and so beautifully balanced that it is already a joy to dink, though it is clearly built for the long haul and its true apogee is at least a decade down the road! Stunning wine. (Drink between 2017-2075)
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2010 Domaine Leflaive Meursault 1er Cru Sous le Dos d’Âne. VM 92. Bright yellow with a green tinge. Very ripe aromas of yellow fruits and nut oils. Broad, sweet and fruity, offering lovely volume without excess weight. Silky-smooth and rich but kept fresh by harmonious acidity (4.6 grams per liter, according to winemaker Remy). Long on the aftertaste. A very good vintage for this bottling.

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2010 Jean-Marc Roulot Meursault 1er Cru. Very rare bottle.
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Tapioca, brown butter, uni. This dish started out with us wanting to do something with milk and tapioca and eventually led to a savory dish. We also try not to have dairy in the majority of the menu so when we do we get to use it, it’s a treat. We think the uni pairs well with the different textures, temperatures and forms of dairy.
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Tuna, 3 cup. The flavors of Thai basil, sweetened soy and sesame oil are so emblematic of Taiwanese cuisine so I can see why 3 cup chicken is so beloved. This version is with pacific big eye tuna that’s lightly cooked so it kind of looks like the chicken in 3 cup chicken.
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Kanpachi, cucumber. This is one of the first dishes we were really known for. We wanted to revisit it with our new pantry and style of cooking. We smoke pacific amberjack and serve it with a vinaigrette of charred negi and a cucumber relish as well as a bonito vinegar gelee.
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Caviar, geoduck, koji butter. We source caviar through Astrea (our friends Eve and Reisa), their Kaluga hybrid is one of my favorites that I’ve ever tasted. The only inspiration for this dish is the quality of the caviar and the rest of the ingredients serve to highlight it.
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Egg custard. Whenever I was sick as a child my mom would steam egg custard with black vinegar. It’s still one of my favorite dishes to this day. This dish is our egg custard, a sauce of kelp and black vinegar, a few different shellfish, Brentwood corn and Aaron’s negi.
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Bread!
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A spread (for the bread).

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Chinese style steamed fish. Every regional cuisine of China and every home has a version of this dish. The most recognizable would be the Cantonese version where a fish is steamed whole and dressed with soy, ginger and scallion to which scalding oil is poured over the top. Our version has loup de mer and we cook each element separately and assemble it to service. The soy is traditionally unadorned but mixes with the fish jus in the steaming vessel. We take sea bream bones and make a tisane and season it with different rice wines and soy sauces to emulate the traditional technique.1A4A5247
Short rib, pear. We’re working on doing a throwback menu to our favorite dishes from 5 years. This dish isn’t Taiwanese or Chinese but it reminds us of eating in Los Angeles and our first year of opening. It’s a dish of short rib cooked with pear then grilled. We serve it with matsutake and some of the pear cooking liquid.

But it was a bit different with some rice.
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Yogurt, plum. The only dessert I’ll ever go out specifically for is frozen yogurt. This version is served with a shaved ice made from tisane of lemon verbena that Girl and Dug is growing and emerald plums since it’s stonefruit season.
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Boniato yam tapioca, fresh cheese, sable. Here’s our other longest standing dish, our ode to arguably the most popular thing to ever come out of Taiwan, boba milk tea. We make tapioca balls out of an Asian roasting yam, similar to the sweet potato or taro ones you’d have in Taiwan. We make a fresh cheese and foam it and we shave frozen brown butter sable so it gives the feeling of eating shaved ice. We think that the flavors range from milk tea shops to shaved ice stands.
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A bigger group this time.
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Overall, a very interesting and different meal. Very light, bright flavors and the whole thing tasted great but left one feeling not in the least “bombed out” which is actually kinda nice. Extremely modern too and straight up ready for instagram!

Tonight’s (final) meal was pretty similar to the August one.

Service is great, if a bit fast! Like just over an hour! It’s also, for gluttons like Erick and I, not nearly enough food, so despite ordering all the supplements we have always gone for “second dinner.” But this time we went down the street to Sasaya, a local Izakaya.

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Open late into the night with ipad ordering.
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Crab rice.
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Korean style short rib.
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An egg dish.
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Grilled eel.

Check out more epic Foodie Club meals, here.

Related posts:

  1. Kato West Penultimate
  2. Kato
  3. The Final Cover
  4. From Sketch to Final
  5. Szechuan Impression West
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Foodie Club, Kato, Sasaya, Second Dinner, Taiwanese Cuisine, Wine

Kato West Penultimate

Apr04

Restaurant: Kato [1, 2, 3]

Location: 11925 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025. (424) 535-3041

Date: August 31, 2021

Cuisine: Omakase Asian

Rating: Really interesting and different

_

It’s hard to describe Kato. Located in one of the ubiquitous Santa Monica Blvd mini-malls it serves a sort of modern Asian omakase/kaiseki. It won a Michelin star recently and at the 2021-22 junction moved downtown. Now this last bit I’m bummed about as I loved having it on the westside. But their audience is predominantly young hip Asian couples who mostly live in the SGV. Sigh.

Given what was in the fall of 2021 an imminent move much further, Erick and I went twice to collect the tasty memory data from the late period at this westside location.

Fit in there with the Mexican places, the cheap sushi, the massage joints.

The decor is minimalist but attractive. The crowd is young and predominantly Asian.
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The descriptive but cryptic menu.1A4A3109
From my cellar: NV Krug Champagne Brut Rosé Edition 21eme. JG95+. The Krug Brut Rosé “21ème Édition” is from the beautiful base year of 2008, with the oldest reserve wine in the blend going back to 2000. The wine was disgorged in the spring of 2015 and is a blend of fifty-one percent pinot noir, forty-one percent chardonnay and eight percent pinot meunier. Ten percent of the pinot noir in the blend is still red wine from Krug’s own parcels of vines in the village of Aÿ. The blend is a slight departure from many releases of Krug Rosé, as hail in the village of Ste. Ghemme in 2008 dramatically cut back the quality of pinot meunier from this vintage, so that Chef de Caves Eric Lebel opted to use all reserve wines for the pinot meunier portion of the blend. The very complex wine offers up the characteristically refined and gently exotic bouquet that this cuvée is cherished for, wafting from the glass in a blend of cherries, a touch of pomegranate, orange peel, beautiful, savory spice elements, rye bread, a complex base of soil tones , dried rose petals and incipient smokiness. On the palate the wine is full, complex and still quite youthful in terms of structure, with vibrant acids, a lovely core, elegant mousse and a very long, perfectly balanced and seamless finish. This is already beautifully complex, but I would love to revisit it five to ten years down the road and see what the passage of time does to this beautiful constellation of aromas and flavors. (Drink between 2018-2050)
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Erick brought: 1976 Dr. Loosen Erdener Prälat Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel. Amazing! We bought multiple bottles of this at a fantastic Loosen dinner.
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NOTE: I’ve used the restaurant’s notes, so they are in written from the chef’s point of view.

The rectangular one was: Tapioca, brown butter, uni. This dish started out with us wanting to do something with milk and tapioca and eventually led to a savory dish. We also try not to have dairy in the majority of the menu so when we do we get to use it, it’s a treat. We think the uni pairs well with the different textures, temperatures and forms of dairy.

The rounder one is: Tuna, cilantro. I’ve been trying to make our cold dishes feel like the cold side dishes you would get whenever you eat at casual Chinese noodle houses. The dish is based on a smashed cucumber salad. It’s an onion croustade with roasted chili jam, cilantro condiment and minced bluefin tuna.
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3 cup abalone. The flavors of Thai basil, sweetened soy and sesame oil are so emblematic of Taiwanese cuisine so I can see why 3 cup chicken is so beloved. My mom used to stir fry sea snails or clams in the same sauce. We decided to recreate that by reducing 3 cup sauce into a syrup and marinating California abalone in it. The dish is dotted with an abalone and sesame oil emulsion so there’s extra notes of sesame.
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Tomato. Aaron from Girl and Dug Farms has a huge selection of tomatoes right now. They all taste different so we wanted to do a dish that showcases all of them. It’s a salad of all of Aaron’s tomatoes, tomato consommé, semi dried sungold tomatoes and a vinegar gelee.
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Caviar, geoduck, koji butter. We source caviar through Astrea (our friends Eve and Reisa), their Kaluga hybrid is one of my favorites that I’ve ever tasted. The only inspiration for this dish is the quality of the caviar and the rest of the ingredients serve to highlight it.
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Shrimp Toast. We’ve been serving a bread course for a long time now because we really like the milk bread recipe that we developed. We’re starting to realize that a bread course doesn’t make sense in the course of our menu but we still wanted to use our milk bread. So we decided to use it as the base of a shrimp toast done in the style of honey walnut shrimp to pair with the custard course.
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Egg custard. Whenever I was sick as a child my mom would steam egg custard with black vinegar. It’s still one of my favorite dishes to this day. This dish is our egg custard, a sauce of kelp and black vinegar, a few different shellfish, Brentwood corn and Aaron’s negi.
1A4A3197
Chinese style steamed fish. Every regional cuisine of China and every home has a version of this dish. The most recognizable would be the Cantonese version where a fish is steamed whole and dressed with soy, ginger and scallion to which scalding oil is poured over the top. Our version has loup de mer and we cook each element separately and assemble it to service. The soy is traditionally unadorned but mixes with the fish jus in the steaming vessel. We take sea bream bones and make a tisane and season it with different rice wines and soy sauces to emulate the traditional technique.
1A4A3205
Short rib, pear. We’re working on doing a throwback menu to our favorite dishes from 5 years. This dish isn’t Taiwanese or Chinese but it reminds us of eating in Los Angeles and our first year of opening. It’s a dish of short rib cooked with pear then grilled. We serve it with matsutake and some of the pear cooking liquid.
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Rice dishes are traditional finishers in Asia.
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Yogurt, melon. Frozen yogurt is hands down my favorite dessert to eat. I’m not a sweets person but I’ll always make room if there’s frozen yogurt promised. Dessert doesn’t play a huge part in a coursed Taiwanese meal but tea and fruits always cap a meal. Weiser farm melons right now are at their peak so we wanted to incorporate that so we made the juice of 3 different melons into a granita and there are also pieces of mush melon as well. We think it tastes like a melona bar, a staff favorite.
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Boniato yam tapioca, fresh cheese, sable. Here’s our other longest standing dish, our ode to arguably the most popular thing to ever come out of Taiwan, boba milk tea. We make tapioca balls out of an Asian roasting yam, similar to the sweet potato or taro ones you’d have in Taiwan. We make a fresh cheese and foam it and we shave frozen brown butter sable so it gives the feeling of eating shaved ice. We think that the flavors range from milk tea shops to shaved ice stands.
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Overall, a very interesting and different meal. Very light, bright flavors and the whole thing tasted great but left one feeling not in the least “bombed out” which is actually kinda nice. Extremely modern too and straight up ready for instagram!

Service is great, if a bit fast! Like just over an hour! It’s also, for gluttons like Erick and I, not nearly enough food, so despite ordering all the supplements we have always gone for “second dinner.” In this case right outside to Monte Alban (a Oaxacan Mexican place).

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Chips and salsa.
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Chilaquiles. Crispy corn tortillas pieces in spicy tomato sauce, sprinkled with cheese, onion, sour cream, and green salsa, with your choice of protein.
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Tacos Enchilados, mole negro. Three soft tacos rolled with chicken or cheese covered with red or black mole and sprinkled with fresh cheese, onion, and parsley. Served with rice.

Check out more epic Foodie Club meals, here.
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Related posts:

  1. Kato
  2. Szechuan Impression West
  3. East Meets West – Maru Sushi
  4. Public Houses on the Rebound – Upper West
  5. Chinese Fusion – Nightshade
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Foodie Club, fusion, Kato, Krug, Loosen, Second Dinner, Taiwanese Cuisine

Quick Eats – Earthen

Mar29

Restaurant: Earthen Restaurant

Location: 1639 S Azusa Ave. Hacienda Heights, CA 91745. (626) 964-1570

Date: March 6, 2019

Cuisine: Taiwanese Chinese

Rating: Solid goodness

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This week I had a 2 day gelato making course in Walnut, right in the heart of the eastern SGV (Hacienda Heights) and since I was staying over of course I took the opportunity to hit up some extra great Chinese.
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Earthen is in the same mini-mall as the awesome Shanghailander Palace.
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The inside is typical of these newer cafe type Chinese places. “Some” build out, as opposed to the older ones with absolutely none, but not much maintenance. They have no liquor license so it’s not a good spot for a wine dinner. But it was perfect for a quick solo dinner.
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Hot and soup soup. I just had the feeling that this old comfort food from my youth would hit the spot. And this was a nice version of the classic. I actually ate pretty much this ENTIRE 4 person bowl (small) myself. It wasn’t the best hot and sour ever, but it was quite good, maybe an 8. Had the texture form the soft bean curd, egg, and the slightly crunchy bamboo and stringy mushrooms. Nice and tangy.
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House special cold chicken. Like Hainan chicken with a garlic soy sauce. Cold but succulent. Bone is still all in there, Chinese style. Not a strong flavor, but very pleasant.
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Garlic shrimp. I really shouldn’t have gotten a fried dish, but I LOVE this tangy garlic sauce type. It’s a bit of the way toward a sweet and sour sauce. Sticky. It would have been good without the breading too. Certainly tasted good with it — although I didn’t need the carbs.

Earthen hit the spot. All three dishes were quite delicious Taiwanese comfort foods. I do think they use a good bit of MSG as I felt it for the next couple hours afterward. Not a big surprise. Technically they were supposed to be open to 10pm and I had planned to slide in there at 9:15ish on my way out to the area, but fortunately I made good time as they closed at 9 and I was the last customer.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Quick Eats – Popcorn Chicken
  2. Quick Eats – Tasty Noodle
  3. Quick Eats: Sunnin
  4. Quick Eats – Little Sister
  5. Quick Eats – Big Boi
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chicken, Chinese cuisine, Hot & Sour Soup, SGV, Taiwanese Cuisine

Kato

Oct23

Restaurant: Kato

Location: 11925 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025. (424) 535-3041

Date: September 15, 2017

Cuisine: Omakase Asian

Rating: Really interesting and different

_

It’s hard to describe Kato. Located in one of the ubiquitous Santa Monica Blvd mini-malls it serves a sort of modern Asian omakase/kaiseki.

Fit in there with the Mexican places, the cheap sushi, the massage joints.

The decor is minimalist but attractive. The crowd is young and predominantly Asian.

There are only 2 choices, $55 and $80 tasting menus. We went for the larger of course which includes beef and the foie gras and an extra dessert.

Cheap, minimalist, but attractive wares.

There is NO LIQUOR LICENSE, not even a 41 (beer/wine) so it’s tea only.

Stuffed shisito peppers. There was something sweet and savory inside. It was delicious actually, with just the right amount of salt.

Hamachi, cucumber, scallion, black squid sauce. Bright flavors, mixture of textures, some crunch. Very interesting — and attractive.

I love to make abstract squid ink art.

Cold Noodle. Apparently vaguely inspired by a Korean dish. Very thin white cold noodles in an almost clear vinegar sugar broth with bits of clam and greens. Bright and light. Quite lovely actually and very different.

Octopus, Doubanjiang. Crispy fried octopus with spicy sauce and some greens.Quite “crispy” and more than a little kick.

Ocean trout, ikura. Very soft, nearly rare ocean trout (aka salmon) with a light ponzu/dashi like sauce and a crispy bit of skin (or was it skin)? Regardless a nice fish dish.

Wagyu beef, ramp, seaweed. The seaweed was crispy fried. There was some ginger-like stuff on the meat. Also tasty and interesting.

Foie, strawberry, milk bread.

Basically a foie / strawberry uncrustable “peanut-butter” sandwich. Delicious and the light fluffy quality of the milk bread balanced nicely with the sweet/rich innards.

Buttermilk & yuzu. Very fresh and light citrus crumble.

Strawberry semifreddo and cream. Absolutely delicious. Great cold texture and intense strawberry flavor on the pink part, nice sweet cream on the rest.

Wasabi, matcha, lime. Interesting. Wasabi ice cream! And it tasted like it. A sort of tangy caramel below. Very different.

Corn & Hojicha. Fluffy bun of corn with corn filling. Tasted like corn bun.

Ginger gels.

Overall, a very interesting and different meal. Very light, bright flavors and the whole thing tasted great but left one feeling not in the least “bombed out” which is actually kinda nice. Extremely modern too and straight up ready for instagram!

Service was good. I’d like to see them get a liquor license and allow corkage. The manager told us they were working on it but there were zoning issues. I know all about those!

For more New York dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Kiriko Days – a la Carte
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  4. Finding the One at One Pico
  5. Quick Eats – Bru’s Wiffle
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Japanese, Kato, Omakase, Santa Monica, Taiwanese Cuisine

Quick Eats – Popcorn Chicken

Jul21

Restaurant: Popcorn Chicken

Location: 2224 Sawtelle Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90064. (424) 832-3076

Date: June 21, 2017

Cuisine: Taiwanese

Rating: Taiwanese fast casual

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More Chinese on Sawtelle – yay!

It’s in the row of fast casual joints by Daikokuya.

And it’s sort of a hybrid boba tea shop fast casual Taiwanese place.


  Pictures on the menu.
 Passionfruit green tea with boba. There is the usual vast array of such drinks.
 Grapefruit green tea with boba.

Popcorn chicken. Tasty. Very fried.

Fried squid balls. Yep. If you’ve got the balls, eat ’em.

“lunch’s” come with this microscopic egg drop soup. It wasn’t bad.

Szechuan fish filet noodle soup. The fish itself wasn’t the most amazing and it wasn’t seething in peppers like at a real Szechuan place but it had some mala (numb taste) and a whole bunch of noodles. Not bad.

Scrambled eggs with shrimp over rice. Weird as these egg, sauce, rice dishes are — I kinda love them.

House fried rice. Always tasty.

Sesame Balls. 2 balls in one day! Filled with red bean paste.

Popcorn Chicken is sort of like a low end version of Little Fatty. Or Little Fatty is like a high end artsy Popcorn Chicken. Nothing wrong with that. Good extra option to have on Sawtelle.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Quick Eats – Halal Guys
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  4. Quick Eats – Da Jeong
  5. Quick Eats: Tofu Ya
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chinese cuisine, Popcorn Chicken, Sawtelle Blvd, Taiwanese Cuisine

Little Fatty

May26

Restaurant: Little Fatty

Location: 3809 Grand View Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90066. (310) 574-7610

Date: April 16 & May, 2017

Cuisine: Modern Taiwanese

Rating: Really tasty

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I love me some Chinese food and am certainly willing to try any promising westside Chinese.
 It’s not far from the Mitsuwa market in Mar Vista and used to be “Status Kuo”. Both are the creations of Chef/Owner David Kuo.

Decor is cute and the kitchen right out there in front of the single row of tables. Over to the left, sort of next door, is “Accomplice” a bar owned by the same group.

The small menu.

Old Fashioned. You can order from Accomplice. Solid Old Fashioned.

Wontons. Shrimp, pork, chili vinaigrette. More or less a version of the classic “numb taste wontons”. Sweet and sour flavor, quite nice, if not as good as a really good version of the classic.

General Tso Cauliflower. Rice flour, jalepenos, sesame seeds. Almost makes me love vegetables. Really great dish, and so Tso it hardly mattered it was Cauliflower (which I actually like).

Duck Pizza. Hoisin sauce, parmesan, pickled chilies. Fabulous. A bit like the long lost CPK duck pizza.

Mapo Tofu. Pork, meiji tofu, chili bean paste. Not nearly as spicy or numbing as a “real” version of Mapo, but it was good in it’s own way. More meaty than most.

Beef and Broccoli. yu choy, Chinese BBQ sauce, red vinegar. I normally would never order B&B but this version was actually really good with a bit of heat and a fish sauce thing that made it a bit like a panang.

Taiwanese Sunday Gravy. 3 cuts of pork, shiitake mushrooms, house pasta. Unusual, slightly funky, hybrid east/west and pretty delicious.

Zha Jiang Mian. Pork, black bean paste, fresh noodles.

Decent, but not as great as a great dan dan mien.

Lots of meat though.

Walnut Shrimp. Mayo sauce, watermelon radish, candied walnuts. A bit more fried and not as much “light” mayo as the classic. Certainly tasty, and good quality shrimp, but I like the traditional a hair better (when it’s good).

Pork chop. With takuan pickles. Great fried snitzel.

Braised pork belly. Chinese preserved vegetables, soy, rock sugar. Solid, if very fatty (as it should be).

Fried rice. Chinese sausage, egg, pickled carrots. Nice fried rice. I always love the sweet Chinese sausage.

Taro ice cream. Fried sesame balls, coconut, thai basil. I didn’t think I would like this, given that I detest taro, but it was actually pretty great. Sesame balls had a nice texture contrast with the ice cream.

Overall, Little Fatty was pretty great. I like the slightly modern updated Chinese sensibility and it maintains much of what I love about Chinese flavor. I’ve already been 3 times and will go again. Wish they didn’t use MSG though (I can feel a bit of CRS afterward).

For more LA dining reviews click here.

For more LA Chinese dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Westwood Chinese – Northern Cafe
  2. Food as Art: Ping Pong
  3. XLB – Soup Dumplings!
  4. Eating Barcelona – Mian
  5. Hip Hot
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: David Kuo, Little Fatty, Mar Vista, Taiwanese Cuisine
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