Just Food [4]

Re: Ramen Yamada

I like this place a lot.  Every time I go, the broth has been consistently thick, creamy, and full of pork flavor.  Sometimes the broth also imparts a more oily texture on my tongue while other times it does not.  I’ve begun adding different flavors by adding different types of toppings like corn, bamboo shoots, onions, etc.  The one topping that stands out the most is the menma (bamboo shoots).  The menma imparts a kind of a sour vinegary yet earthy taste to the broth.  I think this gives the broth a nice contrast at times.

Here are two more pictures of the awesome broth ramen.


The left picture is the Chasuu Tonkotsu Shoyuu broth with fried rice and chicken karaage combo.  Shoyuu (soy sauce) is not my favorite type of broth.  Unfortunately the time I went they ran out of everything except shoyuu and spicy miso.  I’m not a fan of spicy miso either so I was disappointed.  This broth tasted like a very light version of the Tonkotsu broth.  It felt almost watered down but not quite.  Its like the chef added more water to the leftover broth that they couldn’t get into because of the bones, meat, and fat thats in the way of them scooping it out.

The right picture is the Kakuni Tonkotsu Ramen broth.  The pork belly kakuni wasn’t as good as the previous time.  The meat was a bit tougher on this cut.  The broth didn’t taste as oily this time to me.  However maybe because it wasn’t as rich and oily, this broth didn’t seem like it tasted as good as my very first visit.

Gourmet Food Trucks (22)

Re: Global Soul Truck (facebook)

A new truck at Westchester First Fridays... A random person suggested that I try this truck.  I was halfway to finishing the No Reservations Catering BBQ Sandwich special with Garlic Fries... so I didn’t finish the whole sandwich but I finished most of the fries.


Anyways, the dish I ordered was the “Shrimp Toastie.”  Four cajun-spiced? pan-fried jumbo shrimps on top of french roll with a curry sauce.  There is a drizzle of garlic chili oil as well which make me think the shrimp wasn’t really cajun-ish.  But man this combination was really good.  Despite being full I was tempted to order something else just to try their other dishes.  If this shrimp dish is good who knows how good their other ones could be.

The jumbo shrimp tasted similar to those gourmet seafood restaurant shrimps that you get as an appetizer.  It was cooked well.  The shrimp rested on these french roll “plates.”  They also drizzled some  garlic chili oil which added some heat to the dish.  The french roll that  was soaked with this coconut curry sauce.  I think its a green Thai curry that they used.  But they said it was an Indian Madras curry base.  I don’t know much about curry so I can’t really say.  The french roll was slightly buttered (they said) but if they were... you couldn’t taste it over the curry sauce.  The curry sauce is definitely something that is worth going back to.  They could probably use that as the basis for another dish... its just THAT good.  

Finally that garlic chili oil... damn good.  They said they’ll be bottling it soon so I have to get my hands on a bottle.

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Re: No Reservations Catering

I really hoped they offered their “heaven’s gate” grilled cheese.  But apparently they were busy that they couldn’t prepare.  Instead they had a the BBQ Beef sandwich.  


The bread was too much.  I ended up tossing half of it away.  The BBQ sauce was pretty good.  It had more of a citrus and sweet tart to the sauce instead of the traditional hickory smoke flavor or a Worcestershire flavor.  I like this sauce since it didn’t taste really heavy.

Just Food [3]

Re: Ramen Jinya
As I mentioned in the previous post, ramen is one of my favorite type of food.  The combination of pork broth with noodles and sliced pork, bamboo shoots (menma), chopped onions, and hard boiled egg is just too good to pass up any day of the week.

Ramen Jinya was recommended to me almost two years ago.  But the only location was in Studio City.  I didn’t want to trek to Studio City on a weekday since traffic is always horrible in LA.  I also never really found an excuse to go to Studio City until recently.  

1. The broth is always the first thing I taste.  I always ask myself:
2. Is the broth flavorful?  
3. Can I taste the pork (if its a pork based)?
4. Can I see the tiny white bits of floating marrow?  
5. What else can I taste?  Garlic? Onions? Sesame?
6. Are the noodles chewy?
7. How are the toppings (corn, bamboo shoots, spinach, chopped onions, seaweed)?
8. Do they complement the broth or the noodles or each other?

Now... THIS....

This is one awesome bowl of ramen.  Its a pork tonkatsu broth base.  The broth was flavorful and surprisingly neither too salty NOR too oily.  The broth has a very light taste.  It didn’t taste rich like Ramen Yamada (which was oily in comparison to this one) but it maintained its flavor very well.  Honestly, I couldn’t get enough of this broth.  I had to stop myself from finishing the broth before finishing the rest of the ramen, spinach, chashu, chopped onions.  The chashu was very soft and tender.  There cut of meat was pretty lean.  I don’t mind lean cut but I think ramen requires fatty pork belly to taste good.  I also wish they added more than just a few obligatory bamboo shoots.  I find the bamboo shoots and chopped onions changes the flavor of the broth temporarily.  Ramen Jinya also added some spinach into the mix.  

The chicken karaage had this ponzu sauce that tasted very good.  The chicken itself tastes similar to how other Japanese restaurants make the dish.  I wish they would put the ponzu sauce aside as a dipping sauce instead of pouring it on the chicken.  I think it would taste much better to continually dip it after each bite.

Gourmet Food Trucks (21)

The fourth Santa Anita Food Truck Festival arrived on the first weekend of October.  From the website, there were up to 60 trucks listed.  Of the 60 trucks, I had already tried 35 of them.  Actually... two of the trucks are old re-branded Calbi trucks (Short Rib Tacos and New York Galbi) so in reality, 58 trucks.  

Re: Almoosal


I went in to this fourth festival with the intention of only eating at new trucks.  The first truck on the alphabetical list was Almoosal.  They serve Filipino fusion food.  At the festival they served pork tocino, beef tapa and hawaiin pork sausage longazaino.  I probably mispelled all of them but they don’t have a menu for me to reference!  I had the sausage sandwich.  It came with sweet potato fries and a garlic sauce.  The sausage sandwich was pretty good.  The Hawaiian sweet bread, arugula, tomato, onions and a garlic aioli sauce went pretty well with the sausage.  

The sweet potato fries were very good with the garlic sauce.  The fries were fried just right.  The sweetness of the fries went well with the garlic sauce.  The sauce reminds me of the Athena Grill garlic sauce.  

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Re: Asian Cravings

Next on the list was this truck.  This is an asian fusion truck.  I saw that they had pork tacos so I ordered those.  These pork tacos by themselves are pretty simple.  They put shredded pulled pork with pickled cabbage.  To make the tacos “asian fusion,” they added a nice ginger sauce to the top.  The tacos themselves are pretty standard.  The only thing they didn’t do was to add shredded cheese which is good since not everything has to have cheese on it (a la Calbi and Kogi truck).  

The pork was juicy but it lacked “asian” flavor.  The cabbages added a nice sourness and crunch to the taco.  The ginger sauce was very good.  It brought the ingredients together.  However, I really think that they could have done more to meld the ingredients together.  Individually, each of the ingredients were bland.  The pork was not seasoned.  The cabbage tasted like they were pickled but again nothing stood out from the pickling process.  Only the ginger sauce tasted good and that taste brought out most of the flavor from the pork and cabbage.  

They have other items which would be interesting to try.  Hopefully their other tacos are better.

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Re: VChos

Pupusas for those that might not know are very similar to the Tex-Mex quesadillas.  The main difference that I see is that quesadillas sandwich the ingredients (cheese, meat, salsa) while the pupusas are slightly thicker (like a pita bread) and have the ingredients already mixed (or stuffed?) into the bread.  I had the pork, bean and cheese pupusa.  


The container contained some spicy sauce which by itself would have been great with the pupusa.  But it also had cabbage mixed in which really ruined it for me.  I took two bites and tossed it.  The pupusa came out hot and freshly made.  It was a bit hard trying to cut it into manageable bite sized pieces with one hand but I managed.  

I tasted the beans and the cheese... but I didn’t really get a lot of pork.  The pork flavor was there which leads me to believe there was pork in the mix.  Maybe it was mixed into the bean and cheese?  I don’t know.  I think it was good and for the price is pretty reasonable for the amount of food you get.  This is one truck that’s worth going back to.  Apparently they have a pretty good chicken pastelito -- stuffed chicken pockets.

Just Food [2]

I think the title of this new section is a little too long.

Re: Hole in the Wall Burger

A hole in the wall restaurant is a dining establishment that doesn’t have a lot of seats or many amenities.  However these eating establishments tend to serve great.  

So... with that being said, Hole in the Wall Burger Joint does just two things: make burgers and fries.  But these burgers aren’t your run of the mill burgers.  As trite as it might sound, these burgers are “gourmet burgers.”  But yes you can get gourmet burgers at those fancy upper scale restaurants or at alternative places such as The Counter.  However, the specialization that Hole in the Wall has with burgers makes these burgers infinitely better than the other restaurants that server gourmet burgers.  

Anyways, I’ve been to this place a couple times already.  You fill out a piece of paper that asks for the type of meat (beef, chicken, turkey or veggie), the type of buns (pretzel, brioche, old fashioned), cheese (swiss, cheddar, provolone), vegetables (onions, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles), dressing (chipotle mayo, ranch), garnish (bacon, egg, avocado) and fries on the side (kennebec, sweet potato).  There are probably other options but I don’t remember them at the time of writing.  I highly recommend having a beef burger with bacon, cheddar, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, chipotle mayo and kennebec fries.

They also have weekly specials.  On my last visit, they had the “Pastrami Burger” which consists a beef patty topped with three slices of pastrami, three slices of cheese, thousand island dressing and coleslaw.  Man this burger was messy but delicious.  The thousand island was uniquely different as I tasted a hint of chipotle in it.  Even though the bread was somewhat dry at the start, by the time I had my second bite, the juices from the burger had soaked through the bottom bread while the thousand island and coleslaw soaked the top.  This burger was so large I had to use a knife to initially cut the burger in half.

I would recommend anyone looking for a decent burger to go here.  Unfortunately, it is a little on the expensive side, but I think its worth the price.  On a side note, this spot was the first “mayorship” I attained on Foursquare.

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Re: Yamada Ramen

One of my favorite types of food is ramen.  Most of the good ramen I’ve eaten have been in NorCal -- specifically in the San Jose area where a friend usually takes me around to eat ramen whenever I visit the Bay Area.  I’ve tried all the ramen places close to work which includes Santouka Ramen inside Mitsuwa Market, the defunct Kinchan’s Ramen, Chabuya Ramen, Asahi Ramen and Ramen-ya.  There are two new places opening up soon: Ramen Jinya and Tsujita LA.  Ramen Jinya has another location in LA. Tsujita had a “flash” store inside a Mitsuwa Market last year.  Tsujita currently is open but does not serve ramen... yet.  

I stumbled upon this restaurant somehow looking at ramen pages on Yelp.  Apparently when I looked, they had just opened that week.  I ventured out the following day for lunch in hopes of trying it.  Surprisingly not many people eat lunch at noon on a weekend... which is good for me.  I tried their Tonkotsu Kotteri.  The broth was good.  It was rich, creamy and full of flavor.  The description said there was some garlic in the broth but frankly, I really couldn’t taste it.  

I went to Yamada Ramen again for dinner recently.  When I arrived, the line was out the door.  I put my name on the list hoping they could seat me at the counter quickly.  My gamble paid off and the waitress seated me immediately at a communal table.  I tried their regular Tonkotsu ramen.  The broth was still good.  It was rich, full of flavor, creamy and it tasted very fatty/oily.  That was something I didn’t taste the last time (or wasn’t paying attention to).  This broth is better than Santouka’s miso base and shio base broths.  I ordered a side of the kakuni pork belly to go with the ramen. The combination of the broth with the pork belly made my day complete.

I would totally recommend people to come here.  My only concern is the wait time since this is a new restaurant.

Just Food [1]

After Gourmet Food Trucks (20), I figured it was time to expand outside the realm of the food trucks.  So I introduce the FIRST Not Gourmet Food Trucks post!!



Re: Churros Caliente

A friend recommended Churros Caliente describing their churros as an awesome treat.  I had tried their churros once before during winter.  I recall that night because I walked back home in the rain.  Why did I walk in the rain?I got fed up waiting for the bus for 30 minutes that I just started walking in the rain.  The bus eventually did come after 40 minutes which was packed.  



I had stopped at this place that night as a quick break to warm myself up after walking in the rain.  I also hoped that the rain would stop a bit as it had become more of a drizzly mist by the time I got to the restaurant.  I had the churros and hot chocolate combination.  The churros were good but I didn’t enjoyed it as much since I was soaking wet.



This place is located next to the theater on Santa Monica.  They have a small space for dining and a small patio that extends out into the sidewalk of Santa Monica.  After a “half-day” Friday, I stopped at the restaurant to eat lunch.  I had their chicken panini, churros and ice milk coffee.  The panini would have been better with a little more cheese and more of the tomato sauce.  The bread was very good but suffers from being very dry.  The chicken was pretty juicy.  But I still think more tomato sauce would have been better.  


The churros were extremely good.  They make it fresh which probably was why it was good.  The sugar sprinkles had a nice added sweetness that gave the churros a nice aftertaste.  It was so good that I went and tried a Churros Grande with cream cheese stuffing and guava drizzle.  Apparently this is a pretty popular fan favorite combination. And let me tell you it was good.  The warm cream cheese was perfect with the churros.  The guava drizzle wasn’t too sweet and complemented the cream cheese slight sourness very well.  Using strawberry drizzle would have probably overpowered the cream cheese flavor.



I would come back for the churros.  I think you should too!

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Re: Urbanbelly



I was sent to Chicago for training.  Taking the opportunity, I went to try a restaurant that was shocased on Food Network’s “Best Thing I Ever Ate.” I had the recommended Rice Noodle.  It was a noodle soup using thin vermicelli along with thick rice cake noodles (the ones you find in a shanghai rice noodle dish).  The soup is made from a pork broth base that was spiked with the spicy kim chee flavor.  The soup also contained thick cubes of pork, garbonzo beans and kim chee.  I had also ordered the bacon and squash dumplings and a side of Chinese eggplant.



I found the broth to be amazingly good.  Its a clear pork broth base similar to the type of Chinese style noodle soup broths.  Its definitely different from the Tonkatsu Japanese ramen broths.  This broth was delicious.  It tastes as if it was simmered for a good 4 hours similar to how good home made Chinese beef noodle soup base should be made.  It was spiked with a kim chee flavor that made the broth spicy.  It’s like the spicy beef noodle soup that you eat in Taiwanese restaurants.  


The bacon and squash dumplings were not what I expected.  They were spicy squash “dumplings” with bacon, tangerine and daikon topping.  I really had hoped the filling would be squash and bacon flavor.  It would be an interesting flavor combination to have the texture of the squash mix with the flavor of bacon.  I had also expected Chinese style dumplings.  I think ravioli would probably be a more proper term for this dish.  


The Chinese eggplant was very good.  I really like the vinegarette sauce.  The eggplant was topped with some crunchy wontons that complemented the “mushy” eggplant.  I like that odd juxtaposition.  

Gourmet Food Trucks (20)

Is it time to move on beyond food trucks when my Dad is curious enough to ask me about the food truck craze that he reads about in the Chinese newspaper?




Re: Yummy One
I had the taco before.  It was pretty good since the sauce they used really made their taco stand out from some of the other tacos I’ve had.  I decided to try their Bibimbap rice wrap.  They described it as traditional Bibimbap that is just wrapped in a rice paper.  The easiest way to describe rice paper would probably be the type of wrapping you would find if you order Vietnamese Spring Rolls.  

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Re: Schnitzel Wagon
So... who knows what a Schnitzel is?  I certainly didn’t.  But this truck was at the Westside Food Truck lot.  Before writing this entry I Googled it and read the wiki entry on it.  So now I know what it is!  Internet is great!

Anyways, I ordered the Chicken Schnitzel plate.  I thought the chicken was pretty good.  The portion they gave was pretty large.  The breading was very good.  Every bite had a nice crunch to it.  It reminded me of tempura.  The chicken was pretty tender but I guess that’s what happens when it gets hammered flat?  They said they included some special lemon sauce.  But honestly I didn’t taste this special sauce.  The bag was empty aside from napkins.  I did see a lemon wedge which you can see at the top of the picture.  Maybe that lemon was that the “sauce”?  Because if it was the sauce, I must have missed the memo.  Plus I don’t usually like to have lemon juice over fried food (fried fish sticks, fried shrimp, etc).  The fries were boring.  The cole slaw was boring.  

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Re: Mighty Boba Truck.
Did anyone notice the new cup designs?  Its pretty awesome and fits in with their super hero theme. 

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Re: Meat and Potatoes
I’ve seen this truck around and the name is pretty intriguing.  I’ve seen its menu and honestly it didn’t look like it would taste really good.  But man was I wrong.

They suggested the Pastrami sandwich.  I’m not a big fan of pastrami but I still went with it since its what the lady at the counter said was “the best.”  Its one big sandwich with tomatoes, coleslaw, sliced deli meat, cheese and french fries.  I think what made this sandwich really good was the coleslaw.  They put something in that coleslaw that just made the sandwich taste really good.  I got this double taste of the coleslaw with every bite.  The first taste was the actual coleslaw.  The second taste was from the french fries and the bread that soaked up the juices of the coleslaw.  I think it was the soaked fries that made tied the sandwich together so well.

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Re: Sloppy Gourmet
A new truck that’s only been around for two months.  This is one of those American comfort foods similar to grilled cheese.  But unlike grilled cheese, a sloppy Joe’s is a tough thing to eat.  It gets real messy really fast.

This new truck was near work and I stopped by to check it out.  They serve their sloppy joe’s out of a hollowed out loaf of bread.  Its an interesting idea and though it may make holding it easier... it sure doesn’t make it any easier to eat.  It still got very messy when I tried.  I had gotten their “original” but added bacon and eggs into the mix.  I had wondered how they were going to incorporate the bacon and eggs since normally sloppy joe’s have the meat and the sauce all pre-made in some cooking container.  Apparently, they cook it on the side and stuff it into the sandwich and then put the sloppy joes in.  Not the best in my opinion.  At least... they should have chopped up the bacon and mixed it in.  I also got their potato spud balls.  It was breaded mashed potatoes with sloppy joe toppings.  Honestly, it tasted more breaded than mashed potatoes.  I would totally recommend against ordering that particular dish.

As I don’t like sloppy joes very much, I probably wouldn't specifically search out this truck just to go to it like I do with Grilled Cheese Truck or the other trucks on my twitter list.

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Re: Ta Bom
I tried their special burger on the menu.  And it was good.  I think I was more surprised at the fact that there was sweet corn in the burger than anything else.  I can see why the truck says this burger is a “top seller.”  Its different enough from a regular burger that it doesn’t taste like one yet still has the familiarity of the meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and onions in it.  I would recommend people to try it.

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Re: Aunties Fry Bread
It’s billed as a “Native American” fusion.  But since I’ve never had “native american” food.  I really don’t know how authentic this food is.  Anyways, I have always wanted to go to the Santa Monica Main Street food lot that occurs on Tuesdays.  I went one Tuesday night after work and got fairly lucky with parking.  The area South of 3rd Street Promenade was packed with people and cars.  

From the looks of the food, it seemed that this truck mainly served some bread item with chili topped.  I’m not sure which part of what i just described is considered native american.  The bread was very fluffy but tasteless.  It tasted somewhat different from normal bread that we get from the supermarket.  It had a more “doughy” consistency similar to the puffballs that you find at Vik’s Chaat Corner in Berkeley.  I think it was decent.  The chili tasted pretty good.  

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Re: NachoTruck LA
After the fry bread, the chili made me crave the nachos next to the fry bread truck.  This truck is marketing nachos as a gourmet affair.  But I think nachos in the end are pretty much a food for the masses regardless of the ingredients used.

The nachos were pretty good.  They used either home baked or gourmet style crunchy chips that I liked alot.  On the bottom of the nachos was a tortilla.  At first I thought it was kind of odd to have a tortilla layered on the bottom.  But as I finished the nachos, I figured out what it was for... well maybe!  I used it to eat it the rest of the smaller juiced soaked nachos as a taco.  Genius!!