Mar
14
A few years ago, Cat and I went to the fancy Ralphs Fresh Fare in West LA and bought some unusual fruits just to try them out. The ones we picked out were passion fruit, pepino melon, feijoa, and red tamarillo. I can’t remember much about them now except that the red tamarillo was very sour and the recommended way of eating them was just to pour sugar on them which actually made it pretty good.
Mar
14
For the over-indulger, here is some spam breaded and fried in oil. These were made by me and Carly at Jim’s in his deep-fryer a few Thanksgivings ago.
Mar
13
Nikutama Rice / Nikutama Gohan / 肉玉ご飯 is a dish I saw on NHK’s Journeys in Japan that looked simple and delicious. It involves a bowl of rice with furikake, thinly sliced meat (pork in this case), an over-easy egg, okonomiyaki sauce, and mayonnaise. It was really easy to make and the toppings make it taste a little like okonomiyaki.
Mar
13
An old pic I found in my albums of Hawaiian Rice Snacks! AKA Spam Musubi. I believe I took this at a Studio City 7-11 in 2006 close to Midori Sushi after some all-you-can-eat sushi.
Hawaiian Rice Snacks
Feb
23
From this year and last year’s Superbowl parties, here is the Bacon Explosion Remix we made. I forgot where the remix recipe came from, but it is similar to the original Bacon Explosion except we added Cheez Whiz and didn’t bother with the extra bacon inside.
Feb
22
My site now allows you to post comments with your Facebook credentials over Facebook Connect, thanks to the Simple Facebook Connect plugin. Out of the box, there is no way for WP-reCAPTCHA to take over if you are not logged in with your Facebook credentials. Instead the options were to be logged in and enter a reCAPTCHA code or to just disable reCAPTCHA completely. Over the last day I’ve been tweaking away and I have finally set it up so that you can login via Facebook Connect OR just enter a reCAPTCHA code.
Special thanks to Simple Facebook Connect and WP-reCAPTCHA.
Feb
17
La Penca Azul (Yelp) in Alameda is probably THE Mexican place with its prime location, fun atmosphere, and popularity. I had been wanting to check it out ever since we moved to Alameda and when I saw a Yelp deal for 50% off, I jumped on it. Jessica got the carnitas plate and I got the seafood soup with shrimp, mussels, scallops, and fish. The tomato-based soup was pretty good and the reason I ordered it was because I had never seen the dish at other Mexican places and I was curious. Both of our entrees were quite large and we ended up boxing up our leftovers. We also got several glasses of margaritas (happy hour prices) that were decorated with sugar cane, lime, and orange. I believe they use the La Pinata margarita mix, which I thought was pretty good. They also have a pretty wide selection of tequila and I ordered a shot of La Pinata tequila which came with a salted lime and tomato juice chaser. The restaurant has pretty good early and late happy hour deals which I would like to check out another time.
Feb
05
Jessica and I went to Pearl’s Deluxe Burgers (Yelp) at the Alameda Towne Center the other day. The place kind of reminded me of Fuddruckers because most of their burgers were pretty big (1/4lb and 1/2lb) and you could choose what kind of beef you wanted, including buffalo and grass-fed beef. They also have beer. Jessica got the Phat Bobb and I got The Spicy Sly. We also got some sweet potato fries and onion rings. The onion rings might be the best I ever had. They were good, big pieces nicely seasoned and fried to perfection. The Spicy Sly was a pretty good spicy burger, but the 1/4lb I ordered made me want a little more. 1/3lb might have been nice if they had it. I may have to avoid the sides next time and go for a 1/2lb. It’s great that a burger place like this is in Alameda and I definitely want to try it again.
Feb
02
On Richie’s recommendation, we checked out Ramen Jinya (Yelp) in Studio City to satisfy a ramen craving of mine. At first we were thinking of going to Orochon (Yelp) or Daikokuya (Yelp) in Little Tokyo, but we decided to try something new. It is a pretty authentic ramen restaurant located in a random strip mall. I believe I got the Tokyo Tonkotsu Ramen which was pretty good. If I could order again, I might have added extra negi, because negi is awesome.
Jan
31
Mariscos Guero (Yelp) in Long Beach has some of the greatest Mexican seafood I have had. The restaurant is very low-key and is located in a strip mall. The place was referred to us by Richie’s co-worker. When Richie, Luis, and I arrived, we immediately observed two signs that the food was going to be amazing: 1) the restaurant was completely full at 2:30pm and 2) all the customers seemed local and Hispanic. Unfortunately, we had to wait about 15 minutes for a table; however, the food was going to be well worth the wait.
Soon as we sat down, we received chips, salsa, and a bowl of halved limes. We ordered some beer and micheladas. The micheladas came out as a glass with spices, salt, and lime juice and a separate bottle of beer of our choice. Combining the two yielded an authentic michelada and a great thirst quencher. We also ordered a half-dozen of oysters, several tostadas, tacos, and seafood cocktails.
The oysters came out on a simple plate with ice cubes. We creatively combined the many hot sauces on our table with some lime juice to create a unique balance. The small seafood cocktail (the pictured seafood cocktail is a “small” even though it looks pretty big) I ordered had shrimp, octopus, and abalone. The tomato and lime-based juice with cocktail sauce complemented the chunks of seafood well. The fish ceviche tostada I ordered was very good. The tostada model makes sense compared to a taco with its juicy toppings because the tortilla stays crunchy instead of getting soggy and falling apart. At first I was a little afraid of getting the raw shrimp tostada but it had just so happened that a few days earlier I was reading Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential
If Mariscos Guero had not exceeded my expectations already, it did when we received our relatively inexpensive bill. I definitely recommend this place if you want some good, authentic Mexican seafood. I would also recommend you visit for lunch or early dinner since they close at 7pm and also keep in mind they are not open on Thursdays.
