Eating With Chan

Cheese grove

One of my tutoring families gave me a gift card to Nordstrom, so it was off to the Grove to see if I could find something. The Grove today was crawling with people, and for some reason I couldn't find anything I wanted at Nordstrom. We were hungry so we went looking for somewhere to eat. I haven't had a good experience at Morel's (see my entry entitled "Am I Becoming My Father" for that story) and the Farmer's Market is hit and miss.

So I said, OK, let's go to the Cheesecake Factory, a place I don't normally like. It just seems like a fancy Denny's with mosaics and airbrush paintings. We got one of those buzzing things that tells you when your table is ready. "15 to 20 minutes!" said the hostess in that chipper tone only a hostess could master. 

After 40 minutes of waiting, Bev from work happened to walk by. She asked us if we knew anywhere to get a Caesar salad. We suggested the Cheesecake Factory. "Oh no," she said. "We have those where I come from," she added. I think that meant, "I think this place is gross, but I see you're waiting to eat there so I won't tell you what I really think."  We told her to try Morel's. 

A few minutes later we were escorted upstairs to the dining room. I ordered pasta bolognese and got Vietnamese summer rolls to share.  My food was OK. But boy was it overpriced. Who expected that lunch for two would come to $45 AT THE MALL?  I really should stick to my guns and just go to Chick-Fil-A. Oh wait, there's no Chick-Fil-A at the Grove. Damn.

Ambookgeek made an interesting comment. He thought the Japanese inverted-bowl style of serving fried rice looked like a funeral offering.

Rice no no

It's probably the biggest faux-pas in an Asian restaurant -- making your rice look like an offering for the dead.  My friend Karen had a friend who was at a Japanese restaurant and put his chopsticks into his rice like this just to rest them someplace while he did something else. Anyway, the proprietor, an elderly Japanese lady, came up and pulled the chopsticks out of the rice, slammed them on the table, and then yelled at Karen for allowing him to do it.  Whoa.

Yesterday after work I wasn't feeling very well so I took a long nap. I woke up at 8:40 and realized I hadn't eaten anything since my two Tito's Tacos at lunch. I called Sue's Kitchen, the only Sichuan restaurant in the South Bay to see when they were closing. 9:00 PM. Dammit.

So I went to Hakata Ramen in Gardena. Hakata doesn't let you take ramen to go, so I ordered chahan (friend rice) and gyoza. Hakata's fried rice is Japanese style, so it looks something like this:

Fried_rice_Japan

It's made with Japanese rice, so the texture and flavor is different from Chinese rice. It's "nuttier" for lack of a better word. Japanese restaurants tend to try to make chahan look "tidy" and it always has the shape of an inverted bowl. In any case, most Asians think that fried rice is too dry to eat by itself so Hakata's comes with a bowl of soup as a chaser. It was a clear broth with slivered green onions floating in a little constellation on top. It's hard to believe that such a clear, exquisite broth started out as pig knuckles and chicken rib cages, but hey, that's the magic I guess. 

I don't normally even get fried rice and luckily for me they down serve it like this:

Omuraisu

It's a rice omelette. You take fried rice and put a big mass of scrambled eggs on the top and a big ol' squirt of ketchup on top. I think it's horrendous, but for some reason a lot of Japanese and Korean people like it. I just don't get it.

There's another reason I don't normally order fried rice in restaurants -- I just don't usually like it. American-style fried rice is brown (I mean brown from soy sauce, not brown rice). That's the way it is at Chin Chin, for example. I guess a lot of Americans come to expect it that way (or maybe people just like too much salt). So it looks like this:

Fried rice exhibit a

To me, this looks gross. I grew up eating fried rice that looks more like this:

Fried rice exhibit b

It's "blonder" and has green stuff in it. There's one big difference between this and the one I grew up eating though -- the eggs. My mother took great pains to make what she called "egg pillows." She would make very thin egg "crepes" which she would roll carefully and then thinly slice.  My uncle told me that he was over at my parents' house years ago and saw my mother making her egg pillows. He told her, "Sharon -- let me help you with that." Then he took the spatula and swirled the eggs around like a regular scrambled egg. My mom was apparently horrified. He never did that again.

Sentouka

Today I was up in West LA waiting to go to my tutoring appointment. I needed to find a place to get a quick bite to eat. I passed by Taco Bell and was definitely tempted. I thought about going to Tacomiendo for a quesadilla. I also thought about going to Monte Alban, but realized that I was too late for the breakfast specials so that wasn't going to work. What to do...what to do...

Then it dawned on me -- Sentouka. It's in the Mitsuwa Marketplace at Centinela and Venice (I think it's Venice). This Mitsuwa's food court is significantly smaller than the one in Torrance, but the selection was still good. I had a hankering for ramen, so I went to Santouka for a bowl of shio ramen. It was so good. There were two slices of roast pork, lovely green onions, a slice of fish cake, and perfectly cooked noodles. The broth was warm, slightly salty, and swirling with flavor. I thought it was kind of like a "perfect storm" in my bowl. I only wished that there was a Beard Papa in the neighborhood. That would have made my lunch complete.

I just found "The Pig Next Door." I guess it's like the Playboy Mansion, but non-sexual and more porcine.

I've gotten mailers for the avocado of the month club. And the smoked salmon of the month club. But bacon? I don't even like bacon.

http://www.thepignextdoor.com/?gclid=CISYtc-ChpQCFRwvagodWhd3WA

Pig next door

Today was a scorcher in LA. I had to go to the Valley this morning and I could feel the heat rising as I drove over

Bibimbap

the Sepulveda Pass.  I tried to spend as short a time as possible in North Hollywood before going back over the Hill.  Lunch today was at Park's Barbecue on Vermont. It's kind of like a zoo there, with a Mongolian valet busy negotiating the cars (he's a genuine Mongolian, btw). We were ushered upstairs since we weren't there for barbecue. I have to say that it was very nice upstairs without all the fuss and hullabaloo of the downstairs dining room. I order ttuk kalbi tang (rice cake and beef soup).  I don't normally eat ttuk, mostly because I don't like the texture. But in this soup they are a nice constrast with the other ingredients.  The kalbi beef was very tender and flavorful. The broth was excellent, accented with egg flowers and green onions.  We ordered "old" kimchee -- it's "aged" like a fine wine I guess. You'd think the flavor would hit you like a ton of bricks, but instead it's very subtle, almost delicate. 

Dinner was at the Cho-Dang Tofu House in Torrance. I opted for bibimbap tonight instead of soondubu since it's still warm out and I am on the verge of going migrainal. 

I was somewhat surprised to see that the Torrance Famima has closed. I guess they didn't get enough business -- actually I am not that surprised. Famima was kind of expensive, and there's a Marukai around the corner.

Al-watan

Al-Watan has to be in one of the most inauspicious locations. It's in a rather decrepid minimall on a bleak stretch of Inglewood across from a self-service car wash. There's little frontage and you might pass right by without seeing it (or the market a few doors down).

I go back and forth with this place. The food is tasty to be sure. The breads in particular have a soft density and slightly yeasty flavor that compares favorably to breads I've had in the Middle East.

What troubles me about Al-Watan isn't the food though -- it's the overall presentation and the service. Now, I'm not one to get fussy about non-descript restaurants. I've eaten at some real dumps in my day.  The thing about Al-Watan is that they're not very welcoming. The first time I went there I got stared at with that look that says "Why are YOU here?" I tend to ignore that look -- I get it a lot and usually it breaks down once I order food and eat it. Now I don't get that look any more at Al-Watan; I just get greeted with indifference.

If I were Pakistani, however, I think the reception would be different. They seem to be greeted with abundant good cheer, not the indifferent looks I get. The friendliest people there seem to be the Hispanic bus boys who compensate for their bosses.

Last night I tried something new -- chicken kabob karahi. It was minced chicken kabob pieces stewed with tomatoes, onions, and spices. The kabobs separately are very nice, but the added flavors of the sauce really was a nice touch. We also got a beef biryani which was a little off-putting given the amount of fat still clinging to the beef.  The breads were good as usual. The salad was plain lettuce with lemon and a subtle dressing.

I think, unfortunately, it will be a while before I go to Al-Watan again. The last time I was there the Pakistani workers taunted a homeless man. This time I wasn't really acknowledged, which is not normally a deal breaker, but in the context I can go somewhere else. I'll get treated better at Chick-Fil-A.

Bacon-floss

I don't really like the flavor of bacon (or the smell, for that matter).

This stuff is for real!   Check this out: http://www.uncrate.com/men/body/health-fitness/bacon-floss/

Pho

I go through phases in my eating. Right now I seem to be in a Southeast Asian phase. 

The other day I went to Westminster for pho. It's a cool place, but I feel a little sad for some of the people there because they are holding onto memories of a lost homeland. There are flags of South Vietnam everywhere. When I was in high school I remember some of the other kids talking about their homeland, the "Republic of China." I guess the Taiwanese people are at an advantage -- their country basically still exists.

In any case, the pho was good. The place I went to had really high ceilings and the walls were painted orange. I think they were really trying to look upscale. The back wall was composed of pebbles that had a stream of water flowing down them. Visually it was pretty cool.  The pho was OK; I got the one with rare steak and well-done flank. I forgot to tell them not to add the nasty cilantro to it. I always forget and every time I go "fuck!" Oh well, I scraped as much of it out of the bowl as I could.

It wasn't bad, and much better than any of the places I've tried in LA. In LA there are only places that cater to regular old Americans or ones owned by Koreans. I refused to go to "What the Pho" or "Phoshizzle." It just sounds wrong (but I have to admit, I did once go to Absolutely Phobulous -- it wasn't BTW).   

 Today I went to Little Phnom Penh in Long Beach. I ate at New Paradise and got a fish curry soup (with no fish, apparently) that included rice noodles and an interesting assortment of goodies. It had two chilies, lime, bean sprouts, cucumbers, and something that looked suspiciously like julienned pig ear. It turned out to be banana blossom (whew).

Curry soup

Loc lac

This is loc lac, a grilled beef served with jasmine rice. There's a Vietnamese version too -- don't know where it came from originally. I like the Cambodian version better.