elmomonster's Profile
Ridgeback Shrimp at The Shack - Rowland Heights - With PHOTOS
PHOTOS:
http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2012/05/ridgeback-shrimp-at-shack-rowland.html
Have you ever had a ridgeback shrimp? They're a local species, caught off the coast of Santa Barbara, and they're finicky creatures. They must be kept alive until the very moment they are to be cooked--otherwise the internal organs start to degrade rapidly and they turn an unappetizing black.
They are also armored with a carapace made for medieval forms of war. BB pellets shot at point blank range would ricochet with a pling-pling-pling. I had some ridgebacks at The Shack in Rowland Heights recently, served and steeped in a plastic bag filled with butter and Cajun spices (yes, just like at The Boiling Crab), and I sustained actual injuries handling them.
The shell is somewhere between a regular Gulf shrimp and a crawfish, but with barbed appendages as sharp as pins. I got an honest-to-goodness cut on my thumb, and she punctured her index finger. Seriously, a chain mail glove would probably be advisable to use here.
But oh the rewards. The meat is inordinately sweet, deep in flavor, not at all fishy, and as delicate as crab. The stripes of a cooked ridgeback are deep crimson instead of pink. You also need to tear into the head, peeling the skull back like a brain surgeon and then nibbling on the meat right behind the beady eyes along with all of that delicious pulpy gunk that surrounds it.
Since these are wild-caught, there will be a disparity in the sizes. They aren't sorted, so you'll often get a few runts along with the Hulk-sized ones. And right about now, since its already at the end of its season, ridgebacks are hard to come by, which makes them all the more special.
The Shack is so far the only restaurant outside Santa Barbara where I've seen them. If you intend to go to The Shack to try them, call first. They've got three suppliers and the owner told me that what I had on this trip may be the last until the season starts up again in September. He sold them for $9.99 per pound, just a dollar more than the regular shrimp. When they do return, you can be sure I'll be back at The Shack...with Band-Aids.
The Shack
18927 Colima Rd.
Rowland Heights, CA 91748
(626) 839-4700
http://www.TheShack-LA.com
PHOTOS:
http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2012/05/ridgeback-shrimp-at-shack-rowland.html
Alternative to Earthen - New Golden City in Rowland Heights - Review With Photos
I agree with you both. I wrote this post a few weeks ago on my blog when the intent was to pay homage to the once great Noodle House.
When I wanted to share my find on Chowhound, I added the title connecting it to Earthen in haste...to give a little context. That was a mistake.
Sorry.
Alternative to Earthen - New Golden City in Rowland Heights - Review With Photos
Yup on both counts!
Alternative to Earthen - New Golden City in Rowland Heights - Review With Photos
ipse,
Yes, the Shandong chicken is here...it's also the "House Special".
And I did mention the onion (scallion) cakes...virtually indistinguishable from Earthen's.
http://monstermunching.com
Alternative to Earthen - New Golden City in Rowland Heights - Review With Photos
PHOTOS: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2011/07/new-golden-city-rowland-heights.html
At this spot where New Golden City sits now, there was once a place called Noodle House. That was the English name, anyway. There might have been a Chinese name that I never knew, but the most defining characteristic of the restaurant was a large framed picture of the geeky, bespectacled owner kneading noodles and smiling as Arnold Schwarzenegger has his arm around him.
Noodle House was already gone before the recent Ahnuld scandal. It was gone before he took office as The Governator. But I still remember the food it served. My taste memory is as vivid as ever on it. I can still feel the chew of the noodles in their house spicy seafood noodle soup. We always ordered it because the strands were made right there, in the back. You knew this because to eat there is to hear the constant thwacking: the loud and dull noise of something being hit against something else, as if someone was repeatedly being tortured for information.
It may not be a reassuring sound to hear for those who weren't regulars. There was the fact that the kitchen staff seemed to always be yelling at each other. Person-on-person violence would not have been far fetched. But we knew better. We knew it was the sound of noodles being properly made. It was a pity there wasn't a window that showcased it being stretched, pulled, and thrown. That would've ensured its survival.
I heard no such sound when I dined at New Golden City, which for those in the know, is loosely connected to Earthen in Hacienda Heights. They both serve the same kind of food. Their onion pancakes are pretty much identical, down to every last, thinly rolled, crisp, buttery layer. Their pork dumplings burst with so much pork broth it almost invites comparison to Din Tai Fung's juicy pork dumplings.
We started our meal with a simple, refreshing, bowl of cucumbers, brined in soy sauce, sesame oil and bits of garlic. It's one of those dishes that you bite into and spend the rest of the time trying to decipher the recipe. You conclude that you can make it at home, but realize you never will because, well, they do it so well here.
For a main course, there was a combination fried rice--a mildly-flavored thing with egg, chicken, pork and shrimp that disintegrates upon contact with my mouth. I have to assume the dish owes its savoriness to MSG, which isn't necessarily a bad thing with me.
And then there was the spicy seafood noodle, which I liked, even if the noodles seems too uniform, a tell-tale sign it was made elsewhere, probably in a noodle factory. The broth didn't seem as fiery, but it was just as complex as the dish should be, chock full of scored squid, shrimp, the slippery presence of a sea cucumber.
As I slurped up the bowl, I wondered: we know what's happened with Ahnuld, but what about Noodle House's noodle guy?
New Golden City
1015 S Nogales St. Ste. 128
Rowland Heights, CA 91748
(626) 965-6822
PHOTOS: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2011/07/new-golden-city-rowland-heights.html
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Din Tai Fung Restaurant
1108 S Baldwin Ave, Arcadia, CA 91007
Review of Tempe House Spicy Food & Indonesian Restaurant in San Bernadino - WITH PICTURES
PHOTOS: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2011/03/tempe-house-san-bernadino.html
Two groups of people in the world know and appreciate tempe (pronounced "tem-pay"): vegans and Indonesians. The former have adopted what the latter has eaten for centuries. And as well they should. Tempe is a great meat-substitute, a soybean product that, unlike tofu, has the satisfying chew somewhere between a mushroom and a dense piece of meatloaf.
Though you can buy tempe, of course, frozen at most Asian markets, the best tempe is fresh. But to make it yourself is a dicey proposition. Though not as daunting as attempting to recreate Parmigiano Reggiano, tempe-making requires careful planning and the right set of conditions. Few even try. Tempe is, above all, temperamental. The climate has to be right before you can attempt the endeavor. To get the fermentation process going, it likes hot and humid surroundings similar to the balmy tropics from where the delicacy originated.
A good way to judge is to see if the room is comfortable for you. If it is, it is likely too cold and too dry for the spores of the fungus Rhizopus oligosporus that will to turn your soybeans into tempe. If a white fur develops, it would indicate the fungus spores have flourished and did its job.
But even before this, there's the laborious job of prepping the soy. You have to hull each bean, then cook them, acidulate them, add the specific kind of starter, stuff the whole thing in an aerated bag before you can let nature do its work. Since the process is left to the whims and fickle nature of microbes, it is fraught with pitfalls. If you don't know what to look for or what tempe should taste like (tangy but smooth), there's always the danger that your hours of labor will result in something that might make you sick.
Until now, there hasn't been a local producer of real Indonesian tempe so that you don't have to go through the trouble. Since it opened sometime last year, Tempe House is the only one of its kind I know of. Unfortunately for anyone reading this who isn't in the Inland Empire, to get to Tempe House takes at least an hour's drive almost to Palm Springs. But once you do find it in a deserted strip mall in a desolate part of town, you'll discover them selling the delicacy for $1 each--a bargain, if you don't consider the cost in gas. Each satchel is ready for what ever your culinary plans may be. The simplest way to enjoy them is soaked in garlic water and salt, then deep fried.
Of course, you can also just sample some of what the Tempe House has on offer in their turo-turo style set-up of ready-made dishes. They don't all have tempe in them, but there are more than a few that do.
The beef rendang has no tempe, but it is slow-cooked to tenderness, as sweet as it is coated in a reduced and intense spice paste. They have gudeg, the famous Yogjakarta sugary stew made of young jackfruit cooked with hard boiled eggs. You could get both as a $7 two-item combo that includes any rice (plain, turmeric-colored to yellow, or flavored with coconut-milk), piled to ample portions enough for two.
The kitchen prepares other things to order, like the ketoprak, tangles of rice noodle, tofu and rice cake drenched in a peanut sauce that you can request to be as scorching as you like. They have krecek sapi in baggies, a kind of chicharron made from cow hide and tapioca flour. Other items feature things wrapped in a sticky gooey substances, some fried and savory with tempe, other steamed and sweet with jackfruit and banana. And of course, there's tempe itself, covered in a crunchy batter and paired with a Thai chili garnish that is to be eaten in concert with it like a pickle.
Another item only available for order on some days is thick soup with tripe called soto, which on this trip is too heavy on the coconut milk and has bits of tendon too chewy to eat.
For dessert, there's tape (tah-pay), fermented cassava root that's actually mildly alcoholic, tangy and slightly sweet, served either in its unadulterated form or whirred up to bits in an icy slush with rose syrup and condensed milk.
Yes, we tried all these things. Since we didn't have to make the tempe, and we came all this way, we kinda had to.
Tempe House
24984 Third St.,
San Bernardino, CA 92410
909-889-2222
(Closed Saturday)
PHOTOS: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2011/03/tempe-house-san-bernadino.html
Elbows Mac n' Cheese - Cerritos - A Review with PHOTOS
You could conceivably transition your Indian meal to this with the Masala Mac! One thing I didn't mention is I believe Elbows is owned by an Indian family. And I think they've got everyone working the kitchen.
http://monstermunching.com
Elbows Mac n' Cheese - Cerritos - A Review with PHOTOS
Hey Will,
For the regular sized bowls, the prices range from about $6 to $11 for the basic to the lobster mac. It'll fill you up for sure. And probably a good reason to visit your LB friend. Goldilock's bakery is, by the way, just around the corner also.
http://monstermunching.com
Elbows Mac n' Cheese - Cerritos - A Review with PHOTOS
Not die. Live! Concepts like these makes me want to live to see what's next! What other beloved dish deserves a restaurant of its own?
:)
http://monstermunching.com
Elbows Mac n' Cheese - Cerritos - A Review with PHOTOS
PHOTOS: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2011/03/elbows-mac-n-cheese-cerritos.html
To walk into Elbows is to realize the place is tailor-made for franchising. There is no doubt the restaurant has this as its ultimate goal. Though it's obviously family-run at this point, it's slick, sleek, and has its identity and mission statement hyper-realized down to the clever fork and macaroni logo that makes the "E" in Elbows.
They've also got the finer details of mac n' cheese clearly thought through. All mac dishes come in ceramic skillets. A crispy dusting of breadcrumbs tops each cheese-slicked tubular pasta entree--a simple finishing touch that, in my opinion, separates the good mac n' cheese from the bad. Flavors range from the time-tested (Cheeseburger Mac and Lobster Mac) to those that seem made up on the spot (Fajita Mac and Masala Mac, which has an Indian bent).
It didn't take much to convince my lovely dining companion, a self-professed mac n' cheese fiend who will order mac n' cheese anytime the opportunity should present itself, to try it with me. We shared one regular-sized bowl of their Spinach and Artichoke Mac, a play on the popular appetizer dip, which had three slightly crispy corn chips driven through the mound like shovels.
Though the skillet was just for show, the pasta tubes came hot and billowing, every forkful we lifted out saw stringy, melted webs of cheese trailing behind. The macaroni's texture is toothsome and the sauce is not left for want of the tangy presence of four distinct species of cheese. This was a gouda bowl of mac n' cheese. Sorry, couldn't resist.
If I had only one quibble it is that the ceramic vessel is just another serving bowl. As far as I can tell, the skillets never saw an actual broiler. However, this, like everything else about the concept, makes perfect sense. Keeping the bowls cool to the touch has no doubt saved a lot of children and careless adults from third degree burns and the restaurant unwanted lawsuits.
For an appetizer, we had to try something called a Chipstix, another product of fertile minds. A Chiptix is the bastard kid of a curly fry and a potato chip. It's mesmerizing as a Mobius strip and made from one whole potato spun through some sort of spiral cutting tool. The helix that results is then threaded through a long wooden dowel and then deep-fried and dusted with either salt, seasoned salt or chili. I told my lovely dining companion it reminded me of the bisected cross sections on one of the cadavers I once saw at Body Worlds. She did not appreciate the association.
Though the first piece is as crispy as a chip should be, the last few down the line tend to get soggy once you get there, some of them adopting the limpness of an In-N-Out French fry. Still, the thing tickled me just as the restaurant does.
The whole kooky yet simple idea of Elbows recalls episodes of Seinfeld, where some character on the show thinks up a wild but not entirely far-out scheme, such as the all PB&J restaurant or the muffin-top store. But unlike them, Elbows is grounded in reality, and already seems to have garnered a following. You might say Elbows has legs. Sorry, couldn't resist.
Elbows Mac n' Cheese
11405 South St
Cerritos, CA 90703
562-865-9999
PHOTOS: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2011/03/elbows-mac-n-cheese-cerritos.html
The Crispety-Crunchety Indonesian Fried Chicken at Merry's House of Chicken - with Photos
Thanks bulavinaka! Hope you like it!
http://monstermunching.com
The Crispety-Crunchety Indonesian Fried Chicken at Merry's House of Chicken - with Photos
PHOTOS: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2010/12/merrys-house-of-chicken-west-covina.html
Go forth to the quiet foothills of West Covina and you will find the Southland's newest Indonesian restaurant, peddler of foods from the spicy archipelago and a fried chicken specialty that will result in more return trips north if you're an OC-dweller like me.
The chicken dish in question ayam goreng kremesan, which roughly translates to "fried chicken with crispy crumbly things"--a golden brown, half-bird deeply seeped of its marinade and showered with the granular crumbles of its disembodied crust. Think of this addictive substance also as a seasoning, because it is. This crisp rice-flour-based batter sings the same notes that the bird does, but concentrated in a molecular sense, a flavor present in every explosively crunchy, tempura-crossed-with-granola crumb.
This is the same kind of chicken that begat KFC-like empires in Indonesia, the least of which is called Ayam Goreng Suharti, arguably the closest thing Indonesia has to a homegrown Colonel Sanders.
Dollop each morsel of bird you tear off from the well-fried carcass (note: Indonesians prefer their chickens fried to the point of dryness) with the house-made sambal, an intensely sweet, and intensely hot chili and tomato paste inflected by the stinky, funky, umami-rich accents of terasi, Indonesia's indigenous fermented shrimp paste. Instantly, your lips numb, your tongue blazes, your brow begins to dampen. And yet you add more, and more, finishing the first saucer and asking for seconds. You admit to yourself that you can eat this homemade fire balm for days, your internal organs be damned.
Your tastebuds will not have fully recovered when you move on to the other dishes, like the nasi goreng petai, a fried rice dish with little bits of noodle, meat, chili, and most notoriously, petai beans (sator beans), a fragrant, nutty tropical legume with a lima-bean-like texture, and a propensity to make your pee smell worse than if you ate a whole bushel of asparagus.
And since you're already drenched head to toe in your own perspiration, Merry Istiowati--the Surabaya native who, by the way, opened this ode to the poultry (and Indonesian cuisine) after closing 368 Noodle House so many years ago--makes an estimable nasi bungkus, banana-leaf-wrapped-rice, which is what a take-out meal would look like if drive-thrus existed in the jungle. But be warned: this is a dish as piercingly hot and sweat-inducing as noontime in the tropics.
Once you unfurl the butcher paper and leaf packaging, you see a green-chili sambal waiting furtively, nay, dangerously in one corner. A hard boiled egg is stewed in more chili. A piece of beef rendang is covered with its cooked-down brown seasoning paste. On top of the pile, a turmeric-colored chicken leg and a spoonful of curried vegetable provides the only non-spicy reprieve. All are heaped into a football-mound of rice which has taken on the vanilla-like perfume of its botanical container.
It's about then you thank Merry's House of Chicken for supplying an ample amount of sweat-blotting napkins in a convenient basket next to the kecap manis.
Merry's House of Chicken
2550 E Amar Rd., Ste A5
West Covina, CA 91792
(626) 965-0123
PHOTOS: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2010/12/merrys-house-of-chicken-west-covina.html
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Merry's House of Chicken
2550 E Amar Rd, West Covina, CA 91792
$110 9-Course Meal at Providence - Review with Photos
Thanks for the comments everyone.
True. I could've skipped the bread, especially that second piece. But my, it was good bread. Couldn't pass up that bacon brioche!
As far as the pacing goes, we figured it was the fact it that it was spaced out that might have allowed the food to settle. That was a three, nearly four hour meal already, from start to finish. I wouldn't discourage anyone from doing the 9-course. I'm just not that guy!
$110 9-Course Meal at Providence - Review with Photos
PHOTOS: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2010/10/providence-los-angeles.html
This post is about Providence, one of only a few L.A. restaurants to be awarded two Michelin stars. Its chef and proprietor, Michael Cimarusti, appeared on Top Chef Masters, and has been referred to as the West Coast's answer to Eric Ripert, and his restaurant, Le Bernadin.
The post that you are about to read, however, will be the least informative on this acclaimed five-year-old restaurant as you'll ever come across. This, I guarantee.
If you clicked on this post from your Google Reader thinking "Oh, he finally went to Providence!", chances are you already know more about it than I do. If you've read any of the billion other food blog odes, the 600 plus Yelp reviews, or the Jonathan Gold write-up of 2005, this post will sound like an addendum, a post-script, a foot-note.
You already know that Cimarusti is known for seafood. You already know that among the many wonderful things to eat, there is the three-tiered pricing on its tasting menu, and that it starts with a cocktail encased in a globular film accomplished through spherification. You might also already know that its 5-course option, previously $85, was recently brought down to $65--a bargain for cooking of this caliber.
If you know this, like I said, you knew more than I did. Because when my friends and I arrived at Providence--an imposing building looking not unlike a pirate ship had moored itself in front of a residential part of Melrose--we were anticipating to pay $85.
Upon discovering it was now only $65, we didn't do the logical thing and take them up on the discounted price. No, we went for the more expensive 9-course option. We said to each other, "Well, since we budgeted for $85, and we drove all this way, why not $110?"
Our atypical behavior can be explained: we didn't have a bite all day save for a 79 cent corn dog eaten earlier. Our growling and empty stomachs were making all the decisions. Famished and nearly delirious, we deluded ourselves into thinking we could do 9-courses. That Adam Richman ain't got nothing on us, we thought.
But as we found out: 9-courses is a LOT of food. Too much food.
This, my friends, is why I stopped taking notes, why this post will be uninformative, why I spent the sixth course worrying about whether I would be able to force the seventh, the eighth, and God forbid, the ninth course down my gullet without throwing up in front of all the nicely dressed people on dates and the impeccable service staff who doted on us.
Our evening of relentless eating began with freshly baked hot rolls of our choosing, eaten with butter. At this point, I was ravenous, so I chose the bacon brioche and slathered it in that butter despite the fact it already contained bacon. Then came four amuse bouches that, by the way, did not count against the 9 courses.
Yes, there were four amuse bouches; a frozen mojito as a slushy cube on a spoon; the aforementioned cocktail spherification that burst in our mouths like a grapefruit juice-filled water balloon; a cheesy puff pastry with the soul of a Cheez-It; and finally, a shot glass filled with fish eggs, flecks of gold, and bits of something that reminded me of Rice Krispies.
My friends, who heard the description (I was in the restroom at the time) said it also had cured trout. It was halfway down my gullet before I could confirm.
When the first course of kanpachi with creme fraiche, crispy rice crackers and flowering cilantro came, we ooh-and-ahh'd the firmness of the flesh, its chewy, agar-like density slipping playfully between our teeth. Soon this too was gone.
Then came uni served warm, mixed with raw quail egg inside a chicken's egg shell. There was again a crispy topping, this time crumbled brioche, or something like that (I get hazy on ingredients around here). But I do remember that the yolk and the ultra-rich uni became a cholesterol double threat and tasted like it. I also noted that it was the first time I've eaten sea urchin at a temperature other than frigid (save for when it is dissolved into uni spaghetti).
The third course was the first real protein: a seared scallop with a buttery foam, boiled napa cabbage laid down like carpet, and braised buckwheat that ate like pearl pasta infused with boullion (but much better than that). And of course, the scallop couldn't have been more precisely cooked.
Cured halibut with cranberry beans and a tomatoey froth arrived as the fourth course. This dish, as my friends and I agreed, had very little to contrast the fish against the rest of the components. It quickly became the least favorite of the night, especially when the salmon came around as the fifth course.
With its skin rendered to a salty crisp, its flesh cooked just to warm, the salmon was already a textbook example of how salmon should be prepared; but there was also the matsutake mushrooms, both raw and sauteed. And of course, all of it was united by a puddle of sauce with bright, acidic notes the last dish lacked.
This was the point where we started to feel the weight of our decision. After close to two hours of eating, the food we had consumed began to settle. Compounding this, the bread basket had made its second visit and none of us said no.
My friend's face seemed to whiten at the sight of the two sous-vide medallions of veal tenderloin, thick steaks easily worth a third of a pound. It wasn't that he didn't love it (he did), it was the realization that this obscenely tender, thoroughly pristine, and absent-of-sinew cut of meat was just course number six. There was still three more to go.
We sighed with relief when our server came out pushing a cheese cart to our table signaling that from now on, starting with this seventh course, it would be dessert. But after he cut four generous wedges off of different wheels, the man paused for a moment and said "Normally, it's only four cheese to a tasting plate, but I'm going to give you five".
I shot a worried look across the table, but it was too late. As the last and fifth wedge, he had picked out a runny specimen that he was particularly proud of, a naturally coagulated cow's milk cheese that owed its existence to nothing but an open window. He said it would taste of grass and the barnyard, and he was right. He continued by suggesting that we eat the pungent, wasabi-strength blue cheese with apples and the candied walnut, and on this, he was also right.
Finally, we came to the eighth course, and wasn't surprised that it was called a pre-dessert. No really. A pre-dessert: A sweet amuse of melon soup, akin to a slushie, served in a shot glass with a dollop of ice cream meant to ease our palates into the real dessert course.
We barely managed to crawl across the finish line, scraping up the last of our compressed banana, bread pudding, and a barley ice cream dessert, when what should appear but the petit fours. The salted caramels went straight into our pockets while the macarons and the chocolate marshmallows we crammed into our unwilling mouths. They were good, but at that point we couldn't be bothered about how it tasted.
After we left, we asked each other what we thought of the meal, and it was unanimous: though we agreed that Providence was everything we expected to be, and that it was worth every penny of our $110, five courses would've been plenty. It was after the fifth course that our enjoyment turned into dread. It was also at that moment when we realized our eyes are bigger than our stomachs. And that Adam Richman? Freak of nature.
Providence
5955 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90038-3623
(323) 460-4170
PHOTOS: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2010/10/providence-los-angeles.html
Shabu Shabu Bar - Santa Ana - A Review With VIDEO
To see the VIDEO, click: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2010/06/shabu-shabu-bar-santa-ana.html
If you have already made up your mind about shabu shabu, i.e. you don't buy into it because of one (or all) of the reasons below:
a) You're boiling meat in water.
b) You're paying through the nose for the privilege.
...read no further. I agree with you: shabu shabu is, for the most part, expensive for what it is. I am not going to change your mind with this post. So stop reading now. You have been warned.
Are the rest of you still with me? Good.
Yes, even though I know I could accomplish the same thing at home (I even have access to an induction shabu shabu pot), I still occasionally find the need to go out to get it. Why? Well, making shabu shabu yourself inevitably results in an unwanted excess of raw food that lasts for days. There is only a finite number of dishes you can make with shabu shabu ingredients.
So when the itch to water-boil meat hits (which, fortunately, only happens once a year for me), it's usually laziness that brings me to restaurants like Shabu Shabu Bar.
This one, however, I'd been hearing about for months. It actually ups the ante on shabu shabu's DIY nature in that they provide a mortar and pestle for you to grind your own goma (sesame seed sauce). Call it silly, call it stupid, call it counter intuitive. It's the same reason why people do 1000 piece puzzles or climb Everest: just so they can say they did.
Anyway, the grind-your-own-goma bit is just for show. No matter how much elbow grease you put into it, the seeds will never turn into a paste. Instead, the waitress (who will pity your efforts) will pour in the real sauce from a bottle and then amp it up with garlic, scallions and a dash of chili oil. She'll do the same for the ponzu if you let her.
And that's another thing about Shabu Shabu Bar that endears it to its fans: for a DIY joint, you get more service than you would at a normal sit-down. It's like they're compensating. She'll skim the scum off from your pot, mix your sauces, serve rice, make conversation, and even prepare your noodle soup with the now flavorful water once you've finished cooking your meat.
For our meal, in the guise of being smart and savvy shoppers, we shunned the smaller plates (which go upwards to $20 for around eight to ten slices of meat) and decided to go whole hog, er, whole cow, on the meant-to-be-shared $50 Yokozuna Platter, which the menu said consists of about 40 or more slices of rib eye.
Only when it arrived did I realize what we had we gotten ourselves into! Sure, most of it was air, but this was sliced beef formidably stacked into a literal meat mountain, looking much like those giant paper-mâché volcanos kids make for their grade school science projects.
The Man v. Food enormity of the task ahead made me queasy. I'm not the kind of guy who relishes overstuffing myself. When I looked over at my lovely dining companion, and remembered how small her appetite was, I thought to myself: we're screwed. We're never going to finish this, even if I had fasted the whole day (and I hadn't).
At my first swish, the lightness and wispiness of it gave me confidence. The ponzu sauce really takes the edge off the richness of the meat, which, by the way, is planed to the sheerness of tissue paper, sliced against the grain to disintegrate on contact with your tongue--probably one of the best shabu shabu meats I've had.
Around the fifteenth slice, I started getting the meat sweats. I abandoned my rice, using it more as a resting platform to put my cooked beef before I can summon the strength to pop it in my mouth.
By the final two pieces I felt lethargic, drunk of beef and excess. I took the udon noodle soup our server thoughtfully made for us and took a few sips. I couldn't even make myself eat a single strand of noodle.
Later at home, I was doubled over on the couch, groaning and feeling guilty at how much I ate, and actually, so was she. Yeah, maybe leftover shabu shabu ingredients in our fridge wouldn't have been so bad.
Shabu Shabu Bar
1945 East 17th Street
Santa Ana, CA 92705-8603
(714) 954-0332
To see the VIDEO, click: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2010/06/shabu-shabu-bar-santa-ana.html
Pizza or Meatball joint in Anaheim, near Disneyland??? what's the name?
The SL600 was in the shop. This was my Bugatti Veyron, and it'll never be the same again. *wink*
http://monstermunching.com
Duck House - Monterey Park - Review with PHOTOS
My only regret is I never got a chance to try its last incarnation to do a comparison. This sounds like a job for Jerome!
http://monstermunching.com
Duck House - Monterey Park - Review with PHOTOS
Yes they do! I didn't get it because, well, my small party could barely finish the dishes we ordered.
http://monstermunching.com
Duck House - Monterey Park - Review with PHOTOS
PHOTOS: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2010/05/duck-house-monterey-park.html
Logic dictates that if you want to eat the best Peking duck, you need to go to where discriminating palates demand the best out of their Chinese delicacies: The San Gabriel Valley.
And according my discriminating friend Kenny (who lives in SGV), and Jonathan Gold, a guy trusted for his discriminating tastes, the place to get Peking duck is Duck House. Gold lauded it back in 2006 when it was called Lu Din Gee. He rhapsodized that their version was "fragrant wisps of air-dried, roasted skin, rubbed with aromatics, brittle as spun sugar, folded into thin wheat crepes with a dab of fermented bean sauce and a few shreds of scallion, and eaten as a sort of ethereal taco."
So I heeded their tips and found that Duck House is otherwise and essentially a Taiwanese restaurant, serving mostly subtle dishes like shrimp stir-fried with scallops, corn nibblets, and diced translucent jelly called konjac. The latter are slippery bits of starch that are near impossible to pick up with chopsticks. We also tried elastically resilient fried squid balls filled with fish roe. You dip 'em in a sweet and sour sauce, and balance their chewiness and decadance with an order of some sort of veggie.
But of course, there's the duck ($32 and change for the basic model).
First of all, before I go on, I will address the obvious: No, Taiwan isn't known for its Peking duck (duh). But this place doesn't care so much about being geographically accurate. And neither does its customers.
Everyone orders the duck. This despite the fact that the waiters give you dire warnings that the bird takes an hour to prepare. I must tell you, however, that even after they told us and we agreed to wait, the platter came out scarcely minutes after said we wanted it. It's like they knew!
And when it's brought out, the mahogany brown of the skin's wispy crispiness makes your mouth water at the mere sight of it. In the middle of the plate in a neat greyish mound is the duck meat. The whole dish is literally elevated above everything else you might order. The platter is set atop a bowl full of hot water, which I assume is used to prevent the whole thing from congealing and reverting back to the room temperature fattiness from whence it came.
To eat it, you take a crepe-like wrapper they provide (which is not unlike the most delicate flour tortilla you've ever seen) a piece of skin, a piece of meat, shredded scallion and cucumber, and finally a drizzle of their fermented bean sauce, from which most of the flavor comes from. You fold it up, and you do, in fact, eat it like a taco.
Was it the best Peking duck I ever ate? Why yes. But admittedly I haven't eaten that many. Most have been lackluster, chewy things. This was not. The skin is a thin, lovely shimmer of itself, rendered completely of fat and crisp like it was imitating a potato chip. But honestly, I'm a pork skin kind of a guy. I like my animal hides to have some heft, some rock-my-teeth crunch. Duck skin is a tease.
Compare them to a Chinese roasted pig, or Filipino lechon, and the water fowl skin seems like a lightweight. It's like O'Douls next to a pint of Guinness. A Lay's chip next to a Kettle Brand. William Baldwin next to Alec Baldwin. You get the idea.
Duck House
(626) 284-3227
501 S. Atlantic Blvd.
Monterey Park, CA 91754
PHOTOS: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2010/05/duck-house-monterey-park.html
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Duck House (Lu Ding Ji)
501 S Atlantic Blvd, Monterey Park, CA 91754
Siam Taste of Asia - Santa Ana - Review With Photos
PHOTOS: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2010/02/siam-taste-of-asia-santa-ana.html
If every tofu tasted like those from Siam Taste of Asia, we'd see an immediate surge in soy bean futures. Don't get me wrong: I already love tofu in every form. I grew up with it. I use it more in my cooking than any meat. I eat it like most people might eat mac and cheese. But these? These are tofu made into candy.
It may look like the same deep fried tofu cubes common to Chinese/Vietnamese/Thai restaurants -- the kind you dip into a sauce. And for sure it does come with its own dunking medium. But you won't need it. Not here. It doesn't need extra flavor. It's already tricked out with a coating of a sticky, spicy, sugary-sweet glaze that might as well be, as I mentioned, a Willy Wonka confection.
When the woman who is its creator comes out to serve it to you, heed the warning she'll give: these suckers are too hot to eat immediately. As mouth-watering as they may look, do not dive in and assume you can handle it. Wait, if only for just a minute.
I say this because even after thumb-twiddling a few beats, and blowing it like it was on fire, a friend bit into one and out sloshed a scalding torrent of soy-curd napalm. Ouch!
The custardy, milky lava hides beneath the craggly surface of its crust -- a crunchy shell with the same DNA as a tater tot -- which is solid enough to make a hollow sound when you rap on it with a spoon.
Besides the tofu, there are, of course, other noteworthy things to try at Siam Taste of Asia. And I'll mention a few other dishes I ate in a bit. But read what Gustavo Arellano, Chowhounders and Yelpers have to recommend for a more complete picture.
If you ask anyone who's been to the restaurant, all will be agreed on more than just the tofu, and that is that Siam Taste of Asia is an underdog, underappreciated and woefully lacking in customers.
It smells of incense, has beautiful Thai wood carvings on the wall, and is not at all the sticky-table place I thought it would be from its outside appearance. They serve their rice in an ornate aluminum vessel, with a matching lid and scoop. They have jars on each table containing three types of chili-based condiment. One of them, the homemade nam prik -- a slurry of chopped bird chilies in fish sauce -- is wickedly potent and deliciously lethal.
Their spinach stir fry topped with golden fried shards of garlic swims in a sweet broth good enough to sip as soup. It's even better to moisten your rice with. The pad see ewe is just as good as any I've ever had, the Chinese broccoli meticulously sliced thinly on the bias. And though the tom kha gai is subtly white, it has a surplus of flavor and elegance, not to mention enoki mushrooms -- the first time I've seen it used for this purpose.
But when I go back, and I will, it's going to be for their tofu, first and foremost. Maybe I'll bring a probe thermometer. Either that or burn ointment, because I'm an impatient bastard.
Siam Taste of Asia
(714) 418-9678
3520 W 1st St
Santa Ana, CA 92703
PHOTOS: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2010/02/siam-taste-of-asia-santa-ana.html
Believe in Flying Saucers! At Alberto's (and Other Clone-ertos) that is...Review with PHOTOS
PHOTOS: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2010/02/albertos-flying-saucer-santa-ana.html
Before you ask, I don't know why it is called "Flying Saucer". Frankly, I don't see the resemblance. I would argue, however, that there is no better name for it. Why? Well, I'll bet that from now on, you'll remember that I told you that it exists the next time you drive by an Alberto's, Alerto's or any of the Clone-ertos.
But as to where it came from? I welcome any guesses. And you can eliminate one popular theory right now: Alberto's hails from San Diego, not Roswell.
What I do know is that I would rather have a Flying Saucer than one of those slap-a-few-things-together-and-give-it-a-snazzy-title inventions that Taco Bell is infamous for.
Unlike Enchoritos, Meximelts and CrunchWrap Supremes, Flying Saucers seem like it came about organically, probably in a similar way that In-N-Out Animal Style burgers and Philippe's French Dip did -- by serendipitous accident.
But since it doesn't seem trademarked, every Alberto's derivative has its own version.
The common thread among them is the fried flour tortilla bowl. In the well, you will most likely have a closer encounter the following: soupy refried beans, slow-cooked shredded beef, wilted onions and bell peppers, grated cheese and chopped lettuce.
Another constant: When it comes Flying Saucers, time is of the essence. The crispiness of the tortilla has a tenuous existence, rapidly being soaked by the wetness to turn into the texture of limp noodle...which isn't necessarily bad, because this hybrid of a taco salad and rustic beef stew is even better when the weather is cold and rainy.
It's perfect when you are in need of something warm, wet, and sloppy. Just pick it up and eat in the privacy of your home, preferably with plenty of napkins.
Alberto's in Santa Ana makes a good one -- good because it's cheap ($4.99) and I need not travel light years to get one. Wherever you get yours, believe in The Flying Saucer. It's U.F.-Awesome.
Alberto's Mexican Food
(714) 834-9680
1425 East Edinger Avenue
Santa Ana, CA 92705-4805
PHOTOS: http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2010/02/albertos-flying-saucer-santa-ana.html
Soy Sauce & Butter Spaghetti at Japonaise Bakery in Tustin with PHOTOS
Yes, this was quite a surprising dish to discover. Not just because it's new to Japonaise (I think), but it's new to me. They also have a new roster of donburi's which look very good.
One thing to note though: They are closed on Mondays!
http://monstermunching.com
Soy Sauce & Butter Spaghetti at Japonaise Bakery in Tustin with PHOTOS
Cream Pan is still there, as a separate entity two doors down in the same building! And yes, the strawberry croissants are very much still there as well.
I had some last week!
http://monstermunching.com
Soy Sauce & Butter Spaghetti at Japonaise Bakery in Tustin with PHOTOS
PHOTOS:
http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2010/02/japonaise-bakery-cafes-soy-and-butter.html
There are some ingredients that just work naturally together. Olive oil and balsamic. Milk and eggs. Peanut butter and jelly.
But soy sauce and butter? On pasta? Believe or not, it's a pairing short of heaven sent. And who might have attempted this? Some world-renowned molecular gastronomic alchemist?
Nope.
The Japanese.
In this case, the second coming of Tustin's Japonaise Bakery & Cafe, which has recently been transformed into a donburi/pasta/curry joint.
It should be no surprise however. It was, after all, Japanese experimentalists dabbling in east-meets-west fusion that has given us such dishes like uni spaghetti and mentaiko pasta (which is also on the menu, by the way).
But until this dish, I never heard of soy sauce and butter being uttered in the same breath, much less occupying the same plate. Together they amount to a pasta sauce that has a surplus of umami, the fifth flavor -- a word also coined by the Japanese, which loosely translates to "savory delicious."
The butter rounds out the soy sauce's saltiness; and the soy keeps the butter from becoming too rich. And then there are the sauteed mushrooms, which soak up and marry the two flavors in an even more concentrated form inside themselves.
Slices of breast meat chicken were also in the dish. But the fact that they were slightly overcooked can be easily forgiven because of the goodness that surrounded them -- soy sauce plus butter equals culinary kismet.
Japonaise Bakery & Cafe
600 El Camino Real
Tustin, CA 92780
(714) 665-8239
PHOTOS:
http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2010/02/japonaise-bakery-cafes-soy-and-butter.html
Belated Christmas Poem on Marc Burger's Frozen Custard at Macy's Signature Kitchen - Costa Mesa (with PHOTOS)
Now that Kill Devil's in a distant memory, are there any other places in OC besides Marc Burger that serves frozen custard? If any others are deserving of a poem, I'll do them too! HAH!
http://elmomonster.blogspot.com
Belated Christmas Poem on Marc Burger's Frozen Custard at Macy's Signature Kitchen - Costa Mesa (with PHOTOS)
I liked the burgers quite a bit. Here's what I wrote about them before:
"And in its textbook-thick, loosely-packed patty that was cooked to the correct shade of rosy, I found one of the juiciest burgers I've ever had. All of the components worked. The Swiss was melted properly. The lettuce was fancy. The tomatoes were perky. And the onions were shaved thin. But best of all, the bun was toasted to a lovely crunch with lots of butter -- so much that you can taste it seeping out of the bread.
There's even homemade pickles, sliced like typical dills, but with more of a sophisticated bent of the Japanese kind -- subtle and sweet.
The fries, however, were strange. They were porous, without the crisp skin you associate with deep-fried food. I would've suspected they were baked if I didn't see the cooks frying them myself. Luckily, the mound was blasted with granules of fried garlic and herbs, rescuing it from mediocrity."
And pictures!
http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2009/01/macys-signature-kitchen-costa-mesa.html
Belated Christmas Poem on Marc Burger's Frozen Custard at Macy's Signature Kitchen - Costa Mesa (with PHOTOS)
PHOTOS:
http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2009/12/marc-burgers-frozen-custard-at-macys.html
Every who*
Was at South Coast Plaza,
Christmas rush in full swing.
So too
Was us,
Doing ever the same thing.
We aimlessly wandered from store to store, building up quite a thirst.
We still had lots to do, but we said, "Let's get a drink first."
The closest thing was Macy's Signature Kitchen at the time.
It would do, we said; her for a cola, and I, lemon lime.
But it was on the Marc Burger menu that I found a much better treat.
So we settled on free water; our calories, we would eat.
Now, Marc Burger is usually known for its beef, buns and mustard,
But from here on out, I'll know it for its custard!
Again this wasn't ice cream, not frogurt, or soft serve.
But it is frozen like them all; softly piped tall to a curve.
It reminds me of the smoothest French-style vanilla that I've eaten,
Into which the yolk of a hen's egg must be beaten.
The color is a dull, creamy yellow, like unburnt creme brulees.
It's also just as rich, ideal then, for sharing two-ways.
Its creaminess blooms in the mouth with a fullness of flavor.
The vanilla slowly melting, every drop precious, to sip and to savor.
You don't often see frozen custard like this, not around here.
It's the egg, you see, it's the salmonella they fear.
For the dessert, two twenty five is charged, a fair meager fee;
The cheapest thing on the menu, and the last thing you'll see.
So after our treat, we were happy and continued on shopping.
Oh by the way, the dessert is served sans any topping.
It's better that way, pristinely calming and all.
Now if only I could say the same for the mall.
Macy's Signature Kitchen
Macy's Home Store
3333 Bear St
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 708-3333
*With apologies to Dr. Seuss
PHOTOS:
http://elmomonster.blogspot.com/2009/12/marc-burgers-frozen-custard-at-macys.html
Found: Rambutan in Westminster's Little Saigon (with PHOTOS!)
And thank you Das, for pointing me to this market!
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Found: Rambutan in Westminster's Little Saigon (with PHOTOS!)
Thanks Mikester! The rambutan were even better than I described them!
http://monstermunching.com
