Cheap but tasty passion fruit puree in the Bay

So, has anyone actually found this in a market in the Mission? Goya brand or any other would be appreciated.

igj in San Francisco Bay Area

Rangoli Sweets - Santa Clara

Are those curried cashews from Rangoli?

I went back to Rangoli since that initial post and had excellent 'special' samosas, badam pista and some good, but not as totally excellent, saffron burfi. Still, Rangoli seems to be a go to place for me when I am down in that area...

igj in San Francisco Bay Area

Rangoli Sweets - Santa Clara

At a veggie group dinner this week, I mentioned that I had just moved from L.A. and would love to find some Indian sweets places. I particularly wanted some good burfi and milk cake. One of the other attendees suggested I try Rangoli....easy enough name to remember.

Yesterday, I happened to be in that area of Santa Clara and so I stopped in. It is a basic sweets shop, with a few savory items like samosas, pakoras, paneer puffs, etc. But it seems to be all take-away.

The selection was pretty huge, but they had the milk cake I was jonesing for in a pre-packed tub on a table and a lovely looking selection of burfi in the service case. I got a few pieces of pista burfi and the milk cake - not cheap, but I guess sort of standard prices. About $12 for 4 pieces of burfi and a three huge pieces of milk cake.

Wow. Totally delicious. The burfi is creamy and has flvaors that unfold for a while after it hits the tongue. The pistachio flavor is pretty minimal - only a few nut pieces scattered on the top of sweet really let you know what kind of burfi it is. But very good. And the milk cake: even better, assuming one likes milkfat. This is pure milkfat heaven, with a bit of spice (nutmeg-like flavor????).

Based on those two sweets, I will have to go back and try some other things. I saw chocolate and almond burfis. I assume they also have cham cham. I think I saw what looked rasmalai. There were also dozens of things I can't identify. Fun place to explore for those with a sweet tooth (and whatever one calls an inordinate appreciation of milkfat).

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Rangoli Sweets
1584 Halford Ave, Santa Clara, CA 95051

igj in San Francisco Bay Area

Trader Joe's in Palo Alto Town & Country Center?

They are just starting the work on it, so a long ways off. It appears to be going into the back parking lot - so the farthest spot back from El Camino, near Sushi House.

igj in San Francisco Bay Area

Returnee looking for Peninsula Thai and Korean groceries

I recently moved back to the Bay Area after a long absence of nine years. I am in Palo Alto and I am looking for places that sell Thai and Korean groceries/prepared foods/sweets, etc., preferably on the Peninsula.

Here are some of the things that I'd like to find:

Korean:
-rice cakes
-frozen kimchi dumplings
-frozen chive dumplings
-banchan of various types
-honeyed ginger tea

Thai:
-sweets, desserts and more sweets (khao neow sai gatee: freshly made sticky rice w/coconut milk; khao neow bping: sticky rice grilled in a banana lead, etc. - as well as packaged sweets like khao dtaan: cripsy sweet rice snacks)
-curry pastes
-Thai street snacks (khnom guay chai - Chinese chive dumplings, etc.)
-frozen stuff like Thai fishballs and fish cakes
-Thai drinks like 'Palm' juice
-Thai produce (pak boong, bai grapow, etc.)

I read about Hankook in Sunnyvale - is that my best 'local' bet for Korean?

Thanks.

igj in San Francisco Bay Area

Loving Hut (Vegan Chinese) opens 10/11 in SF, 10/4 in Palo Alto

I have enjoyed sandwiches from the Palo Alto Loving Hut a few times now - service can be spacey, but the food is good in that faux-meat way.

igj in San Francisco Bay Area

What's the Best Eating Street in LA?

I live very close to Sawtelle, chose my house specifically because of the proximity to Sawtelle and I love many of the options on Sawtelle - but I wouldn't choose it if I had to be to limited to a single street for all my grub. Not enough in the way of:
-breakfast options
-Thai food
-Italian options - or even pizza
-non-Izakaya barfood
-Chinese options (some will say that is a symptom of any street on the Westside and others will point to Little Hong Kong - and I'll agree with the former and grudgingly admit to liking some things from LHK, but it is only one place and a limited one at that)

So, while I like my sushi, izakaya, Japanese fusion and donut options a lot, Sawtelle is too limiting.

I'd probably choose Sherman Way or Valley Blvd.

igj in Los Angeles Area

Sushi Masu/Place Yuu/Hide? Pros and Cons

I like Hide - sometimes, but I have to 'be in the mood' and that seems to happen much, much less frequently lately. Place Yuu, on the other hand, is always nice and I can always find something that sounds good to, either from the izakaya menus or the sushi menu. If I can snag a table on the quiet side of the restaurant - away from the large screen TV - I even have a nice atmosphere which is something I would never say about Hide.

All that said, if lunch is ever the meal in question, Place Yuu is not open and so is not an option.

igj in Los Angeles Area

Cinnamon Rolls- Stat

Dolores is still there and still has their "We Never Close" sign up. I feel that their cinnamon rolls are a good example of quantity over quality - they are huge, but too treacly sweet. But maybe that is just my pet peeve?

igj in Los Angeles Area

Indian egg dishes?

In places as diverse as Bombay, Jaipur and Thiruvananthapuram, I ate some delicious egg dishes for breakfast. Parsi specialties like ekuri, eggs bonda and Keralan eggs burji were not that hard to find.

I know where I can find the dosa/uthappam style breakfasts in Los Angeles, but where can I find the egg dishes? Something like eggs burji with some brilliant ghee-drenched naan or chapathi would sure hit the spot on a sunny Saturday...

igj in Los Angeles Area

egyptian / kushari restaurants?

Even though I live within a 10 minute walk of this place, I rarely ever go...and never for the food. It has gone downhill.

That said, their kushari (sometimes transliterated as koshary) was never that great to begin with. Maybe I am being unfair trying to compare it to koshary I loved in Cairo - but there it is. Dahab's koshary doesn't have that strong tomato-ey/chili kick that I liked so much in Egypt.

igj in Los Angeles Area

application error while trying to browse profiles

I have also been having the My Chow problem.
http://www.chow.com/profile/15851

igj in Site Talk

Need Help -- Dinner for 8, plus baby, in West LA

We were at The Nook Wednesday night and there was a party of 10 that had reserved the communal table. The hostess put two other people at the communal table since it seats 12 and nobody seemed to mind, but they clearly do reserve that table. Now, as to how easy it is to seat a baby at a table that high - that is another story.

igj in Los Angeles Area

Best Indian Buffet in L.A Area

18701 Pioneer Blvd. in Artesia
562.924.3310
(parking in a small lot in the back)

http://www.jaybharat.com/restaurant.php

My GF and I had:
-pani puri - totally delicious rendition
-Kathiyawadi Thali
-Gujarati Thai
-some chocolate burfi and some saffron burfi - really quite nice, especially the chocolate burfi
-chai - very peppery, but also a great wake-up drink

igj in Los Angeles Area

Best Indian Buffet in L.A Area

On the Westside, Annapurna Cuisine is probably the best Southern Indian-style buffet - not that there is actually a lot of competition in that specific niche. A few weeks ago we went for the weekend buffet and we were surprised--there were new dishes they didn't use to have and a noticeable jump in quality. We got to talking to one of the waiters about it and he said that Annapurna had recently hired a new chef. Hence, the new dishes.

We went again last weekend and quality was still high. Among the approximately 10 or 12 things, they had a really nice avial; something called 'vegetable stew' that had potato, cauliflower, carrot and a creamy sauce; a comforting curd rice; and a great lentil payasam. Not many places have sweet lentil dishes - I didn't encounter that dish often even in my 4 months in Southern India.

Two weeks ago, I went to Jay Bharat in Artesia and had a completely blow me away meal, plus killer sweets to take away. Annapurna is really not up to that level...but, for those on the Westside, it is 45 minutes closer to home. (I know comparing Jay Bharat's gujarati thali and Annapurna's southern specialties is an apples/oranges thing, but I was just comparing two recent meals lumped under the 'Indian' tag.)

igj in Los Angeles Area

Ackkkk - Help - What happened to Tijuana’s Restaurant

Tia Juana's closed months ago. That site is supposed to become the Westside's 237th Trader Joe's.

igj in Los Angeles Area

Good Thai Markets in Thai Town?

Since they are so close to each other, and since I have already come half way across town to get there, I usually hit both Bangluck and Silom markets when I am in Thai Town. Silom has a bigger selection of everything, but Bangluck has better produce sometimes and different brands of some items. If you are in NoHo, the Bangluck Market on Sherman Way is bigger than the Thai Town branch and is a great stop after a mean at Krua Thai!

I also make a point to shop at Bhan Kanom Thai - I get fresh khanom guay chai (chinese chive dumplings) on the weekends, plus green mangoes with a great dipping sauce, plus sticky rice with coconut milk. Bhan Kanom Thai also has many packaged snacks and sweets and some refrigerated items. Definitely a snacks and sweets focus, but it makes a great complement to the other two markets.

And, if bulk purchase is something you can do, then I agree that LAX-C downtown is a great place. Last time I went, I think I bought a package of frozen fishballs that lasted me a month... Definitely on the Costco model.

igj in Los Angeles Area

Lobster roll rolls - where to buy the buns

Does this just mean top-split hot dog buns or something else? I have always seen those top-split buns at Bay Cities in Santa Monica and assumed people used them for lobster rolls...

igj in Los Angeles Area

Pann's - Thoughts, recommendations, things to avoid?

Also had a Pann's craving after seeing it used in the (short-lived) TV series Daybreak. Biscuits and breakfast-y things for me, thanks!

igj in Los Angeles Area

Santa Monica Thai Rant

As someone who used to live in BKK, I am surprised to hear that. What stands out at Talesai?

igj in Los Angeles Area

Daichan-Kaiten Sushi

"this is where everyone told me the locals actually eat"????

Hmmm... curious. I live 2.5 blocks from this place and none of my neighbors ever eat there that I have heard. But obviously I don't know most people in the neighborhood, so maybe I am missing out??? I tried it once and it was pretty much exactly what I expected from a conveyer belt place. Pretty cheap and all the fish a little mushy from too many trips around and around and around. That could be because it was pretty empty when we went. Personally, I'd rather have sushi at Kiriko or even Place Yuu or Bar Hayama...

igj in Los Angeles Area

Heads up on Munch - Sawtelle

In the space in the Olympic Collection on Sawtelle formerly occupied by the seemingly-doomed-from-the-start Babyblonde Waffles, there is a new place called Munch. They have prepackaged Asian dishes and a sign that says Vietnamese sandwiches. The people who run it are Thai - don't know what that means for the quality of the sandwiches, but it bodes well for quick Thai lunches in an area not known for such things.

We poked our head in last night after we had dinner at Place Yuu. I looked at the preprepared dishes and some looked good. I remember seeing a yellow curry (Thai curry) and pad see ew. We asked if they had any vegetarian dishes and they said that they had a vegetarian version of the yellow curry--and that was it...just one vegetarian dish so far. But it is clearly early days - they can't have been open for very long.

Munch
11301 Olympic Blvd. #103
310.478.8818

igj in Los Angeles Area

Taco Plus - decent tacos on the westside

To answer my own question: just drove by it. It is on the corner of Sawtelle and Pico, in the old Farias space (11300 W. Pico).

igj in Los Angeles Area

Taco Plus - decent tacos on the westside

Where is this new El Super Taco? What is good there?

igj in Los Angeles Area

Best Thai nearest Santa Monica?

Lunchtime was BUSY, full of local office and medical workers. We got there at about 12:30 and within 5 minutes, the place was full, front room and back. Our food came out very quickly though, so it seems they are used to handling a lunch rush.

igj in Los Angeles Area

Best Thai nearest Santa Monica?

I'm not sure it is worth the bike ride - unless the bike ride itself is reason enough - but I just had lunch at Ayara Thai in Westchester before dropping my GF at the airport. We were both pleasantly surprised. We had been there once before, but I don't remember much about that initial meal. Anyway, taking a non-highway route, that is probably a 7 or 8 mile ride from Santa Monica.

For our lunch, my GF both had noodles. I had pad see ew and she had pad kee mao (although the menu listed them as something like drunken noodles). The noodles had that smokey, fresh off of a very hot cooking surface taste that I miss from my days in BKK. While I am one of the people that likes Thai Boom, I never order their noodle dishes because they are simply not very good to my taste. I'd rather go without and go to Krua Thai when I am in NoHo. But Ayara's noodles were good enough that I will have a hard time ordering anything else.

Probably some riding on Sepulveda would be required for that trip, if that is a consideration.

igj in Los Angeles Area

Bar Hayama

I was there Tuesday, sat at the firepit with a group of four and the service was just fine. Always someone there when needed, water and utensils all in place, dishes all came out, and recommendations and information about the monster sake list were forthcoming. So, no problems this time.

igj in Los Angeles Area

Best IZAKAYA restaurant in Little Tokyo?

OK, this may sound odd, but I was getting my haircut at a Japanese salon on Sawtelle and my stylist - a Japanese woman who lives in Little Tokyo - told me I had to go to Haru Ulala because it was her favorite place to hang out/eat/drink in her neighborhood. So, at least someone who lives around there loves that place.

igj in Los Angeles Area

Where to read by the beach?

If you want to be ON the beach, there is Fig Tree's Cafe on the boardwalk in Venice. It gets crowded on the weekends, but during the week it is a nice place to sit. The service always seems to be beach casual - i.e. SLOW - so sitting for a few hours is not hard, nor unusual. The food is pretty good, one of the better casual spots near the beach in Venice.

http://www.figtreescafe.com/

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Figtree's Cafe
429 Ocean Front Walk, Venice, CA 90291

igj in Los Angeles Area