Excellent birthday meal at The Arthur J in Manhattan Beach. Gorgeous space… very mid-century modern/Mad Men-esque. So happy to finally have a great steakhouse over here in the South Bay.
Emmental popovers with butter and strawberry preserves:
Friday night at Raku. Service was s…l…o…w but the Ken2 salad and the various robata items were outstanding.
Best meal of the weekend was lunch today at Rice Bar. Wow that sausage. The bowl is almost the platonic ideal lunch. Wish I could have this all the time.
Then blew my head off with 3 cochinita pibil (spice level 7) tacos at Guisados.
Both hot dogs were good, but I liked my lamb one a lot more than my SO’s galbi one. I thought the galbi one was a little too sweet for my liking (I’m not the biggest fan of galbi to begin with). I also wish the kimchi relish had more of a kick. I liked the crunch from the onions, though.
Da KFC (twice fried wings, gochujang honey, and pickled daikon):
The wings were really nice and crunchy, and I liked the sauce a lot, but, I wish it were spicier. I feel like since the sauce was so sweet, it needed more heat to balance it out. If that even makes any sense… The pickled daikon was like crack, by the way.
This was my favorite. I think having a giant bowl of this on a cold night would be perfect. The dish had a nice bit of heat to it, but since I’m a spice fiend, I would have loved for it to be a lot hotter.
Salmon poke from Ohana Poke Co. was so good last weekend that I went again on Saturday. The salmon was plentiful and oh so tender. I also got a jasmine iced tea from Boba Time.
I had a fontina and avocado sandwich from Sopressata. The bread had an excellent chew. Matcha pudding from Mitsuwa was a fine desert.
I liked it a lot. PFC was unique in flavor and really tender, crispy exterior, and one of the dipping sauces tasted sort of Thai chili-esque. My only small criticism is that the chicken was room temp, but that really was better for to scarf down the chicken faster. The original had what tasted like a BBQ rub, almost like a rib dust that one would put on Memphis dry ribs. The other, was a Memphis dipped which had a nice amount of heat but totally different to the offering from Howlin Rays. It was “dark” tasting, that is best I can describe it. Cornbread was moist with good texture and crispy edges and bording too sweet but a nice change up to the heat of the hot chicken.
Oh yeah, just remembered, they do a 10 piece cut so you don’t get wings in the 8 piece. Another small criticism but the taste delivered so what the hell.
