Anyone Attending Food Bowl Events?

Agreed. The spiciest number last night was the wood ear fungus, but that appetizer takes the stage relatively early in the evening.

In theory, if you’re gonna beat the Sichuan mala by going outside the province, might as well do Honeymee afterwards!

Koji Kimura’s eponymous sushi-ya is a Tokyo reservation which has long eluded me.

Now, I get to try his sushi in L.A.!!! Most excellent.

Kimura-san is a super nice guy! His 25-day aged kanpachi was surprisingly deep in flavor, and texturally fascinating. The shari was among the toothiest I’ve tried, and matched perfectly with the aged neta.

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Should have read this thread before going to the Chihuo Chinese Dinner last night. Location was atop an office building in SM with at least half the seating outside in the drizzle and rain. Could have handled that but food was mostly gone within 90 minutes of a scheduled 3 hour affair. Except for Noodology, samples were mainly small and not exciting.

Sorry to hear that. So not worth it? How was the food in general?

I was at Chihuo also. No writeup.

Lone standout in my book, foodwise, was Stew House (AKA Chili House, AKA 小辣椒, in Rowland Heights), whose staff brought some really nice mustard greens pork belly.

yikes! so sorry to hear that.

Speaking from event planning side as host of our event, the LA Times has nothing do with the vast majority of these events other than being the umbrella host in name only. Aside from some of the big events that they actually do plan (ie 4 day Night market, typically it would be listed as hosted by one of their staff writers) they have no input of say in anything.

These events are actually planned and hosted by someone/organization that pays a fee to be listed in their foodbowl calendar and essentially, that’s the main benefit is to be listed on their website and hard copy. They do not provide any additional publicity, direction, or oversight. They pretty much only promote the big name chefs and corporate sponsored events.

we sold out our tickets via our own social media outlets and on here. but tbh, this is going to be the one and only time we’ll host a LA times foodbowl associated event (Noodle Pulling 101. Can’t speak for all organizers and what their motivations are, but we just got the winner of this year’s KCRW pie contest to come and serve her pies for dessert. :slight_smile:

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I practically tried everything, but some items ran out early. From what I’ve eaten, it was not worth the $99 admission, maybe half that. I get more out of it if I created my own restaurant food crawl with my foodie friends.

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Here’s what was offered. Chang’An presented their dim sum platter, but you could only choose 2 of the 4 items per visit, and then you can add their Chrysanthemum Salad with peanut dressing and Orange Chicken.


Chengdu Impression offered this small bites:

Noodleology handed out two decent sized bowls of their dry noodle dish plus their spicy beef noodle soup.


Qin West offered Liang Pi and their Ruo Jia Mo (burger).

And Chilli House offered their bites as well.

And beverages were 8oz bottled water and refrigerated cans of soda placed out on tables that ended up getting warm after a while… and they even ran out of those.

Thanks for the report! My problem with these events is always about the quality of the cooking either due to a lack of equipment, an godly amount of mouths to feed, or both. Looking at the pictures, it seems like these vendors relied on reheating pre-cooked food for the most part?

You didn’t get the ‘FREE’ code to get in without paying?

Qin West used a toaster to reheat the buns for their Ruo Jia Mo, almost like toasting English muffins.

Chilli House served some of their food at room temperature.

I think Chang’An used a rice cooker to reheat/steam their pandas and mushroom buns.

Chengdu Impression’s bites were at room temperature as well, and the beef was has hard as jerky.

I guess vendors did what they could to get by but I know what Septa Unella would say…
giphy

I only went to one Food Bowl event – the Kimura-san aged sushi event that @J_L attended – and hearing about food running out, I’m glad to say that there was enough catered sushi for the entire event, although there were waits as they ran out and had to get more from the back.

I was a bit surprised that we only got one piece of aged sushi from Chef Kimura-san (the rest of the sushi was regular sushi, albeit from a good caterer), although in retrospect given the crowd and that Chef Kimura-san made each piece of aged sushi by hand and the size of the crowd, there is no way you could have run the event by giving more than one piece.

I’m glad I went to the Kimura-san even because he was beyond charming and the event was very educational, but I have to say if you are looking for a relaxing dining experience and don’t like crowds Food Bowl is not the way to go. There were long lines for both the catered regular sushi and for the one piece of aged sushi. A relaxing dining experience this was not and we went out afterwards for tempura and sashimi at Tempura Endo.

I loved that they sent us home with plastic wrapped matcha cake from the Kimura-San event, which I had the next morning for breakfast.

On another subject, is anyone going to the Emilia Romagna Food Bowl event this week? I would have liked to go, but they are sold out. If anyone goes, please report back.

Thanks for the report back @Omotesando. Wow, so in the end, you only got 1 piece of aged sushi from Kimura-san and the rest of the food was from the caterer? :frowning: It sounds disappointing.

That sucks. $100 to sample 1 piece is ridiculous…

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Food was ok but better when you can find better and more interesting things exploring the SVG.

Actually, it was $80, not $100. And in addition to the one piece of aged fish, we also got to have a separate roll of rice and nori (but no fish) at the beginning of the event from the hand of Kimura-san. He cooks his rice in a special way.

I wasn’t offended by the price. It’s just that I probably detest crowds more than the average person does (I remember in my youth absolutely refusing to walk through Washington Square in NYC because of crowds), so that portion of the evening wasn’t so fun for me. But I don’t regret going. The sake station was fun (and there were whiskey and beer statiions as well, although I am not a whiskey or beer drinker) and absolutely no one was at the green tea station. Not the best green tea in the world, but I’m always happy to be able to get a cup of green Japanese tea anywhere.

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I thought it was worth the $80 price of admission. Sure, I only got to eat one piece of Kimura-san’s sushi, but it’s better than flying all the way to Tokyo, only to get get rebuffed with reservations at his restaurant, and ultimately end up with zero pieces of his sushi!

Also, Taka-san’s catered sushi was pretty great, and it was AYCE! Epic battera. I had more than my fair share heheh…

Also, I got to chat with Kimura-san, take a few photos with him, and asked him to join FTC.

Also, I got to bangbang at L’antica Pizzeria da Michele afterwards by walking over, without having to move my car.

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AYCE battera, prob should’ve led the review with that.

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I LOVE the idea of AYCE Battera! Some torotaku and negitoro would be nice too. Hmmm real AYCE sushi? Is such a thing even possible? Probably not but it’s nice to think about