August 2023 Rundown

[hungryhungryhippos]

Triple bang today since I was in dtown for meeting and errands

Holbox - no pics but had the ceviche mixta, scallop aguachile, and a shrimp taco.

Happy to report even with the new crowds and the buildout the quality remains high. They also crank the food out pretty quickly. I would recommend going early as they’ve definitely blown up and @PorkyBelly says if you can manage to grab a seat at the bar area they will take your order table side which is nice.

Pane bianco. I know this may be blasphemous but I think I enjoy the ny style pizza more than the pizzeria Bianco style pizza. The longer cook time seems to bring out the flavor of the dough. Their special pizza was delicious cherry tomatoes, pine nut pesto, Chile flakes, and garlic confit perfect balance of flavors.

Mortadella was good but not mortazza at mother wolf level good. I found their fruit mostarda to be too sweet. Maybe a little less of it would’ve helped balance it out. The bread is prolly the best part. Definitely need the giardenera on the side to provide spice and acid to balance out the mostarda.

I got @chrishei fluenced. But I am a moron forgot to request all dark meat chicken and also half my breast is missing skin still amazingly delicious thanks for playing the hits @JLee . Not only best hainan chicken but maybe best chicken in town period.

[JeetKuneBao]

Damn that’s a nice triple bang!

My days of bang bangs are probably over. Maybe I’ll do a Needle char siu and PRD hainan chicken just for you guys pretty soon. Haven’t been back to PRD since they moved in to that New Dragon spot (shout out to New Dragon’s wonton noodle soup).

[hungryhungryhippos]

Please do the mythical @JeetKuneBao bang bang! Been waiting for that since you travelled back from the east coast.

Why aren’t you doing bang bangs anymore?

[JeetKuneBao]

I ain’t young anymore I get full easy!

I could probably do taco bang bangs.

[paranoidgarliclover]

@JeetKuneBao

I could probably do taco bang bangs.

Random, but I’m getting old enough that my body does not react to taco trucks the way it used to. ::sigh::

Back to the rundown.

[JLee]

You can’t request dark meat only.

The other half of breast is not missing skin, thats the side flap to the breast that is exposed when removing the leg quarter.

[hungryhungryhippos]

Thank you for the clarification, I have updated my post!

Didn’t choosing all dark meet used to be a thing?

[attran99]

I do not believe so. It’s chef’s intent to serve it that way.

PRD’s Hainan chicken is perfect as is. Because the both dark and white meat are cooked so exceptionally well, it’s a great gold standard for Hainan chicken rice connoisseurs.

[JLee]

No it never was.

We only use whole chickens, if the choice was given to people then everyone would choose dark meat and then we’d be left with too much white meat. If we were to give that option then we would either have to buy extra leg quarters individually which is not the same and texture is not as good or we would have to charge a high price to discourage everyone from getting it.

[hungryhungryhippos]

Thanks for explanation, I stand corrected and must’ve totally misremembered that.

Thankfully your white meat is delicious! Next time I’ll just order two halves and hoard the dark meat pieces to myself lol.

[chrishei]

You’ve embarrassed both yourself and me for using my sacred name.

[hungryhungryhippos]

100 apologies master hei I will walk from downtown to west la as penance!

[Dommy]

Ooo… deep cut…

[PorkyBelly]

@JeetKuneBao

Maybe I’ll do a Needle char siu and PRD hainan chicken

While I understand your extraordinary enthusiasm and support for the other restaurant, it is completely inappropriate to lump them together in this discussion, whether here or on other social media platforms. Not to mention they are two completely different restaurants. And it makes me legitimately wonder why the need to compare or inject them at every turn and makes me further wonder if there are other intentions beyond that enthusiasm.

[JeetKuneBao]

I walked right into that one lol

[JeetKuneBao]

$25 breakfast at SFO LOL.

[robert]

Deep callback.

[hadarien]

Shang Jie - super tender beef noodle soup and crazy good fried pig’s intestines

Jinsol Gukbap - very comforting kimchi stew with melt in your mouth pork belly

Burnin’ Shell - super fun kbbq seafood. Very fresh and yummy. Get the Captain set!! Hagfish is a thing!

Brady’s bakery - baked to order, chubby, chewy cookies. Good, not too sweet.

Crab House - can skip the uni rice but Korean marinated crab is a must!

PRD - only place I won’t order dark only even if given the option! white was perfectly juicy and I won’t have it any other way

Howlin Rays - they convinced me to stay away from extra hot and they were right. Hot is plenty hot even for me.

Holbox - still my fav. New counter is nice!

Bumsan - just ok, had better

[js76wisco]

Mother Wolf was great. Packed Sunday at 5pm. Line of 20-25 waiting for the doors to open. Is $15 valet the norm in LA these days? Sheesh.

Waitress suggested a few wines but this was available by the glass so we could taste. A little lighter than we would normally pick but very good pairing for the veggies and red sauce. Only $95. Might have been the only bottle under $100 on the entire wine list.

The best squash blossoms we ever had. Perfect fry.

Panzanella salad with in season veggies and dreamy burrata. Excellent dressing. Sweet Valdivia Farms tomatoes.

Meatballs. Tomato sauce to die for. The meatballs were weird. Not the ground meat soft insides but stringy ropa vieja like oxtail. Meaty and delicious.

Mortazza warm bread out of the oven and mortadella were top notch. Felt like it could have done without the cheese. Personal preference.

Diavola pizza. My son says it’s the best pizza he has ever eaten. High praise. He is partial to thin crust and spicy salami.

If you ask the kitchen will make a regular red sauce with spaghetti or rigatoni. My daughter didn’t want the spicy alla’arabiatta. I think it’s basically the same thing without spice. Up there with Scarpetta and Delfina.

Rigatoni alla’ ametriciana. Al dente goodness. Love the bites with the crispy guanciale. Fantastic.

Would come back to just have pizza and pasta.

[paranoidgarliclover]

Mini-Kebab:

I had had a pretty intense morning at work, so I wanted to treat myself to something. So I thought of Mini-Kebab. Drive from West LA was nearly an hour, and I was starving by the time I got there. Thankfully I have a windshield sunscreen for my car, so I could eat in relative comfort.

Eggplant caviar (at least when warmed) is, not surprisingly, rather bell pepper forward. I tried a few bites. Tasty, but it alone didn’t convince me that this place was worth the drive.

I then had the chicken cutlet. OH, MY. It is ASTONISHING. So juicy, meaty, w/ a deep savory-ness, some some lovely ?herbaceousness at the end. It’s def one of the best bites of 2023. Tried putting some toum on it; I agree that the toum here is not a strength here. It’s almost distractingly tangy. Eggplant caviar + chicken was fine, but the chicken taste best alone. It just really doesn’t need any adornment.

Rice is pretty good, too. No clumps, not too wet or dry, and one section had a nice butteriness. I had never thought of putting butter on my rice before…

Hummus is a bit bland, but hummus + eggplant caviar + rice was really just a perfect bite, taste-wise.

What a wonderful place! I drove home very happy, totally stuffed (and w/ leftovers), and not minding the traffic one bit.

Eggplant also took on a lovely smokiness once cooled.

Pizzeria Sei

I had originally been planning to hit Restaurant Komasu the next day (b/c I have a good katsu don), but it’s closed on Sundays. SO I thought I"d go to Pizzeria Sei b/c, uh, Japanese chefs??? I thought this place was in DTLA. Can’t believe it took me so long to try it!

I had the filetto. Gorgeous and delicious. Does it have some sort of garlic powder? There was a seasoning in topping that reminded me a lot of it (vaguely spicy but not “hot,” if that makes any sense).

I think someone had mentioned in another thread that dining out (or maybe fine dining) in LA isn’t set up well for solo diners. This place works GREAT for solo diners, and I had a fabulous view of Sergio.

Glad people had mentioned the salted crust. I would’ve been a bit confused had I not read about that beforehand. On the one hand, I think crust by itself needs salt to be interesting. But, even though I am a salt fiend, this crust by itself was at the upper end of saltiness for me.

Th eonly thing I regret was coming here after my exercise class. I thought it would be way more casual. While the decoration is a bit barebones, the service is anything but. I could see any of the waitstaff easily in a fine dining establishment, and there was literally one employee aligning all of the menus and napkins on the counter as I was finishing my meal. I didn’t arrange my menus for the pic; they were set down like that.

Will be happy to return when I’ve, you know, taken a shower first.

Such a nice weekend of eating.