Favorite Restaurants San Fernando Valley (SFV)?

I ended up with this instead when I ordered a khachapuri.

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oh man… my people are great at customer service.

yep,… is khachapuri… thems is good though, no?

Szechuan Place in northridge is pretty good if you can’t make it to the SGV.

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Ooh… looks promising! And right near Baja Subs. That’s one spicy bang-bang!

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It is. Though I’m reluctant to throw the ‘b’ word around, Szechuan Place may be the “(B)est” outisde the SGV as far as Sichuan goes.

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The spicy diced chicken (last pic) ranks up there with buffalo wings as an ultimate spicy bar/beer food :point_up_2:. I can finish the whole plate by myself.

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Thanks to @JThur01 and @Bigmouth for the Baja Subs rec. I meet a friend in the Northridge area every few wks/months, and she’s game for pretty much anything.

The deli has about 2-3 parking spots out front. Friend and I were a bit crestfallen when the owner (I think) said that the only Sri Lankan food available was “curry and rice.” Any other Sri Lankan food is apparently served on the weekend. Friend and I half thought about going to Szechuan Place, but she only had a limited time to eat, so we we decided to stay.

We both wondered how interesting “curry and rice” could be. Turns out it’s actually pretty interesting here. First pic is that of the “rice” (I thought it was going to a bowl of plain rice).

Friend got beef curry, I got chicken. I don’t know what Sri Lankan food is supposed to taste like, but I thought it was pretty good. Rice and the chicken themselves weren’t anything special, but the veggies and lentils (I think) accompanying the rice were wonderfully seasoned, and the curry had a nice and subtle heat. 2 curries and 2 sodas + tax = $23. Place closes at 1:30PM (not sure if they reopen at night?).

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Oh yeah, their “curries of the day” with rice. They usually had kottu roti too (maybe they were out?). The little case atop the counter has Sri Lankan pastries, most notably malu paan, which comes with either a spicy chicken or spicy fish filling. Biryanis are Saturdays only. I’m not sure if there’s been any change. It was hard to crack the code, especially going by others reporting it was “weekends only” and then discovering it was sometimes closed Sundays and that they did have Sri Lankan on weekdays. If you got one of the 2-3 spots in the plaza, consider yourself lucky, I parked on the side street.

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When I asked for the kottu roti, the man smiled, shook his head, and said, “Only on the weekends.”

Friend and I were wondering what the pastries were! Nothing is labelled, so it’s all a huge mystery. And the pastries hadn’t been baked yet, so…

Oh, I meant 2-3 spots total (incl the handicapped spots)! :wink: I parked on the side street, too.

On an food-unrelated note, this area of Reseda is apparently close to a district called “Sherwood Forest.” Odd.

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Thank you for this!!!

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Thanks for the update on Baja Subs. I had chicken kottu roti for lunch on a weekday last year (it was very good and very spicy). The pastries aren’t labelled. The round buns are chicken and the triangular buns are fish and not to be confused with the samosas :slight_smile: So, yeah, it’s kind of tricky navigation. But, if they hadn’t been baked yet…

It did take me a few visits to sort through it, not helped by some misinformation from CH. Or, at least it was misinformation when I visited :slight_smile: Since much of it seems to have changed, the information seems correct again. I drove down one Sunday to find them closed, so always call or, better yet, go on Saturday.

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Did the baked version of the buns look like dark brown dinner rolls? In that case, I think there WERE some that were baked (for whatever reason, I thought they were just unstuffed dinner rolls). They didn’t look like samosas to me since they didn’t look fried.

Thanks for the info. Will have to try them out next time…

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Yep, those should be the malu paan. Be sure and ask for 'em by name :slight_smile: Nice spicy kick, I really like them.

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Hit up a couple new to us places this weekend.

Schezwan Place: saw it recommended here and then saw the LA Weekly write up. Honestly, we thought it was just ok. We tried several dishes to get a feel for the food:
Braised pork, home style
Veggie chow fun (for my non meat loving daughter)
Pork ribs, bifeng tang style
Boiled fish in chilli pepper sauce
Dan Dan wontons
Dan Dan noodles, schezwan style

The pork was good and had a nice kick to it. The ribs, Reminded us of breaded fried pork chop pieces. The veggie chow fun was fine. The biggest hit was the fish - my 12yo ate leftovers for his midnight snack and for breakfast the next day too. The Dan Dan wontons were the biggest disappointment - they tasted like wontons coated in crunchy peanut butter. We didn’t get any other flavor out of the dish except peanuts. The Dan Dan noodles were listed in the noodle soup section, so we were expecting a brothy version of the dish, but there was no soup or broth, just sauce. It was fine, nothing special. The heat level in everything was good, but we eat spicy food normally. We did think the kitchen is too light handed with the salt - we felt everything was under salted, which is unusual for restaurant food usually. I’d probably give it another chance, but order differently.

We also hit up Futaba Ramen for Japanese. My son loved the spicy miso ramen (hubby got the same thing), daughter went for edamame and gyoza and I went for the pork katsu curry. Everything was good - home style Japanese food. Portions are huge and prices were reasonable too. We’d come back here again.

Tried Cream Saturday night for dessert. Good ice cream sandwiches, although they fall apart easily. Liked the assortment of ice cream and cookie flavored and liked being able to customize each sandwich.

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Oh noes! I’m so sorry about the weekend thing. I could swear I’ve had the kottu roti on a weekday. Oh well. Still, the food in the pic looks pretty tasty!

I think it probably WAS a weekday thing but that the dish availability is subject to change. :wink:

And it WAS really tasty, so no worries at all. Still well worth the visit.

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Petit trois

We finally made it to Bonano’s Chicken, a Peruvian restaurant in Reseda which has been recommended by several sources, including a few Eater LA mentions. Maybe we are tainted by how delicious we think the Peruvian chicken and sides at Takatis in Van Nuys is, but we thought Bonano’s was just okay. We had half a chicken and an order of Lomo Saltado, and the high point of the meal was the fries drenched in the juice from the Lomo Saltado. I definitely need to get back to Takatis now…

I also went to Cici’s cafe a second time recently. My husband had the blueberry cheesecake pancakes and I had the red velvet. Both were quite good and not too sweet which is a definite plus for our tastes. Our nephew ordered pancakes which had oreos, marshmallows and chocolate chips and possibly other things which I didn’t want to try :). I insisted on some protein with the meal so we shared an order of eggs scrambled with some stuff in them which was also tasty. More than half of each order of pancakes went home for reheating as dessert for a couple of nights.

Also, in case they aren’t already mentioned above, San Carlo Deli in Chatsworth and Roger’s Rib Shack in Northridge are on our rotation as well. I don’t think Roger’s is nearly as good as Phillips downtown (our favorite), but it is the best we know of locally. San Carlo makes their own breads for terrific sandwiches and has great red sauce which is used in various dishes. We use it for take out generally but there are some tables and chairs.

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I had lunch at Takatis a couple weeks ago, extremely slow service and food was very disappointing … took almost 45mins to receive my anticuchos. Pollo ala brassa seemed like it had been sitting around for a long time.