CVT ice cream truck.
Soft serve is great. Instagram, hilarious.
Appollonias finally made it. Just plain cheese, super delicious cheese skirt, airy crunchy dough, zesty tomato sauce. Jumped to my favorite pan style pizza (although I don’t think there that many…prime and wagon?)
Bang bang with kazu nori
Those succulent ribs prepared with love by Chef @JLee at Pearl River Deli (Chinatown) were spectacular.
Attended a kid’s birthday party, and one of the parents demonstrates mad baking skillz…
Freshly squeezed sugarcane juice, from Saigon Deli, after the Firecracker Run (Chinatown)… #carbloadaftertheracetoo
Lions’ head, dongpo pork and Longjing tea shrimp: All wonderfully scrumptious iterations of Zhejiang cuisine, from Jiang Nan Spring (Alhambra). The place was packed.
Despite its kitschy plating, the “squirrel” flash fried fish showed subtlety between its sweet and sour notes, which I found better than the fried seaweed fish most other tables were ordering… #nosqirlsactuallyinvolved
Boysenberry pie alert at The Apple Pan!!!
Holy sh*t, that is some impressive piping!!!
I had much the same response (though, having less restraint, I didn’t bleep myself big, big grin)!
Went to Everest this weekend with Mrs. WireMonkey:
We stan this place so hard.
They make such a perfectly wrapped sandwich (BLAT in this case) and cut it in half for easy access.
Also, as I might have mentioned elsewhere, their breakfast burritos are my Socratic ideal. I’m not saying they’re fancy but 1) it’s served all day, 2) they offer all their meats as a filling option (ham, sausage, bacon, pastrami and chili), 3) the burrito gets griddled and 4) they wrap it up the middle for easy unwrapping while you drive:
Very serviceable red and green salsa, too (although I’ve noticed the green has been a little thin lately).
Apollonia’s square is the truth! Up there with Mama’s Too, Prince St, LB Spumoni or whatever prototype Detroit/Sicilian is your Rosebud.
That their best thing, the squares, are barely available, don’t get me started. And that it takes them a good 20 minutes to heat it up.
Yeah they had bacon one that came fresh out of the oven and it looked insane but I didn’t want to be greedy
Is Longjing tea shrimp on special menu? I don’t see it on their regular menu.
First time eating montas at Monta Factory in Glendale. I appreciate the texture of the dumplings from the baking process and I enjoyed the dumplings more after I left and let that sweet sweet after taste linger. I would get the sauce on the side next time.
Ah yes, it’s written in Chinese as 龍井蝦仁 on the Specials Menu (on the pink paper in the plastic display of each table)… Apologies.
Costa (Whittier)
A new seafood focused restaurant in Uptown Whittier decorated with modern flourishes and a live band on weekends. They’ve got a full bar and plenty space to hold private parties. The menu is slightly confusing…lots of seafood…and the dishes skew Spanish and Mexican…but they also use yuzu and chimichurri…and they also offer tacos and pizza.
Grilled pulpo starter…it was a touch over cooked. But the spices and the accoutrements made it tasty. It was rather large, too…and reasonably priced at $13, but I wouldn’t order it again.
We also at the crispy pork belly…which was plated well and tasted okay…but the pork belly pieces were improperly cooked. Some pieces were all dried out and over while other pieces were perfect. The most solid dish we had was the roasted beet and spinach salad. We were more impressed with their complimentary chips and roasted salsa…it was smokey and spicy. The chips were a mixture of big and thin blue corn tostadas and thick and small white corn tostadas…served warm. I think we got full off of the tostadas and salsa alone.
What was impressive was their cocktail program. Drinks were super good here…balanced and made with fresh juices. They’ve inventive garnishes (macerated dragon fruit and hibiscus flowers) and we ran through about half the menu.
Service was super friendly…it’s only been open a couple of months so I can tell they’re trying hard to encourage people to return.
The husband loved it…I’m on the fence, but would come back for the chips/salsa and bar alone.
The Nixon (Whittier)
From a drinks and dessert standpoint, I think it’s started it’s down slide. No more table side dessert…and my tiramisu was bleh…the one I make is better. The husband had a nice pear tart. But what stuck me most were that the bar program isn’t as good as it used to be. Drinks were unbalanced…and the crowd was now more casual than what it used to be. Maybe it was because it was later and they were changing it over to be a bar/lounge after dinner and they had 2 parties of about 100 people each coming in. It was very different from my experience a year ago. Katsuji Tanabe should really check in more on his house here.
Monsieur Benjamin - SF
Housemade Dried Sausage, Little Beak Peppers, Cornichon
Abalone, Lemon, Caper
Endive and Apple Salad with Walnuts, Fourme d’Ambert Blue Cheese, Banyuls Vinairgrette
Onion Soup Gratinée, Beef Broth, Gruyère, Croûtons
Crêpe au Sarrasin ! Ham, Cheese, Mushroom, Spinach, Egg
Rum Raisin
This was better than I remembered and Luis style is better than I expected. Not having to wait is priceless.
Also, spent $120 at a fried chicken joint today. LOL
Character building exercise
Sushi Sho
iwashi maki, shiso, gari, cucumber
fucking fantastic, loved how the shiso and ginger complemented the fatty, oily sardine and the cucumber provided the crunchy textural contrast. @Chowseeker1999, @TheCookie, @Sgee, @NYCtoLA, @beefnoguy, @JeetKuneBao, @Hungrydrunk, @A5KOBE
if somebody can point me to a place in la that serves this i’ll owe you one million @PorkyBelly credits.
Agreed. That is one incredible morsel.
That would be an ALC order for your next OOE “Go Pig Or Go Home” adventures.
Request “iwashi isobe (ee so beh) maki”, provided iwashi is on the menu and in season. Probably safest to do so at Mori or SGO. You could try it with saba if it’s fatty enough. But I think iwashi should still be decent now (having had a pristine fresh specimen just recently up here). Although interpretations of this could vary, depending on the ingredients used for the interior for texture/crunch/balance/flavoring.
So best soooosh you’ve had in the US?