I love that pizza, too!
I’m now hungry, again, after seeing your post.
1 Like
Pizzeria Sei (Pico-Robertson): Great char on the crust, with a pull on the doughier side. My margherita pie was very enjoyable. The funghi pie could have benefited from a touch of salt on the finish; aside from that it was pretty damn near perfect. But these were extremely minor issues, and I feel that Pizzeria Sei deserves accolades as one of the top Neapolitan piemakers in LA. Oh, and their housemade tiramisu is ridiculously good.
16 Likes
Cici’s Cafe
Breakfast joint in Tarzana.
Basic bacon and eggs
Corned Beef Hash and Eggs
Excellent rye toast
Ginger Twist tea
… looks like it came from a wood chipper 
The star of the show…
Lemon Twist Soufflé Pancakes
Fresh strawberries, lemon sauce with a twist of jasmine ganache and whipped cream
10 Likes
That is a lot of lettuce!
2 Likes
So happy you are back with your tastebuds full firing!
2 Likes
Thank you!
1 Like
My first taste of Yangban Society came at a private party catered by them…
Potato bread is yum. Loved the crunchy pickles. Chicken wings were gigantic and tasted best with a bit of last-second oven time. Egg salad with corn was da bomb.
10 Likes
Making up for my lack of activity with an insane food dump post lol of gluttonous consumption in February
Northern Cafe Monterey Park
House Special Spicy Beef Noodle Soup $10.50
Spicy, beefy, satisfying on a 50 degree night!
Found Oyster Bar
Scallop Tostada: $19
immaculately sweet scallops. Awesome sweet and sour sauce made w/ yuzu kosho and apples w/ great basil up top.
Steamed Clam Frites: $36
Basically Better than McDonalds fries but served with excellent clams and a nice wine sauce
Baywatch Platter $80
12 oysteres, 4 peel and eet prawns and the sicillion crudo w/ Halibut and Yellowtail. Peel and Eat shrimp had an interesting spicy, muddy flavor to them. Kind of tasted like dark spices too, like think cloves, cardamom, and cinnamon
Lobster Bisque Roll $31
EXCELLENT BITE. Great toasted warm bun, griddled with butter. The lobster bisque sauce is genius to pair with the supple and tender lobster. Can’t wait to try this again in a few months
Cross Section, stuffed with lobster!
Carnitas @ Villa Moreliana, Grand Central Market
Trifecta of Tacos
- Mix
- Buche (Stomach)
- Chicharon (deep fried pork belly)
The chicharon tacos way too overwhelming on its own, but was incredible when sprinkling a few of the crispy bits in with the other two tacos
Sushi Bar Encino
Friends treated me out for a late birthday, and I thoroughly enjoyed my experience. While it was extremely unconventional and there were some details lacking compared to a traditional omakase, I do appreciate how daring they were in breaking boundaries. I would say I think their rice (shari) is kind of weak, often felt like just a block of rice that wasn’t really delicate or tender when you pressed your tongue against it. I also thought that the majority of the proteins (neta) skewed towards fattier, which is fine by me!
Few highlight bites I enjoyed:
Tessin
Described as a “cannoli” I couldn’t agree more. The seaweed shell definitely had a fried quality to it, it was thick, crispy, and overall provided a great contrast to the fatty tuna inside.
Bone Marrow
Very very interesting. Loved the sweet richness the marrow had, and it was mildly torched to render out the fat. Awesome with the wasabi and rice.
Hamachi w/ Sweet Corn Pudding excellent hamachi quality.
Superbly fatty hamachi with a slightly chunky sweet corn pudding that goes on top. The sweetness of the corn and the slight pulp provided a great counterbalance, pretty interesting!
Had a big week of eating in Oahu, many were contributed by great recs by this board to clos out the last week of February
Zigu
Sadoyama Farm Red Skin Sweet Potato Salad with Home Smoked Radish Pickle: $9.5
Great bite!
Hawaiian Tuna Cutlet with chopped kale: $21
Don’t quite understand tuna katsu, but was still pretty good!
Mochico Chicken with Smoked Radish Mayonnaise - $13.50
Loved this, the smoked radish mayonaise with the chicken kind of gave me a kielbasa/hotdog vibe lol. Super into it!
Spicy Chilled Soba With Homemade Chili Oil and Hawaiian Spiced Minced Pork, Bonito Flake, Egg Yolk, Green Onion, Seaweed: $18.5
Loved this dish! Refreshing, light, and kinda hits like a mazesoba but feels lighter in a way
Mixed
Guava Smoked
LOVED everything here. They all tasted like Cantonese BBQ meets American BBQ. Awesome springy texture for both the pork and kalbi short rib. Duck was perfectly rendered and rip-off-the-bone tender. Skin wasn’t glassy, but well rendered. Definitely coming back!
Smoked Mixed Plate w/ Smoked Kalbi Short Ribs + Smoked Duck: $17.67+1.92 kalbi extra = $19.59
Side-car of Smoked Pork $7.64
Tonkatsu Tamafuji
Aged pork katsu specialist. Definitely can be among top 15% of katsu joints in Tokyo (literally pulling that number out of my butt lmao)
AYCE rice (3 different types), miso soup (4 different types), and cabbage (2 dressings, sesame and yuzu)
my order: 8 oz rosu (fatty pork loin fillet) + 2 hire (lean tenderloin) + 1 oyster katsu - ~$40
My preference is tenderloin > fatty loin > katsu. All are exceptional and worth a visit to try a bit of everything.
Sushi Sho Bara Chirashi $44
absolutely incredible. i don’t think it would be incorrect if someone said they preferred poke or a massive chirashi of otoro. This is the bite for you if you love variety and attention to detail. Everything was executed stunningly and I loved how you can taste basically the effort that goes into each meticulous piece.
Don Quixote picnic haul - $32
Gorged myself on
- 1/2 pound spicy salmon poke
- 1/2 pound salmon + hamachi sesame poke
- inari starter pack
- chopped tuna futomaki
Objectively less refined that Sushi Sho, but the variety and satisfying your raw fish fix is still awesome
Liliha Bakery, International Market Waikiki
Known for their choco puffs (chocolate filled cream puffs), i found those to be fine. Good, but not the best thing I had at their bakery.
Instead, I LOVE their Malasadas. Both of these were room temp when I got to eat them, but still delicious nonetheless.
Lilikoi (Yellow Passionfruit) Malasada
I mean, look how golden that looks. Almost resembles a Dim Sum Molten Egg bun, but it’s this incredible semi-sweet passionfruit filling. Just sweet enough to highlight the fragrance of the fruit, but not sweet enough where you’re thirsty and need to chase it down. Definitely nothing like those store-bought cloying jams.
Azuki (Red Bean) Malasada
Being a lover of red bean, I just had to get this. Having close proximity to Little Tokyo, SGV, and Koreatown, I would say I’m pretty versed in red bean based desserts, and this is easily among the top red bean desserts I’ve had. Heterogeneity is the name of the game here. Smooth azuki paste with a few chunks of red bean flanked throughout. But I think the sleeper here are the macademia nuts that are found sprinkled throughout. Exceptional malasada, but note the heavy interior does make this a more substantial breakfast and will get you full.
Also, don’t sleep on their Loco Moco, forgot to take a pic but it was excellent and better than any other loco moco i had this trip.
Waioli Team Room
Cute spot near University of Hawaii @ Manoa, great change of pace and scenery from the skyscrapers of Waikiki. I found the vibe to be excellent, and the food to be OK with the exception of the Lilikoi + Mango Scone being transcendental.
Mango Lilikoi Scone
Everything I could want in a scone. Brittle and rigid on the outside, with a moist, supple, muffin-like interior. Semi-sweet with fragrant passionfruit and mango notes, with chunks of coconut custard? baked into it. Absolutely ridiculous.
The pancakes were great, but definitely a massive portion
HeiHo House
This place is awesome. The food is highly experimental and ambitious. There were a few misses, but I respect what they’re trying to do and would be happy to come back and try the tasting menu. I wasn’t able to take pictures of every cocktail (or even try them), but the group of 5 all thoroughly enjoyed their cocktails and mocktails. Everything had a creativity to it that I very much appreciated!
Cocktail
Truffle Thief - 17
larceny | cacao | shiitake | chartreuse
Basically, a bourbon based cocktail with a grilled shimeji mushroom and mushroom-based cookie to pair. This was really fun. The grilled shimeji mushroom definitely was delicious, and when paired with the cocktail, literally tasted as earthy as it can be. Fresh soil, grass, etc.
The cookie was mildly sweet, a slight funk/stink from mushrooms, but never unpleasant. Again, taking a bite after each sip brought out spicy earthy flavors.
Food
Got to sample everything on their a la carte menu
Scallop - 12
dulse | raspberry | onion
This was a miss for me. The scallops while massive and sliced into 4 portions, didn’t really have the same excellence at Found Oyster’s scallops. I also found the described Aguachile sauce to kind of taste like…a bottle of opened gewurztraminer that I left in my fridge for weeks and it got kinda dark and gross. There were elements of dark spice [clove,cinnamon, star anise] that just didn’t go well with the dish. The onions were pickled then dehydrated (nice touch), but I didn’t understand the raspberries. Other people at the table seemed to enjoy it though!
Roselle Tartare (vegan) - 14
corn | peanut | shiso
This was interesting to me! Basically whole hibiscus cooked down till jammy with corn then chilled. A dining guest described the flavor as resembling taco bell mild sauce, and that definitely comes through. I wish there were more shiso, but overall enjoyed this.
Beltfish Toast - 15
blue corn | cashews | rose
The rye bread with the beltfish and cashew paste made this taste like a Jewish Deli whitefish bagel. The rose powder on top also gave it a “taco bell” element too. I really enjoyed this LOL, really interesting repackaging of familiar flavors.
Croquettes - 13
nori | sesame | unagi
I was told the potato in this croquette is Ube. TBH when I read unagi, I expect the tare glazed eel flavor with a slightly charred caramelization. This had none of that. Still a delicious bite and I REALLY appreciated how the sauce used lime instead of yuzu. While I love yuzu, I hate how it’s become the go-to acid for so many trendy asian-inflected restaurants, it really feels like a crutch. Overall pretty good
Kampachi Kama - 16
blueberry | green peppercorn | schmaltz
I really love the idea of this dish. Sweet jammy blueberry compote w/ schmaltz glaze and dehydrated blueberry dust for the acid. Green peppercorns for the freshness and pepperiness to keep it interesting. Well-cooked and would order again!
Short Rib - 15
chocolate | long peppercorn | tamarind
This was probably my favorite dish of the night. The chocolate and tamarind sauce come together to form a flavor that kind of tastes like braised Taiwanese beef. The pickled shallots and sour cream give the levity it needs to be enjoyable even though it really is a fatty dish. Each of the chunks of short ribs were cut relatively small, but the ratio of crispy exterior to tender interior was perfect for my taste, and Im glad it was portioned this way.
Time to go inactive for another month and just diet after the most gluttonous month of my life.
28 Likes
Guava smoked is the best!
Ono grindz! Great post.
I swear all of this happened in February… I’ll post more extensive reports where appropriate.
Bite of the month was obviously Kato:
Caviar, Dungeness Crab, and Milk Bread (protip: dip the bread in the crab)
Drink of the month also to Kato:
Milk Punch
Danny Boy’s Pizza
Cheese Slice, Sicilian Slice, and a Garlic Knot.
The cheese was good and had a nice crispness to the crust, but the sicilian and garlic knot were great.
Dessert of the month was Camphor:
Kiwi
Best caviar of the month was Angler:
Yeah my favorite dish at Kato was also caviar (I guess that says how much of a starfucker I am 
) but the caviar and pancake at Angler is such a heater 
x 
Highly Likely
This small-ish cafe in West Adams punches above it’s weight. They make my favorite hot sauce in LA, and their brunch menu has to be one of the best executed around, even if it’s not going to have anything that you can’t get somewhere else.
New New Kale Salad and Seedy Granola Bowl
Ubiquitous Avocado Toast
Best bread I paid for was Horses:
I mean it is really because of the butter, but very glad I got it this time. IT’S SO SOFT.
Yang’s Kitchen
Another brunch sleeper that deserves more attention. The cooking and ingredients are excellent and the green sauce is basically magic.
Market Grill Plate with Dry-Aged Barramundi
Zumi’s Biscuit Twists
Bang Bang of the month goes to Holbox x Tire Shop Taqueria
Taco de Jaiba - lightly smoked dungeness crab, smoked kanpachi head, house made oaxaca cheese, crab butter salsa macha
JFC
Asada Vampiros
Still my favorite tacos in LA.
Most questionable QPR of the month was Yangban Society:
Everything I’ve had here is delicious, especially this biscuit with gravy, but my wallet always hurts after.
Eszette
Another spot that deserves more attention. It’s a top tier neighborhood restaurant–fantastic cooking and a great low key vibe.
Egg and Anchovy
Small bite/big combo
Shrimp Toast
The reason why I keep coming back to Eszette.
Grilled Cabbage - picked currants, hazelnuts, brown butter vinaigrette, chrysanthemum
Grilled Broccolini - Sbez chili vinegar, citrus, everything spice togarashi
Whole Fish - grilled branzino, confit leeks, meyer lemon kosho, fried brussels sprouts, mushroom sauce
All three dishes here were great—the fish was particularly fantastic.
Best Chocolate Chip Cookie of the month Fat + Flour:
Obviously–look at this beaut.
19 Likes
fuuuck is this tasting menu only or alc?
3 Likes
The closest on the alc menu is the kanpachi taco–it’s the same prep but chef used dungeness crab from earlier in the menu along with the brains for the salsa macha 
2 Likes
I struck out again 
1 Like
I NEED THIS
5 Likes
What a great round up! Glad to see the Highly Likely love. I’m there more than I care to admit and they were really there for us in the Pandemic. One night I had a coffee bean emergency and all the places near us close up early or didn’t have any available (Only espresso). They were open late and had a wonderful selection of beans to sell. A bonus for us too… they are are a short walk away from the E Line Farmdale station.
1 Like
