Has the heatwave impacted your dining this month?

[PaulF]

I can think of three ways in which we specifically made a dining decision as it related to the heatwave.

1 - We went to our local ramen spot (Moto Ramen) specifically to eat cold noodles. I had the Tan Ten Men. It’s a dish I like anyway, but when my better half asked “what do you want for dinner, it’s too hot to cook.” I said “Let’s get some cold noodles.”

2 - We had dinner in the mall. We live near Culver City so we went to the Fox Hills Mall specifically because the mall was air conditioned. Our house is not and we needed to cool off. So, we went to Lucille’s Bar BQ. It’s the one “mall chain” I like. I originally liked it because they have a full bar and not every BBQ spot in L.A. has one. There are times when our entire dinner discussion is “Honey, I’ll go anywhere there is a bar” because there are times I want a cocktail, not a beer. I had the pulled pork sandwich and – ha ha – an 805 because I try not to drink cocktails on weeknights/work nights. (Our second choice would have been BJs – where we like some of the salads. It’s for another thread if anyone wants to start it, but to me there are occasions when I actually want mall chain meal where the food has been refined by an algorithm. I guess there is something to be said for the familiar sometimes.

3 - We had Hollywood Bowl tickets last night and instead of eating at home then heading over or having dinner at the Bowl (which is what we usually do – we usually bring our food and eat before the show startts) we decided to drive halfway and eat dinner in an air conditioned restaurant before driving the rest of the way to the Bowl. We sort of randomly picked Inti, which is a low-key Peruvian spot we like. It’s only a block from Mario’s Peruvian which seems to get bigger crowds, but we prefer Inti for reasons I no longer remember. I had Pollo en Salsa Ostion (Chicken chunks sauteed with vegetables, and oyster sauce served with white rice) which happened to be prepared with a nice amount of fresh ginger.

Anyone else make dining decisions based more on the heat than anything else?

[happycat]

Lots of home assembly (can’t really call it “cooking”) of cold plates/tapas/antipasti to enjoy in the air-conditioned comfort of our dining room! When we go out, we eat outside, and it’s been too hot for that where we live. Even an after-dinner beer outdoors was difficult to sit through last night.

[Emglow101]

It’s been hot up here . In the high ninety’s since July. I haven’t cooked inside hardly at all . Just lots of grilling or using the traeger. Wearing shorts .No shirt or shoes . plenty of cold beer and wine on the deck with a gorgeous view of rainbow ridge

[lectroid]

This week marked a record in Sacramento. Tuesday’s recorded high was 116F. F indeed. F all of that.

I had planned on trying out a new (to me) Chinese place that has Dan Dan Mien on the menu, but neither my partner nor I are willing to schlep anywhere that isn’t strictly necessary and that isn’t A/C’d to the gills.

No using the oven. When I decided I needed a chocolate chip cookie last night, I let a single frozen dough ball thaw, pressed it flat, and made it in the toaster oven, because I was unwilling to turn on the oven. Dinner was take out “Happy Dragon Spicy Roll” sushi picked up on the way home because no one wanted to cook.

It will be down to a much more reasonable high of merely 90F by Sunday.

[PorkyBelly]

no regrets

FTC Confessions

I reheated a slice of pizza in the microwave because it’s too damn hot to use the toaster oven and I’m wilting like a petunia.

[mrgreenbeenz]

No ac and too hot to cook in my cozy spot so I’m out on the bbq every other evening or so. Of course then I’m half-naked outside at the mercy of aedes aegytpi during prime hunting hours.

Finally broke down and bought these mf’ers. Maybe the cruelest blow of covid-flation is that I paid $10 when they used to be on sale everywhere all summer long for like $4.99. Am I shopping in the wrong places or is this the new normal?

[lectroid]

@mrgreenbeenz

Maybe the cruelest blow of covid-flation is that I paid $10 when they used to be on sale everywhere all summer long for like $4.99. Am I shopping in the wrong places or is this the new normal?

Alas, it’s the new normal, I fear. Pasta you could normally find on sale for $.99/lb is at LEAST double that. And that’s the cheap stuff.

[burritoking]

@lectroid

This week marked a record in Sacramento.

yall have had it rough… not just record highs, but also record warm lows…

[lectroid]

Yes. Tuesday night it didn’t drop below 75.

Not fun.

It should be down to much more reasonable (ahem) high of 90 by Sunday.

[robert]

Takeout three dinners out of five and the other two were cold meze and leftover cold meze. Wine with ice.

[happycat]

Pink champagne on ice?

[Dommy]

Absolutely!! We are relatively lucky. Although we aren’t coastal, we live in a relatively cooler part of L.A., we had intermittent AC and we took off of to my folks who have a pool. I worked from home one day when it was 90 inside. It was not fun. I feel for all of you guys without AC or in any number of the Valleys (San Fernanando, Central, Sacramento).

Nevertheless, even when our AC was working, it was struggling keeping up with this 90+ degree weather so we didn’t dare turn on the oven or stove. We also luckily got a new smoker, so LOTS of spatchcocked Chickens and then using the chicken with salads of all types.

We also smoke a lot of wings. These are the Lemongrass wings from Standings… amazing flavor…

We did a lot of seafood, WF has these ENORMOUS shrimp that I butterfied and hubs put on the grill. They were pricy but SO GOOD. I also had some pre-cooked octopus, surimi and salad shrimp so I made mexican seafood cocktail. Tonight we had Poke made with some wild caught blue fin from Beer Money Fish. One thing we’ve always had on hand these past three weeks more than anything has been Avocados. From Locale, from new the new WF, from our local little Latino shops.

Eating out has been similar, we haven’t gone out more than usual. This weather has just killed my appetite even further, but some of our favorite items.

I already mentioned Sushi from UOBEI. But these are some of my other favorite eats from these last three weeks…

Oh Mama Kitchen Kimbap in La Mirada. My favorite KimBap in SoCal.

Cold Udon from Maragume Udon (The chain)

The Elote Bar at the new West Adams adjacent WF (I sprinkle it on the salads I made there or at home or mix with tuna)

Finally, this weather just made us crave Ceviche, so after a few good reports from friends we gave Ceviche Stop in Culver City a shot…

We got the Aguachile Ceviche which was excellent. Really good agua chile marinade and prep on the fish. Would come back to try more of their Ceviches…

The Crab Causa was a little bit of miss. The crab was good, but the potato was a little runny, it was missing a little kick from Aji as well. Causas are one of my top 10 foods. It’s one of the things I miss most about Mo Chica. We will other something else next time.

[OCSteve]

Lots more eating out for us. We live close to the water, and most houses in our neighborhood don’t have AC, including ours. Not a big deal 45-50 weeks out of the year, but this past week has kept us from wanting to be in the kitchen cooking and cleaning.

[TheCookie]

We’re in the no A/C club. Our place is situated in a shady way where fans are usually good enough. But! This month is ridiculous! When eating-in it’s takeout from Mizlala on W Adams and cold leftover Mizlala the next day. Icy cold white wine. Fruit, lots and lotsa fruit. Ventured to lunch at Sushi Tama a couple days ago. It was lovely.

@Dommy

The Elote Bar at the new West Adams adjacent WF

Whaaa?!

[PaulF]

It was still really hot over the weekend so we ended up on W Adams, too.

We went to Mian and decided in advance to only order cold noodles and cold appetizers.

We’re Mian fans, but this was the first time we ordered only cold items, including the cold noodles.