Eat. Travel. Eat!

Opened at the start of 2020, Pearl River Deli (PRD) is a burgeoning Cantonese food concept operated by chef Johnny Lee , located next to Howlin Rays in Los Angeles' Chinatown's Far East Plaza. Extensive forum posts on Food Talk Central ( 1 , 2 ) and articles published by  Eater , Los Angeles Times , amongst other outlets, have highlighted the innovative cooking going on: a focused menu of Cantonese classics with the volume turned up alongside weekly specials featuring cuisines not limited to Thai, Vietnamese, Yunnan, and more. Hence, on a recent outing in Los Angeles, I had to make a stop here to experience PRD for myself. I phoned my order in via phone, and got an expected wait time of 20 minutes. The estimate was correct, with my order just about to be boxed up when I arrived. Notably, pickup was rather safe, with payment done at the doorway entrance (hand sanitizer available),  a vinyl shield protecting the employees from the outside, and all employees wearing masks. Outdoo...

Maccheroni Republic specializes in "artisan handmade fresh organic pasta" at an affordable price point, and is quite popular in the city, having long waits (now made more convenient, with a Yelp waitlist feature ). We decided to check it out for lunch during their DineLA week earlier this year. Stopping by at its opening time for lunch (11 AM), we didn't need to wait long for a table, as the waiters quickly brought a small queue of customers waiting outside to their seats both inside and outside of the restaurants. The interior was rather cozy with tables located quite close to each other, so we opted to sit outside, which was kept warm in a rather cool morning with several heaters.  Alongside each table was bottles of oil (both olive and chili) and vinegar to accompany the bread, which was crusty outside and soft inside.

Kobunga Korean Grill, a fast-casual Korean barbecue restaurant, is opening its first brick-and-mortar outlet at the USC Village, a multi-use residential, dining, and shopping complex located adjacent to the University of Southern California's University Park Campus. Funded by Kickstarter , Kobunga aims to make Korean barbecue accessible to the larger population. They recently soft-opened (this Wednesday) and will be having their grand opening this Saturday. Housed in a small storefront, no seating is available inside the restaurant, although ample outside seating is available. Ordering is done at the counter, and one can wait on the side for their order. Menu options include a "Build Your Own Plate" option as well as a salad driven option where two types of greens can be paired with a choice of dressing and protein. The Build Your Own Plate option includes a choice of protein (Short Ribs, Bulgogi, Pork Belly, Marinated Chicken, and Soft Tofu), base (brown rice, white...

Established in 1986, Javan Restaurant is a Middle Eastern restaurant located on the Westside focusing on Persian food.    Inside, the environment was decidedly upscale, with a bar, a white grand piano, stone tables, wood accents, and plenty of pictures adorning the walls. All the waiters, moreover, were dressed quite formally with dress shirts and ties.

We've greatly enjoyed our past visits to Larchmont's Cafe Gratitude , and so we were glad to hear that Cafe Gratitude has also opened up in Downtown's Art District--making a for a shorter drive to enjoy their creative vegan and organic foods. The Arts District location takes more of a light colored approach (instead of an emphasis on turquoise), with white chairs and benches, grey walls, yellow chairs, green plants, and woods throughout the entire location. It's also much larger than the Larchmont location--we made reservations, given Cafe Gratitude's general popularity and dineLA, but found out that the restaurant was less than half full when we entered. Unlike some of the Yelp reviews about this location, service was great right from the moment we entered the restaurant. We were happily guided to our table, our waiters noted the dineLA menu and dinner specials, checked up on us to make sure we were ready to order (took a while given the many options!)...

Mario Batali, Joe Bastianich, Lidia Bastianich , and Nancy Silverton's Pizzeria Mozza and Osteria Mozza have been extremely popular restaurants in Los Angeles, commanding queues that were hours long. So when we were recently in the area and found out on OpenTable that we could reserve seats for lunch at a time just less than a half an hour prior to arrival, we took the opportunity. Pizzeria Mozza is a relatively small restaurant, located adjacent to the larger Osteria Mozza (open for dinner only) and Mozza2Go. Inside, light toned woods and yellows set the tone--a skylight, which was filtered with a yellow skin, provided most of the lighting. A friendly vibe was immediately set with the upbeat employees, who immediately seated us and went through the menu in detail once we told them it was our first time dining here. We found out popular items, and also some notable differentiations--pizzetta meant a smaller pizza, and that any pizza that didn't list "tomato" on i...

A growing 100% organic, plant-based restaurant chain, Cafe Gratitude offers healthful vegetarian foods in a positive, modern, and friendly ambiance. I was recommended to visit it by a friend, who lauded the positive atmosphere, and was pleasantly surprised by how tasty the vegetarian fare was. Inside, Cafe Gratitude is happy, positive, and clean, with natural tones and casual furnishings. The mood is set by the positive adjectives not only listed on the menus ("I am...") and boards, but also the employees, who are content and wear shirts that say "love" and other terms. Mindfulness, health, and wellness permeate the entire environment.

Mercado La Paloma, a local community gathering place, is also home to a fine hodgepodge of quality restaurants--Thai, Ethiopian, American, Mexican, and Yucatecan cuisine can be found here. Chichen Itza, the restaurant that consistently has the longest queue of all the restaurants, specializes in Yucatecan cuisine (southeastern Mexican cuisine)-- the menu is filled with unique regional specialties . After ordering in person at Chichen Itza's counter, one receives a wooden stand with a number (for the employees to keep track of where to bring food to). Prior to the arrival of the food, an employee will bring over beverages as well as Chichen Itza's house Habanero Hot Sauce. It's a potent, fruity, extremely spicy, and slightly acidic hot sauce.

Widely known as a bibimbap specialist (their website is " bibimbap.webs.com ," if it wasn't already understood), Jeon Ju is a venerable place to visit for a Korean meal. Not only is their bibimbap well done, but so are lots of their other items.  As we perused the multi-paged menu, cups of smooth, weak barley tea were provided at the table. After ordering, we were presented with a wide array of banchan. There were six common items for the whole table--bean sprouts, marinated potatoes, sweetened, dried shrimp, daikon kimchi, a green pajeon, and napa cabbage kimchi. For each individual was a bowl of noodles in a lightly spicy broth and napa cabbage water kimchi. We found everything to be nicely done, and found the dried, crispy shrimp really fun to snack on. A condiment of green onions, sesame seeds, peppers and soy sauce was also provided for a larger haemul pajeon and yeong yang dolsot that we ordered.

After looking at Ma Dang Gook Soo's handmade noodles and acorn noodles featured on Gastronomy and Buzzfeed / The Actors Diet respectively, it didn't take much more to make our own visit to Ma Dang Gook Soo. When we visited on a Sunday evening, Ma Dang Gook Soo was operating at system capacity. The restaurant was full, but it didn't take much for us to wait in line before getting an open spot. Seated down, lots of people were enjoying the noodle options, seasoned spicy rice cake ( tteokbokki ), and bibimbap. Moreover, the friendly waitresses were eagerly serving the customers. When I wanted to learn more about some items which were only written in Korean on the wall (it was actually soy broth noodles), the waitress took her time to answer, and when I asked her about the soy broth, she even brought a small bowl for me to sample before deciding whether to order it.

In search for some healthful Korean food--soups and porridge--I found out about Jook Hyang, a standalone Korean restaurant on Olympic in Koreatown. An abalone, chicken soup, beef bone soup (cooked for a week), porridge specialist, Jook Hyang offers a wide range of offerings dedicated to the three items--abalone sashimi, abalone porridge, abalone and chicken soup, and a page full of different porridge items. Walking into the restaurant, you'll see an abalone tank and bucketfuls of cornish hens. All these quality items and work spans throughout the restaurant and offerings, which also includes bamboo rice entrees, korean barbeque and seafood, banchan, and other items. It also translates into slightly higher costs--lunch is slightly cheaper if you order the sets, but otherwise, expect to spend around 15-20 USD per person, if not more.

After visiting Bhan Kanom Thai , we decided to follow along with dinner at Pa-Ord Noodle, which has been famous for its noodle soups. Inside Pa-Ord Noodle was a homey atmosphere, with a small marketplace of imported and locally made snacks and desserts, several warming stations with food, and festive Thai decorations. The staff were extremely friendly, smiling happily and welcoming to offer suggestions and advice on the menu.

Inspired by a post from Wandering Chopsticks , we decided to visit Bhan Kanom Thai--essentially the place to go for Thai desserts in Thai Town. With a whole host of homemade desserts, as well as a onset of special ethnic snacks, Bhan Kanom Thai truly is a fun place to be. So much so, that its dessert options have been featured on Buzzfeed , amongst other media outlets.

After lunch a t Ts ujita LA Artisan Noodles , and exploring part of what Sawtelle Blvd. has to offer (Cocos, Ni jiya Market, Curry House, Hide Sushi, Seoul Sausage, Gottsui, to name a few of many great places!) , we de cided we wanted a dessert to cool o ff from the walking we did and to quench our thirsts after th e heavy noodles we had earlier in the day. By this time, Blockheads Shavery was filled with customers, all of who seemed to be experts in ordering what Blockheads Shavery calls " snow cream" , or what is generally called shaved snow-- combinin g elements of shave d ice and ice cream together. Ordering is simple and is done in 3 steps: 1. Choos ing a flavor (Original, green tea, black sesame, sea salt, and a special brown sugar created with soymilk were offered during our visit) and size 2. Choosing toppings (60 cent s each)   3. Choosing a d rizzle, of which include condensed milk, strawberry puree, coconut pur ee, chocolate sauce, and carame...

Tsujita LA Artisan Noodles has been in my radar on places to try for quite a while, given the wide media press ( LA Weekly , Jonathan Gold ), and recently, I was finally able to try it out! To avoid the lines, we had a late lunch around 3PM. Still, the restaurant was over 70% capacity, with lots of people seated outside, enjoying the LA sunshine.  After being seated, we were handed a simple menu, consisting of ramen, tsukemen, sides, and rice bowl options. The drink of choice seemed to be water for the day--pitchers of water were placed at almost every table--so we went with that too!

Alongside the Chinese Food Truck , the University Park neighborhood now has another authentic Chinese food truck-- Bamboo Wheel. Bamboo Wheel is actually a food truck version of Bamboo Creek, which is located Monterey Park, CA, and offers a regular menu of entrees and rice dishes (curry, beef stew, pork stir fries), noodles, a chinese burrito (aka jian bing ), homemade wontons, and stewed eggs and preserved vegetables. Like the Chinese Food Truck, the menu is mostly written in Chinese, with smaller English subtitles. Daily specials are also offered by the food truck, although these are only written in Mandarin (ask the employees for the translation)--these change, but items like da pan ji (spicy chicken), dou hua yu (tofu fish), hui guo rou (twice cooked pork), and stir fried rice cakes have been featured when I've visited in the past. Apt for the primarily USC student customer base, payment can be done by cash, but also credit card through their Square application. For ...

Last Saturday, the first Southern California branch of CREAM (Cookies Rule Everything Around Me) opened in University Gateway, an apartment/shopping complex located adjacent to the University of Southern California's University Park Campus in Los Angeles, California. Based out of Northern California , CREAM aims to provide reasonably cost, proprietary and high quality products with friendly service in a "fun and relaxed atmosphere," and is an extremely popular dessert outlet in Northern California. CREAM happened to offer free ice cream sandwiches (normally 2.99 USD) to all customers on their opening day, so I decided to I checked it out. There was quite a queue outside during opening night (took around 30 minutes!), but music from KXSC radio, a raffle for more free CREAM sandwiches, cheerful and motivated employees, and a complimentary drink holder made the wait doable. Inside , CREAM was bustling, with lots of employees running around, scooping ice cream...

Earlier in 2014, I went on a trip to Asia, namely Beijing (some of the posts already written are: McDonald's China: Sweet Taro Pie , Wuyutai Tea- Wangfujing, Dongcheng District, Beijing, China: Jasmine and Matcha Soft-Serve Ice Cream (and a comparison to McDonald's version) ). Asiana proved to be the most cost effective option at the time of booking, with only Eithad as the only other choice that was less than $2000 roundtrip! This was initially shocking to me and travel agents, who were surprised that Chinese carriers had an exorbitantly high cost for the dates I wanted. With Asiana and the costs that I wanted, I ended up with two flights in order to get to Beijing: LAX-ICN, and ICN-PEK, with a seven hour layover at ICN! (shock, but also a good opportunity to do some fun things) This blog post covers the LAX-ICN sector.

Previously, authentic chinese food options were quite limited in the University Park neighborhood. Bamboo Express in the former University Village food court offered some authentic options if you knew how to read the chinese only menu, as well as how to pick options from the steam tray that were not geared for the typical Americanized Chinese palate. However, now Bamboo Express no longer exists, with the demolition of the University Village for the new USC Village. Thankfully, this fall, a new food truck offered some authentic Chinese options: the Chinese Food Truck. The Chinese Food Truck offers quite a lot of authentic Chinese options previously unavailable in the area, from potstickers, dumplings, and wontons to noodle dishes, like the spicy and sour rice noodles and sesame sauce cold chicken noodles. Some options are also only written in Chinese, so it would probably be best to translate them yourself or bring a friend who can read Chinese for some assistance. Most of the ...