Eat. Travel. Eat!

Having enjoyed vegan/vegetarian focused restaurants in the past ( Cafe Gratitude , Real Food Daily ), we started off a visit to Santa Barbara by visiting Mesa Verde for lunch. It had been positively reviewed on multiple websites, and its own website showcased beautifully crafted vegetarian cuisine. Housed in its own quaint grey and green building, parking is a tight, only having a few dedicated spots in the parking lot.  Although we arrived relatively late for lunch (around 2pm), we still had to wait more than 10 minutes for a table. The restaurant was near capacity, and employees were busy in the kitchen and serving customers seated indoors and outdoors. The environment was still relaxed, with locals enjoying a wide number of items from the menu. The owner happened to serve us that day, and apologized for the wait. After ordering and asking for his input on recommended lunch items-- the Patatas Bravas Tacos and Picadillo Empanadas came highly recommended--he provided u...

I've recently gotten an interest in healthier foods and restaurants that specialize in healthy eating, such as Cafe Gratitude. Having greatly enjoyed Cafe Gratitude , I thought it wouldn't hurt to explore and try out a fellow restaurant chain also in the same organic, plant-based segment--Real Food Daily. While Cafe Gratitude likes to " provide inspired service, honest and transparent communication, and express gratitude for the richness of our lives ", Real Food Daily prides itself on being a destination where " community happens around education, connection and hospitality, over delicious, accessible food that’s real. " And indeed, there were parallels in both restaurants. The service was extremely friendly, the environment upbeat, natural, modern, and friendly, and people were enjoying a wide assortment of plant-based items--drinks and juices, appetizers, rice bowls, salads, and dessert.

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.

During a recent trip to the Ferry Building Marketplace in San Francisco, we stopped by The Slanted Door for lunch, a modern Vietnamese restaurant that came highly recommended per a review by Kevin Hsu of kevinEats .

After an eventful seven hours at Incheon International Airport , it was time to go on-board my next flight to go to Beijing. Asiana Airlines Flight OZ 333 June 3, 2014 Service from Incheon International Airport (ICN) nonstop to Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK) Travel Class (Economy) The cabin of this Asiana Airlines A330 actually happened to be slightly newer than that of the Boeing 777 I traveled on earlier.     Seats in this case did have an adjustable headrest. Furthermore, there was an in-flight entertainment remote that guided the Audio Video on Demand system, which did have a good selection of movies, music, and games on offer. The entertainment screens may have looked the same, but you could do a lot more with this system. One option was available for lunch: a beef and pepper stir-fry with sweet and sour pork with rice. What was special was that an aloe drink was on offer as a beverage--this was nicely sweet, with a light grape flavo...

Caesar's Palace has quickly become famous for their Bacchanal Buffet, which is now the top-rated buffet in Las Vegas. Yet, during the holiday season, wait times were hours long, and prices were at their highest. Moreover, a quick visit inside the buffet did show lots of good options and a nice design (the same designers designed Cafe Too as well), but this experience was hampered by loud catwalk music from the speakers. the Given these factors and our limited time in Las Vegas, we decided to pursue another option: Nobu, located next to the Nobu Hotel lobby inside Caesar's Palace.

DineLA Restaurant Week came around and as usual, the two higher-end restaurants in Arcadia-- The Derby and Sesame Grill-- were participating again. Since we've visited Sesame Grill recently , we decided to switch it up and re-visit the Derby. After all, from our last visit, the owners have changed, there's now a giant sign on the exterior proclaiming 15+ USD early bird dinner specials, among other changes.    We were slightly surprised to see that we had to wait for an inside spot, and unwilling to wait the 30 minutes advised for indoor seating, we asked for outdoor seating. This contributed greatly to taking better pictures for this post, even if it meant viewing all the cars entering/leaving the valet parking lot! The menu didn't change much from its past, but there was definitely an emphasis on quality of ingredients, with one page dedicated to explaining their poultry and beef suppliers. After ordering, our waiter brought us a complimentary platter of garli...

On yet another recent trip to the Orange County area, we found ourselves in Fashion Island hoping to eat yet again at one of our favorites, True Food Kitchen. However, it, as well as other notable options in Fashion Island, happened to be full. Not desiring to wait, we went to Great Maple instead, seeing happy customers enjoying giant noodle-sized bowls of salad and being satisfied with the menu options. As the outside of Great Maple alludes, the interior was likewise rustic, with dark wood tones and minimal light. It was in fact, extremely difficult to take the pictures, and all of the pictures have been post processed so that you can actually see the food-- in person, this would be pretty dark, and very yellow hued. Dinner began with an appetizer of crispy calamari (12 USD), accented with chili flakes, fresh olives, and lemon caper mayo. (No bread and butter was provided-- perhaps this is only on request.) We enjoyed the freshness and creativity with the dish-- the chili f...

I've written about Sesame Grill probably too many times, each time discussing a new iteration or feature. Yet never did I expect that it would veer off its successful path that it has been taking for many, many years. There may have been the Chinese dishes, Japanese ramen , American burger experiments, yet time again they would revert back, perhaps improve upon, their old dishes. So it was definitely a shocker when Sesame Grill completely changed itself and became "S.G. Cajun Seafood" for about the first half of 2013. Sure, Japanese ramen may have been different (it came from a Japanese chef exchanging cooking techniques with Sesame Grill's executive chef), but Cajun seafood a la Boiling Crab? Other than the burgeoning Cajun seafood scene around the San Gabriel Valley, there was little context. A revamped interior, environment, and clientele replaced the old, but unfortunately, the changes didn't bring success, with middling reviews coming in from new custome...

Recent lurking on Kevin's Kevineats.com prompted me, well, to think about Gulfsteam's crabcakes! After an event in Century City, I happened to stumble upon Century City's own Gulfsteam, located in the Westfield Century City mall. Quickly reviewing the menu, my companions and I immediately went in for a late lunch.

Oto-Oto Izayaka Japonaise may be a large chain restaurant, operated by Ramla Inc., the third-largest chain restaurant in Japan, but the food quality was decent enough for a friend to recommend it to us. To thank him for a year's worth of mentoring, we decided to surprise him here, and as expected, the dinner went very well. Holding a corner spot in a strip mall, one may think that Oto-Oto is small, but it is actually quite a decent sized restaurant, with a large number of booth tables and stand alone tables.  They were able to fit our 20+ attendees comfortably that evening along with regular patrons and a birthday party! Throughout the visit, the employees made sure that we all had enough water, although by the end of the visit, they were slightly less enthusiastic as we spent more than three hours in their restaurant. It happened to be happy hour while we were waiting for our special guest, and so I ordered a small appetizer: spicy trio cones. These consisted of sp...

During another conference at the same location as some previous ones , I knew where to walk to for a meal: Boudin SF. Having experienced breakfast at Boudin SF one time and recognizing the positives of Boudin's Food, I knew that Boudin SF would be a dependable option this time, and it certainly was! When we arrived at the conference area, we had to make our own dinner plans and since none of us had access to a car, my friend and I walked that one block to Boudin SF. He had already eaten dinner and so ordered a grilled cheese with turkey (7.99 USD), but in my case, I ordered a Soup and Salad Combo (8.59 USD). My friend felt that he had received a mediocre deal after seeing the size of this combo in contrast to his relatively tiny sandwich and bag of chips; it took me much longer to eat all of this food, and I was stuffed for less than a dollar more than what he paid!

(pictures taken with a HTC Surround) Replacing what used to be Noodle House, a steam tray Chinese restaurant that offered excellent deals (for example, three entree dishes and rice for 10 USD), Daikokuya was a somewhat surprising addition to the President Square Food Court. Its operation is quite similar to that of other ramen outlets, such as Santouka : one orders at the counter and can get plenty of condiments and water to the side. Daikokuya offers a wide variety of sauces and toppings like pickled ginger (the blurry red box in the picture), more so than any other food court restaurant that I have seen.

Young Dong Garden is back again, after a long renovation. The changes are quite major: a repaint of the interior and the exterior, a freshening of the interior with higher quality furnishings, installation of televisions, system controlled air conditioning units, and barbeque cooking platforms at the tables, and a refreshed menu. Some say the owner has changed as well, but I can not confirm that; it does seem to be family owned however, with some locals recognizing the owner on our last visit.

  Easy Earthen is a new, smaller outpost of the original Earthen Restaruants located in Hacienda Heights, Calfornia, that features the most popular items from the original Earthen in a short, one page menu.    (click on the picture for a larger version @ flickr) Easy Earthen's setup is also relatively simple. The customer orders and pays at the counter instead of at the table, and all food items from the menu are presented in color on the large poster boards. Servers do however take care of the rest of the experience, bringing the items to the tables, asking for any necessary items, filling up on water, and busing tables. The House Chicken (7 USD for the small size) is a very popular item at the original Earthen, and is done in the same style at Easy Earthen. The chicken is firm, if not a bit boney, but it is the garlic sauce that makes the dish definitely worth ordering. It was fabulous with the bed of sliced cucumbers below the chicken, and we even requested an e...