keepin' it real at the s.d. chicken pie shop

i was in my home town of san diego this past weekend for my tax appointment (i'll cough, but you can't make me turn my head), and i've been itching to go back to an old s.d. classic for a while now and the parents and i finally made it out to the san diego chicken pie shop for some good old fashioned chicken pot pies. founded in 1935, the s.d. chicken pie shop is older than just about everything i know, and i doubt much has changed in those seventy years, it sure seems like the prices haven't. i got the standard, a chicken pot pie with veggies (today was corn), mashed potatoes, a side of cole slaw, a biscuit, and a slice of pie for something like six bucks. i used my new found awesome abilities as a captain of restaurant finances to also throw in a cup of chicken noodle soup. everything overall was pretty good, the chicken pie was filled with top-quality chunks of chicken, your standard pot pie veggies, all in a delicious, creamy sauce. the soup was a tad salty, but still yummy, in a thicker kind of broth. the mashed potatoes were good, the corn was corn, and the biscuit was better than i thought it'd be, nice a soft and just a little bit sweet. the cole slaw was pretty unimpressive though. i'm new to the whole slaw thing, and it seems that the only ones i like so far are the fancier ones, and when your whole meal can be had for under six bucks, you know the slaw ain't ganna be that fancy. oh, and my slice of apple pie was also pretty decent. overall, pretty much the same as i remember it from ten years ago, definitely worth checking out-


look for this sign for good food at good prices


the busy takeout counter


it's not fancy, but i'll eat here over denny's any day


apple pie with my soup? now we're talking!!


the plate that's kept this place is business for 70 years

Orris 'Asian Tapas'

Went last night with Maggie and my sister Nubi to check out the new restaurant by the owner/chef of Shiro in South Pasadena. Orris is located on Sawtelle, in the westside equivalent of little tokyo. Although there is no giant fried catfish, this place is DELICIOUS!! Orris is small and neighborhood-y, little plates run about $7-14. It was a full house at 6:30 on a Wednesday.

Started out with some sake, served out of a squiggly blue ikea glass vase. Although kind of weird at first, I don't think anyone else noticed. I'd recommend the Otoyama (sp?) sake, very dry and a great foil to the food.

IF YOU GO, GET:
-sweet shisito peppers, deep fried and sprinkled with shaved parmesan and fried pancetta (kind of spicy)

yes this a camera phone pic, Thanks Noobs!
-dungeness crab served in a salad of cucumber spaghetti like strips
-mini potato pancakes with lox, cream cheese, and red roe YUM!
-egg rolls stuffed withs scallops and served w/a sweet and sour sauce extra YUM!

-snapper carpaccio (again, slightly seared, like albacore) and served with a light black bean sauce. This might have been the winner last night!
-manila clams, served in a buttery frenchy kind of broth, with slices of baguette to dip in.
OK, BUT PEDESTRAN
-ahi tuna tataki (slightly seared again) served with a super caramelized onion concoction
I'D SUGGEST YOU PASS ON:
-sauteed sweet breads fried in butter and served with mystery mushroms :( tasted like it had been fried in butter too long, like kind of burnt, and the mushrooms were flavorless and rubbery.

Can't remember anything else we ate, but overall the place was unpretentious and delicious. plus there free parking in the back, and you can go check out the Giant Robot store across the street after dinner.

Orris 2006 Sawtelle Blvd (corner of La Grange) next to Mizu 212 and Hanoi Cafe.

Yang Chow

Our first impression of this LA landmark was the huge crowd gathered outside. Calling ahead for a reservation is so easy and highly recommended, the wait for a table was 45 minutes or more. Lets go with the short version here. The food was actually really good. Very inexpensive, tasty food served fresh and piping hot. Quirky owner is very funny and made our experience that much better. $13/head WITH tax and tip. Cheap enough for you? $3.50 corkage waived for us because of the new year.


cold sesame noodles. first dish out and very tasty. apparently a NY staple.


amazingly good pot stickers. really, they were amazing.


spicy szchewan wonton soup. not a big fan. the initial taste was sweet, followed by an overly garlicy bite. not that spicy.


string beans with pork. not the best. these could use more garlic from the soup


slippery shrimp. a yang chow specialty. this dish was really good. subtle spiciness to the perfectly fried shrimp. none of that chewy overcooked stuff here.

beef with scallions. nothing special but still very tasty. none of that overly tenderized weird beef you get at many chinese places.


broccoli chicken. this dish went fast. very tasty sauce.


still not into it but look at that valet price!

Toast

I don't think I really understand Toast. As you can see by the first pic, its apparently THE MOST CROWDED place EVER for brunch on weekends. Lots of Ashton and Paris wannabes there, which should set some alarms off. Trucker hats and ugg boots, just like they have in US WEEKLY. ugh.


look, its like high school!


Turkey club with onion rings. Gambled on the onion rings, and Toast delivered rings straight from the frozen food aisle at Ralphs. Also used cheap processed turkey.


Same lousy onion rings. Pressed sandwich with fresh mozz looks good to me but owner makes only lukewarm comments


chicken sandwich was described as dry and chewy with too much bread. at least it was good bread.

All in all, not the best place for breakfast, lunch or dinner. come for the people watching and WB star sightings. unfortunately there were no stars to distract me from my mediocre food.


Toast
8221 W 3rd St
Los Angeles, CA 90048

boule (pt 2)

Earlier I wrote about some $3.25 croissants and I've been thinking about what that means to us as consumers. You do get what you pay for and I guess one could buy a mediocre $1.25 croissant that is three times bigger but what's the good in that?
Still haven't tried everything they have to offer. Lime-basil gelato anyone?

The establishing exterior shot


The ominous warning that I luckily ignored


Nothing to give you scale. think small


boule cake. devil's food cake, montmorency jam, chocolate tea mousse.



Religeuse on top, eclairs on bottom.
spelled wrong on sign at store. hence no photography?
Religieuse for future reference

eric here. i joined brian at boule, definitely the swankiest bakery i've ever been to. i'm surprised it wasn't on melrose, sharing a wall with some argentinean lamp shades boutique or something. and being so impressed by said swankiness, i just had to try the very petit, and somewhat pricey pain au chocolate, which set me back an impressive $3.75, at which brian made the good point that the $0.50 upgrade from the regular ol' croissant isn't actually that bad considering you get a decent amount of chocolate in the upgrade. so how was it? now i've had more that my fair share of pain au chocolates during the two summers i spent in belgium and this one was probably just as good, although at half the size and twice the price. the bread was flaky and buttery, and the chocolate was delicious, with two sizable sticks running the length of the pain au chocolate. good stuff if you don't mind the price-

sushi zono

One of the nicer things about living in the Silverlake/Los Feliz area (that the silverlake cool kids won't tell you), is being close to the suburbs. Ikea in Burbank has some lame chain restaurants near it. You've got the CPK, Chevy's, Koo Koo Roo (recently closed), Mi Piace (?) and that sort of thing. Oh, and they even have a Hooters there now. So, yeah, I never had any expectations of decent food out there.

Fortunately we decided to gamble with Sushi Zono, a little spot nestled between Hooters and In-N-Out, and we've been going back ever since. I'll start by saying that their fish is always amazingly fresh. I don't know what it is, but the Hamachi is always buttery, the Maguro is so good, they've got all the basics down.


Fresh Ama Ebi! (sweet shrimp). Tails served Nigiri and ...


the heads served fried! Yum.


Toro sashimi


Hamachi


As much as I hate to admit it, I'm always a sucker for the americanized rolls at most sushi places. Sushi Mon has a great selection of them and they're probably known for those types of rolls. Well, Sushi Zono has a Brian Roll, so you know I'm a fan of that! Sitting at the bar at Zono is always great too, the sushi chefs are all friendly and accomidating.


Spicy Hamachi Handroll. surprsingly good


Don't know what this was called. but it was good.


Seered albacore sashimi


Pocky!

Zono Sushi
610 N 1ST St
Burbank, CA 91502-1606

Pizza and poker

Check back soon for comments about the pizza at poker night last night.
The delicious taste of pizza was chased with a big shot of defeat.

knocked on my ass at akbar in MDR

after a fairly average outing to an indian lunch buffet earlier in the week that failed to bridge the gap between quality and quantity (plus they had some of the worst nan i've ever had in my life. cold, doughy, and faintly smelling of garlic with none of the promised taste), i was quite excited to return to akbar, a smaller indian restaurant on washington just west of lincoln in marina del rey. my friend and i had eaten at akbar once before, and i've described it as "rustic indian". there were raisins and sliced peanuts (or possibly some other nut?) in my chicken tiki masala, and the dahl had an almost rough consistency to it, thickened by the healthy scoop of yogurt mixed in . it was quite different than the almost soup-like dahl i've had in other places, and was a welcome interpretation. another neat feature of akbar, which i completely missed the first time around, is that they have a spiciness rating next to each lunch dish. it might sound gimmicky, but the numerical rating from 1 to 5 is actually quite informative, as well as giving me the perfect opportunity to call my lunch buddy a "momma's boy" and order a dish two spiciness levels up from his. the chicken tiki masala from last time was a 2, so this time i ordered the lamb vandaloo, rated at a 4, at which point the waitress confirmed that i wanted the dish prepared as a 4 (what's THAT supposed to mean??), and my friend ordered the chicken aamras, some kind of mango chicken rated at a mockingly pathetic 2.


the menu with its little numbers of death


my lamb vandaloo, rated at a tongue-searing 4


my friend's chicken aamras, taken from the children's menu and rated 2

the dishes arrived with some piping hot, and very delicious, nan which i immediately dipped into the rich vandaloo sauce that was surprisingly un-spicy. so un-spicy in fact that i began to wonder if they messed up the order, but i shrugged it off and continued on, enjoying the choice cuts of lamb that were thankfully absent of that awkward fatty stuff. five minutes later though, i was surprised to find that i had a decent two-zone sweat going on, as both my brow and my upper lip were damp with respect for the dish. but by ten minutes in, i had officially reached the point where my mouth was so lit ablaze with the sting of capsaicin, that even the temperature of the food was enough to bring pain. while i love spicy food and enjoy a good sweat, i generally don't like food this spicy, as i spend more time doing damage control (rationing water, cutting the food with starch, desperately scanning the room for dairy) than actually enjoying the food. also, when i get to this point, it's all too easy for whoever i'm eating with to give me a well deserved "i told you so". but all that aside, once the storm had passed and i had the dish under control, it was very good. unfortunately the dahl didn't have any heat-neutralizing yogurt in it this time, and it seemed a bit drier than last time, but it was also still good. overall, a pretty good indian place, just respect those little numbers on the menu-

LA Ritz

I should also point out that LA Ritz has a pretty interesting and delicious blog.
Here's a quote:

Here's yet another ode to poached eggs over toast and prosciutto with chive sauce, and egg in a hole cast into gooey buttery olive bread with perfectly fried potatoes. Those must be double-fried, or prepared with duck fat or something even nutritionally worse to render them so completely and utterly divine.

all show and no pho!

We've been overly obsessed with dumplings here for the last few weeks and I think its time to refocus our energies. Pho 79 is feeling neglected and I think we're heading back there soon (maybe sat or sun??). My two favorite dishes are 103 and 137(?). The noodle bowl (103)with pork/imperial roll/shrimp cakes is the perfect concoction. The crepes (137) are also really good. Ground pork and mushrooms make a great combination especially with the garlicy sauce that you pour over them. Weird, and I usually don't eat mushrooms in much of anything.


Pho 79
29 S Garfield Ave
Alhambra, CA 91801-3830

snootiness in silverlake

Cliff's edge has gone off the deep end. Well, we've already experienced the overpriced, mediocre food from this new (wanna-be) hipster hang out. Shelling out almost $80/head for mediocrity is not how I like to spend my money. Today we experienced more of the new snooty silverlake attitude that accompanies many of it's newer restaurants. Trying to make a reservation for a party on a friday night was met with the (rather rude) request that we make the party for Thursday night instead. I don't know about you but most of my friends work during the week which would make for a rather dull party. I was actually considering giving Cliff's edge a second chance. Overpriced, over-attituded, let the westsiders looking for the next cool thing waste their money at this venue. You'll honestly get better service at the 99 cent store next door.
cliff's edge
3626 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

great expectations

Mission 261 is smack in the middle of San Gabriel's historic mission district. From the outside, it looks like someone slapped a couple of red 3-feet high chinese lanterns on Spanish revival government building and called it a day. Hmmm. Well, that's OK, because the L.A. Times loved it, and the L.A. weekly said that this place 'easily had some of the best dim sum in California at the moment.'
Inside, its cavernous. There are dining rooms and long hallways on either side of the entry. We are promptly dropped off at a banquet table in a large ballroom of mostly empty tables. At 11 am on a Sunday, Dim sum prime-time, there are only 2-3 other parties of diners there. Between the 5 of us, we excitedly peruse the two doubled-sided, letter size menu flyers bequeathed upon us. Look, all of those things Jonathan Gold talked about were there: the deep-fried 'bees' of [edit]shrimp and salted egg yolks, the exquisite looking custard filled dumplings shaped like little bunnies...can't wait!
Oh, a word of warning, no waitresses will come to your table to take your order. Nor will any dim sum carts come clanking about to tempt you with irresistable displays of dumplings and other delicious delicacies. Fill out your order form (all in chinese) and order by number with the supplied miniature pencil. Then hold it up and hope that someone notices!
So here are some highlights:

Seafood Bees: Kindly of homely looking huh? These looked so much cuter when professionally lit by the folks at the L.A. Times, but hey, they were deep fried so whatever.


Har Gao: these were killer. perfectly plump and delicious.


General Something's dumplings: stuffed with glutinous rice that was sprinkled with ground pork and boiled peanuts these were a wonderful surprise.


Rice Dumpling. Again, sticky rice but this time laced with pieces of chinese sausage wrapped up in a bean curd wrapper, then topped with shredded egg and green onion. Like a chinese mini handroll.


Bean curd Roulade. These inside of this crisp bean curd concotion revealed a soft multilayered stuffing of... bland bean curd. 'Roulade' sounded much more exciting!


Green tea dumplings. Little soft dumplings wrapped in banana leaf and stuffed with pork with just a hint of green tea in the dough. Delicious and novel!


Custard Bunnes. Aren't these adorable. The filling was yummy but the shell was a little chewy and dryish.


Coconut delight. Stiffer than jello, this creamy dessert was refreshing and a hit.

So looking over my list, I'm starting to get a little hungry again, so the food there wasn't a complete write-off. But it certainly didn't live up to its press, and I don't think we'd recommend it. Aside from the lackluster service and ambiance, there was a regrettable episode where several of the water glasses were found to be contaminated by a mysterious black floating 'thing.' Turns out it was bits of tea from sloppy handling, but nonetheless not very reassuring, especiallly since the place got a B from the county health inspectors. I think we're gonna be going to Din Tai soon.
Mission 261, 261 S. Mission Drive, San Gabriel, (626) 588-1666. Dim sum served Mon.–Fri., 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Sat.–Sun., 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Full bar. Lot parking.

Tia Juana's

I have to say, I'm a sucker for fresh, hand made tortillas. Store bought or premade tortillas really only resemble hand made tortillas in shape and nothing more. With that said, La Parilla in Boyle Heights has always been a treat because of their great food and even better tortillas. Tia Juana over on the west side is a suprisingly good and even more surprisingly inexpensive place to eat.
Even though my chile verde was un-spice-ified to the point of being bland, everything else seemed to be par for the course. I will add that the pork in the previously mentioned chili verde was lean and none of that gnarly fatty chewy scrap meat was added in.
Everyone else ordered the ubiquitous combo plates that one would expect at a mexican restaurant. A combination of either a taco and an enchilade or a chile relleno and a taco or whatever. These dished generally are pretty good, Tia Juana's was no exception to the rule. Good but not remarkable, which in my opinion is all you can hope for with a menu like that. The chili rellenos weren't overly greasy and were relatively fresh. You really need to eat a chili relleno in less than 2 minutes after its been fried and generally a restaurant won't be able to deliver on that. I actually thought the margaritas were a little watered down or generally just not that tasty or stong. Its refreshing to say that the food is better than the margaritas, although the chips and salsa are good too.


fresh, hand made tortillas


ubiquitous combo plate


chili verde


Tia Juana
11785 W Olympic Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90064

pupusas

This often overlooked delicacy from El Salvador deserves some attention. So sometime soon, I'm going to go find some delicious ones. Take pictures of them and post those pictures here. How exciting. Don't forget the spicy cabbage either. I just ate lunch and already I am hungry from this topic. Maybe tomorrow for lunch. A pupusa show down?
Keep checking back for updates.

edit. no pupusas for me today (thursday). Maybe tomorrow.

edit 2. Well, we made it to La Pupusa Loca for dinner tonight. Don't know why I was so obsessed with pupusas these last couple of days, but whatever. So, La Pupusa Loca came recommended to us by some El Salvadorian friends. As you may know, pupusas are El Salvadorian. You see where this is going right?
For something that is so simple, its surprising how many places don't get it quite right. Luckily La Pupusa Loca gets it. The pupusas arrived piping hot, though not as quickly as I was hoping. The decor is uh, how shall I say, lacking hence the rush. Although, at $20 for the three of us (with tax and tip), the decor obviously isn't a top priority. So, anyway, La Pupusa Loca does have a full menu but I'll probably never know what other concoctions they make since their pupusas are hard to beat.
Pupusas typically come filled with cheese, pork, or pork and cheese. In addition to those staples, they also offered beans, loroco (a type of flower) and other combinations of those various ingredients. My personal favorite is revuelta with pork and cheese, but the beans were good too. A mix of all three may be on the agenda in the future. The pupusa itself was especially delicious, not greasy at all. The dough was lighter and fluffier (for lack of a better word) than most others. Overall I was very impressed by the dough's quality. Again, nothing fancy here, just the basics done right.
Another necessary component of pupusas is the curtido. Curtido is a spicy cabbage salad that you serve on top of the pupusa. The curtido here was served in an extremely large jar which allows you to serve the exact proportion that suits your taste. I'm all for that.
As for the ensalada drink... Not too sure about that. I think it was basically a fruit salad put into a blender? Interesting but not my favortite. The straw was constantly clogged with bits of fruit. Perhaps a boba type straw would have made it more enjoyable. But that's really splitting hairs now isn't it?


LA Pupusa Loca
5716 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA
323-957-2967

Cool sign. That pupusa really is loca!


Especially light and airy for a pupusa.


Now, with the curtido on top.


This drink, called ensalada, was particulary fruit salady.


You can just make out the red booths...