Food, Food, and More Food Thread

Well, what ISN'T toxic nowadays.

And well, you have to die from something someday! Or are you planning to live forever?!

bmwracer wrote:
Speakin' of fries, the waffle fries from Chick-Fil-A are excellent... *salivating*

We don't have too many of those places here...come to think of it, I could only think of one: Fairfield, about 1.5 hours from where I am.

@KT, believe me, if we found out where half the food we eat came from, we'd starve. In some respects, I don't want to know... :sweat: Unless they were unsanitary, of course...

Toranaga wrote:Well, what ISN'T toxic nowadays.

And well, you have to die from something someday! Or are you planning to live forever?!

I was being facetious. :sweat:

I'll have to agree with you there Dochira

I'm crazy for tempura!

Mmmm...tempura.

Mmmm...deluxe sandwich....

kitakaze wrote:Mmmm...tempura.

Mmmm...deluxe sandwich....

Deluxe sandwich?? :headscratch:

Okay I'm going to throw this out there...since I saw the first episode of Lunch Queen a while back.....does anybody know of any Japanese restaurants that serve a decent "omuraisu" in the SoCal area? I haven't actually tried this before and I'm quite a big fan of different aspects of Japanese cuisine so I'm ready and willing.

Tu_triky wrote:Okay I'm going to throw this out there...since I saw the first episode of Lunch Queen a while back.....does anybody know of any Japanese restaurants that serve a decent "omuraisu" in the SoCal area? I haven't actually tried this before and I'm quite a big fan of different aspects of Japanese cuisine so I'm ready and willing.

Urgh, can't say that I know of one... There must be a decent one or two in Little Tokyo, ne? Maybe Gardena?

bmwracer wrote:
Urgh, can't say that I know of one... There must be a decent one or two in Little Tokyo, ne? Maybe Gardena?

Yes, I thought of that...since I've eaten there many times but none of the restaurants I frequent there serve that conspicuously Japanese concoction....I usually go there for sushi, shabu shabu, ramen, yakitori, etc.

I'd have to walk around there and think about it....I haven't eaten in the South Bay for a while but that was my second guess...I was just hoping somebody could pinpoint a place to make it easier.

Thanks newayz.

Tu_triky wrote:Yes, I thought of that...since I've eaten there many times but none of the restaurants I frequent there serve that conspicuously Japanese concoction....I usually go there for sushi, shabu shabu, ramen, yakitori, etc.

Maybe Suehiro on 1st street?

bmwracer wrote:
Maybe Suehiro on 1st street?

yeah you're probably right....that's a good bet...but if i go to 1st I'll inevitably eat at Daikokuya Ramen...dayem, that place is sooo good!
It even got written up as one of the Best Places to eat in L.A. for '04 by the LA WEEKLY. Everybody I've taken there is hooked like it's heroin....I guess I'll have to break away from the tonkotsu ramen in search for omuraisu...

Tu_triky wrote:yeah you're probably right....that's a good bet...but if i go to 1st I'll inevitably eat at Daikokuya Ramen...dayem, that places is sooo good!
It even got written up as one of the Best Places to eat in L.A. for '04 by the LA WEEKLY.

Hmm, I'll have to check it out next time I'm out thataways... Guh, maybe not until Nisei Week... :puppydog:

bmwracer wrote:
Hmm, I'll have to check it out next time I'm out thataways... Guh, maybe not until Nisei Week... :puppydog:

oh, man, you just HAVE to i must say...it's ridiculously good....if you enjoy ramen i trust you will be satisfied....as cheesy as it may seem because it's a small, old looking establishment it immediately reminds you of all those ramen shops in those japanese dramas that inevitably act as the local hang out for all the main characters...you know like in long vacation, or the ramen cart in beautiful life, etc....

below is the article written up in the LA WEEKLY.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Counter Intelligence
Lost in Tampopo
by Jonathan Gold


Daikokuya, hub of the
ramen cult
(Photo by Anne Fishbein)





gTHEN poke the pork.ff

There probably hasnft been a review of a ramen restaurant in the last 18 years that hasnft referenced the movie Tampopo, more or less The Passion of the Christ for people whose Stations of the Cross include certain Tokyo noodle shops, and this isnft about to be the first. It has long been impossible to visit a ramen parlor without seeing at least one college student caress his pork with chopsticks, tap it against the side of the bowl to drain it and reverently inhale its aroma. Because of Tampopo, ramen has become a yardstick of general food obsessiveness; of the possibility of essentialness, even of perfection, in the humblest of things.

gWhatfs important here is to apologize to the pork by saying, eSee you soon.fh

Tampopo lends its name to a small chain of ramen shops in the South Bay, all of them pretty good. The noodles at Sanuki No Sato in Torrance have their unmistakable pull. You will almost always find a line outside Ramen-Ya on Olympic in West Los Angeles, although its spotless dining room and briskly cheerful service are probably more appealing than its bowls of rather ordinary shoyu ramen.

The hub of the ramen cult at the moment is probably Daikokuya, a long, narrow lunch counter that has been around for a couple of years but feels as if itfs going on 50, a center of steam, noise and garlic at the heart of Little Tokyofs noodle-shop district, just a few blocks from the Music Center among other things. Most Japanese restaurants in the United States tend toward either Meiji-era gracefulness or the hypermodern Tokyo thing, but Daikokuya looks like a set from a 1960s Imamura picture, decorated with rusted advertisements and faded postwar movie posters, furnished with straight-backed vinyl booths that seem plucked from ancient coffee shops, lubricated with endless mugs of Asahi beer on tap.

The cooks are probably working their way through USC film school, but they out-yakuza the yakuza behind their vats of sputtering liquid, sporting fierce tufts of beard, hair cut with an artful brutishness, and complex, reptilian tattoos almost alive beneath athletic sheens of sweat. A television blares at one end of the room, soap operas mostly. At lunchtime, the counter fills up with impossibly hip local high school students; after hours, you are unlikely to see clothing in any color but black — except for the sneakers, which might as well be on loan from a rare-Nike museum. Even the menus, stained documents printed in a blocky midcentury font, look like relics from a junk shop.

There are decent gyoza, fragile pan-fried dumplings that will inevitably fall apart on the way from the serving dish to your mouth, a small selection of basic sushi rolls, and a side dish of tempura that is fairly tasty if you donft think about it too hard. The various bowls at the restaurant, topped with fried pork and egg, salmon roe and seaweed, chicken and egg, or fish, or tempura, would be fairly delicious if the rice underneath werenft so often mushy and overcooked. Still, the side dishes at Daikokuya are like the salads at In-N-Out: available, perhaps, but irrelevant.

Most ramen shops offer an endless list of possibilities, from the basic shoyu ramen to ramen seasoned with miso, butter or pork; garnished with seaweed, corn, or vast handfuls of slivered green onions; spicy or less so; servings huge or merely large. At Daikokuya, the choice is taken out of the equation — you will have the house style of ramen, thin, curly noodles in pork broth, or you will have no ramen at all. But the pork broth is a formidable liquid, made from the bones of the same tasty black pigs you find on the menus of the better Korean restaurants these days, opaque and calcium-intensive, almost as rich as milk. Floating with the noodles are slices of seasoned bamboo shoots and a boiled egg per bowl, also plump slabs of simmered pork so tender that they tend to break up under vigorous prodding, separating into soft, gently flavored striations of sinew and long-cooked fat. If you are used to the sharper, leaner varieties of ramen, Daikokuyafs version may come as something of a surprise, but it only takes a few mouthfuls of the broth to underscore the inevitability of the style, especially when you improve on the kitchenfs excesses by spooning in minced garlic from the jar on the table.

If Daikokuya is the Asian equivalent of a neo-retro burger stand like Café f50s or Johnny Rockets, where all the signifiers are so artlessly reproduced that it seems hokey to anybody who may have experienced the original, I donft really want to hear about it. Because from this end of things, the restaurant feels exactly like Japan.

Daikokuya, 327 E. First St., downtown, (213) 626-1680. Lunch Mon.–Sat. 11 a.m.–2:30 p.m., dinner Mon.–Sat. 5 p.m.–3 a.m., Sun. noon–8 p.m. AE, MC, V. Beer and wine. Street parking. Lunch or dinner for two, food only, $13–$25.

okay since i threw myself into this discussion of nihon ryori another great place to eat japanese food that i believe has only recently sprung up in the los angeles area is this small restaurant called Torafuku....I think they have like 2 or 3 in Japan but this is the first one in the US....it's near the Westside Pavillion in West L.A.

The food there is truly excellent....although it can be a tad pricey depending on what you order...but the food and the wait staff were quite good...err....looking. j/k!

I've been there twice...once for lunch and once for dinner...equally delicious both times and I ordered different things.....

http://www.torafuku-usa.com/

Tu_triky wrote:okay since i threw myself into this discussion of nihon ryori another great place to eat japanese food that i believe has only recently sprung up in the los angeles area is this small restaurant called Torafuku....I think they have like 2 or 3 in Japan but this is the first one in the US....it's near the Westside Pavillion in West L.A.

The food there is truly excellent....although it can be a tad pricey depending on what you order...but the food and the wait staff were quite good...err....looking. j/k!

I've been there twice...once for lunch and once for dinner...equally delicious both times and I ordered different things.....

http://www.torafuku-usa.com/

Interesting.

Is it along that stretch of Sawtelle Blvd. where all the Japanese kids (mostly nationals) hang out?

Guh, haven't been out there in ages.... So entrenched in the South Bay... :(

bmwracer wrote:
Interesting.

Is it along that stretch of Sawtelle Blvd. where all the Japanese kids (mostly nationals) hang out?

Guh, haven't been out there in ages.... So entrenched in the South Bay... :(

Oh no...I know where you are talking about....the Olympic collection at Olympic and Sawtelle, this resturant is actually right NEXT to the Westside Pavillion.....on Pico Blvd. Actually it's not too far from the place you were thinking about.

Tu_triky wrote:Oh no...I know where you are talking about....the Olympic collection at Olympic and Sawtelle, this resturant is actually right NEXT to the Westside Pavillion.....on Pico Blvd. Actually it's not too far from the place you were thinking about.

Ahhh, on Pico, eh?

Must be really close to the famous Apple Pan... :D

bmwracer wrote:
Ahhh, on Pico, eh?

Must be really close to the famous Apple Pan... :D

yeah i think it is....

Tu_triky wrote:yeah i think it is....

Whew. I gotta get out there...

And not get shot at. What's with the 110 and 5 freeways?? People are crazy. Crazy. :shakehead: