Trying To Find Happiness At (Early) Happy Hour: Fox and Hounds

There's some crap going on at my company, so we were all allowed to go home at like 10:30 am today. Instead of going home right away, a bunch of us decided to have an early "happy hour."

But what's open for drinking in the Valley at 10:30 am?

It was between Mexican restaurants or British pubs. We chose the British pub.

Since Robin Hood is our regular pubbish watering hole, we opted to try The Fox and Hounds in Studio City this time. I was the first one to arrive at this cottage looking establishment. Oooh, there's people inside! Oh, no wait, they're delivery people and vendors. Great. I think I had that fish out of water look when the bartender and another employee approached me at once. "Uh, yeah, I need a table for, like, seven please?"

"You mean seven o'clock?"

"Uh no. I mean seven people. For now."

"Oh! OK. Well, uh, wherever you'd like," as he pointed to the completely empty dining room.


The room and I got to know each other very well


I got bored waiting, so I took pictures of the restaurant's "creedo"

My coworkers started coming in one-by-one, thank goodness. I don't think I could have standed waiting in isolation any longer. Even though it's a bit lushy to be pubbing it at 11am by American standards, I was a bit surprised that the place was empty. I would have expected a least a few old locals having their morning martini, which is a regular sight over at Robin Hood.

To drink, a Stella Artois with lime juice, which was a lighter, more refreshing option this early in the day, though I think they went a little overboard on the lime. But was it this or was it all the crap I ate with it that gave me the biggest headache of my life a couple hours later? Perhaps a combination of both...


Ste-LAAAAAAH! Ste-LAAAAAAH!!

We didn't try much of their traditional English fare besides the fish and chips, but judging from the one dish, the Fox and Hound's food is more American than it is English. Though the cod pieces were fresh, I was highly disappointed by the batter which was, unlike the lightly and flaky battered fish I've had in England and even at Robin Hood, thick and fried to a dark golden brown. It came with chips in steak-fry style which were crisp but still not impressive, and peas that were a bit on the dry side. Shit, for a more authentic "English" dining experience, go get Indian food right across the street at Bollywood Cafe!


Is that fish and chips, or fried chicken?

All of the other "bar crap" food we ordered was just that--bar crap. I'm not sure if I enjoyed the potato skins and beer battered mushrooms because they were actually good, or because they were bad for me and because they tasted good with beer. Our fried calamari had a good seasoned breading on them but looked more like onion rings than squid...obviously made from cheap, large squid rather than the smaller, more tender kind with tentacles & stuff. And our chicken nachos? Yuck. The nasty cheese, jarred salsa and canned olives weren't evenly distributed amongst the chips and guacamole was not to be seen anywhere, though shame on us for ordering nachos from a pub.


Fried 'Shrooms


More grease via potato skins


Fried calamari disguised as onion rings


Na' Cho' usual nachos...totally disgusting.

The place is quite charming, with its cottage like exterior and its welcoming interior; I've even heard that this place can get pretty happening at night. But I think that's the appeal of this place--wanna watch a soccer match (oops, I mean football) amongst younger, prettier folk while enjoying good beers and ales and while eating mediocre food? Go to the Fox and Hounds. Want to hang out with sassy old waitresses that are actually from the Motherland and with crumudgeony old locals while enjoying good beers and ales AND good food? Go to Robin Hood.

Well at least you have choices.

The Fox And Hounds Pub
11100 Ventura Blvd.
Studio City, CA 91604
www.thefoxandhounds.com

Love Me Some Ad Lib Chicken!

Got some gochujang (Korean pepper paste), Coke, sesame oil, soy sauce and a clove of garlic?

Well dump some on a bunch of chicken pieces (dark meat preferred), mix well, marinate for at least an hour, and then bake at 350 for about half an hour. Measurements? Don't have any. Just a little here and a little there until I know it's right, though I usually use more gochujang 'cause I like it spicy!

I ad-libbed this dish back in college with the crap that my roommate and I had in the fridge. It's the easiest dish to make and yields some tender and tasty chicken; the leftovers are even better!

Eat with steamed rice and kimchee--mm-mmm!

Monte Carlo Market/Pinocchio Deli, Part Two: DOOOO It.

My friends and I, since we're a bunch of freaks who like to make up stories out of thin air, love going to Monte Carlo Italian market/Pinocchio deli not just because of the food, but because whenever we go, we always pass that giant home improvement store called the Do-It Center. No, not to go, silly, but so that we can break out in our best "New Yoik/Joi-sey" accents for at least a couple minutes to say "DOOOO it."

"Ya just gotta DOOOO it."

"Yeah, go DOOOO it."

"When ya gonna DOOOO it?"

All the boss had to do was make a couple a' phone calls. "Just DOOOO it, " he ordered to whomever was on the other side, and hung up. He turned to me, pointing a finger. "OK, everything's taken care of. Now you know whatcha gotta DOOOO. Now go DOOOO it."

Hence the cannolis.

Back in reality, the actual experience inside Monte Carlo can be just as much fun as all the funny fake accents and the daydreaming. It's almost as if it should be called Italian Food World, because that's what it is. And you can customize your experience depending on what floats your boat. On one side of the place, you've got an Italian market, full of pretty much all the Italian imports you can get your hands on--wines including overgrown bottles of chianti and pinot grigio, coffees, pastas, jarred and canned foodstuffs. On this side, you can get the sliced imported deli meats and cheeses or baked goods like cannolis and biscotti to take home. Or if you so wish, a couple scoops of gelato for the bambini.


Find this...


...and this...


...AND this...


...and even this on the "authentic" side.


You can bring the boss a box of these, too

The other side--the restaurant side--will mostlikely, however, appeal to your hokey red-sauce Italian American tendencies. Here, you can choose from one of the various Italian-style hoagies with a side of potato salad or whatever deli-case salad you might be in the mood for. Here's where you'll also see all the steam trays full of baked ziti or lasagna, or pathetic looking spaghetti waiting for a ladle full of marinara and a couple of meatballs to top it off. I'm not saying that what you get here is bad, it's just more generic compared to all the exciting stuff on the market side.


The red-sauce steam trays are right around the corner

Once they make or scoop your order, it's time to lug your tray over to the dark booth-lined dining room whose walls are adorned with the facades of old wine barrels and whose tables are covered with cliche red and white checkered tablecloths. Or, sit outside at one of the few umbrella covered tables aside groups of old neighborhood farts that people watch all day to make the time pass.

This last time, I ordered a small Monte Carlo sandwich with two self-chosen sides of three bean salad and Greek salad. The sandwich itself, almost open faced because of the absence of a simple toothpick, is tasty and substantial with mortadella, salami, capicola, provolone cheese all on a sesame grinder roll. It's topped with a scoop of tangy marinated tomatoes that make the sandwich even tastier but make it downright messy at the same time. My salads usually end up catching the chunks of tomato that slip and slide out of my sammich and plop back onto my plate, which is OK, since all the salads that come from behind that counter kind of have that premade-seasoned-with-Italian-dressing-generic-yet-somehow-comforting-taste anyways. It's not the best red-sauce style Italian American food I've had, but it makes for a decent, safe lunch.


My Monte Carlo sandwich--all agape with excitement-- & sides

We're done with lunch and I'm back over on the market side, ready to pick up those cannolis. "Can I have one of the cannolis please?" I asked the sweet but sassy old lady behind the counter. "Sure," she responded in her still-retained East Coast accent as she grabbed one of the regular $1.99 ones for me, "but if ya wanna cannoli you'll neva' forget, ya gotta try one a' these imported cannolis. They're from Sicily. I was lucky enough to try one a' these the otha' day 'cause one of 'em broke inta little pieces and we all got ta' try it. This is one cannoli you'll neva' forget." How could I resist? "OK, gimmee one of those too," I told her.

As she's wrapping my cannolis up, and as my friend's placing her order with her for some of the "unfuggehdable" cannolis, she must've told us about five times how she got to try some because it "broke into little pieces the other day." Because I'm twisted, my gangster alter-ego got the best of my mind and suddenly I imagined myself saying in my best mob voice, "Shut up ya old bag, now gimmee my cannolis, the boss is waiting!" But of course I didn't because one, I'm not a mobster, and two, she was sweet as can be.

We passed the Do-It Center on the way back to the office and of course needed to get in a couple of our usual immature lines: "Are you gonna DOOOO it?", "Why can'tcha just DOOOO it?" But it was soon back to reality, back to regular work--no money laundering, no "clean-up" work--the only thing left of our sick mob world being those cannolis.

Monte Carlo Market/Pinocchio Deli
3103 W. Magnolia Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91505
(818) 845-3517

Monte Carlo/Pinocchio's, Part 1: How Cannolis Can Make Or Break You

Can you tell which is which? Read on...

Because I have watched too much TV and read way too much fiction in my lifetime, I have entered my sick world of make-believe once again.

What I thought up this time is that if I ever have to bring a gift to a mafia don who's done favors for me and my cronies, I'd go pick up cannolis at Burbank's Monte Carlo Market and adjoining Pinocchio Italian deli. I've seen it a million times on mob shows like the Sopranos where one of the goons brings in a box of 'em for the boss. Yeah, yeah, I see it on TV, so it's gotta work.

Anyways, Monte Carlo's got two kinds: a "regular" kind for a buck ninety-nine each, and an imported Sicilian kind for three ninety-nine. Buy the boss a box of the regular kind and you're likely not to get any kind of large-scale protection in return. In fact, depending on what kind of mood he's in, he just might whack you. The fried outer shell is crispy and the mostlikely domestic cow ricotta filling is light in texture, but it's bland and tastes like nothing, and I mean nothing. There's also no chocolate or candied fruit to be found either. Plain as plain can be.

Now buy the boss a box of the imported Sicilian kind, made with sheep's milk ricotta, and the boss is all yours. Crunchy yet airy, its shell gives way to a ricotta filling that's sweet yet tangy, light yet luscious. To make things even more interesting, a thin layer of chocolate lays between the shell and the filling and a couple of thin slices of candied nectarines flank each end of the tubular treats. Yes, this is the stuff that will get you a share of the big bucks; this kinda stuff will get you the bada bing.

Monte Carlo Market/Pinocchio Deli
3103 W. Magnolia Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91505
(818) 845-3517

Hooray For Bollywood!: Bollywood Cafe

We all concurred that we love this restaurant.

And it wasn't because we think one of the waiters has a crush on my friend.

Nor was it because the aforementioned waiter switched the rose on our table out for one with a larger bloom.

Nor was it because he made it a point to turn on the bright blue and green cheesy light-up mural behind our table--the one that depicted a coastline and played corny ocean sounds--to provide after-lunch entertainment.


Who needs the ocean when you've got this?

No, it was because the food was actually really good. So much, in fact, that we've actually gone to the Bollywood Cafe twice in the last 5 days. (Talk about FOCD!)

For some reason, it's a little reminiscent of those small Indian restaurants in London, or maybe just the ones I've seen...complete with burgundy red table linens, a bar, and waiters dressed in waiter-tuxes, it makes me wanna go back to jolly old England.

For starters, samosas, of course. These fat little triangles crisp, flaky outer shell, revealing either spiced ground lamb with peas or curried potatoes and peas. I'm not a huge fan of ground lamb, since I know that ground meat is usually of a lesser quality and freshness than unground meat and if you're dealing with lamb it's important, but the ground lamb here wasn't all that gamey. Perhaps because it was actually, perhaps it was because of the spices. Either way, the potato ones blew the meat ones away. They were soft, yet still chunky enough to have substance, and spiced just enough so as to not be too overpowering.


Scrumptious samosas

We weren't aware that their lunch specials are served almost family style with a heaping mound of basmati rice and a basket of naan for us to share, else we would have ventured into more variety on our first visit. My three friends ordered the chicken tikka, chunks of marinated roasted boneless chicken that seemed to stare back at you with its powerful orange glow. They asserted themselves well--they were indeed powerful, packing a spicy punch (even at the middle spicyness...the waiter warned one of my friends not to order the "very spicy" and he was right!) while having a perfect moist interior.


Orange is your friend: Chicken Tikka

I gotta say, though, that my chicken tikka masala kicked their chicken tikka butts. I was a little wary of ordering it at first, being that my last experience with chicken tikka masala at Los Feliz's Electric Lotus was watery, bland, and awful. But hey, it's their signature dish, so what the heck. It's not too exciting looking--just chunks of chicken sitting in a pool of thick, burnt-orange colored gravy, but one bite and the flavor blew me away. I loved the its hints of nuttiness and how the spiciness just kinda crept up on me like it was somehow planned that way. The chunks of chicken tikka, already tender, soaked up the masala sauce perfectly.


Same applies here, but more so: Chicken Tikka Masala

Their basmati rice was, well, just basmati rice, but was fluffy with that teeny tiny tinge of dryness that I like from this kind of rice and offset all the strong flavors nicely. The naan, however, was heavenly. Thin, yet pillowy, charred on the edges and wherever the dough bubbled up, it was perfect for sopping up every last bit of that delicious masala sauce. OK, well not every last bit. I actually had two leftover chunks of chicken leftover and a wee bit of basmati rice that I carried home in a doggie bag and scarfed down in a snacking binge the next day. Yeah, you know those times when you go to the kitchen and eat leftovers out of the conatiner? Well, they tasted just as good leftover. A really, really good sign in my book.


Like NAAN other

We were all stricken with FOCD, because we were back in less than a week. We decided to go true family style this time, going with the potato samosas, the must-have chicken tikka masala which was just as delicious as the first time, a chicken vindaloo, a sag paneer, and a sag aloo. Waiter-guy-who-has-a-crush-on-my-friend brought us a free basket of papadums: crispy, spicy rounds of Indian crackers that we dipped in various dipping sauces--one that was sweet and smoky, another that was green and clearly contained cilantro (blech!)--and raved about until our lunches arrived. I liked the vindaloo, containing curried chicken and potatoes, though it reminded me a little of a Chinese chicken curry dish that my parents make. It was certainly nice to have vegetables with our lunch this time, and because spinach seems to be a favorite for all of us, we decided on two "sag" dishes: sag paneer, creamed spinach cooked with cubes of cheese, and sag aloo, creamed spinach with potatoes. Both dishes were spiced very well with cumin, cardamom and ginger and were both good in my opinion, though because the sag paneer had more naughty stuff like cheese and cream, I preferred the sag paneer much more than the more healthy sag aloo. Another great meal.


Papadums...once you pop, you can't stop


Our second round...even better than the first!

Let's see which comes first, more FOCD and many more trips to Bollywood Cafe, or realizing that waiter-guy is more on the creepy side than the nice one. Let's hope it's the first.

Bollywood Cafe
11101 Ventura Blvd
Studio City, CA 91604
www.bollywoodcafela.com

Semi-Homemade With Daily G.--Pam's Potluck Pasta Salad

Sometimes, when I wanna appeal to my Stepford side and when I have to make a quick dish for a lot of people that I don't particularly care about like say, a potluck at work, I find it easiest to go Semi-Homemade. You know, kinda like what that broad does on the Food Network--get a bunch of packaged crap from the grocery store and turn it into more crap. Only my pasta salad, though it is made just with a bunch of packaged crap from the store, doesn't taste like crap, it actually tastes pretty good. And I didn't do it with a bunch of heavy eyeliner or in a kitchen full of appliances and accessories that somehow all have the same holiday theme or color scheme. Don't know what I'm talking about? Then check out the show on the Food Network.

And so without further ado, I'd like to share my "recipe" for my Semi-Homemade Potluck Pasta Salad...

Ingredients:
*1 box of rainbow rotelli pasta, cooked al dente and drained (Don't ask me what size the box is. You know, it's the box. They're all the same)
*1/2 cup mayo (or more if you see fit)
*1/2 of a 24 oz. bottle of Bernsteins Restaurant Recipe Italian dressing (or substitute your favorite kind)
*1/2 of an 8 oz. bottle of parmesan cheese (yes, that dried powdered stuff)
*The just slightly cooked florets off one broccoli crown
*3 medium tomatoes, diced
*1 small jar of marinated artichoke hearts, drained
*1 2.25 oz. can of sliced black olives
*Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
*Mix everything together and refrigerate. That's it.

It's kinda ghetto, I know, but I have to admit, it tastes better than alot of the pasta salads I've had elsewhere. The secret? The mayo and the powdered cheese.

Who woulda known it was Semi-Homemade?

Daily Gluttony Goes Paparazzi

Check this out.

Homegirl is actually preparing meat on the hood of her car in the California Market parking lot. Here she is slicing meat with a knife. I sat in my car and watched in disbelief as she cut and transferred to another bag, cut and transferred, etc., etc. I finally had to leave when she got the marinade out and was gonna begin mixing it up in that plastic bowl (also on the hood of her car). Was she gonna cook the meat on the hood??? I should've stayed and watched.

Man, that's one dinner party I don't wanna be invited to.

Harsh Reality Check: Gaja Okonomiyaki

Sometimes you think you're the shit, and then all of a sudden you come to the realization that you're sooo not.

Such was the case the other night when my friends and I attempted to "make our own" okonomiyaki at Lomita's Gaja Okonomiyaki. Girls Night Out started with the usual girlie squeals and hugs: "Oh my GAAAWD, how ARE you??? I haven't seen you in SOOOO long!!!" We poured over the literal tome of a menu, chatting a little in between, and then placed our order. "We cook for you, or you cook yourself?" Well of course we chose the latter, we're a bunch of smart girls, right? Or so we thought.


They gave us all the tools...and we still fucked up

A couple more minutes of uninterrupted talking, and our bowl of pork-kimchee okonomiyaki mix, neatly and colorfully arranged in a stone bowl like a bibim bap, arrived along with an instruction card. OK, step one: Spread oil on teppan plate...Check! See? Piece of cake! Step two: Mix Okonomiyaki well. Yeah, like this is too easy.


Mmm, pretty!


This part was easy

So we kept yapping away about life and shoes and gossip whilst in the meantime, we had poured our okonomiyaki onto the grill, not realizing that on the instructions it said that beginners should perhaps make two small pancakes instead of one so it'd be easier to flip. Nor did we really pat the thing down constantly. Well, we thought it was cooking up okay. Ahh, whatever, it'll be fine, we thought. Back to the chit-chat.


We thought this part was easy too

I think our server noticed that we were going to have problems 'cause she came over and made us cut the thing into pieces before we flipped it. Which wasn't a very easy task either, 'cause there wasn't exactly a uniform consistency throughout the pancake--there were softer parts where the batter was, and then there were chunks of pork and kimchee all over, which were harder to cut. So the the quarters we attempted to cut came out looking like a sloppy relief map of the world. Not only that, but one side of our pancake had turned out darker than we'd liked it to be. Yup, we'd made our first "Ghett-O-konomiyaki."


Our ghett-o-konomiyaki

OK, time to quit yapping and get serious--we had to perform an extreme makover on this haggard pancake. After a few brushes of sweet okonomiyaki sauce, some shakes of dried seaweed and a few piles of dried bonito, you could hardly tell the difference! OK, at least it tasted good. In fact, the fact that our pancake had turned out a little darker than we had liked it made for a crispy crust, a nice contrast to the fluffy, egg-y interior. My favorite part was the kimchee, which added some needed spice to all the other mellow flavors.


All dressed up!

Either we quickly learned our lesson that we actually need to pay attention to what we're doing or the next dishes were just easier to cook (or needed no cooking at all!). An order of barbeque beef cooked quickly and easily, and tasted perfect dipped in a citrusy dipping sauce in its medium rare form. Our seafood yakisoba also required self-cooking, but no self-flipping, so needless to say, it turned out tasting and looking good. We made sure we followed the instructions to a tee this time, cooking the seafood and veggies first, then adding the chewy noodles, and we were definitely pleased with the results...a little salty, a little sweet, the chewy bite of the seafood and noodles a great textural match to the crispness of the bean sprouts and cabbage.


We made sure to pay attention on this one


No flipping necessary, just stirring!


This looks more edible

One of my fave dishes of the night was one that required no cooking by me and my friends. I think our Gaja Salad, containing lettuce, shredded cabbage, tofu, tuna, cucumber, sprouts and seaweed all tossed with a creamy sesame dressing, had some kind of drugs in it because it was that good. No cooking required, simple, and addictively delicious--what more could we ask for?


No cooking=good eats!

Looking around the room as we finished our dinner, it seemed the people at the tables next to us had better okonomiyaki making skills. Whole pancakes were flipped with ease, cooking up to a perfect golden brown. Show-offs.

Dessert would be a chocolate banana wrap and a Deluxe Japanese Parfait. We actually had a choice of making the wraps ourselves on the grill but we told the server to go ahead and make it in the back. I think I heard a slight under-the-breath chuckle...was it that obvious that we sucked? Our chocolate banana wrap was more or less a crepe without the delicate crepes; the wrap was instead more of a Bisquick pancake. Really yummy...though I don't think there's much room for error with warm choclate sauce and bananas.


They made the wraps for us--can't you tell?

Now our Deluxe Japanese Parfait...it was, well, interesting, to say the least. Served in a tall, and I mean tall, sundae cup, we first dug in to the whipped cream, red beans, sweet red bean filled manjoo and azuki bean mochi balls on its top layer. Then as we dug deeper into the second layer of whipped cream, we thought what the dark brown stuff that we saw through the glass was chocolate. Wrong. It was more red bean...mixed with corn flakes! And what would await us on the bottom? Look--it's agar agar cubes mixed with whipped cream! It was nice to have such a "unique" desert; I just don't know if I'd order it again--it was Japanese Parfait overkill!


Japanese parfait on steroids

We had a wonderful experience, despite our ghett-o-konomiyaki. In short, Gaja Okonomiyaki doesn't suck, we do.

Gaja Okonomiyaki
2383 Lomita Blvd.
Lomita, CA 90717
(310) 534-0153
www.gajaokonomiyaki.com

I Was FOC'D Up With FOCD, But Not This Time--Papa Cristo's

A few years ago I had a two-week bout of Food Obsessive Compulsive Disorder where all I could think about was Greek food. I don't even know why; something in my subconscious tells me it was some tzatziki that I had one day at work at a place that I can't even remember. I thought it may have been because of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but I think this episode of FOCD came even before that movie came out.

At that time, I was living in the Koreatown area, and though I knew it was a diverse area, I was nevertheless surprised to learn that there was such a thing as the Byzantine-Latino Quarter just a hop, skip, and jump away. Home to the giant Greek Orthodox Cathedral, it's also home to Papa Cristo's, the Greek restaurant that I fed my FOCD with back then. For a period of two weeks, I ate at Papa Cristo's almost every other day, and I think I was all Greeked out, 'cause I haven't been back for a few years, that is, until the other day.

It was exactly as I had remembered it, the air filled with the heavy scent of spices as we entered through the back storeroom of C&K Importing, the attached Greek market. Walking through a room filled with a myriad of Greek and other wines, a deli counter filled with meats, cheeses and breads that I have yet to explore, and other treats of the Hellenic kind, we hung a quick left at the front of the store and ended up at a place that was all too familiar. We ordered our lunches from Papa Cristo's order counter, took our plastic number, and walked back across the front of C&K Importing over to Papa Cristo's dining room.


You gotta walk past this...


...and this...

There we sat in the big box of a room whose walls are adorned with both icicle lights and posters of Greece and whose tables are all covered in blue and white checkered tablecloths--cheesy but still festive, enough to make you wanna yell "Opa!". Our plastic number 15 stood at attention in its metal holder, and in just a few minutes our orders had arrived.


...to get to this!

We got what we almost always get: some kind of meat kabob--lamb souvlaki, chicken, lamb chops, gyro, amongst others--served with a Greek salad, rice or Greek roasted potatoes, grilled pita and tzazitki. During my short bout of FOCD, I think I'd tried every meat they have on the menu, which isn't much; this time, I got the chicken and Isaac got the lamb souvlaki. Sitting on plastic plates, our meat quickly succumbed to the back and forth sawing of our plastic utensils. Papa Cristo's meats are never gamey, always juicy, tender, well seasoned, and even better wrapped up in a torn-off piece of pillowy pita bread with a few swipes of the cool, creamy and refreshing tzatziki. The little side Greek salad of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, kalamata olives and feta cheese is basic, but also a cool accompaniment to the toasty grilled meat on our plates. Isaac opted for the rice, a choice I still don't understand, as it's just plain pilaf...BO-ring! I, however, always go for the roasted potatoes, cut in small wedges, crispy and golden brown on the outside, soft on the inside, with a nice lemony tang. Oh, and all this food for like nine bucks each plate. Not bad. For about 6 bucks, you get a fat pita wrapped around the same meats, with tzatziki, peppers and all that good stuff waiting inside.


Chicken kabob plate


Souvlaki kabob plate

Though I had done a Greek binge fest here back in the day, there are actually quite a few menu items that I haven't gotten to explore. I have had the dolmas (stuffed grape leaves) and the spanakopita (spinach pie) before, which were pretty good. But I had yet to try the grilled baby octopus, little fried fish called marides, grilled eggplant or sizzling feta with tomato. Trust me, temptation was a factor, as I was actually considering ordering more than one off the "haven't tried" list. But after some serious use of willpower, I went only with the sizzling feta with tomatoes. While it didn't really sizzle, it was brought out on one of those typical black cast iron sizzling platters that you get your sizzling Chinese food or Korean BBQ on. The thin blocks of feta were tasty, creamy with a bit of a sharp bite. I only wish they were a little hotter in temperature as they seemed to have started to coagulate a little by the time they arrived at the table. The tomatoes, though, were great. A little charring around the edges was an added treat on the juicy, sweet slices. Despite the cheese temperature, the dish was decent. Nothing a few pieces of pita can't cure.


Spanakopita


Not So-Sizzling (but still good!) feta and tomatoes

I have also yet to try their Thursday night Big Fat Greek Dinner, where for a reservation and $18.95, you get to party down with owner Chrys S. Chrys, the cutest and sweetest little man I have ever seen; you also get wine tasting, 2 entrees, 5 appetizers, feta, olives, tzatziki, potatoes, salad, green beans, soft drinks, coffee AND dessert. *whew!* I really have to try and go to this dinner one of these days, so I have to make sure I don't get a relapse of Papa Cristo's FOCD this time and get sick of this place before I can make it to their "Opa!-fest."

Papa Cristo's
2771 W. Pico Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90006
(323) 737-2970
www.papacristo.com

My Bag Lunch Thinks Costco Is A Homewrecker

Today I went on a bulk warehouse eating spree. Everything I ate, except for 2 mini-bran muffins in the morning and a couple spoonfuls of kimchee in the afternoon, was from Costco. Looking back at my recent $40 a day post, two of us could have eaten at Costco for at least a week on forty bucks. And that's without samples.

Lunch was going to be home brought food, and in fact, we had lugged our little lunch "shopping" bags all the way to the Burbank Costco eating area just to get away from the office and be outside. But none of us could resist the call of cheap junk food, so we ditched our lunches and bought hot dogs instead, 'cause it seemed like so much more fun. For a buck fifty what you get is a hot dog, condiments (including sauerkraut if you ask for it!) and a soda, and for a buck fifty, what you don't get is a whole lotta guilt for ditching your home brought lunch, which by the way, I promised myself I would eat for dinner. Oh, and I didn't ditch everything, 'cause in total FOB-ulous fashion, I reached into my lunch bag and took out my little container of kimchee and ate that along with my hot dog. I shoulda piled it onto the hot dog and ate it that way but I didn't. 'Cause then I woulda had people coming up to me and asking, "Mmm, whered'ya get that kimchee dog?"


Which one of these is NOT from Costco?

I think that I would have avoided eating Costco for for dinner if the line at its gas station hadn't been so long, but fate had it that each line was at least 5 cars deep and we had to get back to the office, so I made a return trip in the evening. Yes, just to get gas. But for under 3 bucks a gallon. $2.89 to be exact.

After making the usual pitstop at the book aisle and not finding anything I wanted to buy, I headed straight for the rotisserie, dug through the plastic domed chickens to see which one had the lastest timestamp, and picked my bird out. Yup, you're goin' home with me, little feller! A bag of the Grand Parisian salad would do nicely on the side, so I picked one of those up too and started toward the cashier.


Costs less than 5 bucks and will feed us for 3 days

A big crowd caught my attention and made me stop dead in my tracks; there were shoppers everywhere, digging through bags of what appeared to be pita bread! I had to see what the freakshow was all about, so I made Mr. Chicken and Mr. Bag'O Salad sit off to the side as I went to check out the commotion. A couple of guys from Glendale's Kermanig Bakery had set up a table and were giving out samples of Armenian baked goods, including focaccias, Baklava and other desserts. This was no ordinary sample stand--people were actually buying this stuff, and in droves. I'm not usually a sampler--I can usually do without the half a Bagel Bite or teeny paper cup full of Chex Mix--but I had to on this one, so I asked the guy if I could try a slice of each of the different types of pizza-looking focaccias they offered; they were crisped nicely on the bottom and edges, had a nice olive oil taste, their toppings flavored well with onion and Mediterranean spices. I would soon conform to the crowds: "Yeah, gimmee one bag of the cheese, one of the spinach and cheese, and one of the red pepper paste please." Any three items for $11.99. Not bad.


I gotta say, it was the samples this time that got me

I got home and assembled our Costco dinner, washing our salad mix, carving the rotisserie chicken, and heating up my new-found focaccias in the oven, while the lunch of chicken wings and rice that I had packed for lunch sat neglected in the fridge singing sad songs. "You abandoned me for some cheap $1.50 floozie!" it whined. Aww, don't feel ignored Poor Ol' Lunch, I'll have you for lunch tomorrow.

Things I Learned While Visiting My Folks In The Bay Area This Weekend

Yeah, so that's where I've been. Anyways, I made a few mental notes during my visit and here they are:

1) When someone says "I need you to do an important favor for me while I'm on vacation," it doesn't always mean picking up mail or watering the plants. Just take my uncle, for instance, who is leaving for Hong Kong for a few weeks. He's given my other uncle the pressing task of going shopping at Costco for him while he's gone just so he doesn't miss out on all the savings from the newest coupon book.

2) Never, ever refuse a bahn mi sandwich from your parents to take with you on the plane again. Because you might just have some cologne and cigarette drenched guy sitting next to you in 9E whose smell offends far more than pickled daikon and pate. If I'd had that bahn mi, I woulda breathed in and out of its bag hypervenhilation-style just so I wouldn't have to smell this dude.

3) Sometimes people compensate for what they're lacking by driving big monster trucks; sometimes they just start carrying huge daikon in the produce section. Check these out...



4) It doesn't matter if the box of fruit weighs the same; if one box has one more piece of fruit than the other, then that one is better.

5) Nothing shows true love more (or makes you feel more guilty) than your favorite homecooked dishes.

Steamed pork with preserved duck egg. Looks like an outer space galaxy doesn't it? The salty, velvety yolk is my favorite...



Dried bean curn soup. Hearty but simple. I love the chewy bite of the dried bean curd...



Fuzzy melon with bean threads and dried shrimp. The fuzzy melon are refreshing, while garlicky bean threads and salty dried shrimp add pungency...



6) When asked why I am taking pictures of the food, it will do me more harm than good to tell them that I write about my eating adventures on the internet (a slew of questions will follow: Why do you need to do that? Do you spend all your money eating out?). Instead, it is much better to say, "Oh, that's just so I know how these dishes are really supposed to look when I try to cook them myself!"

I miss them tons, but it's nice to be back in LA!

Dish O' The Week: Haru Ulala's Conch Sashimi

Short of giving you the shell, (which I'm sure they might if you really wanted it), the folks at Haru Ulala don't mess around when it comes to not wasting any part of the animal. The other night, I got an order of their conch sashimi, an item that I'd been dying to try after seeing the owner, a sweet older Japanese lady, crack 'em open time after time with such great skill.

Apparently, there are two sizes available, because after I had put my order in with the waitress, the owner called out to us, holding up two different sized conch up. "Which one?" she asked. She tooked the smaller of the two, gave it a couple swift whacks and began slicing away. A few seconds later, they brought us the thinly sliced conch meat neatly arranged atop a bed of ice. I gave it a few squirts of lemon, a few swishes in my soy sauce, and took the first bite. I expected it to be more rubbery, but it was actually quite tender but with a crunchy bite. Suddenly, our waitress came back to the table with a small plate of something grilled. "Wait," I thought, "I never ordered anything else..." She must've gotten a glimpse of a puzzled look from me because she pointed to the dish and then said "For conch sashimi." Allright.

I picked one of the grilled pieces up and popped it in my mouth. "Oh! They're grilled conch innards!," I squealed. We only got a few pieces, but each bit, crisp around the edges and with a slight liver-y texture, was packed with such a wonderful smoky briny flavor that I could hardly contain myself. How's that for not wasting?



Spying on the table next to us, Haru Ulala apparently also "wastes not" with their ama ebi, or sweet shrimp. Glistening raw shrimp meat were brought to our neighbors, followed almost immediately by a plate of nicely charred shrimp heads that had just been grilled up on Haru Ulala's robata grill. Too bad I was already full, I'd have ordered those too. Til next time, I can always look at the fried ones that Elmomonster from Monster Munching ordered on a similar dining experience in his neck of the woods. Why, he even sang us a nice little song about shrimp heads! In the spirit of seafood parts not wasted, I will follow Elmo's lead and sing you my version:

Conch guts, conch guts,
Rolly polly conch guts,
Conch guts, conch guts,
Eat them up,
Yum!

Izakaya Haru Ulala (yes, I know I write about them alot--just GO already!)
368 E. 2nd St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 620-0977
www.haruulala.com