Soon Tofu that lifts up the spirit - So Kong Dong

So Kong Dong is my favorite soon tofu place in Los Angeles. It serves the best-tasting soon tofu, is pretty easy to go to and the parking situation is usually not bad. Last week, I was in a poor mood and didn't want to eat any dinner, but my wife suggested So Kong Dong and I ended up eating way more than normal, and was very happy afterwards.

The banchan is great and comes with spicy raw crab. Good stuff.

Their soon tofu is so hot it's like lava in a stone pot. I like the dumpling soon tofu because the dumplings are good and taste even better after soaking in the tofu soup. Their tofu has a unique flavor that stands out from other soon tofu places. Their soup is also more flavorful, not just filled with jalapeno taste.

DineLA menu at JiRaffe

JiRaffe is a French/California restaurant near the Third Street Promenade. Don't let the location fool you, this place is a serious restaurant. I've wanted to go for a long time and the DineLA menu finally got me to go.

The first thing was a complimentary mushroom cappuccino. It has great mushroom flavor with a little spicy kick to it. The foam on top integrates perfectly with the creamy mushroom soup. What a great start to the meal.

The bread are all pretty fancy. I can't really tell what ingredients are in them but they are all  delicious.

The people's omakase - Wakasan

Wakasan has been the gold standard of omakase dining in Los Angeles for many years. They serve only the chef's choice menu of traditional Japanese dishes. I always want to eat there but it's difficult to get a table without reservation, and I don't like making reservations :P Finally today I made the reservation because I tried Morinoya and really missed this place.

First course was a cold chawanmushi with egg and mushrooms. The egg custard is silky smooth with good salty flavor.

The sashimi appertizer is of kampachi, albacore, halibut and salmon. The soy sauce is just the right amount of sour and saltiness to bring out the best flavor of the sashimi.

[Travel] Visit to the Din Tai Fung flagship resturant in Taipei

I was in Taipei a couple of weeks ago and I took that opportunity to visit the Din Tai Fung flagship restaurant in Taipei. I have visited the Din Tai Fung in Arcadia several times but was never quite impressed with their Steamed Pork Dumplings. The flagship restaurant is where it all started so I was hoping to get the true taste of their world famous dumplings. This location is four stories but it's massively popular with tourists so we went there right when they opened to avoid the lines.

We got the Steamed Crab Meat and Pork Dumpling. It's a deluxe version of the Steamed Pork Dumplings that tests the chefs' skill of balancing crab flavor with pork.

Jidaiya - ramen dining by yakotori-specialist Torihei

Jidaiya is the new ramen venture from the same people who brought us Torihei, the best yakitori in Los Angeles. Needless to say I was pretty excited to try their ramen.

The Seaweed Yatai Ramen was quite light with a lot of interesting seaweed. The soup is light, maybe a little too light to go with the ramen.

Ramen Jinya - surprisingly good fusion ramen

Ramen Jinya is the final entrant to the Sawtelle ramen battlefield for a while and it is at last open for real. It's located south of Olympic Blvd where all the fast food restaurants are. The first thing I noticed was the decor; it's very Studio City :P I wasn't expecting much but this trip had me surprised.

The Jinya Chicken Ramen had a thick, milky chicken stock soup with the sweetness of corn swimming throughout. It's not too salty and quite drinkable in a good way. The pieces of chicken meat have a slight wine taste to them that makes them interesting.

Omakase at Morinoya - a fancy seafood feast

Morinoya is the new venture of chef Takayuki Morishita, who was also the head chef of Place Yuu that closed last year. I was pretty excited that he decided to continue serving his creations in Sawtelle. Morinoya now offers a wide variety of dishes, including yakitori, oden, small plates, sushi and sashimi. It even offers two kinds of 8-course omakase menu, a $45 version and a $70 version that requires advanced reservation. We tried the $45 omakase this time.

The first dish was cucumber, yam with plum sauce. I liked the yam but the plum sauce was too intense for me. 

Try it before it's gone - Ramen Iroha stages a temporary ramen invasion

For a limited time, famous ramen chain Menya Iroha from Toyama is setting up shop inside the Gardena Marukai food court until 9/16. Menya Iroha is known for their black shoyu ramen and has set a record of selling 14,585 bowls of ramen within 5 days at the Tokyo Ramen Show. Head chef Kiyoshi Kurihara has come personally to oversee operations for the first week. You just know it's going to be good.

Finally a good tempura bowl in the Westside - Tendon Hannosuke

A new place opened at that cursed spot at the Santa Monica Mitsuwa food court! This time, it is tempura bowl specialist from Tokyo, Tendon Hannosuke. According to reviews on tabelog, there is always a line at the Nihonbashi location on weekends. We're pretty lucky here in Los Angeles! The storefront is quite attractive. They have a window for you to look at the tempura making process.

Unexpected find at Ramen Hayatemaru - awesome fried rice!

We went back to Ramen Hayatemaru to try the rest of the menu. See my comments about the first time here. We got the Red Miso Ramen and the Jigae Ramen this time. The red miso has a more subdued taste compared to the white miso, with weaker fermented taste. I like the white miso better because that has a brighter taste (if miso can even be described that way), but this would be good for people who prefer a regular miso taste. This ramen is topped with fried tofu skin to absorb the miso goodness. It's really impressive that every ramen they serve has different toppings. 

Ojiya Restaurant - izakaya style from Niigata

I kinda struggle when I write this post, because I don't want to make this restaurant more popular. Ojiya is one of those hidden gems known only to the local Japanese, and it's always crowded because the restaurant is tiny. There are many izakayas in Los Angeles, but most of them serve pretty much the same stuff. Ojiya stands out because they serve specialties from Niigata, and they constantly come out with new menu items. There is something new to try every time.

This time I got all three specials from the menu. The first was slow poached egg, Chinese broccoli, plum bits on top of natto sauce with bonito flakes. The whole plate is on the salty side and it's perfect with beer.

Tatsu Ramen - does it have a soul?

I was going to wait on writing this post, but I refreshed the Yelp page I opened this morning, and saw the number of reviews went up by 10 o_O Everybody I saw in the restaurant must have been a Yelp reviewer or something...

Tatsu Ramen has three iPads by the door for ordering. It's pretty slick and fun. At the end of the process, you swipe you credit card to complete the purchase. The whole thing reminds me of ramen shops in Japan where people order and pay from a vending machine before sitting down.

There are only two items in the menu, Naked Ramen and Tonkotsu Ramen. I got it with chicken and soft broiled egg. I LOL'ed as soon as I had my first bite. It tastes exactly like Damae Itcho with sesame oil and fake chicken. Don't get me wrong, that's an excellent thing to taste like. The sauce is quite intense with heavy sesame taste and somewhat spicy even though I ordered mild. The grilled seaweed is also very flavorful. The chicken is tender and doesn't have much taste, which strangely balances nicely with the sauce. The soft broiled egg is perfectly cooked but not much flavor.

Miyata Menji - the In-N-Out of ramen

With the closing of Kinchans Ramen last year, it seemed like all hope was lost for decent ramen in Sawtelle. The outlook got even grimmer when Tsujita opened and decided not to serve ramen for a while. Well, fear no more. Three new ramen places just opened within the area, so now there are six ramen shops within the two blocks of Sawtelle proper. If you count Gotsui that started serving ramen for lunch, and Ramenya nearby, there are now eight ramen shops within 5 minutes of driving. Sawtelle has just become the fiercest battleground of ramen outside of Japan.

Miyata Menji came from Osaka. In Japan there is only one choice, tsukemen. In Sawtelle, they also serve a soup ramen with tomato and beef. The owner calls it the In-N-Out of ramen because of the simple menu.

The tsukemen sauce is very thick and mainly fish flavor. The noodles are mixed with a lot of vegetables. They recommend grinding some black pepper near the end to change the flavor of the ramen. The black pepper actually makes it more refreshing after eating a lot of the heavy tsukemen sauce. It's very different from "traditional" tsukemen, which is why I like it quite a bit.  

Jeannine's American Bakery Restaurant

Jeannine's is a famous bakery restaurant in Santa Barbara with more than 25 years of history. We stopped by on the way to some wineries. The Montecito location is very nice, reminds me of the Montana area in Los Angeles. Everyone there look like they walked out of a A&F or J.Crew catalog. The restaurant was pretty small and crowded but the very friendly hostess Nancy helped us find a seat quite quickly.

I read on Yelp that the lobster Benedict is famous. It comes with a generous amount of lobster bits. The sweetness of the lobster meat goes very well with the slightly spicy hollandaise sauce and the salty hash browns. It's not cheap but it's a really nice guilty pleasure to be eating lobster for brunch :)

A second visit to Tea Lane - good cheap eat

Went to Tea Lane again to try their lunch and yakitori. Their lunch combos are only $6 and it comes with a bowl of rice or noodles, a plates of steamed veggie and two sticks of yakitori. I picked minced meat over rice and my wife picked plain noodle. We got a total of two plates of veggie (same thing) and four different sticks of yakitori.

I was expecting minimalist minced pork and sauce over rice, but it came fully loaded with flavor egg and dried meat flakes. I like how many different things they try to put onto the bowl of rice. Every bite was never boring.

Angele - French Californian by the river

All the famous restaurants in Napa Valley were fully booked the night before Mother's Day, so we picked this one that has great photos on Yelp. It's a French restaurant by the Napa river. The area is quite popular and Morimoto Napa is also nearby.

The bread they served was warm and very crispy. We finished it quickly.

Il Posto Trattoria - amazing Italian in wine country

I was in Napa Valley for Mother's Day. We noticed that this restaurant next to our hotel was full of locals so we decided to have lunch there. There are a lot of good Italian restaurants in Los Angeles, but nothing came quite close to this new restaurant in Napa.

The gnocchi was the most amazing gnocchi I have ever tasted. Light broth with salty pork and pan fried gnocchi. I am quite used to gnocchi in creamy sauce but this version is so refreshing and perfectly balanced. You just can't help but keep eating it.

Tea Lane - interesting waffle and decent milk tea

The Avengers is the best superhero movie I have ever seen. Only Joss Whedon can bring all these disparate characters together into one cohesive (and rocking) movie. Go see it!

Ramen Hayatemaru - tasty ramen from Hokkaido

Found out about a bunch of new ramen places from Bridge magazine. Ramen Hayatemaru looked the most interesting so we went today. From the reviews on Yelp, supposedly the place fills up quickly so we got there about 10 minutes after it opened. It actually didn't become full the whole time we were there; I guess the rush is over.