When I finally have some time. Have some great stock in the freezer.
Hayato 
I donât even know where to begin, except my dinner was the experience of a lifetime. Iâll try to sum up more substantively soon. For tonight, Iâll just continue to dream of my meal!
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glad you had a great experience @chinchi, it doesnât get any better in la. looking forward to your thoughts.
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Congratulations, Dr. @chinchi! What a great way to celebrate.
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Garlic & Chives 2 (Artesia)
When your friend wants Vietnamese food, but you also need vegetables. I hit it hard last week and needed more vegetables, so I suggested a jaunt with my friend. We got the lotus root salad and the garlic ong choyâŚitâs been a while since Iâve had morning glory. We also got the toothpick lamb and the chicken wings. The vegetables were fantastic. The toothpick lamb was delightfulâŚour first time trying it and I loved the subtle heat. The chicken wings were offâŚnot as crispy and crunchy and the saucing was definitely off, tooâŚmissing the umami, sweet and sour punch it normally has.
Ramen & Tsukemen TAO (Buena Park)
There was no line when I showed up around 9:30PM. I thought they were closed for the holidays, but according to the staff, theyâve only been sporadically busy with the holidaysâŚeven on chilly nightsâŚso go now before all the riff-raff come back.
The ramen is still a perfect delight. I got the red miso ramen with the thick noodlesâŚno spicy TAO because I wasnât feeling it tonight. The chew of the noodles is just perfectâŚand the richness and complexity of the mildly salty broth tonight was good. I couldnât finish mine due to the 3 spiked egg nogs and snacks at the event I went toâŚso my leftovers are going to be great tomorrow.
The oldest chowpup was my date tonight since I had promised him a late dinner after a holiday party stocked with Broguiereâs egg nog (spiked with brandy). He loved his white miso ramen and the eggâŚhe got a kick out of the âExcellentâ compliment when he finished his bowl. It was totally worth it to wait for a late dinner.
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Oooh⌠He does roasties too. I didnât knooo. Also answers a question of mine⌠can chicken be a roastie? Very little info on this on the great wide web.
I actually like the way that sandwich looks. It has just a hint of meat, lol.
I love the way the lady is so awed sheâs clutching her non-existent pearls.
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Hang A Ri Noodle House íě댏 ěšźęľě.
Sure, there is another more popular location in Koreatown with the same name but unaffiliated, but walking into the serene conditions of this Garden Grove restaurant is almost like a wave of calm. While that more northerly location is a bit cold and modern inside, here they use tasteful wood accents and decor that give the feeling of entering a warm old cabin during the dead of winter. Whether it is hot or cool outside, these are great conditions to eat kal-guksu, a dish that originated as a summer meal.
The menu here is brief and to the point. Most diners coming in seem to know what they want already and order while sitting down. Kal-guksu (ěšźęľě) is in the Korean name of the restaurant and the first item on the menu, a hint of where to start, but a dozen or so other options do provide the opportunity for a few meal varieties.
No matter what you order, every meal here begins with two bowls rather than the usual suspects of small plate banchan. Barley rice and yeolmu kimchi (above) come in those bowls, the latter made from the greens of young summer radish. This is a bit more crunchy than cabbage-based kimchis, and feels very summery.
Wanting as much variation between dishes as possible, an order of momil guksu ($9.99, below) began the meal. They describe this as âbuckwheat noodles and vegetables with spicy sauceâ which is not a lie, but it is so much more than this, a complex array of tastes and crisp textures from the bed of greens. Before getting started, mix the metal bowl up well to spread out the ingredients.
You sometimes find this dish deconstructed, with the sauce on the side for dipping. The cooked buckwheat soba noodles are enjoyable to eat this way and that arrangement ensures you get the bites and combinations you want. Thankfully, the chef here knows exactly the bowl they want to offer and does it exquisitely.
While the next few months may be quite chilly and not call for it, it is hard to imagine a meal here during warm weather that does not include the momil guksu.
Compared to that cold noodle salad served mildly spicy and very refreshing, the house special kal-guksu ($10.99, above and below) could not be a more opposite pairing, just what was desired on this afternoon. This pleasing bowl of savory seafood soup is full of the chewy house-made noodles that give the dish its name, literally âknife noodlesâ that are hand cut.
For good reason, the noodle soup is part of almost everyoneâs meal here. Big groups might order two or three portions, which are put into increasingly large vessels to be ladled out to everyone in smaller bowls at the table. The few solo diners that were noticed all had the same posture, hunched over and almost inhaling their warming bowl.
From what can be discerned by folks with zero knowledge of Korean but with the ability to put three Korean characters into a Google image search, hangari (íě댏) is a clay pot that is used for various cooking and presenting of foods. Sometimes it is sealed when preparing kimchi, sometimes smaller ones can be brought to the table containing side dishes. Either way, the reference gives further credit to the feeling here of a warm old cabin.
Sit back in your repurposed diner chair, and plot your next visit. The ramen dukbokee that was noticed on its way to a young coupleâs table sure looks tempting. Or maybe some of those beautiful fried dumplings. Is it summer yet?
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My wife told me that the guy who is next to the crab is a famous Korean actor. He must have thought I was done type of fan or something but I was just interested in the crab. They could have sent over a piece. 4 people with an 8.5 pounder. Jeez.
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shredded beef like burritos la palma but better and more delicious
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Iâm not surprised. They both have that extra good looking look. Funny, yep, thatâs food talkers⌠we get more charged about food and celebrity chef sightings than actual celebrity sightings. Thereâs a short story in there somewhere - starting with the big guy at the bottom of the sea and ending up on a movie stars table⌠Anyhoo, the crab looks excellent, but I ask, are crustaceans that big still sweet & tender?
Good report! I like the name⌠add a ght to the Ri and you have Hang A Right Noodle House. Okay, Iâll stop now.
In a word: Fâ yeah.
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Chickens that are soy sauce marinated and braised, poached, boiled, or steamed are part of a kitchenâs lineup that dishes out roasties⌠so while those typically arenât oven roasted they are in the portfolio for versatility (Soy sauce chicken and char siu is such a classic blue collar combo) and have become a signature in any roasties deli or seafood restaurantâs roasties department. So even in Cantonese a âroastiesâ deli shop by name encompasses the broad scope, even offering things such as marinated squid or ginger powder rice vinegar rubbed crunchy chicken feet (Ming Kee), marinated squab (Ming Kee), depending on the chef ownerâs business model and skill set.
Itâs like chicken feet and pork spareribs with fermented black beans, were not historically dim sum items but dim sum restaurants wanted to expand their offerings by using cheap parts. This wasnât done until the 1950s or 1960s, but now is part of the lineup.
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Thanks for laying down the knowledge (as usual), professorâŚ
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There is technically one roast chicken in Cantonese cuisine, but itâs not commonly seen in roasties deliâs these days but once in a while you may find it⌠Nam Yu sauce roast chicken. Nam Yu = fermented soy bean paste, Chinese rice wine, spices, chili flakes, red yeast.
In the old roasties shops in Hong Kong, the roaster is definitely the soul of it all. Or at least you watch the Bourdain episodes for when he visited Hong Kong, he never touched a single chicken dish. Of the places that specialize in the real roasties, do a few things that are signature and of focus. Anything else added on there are either distractions or just there to expand the menu and offer the customer more choices.
Over here we donât have that level of specialization for roastiesâŚbut I think we are FTCers know from experience and trying a place many times what we think are the greats and deem those the specialties (Ming Keeâs soy sauce chicken is supreme, even though some prefer the honey sweet char siu, or the fatty BBQ pork neck meat, but their roast duck is inconsistent and sometimes more bone less meatâŚand they stopped doing crispy skin roast pork I think).
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Thanks @beefnoguy. Helpful!
I saw a little bit about soy marinated/braised chicken being part of the roasties lineup but not enough to make me confidently repeat it. 
The deli reference explains it. Like foods youâd eat in a deli not necessarily a specific dish. Sooo then Hainan Chickens are roasties? Hence @JLee.
I think hereâs where when we live in the US, we get specialization of different places under one roof, so it gets even more confusing at times. For North America, in order for a roasties âdeliâ to survive, it will have to offer at the very least sit down dine in roasties and meats rice plates, sometimes noodles. For places that have a full kitchen, stir fry and even go into seafood. Upscale it a bit more? A dim sum restaurant with a roasties division, so people can order roasties as appetizers. At that rate the quality should be second to none, but that is not always the case over here.
In Hong Kong, you can still find some neighborhood roasties âdeliâsâ and the most old school format would be inside a wet market where you buy fresh produce, raw carved butchered meats hanging from hooks, as well as roasties hanging from hooks that they chop to order and weigh to sell by weight, and only available to go. You donât see that here, but you will find some places still existing there in parts of Hong Kong and Macau.
Now poached chickenâŚthatâs a wide category in itself. @JLee has done a youtube video (or someone has) where he demonstrates âwhite cut chickenâ preparation (or his version of it which already looks quite amazing).
This is actually a very classic Hong Kong Cantonese roasties deli item, but you donât see as much of that here. Itâs seemingly deceptively simple but can also be a bit hard to get done right. A lot of HK Cantonese restaurants over here might do something like this, then serve it with ginger scallion oil and / or soy sauce, serve it with rice thatâs been steamed with chicken broth or rendered fat and then they call it âHainan Chickenâ, but thatâs technically incorrect as there could be some regional differences.
In Hong Kong, you will never find Hainan Chicken in roasties deliâs / wet markets. You go to specific Hainan Chicken restaurants or places that do it (whether they specialize in it or not), but Empress Chicken and âWhite Cut Chickenâ are to some degree. This is where it gets confusing for those who are not used to it (structurally they can be quite similar). I believe White Cut Chicken is probably a base or fundamental which can be iterated upon so one could stray a bit from it to make so many different versions, and things can change also depending on the seasoning. In the wiki page link thereâs a variation of the white cut chicken in a chicken stock (thatâs cooked with Chinese Jinhua ham) and mustard greens thatâs very super classic and intense, designed to be a banquet dish. But Iâm no chef, so I should leave it to folks like @JLee who does this professionally to comment further.
But the short answer should be: no, not Hainan Chickens. They do not belong in the category of âRoastiesâ (siu mei).
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All Day Baby - Silverlake
Bay leaf cream concha - subtle bay leaf flavor and filled with pastry cream that was the perfect amount of sweetness. The crust provides a nice crusty texture. Yum!
ADB biscuit sandwich w/ bacon and sausage - my goodness this was good. The bacon was smokey and THICK and the biscuit buttery and soft yet not greasy. The strawberry jam was just sweet enough and provides a bit of tartness to liven the palate after every bite. So fuckin delicious!
Braised mussels toast - the perfect description is an elevated moules frites without the frites. All the flavors were bold and the broth softened the toast the more it sat, and the aoili gave it even multiple flavor dimensions, rich, acidic, limey with a luscious mouthfeel, all with the mussel flavor being the main event. Excellent!
Goodies to go cuz couldnât resist! Next time Iâm going try the Thai coffee jam concha and the smoked beef short rib! A nearby table got the half smoked chicken and it looked and smelled delicious. The chicken fried skirt steak looked excellent as well. Thoroughly impressed!
Popeyes
I must have been a good boy this year because I ordered 3 spicy chicken sandwiches and I got an extra, exactly what I wanted for Christmas.
And it gets even better because the chicken was so THICK and juicy, picture for scale.
Torimatsu - Gardena
Meatball
Toriwasa - rare chicken with shoyu, wasabi and nori 
Such great texture and flavor.
Chicken wing
Duck w/ shishito and onion
Renkon stuffed with chicken and asparagus, added some togarashi to the renkon and good lord was this good.
Shiitake mushroom stuffed with chicken and chicken wrapped in shiso
Yaki onigiri with cod roe
Chicken broth to finish
So freakin good every time! Each skewer was cooked expertly by the hands of iron. One of my favorite restaurants these days, a grilled chicken specialist for sure.
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