Some Howlin ray’s delivered. It was still very hot when it arrived better than waiting an hour.
Their hot chicken is still the best fried chicken in the city.
s
s
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La parollacia
A neighborhood trattoria type restaurant that focuses on Roman cuisine with some pan Italian offerings. Doesn’t have all the try hardness and bells and whistles of LA Italian restaurants but all the flavors are delicious yet simple. I would imagine that this would not be out of place in some neighborhood in Rome. Favorite dish of the night was rigatoni with truffles.
The pizza was cracker thin and crispy cooked in their wood burning oven very different from neopolitan style or Roman pizza a palla. Reminiscent of ostes pinsa.
If you’re in lbc or within reasonable driving distance definitely worth checking out. Staff was very helpful and friendly.
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Unverified Max with a pretty positive Budonoki review, which I think aligns with my impressions. Given the chef’s time at Hayato, it makes sense that his attention to detail and execution is there. That was certainly the case with my visit
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I’ll be in the city to pick up tamales from La Flor de Yucatán Sunday (12/24) morning.
Are there any other interesting snacks/things I can pick up while close to DTLA before I head home?
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Langer’s and Yang Ga Ne are both closed on Sundays.
mochi and gyozas
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Some soondae from the food court at the mall at western and Olympic the ajumma is not the friendliest but I’ve heard they sell soondae to a lot of restos in ktown
My favorite Korean Chinese young king!!! Haven’t had this in years kanppongji ftw still as good as ever
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Unfortunately, Kaminari does not open until noon and I picked up at 9:30AM.
But I did stop at Fugetsu-do for fresh mochi.
Now for a photo dump of all the December eating that I’ve neglected…
Angotei (Costa Mesa)
Recently moved to a new location inside the same plaza as Izakaya Hachi. They were still open and took us in after a show at Segerstrom. We sat at the bar and ordered an assortment of items. The crew was really cool and chill for a Friday evening.
Aji
Sonumono
Renkon tempura - batter was thicker than I’d like but I loved the texture of the lotus root
Shishamo tempura - same note on the batter thing thicker than I’d like
Negitoro
Not pictured: hotate, otoro, chawanmushi, kinmedai, ikura, salmon skin hand roll
Javier’s (Newport Beach)
Obligatory holiday dinner with friends…where I clearly had no influence in choosing the venue. The margaritas were not as good as I remembered and each round got progressively stronger.
Enchiladas Del Mar - crab, lobster and shrimp in individual enchiladas. At least the seafood was nicely cooked and the sauces were good.
ROL Handroll Bar (Fountain Valley)
The Kei Concepts team really does have a diverse portfolio. We strolled in for a late lunch.
Dragonfruit lychee lemonade - maybe a little prettier than it should it be. I wish the there was more lychee
Kaisen don - it’s a lunch special ($19) ikura and uni are extra, but it’s pretty generous and filling. Fish quality is quite nice
What’s interesting is about 80% of the way through, they lemon zest your bowl and then pour over a house made halibut broth and you have a rice soup. It was a rainy day so this was spot on.
Spicy salmon crunch - wasn’t very spicy but I liked the shatter-crisp nori and the fried onions
Scallop
Otoro with house dashi glaze - this was an off menu suggested by our server, Allan. The dashi glaze gave the otoro an extra something that was tasty.
But that winner was the Kaisen don finished with zest and broth. I would come back for that alone…but only at lunch. Not available at dinner.
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highlights from a smol trip down south to LA and paso robles.
cassell’s hamburgers
chicken sando, 6.5/10 - every component was tasteless. good crunch though.
onion rings, 7/10
patty melt, 10/10 I don’t know why more people don’t get this
torigoya
tsukune, 9/10 very juicy
chicken ramen, 9/10 omg I almost drank all of the broth
japanese knife imports
a cool store if you’re into cooking (either as a home cook or pro). jon is really into yakitori and will be more than happy to nerd out about off menu offerings at the LA joints.
special case of gifts to the store - check out those “steak knives” on the very left. they were made by a blacksmith who had no idea what a steak knife was 
, 10/10 would see knives again.
they also have cool whisky and scotch in the back.
and fun decorations. a very serious store.
rori’s ice cream
I needed to pre-game to kill some time before sushi.
salted caramel, 8/10
brothers sushi, santa monica
was really nice to see yuki, the former okami at hayato, again.
dry aged bluefin from Mexico, 9/10
some dude’s tamago, I hear he posts a lot on FTC but it is a mystery 
Yang’s Kitchen
persimmon and kale salad. 4/10 lazy execution. the main mistake was not pre-dressing the salad.
loco moco. 7/10. good but not great.
Dunsmoor
baby albacore, 8/10
aunt emmy’s pork and green chili stew, 9/10
cheddar and chive potatoes, 9/10. an FTCer told me the best is to take the potatoes, spread them onto the tortilla that comes with the stew, then add the chunks of pork on top of that to make the perfect bite. this was further confirmed by our server at the resto lmao.
mustard greens and dandelion cesar, 9/10 surprisingly great
edna’s sour milk cornbread, 10/10 major yum
Gelato Coco x Six Test Kitchen, Paso Robles
a 12 course dessert tasting, everything ruled.
quince, almond, tonka bean
chestnut, milk chocolate, orange, black truffle
barley koji, whipped miso caramel, sorrel
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When were you in Paso? Partner and I were there today! And we even went to Tin City (Union Sacre, thanks for a rec on a diff thread by @Midlife).
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last friday to saturday - a whirlwind trip! took the amtrak from LA to paso, got in at around 4ish and pre-ate at Hatch Rotisserie (don’t recommend it, ugh). Uber’d to Six Test Kitchen for the dessert tasting at 8pm. On saturday, did brunch at Brunch (lol), then did a single wine tasting at Top Winery which was reco’d by the somm at Six.
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Damn I miss the patty melt at cassells
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Yeah, I had read in the extensive Paso thread that Hatch has seen better days.
Guess I’ll talk about the food we’ve had (we’ve been doing an annual Winter trip to Morro Bay for the last few yrs and had never been to Paso b/f today).
It started very well w/ a trip to Union Sacre. I’m not a big fan of alcohol in general, and I especially tend not to like very bold wines. So I thought this place might be a good match.
Favorites were the Sylvaner (light and crisp) and the Pinot Noir (indeed a peppery finish), and we took a bottle of each. The orange riesling was thankfully less funky than the orange wine we had at Pizzeria Sei recently (which was interesting from an intellectual standpoint but not one that was particularly accessible). And the orange riesling is also possibly the first time I’ve actually been able to identify a specific fruit aroma (apricot). Interestingly, the taste of the wine itself was not particularly fruity (even though the aroma was intensely dried-fruity).
We got a bonus pour of a blend of cabarnet sauvignon and sangiovese. Not at all to my taste. Too bold and the finish was… tannic? Not enough of a wine drinker to know what terms to apply. And something btw sour and peppery that, for me, was not pleasant.
But if you like bold, well, you might really like this.
The person helping us said that many of the wineries in Tin City are first-gen… I kind of liked the idea of supporting a first-gen business.
Had been hoping to go to In Bloom (mentioned by @butteredwaffles several mos ago), but they are only open for dinner; I noticed many highly-rated places in the area are only open for dinner.
@Nemroz had mentioned the Laurent in another thread, and it seems like the same chef has renamed the place BL Brasserie.
Salad very good (marvelously strong goat cheese), crab coquettes good. Fries for the steak frites were exceptional (among the best fry I’ve ever had), and the sauce was good. Steak itself, while nicely beef-y, was… a little chewy. I tried cutting in a few planes b/c I couldn’t really tell where the grain was, but that didn’t help. Outer portions were also more like medium-well (I had ordered medium-rare, but a decent amount of the steak seemed closer to medium).
Latte at H. Cheval was rated as fine by partner. Choc chip cookie was pretty decent (for a day old).
The person at Union Sacre had recommended a trip to Pasolivos (the ranch itself) for EVOO tasting. No pics (one very kind family shared their tasting w/ us, so taking photos felt… weird).
The EVOO was great. Dare I say, though, that the Classic here seemed largely indistinguishable from the Kirkland EVOO (which I think is great as an everyday EVOO). I also think I slightly prefer the more intense grassyness of California Ranch EVOO to the Pasolivos Tuscan. We still got a bottle to commemorate the occasion.
Decided to head to the SLO Farmer’s Market tonight. Line for F.McLintock’s was VERY long, so we decided to try Old SLO BBQ.
2 tri-tip and garlic bread. This is a big NO. I think they lost our order b/c, after 50 mins of waiting, we had to remind them that our name hadn’t been called. One tri tip was cut very thickly and WAS.SO.DRY. The few times I could get bark or smoke were great, but… The other tri-tip had a decent amount of moisture but was hardly revelatory. And the garlic bread was barely toasted (despite it having gone through the toaster), so chewy tri-tip + chewy, overly garlicked toast just wasn’t doing it for me.
Back in Morro Bay… Mi Casa contines to delight. No pics b/c we were starving, and I inhaled the food.
Decided to try Thai Elephant:
The papaya salad was a bit overly lime-y (and, like, lime juice from concentrate lime-y), and I wouldn’t have minded if that and the prik khing has more intense flavor and brightness. But the green beans were nicely cooked, so the skill of the chef seems fine. Maybe the chef just likes things to taste less garish. 
I think this better than our local Thai place (Siam Chan).
In what would be an interesting anthropological question, I wonder why the following sign in the Thai restaurant is written in simplified Chinese characters?
I was really looking forward to dinner at Ume Umi (edit) since we found it surprisingly tasty last year.
It was not good:
The fish in the chirashi bowl looks okay, but it tasted just… sad? A bit flaccid (the salmon was falling apart but was nicely fatty). The tamago was so bad texturally that I spat it out; I don’t recall the last time I did that. It was weirdly gelatinous.
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Guess what I’ll be making soon…
RC provisions navel pastrami and Fred’s rye bread. Now just gotta make the slaw and Russian dressing.
The Result
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crunch alone worth 6.5 points - must’ve been some worldclass crunch!!
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oh yes, it was very juicy but still crunchy. just no flavour
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That’s awesome! Can you just get this at their facility in Burbank? And I’m assuming you can’t get the stuff they make for restaurants, right? One can hope…
it’s true they only do b2b and have no direct consumer retail business. from the Burbank factory tour, they are open 20 hrs a day and process 20K lb of meat per DAY and have no shortage of business.
i follow them on their IG and they had a contest to give away a navel plate pastrami…and got chosen! It’s actually the exact product he ships to Langers.
but now i’m cool with the owner (whose family bought the business in the 2000s) and said I can get it directly from him anytime! I’ll keep you in mind next time for a group buy.
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