January 2025 Rundown

happy new year

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Cairo Restaurant and Cafe (Anaheim). Good, but not sure it was worth the drive down from LA. Above average mezze platter. Exceptionally tasty pickles. The weaknesses of the restaurant are typical ones: ingredient quality and execution. The chicken in the kabsa and fish in the sayadeya were dry and bland. Conversely, the rice parts of these dishes were tasty (and interesting contrasts to each other, with one using basmati rice and another using much shorter grain, stickier rice).

Knafeh Cafe (Anaheim). Really good, a hole in the wall gem. I loved their soft knafeh—with melted cheese that remind me of mozzarella—and crispy balourieh with pistachios. I haven’t had many better Middle Eastern desserts anywhere, fancier places included. Made the drive worth it.

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Prime Cut Taqueria in Placentia (YL Blvd and Kramer) is basically like Tacos Los Cholos except it’s 5 mins from my house so we had to try it. Very good. Same good old char grilled meats. Basically the same exact menu. They have a potato, a pizza and they include a pepper with each plate. Lots of meat options with basic at ~$4 per taco, more expensive options ~$7 than the prime options. Their taco bar is labeled to identify the heat level of the salsas which is nice. A lot less hectic with ample parking. We will be back.

Quesadilla weighed 0.595 lbs

Costilla tacos

3 carne asada tacos. So much meat

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This breakfast plate from Sqirl looks terrific. I don’t think it tastes as good as it looks. The latke tot has too much pepper and stuff. The lox is too salty.

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Golden Bear Station

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That’s real lox, not smoked salmon, so it’s normal for it to be salty. However, it should be balanced with something correspondingly underseasoned.

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Was the latke burned? It looks it in the pic. :frowning:

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No, not burnt. Not sure why it’s so brown. It’s almost great. It’s just…bitter for some reason. I don’t know if it’s all the pepper (it definitely has lots of pepper) or something else that makes the end of every bite taste not quite right to me. I’ve had it three times, with the same opinion every time.

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Maybe the “flax egg”?

https://www.instagram.com/sqirlla/p/CSKFmB3H5Au/

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I find SQRL pretty uneven and haven’t been in ages. Just curious if you thought of ordering something else after the second time.

If I remember correctly their crispy rice is pretty good and I still have her cookbook on my shelf (albeit it’s very fussy for at home cooking).

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Oh I’ve ordered tons of stuff from Sqirl.

Favorite stuff:

Salmon sorrel rice
Crispy brown rice
Chicken porridge (but small portion: need to order two)
Salmon rilletes
Rugbrod bread

It’s a good neighborhood place / delivery option.

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Crispy Disco is one of my all time favorite dishes in LA. GOAT-ed breakfast spot, previous controversy aside I still go monthly

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I happened to be in Virgil Village on the morning of New Years Eve and so I decided to swing by. ‘Let’s see what a post-hype Sqirl looks like on a holiday when lots of people are out of town’ I thought to my fool self - it is extremely not post-hype, the line was out the door and around the corner. I kept going. Haven’t been in a while but always liked the crispy rice and the sorrel bowl.

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Oh wow! I went then too and zero line. But I was on the earlier side

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Think it’s likely that. Between quick oxidation and low smoke point of its compounds. Seems to be a poor candidate for frying but fine for baked goods.

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Sushi Yuen (Rowland Heights). Good. High quality fish. Some creative ideas that still are within the sushi spirit for me (e.g., squid ink rice for the ika and crispy rice for monkfish liver). I didn’t taste the perfect, nuanced balance that I taste in top sushi restaurants. (I’ve come to realize how important salt level is, for example.). As such, and given the high price and location, it wouldn’t be a top rec for me except for people who live around there or people who have tried everything and are looking for something new.

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Agreed! The hits are still the hits.

How are the daily specials? I miss the pre-Moldghazi era. Those, which I assume Ria Dolly Barbosa and Javier Ramos etc cooked up, were really stellar. They shed a lot of talent in the controversy.

They are opening for dinner soon btw.

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Does that mean the “egg” can’t tolerate higher temps b/f taking on a blackened color (which is separate from being actually “burned”) and a bitter flavor?

Something like that I think. The smoke point of the oils in flax meal is 225 - a latke would be fried at like 375 - so my bet is it would take on an acrid flavor at some point in cooking. Not sure how that corresponds to the color of the meal (oils do discolor when they smoke but whether it would be visible in the meal). Typically I think of sugars and proteins wrt burning (they’ve generally got a higher burning point than 225 in flax meal, I think) so it’s unintuitive to me :sweat_smile:.

Also there’s a fair chance of flax meal going rancid before touching the pan (fairly sensitive compared to other meals) over time esp if improperly stored, but I would bet it’s the frying responsible. As far as I could gather.

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Monarch Donuts is a one-man operation, open daily only from 5 to 9 a.m. but runs out of doughnuts long before it closes.

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