Archive for the ‘Food’ Category
Shin-Sen-Gumi Hakata Ramen - Rosemead, CA
The area of Los Angeles that I’m from is called the San Gabriel Valley. One of its claims to fame is that we have the largest Chinese community in the U.S. That equals the best Chinese food in the country, not just in terms of quality but also sheer breadth of variety. The Atlantic Monthly had a great article on this phenomenon — even though it was written a decade ago, everything in the report still holds true. Perhaps our unique situation is even more exaggerated these days, since the community has only grown larger over the past decade.
My point in bringing this up is that despite the amazing Chinese food, our Japanese restaurants in the area are comparatively lacking. We have our fair share of good places, but most would agree that the standouts are located in the Gardena / Torrance area or near Little Tokyo in downtown L.A., both quite substantial drives from the SGV. The Shin-Sen-Gumi restaurant empire, known for its authentic Japanese cuisine, operates mostly in Gardena. I only recently learned that they had opened a hakata ramen shop in Rosemead, CA (quite a bit closer to home) so I jumped at the chance to try out their ramen.
Julian Serrano - Las Vegas, NV
Ever since Las Vegas firmly established itself as a powerhouse city in the restaurant world, every new casino opening has proudly boasted a line-up of marquee chefs. Julian Serrano is the eponymous tapas restaurant by the chef who created Bellagio’s Picasso, one of the groundbreaking restaurants in Vegas dining. Although I do not have much experience with Spanish food, I was eager to visit Serrano, hyped by accounts that this was the highlight of the whole Aria casino. I found the food adequate but not especially impressive. Unfortunately, the experience was marred by new restaurant opening woes that left us displeased.
Bamboodles - San Gabriel, CA
In the fiercely competitive Chinese restaurant industry of San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles, new restaurants need a hook to entice diners. Bamboodles has among the most unique, featuring a rare traditional method of preparing noodles called jook sing mein. Rather than kneading dough by hand, the chef repeatedly bounces on a bamboo stick to evenly compress the dough. This produces noodles with a very firm and chewy consistency.
Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” TV show highlighted this special noodle in his Hong Kong episode. He portrayed the technique as a very rare and dying artform in a surprisingly poignant segment (starts 1:20 in this clip). My curiosity was sufficiently piqued to give this place a visit.
Liang’s Kitchen - San Gabriel, CA
Among the numerous Taiwanese delicacies, beef noodle soup (niu rou mien aka NRM) is one of the classics and my standard order whenever trying a new Chinese restaurant. Residents of the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles are blessed with no lack of restaurants that serve this delicious noodle dish.
Throughout my life, I’ve always had a couple go-to favorites for NRM that updated as old haunts closed and my tastes changed with time. Mandarin Noodle Deli in Temple City, CA has been a consistent top-runner for the past couple years, but a new champion has emerged. Boldly put, the beef noodle soup at Liang’s Kitchen is the best I’ve had in Southern California and would be a top contender in Taiwan.
Foo-Foo Tei - Hacienda Heights, CA
For Labor Day holiday, the medical school granted Med 3s a week long break and I took advantage, escaping home to Los Angeles. L.A. is one of the great food cities but I always hit the same cluster of favorite restaurants whenever I get the scarce opportunity to fly home.
This time, however, I made a focused effort to try new places and brought along a camera to document the visits. Rather than posting half a dozen consecutive restaurant reviews, my plan is to space them out for variety. Some of these probably won’t be published until December or beyond, but this isn’t time-sensitive information anyway so no biggie.
First up is Foo-Foo Tei, a Hacienda Heights ramen shop hidden in a desolate, quiet neighborhood. Their claim to fame is a menu featuring a whopping 31 ramen varieties — hence their slogan “1 Noodle A Day”. One ambitious blogger took it literally and spent an entire month eating a different ramen every day. On my visit, I tried their most popular ramen (Nanchatte Tonkotsu). Fairly tasty, but for all of the ramen hype, the Tonkatsu Curry was my highlight.
A Bathing Ape - Taipei city camo
A Bathing Ape features many different camo designs and colorways. My favorite design is the city camo series. Bape has less than two dozen retail stores worldwide, and each one has a distinctive colorway that represents the store. These are exclusively sold at the representative stores, i.e. clothing with the Hong Kong city camo design can only be bought at the Hong Kong Bape store. The idea is to let fans “rep their hood”, so to speak. (The city camo colorways [1], [2])
My favorites are the three Tokyo stores and Taipei, which have a more monotone camo pattern compared to some of the outrageous color combinations for other cities. All city camo products are produced in very limited quantities so are usually difficult to find on the resell market after the initial release. From my experience, Taipei is especially rare. The city camo polos were released a few weeks ago, and I made sure to grab the Taipei one as soon as I saw one.
