Scopa Italian Roots

The Bear Crew gathering is becoming an almost regular occurrence lately.  We are killing two birds with one stone, sharing great food and catching up with great company.  I think deep down inside, some of us may feel that our days our numbered.  Buff Bear and Panda Bear are growing up into big boys now.  Getting real jobs, moving away from LA, the epicenter of our once young adult lives.  While we are never sure where the future will take us, we can be sure that we will be great friends sharing great food.  The scenery and context just may be a little different, that's all.  Tonight, the scene was Italian in the outskirts of Venice bordering Marina del Rey.

Fried Calamari squid ink, lemon

I have concluded that squid ink anything is just a sham, a gimmick.  Squid ink does not add any significantly notable flavor.  It adds a strikingly black color, but my tongue lacks the ability to taste color.  Stupid tongue!  There were still light and crispy, not overly battered.  

Crispy Squash Blossoms ricotta, mozzarella, tomato, chili
Squash blossoms are really just a vehicle for crispy fried goodness filled with cheesy oozy deliciousness.  I don't think I've ever had a bad squash blossom.

Read more »

Abigaile

Before Little Sister and Dia de Campo, there was Abigaile.  I'm not sure why it took me so long to try out this place since I jumped on Little Sister and Dia de Campo straight out of the gate.  Biker-holic (formerly known as Audio Monkey) and Manicure Queen brunched it up with me at this really cool spot in Hermosa Beach.  Unlike Little Sister and Dia de Campo which are Asian and Mexican inspired respectively, the food at Abigaile is "New American."  This is when the non-foodies contort their face to a puzzled and/or blank expression.  Their website describes it as "globally-influenced + domestically-sourced."  Fancy schmancy verbiage for food that reflects the multi-ethnic fabric of today's America.  No more meat, potatoes, with a side of steamed veggies here.  If you still haven't wiped that dumb look off your face, you can keep reading.

First of all the restaurant is beautiful, with a lovely westward view toward the beach.  It's not quite on the beach, and there are some houses and a bunch of palm trees in the way, but it sets a cool beachy ambiance.  Unlike Little Sister, the digs here are spacious.  Brunch was not crowded at all, unlike my recent experience at Canele.  The menu has good variety, and they also had a "dim sum" menu.  Is it just me, or are there more and more American restaurants with "dim sum" style dining?  We didn't partake in anything off the "dim sum" menu, but it's a neat concept to say the least.  

Pao de Queijo brazillian 'chewy n gooey' cheezy poofs, whipped bacon maple butter

We was starvin' so we got some little munchies to share.  These weren't the best pao de queijo I've had, but they were fine.  The best part really was that bacon butter, smokey, sweet, and pure fat.  The pao didn't really need this to accent it, but I slathered it on anyways.  How else was I going to get it in my mouth?  It would have been so tacky to just stick my spoon in their and go at it don't you think?

Tots rooster ketchup
In retrospect, this was not the most interesting order.  While frickin' delicious as all tater tots are, it was no different that the tots from my elementary school cafeteria.  We still loved them though.  Not sure what was so "roostery" with that ketchup.

Read more »

Dia de Campo

The South Bay is an upcoming foodie area.  It seems like there's always something new and cool opening up.  I really liked Little Sister so I was excited to hear that the chef/owner was opening up a Mexican/seafood themed joint just down the coast in Hermosa Beach.  Who other than Smooth Obturator and Triple T, who call the South Bay their home, would accompany me to this very hip and happening spot?  I totally loved the ambiance.  It was both relaxed/laid back given its beachside location, but then also vibrant, hip, and happening.  

Oysters

I was a little bummed these were cooked instead of chilled.  I'm not sure why cooked oysters just never taste right.

Hamachi Uni green papaya, mango, ponzu, baby cilantro, smoked pasilla

I don't think it's fair to list uni as a main ingredient here.  There was only 1 little lobe of uni!  Other than that, the dish was fine but nothing spectacular.  The fresh passionfruit was a nice touch.

Read more »

Oumi Sasaya

The South Bay has its fair share of excellent Japanese restaurants.  Triple T being the stereotypical Taiwanese Japan-o-phile, feels right at home here.  Why do Taiwanese people love everything Japanese?  I have no idea, but it's like they were brainwashed from the womb to worship anything and everything "made in Japan."  If you're reading this, and you're a true Taiwanese at heart, then you know this is true!  Anyways, I digress.  This is a food blog here, so on to the food...

Cold Tofu
Oumi Sasaya is solid udon oriented joint, but we had to have some starters to kick things off.  I think this was a standard amuse bouche for everyone.  Nothing really spectacular here.

Fried Garlic Chicken Wings
You can't wrong with wings.

Read more »

Nozomi

I don't get too excited to write posts about sushi.  Its discouraging to write a post when you have limited adjectives to describe something you know is so delicious and special.  But sushi is just one of those baffling types of foods that words do not do justice.  Audio Monkey sans wifey and The Anti-Exerciser   plus wifey joined me for an omakase experience at Nozomi.  I do love tasting menus and omakase because it just takes the burden off myself to figure out what to order.


Sweet Lip 
I never had this before, but it was clean tasting.

Yellow Fin Sea Bream
Another fish I don't commonly eat, but it was solid.

Read more »

Little Sister

It seems like a lot of chefs these days are incorporating Asian flavors into their cooking.  I guess this is one of the aspects comprising "New American" cuisine.  I guess Little Sister isn't so much "New American" as it is "Asian/Asian fusion", but its smack dab in the middle of one of the whitest parts of the South Bay, Manhattan Beach, so that makes it American enough.

Grilled Pork Spring Roll "Nem Nuong" red leaf lettuce, mint, carrot, cucumber, house sauce
The "peanut" sauce was pretty bland, so the fish sauce was more flavorful.  The rolls themselves were just OK.  I can definitely make better ones myself.  They were also a bit too loosely wrapped.  No doubt, a spring roll wrapping noob was in the back making these.

Singapore Chili Soft Shelled Crab Banh Mi spiced tomato relish, pickled garlic
My dining companions, Old Bear and his gf, had never tried soft shell crab before.  After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I jumped at the chance to order this.  It was really solid.  I highly recommend this one.  I think I'll leave it at that.

Read more »

Maruhide Uni Club

In the past 2 years I've really developed an appreciation for uni.  Smooth Obturator would order it all the time but I would just give him and those ugly fleshy orange blobs the stink eye.  I don't really know when/how things changed for me, but I just can't get enough uni nowadays.  So when I heard about Maruhide Uni Club as a restaurant solely dedicated to serving uni bowls and other more interesting preparations of uni, I jumped at the chance to go.  Big Willie, who should probably be renamed to Ugly Mullet Head, and Speaker Monkey were down to join me for a slice of uni heaven.

The place is pretty spacious with high ceilings which is sort of unusual for Japanese restaurants as we all know.  They have a fridge with all sorts of uni preparations including the marinated uni, or uni shuntou.

Read more »

Otafuku Noodle House

Otafuku is just another one of the MANY Japanese restaurants populating the South Bay.  They call themselves a noodle house serving udon, soba, and the like but then they also have dons, skewers, sashimi.  It's confusing.  We came for lunch and I would have been pleased had I followed the cardinal rules of restaurant dining set forth by Anthony Bourdain: NEVER order the "Monday lunch special."

Pickled Cucumbers
Your standard accompaniments.

Pork Don
This was the lunch special.  It would have been tasty if the pork didn't taste old.  I should have known better, but it was "the special" and isn't "the special" supposed to be special?  I think they should rename it "the ESpecially old."  The flavoring was nice, probably a combination of miring, soy sauce, sugar, ginger, sake.  Triple F especially liked the side of spaghetti.  That pile of green was just a pile of cabbage with no dressing.  I guess you can say I was slightly disappointed.

Read more »

MB Post

What do I consider "LA"?  I get irritated when people say they live in LA, when really they live in Sherman Oaks or Pasadena or Redondo Beach.  I've lived in LA my entire adult life up until now, and I really only consider LA to the area bordered by the 110, 10, 405, and maybe Sunset.  I'm a total snob, what can I say?  And truly truly truly, the real LA, the LA you see on TV is only the area of Vine up until La Cienega going east/west and Hollywood down to Wilshire going north/south.  That was my hood for the past 3 years, and only in that time did I feel the real action of LA's dining scene because that area is packed with some of LA's finest and most noteworthy establishments.  There, you'll find restaurants like The Bazaar, Grace, Hatfield's, Providence, Osteria and Pizzeria Mozza, Urasawa, Animal, Son of a Gun, AOC, and more recently Ink, just to name a few.  So once you leave this square, or even the larger LA I described, dining options that peak your culinary curiosity and find worthy of spending a little extra dime become slim.  That is until MB Post.

MB Post was recently opened by the former executive chef at Water Grill, which for all intents and purposes is your typical boring, albeit high end, high quality, American seafood restaurant.  Granted, I was only there for dine LA and my favorite thing of the night was dessert, I would still stand by my assessment.  Knowing that coming in, I was pretty surprised at how different, and particularly, how Asian-influenced MB Post turned out to be.  I don't know why Triple T and Smooth Obturator hadn't ventured here yet since they only live down the street from the place, but I guess it made for a funner experience since we all got to try it for the first time together.



Bacon Cheddar Buttermilk Biscuit maple butter
The biscuits came 2 to an order, so I sadly did not get my own.  Luckily Triple T doesn't eat for 2 like she should, so I still got plenty to try.  It was butter, bacony, and not too cheesy.  The butter was delicious and just a touch sweet.  It was good, don't get me wrong, but I wish I had those biscuits at Lucille's Smokehouse to devour right about now.

Jamon Serrano 12 month aged, redondo iglesias, assorted pickles
I sorta laughed at Smooth Obturator as he proceeded to tell me MB Post was known for its charcuterie. Pssh, the cured meats section of the menu only had 4 choices.  If you want to be bombarded with charcuterie, please come to Portland, namely Olympic Provisions.  It's on every menu, unless the specialty of the house is Beef Chow Fun or Pad Thai.  Anyways, I thought the jamon was just ok.  The assorted pickles didn't actually come with the ham; it was an additional order.  Man oh man were those pickles SOUR!  Like seriously my eyes were twitching and my tongue was writhing.

Read more »

Inaba

Ok, so I feel like I've been blogging a lot about Japanese food in the South Bay.  So far, I have yet to be disappointed.  Inaba is home to some solid soba and udon dishes.  The menu had many choices, but I like to go with dinner sets when I can.  It's headache enough to choose a restaurant to go to for dinner, and sometimes, by the time you get there, you're just too overwhelmed to figure out what you want to eat.  Dinner sets or omakase are a good way to go during those moments.  Japanese people are so smart!!

Special Tempura Dinner Course appetizer, miso soup, sashimi, tempura, egg custard, rice, mini soba
This was Smooth Obturator's choice.  It was pretty filling.

This was a sort of sesame tofu.  It had all the texture of a firm tofu, but the taste of sesame instead of soybeans.  It was innovative and different, bordering on weird.

Your standard salad.

Read more »

Sen Nari Sushi

I had always been meaning to check out the foodie scene in South Bay (ie Torrance, Gardena, etc).  Perhaps "foodie" is an overstatement, but there are a fare number of highly rated Japanese restaurants in the area that both Smooth Obturator and Nancy Rheeeee have recommended at one time or another.  So I took it upon myself to brave the traffic and meet up with Me So Hairy! in his neck of the woods.  I've been told time and time again that the best way to experience sushi is omakase, which leaves the selection to the chef.  That way, you are getting the freshest and best selection of sushi.  Most times, I've been asked what I do not like to eat.  Here, they just started serving us, so I ended up getting things I don't normally eat.

Very very special 
That was the response when we asked our sushi chef what it was he was serving us.  It looked and tasted like monkfish liver, foie gras of the sea, as some may describe it.  Sometimes I like it, and sometimes I don't.  It really depends on how fishy it tastes and smells.  This one was on the fishier side, but I am no expert and maybe monkfish liver will always be fishy.  It tasted like it was drizzled with some ponzu which helped to mask the fishiness.

Seared Bonito
The fish was just lightly seared on the exterior and retained its rare meaty texture within.  There was only a light drizzle of ponzu.  The added finely chopped ginger and scallions on top brought out some nice flavor to the fish and cut the fishiness of the bonito which apparently is in the mackerel family.

Read more »

Chowder Cook Off

Since Smooth Obturator moved to beach, he's been trying to embrace the true "California fun in the sun" lifestyle and culture.  He goes running on the beach, bike riding up to Santa Monica and down to Redondo Beach, and occasionally surfing if he feels like looking like a fool.  It's been nice to have a place to go to that's right on the beach, even though it's not my own place.  On one gloomy weekend, my mom, Smooth Obturator, and Triple T rode bikes down to Redondo Beach to catch a chowder cook-off near the pier.  Also in this area, there is a small seafood market that sells fresh shellfish like crabs, oysters, and clams and fry joint next door that sells prepared foods like ceviche, fried shrimp, french fries, fried oysters, etc.

Fresh Seafood
You can select the different sorts of oysters you'd like to be shucked.  You can also pick from a good selection of different crabs to be steamed on request.


Chowder Cook Off
I'm not really sure which "charity" they were raising money for and I forgot to ask.  For $7 you got to have 5 samplings out of the 12 vendors serving chowder.  Only one booth was offering Manhattan Clam Chowder.  Everyone else was serving your regular New England Clam Chowder.  In the end you vote for your favorite.


For the most part, none of the chowders were that amazing.  The ones that stood out were the ones that had a nice use of herbs like rosemary and were chunky with plenty of potatoes, veggies, and clams.  The one in the bottom middle was frankly offensive for being watery and salty.  I was the only one that paid the $7 for the chowder sampling.  Smooth Obturator would have preferred I sample all the chowders and then tell him which one was worth buying a big bowl.  

Read more »

Hakata Ramen Shinsengumi

I'm actually not a fan of Shinsengumi's ramen.  I prefer Santouka by far and Daikokuya is not bad either.  I do like Shinsegumi for the other food options, that in combination with the ramen, make for a delicious meal.

Hakata Ramen
At Shinsegumi, they allow you the option of choosing your level of oil, salt, and noodle texture.  Usually I go medium for all of them, but I wished I had opted for more salt because my bowl of noodles was a bit on the bland side.  I'm not a huge fan of the noodles either.  When I think of ramen, I think of curly thick noodles.  The broth is definitely rich in porky-ness, but somehow lacks that tastiness that I enjoy at Santouka. 


Here the noodles are thinner and straight.  They just don't have that same oomph.  They do allow you to order extra portions of noodles to keep adding to your bowl of soup.  Some obese man sitting at the table behind me was jonesing for some diabetes because he had about 4 or 5 orders for extra noodles.

Read more »

SUGARFISH by sushi nozawa

Sugarfish has been on my radar for a while but I never got around to trying it.  I was reminded of this by the many recent blogger posts on the new Sugarfish that recently opened in Downtown LA.  So I feel like a bit of a bandwagoner with this, but perhaps I can stand apart because I did not dine in Downtown, but rather Marina Del Rey at the original Sugarfish.   My dining companions for the evening, Miss Rheeee and Me So Hairy! decided on this more central location.

Sugarfish is an offshoot of Kazunori Nozawa's original and more traditional sushi restaurant in Studio City, Sushi Nozawa.  His mission at Sugarfish is to provide similarly high quality sushi, but at an affordable price by cutting out the sushi bar, and streamlining service.   At both locales, Chef Nozawa aka "Sushi Nazi" serves his infamous "Trust Me" style of sushi, where we, as diners, basically trust that he is going to serve you the best damn sushi without the frills and distraction of fancy sauces, rolls, or fusion flavors.   Also, Chef Nozawa hand picks the sushi to be served in all his restaurants, so the quality is consistent throughout.

In addition to ordering a la carte, you have the option of 3 pre-set menus: The Nozawa ($35-$38), Trust Me ($28.50), andTrust Me/Lite ($19.50).  As most diners go with the pre-set menus, we all opted for the "Trust Me" while I added an order of the "Daily Special" which happened to be large scallop.

The most notable thing about the sushi here, aside from the fresh high quality fish, is the rice.  It's served pretty warm.  While I have experienced the "warm sushi rice" style at Sushi Sasabune and found it utterly unappetizing, I thoroughly enjoyed it here.   The main difference was that the fish didn't taste like it was being cooked while sitting atop the rice.  The contrast of the chilled fish and the warm rice made for a nice little party in my mouth!   The rice was also seasoned deliciously.  Probably the tastiest sushi rice I've had.

Organic Edamame
Edamame isn't something terrible special, but this version was pretty good.  It was chilled, perfectly salted, and with each little bean soft and substantial.


Tuna Sashimi big eye
The fish was fresh and perfectly complimented by the home made ponzu and sprinkling of green onions.  I can't pinpoint what was so special about the ponzu, but it was very tasty and I really wanted to get every last drop in my mouth.

Read more »