Kinjiro

Oishi Nazi, who I dined with at my first visit to Totoraku, is the brain child behind Kinjiro, Little Tokyo's newest izakaya restaurant.  He actually operated b.o.s., the restaurant which previously occupied the same space.  b.o.s. had some amazing food, but it didn't quite get the following it deserved.  So Oishi Nazi, being the passionate and ambitious restauranteur that he is, is back at it again with this new concept, a slightly higher end izakaya.  At first, I was reluctant about Kinjiro because the whole point of izakaya is small eats, grilled things, a mish mosh of stuff to be enjoyed over beer.  So the idea of paying more for food that's meant to be casual and inexpensive did not seem appealing.  Smooth Obturator and Triple T went and gave it their seal of approval, so I figured I needed to give it a shot. 

Kinjiro Agedashi Homemade Tofu mushroom ankake sauce
Triple T talked up this dish saying it was as good as the agedashi tofu at Raku.  It didn't quite hit the mark, but it was still pretty tasty.  I wasn't used to the thickness of the ankake sauce, but it brought a delicious umaminess.

Kinjiro Free Range Chicken Maki-Age
I had a similar dish at Raku, but I think they did a better job here, though I can't pinpoint the reasons. It was just very juicy.

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Niwattori

What is Niwatori?  Smooth Obturator called it a "chicken place," so that probably explains why I never jumped at the chance to eat here.  Chicken is definitely not something I get excited for.  I rarely order chicken when I dine at fancy restaurants, because I feel like chicken is just so ordinary.  I woudln't want to eat anything at a restaurant that I could eat at home.

DonBon was in town for some business so he called up his cousins, myself and Smooth Obturator to see if we were free for dinner.  I figured if I was going to drive an hour to get to the South Bay that we might as well eat around there too.  Finally, I relented and agreed to go to the "chicken place" since my brother said it was quite special.  They're specialty is Jidori chicken, which to this day I'm still not quite sure what that means.

Asazuke lightly pickled vegetables
After making all our selections, we noticed a dearth of greenery.  I just love pickled vegetables.  I can eat them plain, but of course they taste best eaten with rice and meat.  Yum!  These were more on the salty pickled side (as opposed to sour or sweet) but had some bite to it with thin slivers of ginger that were pickled too.

Cold Chawanmushi chilled egg custard, shrimp, crab meat
I was quite impressed with this, mostly because it was pretty chilly!  But it was very smooth with decent sized chunks of fresh sweet shrimp and crab.  I really liked the jelly stuff on top which was probably some congealed broth or sauce of sorts.  It added a bit of sweet soy taste.

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Honda Ya Izakaya

Honda-Ya is located in the Little Tokyo Mall in Downtown Japan.  It’s a sad mall, with only a few saving graces such as Beard Papa’s and restaurants like Honda-Ya.  I like Japanese people.  I like Japanese cars.  I like Japanese food.  I don’t like how Japanese sit on the floor to eat.   I was reminded of this when we were seated in the tatami room on cushy pillows.  Maybe I would have been happier if my pants weren’t so damn tight.  No folks, I am not the fat ass you all think I am.  I’m just a trend follower and chose to wear the skinniest of skinny jeans this evening.    But I’m a trooper.  I suck it up when it comes to eating, or more like suck it in…

Yakitori

Big Head Talks A Lot and Lo-Ma Linda had been to the Honda-Ya in Tustin many times so I just let Big Head do the ordering.  We started off with some yakitori items, which for the most part were pretty standard in quality and flavor.  Nothing particularly knocked my socks off except for the chicken meatballs and maybe the bacon wrapped scallop.  I found them both really juicy and flavorful and wanted a whole stick of chicken meatballs as opposed to just one meatball for myself.  The corn gave some nice balance to all the protein.

Bacon wrapped asparagus (left to right)

Pork belly

Chicken meatballs

Chicken gizzard

Bacon wrapped scallop

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Musha

I often don't get too many opportunities to try small portioned foods such as izakaya, yakitori, or tapas (somehow dim sum does not fall under this category) because Dumpling Man likes his food in large sizable quantities.  My sister on the other hand, Triple F (for Food, Fun, and Frivolity),  not to be confused with my sister-in-law, Triple T, loves small portioned little eats.   So we went to Musha, a very popular izakaya/fusion type place in Santa Monica.  I overslept and almost didn't go to meet my family, but I am glad I did.  This place was fantastic!

Spicy Tuna Dip with crispy rice crackers

As sisters, Triple F and I naturally share a love for many things, Tea Station Green Milk Tea, anything shrimp, men who are poor communicators, and spicy tuna!  We both agreed this dish was Mmm Mmm Good!  For once, spicy tuna was NOT served on some stinking "cruchy" rice ball, like at Katsu-Ya and many other Japanese fusion joints.  This was like eat chips and dip, but like 100x better!

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Ronin Izakaya

First off, I'm super happy people think my pictures qualities have improved to the point of d-slr quality! I'm sure thats an exaggeration but still, I'll take it where I can get it. It's probably multi-factorial. For one thing, I was previously linking picture thru the blogger upload picture function. Somehow the pictures were blurry and small. Anyways, I've directly embedded the photos into the html code. Plus I've learned to take pictures without flash. I never realized how horrible flash changes pictures. So seriously, however the food looks in the picture, for better or worse, that's how I saw the food myself. The downside of sans flash is the pics come out pretty blurry so I've learned to steady my arms as much as possible. Whatever, all very technical and boring but the result is more deliciousness!

Secondly, I'm glad people are reading and commenting but please do leave your name and don't post anonymously so that I can have stimulating culinary conversations with you later if I choose.

Food time!

This restaurant just recently made it to my radar aka bookmark section my yelp. It was lower on my priority list since it seemed on the fancier side, less quantity more quality, which for everyday eats doesn't make the cut. Fortunately Root Canal Man has been here and suggested it for dinner with our new bretheren from the Central Motherland. Ronin Izakaya is like Japanese/Asian Fusion tapas. Tapas can get damn expensive, and surely this place was no exception. I think this first dish was complimentary becuz we didn't order it but it was on the menu for $3. Edamame, sauteed in butter and garlic. I was starving so it was disappeared in a flash. Special but not special at the same time.

This next dish was probably THE BEST dish of the night and I would certainly go back just to eat a few orders of this dish and something else. Ahi Tuna Taco Shimi is some ahi tuna over guacamole on some sorta chip all covered in some sauce. Very vague, but all you need to know is that it was DELICIOUS. For 7 ppl we ordered 2 orders initially and then got a 3rd during round 2.

I have this obsession with agedashi tofu ever since trying it at Kappo Honda and Shin Sen Gumi. At those restaurants, it's not just fried tofu. It sounds gross, but there its fried and crispy yet at the same time gelatinous and chewy batter. I dunno, go there and try me and you'll know what I'm talking about. Anyways, everywhere else I go it's just fried tofu in a pond of saucey stock. This place was no different.


Be it out of habit, tradition, or simple ridiculous obsession/addiction we ordered Fried Calamari for Green Milk Tea Girl. Honestly, it tasted like salt and pepper squid from a Chinese restaurant. Just OK.


In my hunger which I could just barely control, I only rememebered to take a picture this picture after we'd eaten half. It was miso cod with some potatoe puree. It was not good as you can see that it doesn't look good either. That purple stuff was the puree of something, maybe taro. It just had a weird texture and the fish was just like any other miso-ed out fish. Not that special.


Oooooo, this next dish Beef Tataki Salad was definitely my next favorite dish after the taco shimi one. The beef had this smoky charred taste and probably looked slightly overcooked than what we were expecting for anything "tataki" but still tasted great. The salad underneath had this really tastey dressing. I just love Japanese salad dressings. I love to go to the Japanese market and hang out in the salad dressing aisle picking out new dressings to try. Unfortunately, because I do not read Japanese, I pick dressings based on the colors and pictures on the dressing labels. This dish got ordered again for round 2.


If you read this blog you can figure out why we ordered the dumplings. Totally unspecial and I could certainly make better ones.




Trio of sashimi, tuna, yellowtail and I dunno what the 3rd one was. All very delicious and I would order it again.


Clams. They were sitting in some delicious broth served with some crispy baguette chips. I wished to take sips by the spoonful but I didn't have a spoon. Maybe I'd order it again.


Everyone loved the duck dish, but I musta got a bad piece that wasn't that flavorful and all that black stuff underneath is risotto or something.


Dynamite scallops and mochi. Yes. Mochi. I don't think any bites I got had mochi, just scallops and lotsa fattening dynamite junk. It was good for dynamite since I usually don't like anything dynamite.



Lamb chops served with some sweet mint jelly. The lamb chops seemed like they were served not piping hot. We were not impressed.


After all that protein, we had to ordered some starch. It tasted like spaghetti and chunks of pork or sausage type meats. The noodles were flavorful and there was definitely a healthy portion of oil used but I think I'll pass next time.


The obligatory crab cake. It was seriously a crab square, very strange. It was impressively more crab than cake. So props to that I suppose, but maybe for once more cake would be nice.


Shrimp scampi. Yeah for shrimp! But it wasn't that memorable.


Ok, I'm tired and I'm sure you're bored. In short, come here for intimate date or small gathering, don't come starving, and there's parking in the back. Stay tuned for Michael Mina, Las Vegas.

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