Yoku Yoku / Palms and Sepulvda – Feburary 11, 2007

I really like Pinkberry, but when I see ripoffs I’ve got to try them.  I was driving down Palms when I saw this place.  At first glance, I knew it was some sort of yogurt or ice-cream store.  But little did I know the explicit copying of Pinkberry I was about to see.  When I walked in, the first thing I noticed is that they used the same light fixture that Pinkberry has.  Even the color coordination was a straight copycat of Pinkberry.  I can understand trying to start something based on the yogurt craze, but this was just blatent copying of their brand.   The inside was actually pretty cheesy since the quality of construction was terrible, coming from an Architect’s point-of-view.  They did serve the Pinkberry wannabe yogurt and it was ok.  But their main product is Gelato.  I didn’t care to try that since I know of better places on the westside and i’m not a big fan of gelato.

Good luck to these guys.  Remember what happened to KiwiBerry?

 

Santouka Ramen / Centinela and Venice – Feburary 10, 2007

On a beautiful LA saturday afternoon, we decided to hit the new Santouka Ramen off Venice and Centinela. The restaurant is located inside the Mitsuwa Marketplace foodcourt and they’ve renovated the place. The renovation looks okay, but I’ve noticed that their are alot more people compared to when it was still old-school looking. Parking is now a problem. I used to come here about 5 years ago when I was in graduate school and I loved the cheap prices on the food. There has been some positive rumblings on other foodblogs about this place. Specifically, I heard about this restaurant from Rameniac.com. We’re big fans of Japanese Ramen and have visited about 5 of these places around LA. My wife’s favorite is the one down in Gardena, called Hakata.

The combinations are a great deal for what you get. I got the Salt Ramen Combo with Salmon Roe rice and my wife got the Salt Ramen Combo with Leaks Rice. They have some other Ramen, but we’re just intersted in the Salt Ramen. They have Shio Ramen, but I think the ramen restaurants off Sawtelle is better for it. But I do need to try the Shio Ramen here.

As you can see, the soup looks delicious. It has this milky and transluscent look which means that the pork bones have been cooking for a while. The smell is fantastic and it tastes great. I love this soup!!! I was sick last week and I came straight here and it felt so good to eat this. The noodles are perfectly made and is not too soft or hard, although I like my noodles hard. My wife also loved hers and she finshed off everything. You actually don’t need to order the combos if you want to go really cheap. A regular bowl is like $6.00.

The only issues I have with Ramen is that pork based soup makes me feal really full. Sometimes I feel sort of sick. I think that their must be a large amount of pork fat in the soup. The last time I ate here I felt very full, but I did have the large bowl. But this time my wife noticed that the soups tasted was better then last time and I agreed with her that the soup was really good this time around. But I’ve had this experience at the Ramen restaurant in Gardena.

So if you don’t want to deal with parking around Sawtelle, come here before it gets really bad. Lines are starting to form every time I come here.

 

Moon / LaBrea and Santa Monica – Feburary 09, 2007

For lunch, Christian, a co-worker, and I went to our usual Japanese restaurant close to our office. It’s called “Moon” and it is located at the intersection of LaBrea and Santa Monica in the same strip mall where Subway is located. Our office moved here about a year ago and somebody found this restaurant. From the outside you can’t look inside and it doesn’t look like much. I don’t see how anyone would find this place unless you worked around here. I was a little suspicious of the place because know one knew anything about it. I feel like the restaurant was trying to keep a low profile within it’s context. The area looks pretty run down and their’s a lot of prostitutes and shady people around the area, but their are a lot of creative company’s that have offices around here. I have to assume a lot of their business comes from the lunch crowd.

The food is actually pretty good. Christian always gets the same salmon teriyaki dish and always has to ask for extra rice and a fork. I wish he would just learn how to use chopsticks. I always get a sashimi combo or sushi combo. For some reason the sashimi was really good today. The fish was cut up with a lot of precision and it’s never like this usually. The salmon was very thin and flavorful and the yellowtail had a slight oil flavoring which was great. The presentation of the sashimi had more thought to it then usual. Maybe it was well done today because we were the first in the restaurant. I’ve had some of their teriyaki dishes and sometimes they over do it with the sauce. But I think a lot of restaurants over do it. Although the restaurants seems out of place, the food is well worth the visit. The price is reasonable for what you get and they always remember who you are.

Anyways, I will continue to go there for lunch and I would highly recommend this place if you live around here. But be warned, the parking is terrible and their isn’t a safe place to park for 2 blocks. I am definitely going to try to come here for dinner because they do have specials that sound really good.

This restaurant brings up an interesting thought. The restaurant is in a bad area and can be barely seen. In its context it tries to stand out with it’s big wooden sign, but it’s neighbors just look like crap. How will this restaurant survive within this area? How long before it goes bust and changes owner? I hope they do well because I like the food and area this area could use a nice lunch crowd.

 

Where to start? – 02/08/2007

Although not in Los Angeles, I’ll start with my trip to Japan last August. Me and my wife went to the famous Tsukiji fish market that you always hear about on the travel channels. Unfortunately, we didn’t get up early enough to see the morning catch, but we did get to eat at one of the small restaurants in the market. Their’s actually a good number of restaurants their to make your trip worth while. One of the restaurants had a long line but it was a for fried seafood. But we were there for sushi so we went into one where their weren’t many people. It was actually 10am by the time we got there. As usual in Japanese restaurants, their were no tables, just a booth. As soon as we walked in the waitress knew we were foreigners, so she took out her laser beam and just started to point at the pictures of the shushi.

I ordered a shirashi set with tuna and salmon. Let me tell you, the tuna was the most amazing tuna i’ve ever had. Some of the tuna served in the states can be completey tasteless. But this tuna just melted in my mouth like butter. It had this deep deep purple color and just buttery. The salmon was great as well. I think this was the best sushi breakfast i’ve ever had and it was really cheap.