Restaurants | fabliss

Blue Plate Oysterette | Santa Monica, CA

it was a bittersweet dinner. a good friend and colleague of mine is heading back to japan with his wonderful wife (who i just had the privilege of meeting). he and i, along with a handful of other people, went through a (what seemed like the longest) training program together. during this 1+ year period, we grew close since we saw each other every day, studied together, struggled together…these are the people who i started my career with.

fast forward four years. i am sitting here wishing him a bon voyage and reminiscing about days we took for granted. during the training program, he got married, i got married, i got a house, and we developed our food palette (him on the west side and me in the valley/everywhere else). it was good to see him and to finally meet the wife i have heard so much about.

since we were all foodies, we decided to try blue blate oysterette in santa monica.

the food: we hit a gem. i say this because i definitely think its harder to go somewhere and like pretty much everything that is set in front of you. we definitely were too aggressive with the ordering and overestimated our stomach capacity. so on yelp, this place had 3.5 stars 368 reviews. since i quickly glanced at this before dinner, i didnt really think i was going to be blown away by any means. here is was we ordered (i will give my comments at the end):

raw oysters (east coast will remain my favorite)
2 orders of new england clam chowder – has bacon in it.
butter lettuce salad with steak
lobster mac and cheese – maine lobster, gruyere, herbs, truffle oil.
mussels – rosemary, garlic, lemon, red curry, iron skillet roasted. (my favorite)
fried seafood combo – calamari, oysters, shrimp, fried.
lobster roll – maine lobster, brioche roll. melts in my mouth and comes with french fries.

this place is a little pricey, but then again, its a great location near the water and its seafood. i saw the menu and knew we had to get the lobster roll (because kyle and i get this every where we go: nyc and hungry cat). our server recommended the lobster mac and cheese and the mussels, which turned out to be my favorite dish! hands down one of the best mussels i have ever had (a close tie with mussels at firefly in studio city). lobster mac and cheese was also very good. clam chowder good. however, keep in mind that there is bacon in it, which is overpowering. fried seafood combo was also good (comes with two yummy dipping sauces).

the curry mussels were a winner. the sauce was so delicious. mussels were hot.

the lobster roll was good but short of mind blowing.

so i read some of the reviews on yelp on this place right now and a lot of them have to do with the price of some of these dishes (lobster roll is $22 and small. i think this is pretty market. we paid the same thing in nyc and at hungry cat in hollywood), long waiting time with no reservations (we didnt mind so much. is this because we were in good company?) and that the lobster roll came cold (i laughed at this one). i liked this place a lot and look forward to taking kyle here.

small note: these pictures were taken with the canon s95. its a pretty awesome point and shoot, huh?

Blue Plate Oysterette
1355 Ocean Ave
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Neighborhood: Santa Monica

By vivilinh | July 21st, 2012 | Food, Friends, Life, Restaurants | 0 Comments

Cold Noodles @ Myung Dong Kyoja | Koreatown

food adventures in k-town are absolutely the best! especially with our friends e & c who know the area so well. on this specific day, we were craving cold korean noodles since its been so hot recently. they took us to myung dong kyoja on wilshire. this place is apparently open 24/7! crazy, isnt it? so a perk from having awesome friends who speak korean, they ordered for us!

food: cold noodles, cold noodles, cold noodles! its what they are known for and rightfully so. before this, all i knew was dong chi mi gookso from corner place. mind blown. this is definitely a perfect place to eat on a hot day and surprisingly, it could be considered a rather light dinner (if you dont order any kbbq). side note: dumplings were also very yummy! (we got them as an appetizer). kyle and i are absolutely in love with kimchi. let me give you the low down on the kimchi served at this establishment: you will smell all night and into the next day. this stuff is strong! be prepared…consider yourself warned.
service: friendly
parking: no issues on the street

Myung Dong Kyoja
3630 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA

so not only did e & c take us to this place, on top of that, they took us to a korean bakery nearby (in a supermarket plaza). where, i should mention, we ate red bean filled donuts and ice cream bars! i die.

i dream about this donut quite often. sick, i know.

Bosco Bakery Cafe
928 S Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA

By vivilinh | July 17th, 2012 | Dessert, Food, Restaurants | 0 Comments

Bow & Truss {opening week} | North Hollywood

friday we decided to make reservations to bow & truss, which opened up earlier this week! so this restaurant is brought to you by morgan margolis of knitting factory entertainment (same guy who brought us the gem also known as the federal bar in noho). theme: spanish tavern. this is a tapas-style establishment so bring your amigos. the architect and design here is pretty awesome. think: modern car garage/studio and then insert two bars (inside and out) and large booth seating. boom.

our waitress and staff there in general are pretty friendly & awesome. the waitress warned us that the small plates come out at different times (thanks for the warning) so it was a little hard given that most of us were starving. my favorite things were lobster ceviche and the tacos.

food: food here was disappointing. don’t get me wrong, none of it was bad by any means but very unremarkable. i was hoping the paella would be great (presentation was great) but it was not very flavorful. we thought the tacos were good.
ambience: i want to come back here just to hang out at the outside bar.
service: slow but they did warn us that food comes out randomly and in no given order.
parking: street parking. valet is also an option… but you can probably find something on magnolia. you may have to walk a little… but you will find a spot.
overall: nothing i can really rave about except for the concept and the bar (inside and outside). i’m grate there is another spot that opened up in our neighborhood. i just wish it was better than what we experienced.

photography: so our reservation was at 7:30pm. we didnt really order until 8pm. i was struggling with a few of the dishes that came later since there was barely any light coming from the skylight. (i had to use some of the light coming from that tiny little candle). note to self, if thinking of taking pictures with DSLR, make a slightly earlier reservation through the summer or order immediately!
Bow & Truss
11122 Magnolia Blvd
North Hollywood, CA 91601
Neighborhood: North Hollywood

By vivilinh | July 14th, 2012 | Food, Restaurants | 0 Comments

Mr. Pizza | Koreatown, Los Angeles

hello friends. its been a short, yet rough week for me. today’s post is a long overdue post on our food adventure in koreatown. i’ve been hearing so much about mr. pizza from our friends both from LA and out of towners. we finally tried it! so this place is known for their pizza crust filled with sweet potato mousse (sounds weird right?)…i didn’t understand how this could be good.

we decided to order:

bulgogi pizza
bbq chicken pizza
teriyaki pizza

verdict: it is delicious!! potato – awesome. bulgogi – double awesome. genius. this place makes LA pretty awesome. (that last line is for a certain someone who we are trying to convince to move down to los angeles from norcal) anyway, please go to mr. pizza and try this yourself! you’re looking around $24-30 for a large pizza…or you can also say $24-30 for happiness. either way, i would recommend the bulgogi pizza! tell me what ya think!

happy friday!

Mr. Pizza
3881 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90010
Neighborhood: Koreatown

By vivilinh | July 6th, 2012 | Food, Restaurants | 6 Comments

nyc part IV – food adventures

on monday we panicked since we realized there were still so many places we wanted to try. so we woke up at 7am to go to russ & daughters on the lower east side. yelp: 463 reviews. 4.5 stars. top tips: scallion cream cheese, smoked salmon and bagel. we had to try it since last time we loved murray’s bagel (best bagel we ever had). it was pouring outside and our taxi didn’t drop us off right in front of the bagel joint so we had to run about 4 blocks. drenched. verdict: totally worth it. the smoked salmon with scallion cream cheese – delicious! however, the bagel itself was a little hard (the bagel at murray’s is better). this place is a a market so there was no where to sit and enjoy the bagel so we had to eat it outside in the rain! we were still happy campers.

our next stop was katz’s delicatessan. from what we heard, best pastrami in the city. since it was down the street from russ & daughters, we stopped in there. last time we ate at carnegie’s deli so wanted something to compare it to. yelp: 2651 reviews. four stars. we got:

matzo ball soup
pastrami and corned beef on rye with mustard (we really wanted to get it with mayo but didnt want to be yelled at)

according to kyle (pastrami lover and lover of all meats), it really was the best pastrami he has had. mission accomplished. after our two-part breakfast, we walked around soho to do some shopping and visit dean & deluca for a nice cup on coffee.

it’s like we never stop eating. we met up with katy to grub at clinton st. baking company on the lower east side. (recommended to us by lauren) this place apparently is always packed and that was no exception on a monday. our wait was an hour and 45 minutes. we were fine with the wait since 1432 yelpers gave it an average of 4 stars! another need-to-try-for-ourselves place. since we had so much time to kill, we decided to grab some snacks in chinatown!

vanessa’s dumpling house. 881 yelp reviews. 4 stars. (why does new york have such great food?) we got some steamed dumplings and a roasted pork sesame pancake to go. since katy used to live down the street from this place, she ordered for us. her favorite thing to get was the sesame pancake. this was amazing and its only $2.50! the dumplings were also good but overshadowed by the awesomeness known as the sesame pancake. since i was also craving some milk tea, katy took us to quickly to get some boba! as you can imagine, we were starting to get full after eating vanessa’s and drinking the tea.

the time came when we got seated. we got:

clinton st. omelette with biscuit
fried chicken sandwich
fresh strawberry layered cake

the fried chicken sandwich is a really, really good sandwich and i would definitely recommend. is it the best? no. i think the fried chicken sandwich is better at son-of-a-gun in los angeles but this one is up there with my favorites. i cant opine on katy’s omelette because we dont really like eggs but the hash browns were really good. they both agreed to get the strawberry layered cake for me since i dont eat chocolate. it was good but the frosting was way too sweet.

by the end of the meal i think we all felt like complete food coma. we walked through little italy and ran into lombardi’s pizza (a place that we wanted to try but when to artichoke instead). we didnt have the stomach to get a slice. next time!

dont worry we definitely continued this food adventure into dinner at boukies, drinks at maya, then dessert at max brenner and then midnight snack at halal cart. since it started raining, we decided not to bring out the dslr. why is food in nyc so good? we will definitely be going on a diet after we get back to los angeles.

By vivilinh | July 3rd, 2012 | Food, New York, Restaurants, Travel | 4 Comments

Previous 29 30 31 32 33 Next