Recent additions

1. Foo Foo Tei (Hacienda Heights)

I've written about Foo Foo before, but it won't hurt to write about them again. Foo Foo, from the flourescent lit lack of ambience to the fairly basic food, reminds me of a place I might have visited on a little side street in Tokyo (or any other Japanese city), away from the dimly lit, well chiseled houses of cool that make you feel more worldly than you really are. Foo Foo would not fit in the center of Shibuya or Ebisu, but you wonder if the people that visit Shibuya or Ebisu on the weekends would be eating every meal at Foo Foo during the week. The restaurant, provided you arrive after 5 PM, will be filled with a mixture of Rowland Heights Chinese, a few Japanese here and there (this according to my wife, who claims to actually be able to tell), and the assorted random white guy or girl who reads rameniac.

There are about 15 styles of ramen on the menu (including a Menudo ramen that is actually really good), but you're probably better off at Santouka or Asa, or even Hakata Shin Sen Gumi Ramen, unless you actually live in Hacienda Heights and can't make it into LA. What should you order? There's a long list of set plates, from grilled mackerel to sea bass to fried chicken wings. The tuna bowl, with tuna sashimi and green onions atop rice with a bit of what I suspect is Siracha, is something I feel I could eat once a day and never tire of it. The crux of the Foo Foo experience, though, may lie in the appetizers: grilled squid, takoyaki, fried stuffed tofu, to name a few, all of which should be unified, along with everything else on the menu, with large helpings of the chopped and blended garlic paste on every table.



2. Taco truck on Vermont and 6th (or is it 5th?)

When I finally tried this place, after countless glances, the Chicken torta, dressed with a seemingly endless supply of fresh salsas, cilantro, and raw onion, convinced me it was the best taco truck ever. Maybe it's the ambience of the truck, smack dab in the middle of Koreatown, really one of the truly exciting and great places after dark in LA, whether you want regional Mexican, live seafood with Hite, vintage arcade games, or more licentious diversions of which I can only speak second hand. Since then, after a good meal and a so-so meal (admittedly, I brought it home so maybe it suffered in the drive) I've come to believe this truck is merely really good. Of course there are worse things to do with a Saturday night than enjoy really good tacos, huraches, tortas etc., combined with the opportunity to sit in lawn chairs watching a boxing match, or a Dodger game.

3. Pa Ord Noodle (Thaitown)
I'm an Ord Noodle traitor. I was once loyal to this still, no doubt, fine purveyor of Thai noodles, so much so that I wrote about it to seemingly hyperbolic lengths on this or another food blog. But sometime, after awhile, Ord became maddeningly inconsistent, as if showing up on the wrong day, or night, meant that you missed the good cook and had to sit through the products of the B team. So when I heard that a new restaurant, run by expatriots from Ord (one of the original owners?), had opened on Sunset, right below Ord, I was somewhat curious as to what I would get. To be fair, we've only been to Pa twice, a sample size that could easily skip over the inconsistencies, if there are any. So far, we haven't been disappointed.

I had become quite a fan of the Yen Ta Fo at Sanamluang, and still am. But the more appropriately spiced (read: better) version at Pa Ord (above) has become my standby item.

Thai Boat Noodles. I still say these (and those at Ord) are just as good as the more heralded version at Sapp.

Papaya salad (maybe not quite as good as the version at Ruen Pair). There's also Thai sausage and a Catfish curry dish I've yet to try.



4. Gueleguetza (Koreatown)

I will always count the experience of eating a seemingly bicycle wheel sized tclayuda at the taco truck on Rose and Venice around 6:45 on a summer day as the sun starts to lower as one of the great LA experiences. Eating a similar tclayuda, topped with chapulines (grasshoppers), with the drink pictured below (I think it's called Coctel Donaji), all the while fighting a mariachi band for supremacy in an effort to talk to your dinnermates, while not as romantic, is also worthwhile. I won't pretend to know about the many other dishes on the menu, many of which feature moles (I like but don't love mole), but all the real critics love them.

5. Wurstkuche (Downtown Art District/Little Tokyo)

Wurstkuche has gone from a bit overrated in my mind to one of my staple destinations when trying to organize a group outing. I'm not going to lie and suggest that I can really tell the difference between a rattlesnake sausage and a buffalo sausage, but I will say that, when paired with one of the many beers they offer, and a side of fries (with curry or chipotle ketchup), the results exceed what one might expect from the ingredients.

6. Mario's Italian Deli (Glendale)

So, no, I haven't been to Bay Cities yet (Westside traffic is more of a once every two months thing for me) or Eastside Deli (not sure why) but for now, I'm content with Mario's (I still haven't written about the also-deserving Lanza's but that will surely come when I have time to go take some pictures). I was a bit suspect of the practice of putting a slice of bread in the middle of the sandwich at first, but yes, it works.

7. Tasty Garden (San Gabriel Valley)

The noodles here are fine, as are the crispy, fried frog legs, and the salt and pepper shrimp, but the dish that would call me back is the house chicken, which one yelper describes as "nothing more than cold ginger chicken" though I feel like there's something else, maybe a subtle Chinese mustard, in the mix. I'm a huge fan of cold fried chicken (once a year) so I guess that partly explains it.

8. 101 Noodle Express (San Gabriel Valley)

The beef roll, or the chicken roll (which I actually prefer), should be on every citizen of this city's short list. There's even a green chile salsa on par with anything you'll find in East LA or Thai Town.