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.

Thailand

This is what greeted us, thankfully, after a 22 hour sleepless trip: juk with thousand year old egg, fresh ginger, green onion and essential white pepper. The spot was one of the ubiquitous bare walled roadside restaurants in Bangkok. It was 2 AM and the family that ran the place was chopping onion next to us as we ate.

Pics below from a place on a relatively quiet street in Chinatown I would have never found on my own. The fish was simple and amazing. I think I ate 75% of the pieces of garlic by myself, each paired with a piece of fish and a few pieces of chili.

Shark fin soup. As good as I had hoped.

The crab that soon became part of my dinner (below).

Bangkok mall food courts can be amazing. For one, they're ice cold which is basically a godsend even in what they might refer to as Winter in Bangkok, where it's only around 95, with about 1000% humidity. These pictures are from the Siam Paragon food court which, in addition to housing a really nice grocery store, features a pretty good variety of non-Thai vendors (if you get sick of Thai food) as well as about 15 or so Thai/Southeast Asian vendors with the usual standbys you'll recognize on any trip to Bangkok. Some of these are featured below, beginning with the shaved ice we shared at meal's end. One of my chief regrets, besides not making a reservation early enough for the seafood buffet at Lord Jim, at the Oriental Hotel, is not eating any of the Thai-Indian food they serve in these food courts. Hopefully there will be a next time.

There's a place somewhere a bit north of the Banglamphu historic district, a place I hope I can visit again if I'm lucky enough to make it back to Bangkok again. The name translates as Grandma's Place and, in a number of ways the name seems appropriate. The restaurant exists in a house, with the dining room separated into at least two small rooms, all decorated with vintage black and whites like the two below. There's a karoake machine that any patron may utilize. There's also a stack of books sitting by the cash register with at least one book by Noam Chomsky stacked atop a bunch of other books on contemporary affairs. They go out of their way to let patrons know they do not use MSG and, moreover, that MSG=death. Anyway, the food is really good, even without the MSG.

One of their versions of larb.

Crispy fried catfish with apples, a dish we were told has become somewhat out of fashion because of health concerns.

Pork with kimchee.

One of the sour/sweet soups I can't get enough of.

MK (below)is a pretty popular chain in Thailand. You can find it just about anywhere, particularly at malls. Their draw is sukiyaki, served after you look through a huge menu of meats and veggies and determine exactly what you want in your sukiyaki. The hot pot is fine, but the most interesting and entertaining part comes at the beginning of every hour, when the candy-striperesque waitstaff comes out on the floor in unison and performs some kind of choreographed welcome dance. It's weird, believe me, and you can just see the looks of "I can't fucking believe we have to do this again," on the girl's faces, even through the smiles.

The pictures below are from a little roadside stand in northern Thailand outside Chiang Rai. Mountain food.

One of our days in Chiang Mai, the northern Thai town of temples and ex-pats, was spent partly at a pretty forgettable cooking school, where we "learned" to cook things that either (a) we already knew how to cook or (b) could have figured out how to cook in a few seconds. One of the best parts was the trip to the market chronicled below. The first picture is some kind of pickled fish we bought at the market, sampled immediately, and soon discarded for fear of sodium overload.

Thai eggplant.

They occasionally produce rice in Thailand.

Solidified pig's blood, used quite a bit in Thai soups.

Our driver took us to a pretty nice lunch spot one day on the western side of Chiang Mai, with some of the basic northern specialties.

More papaya salad, always welcome.

A variation on one of my favorite Northern Thai dishes, nam prik noom, this one with eggplant and pureed chiles eaten with fried pork skins, cucumbers and cabbage.

Spicy jackfruit just like the dish at Hollywood's Spicy Thai BBQ.

Sitting alone on a dark road off one of Chiang Mai's main roads was this somewhat atmospheric place. It was exactly what I had been hoping for, especially the cheesy band that played through the meal.

Fried worms as an appetizer. Salty, a bit crunchy and bit chewy.

Mussaman curry, fried chicken, soup, the everpresent nam prik noom and a couple of other dishes I can't remember.

Bird's nest soup. Breakfast.

A few blocks away from the King's palace in Bangkok is a nice little market...

Fried fish cakes with marinated cucumber.

Chinatown, besides hosting a line of jewelry and trinket shops I could do without, has a bit of street food. More than a bit. My favorite may have been the snack below. A betel leaf wrap with lime, chile, toasted cocoanut, ginger, purple onion, and a sweet tamarind-shrimp paste sauce. I think it may have made me sick that night but, whatever, it was worth it. I'm going to make these at our next dinner party. Remind me. To wash it down I had a bag of salty plum juice which, though extremely pleasantly memorable, may have been the real culprit of my stomach issues. It's the ice, I guess.

My favorite fruit in Thailand (below), the mildly sweet Fa-rong, which shares the name with the Thai word for foreigner. Supposedly the version of Far-ong originally brought to Thailand had curly red hair on top, like foreigners. One of our friends told us that when they interview rural Thai girls on television and ask them what their dream is they almost without fail reply that it is to "marry a fa-rong."

Getting a bit pretentious at a temple.

Breakfast one morning, sticky rice with pork wrapped in banana leaves.

My favorite restaurant of the whole trip may have been this little spot, deep in the dusty suburbs of Bangkok. The royal family of Thailand, at least some of them, are fans. Besides eating giant baked shrimp which I somehow forgot to photograph, we enjoyed a number of fish dishes, some with kaffir lime leaves and chile among other things, one with whole green peppercorns, as well as a som dam (salad) made with apples instead of papaya.

I can't forget to mention durian (below). I tried it before in Malaysia, and really couldn't stand it. My father in law convinced me it was better in Thailand. I'm not sure if it was better or not. I don't think I hate it, but I have no real desire to eat it again.

Lastly, some of the best meals we had were served in one of our host's offices in between massages up the street. Pictured below is the first yen-to-fo we had. Two weeks later, can't wait to get back.

Yen-to-fo with pork blood.

for some non-food pictures head to another blog I contribute to:quadruplekegstand.blogspot.com