JAPANESE FOOD IN LA, THE REASON WHY I GO BACK HOME

I'd just like to say Hello to my Tom. As you all know, he's off in Boston right now, so I'm sitting on my couch with kitty curled up and snoring on her spot and watching "No Reservations." Just wanted you to know that they're doing a show in NJ and Tony Bourdain just ate a fried hot dog. It made me think of you.

And for the rest of you, I will continue on my post about Hayama. Now, I've lived in a lot of places, but I haven't found as good Japanese food as I do at home in LA. The thing is, you really never know how good you have it until you go away and find out, hey, Japanese food isn't like this everywhere. And yes, I've lived in NY and yes, you can probably get amazing Japanese food in NY- if you can afford it. But in LA, you can get cheap, affordable Japanese food, and it'll be amazing and tasty. Which is why I really don't eat much Japanese food elsewhere, but when I'm back home in LA, I need to have Japanese food at least once, if not twice, a day.

I was having lunch with my parents and my mom chose a restaurant called Hayama. It's actually pretty new, taking the spot of another Japanese restaurant that I'd never gone to. But they have this lovely outdoor garden area with an enormous fire pit that you can sit around. You can imagine how popular this place would be at night.

Despite it being a lovely, sunny LA afternoon, my parents wanted to sit inside. (ok, it was actually a pretty hot day. I ended up buy a tshirt and changing into it right after lunch) But we got a table right next to a big window overlooking that outdoor garden. The menu is pretty simple, but for lunch, you gotta go for one of their $15 bento boxes- an amazing deal. First, you start off with this little salad.

But then, here's the great part. Look at the size of my bento box! And it's pretty, too. I got chicken teriyaki, tempura, some little salad things an a little bowl of almond jelly. It was delicious, and all this for just $15. Sigh, if only this place were up North, I'd probably be there like once a week.

And really, that's why I go home. It's not to see my family, it's to get my fix of Japanese food. And yeah, I'm pretty happy that I live close enough to LA that I can go pretty often and get some yummy food.