SUSHI BOATS!

Ok, you know I don't upload videos very often, but this one is so worth it. And, they've made posting videos much easier now, so I think I'll be doing it far more often. Just click below...

We were visiting my cousin at the hospital in SF, which is located right next to Japantown. And rather than facing rush hour traffic, we headed over to grab dinner before going home. We had known about the conveyor belt sushi place, Isobune, but hadn't tried it yet, and so this was a good opportunity to check it out.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, this is how conveyor belt sushi works. Basically you have dishes of food going by you. Each dish costs a different amount of money, which is dictated by the color plate that it's on. As you eat, you collect plates and in order to calculate your bill, the staff with tally how many plates you have of each color. It's pretty easy.

However, this place was truly awesome. If you actually watched the video, you 'll see that it's not just a conveyor belt. The plates of sushi are actually riding atop sushi boats that are chained together and floating along a little body of water. How much more entertaining could it be?

Ok, as for the sushi, that's a different matter. The sushi at a conveyor belt sushi place is never stellar, because it's not made to order. The thing doesn't get eaten until someone picks it up. So sometimes, the same plate is just riding around, as the food dries out and doesn't look so hot. Ideally, you want to go to a busy place so the food is turning. We went to dinner a bit early. So there was a mix of fresh stuff and not so fresh stuff. I gotta say overall, the food wasn't too bad. I had some pretty decent sushi, and it truly wasn't that expensive (and certainly cheaper than Kirala here in the East Bay).

Tom accumulated far more plates than I did, and he enjoyed the octopus the most. He didn't feel it was the freshest and best fish ever, but he also liked the variety and the experience of going. I wouldn't say that we'd rush back to this place, but if we're in the area in the mood for sushi, it's certainly a good place to grab a quick bite, without blowing a ton of money on sushi.

VEGAN/VEGETARIAN SUSHI? ONLY IN BERKELEY

There's a very popular Vegan/Vegetarian Japanese restaurant in Berkeley called Cha-ya that I've wanted to try for quite some time. However, the place is tiny and since it's located in Berkeley, it's also packed most of the time. We'd tried going there once, but the line was too long, and on other occasions, the restaurant's been packed.

So we were pretty surprised one evening while we were headed to a different restaurant that there were seats available at Cha-ya. We decided to take advantage and ducked in to sit at the sushi bar. Now, I knew that Cha-ya was expensive since I'd seen their menu previously, but it was really quite surprising how expensive it was considering that there was no fish involved at all. Many people assume that just because it's vegetarian, food will be cheaper, but I've founded that that is often not the case, especially up here in the Bay Area. Basically, the prices at Cha-ya were the same as if you'd gone to a nice sushi restaurant (and maybe a little higher, too).

At any rate, since the place was kinda pricey, I had to do some strategic ordering. I started off with a special. It's a tofu roll with corn that's wrapped in seaweed and deep fried. It served with a side of dipping sauce:

As you can see, they have very nice presentation here, and the tofu roll wasn't too bad. Meanwhile, Tom ordered a bowl of agadedashi tofu. (deep fried tofu in broth). It was quite good, and I ended up liking it more than my own tofu dish.

Then we each had plates of sushi. Here's mine. You can see that there's one cucumber roll, and then 3 pieces of nigiri - one with seaweed, the other topped with mushroom and the third with eggplant. Again, the presentation was really nice.

However, the sushi itself was pretty terrible. Or not so much the sushi, but the sushi rice. It was tough and underflavored and really not tasty at all. I soon discovered why. While watching the chef prepare sushi for another customer, I watched him take out a large plastic bag filled with rice. He then walked over to a microwave, nuked it, and used that for the sushi. This place charged so much money, and they didn't even make their rice fresh. That was just appalling.

Additionally, we didn't really start off the meal on a great note. We were basically ignored by the waitress for like 10 minutes, during which I was very tempted to just walk right out. Our dinner ended up costing $40, which is much more than we usually spend on a sushi dinner, and in the words of Sue Min, "It cost the same as regular sushi and there was no fish? Why bother?" and I'd have to agree with her.

GETA SUSHI, PIEDMONT

In our continuing quest to find good, cheap sushi in the Bay Area, we recently headed over to an area that we haven't visited before - Piedmont. Piedmont is one of the up and coming neighborhoods in North Oakland, filled with a strip of cute shops and restaurants. My co-worker who lives in the area was the one who suggested Geta, since she enjoys going there for quick, cheap sushi.

So we headed over there one evening and found the place pretty quickly. It's actually not too far from work, by kind of a schlep from where we live, so I'm not sure how often we'll be visiting Geta. When we arrived, we found a very small restaurant, with only about 5 tables and 4 seats at a bar. It was so small that there was a little line outside, and we ended up joining the line and waiting to get it. Luckily it was a pretty warm night, and the line moved quickly, so we only waited about 10 minutes before we were seated at a table for two.

My co-worker wasn't kidding about the low prices. Everything was incredibly cheap, with nothing on the menu over $12. Below is the sashimi plate that Tom ordered:

It was very pretty and a decent portion. He said the fish was ok. Not the freshest stuff in the world, but not terrible, either. I ordered a cucumber salad:

Along with some rolls (behind my rolls is some spicy chicken that Tom also ordered).

I had ordered a lobster roll, because it was only $6.50 and also a veggie roll. Overall, it wasn't too bad, and certainly worth the very low prices. I ended up liking this place more than Manpuku, though Tom felt that they were about equal. And I thought that they were making pretty good stuff, considering the very tight space that they were working out of. I wouldn't mind going back again in the future.

After dinner, we decided to explore Piedmont a little bit. We walked down the streets and discovered all types of cute shops and places to eat. I think we'll certainly have to go back in the future and explore more of the food options there. If only it weren't so far away....

BUSHI-TEI, SAN FRANCISCO

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that most of my friends eventually move to SF. (Yes Leah, I'm waiting on you). The first one to move here has been Sue Min, she's here for at least 3 years for dental school, and it's really nice having a friend from the East Coast, who loves to eat as much as I do.

Unfortunately Sue Min is often quite busy with school, so we haven't been able to hang out as frequently, so when she called me up for brunch recently, I agreed to meet up with her. Sue Min now has a favorite brunch place, a restaurant called Bushi-Tei located in Japantown (one of the few places I know how to navigate in SF). It's a Japanese French restaurant that features a prix fixe brunch menu. Now, it's more than I would normally spend on brunch, but I rarely go into the city, so I didn't mind spending the money.

So here's the exterior of the restaurant

It's got this mix of modern and rustic - with some large wooden pieces inside. I liked this huge communal table they have running down the length of the restaurant made of some really cool wood. Sue min was a little late, but luckily, she'd chosen a restaurant next to one of my favorite stores in Japantown, Super 7. So I hopped over there and bought Tom a little key chain while I waited for her to arrive.

She did eventually show up and we sat at a table in the window. The restaurant was pretty empty (which is probably why they offer the prix fixe deal in the first place), but the waiter was helpful and pretty friendly (though a little pushy trying to up our bill with special lemonades and iced teas - we passed). So for the prix fixe, you're allowed to choose two courses from the menu. All of it is French-Japanese inspired food. After we ordered, we were given this lovely and adorable selection of breads and pastries.

They were all very fresh and quite yummy. Then my first course arrived I ordered a corn soup:

My soup was pretty yummy. It was kinda thin and not as corn flavored as my favorite corn soup served at Gotham, the restaurant that I used to work at in NY. But it was still very nice. Next up, Sue min and I both ordered the crab cake hollandaise:

I know. Truly decadent and a bit over the top, but they were really tasty. The hollandaise sauce wasn't too heavy and those crab cakes were basically all crab meat and very little filler. I enjoyed it quite a lot, but at this point, I had gotten quite full and only managed to finish one of them. I ended up taking the second crab cake home.

Lastly, I ordered dessert. I hadn't planned to, but Sue Min ordered dessert and I that encourage me to do so. I ordered something light - a trio of sorbets

There was a mango, green apple and pear. All were homemade and very light and delicious. The mango was my favorite.

Bushi-Tei was a lovely restaurant for brunch with a friend. Though I don't think I'll be going back any time soon (I ended up spend around $40, which is more than I'd spend at dinner for two normally), but it's a pleasant place to take someone like my mom (especially if she's paying.)

JAPANESE FOOD IN EL CERRITO

As many of you know, we're still searching for a good Japanese restaurant near where we live. We'd heard of a Japanese sushi place near our home called Yusan Sushi, so we wanted to check it out. Unfortunately when we arrived, we found the restaurant closed, with a pretty cryptic note on the door. It said "Reopening Soon", but was dated three days earlier. As we stood outdoors contemplating whether or not the restaurant would open that night, we noticed another restaurant next door called Yokohama Restaurant. Given that we didn't have many other restaurants nearby to choose from, we decided to check it out.

When we entered the restaurant, it was pretty empty, but it was cute, with your stereotypical Japanese restaurant decorations. We were seated right away and after putting in our orders, we were given a few freebies, a little plate of cold soba noodles along with some pickles.

They weren't too bad, and I was pretty suprised that they gave us these freebies in the first place. With my dinner, I also got a salad, which was pretty average.

For dinner, I ordered a combination- chicken on chicken. Well, it was more that I got to pick from a list of foods, so I chose chicken karage (which was done as chicken wings) and chicken teriyaki. Here it is below:

As you can see, the portions are pretty generous, and it wasn't too bad either. Tom and I decided that it certainly wasn't the best Japanese food that we've ever had (nor the cheapest, we spent about $15-18/ea for dinner), but it was better than some of the places we had tried previously (and certainly better then Katana-ya, where our cousin likes to visit frequently). I don't think we'll be back any time soon, we'll continue to visit LA for truly great Japanese food, but if we're ever in the mood, we'd certainly go back to Yokohama.

SAN DIEGO DAY 2

Ok, I'm back. I am a little handicapped right now, after slicing half my nail off while chopping veggies this past weekend, and the band-aid gets in the way of my typing, but I'm limping along and continuing with my San Diego blog posts.

So reading this post, it may seem like we spent the entire day eating, but really we didn't. The best part of the day was visiting the San Diego Zoo and seeing pandas! And the baby panda was not just lying around sleeping, he was so active and playful with his mommy, I almost died. I wanted to get back in line to see him again, but everyone (especially Tom) voted me down. Sigh, guess I'll see him again next time.

But first, we started the day with brunch. Cathy and Ben took us to one of their favorite places, the Parkhouse Eatery, which according to their sign serves "American Ethnic Grub" or whatever that may be.

When we got there, the place was already packed and there were a slew of people in front of us, so we ended up waiting quite a while for a table. I think it took almost an hour before we were finally seated. But the weather was quite nice and it wasn't too bad just hanging out outside. They had lots of tables outside, but of course, that's where everyone wants to sit, so when we finally got a table inside, we were just happy to be sitting. The interior of the restaurant is actually much nicer than the exterior, and had lots of rooms, almost like a house. We were seated at a table in the back, close to the kitchen.

The menu wasn't huge, and they had some pretty enticing options, but I ended up going with the Bueno spicy homemade turkey chorizo & eggs scrambled w/roasted potato and fresh romas w/flour tortilla. Our server had warned us that the kitchen was backed up, so it did take a while for the food to arrive. Here's mine below.

I had actually expected the eggs to be cooked separately from the chorizo, but they were cooked together. It ended up being pretty tasty, but wouldn't have been half as good without that spicy sauce you see on the side. That really made the entire dish. The food there was pretty good, and in a very cute neighborhood. Even though it was kinda pricy the largish portions help to offset the high cost.

After brunch, it was off to the zoo, and after spending a number of hours walking around there, we were pretty hungry and ready from some dinner. Cathy suggested that we check out a yakitori place, Yakitori Yakyudori, one of the few in San Diego, and she had made a reservation for us. When we arrived, it was actually a few minutes before their opening time, but they let us sit. And it was a good thing we made reservations, because the place filled up very quickly.

One of the things I liked about this place where the picture menus they give you. Another fun thing was they had these two big signs on the wall. One listed the most popular items for Americans, and the other listed the most popular items for Japanese. I ordered stuff off the Japanese list.

We ordered a bunch of stuff like : chicken hearts (though I don't like it when places slice them apart like this- I prefer them pretty intact)

Chicken thigh meat:

chicken "meatballs"

chicken gizzards and Tom's order of takoyaki to the the right:

grilled smelt:
and fried chicken wings:

To be honest, we ordered more stuff than this, but I didn't have time to photograph everything. The food came out pretty quickly and it was all really good. This place isn't as refined as my favorite yakitori place in LA, Yakitoriya. And unlike many yakitori houses, I don't think they cared as much about the type of charcoal they were roasting over (if they were using charcoal, they could've been using gas). Some place are really particular about the charcoal, because it imparts flavors to the meat, and the stuff we had didn't really have character. However, I was happy to have pretty well priced yakitori and would be happy to have this place located near us.

We were all pretty full after dinner, but we had to make sure to save room for dessert. There's a pretty famous dessert place in SD called Extraordinary Desserts, which Cathy has been telling me about since she went to college. So finally, we had to take this opportunity to visit. We went to the original location, not too far from where we'd had dinner, and even though it was still fairly early (it was before 7pm) there was already a line of people out the door.

The setting was really cute. It looked like someone's home, warmly decorated inside with garden seating outside. There was lots of outdoor seating, which is not surprising considering it's SD. As we waited in line, Ben bumped into a friend, and I plotted out what to order. It took us about 20 minutes to get to the front of the line to place our orders. There were a ton of choices, from pastries, to cakes and they plate all the desserts. Here's a pic of their cake case:
I ended up choosing one a passion fruit chocolate bombe. And I made Tom order some ice cream so I could try it. After ordering, we took our seats at a table and waited for them to be plated and served. Unfortuantely, the place seem understaffed, and it took a while to get our desserts. The problem was that we could see them sitting on the counter behind us, and I was tempted to just walk up and grab them:

Finally, our plated desserts arrived, along with our drinks. Here's mine below:

As you can see, it's very pretty. However, it wasn't as amazing as it looks. It wasn't very passion fruity at all, and I got more fruit flavor from the sauces on the plate than the dessert itself. It wasn't bad, but I was hoping for better. Here's the ice cream that Tom had:

To be honest, I don't remember what flavor this was. I do remember that it had macadamia nuts, but the ice cream itself didn't have much flavor. The flavor came from the toppings that were mixed in.

And lastly, my sister got a cookie.

This was also pretty good and loaded with butter.

Overall, I can see why this place is so popular. It's an adorable setting, has great presentation and the desserts are pretty good. I'm not going to say that it seems to be more flash than substance. After all, I've only been once, and I'd like to try a few more desserts before making that call. However, I certainly enjoyed going there, and once again, I can only wish that we had something similar in our area.

We had a great time in SD and hope we can go back and visit soon, to fill out bellies with more food and check out more adorable animals.

THE CHERRY BLOSSOM FESTIVAL

A few weeks ago Tom and I headed into the city to look into buy me a bike. We didn't end up getting a bike that day, but since we were in the city, we decided to head over to Japan town to pick up some lunch and Japanese staples. As we got closer to Japan town, we noticed that streets were blocked off, and then I spotted something I truly love- food booths. Of course I got really excited and decided we had to stop.

We finally found some parking and as we walked over to the middle of Japan town, we realized that there was a full out parade going on, right down the main street of Japan town. It was really hard getting around and pushing through the crowds to actually get to where the food was, and when we finally got there, we found long lines, and worse, lots of stuff that I just don't eat (lots of bbq and such). So we ended up going to the mall instead- which took some more effort pushing through the crowds. Finally we arrived at Mifune, a noodle shop in the mall known for its great lunch deals and homemade noodles.

We waited a little while to get in, and were finally seated in this packed restaurant. Luckily, the lunch special was still available. You got your pick on an appetizer and entree and it's just $11. I ended up getting a bowl of wakame udon and an appetizer of California rolls.
Tom got cold soba and an unagi rice bowl.
It was all pretty standard fare, but better than average. The noodles are homemade and definitely had a better texture than the super expensive udon we'd had a O'Chame, but the broth was ok. Overall, this was a very pleasant lunch choice- cheap and the noodles definitely hit the spot. I'm not sure we'd go again in the future, I'd like to try the conveyor belt sushi place first.

AND FINALLY, SOME DECENT JAPANESE FOOD

Ok, so you've probably already read my post about not having great Japanese food around us. The one exception is the visit we had to Japantown in SF. We were taking my cousin to her doctor's appointment in the city and the hospital is just 5 blocks away from Japantown. So Tom and I decided to go explore a new part of the city while we waited for my cousin to see the doctor.

We walked over to Japantown, which is surrounded by not necessarily the greatest neighborhood in SF, but once we got to it, it was kinda nice. Now Japantown is really made up of a big shopping mall that divided into three segments- 2 of the segments contain shopping and the third contains food. After walking around a bit, we went straight for food, but couldn't decide on which place to try. It was kinda mid afternoon, so it was too late to have a full lunch in a restaurant. Luckily, I had spotted a sign of Nijiya, a Japanese grocery store that I like to visit in LA, so we headed over there to get some yummy prepacked food.

Now Tom had never been to Nijiya before, so it took us a little while to decided what we wanted from their large selection of prepacked food. We finally settled on some selections, picked up drinks and headed outside to sit in the sun and eat our food.

Here's the famous square where the little pagoda sits (pagoda not pictured) where we ended up sitting and having our little picnic.

Tom got a bunch of stuff, but I didn't photograph most of it. One of his favorites was the takoyaki- octopus balls, served with a side of mayo. (he didn't use the mayo, the Japanese people love mayo). He'd also got some sushi, some chicken karage and something else that I'm now forgetting. Basically, he went all out on the Japanese food.

Meanwhile, I was a little more tame and got a prepacked bento box with two rice balls, and my favorite, a side of chicken karage (the Japanese version of fried chicken). Yeah, it might've been room temperature, but I still found it all pretty yummy, especially the fried chicken. I don't know why we can't have a Nijiya on this side of the bay, and the other day, I actually considered driving into SF just to pick up some Japanese food.

You know the funny thing is is that it'd take me just as long to drive from my house in LA to our local Nijiya as it would for me to drive from our house in El Cerrito to the Nijiya in SF, but there's a bit of a mental barrier for crossing a big span of water and paying a $4 toll to do it that just dampens my whole desire.

We continued to walk around Japantown for a while. Tom bought me yet another wind up toy to add to my collection. This one is an awesome Domo that walks really slowly. There did seem to also be some good food options in Japantown (perhaps excluding the sketchy looking 24 hour Denny's that serves Hawaiian food), so I hope we'll be back in the future to try more places.

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.

O'CHAME, AN EXPENSIVE BOWL O'NOODLES

A while ago Tom and I decided to head out to lunch at a local Japanese restaurant in Berkeley which is highly regarded for it's simple and delicious Japanese noodles. I figured it wouldn't be too expensive since it was just for lunch, and it was just noodles. So when we headed over there we found a restaurant that had just opened for lunch. The exterior of the building was this sort of Spanish/Mediterranean look with modern touches. When we entered, they had these really cool mural actually carved into the plaster on the walls. The entire space was really light and calming, and there seemed to be a lot of local entering to dine there. We snagged a seat right away.

After perusing the menu, we each decided to get one appetizer and one entree. Tom's appetizer was grilled eel on a bed for endive. I'm not a huge fan of eel, but I found this to be pretty good and Tom really enjoyed the pairing of the eel and the endive.

For my appetizer, I got a bowl of fried tofu. It wasn't really what I expected. Rather than dry pieces of fried tofu, it was actually a fried tofu served in a broth. It was pretty mild and tasty, but nothing super special.

And for our entrees, we each got a bowl of noodles. I ordered udon with tofu, mushrooms and vegetables. It was allright. The veggies were nice and fresh, but I found the udon to be kind of overcooked, and it didn't have the nice springy chewiness that you normally expect. Plus, the noodles weren't homemade, so it certainly wasn't worth the prices they were charging.

Meanwhile, Tom had ordered a bowl of noodles topped with shrimp. He also felt it was pretty good, but nothing spectacular. But we were both pretty surprised when the bill arrived, it was $50 for two appetizers, two bowl of noodles and two cups of tea. Ouch. It was a lot for a good, but not particularly spectacular lunch.

We might be back to take my parents one day, but I don't think we'll be back on our own. Frankly, I could make a bowl of noodles just at good at home.

A QUICK TRIP HOME

One of the great things about living in the Bay Area is being able to take quick trips back home to LA. This is especially easy when Virgin America is running two for one deals on tickets. So to take advantage of the deal, we went down to LA last week so I could see my dentist. (I'm not joking. It was a long overdue appointment and my mommy paid for it).

The other nice thing is that I can get together with my family for a big family dinner every time I go down. (I think we had a total of 9 people this time). I wanted to have something that we normally don't have much of up here, which would be Japanese food and sushi, but I didn't want to take Tom back to Sushi King, since he'd already been there once before. So we chose to go to Yabu, a place famous for its house made soba and udon, but they also serve sushi and lots of other dishes.

Since we'd had a late lunch, I wasn't very hungry when we arrived at Yabu (we'd had lunch at the restaurant inside of Neiman Marcus, and then I did a little shopping at Barney's). So I just ordered a number of small plates. I started off with a an ordered of deep fried shisito peppers.

If you've ever had Spanish pimientos del padron, therse are very similar. But I didn't like the ones at Yabu. They were quite greasy and didn't have a clean, crispy flavor. Next my family ordered some dishes of oden- bascially a selection of fishcakes and veggies cooked in a fish broth.

It was actually pretty good, but I didn't fill up, because I was waiting for my chawan mushi to arrive.

A chawan mushi is basically an egg custard with flavored broth and different pieces of shrimp, fish and veggies in side. It warm and soft and one of my favorite things. I enjoyed it quite a lot. In the meantime, here's Tom's order of cold soba. He'd gotten a soba/sushi combination and I think he enjoyed both of them.

Overally, Yabu is just a really cute local Japanese restaurant with well prepared food. I really wish we had something like it up here- Tom and I would probably be visiting it all the time. But at least it's just a quick trip back home for great Japanese food.

OUR FIRST MEAL IN SAN FRANCISCO...

sucked. Ok, well it's not the first time I've eaten in SF. Nor Tom's. It was just the first time we'd eaten there together after our move here. And it was completely unplanned. We were driving back to the East Bay through SF when we hit a huge amount of traffic. The option was to sit in traffic or grab something to eat and head back a bit later. I made the ultimate decision to head into the city.

I figured we could go to Chinatown and there would be plenty of places to find a cheap meal. I'd been there before and wandered the streets and found lots of restaurants. So we parked our car in a lot, got out and started wandering around. We ended up on a street filled with kitschy tourist souvenier stores. Accept they were more like megastores than little shops. We had fun wandering around, and even bought Kitty a kitty shaped food bowl. But when it was time to find a place to eat, there really weren't any on this street.

I'm not that familiar with Chinatown, but I now know that we were in the super tourist section. Had we headed a bit more north, we would have found more restaurants, but it was getting dark and we were hungry. So after wandering a few more blocks, we decided to go to a Rock n Roll Sushi restaurant. Yes, the fact that a Japanese restaurant was located in Chinatown should've been the first warning. The name should've been the second warning. But the restaurant was pretty packed, so I figured we'd give it a shot.

We were seated quickly and given enormous menus to order from. And we were served some free miso soup and this cucumber salad. The miso soup was standard, though the tofu was weird. The cucumber salad below was crappy:

Normally the cucumber salad is seasoned in rice wine vinegar and sugar. This was just raw cucumbers with some nori and soy sauce sprinkled on top. It was pretty terrible.

Tom then ordered some fried chicken and a roll. Meanwhile, I got tempura dinner. The portion was quite generous and it was OK. The same could be said for Tom's dinner.

I guess the one good thing is that the bill wasn't sky high. But I've learned my lesson about eating Japanese food in Chinatown. We'll be heading back into the city tomorrow- Tom wants to go back to Chinatown to buy souveniers for family and co-workers, but I've done my research this time, and I'm sure our second meal in SF will be much better.

A QUICK TRIP TO LA LA LAND

Last week Tom and I made a quick trip down to LA so we could pick up all the boxes that we had shipped back to my parents' house. Of course for me, any opportunity to go back to LA is an opportunity to fill my bell and make me happy.

Since we landed in the morning, our first stop of the day was breakfast. We decided to go to the Literati Cafe, which is close to my parents' office. I'm pretty sure I've written about the cafe here before, since I seem to make a trip there every time I'm back at home, but food there remind me just why I love being back in CA.

Here's my breakfast sandwich and it's extra special for two reasons:

As you can see, it's got avocado. AND I got have it with turkey bacon. It was yummy and fresh and very filling. I enjoyed in immensely. Meanwhile, Tom ordered this massive breakfast quesadilla.

He also enjoyed it, and amazingly enough, actually finished off the whole thing (which he would regret doing 15 minutes later). Sigh.

After breakfast, we went to my favorite local farmer's market. We didn't stay too long though, because as you all know, there were some wildfires last week and it wasn't too pleasant staying outdoors. Also, it was over 95F, so we ended up going home and resting.

For dinner that evening, we met my parents and the rest of the family at Nanbankan, a local Japanese restaurant that specializes in roboto grilling. We got pretty lost getting there, since the traffic was quite heavy, and the exterior of the restaurant was under construction, so we couldn't find it. By the time we made our way there, my om had already ordered for everyone, which was totally fine with me.

They start you off with some raw veggies that you dip into a homemade miso dressing, which is quite good.

And here's a list of a few of the dishes we had. All were quite good and I really enjoyed eating there. Here's a chicken meatball:

Here's some chicken thigh meat:
These are grilled rice balls. The ones in back are a house specialty and have seaweed and seasonings mixed in.
Chicken wings (my favorite)
Chicken skin:
I'm not quite sure what this is, but it is a part of a chicken:
Chicken gizzards (another one of my favorites)
Mini zucchinis:
Shishamo (aka smelt)- This was Tom's favorite dish of the night.
Agedashi tofu:

Like I said, everything was super tasty and we were all stuffed when we left the restaurant.

After dinner, we went to Katie and Dustin's house, so Tom could meet their new kitty. My friend Raj, and his wife, Naina, were also there watching Game 1 of the World Series. (of course, by now you all know that my team won. Go Sox!). By the end of the fifth inning, the Sox were up 13-1, so we thought it was a good time to get some gelato.

A new place had opened just a few block from Katie's house in downtown Culver City, so we walked over there. It was pretty packed when we arrived, but they were quite obliging in putting a couple tables together for us so we could sit down. Here's a pic of the gelato case.As you can see, they were running low on just about everything. It'd been a warm day, so they unexpectedly sold out of almost every flavor.

I ended up ordering strawberry and pink lemon.
The strawberry was pretty good, though not my favorite. I preferred the pink lemon, but I enjoyed both and if I had a gelato place like this near me, I would certainly be going more often.

This place was more of a restaurant, though, and they served other desserts. Both Tom and Katie ordered the tiramisu, served in this little chocolate cupThe tiramisu was surprisingly good- not all mascarpone like many tiramisus tend to be. The chocolate cup, however, wasn't very yummy, though Tom still managed to finish his off.

It was getting late and we had a long drive back to the Bay Area the next day. So after we finished off dessert, we said good bye to my friends and headed home.