Yummy Yummy **

Sate Beef Noodle Soup with Egg Noodles #8 (ordered spicy) - I loved the tender meat and strong sate flavor. 

I had written off YY before due to a lackluster Bun Bo Hue, but this was such a great showing, I might have to come back and give the BBH another shot.

Los Angeles I

A long weekend of enjoying sunshine and great food in Los Angeles.

On the first day we made a foray into Westminster to check out the Vietnamese offerings. 

Pho Thanh Lich - Pho Dac Biet Special w/ filet mignon - nice broth with a subpar clump of rice noodles.  O.k., though not great.  Duck Soup Rice Noodle w/ Duck chop - really ducky soup flavor and nice vermicelli rice noodles accompanied by some duck.  I actually preferred this to the Pho, but it's only offered on weekends.

Asian Garden Food Court - this mall is a fun little walk into a completely Vietnamese environment.  The food offered looked interesting, I went for a shrimp cake and some bun cuon.  The bun cuon was a bit dry and needed more filling, the shrimp cake on a sugar cane stick was nice, but not noteworthy.

We walked over to a nearby fruit stand where we found lots of giant durian, bags of rambutans, mangosteens, bell fruit and dragon fruit.  We got some to eat later.

In the same little strip mall we found a Banh mi Che Cali and ordered three different sandwiches: one ham and head cheese another xiu mi (meatball) and one bbq pork.  The bbq pork meat was juicy and well seasoned, the meatball was also good and the ham and head cheese was straightforward.  Unfortunately, we all felt that the bread was just o.k. and agreed that we preferred the sandwiches at Saigon Sandwiches in SF.

On our way out of the area we stopped at Galloway's Pastries -- we had a chocolate mousse cake and a cream puff.  The cream puff was average while the chocolate mousse cake was very good.

We went to browse the aisles at H Mart, which was much smaller than we had imagined.  J got a few items and we laughed at one of the stands named Dae Jang Geum.  Next door was a dumpling shop that specialized in giant buns -- wang mandoo.  They tasted almost exactly like Chinese mantou.

Overall, we found many places in Westminster, but lacked a good guide or information on which spots were best.  As a result, we weren't particularly impressed, but I see there is definitely potential in that neighborhood -- if only we had a local with us to properly explore it.

Our next stop was Venice Beach area.  A & J had a blueberry mint lemonade from Lemonade and a double chocolate chip cookie from 3 square. We looked at some furniture and were surprised by the intelligentsia coffee line, then again Blue Bottle has equally enthusiastic devotees. We stopped into Jin Patisserie fror a hazelnut and a chocolate dessert.  Both were very good.

Our next stop was Almondine where we picked up a croissant, it was light and airy, though not particularly moist.

Finally, we ended up at Park's BBQ - ordered the #12 pork belly and the #3 seasoned kalbi. 


This is the best Korean bbq I've ever had.  The meat was very high quality and well seasoned, not overly sweet and the panchan were spot on.  The pork belly is thickly sliced belly then grilled with kim chi, a great combination. The seasoned kalbi is thick and juicy, full of flavor not too sweet. I would come back for either and would love to try their American Wagyu. Panchan was just o.k., but we liked our service. J thought the bibim naengmyun was very good, with a nice balance of sauce, cucumbers, and asian pears, and the noodles were above average.

Tet, Lunar New Year, Mardi Gras and Valentine's Weekend

With Lunar New Year, Mardi Gras and Valentine's Day falling on the same weekend what else was there to do but have a three day festival of food and nature in Yosemite.  The first day we celebrated Tet and Chinese New Year, the second Mardi Gras, and on the third day we celebrated Valentine's Day with a snowball fight.

Tet & Chinese New Year Menu
Bang Chung w/ pickled veg
Xiao Long Bao
Seafood Noodles
Braised Pork Belly w/ Egg
Mangosteens
Nian Gaw

Tet was kicked off by Bang Chung a traditional Vietnamese dish of mung bean paste wrapped in glutinous rice wrapped in banana leaves and boiled for a long while, then toasted in a pan.  HM made them from scratch using a family recipe.  When it was described to me, I thought it was going to be a starch bomb, in fact it was a beautiful study in textures.  Toasted exterior crunch with a sticky and somewhat chewy glutinous rice interior and then a soft earthy bean paste.  Nothing like what I imagined.  HM pickled some vegetables to go with it and accompanied the whole thing with a side of steamed pork ("fancy pork").

Next came a dumpling course, which was originally sway jiao ("water dumplings"), but we decided to challenge ourselves to make xiao long bao (XLB).  C dutifully made the soup aspic the day before then prepared the filling that evening.  All of us then got to work in our little dumpling sweatshop making the xlb and placing them in steamers.  It was fun playing around with the amount of soup that would be in each dumpling.  We went for some super soupy ones.  They looked great.  After some complications with steaming them, including scorching my lip with some soup from a sample dumpling, we realized that the wrappers were the source of the difficulty.  Next time we'll need to adjust the wrappers, but the flavor was good and the dumplings were full of soup!  We also had a seafood noodle interlude, a recipe from R's mother.  A good balance of seafood flavor and fresh noodles.

SANDY'S CAFE

Close to the corner of 9th and Judah is Sandy's a small Vietnamese restaurant with a menu of typical banh mi sandwiches. I went for the combination pork, a steamed pork patty and pork stew on a toasted french roll with pickled carrots, cucumbers, and fresh cilantro and jalepenos. Despite the nice mayonnaise and seasoning, the sandwich was dry, the fillings a little flat compared to those at Saigon Sandwich. Still it was inexpensive and very filling. Next time, I'll try some of their other dishes.




Sandwiches

9th and Judah

PHO HOA HIEP 2 ***

Beefy broth, well done brisket, tripe is the best combo. The broth is less salty than the branch in SSF and much better than PPQ's. The raw beef plate was just o.k. grade of beef not good enough and served too cold. 19th/Irving.





Wonderful Foods: Cherry coke bottles and the sour cherry (red). The blue coke bottles are sweeter and raspberry flavored.