Marugame Monzo (Little Tokyo-DTLA) 9.6.14

To wrap up my binge food-blogging weekend, I present Marugame Monzo, an udon shop that's right next to Daikokuya in Little Tokyo, on 1st Street.  Marugame Monzo hides discreetly behind two fabric flags just 1-2 doors down from Daikokuya.  It's humble entrance belies the awesomeness that is behind its doors.

Sorry I didn't get a picture from the front or of the udon making. I was focused on eating.
Here's what you're looking for though.

I'm mostly going to let the (MANY) pictures that I took about the food do the talking, but I have to say that when I first glanced at the Marugame Monzo menu online on yelp, I was skeptical.  I like udon, but I mean, how different can handmade fresh udon be from the udon I got in packets from the Chinese grocery store as a child.

Believe me. It's like judging all sushi by the California Rolls you get at Albertsons.

Because we were a party of 5, we got a lot of food.  I'll post pics below and then talk about the food I actually tasted along with the reviews of those in my party:

Tempura Smelt Fish w Curry Powder

Smelt fish is salty and this was salty, but the tempura batter was nice and the curry powder gave a really good flavor for this appetizer dish. 

Negitoro Lunch Rice Bowl

Marugame Monzo has a list of rice bowls that you can get as add-ons with any of your udon.  I was really hungry (after only eating a slice of cake--yes, I ate the Parisian for breakfast) so I decided to try the negitoro rice bowl.  It was negitoro (green onion & toro or fatty tuna) with a bit of seasoned soy, Japanese (sweet) mayonnaise and seaweed on top of rice.  It was a small rice bowl portion, but a perfect start to my meal.  I seriously could eat that rice bowl everyday.  Yum. 

Now, to the udon.  We got seats right by the udon window (I know, I should have taken pictures) where the chef rolls the udon pasta dough before cutting it into strips.  We got a good mix of hot & cold udon and it was definitely the best that I've ever had. Here are the pics: 

Uni (Sea Urchin) Cream Udon

So, I hate sea urchin.  Seriously, to me it is a briny, livery, metallic yuck (sorry if you're now reducing all culinary respect you had for me, but I've got to be honest)--maybe it's just having bad uni, but it's too expensive to try again.  Marugame is famous for their Uni Cream Udon though and my friend, Mike, who likes uni ordered it.  He and my friend Erica (who also likes uni) both thought the udon was good, with Erica describing it as tasting like, "Fettucine Alfredo." Thanks, but I'll still pass. 

Sansei Cold Udon (Broth behind)--Mountain Vegetable Udon

This was my friend Erica's udon which I didn't get to try, but the blob on the left is daikon, which is good because she's not a mountain yam fan.  

Chicken Tempura Udon (Hot)

This was my (8-year old) son's udon.  He loved the chicken tempura and liked the udon a lot.  He got 2/3 of the way through everything (plus a smelt tempura) which was a lot of food and then finished the rest for dinner. 

Champon Udon: Veggies, Shrimp & Scallop Udon (Hot)

This was my husband's dish and I did get to try a little of the broth which was super good. It was savory, salty deliciousness.  Yum. 

Cold Udon with Soft-Boiled Egg (Sauce not pictured)

This was my dish with bonito and daikon, green onion & the soft-boiled egg.  Typically, I'm a hot udon kinda gal, but it was hot outside and I needed refreshing cold udon.  Honestly, I think they do a better soft-boiled egg at Daikokuya, but it's hard to compare hot and cold, and the mix of the udon with all the ingredients and the sauce was delicious.  The sauce was just the right mix of savory without being overly salty and the texture of the fresh udon noodles was amazing.  Just the right amount of chewiness, cooked perfectly--it's hard to describe accurately so I really recommend just going there and eating the deliciousness.  

Now, I'm just going to have to figure out, when I'm in the neighborhood if I go for udon or ramen...or maybe next time, I'll try the sushi or get some takoyaki from down the street.  So much good eating in Little Tokyo--wish I lived a little closer!

Underbelly (San Diego, Little Italy) 8.9.14

Ah, another weekend of culinary adventure and I'm suddenly back-logged on the blog.  Here we go, with Saturday's contribution...

I found Underbelly after scoping out food near our Downtown hotel in San Diego.  Since I was in San Diego with my husband and son, there had to be pescatarian friendly options and 8 year old friendly options.  I gave my son the choice between ramen and kebab and he picked ramen.  (Yeah, I know, we were in Little Italy, I should have probably gone for pizza, but he had pizza the day before. Gotta branch the kid's palate out a bit.) I was actually really excited because I've been craving soft-boiled egg in ramen for awhile so I figured I could steal a bite (or slurp) from his bowl.

So, after a short walk, we found ourselves at Underbelly which is a block off the beaten Little Italy path on the corner of Fir & Kettner.  While the yelp site says that Underbelly isn't good for kids, that's probably because, from what I've read on yelp, it gets super busy and there are no spoons or western utensils (chopsticks only).  I actually thought the Underbelly staff was nice to my kid (bringing modified chopsticks for him with his ramen) and I heard them say to a family behind us that they could modify the ramen to just do noodles and broth for the kids, but we were there at 5pm and I wouldn't bring my kid a couple of hours later when the restaurant was probably hopping.

Anyways, there are 24 beers on tap (probably as many beers as there are seats in the house...okay, maybe a dozen more seats) and you can do a lot of customization of your ramen with several vegetarian & protein based add-ons to the standard ramen choices, but since we were first timers, we ordered the Underbelly & Vegetable Ramen and a chopped seafood salad.  I really wanted to try the buns too, but I had a feeling this would be too much food for us already.

Societe Publican Beer hiding out in a Lost Abbey glass

I know nothing about beer so I just linked an article on the beer my husband got.  He really enjoyed it and found it refreshing after our short walk down to the restaurant. 

Underbelly Ramen

The underbelly ramen comes with the "standard toppings" of bean sprouts, ginger, scallions (green onions--I actually heard someone ask her dining companion upon looking at the menu, "What are scallions?" hence the explanation), seaweed, and sesame seeds.  Additionally, it has soft-boiled egg, char-siu (bbq pork), applewood smoked bacon & kurobuta sausage.  (Note: The restaurant did not poke the hole in the egg, I did--trying to get a bite of it, prior to remembering my food blogging picture).  The egg and the meat were great, particularly the pork & bacon.  The noodles were a bit al dente for my taste and the broth didn't have a lot of flavor (there was soy, sesame oil & other condiments including shichimi togarashi to add savory/spicy elements to the basic broth, but I was hoping for more umami in the broth itself), but the meat was a winner. 

Vegetable Ramen

This picture illustrates why you really shouldn't food blog when you are hungry because you forget about photo composition and mix everything together before eating.  Sigh. So, the veggie ramen has the standard toppings and truffle oil, 4 types of mushrooms (shittake, hon shimeji, oyster & enoki) and white asparagus.  I loved the white asparagus and liked the broth a lot with the truffle oil and a bit of the shichimi togarashi.  A little doctoring was all the broth needed and it had a much better savory goodness.

 Underbelly Chopped Seafood Salad

The chopped seafood salad has hamachi, white (albacore) tuna and salmon, seaweed, radish sprouts, and cucumber over a bed of mixed greens that are dressed with a soy miso dressing.  It's then topped with sesame seed and what I'm pretty sure is hoisin sauce even though the menu doesn't say that (I did grow up in a Chinese restaurant).  I actually really loved the blend of flavors between the soy miso and hoisin sauces and the seaweed salad was really good even though I'm not usually that into seaweed salad.  The fish didn't have a ton of flavor and I'm not a fan of albacore, but there was a lot of flavor in the rest of the salad.  

Overall, I loved the space, the concept and the service at Underbelly, and there's a ton of potential with the menu, but I wasn't sold on it.  Then again, I'm now comparing all ramen to Daikokuya which is a really different type of ramen and restaurant (read much more traditional Japanese).  Again, you can't win 'em all and if you're not super wedded to authenticity and you like good craft beer and quality meat, Underbelly might be a good place for you to check out.  

Random Honolulu Eating & Drinking Tips

So, before we say aloha to my Honolulu vacation posts, one more somewhat random post on the pleasant, less formal culinary experiences that we had on Oahu.

Musubi & Bento Iyasume

Iyasume Musubi & Bento: A Hole in the Wall, not to be missed! 

The one dining spot that we visited more than once on our trip was Musubi & Bento Iyasume, a small hole-in-the-wall take out place with several locations in Honolulu although the one closest to central Waikiki (or at least, the closest one we found) was across the street from Ross on Seaside Ave.  This location is open from 7 am - 7:30 pm which made it a perfect breakfast stop for us and a perfect, pre-plane flight home stop as well.  

Salmon bowl, Spam ume musubi & Ume onigiri bento

As the name suggests, Musubi & Bento Iyasume specializes in various forms of musubi & bentos.  Musubis are protein (often spam) on top of rice, wrapped with a piece of nori (seaweed) and bentos are combination boxes of various savory treats--the one pictured has an ume (plum) onigiri, sausage (these tasted like little smokies), tonkatsu (breaded fried pork) & tamago (Japanese omelet).  The shop also includes several bowls including the salmon bowl (cooked salmon flakes over rice) and various forms of onigiri (triangular rice "balls" stuffed with various fillings and wrapped in nori).  For those of you not super familiar with ume, it's a type of plum-apricot that is common in Japanese cuisine and has a sour salty flavor and a bright fuchsia color.  There are also shiso onigiri or spam-shiso musubis which contain shiso, a Japanese herb related to the mint/basil family but a little bitter when cooked.  I really loved the spam-ume & spam-shiso musubis as they helped to balance out the saltiness of the straight spam on rice of a classic musubi.  For those of you bacon & egg lovers in the morning, there are also these beauties: 

Bacon, tomago, spam musubi

Aloha Harmony Tea House

If you love tea and don't really want to settle for Lipton on your trip, I'd recommend a stop by Aloha Harmony Tea House in the Embassy Suites. The storefront is actually on Kalia Road and they also open at 7am, which is a plus if you're coming from the mainland and are not quite adjusted to the time change on the first day of your trip.  

My tea supply for the trip with plenty to take home! 

I really like green tea and since there was hot water on demand & a tea pot in our hotel room, I ended up picking up two really nice teas--jasmine pearls & first love, which is a blooming green tea.  Rather than getting the 3oz packs, I asked for just 1 oz of each (there are loose-leaf tea bins) and had more than enough for a pot of tea each day & some to take home.  It's somewhat pricey, but, frankly, good tea is pricey & it was less expensive and better than going to a fine dining establishment for tea.  Really cool to find this place across the street from the beach. 

Magoo's Burger (Food Truck) -- Diamond Head

I'm not a hiker. But, somehow I decided that hiking Diamond Head was a good idea.  We didn't know that we decided to do the hike on the same day as the Waikiki Beach triathlon, meaning an extra half mile walk from the bus stop, but hey, what's an extra half a mile walk...uphill...just to get to the park entrance (we took a cab home).  I did make it to the top and back down to the park where I was in desperate need of refreshment.  Luckily the bright yellow Magoo's Burger food truck was there waiting with shaved ice. 

Rainbow shaved ice

We decided to share a rainbow (strawberry, coconut, pineapple) shaved ice ($3.50) and the sweet, icy goodness totally hit the spot as we sat on a shady bench in the park before heading back to Waikiki.  If you're not into the rainbow, you can also choose two flavors of syrup on the shaved ice for the same price.  I am sure there is better shaved ice on the island, but honestly, location is everything, and this was amazing and refreshing--a great post-hike treat. 

Marukame Udon

Another place that was cheap and delicious was Marukame Udon.  Note--this place is highly ranked on yelp and pretty inexpensive so if you're going in the evening, expect a wait.  We went in the evening, decided the line was too long and went back the next morning where we walked through the line: 

Ontama Bukkake Udon with Green Onion, Tempura Flakes, Tempura Shrimp & Asparagus

This place is a cafeteria style restaurant where a chef behind the counter will get your udon then you proceed through various tempura & musubi offerings before arriving at the cashier. My husband got the Kake Udon, which is the most basic udon bowl, noodles with traditional broth and a spam musubi, but I decided to go with the Ontama Bukkake Udon which has the bukkake (salty, savory, probably soy based) sauce and a soft boiled egg on top.  The soft boiled egg is an amazing addition to the bowl that makes it full of creamy goodness.  The tempura was delicious and well done, although the asparagus was a little chewy. Still, overall, a great start to the day. 

House Without a Key (Cocktails)

House Without a Key is both a restaurant and a bar lounge, but is also a great place to catch some Hawaiian music and have a fantastic mai tai.  In the summer, the sun is too far west to catch the sunset there, but it's still a great time.  I wasn't sure that I wanted to do dinner at the restaurant so I had my husband call ahead to make sure that just doing drinks & pupus (appetizers) was okay.  The restaurant hostess who answered the phone was so nice--she let us know about the sunset view being obscured in summer, but also about the Hawaiian music & hula dancer, that cocktails were out on the patio, and we should arrive by 5:30pm if we wanted to be seated for the music/ dancer.  It was perfect advice.  We got a seat right by the music/ hula dancer: 

House without a Key: Live Music & Hula Dancer

And, we also had some great drinks, including the signature Mai Tai which I highly recommend: 

House Without a Key Mai Tai

There are other places to get cheaper drinks on the island, but for tasty drinks, tasty appetizers (we had the coconut shrimp which was yum -- and they serve a bowl of potato chips to all drink tables), and a great show in a very laid back environment, I'd highly recommend House Without a Key.  

So, that's the Honolulu (Waikiki) wrap-up.  I think I'll start a series on my own food next (after all, I can't eat out ALL the time, especially after Hawaii) so stay tuned for that.  Aloha! 

Morimoto (Waikiki) 7.26.14

Another morning at home, thinking about how just 4 short days ago at this time, I was at Morimoto Waikiki having lunch.  I have to start this review by saying that I have a total fangirl crush on Masaharu Morimoto and have probably watched every Iron Chef (original & America) that he's on.  I love the concept of his food and that he just seems like a nice guy.  The first time I ate at a Morimoto restaurant was shortly after the opening of Morimoto Napa for my 6th wedding anniversary.  As the restaurant had just opened, Chef Morimoto himself was cooking there and signed my Morimoto cookbook. The omakase that night was truly one of the best meals that I had.  We had been back to the Napa locations a few times after that, when we lived in the Bay Area, and it just was never quite the same, but the last time we were there, I had a chirashi bowl for lunch and thought I had died and gone to heaven (the sushi rice is AMAZING) so we decided to try the Waikiki location for lunch.

Morimoto Soba Ale

So, it was a longish (1.2 mile) walk to Morimoto from our hotel and when we got there, we needed some liquid refreshment.  Morimoto is a little hidden in The Modern Honolulu hotel (it's across the street from Red Lobster), but we found it alright and were quickly seated.  The lunch crowd was pretty sparse, but there were two wedding parties and a larger birthday party there so plenty to keep them busy.  My husband ordered a Morimoto Soba Ale (he had tried it before at the Napa location so he knew he'd enjoy it).  Morimoto has a partnership with Rogue Ales to produce three speciality beers, the soba ale, an imperial pilsner, and a black obi soba.  I ordered an iced tea.  Pro-tip on the iced tea.  It was $7.  And it was not a fancy iced tea.  I understand that I was at a fine dining establishment, but $7 for non-specialty iced tea?!?!

Then, it was time for lunch.  

[Side note: Because we've had a lot of the specialities, we didn't end up ordering any of the appetizers, but I have to say that if you're at a Morimoto and haven't had a tartare (toro or hamachi), you really have to try one.  The tartares are amazing and super beautiful, pricy but worth it.]

Okay, on to our meal.  My husband, in his pescatarian ways, ordered the chirashi bowl: 

For those of you not particularly familiar with Japanese food, chirashi is assorted raw fish on a bed of sushi rice and Morimoto's is definitely one of the best.  I love that the chirashi bowl used a lot of local fish and the rice was the amazing slightly sweet, sticky goodness that I remember. If you're a a fan of raw fish or chirashi in general, it's completely worth the trek to any Morimoto for a chirashi bowl. 

"Loco Moto" Lunch Set

I decided to do the loco moto lunch set, which is Morimoto's take on loco moco, a Hawaiian classic dish.  Morimoto subs wagyu beef for the usual hamburger meat and uses an organic local egg with hayashi gravy (stewed onions & beef).  It was savory deliciousness, but really, really filling and pretty heavy for lunch on a warm day.  The rest of the set was also nice.  The miso soup had freshly cut silken tofu, the sushi was (as to be expected) fresh, and I loved the kabosu dressing on the mixed green salad which was a light counterbalance to the richness of the loco moco.  

Overall, I was pleased with our meal, but it wasn't my favorite on the island.  Morimoto still is my favorite celebrity chef though and I have a hard time imagining that changing any time soon. 

Nobu (Waikiki) 7.25.14

Just returned from a weekend in Waikiki for my 10th anniversary where we got to take advantage of the shopping, the beach, the hiking, and, of course, the food.  This will be the first in a series of fine dining blogs & then I'll probably end up doing a shorter, combined post on cheaper eats.

We started our anniversary weekend with dinner at Nobu, Waikiki.  The Nobu fine dining chain is one of my favorites in the world, so it seemed appropriate to start there. We got there in time for happy hour and started at the bar, where signature drinks were $8.  This is the Matushisa Martini:

Premium Hokusetsu Sake & Ketel One Vodka garnished with cucumbers

I don't drink much, but I took a sip of this cocktail just for good measure.  It was too boozy for me, but there are plenty of other signature cocktails that are sweeter and all of them are $8 at Happy Hour.  I actually had the Signature Shiso tea which was AMAZING (if you're a huge tea lover like I am).  It was a white peony tea with shiso, really subtle in its flavor and perfect for the post-flight headache that I walked in with.  

We decided that we wanted to focus on the local fish of the islands.  We've been to a couple other Nobu locations (Los Angeles & Las Vegas Hard Rock) so we thought we'd try dishes & specials that might be more unique to the Waikiki location, unfortunately, this means that I didn't catch all of the names of the fish that we ate, not being very well versed in Hawaiian fish names :( 

Whitefish Sashimi with Dried Miso

The whitefish sashimi with dried miso is one of our favorite Nobu dishes and the Nobu Waikiki version uses a local whitefish which is slightly firmer than the whitefish normally used at the other locations.  I love this dish because the citrus of the yuzu with the savory of the dried miso, and contrasting textures of the garlic chip & whitefish make a perfect combination in your mouth, with just a hint of onion from the chive.  So delicious! 

Bigeye Ahi Poke NOBU Style

Our next dish was the bigeye ahi poke Nobu style which was pretty much all local, from the island.  The bigeye tuna was locally caught and the seaweed & heart of palm garnish were also harvested from the island.  I had this seaweed several times during our stay on the island and I loved it.  It provided a nice textural crunch and saltiness without being very briny.  This wasn't my favorite dish, but my husband loved it (which is perfect because then we didn't fight over it ;) ) .  It was too earthy and savory and I'm not a huge heart of palm fan, but if you are, it's a great dish to try. 

Tempura Monchong with nori, jalapeño, cilantro, & red onion on a light ponzu tempura sauce

I don't think I've ever had Monchong before, but this was delicious.  The tempura batter was perfect, the sauce was light and it was really balanced on the palate.  I really enjoyed the hot crispy tempura with the freshness of the cilantro & onion and a bit of sweetness with the ponzu sauce.  

New Style Salmon Sashimi

New style salmon sashimi is my go-to dish at every Nobu.  I love it so much.  The salmon melts in your mouth and blends perfectly with the soy, sesame, hint of chili oil and chives. I loved the roasted tomato on the plate--the skin was crisp and it was delicious.  This is probably not my favorite rendition of this dish (I like it better at the Las Vegas Hard Rock location), but it was still definitely a winner. 

Finally, what took the cake (literally) was dessert: 

Drunken Cherry Tobanyaki

I think this is the best dessert I've ever had in my life. Zaya rum-soaked cherries, mochi sponge cake, macadamia nut brittle, warm spiced caramel and amaretto ice cream.  This was seriously AMAZING--as in, I am actually salivating writing this blog right now in remembering the taste of this dessert amazing.  The brittle with the amaretto ice cream & caramel were seriously magical.  I liked that the cherries weren't overly tart or sweet, but really balanced and the sponge cake was a really nice texture.  I seriously would eat this a million times.  In fact, I wish I was eating it right now.  

Well, that's a fitting note to end this blog on--as I look longingly for some poor substitute for some dessert around the house.  But, stay tuned for more culinary adventures from the Hawaii trip soon on the blog.

Daikokuya Ramen & Ozero Tea & Desserts (Little Tokyo) 7.21.14

So, my friend and I had been planning to get together for awhile to check out the Japanese American National Museum's current exhibition Perseverance.  We finally found a day that we could get together for a museum & lunch date, but, I failed to notice, when I visited the website yesterday that JANM is closed on Mondays. Super sad panda....but hey, there's always lunch to be had, and in Little Tokyo, good eats are never far, so we decided to head over for an early lunch to Daikokuya.

            

(Random street shots of Little Tokyo in LA, because I'm never down here and well, there are beautiful things besides food.)

Daikokuya is an LA-area Ramen chain that was been ranked in Yelp's Top 10 Restaurants in 2011 and is pretty much super busy all the time.  Luckily, we were there early enough to get a seat at the bar without a wait and we quickly ordered two bowls of the Daikoku ramen, which is a pretty standard tonkatsu broth based ramen with chasu (pork), egg, ramen noodles, bean sprout, and green onions:

This was the pristine picture before stirring in the green onions, but you can't really see the goodness of the ingredients, hence...

The less composed picture with the ramen noodles, pork & egg.  Sorry for the shadow in the corner. I probably should have taken more time to compose the shot, but I was hungry. 

So, this is probably the best ramen I've had since returning from Tokyo.  I don't eat ramen THAT often so that's not saying a whole lot, but it was delicious. The broth was savory and delicious, the noodles were just the right texture of firm, the meat was super tender and the egg--OMG, the EGG.  I am not generally an egg fan, but that egg was seriously one of the best things I've eaten in awhile and really made the dish.  My friend thinks that it must have been marinated in something to infuse it with the flavor it had and it was a lovely medium boiled texture so it was cooked all the way through (not runny), but the yolk wasn't firm like a hard-boiled egg tends to be.  It was super good and pretty darn filling.  

Cool Art on the Wall of Ozero

Before getting back in the car for our ride back to her place, we stopped off at Ozero Tea & Desserts where I had a mango jasmine iced tea and my friend had a brown sugar milk tea with boba. 

Mange Jasmine Iced Tea & Brown Sugar Milk Tea w/ Boba

I'm really glad there's not an Ozero around the corner from my house because the mango jasmine tea was pretty addictive--just the right amount of sweet mango syrup blended with a lovely jasmine tea.  When I say, "just the right amount," I mean that the mango didn't over power the taste of the jasmine blossom in the tea which made it really balanced.  I am a stickler for well-made iced tea (a lot of places really overbrew their tea) so this was a nice post-meal treat. 

So, lesson learned--check the hours when going to visit a museum and make sure they're not closed on the day you plan to visit...or don't and have a great meal anyways.  

Orange Roll and Sushi (Anaheim) 7.16.14

Yesterday's meals weren't particularly photo-worthy, nor was tonight's dinner, but I did have lunch at one of my favorite places, Orange Roll and Sushi. I love it because it's close to my house, the rolls are HUGE, and it's pretty reasonably prices for sushi.  I have many ambitions in life, but one of them is to be the yelp duchess at this place since I am certain that I eat here more than anyone.  I just sometimes forget to check-in.  Anyways, I'm sure this will be the first of many posts about Orange Roll and Sushi and this post itself is a bit of a compilation of my last few trips here.

Today's lunch:

OC Roll: Inside--spicy tuna, tempura shrimp, avocado, with salmon & lemon on the outside 

(one of my faves)

Other delicious photos from previous visits

Lunch last week with my husband: 

Left: Sunset Roll--Inside--Shrimp tempura, spicy tuna, cucumber, avocado; Outside--Tuna

Right: Autumn Roll--Inside--Spicy tuna, cilantro, avocado; Outside--Peppered Salmon & Albacore

Some other, fairly recent time: 

Top: Euclid roll: Inside--Spicy tuna, cucumber, avocado, cilantro; Outside--Yellowtail, jalapeño

Bottom: Salmon Nigiri

Just a note for non-spicy-tuna lovers, they have plenty of rolls without spicy tuna on the inside.  I like the Orange Roll (salmon inside & outside) personally, but if you love the California Roll based rolls, make sure to check out the list of Chef Special Rolls on the linked page from the menu.  If you just look at the photographs of the Chef Special Rolls, you'll mainly see the spicy-tuna based rolls. There are also plenty of cooked dishes for non-sushi lovers, but the sushi is just SO PRETTY and I love sushi so that's what's featured in today's post.