August 13, 2010
white pizza-truffle oil, prosciutto, arugula
squash blossom risotto made in a parmesan wheel
seafood pasta
charcuterie
amuse bouche
bittersweet chocolate sorbet, rice pudding, chocolate macaron
petite fours
My uncle is visiting from Korea and we went to Andrea at the beautiful Pelican Hill resort to celebrate. I’m usually a little suspicious of hotel restaurants. They are more often than not, overpriced and overly stuffy. Andrea had amazing service and the food was good but I couldn’t help but feel like the restaurant was overly formal. They made a big deal about table side preparation of the risotto and prime rib. I’ve never really understood the tableside food shows. It seems unnecessary. The hand made pasta was quite good though. Loved the free petite fours!
June 27, 2010
A recent discovery via radio:
A person in the butterflies, nervous, anxious, manic beginning stages of love (more than the beginning for the lucky few) grows their hair and nails more quickly and burns more calories throughout the day.
Amazing.
eat your heart out lan! the best bloody mary ever! do you see the size of that shrimp on the rim of my cup?
garlic clams, oysters rockefeller, beer boiled shrimp and mussels at Brophy Brothers. our first night in santa barbara was happily ended with a seafood feast.
my mahi mahi
seafood pasta
abelskivers. pretty much the most exciting part of solvang
random sandwich place in santa barbara wine country. we spent the afternoon wine tasting and came here to soak of the wine in our bellies before heading back down to santa barbara
La Super Taqueria. My tamale with chicken, raisins, almonds, egg whites, plantains, and mole. Not sure what the egg whites were doing there but a pretty incredible tamale. apparently julia child really liked this place.
cheese stuffed pasillas and grilled pork for marcus
butternut squash soup at via maestra 42. thank you for the recommendation gracie!
milano sandwich
portobello sandwich
this is just one of the ways marcus is amazing. nancy sent me an article naming McDonald’s as having the perfect fries according to many scientific and well researched criteria. I mentioned to marcus that i wanted to verify this for myself and on our way back to los angeles he abruptly, and without warning veered off an exit after seeing a McDonald’s. Thank you Marcus for indulging all my silly cravings.
May 17, 2010
vanilla and valhrona chocolate lattes
fruit plate with warm baguette
If you know me you know how much I adore my little sister. She is living with me for the summer and we celebrated the beginning of this by partaking in one of our favorite rituals: lattes at Lamill and a leisurely morning. We needed it that morning. I woke up to my car being towed and a parking ticket. It was notably miserable. So much money wasted! But sometimes when things are bristly you have to tuck it away and treat yourself to overpriced sweet coffee among, sit in pretentious red leather chairs, and imagine that you are fancy and unphased by all the unpleasantries of being a person in the world.
April 29, 2010
vanilla bean panna cotta with red wine poached figs and strawberries
indonesian vanilla bean infusion
orange chocolate cake with orange sauce
the workshop group, carefully considering
and then we rewarded our hard work with:
I love my friends. Tonight was so wonderful.
Let me back track a little.
I’m exhausted–like have never been so exhausted in all my life, so sleep deprived that I feel drunk, started shaking in the candy aisle of a CVS at 8 in the morning, working at 4:30 a.m. in the gross Butler Building computer lab, eyes burning exhausted. But here’s the amazing part. Are you ready for this?
MY THESIS IS DONE!
YES YES YES YES YES!!!!
I’m doing a little dance right now. It’s true.
Another wonderful thing: I had Nikki, Sam, Nancy, and Lan come over tonight for a dessert workshop. I wanted them to try a few desserts I’m experimenting with and they were so wonderful and considerate with their suggestions. They took note of everything, taking bites before and after cakes had absorbed their sauces, carefully analyzing the viscosity of my coconut caramel. And what’s more is that they did this even though Sam and Nikki have a thesis due, Nancy had to drive through LA traffic right after tutoring, and Lan has to be up early for work. Seeing these fantastic people felt like just the invigoration I was in desperate need of.
Afterwards we went to Ganda Thai. Why is Thai food especially good after 9 p.m.?
I want this all the time. Dessert first. Involved conversations about cake density and psychic predictions that have and haven’t come true. Friends that I adore.
okay, now I have to sleep because i might die if i don’t. goodnight,
April 3, 2010
clam boyfriend
oysters, prawns, scallops, abalone, clams, bigger clams, baby octopus
Korean mixed rice with clam juice on a shell! mixed table side
koreans love grilling everything! steamed egg, dduk bok ee, seafood
korean pancake, sweet potato tempura, creamy corn stuff
abalone porridge
hand-cut flour noodles
Sometimes I question the logic of how much food served in a Korean meal. The general pattern is banchan (small plates), a substantial meat course (most reasonable stomachs would stop here), a starch course (usually a noodle or rice dish), and then something sweet. A great many places only serve things by fixed menus and you just order the small, medium, or large course and so you don’t even have the choice of eating lightly.
Marcus and I walked to Koreatown yesterday. It was a rigorous 1.8 miles and I’m not going to lie, I was a little grumpy about it. Hunger does not bring out the best in me. In fact I’m pretty sure I’m fairly monstrous when I’m hungry. But in the end I’m glad Marcus insisted that we walk because:
1) it was nice to walk through MacArthur park into dramatically different territory after crossing Vermont. This is the amazing thing about Los Angeles. In less than a mile you’re all of a sudden in a different country. Walking makes me feel like I really do live in a city.
2) I love walking but have generally considered it something I like to do alone with headphones. Also I like to do this at night. In my neighborhood. Apparently this is unwise. But walking with Marcus felt perfect and sweet and will now be my preferred method of city wandering.
3) We desperately needed some form of exercise after our gluttonous (also, glutinous. ha!)meal
We went to the Flaming Clam Grill on 6th and ordered the smallest portion, which could easily serve 3. The meal started with abalone porridge, cucumbers and carrots, a salad, a korean pancake, sweet potato tempura, and some sort of mysterious creamy corn thing. Then the waiter(s) stacked clams, scallops, steamed egg, and dduk bok ee on the grill. Dduk bok ee has rice noodles with vegetables in a red pepper sauce. Marcus kept calling them rice babies which I found hilarious. They also put cheese on the dduk bok ee. Highly unorthodox and unexpectedly delicious. After all those things had been cooked the waiter poured the grilled clam juice into a bowl of rice with seaweed and sesame seeds and red peppers and grilled that on a shell. And after that, oysters and prawns and abalone were added to the grill. At this point we thought we were done and felt quite round and full. But no, the waiter then brought out a pot of flour noodles. I think we were almost angry at the amount of food that we were intaking. Marcus actually made me stop eating at some point, scared that my stomach might burst.
This morning I woke up, still full.
February 22, 2010
nitro coconut ice cream
cippolini onions with clementines and passion fruit
cotton candy foie gras
mushroom rice
chicken with dates and mustard caviar
nitrogen frozen caprinhini
sweet potato chips with yogurt, anise, and tamarind dip
goat cheese stuffed piquillo peppers
scallops with romesco sauce
tuna ceviche with avocado and coconut milk
crab steamed buns
pa’amb tomaquet
jamon
olives
braised wagyu beef cheeks
liquid olives
Escalivada
Fancy for my fancy mama! The Bazaar has some of the most theatrical food ever. Since opening it seems like The Bazaar has become the molecular gastronomy go-to in Los Angeles with their rotating list of semi-celebrity sous chefs (they all seem to have been on Top Chef) and of course, Jose Andres. The decor is dizzyingly impressive, if not a little cold but that might just be a things of personal taste. I like to feel cuddled by restaurant ambiance.
I think Doc wanted to take my mom here to remind her of their recent trip to Spain and in particular, their visit to Arzak in San Sebastian (ahem…upon my recommendation). I thought the idea was very sweet.
The meal, like the decor, was impressive but it’s hard to separate taste from the general showmanship, but maybe that’s the point. A memorable meal.
The Bazaar
465 La Cienega Blvd
Beverly Hills
note~ this place is ridiculously hard to find.
February 12, 2010
salmon skin salad at honda-ya
vegetarian’s delight at carousel
chicken kebab at carousel
my frozen yogurt is the one on the left…clearly there is a disparity in the amount of yogurt i eat compared to the amount lan and nancy eat
There’s a lot of things I adore. Most of them are edible. But also high on my list are Lan and Nancy. If they were edible, I might eat them but as they are not or at least they’d object to be eaten, I’ll settle for eating with them. I’ve had dinner with them twice this week. It’s been a good week.
Today we went to Honda-Ya in Little Tokyo. I had been in bed all day trying to catch up on some writing and felt quite eager for the company of good friends. Nancy drove for over an hour to meet us which is amazing. We ate:
agedashi tofu, crab shumai, salmon skin salad, gingko nuts, green onion yakitori, a spider roll, nasu-miso, and ume-shiso red snapper tempura.
Afterwards we went for frozen yogurt at this place called Cherry On Top. Apparently there was some sort of competition going on for the prettiest yogurt. If you arrange your self-serve yogurt nicely enough they’ll take a picture and you can win $50. Apparently our yogurt was not very impressive because they didn’t even ask to take a picture. I feel like there was so many things going on at this yogurt place–they had fantastic pink leather booths, orb like plastic chairs with ass indentations (so your bottom won’t slip around in the round seat??) , and an amenities list that included the use of their nintendo games. Pictured above is Nancy and Lan taking advantage of the amenities. Not to mention the yogurt photo competition. Also the cashier was super excited about giving us free samples and offering us board games. The experience was overwhelming in a good way. It felt like the Disneyland of frozen yogurt.
February 4, 2010
Marcus and I had a date night! Doesn’t that sound exciting? I can confirm this for you. It was exciting. We went to Little Dom’s on Hillhurst. Marcus made the comment that it looked like a seaside East coast Italian restaurant. It reminded him of Providence. We sat at the bar because they had reservations booked through 10 pm but I think we both enjoyed the casualness of the seating arrangement so that worked out just fine. Marcus made friendly loose chat with the people on both sides of us. His aptness for social situations never fails to amaze me. While my reaction to overly cozy seating arrangements would be to keep more contained, to be even more conscious of the barriers of personal space, Marcus sees it as polite to create a more communal environment. I think it is safe to say that Marcus is a much warmer person than me.
We shared a bottle of wine.
Appetizer: Fish Crudo with lemon and rosemary
My Entree: Salmon with fennel
Marcus’ Entree: Pappardelle with peas and ricotta
I’m sorry for the terrible photo. It doesn’t do the food justice.
It was an enormously enjoyable evening, partially for the meal and partially for the company.
December 21, 2009
You might think that all this sugar would make me bounce off walls but no, apparently there is a point when too much sugar just makes me catatonic and feel like even a glass of water might be last straw before my body wilts from a terrible case of overeating.
I think brunch is possibly the greatest thing ever invented.
I also love my mother’s office holiday parties. It’s always a brunch event and usually Saeyoung is home and this year was especially wonderful because Nancy Romero accompanied us. See below:
 Pad Kee Mow
Crispy Spring Rolls
Green Papaya Salad
Predictably the first thing we did upon Saeyoung’s arrival was eat. She arrived at 11 pm so our choices were fairly limited. We ended up going to one of the late night Thai restaurants near my apartment. Satisfying but I’m still loyal to Jitlada. Maybe the food was a little spicier than we expected.
Red Corner Asia
5267 Hollywood Blvd
LA, 90027
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