Showing posts with label airport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label airport. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Flying Out in Style with Petrossian LAX

On the day I left for London, the new Petrossian at LAX Tom Bradley International Terminal was having a media tasting, so of course I had to go! Talk about perfect timing. It was my first time at the new terminal, and the classy Petrossian decor matched the sleek terminal.

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Now, jetsetters can wait for their flights while drinking cocktails garnished with caviar powder. The High Society cocktail is made with Tanqueray gin, St. Germaine, and green chartreuse. The glass is rimmed with caviar powder, which is also in the lemon "boat"
Caviar Cocktail

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Cinco: Solid Cocktails, Craft Beers, and Mexican Food Near LAX

I had always thought Westchester was a desert for food and drinks, but I discovered Cinco, a great place to grab some beers, cocktails, and food when you need to be around LAX. Its location is perfect for your friend's short layover.

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They have a big list of craft beers and a surprisingly great cocktail program.

I came for brunch, which offers additional cocktails like the "Iced Coffee" made with aged rum, coffee, horchata, cinnamon, and nutmeg for only $6. This is how I want to take my coffee every weekend.
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The most popular food item is perhaps the Coctel de Mariscos, a huge bowl of octopus and shrimp in tomato and lime juice topped with avocado, onion, and all that good stuff ($11)
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Thursday, June 21, 2012

LAX Eats: Lobster Pad Thai at Ayara Thai (and Recipe)

Finding a place to eat near LAX has always been a tough task and In-N-Out ends up being the choice a few too many times. My recent visit to Ayara Thai told me that I should've explored the area more, and it's now on my list the next time I have a friend or family flying in with a short layover. Definitely keep an eye out for their specials announcement on twitter or Facebook, because they just may have the lobster pad thai. Yup, lobster!

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For $16, they give a generous amount of lobster. Chicken? Meh. After having pad thai with chunks of lobster, it's hard to imagine any other protein that would go better with this sweet noodle. Lobster is the way to go, so try it whenever they have it available!
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Even though I normally stay away from the chili sauces, the owner said the pad thai goes really well with the red sauce and the pickled jalapeno, so I tried a bite with the condiments. They really changed the flavors and the pickled jalapeno (which wasn't too spicy) acted like a palate cleanser in between bites. You should really try adding these two to at least some of your pad thai!

The spring rolls we ordered were apparently vegetarian (with tofu) so they were a bit more bland.
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Saturday, September 6, 2008

Bug Bites!

Somehow the members of my lab got to talking about bugs and eating them a few months ago. Finally we managed to get people to go down to Typhoon in the Santa Monica airport tonight.
Typhoon is a Pan-Asian restaurant just below The Hump (I think owned by the same people also). Definitely has a nice view with the small planes there and all.

There were 10 of us and we ordered family style - bugs and nonbugs.

The first one that came definitely had a shock factor and was probably the grossest of them all. This was the chicken-stuffed waterbugs:First of all, we were shocked (and disappointed) that there were only two bugs on a $10 plate ... and since there were 10 of us it was a bit hard to share ...
So they were salty and crunchy ... with an aftertaste. The chicken? Could barely taste it with all the bug's exoskeleton pieces swirling around in your mouth ... They remind me of fried shrimp skin- salty and crunchy and otherwise doesn't taste like much.

We actually didn't order this but I guess they thought we did anyway ... this was the scorpions on shrimp toast:
Again, there were only two of them - plus the scorpions were tiny. I didn't get to have this one so can't tell you how they were.

Then we had the seaworms, also deep fried and served on lettuce wrap:
I was actually most scared of this one, but it turned out to taste and look pretty harmless. The seaworms to me tasted (and looked) like anchovies. My first bite was incredibly spicy and my mouth was burning. It didn't happen again though, I think it was just a piece of green chili in there.
Next we had the crickets, which rumdood said it was good (if he remembered correctly from years ago).
The crickets were somewhat small, but these were probably our favorite out of the bugs.
The potato strings do mask the flavors though, so you have to try the crickets by themselves.

The last one was the Chambi ants, also served with potato strings. Looks like an ant hill ...
The ants were harder to pick out to see how they taste, since they're so small. Eating them with potato strings mask the possible ant flavors. I think they do give subtle but distinct taste to them, but with the deep fried salty potato strings it's hard to be sure.

All in all, it kind of felt like the bugs were just a gimmick. They don't really taste like much - but then again that is not necessarily the fault of the restaurant. The prices definitely insane though, $10 for two pieces of cockroach-looking waterbugs.

Obviously the bugs - although drained our wallets - didn't really fill us up, so we ordered some "normal' stuff. Among others we got the Mongolian lamb:
This was actually really good. They served it with a bunch of this flaky bread that was delicious. The lamb retains its "lamb taste" which we liked, and the spices were pretty good.

Typhoon
3221 Donald Douglas Loop S.
Santa Monica, CA 90405
(310) 390-6565


Typhoon on Urbanspoon

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