Showing posts with label fried rice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fried rice. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Woon Kitchen: A Family Affair in Historic Filipinotown

Woon Kitchen recently opened in Historic Filipinotown (a.k.a. HiFi), adding another reason that HiFi is one of LA's latest food hotspots. Woon Kitchen started as a pop-up, building a loyal fan base by showcasing their mother's (Julie Fong, aka. Mama Fong) homestyle Chinese cooking around town. The new HiFi shop is small but cute and has some patio seating. There's a small but affordable menu plus a few specials, as well as beer and wine

To start: each table gets a bowl of peanuts roasted with sea moss (that apparently they get from a special dealer in SGV)
Woon
One of their best known dishes is the beef noodle, which is what they're known for from their pop-up days. It's a stir fried chewy noodles with marinated flank steak, bok choy and shiitake mushrooms ($11).
Woon
The stir fried noodles have a sweeter sauce and the texture of the noodles is nice and chewy, the beef slightly charred. For me, while I didn't eat these flavors exactly as a kid, the taste certainly reminds me of homeocoking.

Monday, August 31, 2015

Brunch at Myers and Chang (Boston, MA)

Myers + Chang is one of the most popular restaurants in Boston, with Joanne Chang's Asian-inspired small plates. I finally made it there for brunch with a group of friends. Since there was a vegetarian mong us, we ordered the Wok-roasted wild mushroom omelet ($7)

Myers and Chang
This was a great breakfast dish, so savory and satisfying.

We also got two different dumplings: Mama Chang's Pork and Chive ($6) and edamame wasabi ($6)
Myers and Chang

Surprisingly, I actually liked the vegetarian edamame gyozas better. The pork dumplings were good but the edamame wasabi is more special and unique. Just like the mushroom omelet earlier, I enjoyed the vegetarian dishes here quite a bit.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Cravings: Goat Stew at Mirak (Koreatown, Los Angeles)

I get inexplicable cravings for the goat stew (yumso tang) at Mirak. I say inexplicable but really, the explanation is easy: it's damn good.

Be it winter or summer, I would still crave this stew. Mirak is (of course) in a small strip mall in Koreatown, hard to find if you don't know what to look for. The yellow sign above the restaurant is all in Korean, but it does say Mirak on the window. Look instead for a sign for "Samil Plaza". There is a parking lot but it tends to be overrun, even when the restaurant doesn't look that busy.

The black goat stew is listed as "Goat meat spicy broth with vegetables served in hot pot". They charge per person, $15 each.

Goat stew for 2
The meat is gamey but the perilla leaves and spicy broth compensate for the smell, and the meat is also extremely tender! The broth is filled with chilies and mustard seed, incredibly flavorful but not overly spicy (if I could handle it, so can you).

Banchan and condiments

After you finish off the stew (if you don't, the ladies working there will heap what's left onto your plates), they will come by and start the finishing touch: kimchi bokkumbap (fried rice) in the pot using leftover broth. Here they make the fried rice with bits of dried seaweed which added a really nice touch.

Usually at the end of a meal for two I will have a container of leftover rice and goat meat, plenty for a meal the next day! Maybe not for office lunch, though. To say the aroma is strong is an understatement. Mirak is one of my favorite places in Koreatown, offering a dish not easily available anywhere else. It hits the spot every time. It's also a good deal for $15 a person, as it usually feeds me for 2 days!


Mirak
1134 S Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90006
(323) 732-7577
Mirak on Urbanspoon

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Brunch at Lazy Dog Cafe (Torrance)

Usually my trips down to Torrance only involves Japanese restaurants and bakeries, but I broke the pattern on my latest trip with brunch at the Lazy Dog Cafe.

Here is what you need to get at brunch:
Sunny Side Up Pizza: white pizza with Spinach, Sundried Tomatoes, Bacon, topped with three fresh Eggs, baked until golden brown ($9.25)

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Fellow blogger LA OC Foodie ordered this, but luckily he was generous enough to share. It was my favorite thing I had at Lazy Dog, especially the slices with the egg yolk on them. It's breakfast on a pie! Hmm, maybe they should put six eggs instead?

IMG_8435For sweet potato lovers, get the sweet potato tater tots with roasted jalapeno-lime aioli ($4.75)

The bacon lovers should try the Bacon Bloody Mary (Vodka, housemade crispy bacon infused bloody mary mix, pepperoncini, pickled cherry pepper,olive, bacon-corn nut salt, $7.50). I'm not a huge fan of savory cocktails and bloody marys so I didn't order one. I tried a sip of someone else's and it's got quite a kick to it! Bloody Mary lovers should enjoy this one.
IMG_8437

Lazy Dog Cafe has their own house brews, made by the brewery Firestone Walker and you can get a taster of six for $6.95. The taster includes the Lazy Dog Honey Blonde, Lazy Dog American Hefe, Lazy Dog Bavarian Hefe, Lazy Dog Pale Ale, Lazy Dog Red and a seasonal beer (which happened to be the Firestone Velvet Merlin the day we went).
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Out of the Lazy Dog beers, we liked the red ale the best, and I also liked the Bavarian Hefeweizen.

You can also get a sampler of their three house-made Sangrias: White Peach, Black-Currant Rose, and Pomegranate Red ($8.25)
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The three have pretty distinct flavors. I liked the white peach and black-currant rose, but if you've never had them, the sampler trio is definitely the way to go.

It's rare to see fried rice on a brunch menu, especially at a western restaurant, so I was intrigued enough to order the Hawaiian Fried Rice: Stir-fried steamed rice with hickory-smoked bacon, pork sausage, cabbage, veggies and eggs ($7.95)
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I wished they had put a sunny side up egg with runny yolk with this instead of the frittata-like egg. It's an enormous amount of food for the price-I could barely eat a third of it - but I much preferred the breakfast pizza.

We had to try the pancakes for dessert, especially one with a bacon butter, no?
Wild blueberry pancakes and maple bacon butter: Three large buttermilk blueberry pancakes, topped with blueberry compote, housemade maple bacon butter and syrup on the side ($7.75)
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The maple bacon butter actually had chunks of bacon in them! This made me be picky when I spread the butter, as I had to look for the parts with the chunks. The small, wild blueberries are sweeter than the big supermarket kind and thus worked better as a pancake topping.

When you live far from Torrance, it's hard to go there without stopping at at least one Japanese restaurant or bakery, but Lazy Dog Cafe should certainly be a spot for the locals. The menu is a good value, they have their own brews plus a few more local craft beers on tap, and that addictive sunny side up pizza!

Lazy Dog Cafe
3525 W Carson St
Torrance, CA 90503
(310) 921-6080
lazydogcafe.com
 The Lazy Dog Cafe on Urbanspoon

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