Things to Slurp: Soba!

Right now I prefer soba to, say, ramen or udon, and my favorite place right now is Yabu on Pico! If you guys know other good soba places, please let me know :>
My only gripe about yabu is that they don't have soba with beef or pork (I like my red meat).

This time I ordered the Tori Toji Soba (chicken with eggs).The broth is soo tasty. This time around I didn't find much chicken though, bummer, but everything inside that bowl is so good (organic eggs, chicken, fish cake, green onions). I was mainly going for the eggs anyway. It would be good to have more meat/other things inside though, I think. Maybe tempura.

Their soba is handmade fresh daily (their claim to fame?) and was quite al-dente.

My friend got the broiled black cod, which was also good, but a bit salty. The veggies, especially the mushrooms, go really well with the cod , though.
Yabu
11820 W. Pico Blvd
W. Los Angeles, CA 90064

Chinese New Year! Hot Pot!

For the first time, I went to a gathering of all the Indonesian students at Caltech! There were more of them than I expected :P
We went to Mon Land Hotpot city in San Gabriel to celebrate Chinese New Year. The place was actually right by the 99 Ranch on Valley, I was surprised I never noticed it before.

We got there about 17 minutes late and they had given our table away to another big party, so they ended up putting us in a private room. Even better!

The reason we picked mon land is that we heard they had a non-spicy option that is more than just regular plain broth or water. As we were ordering they asked if we wanted spicy or non spicy. We asked for both. This is what they brought:As you can see, the pot was half spicy and half not. What makes it special is of course, all the spices you can see floating around in the broth. Chicken broth with lots and lots of garlic, ginger, cardamom, green onions and other things we don't even know what they are. The smell was amazing. We couldn't wait to dump the meat and veggies in it.

The meat and all other stuff had to be ordered a la carte. We didn't really see an option for big portions or group packages. So we got 3 orders of beef, 3 pork, etc etc. Also some veggies, enoki mushrooms, and dumpling.
They also have, if you guys so desire, fish intestines, etc.

I didn't touch the spicy broth, of course (if you know me, you wouldn't expect me to). But the non-spicy broth that I did eat, wow ... yummy. This was the first time I went to hot pot and actually kept drinking the broth and was maybe even more excited about it than the meat.

The meat and such were fairly standard, good quality. (the broth-infused meat was yumm ... hehe)

At the end they gave us a plate of red bean mochi. Free dessert is always good :)

Mon Land Hot Pot City
251 W. Bencamp Street
San Gabriel, CA 91776

Cozying Next Door for Brunch

I've heard many good things about Little Next Door, but hearing that Boule's old pastry chef has moved to little next door made me decide I just had to go. I actually went quite some time ago, but just now got around to writing it up ...

We went for a weekend brunch, so the wait was quite, quite long ... About 30 min or so. But I love my weekend brunches, so oh well.

We had a hard time deciding what to order, but I opted for the Maryland blue crab melt. Why? The melted mimolette cheese, of course! Plus it's blue crab!
The blue crab melt was yummy!! It is loaded with crab meat that cheese! Oooh! The portion is smaller than some other places but the price is not too bad. Anyway, smaller portions are good for my "diet" hehehe.

One of us ordered the smoked salmon benedict.
This was a standard, but very well executed eggs benedict. Smoked salmon was fresh and flavorful. The other ingredients were also very high quality. I should also mention that I liked the salads that come with these dishes.

Now, back to the rumor of the boule pastry chef ... of course we had to order dessert!
We had the apple tart tatin (it fell apart on the plate, but the taste was good :P )
Again, standard, but well done.

The next one is more interesting: the cinnamon pear tart.
I love spices! This tart was very good, we all really liked it. A bit dry though, I think more cream or even maybe ice cream would be good?

The couple with us also bought some other baked goods , like some financiers, which were also very yummy :)

Although I would have liked to see more unique/interesting items on the sweets/bakery menu, I did think what they have were all very well done.


Little Next Door
8142 West 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90048