Spring Menu at Umami Burger

This spring brings new options for the vegetarians and non-meat eaters to Umami Burger. I checked out the one in Old Town Pasadena and decided it was one of the few times I can bring my vegetarian friend.

We started with the Avocado Toast (toasted challah, crushed avocado, wild baby arugula, herbs, miso grapefruit dressing, sunny side up egg ($6, add bacon for $1)

Instead of just a spread of avocado, there are plenty of chunks on top of the toast. Being an avocado lover myself, I really enjoyed this, especially when combined with the runny egg yolk. Out of the spring additions, this was my favorite.

There are 2 special burgers for the spring.

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Lunch with Chowzter at Mission Chinese (San Francisco, CA)

In anticipation of the Chowzter Global Awards in London this week, I thought I'd blog about the lunch I had with them in San Francisco (where Langer's #19 won the Tastiest Fast Feast for North America).
Our big group went over to the recently popular Mission Chinese Food - too early, they haven't even opened yet when we arrived. Being bloggers, we just took photos outside and studied the menu until they open. Mission Chinese had taken over the Lung Shan space, where they used to do pop ups, and they left the old sign.

Throw a bunch of out of town bloggers here and we will end up ordering the whole menu x 3, pretty much ... Of course, we had to try the popular Chongqing Chicken Wings ($11)

The crispy chicken wings were buried in peppers! As good as they were, the most surprising and addictive component of the dish was the crunchy tripe slices scattered at the bottom.

You can take a break from all the spiciness and tingly feeling the chicken wings left you with dishes like Tiki Pork Belly (in soy caramel, mandarin, pickled pineapple, shaved coconut, macadamia nuts - $10). And a tiki umbrella, natch.

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Il Piccolo Verde (Brentwood)

With the rise of inventive and off-the-wall menus these days, we sometimes forget how good how good old school cooking is - like classic Italian, for example. At Il Piccolo Verde, a cute, small, Italian place in Brentwood, I was recently reminded of it.

The Baked eggplant parmigiana is a bit different, since it is stuffed with zucchini ($12)

There's an old school wood fired pizza oven here.

We tried the Pizza Napoletana, topped with tomato sauce, fresh burrata, and basil

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