Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Udon and Uni at Marugame Monzo (Downtown LA)

When Marugame Monzo opened in Little Tokyo, I was excited for two things. First, the handmade udon means I don't have to drive to Torrance for good udon! Second, two words: uni udon.

Yep, one of the signature items is the Sea Urchin (Uni) Cream udon ($15.95)

Marugame Monzo
Perfectly chewy udon, creamy sauce, uni. I mean, what's not to like? During my first visit with a couple of friends, we barely tried anything else because we all wanted to order this.

The glass windows of the kitchen let you see the udon making in action.
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Trust me, having freshly made noodles of any kind (soba, pasta, and yes, udon) makes a huge difference!

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Let's Talk About Sustainable Seafood

Last year I attended a Sustainable Seafood panel in LA presented by The Los Angeles Food Policy Council & Sustainable Seafood LA, and I learned a lot about seafood consumption in the US and the world.

Here are some facts about seafood you may not know:
  1. America is the 2nd largest consumer of seafood in the world (the first is China).
  2. We take half a billion pounds of seafood out of ocean each day.
  3. 90% of US seafood is imported.
  4. Shrimp is the #1 consumed seafood in US. Most of these are imported from Thailand. The 2nd most consumed is tuna. Pacific blue fin tuna, as you may already know, is depleted. But you can still eat skipjack tuna (which makes up 60% of canned tuna these days), albacore, and yellowfin.
  5. 50% of the world's seafood is from aquaculture (mostly from China).
  6. 70% of the fish in US is consumed in restaurants. That means chefs play a very important part in seafood sustainability!
  7. 2% of all research and development dollars go to USDA. Only 0.4% of that goes to aquaculture research.
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Friday, January 2, 2015

Rino's Place, Old School Italian Gem in East Boston

Food-wise, it seems that people travel to East Boston for two reasons: Santarpio's and Rino's Place. They've both been institutions in what is called Eastie (Rino's Place has been around for about 25 years). The wait at Rino's Place can get so long that they opened a bar/cafe across the street called Prima E Dopo (which means Before and After) that they suggest people go while waiting. I purposefully came at an odd hour, around 3:30pm to avoid both the lunch and dinner crowds. I got seated immediately but the restaurant was still more than half full.

Layered eggplant with mozzarella and creamy pesto sauce. You can order half or a full order. The half is already plenty and is only $6.

Eggplant
Eggplant parmigiana is one of my favorite comfort food and I knew I was going to like this variation since I love pesto. I was right and I had to stop myself from devouring the entire thing since I still had another dish coming.

I came for this: the housemade ravioli filled with ricotta cheese. This dish is nominated for Best Pasta for the upcoming Chowzter North American awards. (A similar dish but stuffed with both lobster and ricotta has been featured on Food Network).
Rino's Place

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