Showing posts with label chicken wings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chicken wings. Show all posts

Friday, April 17, 2020

Cocktails and Argentinean Fare at Barcito (Downtown LA)

A while back I visited Barcito in downtown LA for the first time. It's an Argentinean restaurant serving tapas as well as salads and sandwiches. While you can't dine in there right now, they are still open for takeout and delivery.

A recap of my visit there: We had to start with some jamon and burrata, of course. They're served with some Bub and Grandma's bread.
Barcito LA

Spanish tortilla (egg, potato, onion, but they made it their own with the addition of arugula and cashew romesco)
Barcito LA

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Astro's Doughnuts & Fried Chicken (Downtown LA)

Doughnuts. We can't get enough of them. The popular DC-based Astro Doughnuts & Fried Chicken is now open in downtown LA. It's been named one of the best donut shops in America, so of course I had to try them! And I tried quite a few of them ..
Astro Doughnuts

Astro's has a selection of three hot cake doughnuts that will be made fresh to order, and you don't want to miss these. I got the Nutella hot cake doughnut (but it was a tough choice between this and maple bacon).
Astro Doughnuts
You have to get one of these made-to-order donuts if you have time to eat in the store! Warm donut with melted Nutella. So good! I'm normally a fan of yeast donuts more than cake donuts, but this was an exceptionally good cake donut.

Made-to-order donuts aside, Astro's doughnuts are made fresh in small batches throughout the day, and their batter is never frozen. Look out for their special seasonal flavors, like this Chocolate Banana Daiquiri filled with banana custard
Astro Doughnuts

Monday, January 16, 2017

The Brook Kitchen and Tap Brings Good Food and Beers to Holbrook, MA

When I got invited to try out the new The Brook Kitchen and Tap in Boston's South Shore (Holbrook, MA), I have to say I wasn't sure what to expect since I hadn't explored the South Shore much, but I was pleasantly surprised when I got there! The Brook Kitchen and Tap offers some great food at a value and a nice craft beer list to boot.

Among the things to get here are the Mango Habanero dry wings - they have a number of wet and dry sauces/rubs for the wings, but these were the ones the chef recommended for us.
The Brook Kitchen Tap
We were pretty obsessed with these wings. The mango habanero rub was superb! It packed some heat, and the sweetness and tartness added a really nice layer of flavors. We would definitely return for these!

In general the food at The Brook was not only good, but a great value as well given the price and the large portions. Take, for example, this appetizer of Crispy brussel sprouts with sriracha ranch ($8)
The Brook Kitchen Tap
Not only were the they crispy and delicious, this is perhaps the largest portion I've seen for $8!

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

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.

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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)
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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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Thursday, February 27, 2014

Winter Cocktails at 1886 Bar (Pasadena, CA)

Granted this winter in Los Angeles has been strange, but that doesn't mean I can't get my winter cocktails fix! After all, I love my hot cocktails and spices, and luckily 1886 Bar in Pasadena is providing all of them this winter. Spiced and spicy cocktails, chai lattes, hot toddies, and more ...

Interesting spices are making their way into the cocktails like in the Moroccan Exchange (by Gillian Georges): Dos Maderas PX rum, Nicaraguan 5-year rum, lime, harissa spices on a rock of ice, finished with Smith and Cross rum.

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I tend to always order a dish with harissa (just like I probably will order any drink with saffron or kaffir lime) and Gillian did an excellent job using the aromatic spices with a blend of rums from three different countries, which, of course, has to include one from Morocco's neighboring country, Spain.

The beer cocktail of the season is the complex Rico Suave (by Jesus Gomez and Saul Soto).
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The drink takes on a traditional Aztec recipe for beer using fermented corn, pineapple, and secret blend of spices. The secret mix is then served with a Bavarian Hefeweizen, resulting in a unique flavor.

Monday, December 30, 2013

Winter Cocktail Pairing at Trattoria Neapolis (Pasadena, CA)

Ken Baranda has left the bar at Trattoria Neapolis, but his successor, Chris Doyle, is doing just fine, as exemplified by his winter cocktails.

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The first cocktail I tried during a recent tasting was a warm one, a variation of hot buttered rum: Fireside (Appleton dark rum, Matusalem light rum, butter, cloves, vanilla, cinnamon, orange zest)
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Not too heavy, warm, and would be perfect on chilly nights.
The cocktails were paired with some bites. The Fireside was paired with some Beef short rib "manwiches" on house focaccia
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Darling Clementine (Tito's vodka, fresh clementine juice, housemade cranberry ginger chutney, Combier, fresh orange and lemon juices)
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Clementines are a great citrus alternative for cocktails! This drink was so refreshing but with some spice from the ginger chutney. We all loved this one. Despite my usual snobby tendency to avoid vodka cocktails, this was my favorite.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Tuesday Wing Nite at Delphine (Hollywood)

Dining at the W Hotel in Hollywood doesn't have to be stuffy. Now you can eat with your fingers after that Pantages show with Delphine's Tuesday Wing Nite.

Spiced Honey Wings
Fried chicken wings with spiced honey
All night on Tuesdays, you can get an order of chicken wings for just $4.50 (4-5 wings per order) and choose from a variety of flavors, not just your usual spicy buffalo wings or fried chicken wings, although naturally they have those also.

Among my favorites was the grilled chicken wings with Honey Sriracha sauce, sweet and spicy! Don't forget to lick your fingers after.
Honey Sriracha Wing

Thursday, April 8, 2010

SF: San Tung Takes on Wings

The end of last year I visited San Francisco to take my aunt from Indonesia around. We were staying my a good friend of my cousin's and on my first night she took us to San Tung, a popular Chinese restaurant in the Inner Sunset district.

She said San Tung is supposed to have really good chicken wings and my aunt likes chicken.
Chinese=cheap. Chicken wings=sound good to me. I hesitated a bit because the friend is actually a vegetarian, so she wouldn't really know if the place was good. It had a good Yelp rating, so I wondered if it would be up to snuff.

A really spicy pickled cabbage that's served at every table.
My aunt and friend both liked it a lot. I didn't try it at all (didn't I just say it was supposedly really spicy?).

Because the friend is vegetarian, we also ordered some eggplant in garlic sauce ($7.50)
Generous portion and it packs a punch of flavor. The eggplants were sweet and tender and the sauce was a little spicy and very flavorful.

What we came for: The Original Dry Fried Chicken Wing ($9)
For my sake, we didn't get the hot ones that night. The wings had a nicely crispy skin, and a sticky sweet sauce. I preferred it to Bonchon/Kyochon in LA since it's not as sweet, the skin is crunchier than Kyochon (tho maybe not Bonchon), but mostly because it is CHEAPER. For $9 we get a whole plate of big chicken wings, not a small basket of tiny wings for $10. The value proposition is much higher.

Noodles in Black Bean Sauce ($8): SKIP.
Seems like a lot of Yelpers liked this dish, but I didn't. I usually really like the Korean-Chinese black bean noodle, jjangmyun, but here the homemade noodles were doughy and mushy, the black bean sauce was bland. The list of beef, shrimp, and calamari on the dish was tempting but I don't think it worked particularly well. It was a big bowl of bland starch to me.

San Tung for the most part serves a solid Chinese meal, but it's really the dry fried wings people come for and it isn't all just hype. The crispy wings were quite good and I'll pay for these over Kyochon any day. But then, would I otherwise drive so far and wait for a table for wings?

San Tung Chinese Restaurant
1031 Irving St
San Francisco, CA 94122
(415) 242-0828
www.santungrestaurant.com/menu.html
San Tung on Urbanspoon
San Tung in San Francisco

Monday, October 6, 2008

Mini Bar Hop in K Town

Somewhat recently I had the good fortune of meeting Mattatouille and friends, who then introduced me to Tai, the owner of Scoops.

I will leave our conversation with Tai for another post. What I wanted to blog about today is what happened after :) Mattatouille's friend (don't want to put her real name here, especially when I may misspell it :P ) suggested we go bar-food hopping in K-town. Being a non-Korean-speaker or reader, this was untested waters for me, and I like these new people I just met, so I took them up on it!

First Stop:
Dansungsa
3317 W 6th St
Los Angeles, CA 90005 (213) 487-9110

This place a complete Korean dive. Well, not that I would know. But with the dark interior, smoky haze from the bbq in the middle, and old movie posters, it sure seemed like it to me.

The menu is completely in Korean, so I wasn't sure what we ordered. All I know is that we got these spicy kalbi which were delicious, and were #52 on the menu! Don't know what it's called, but it's #52 my friends!
Not that spicy, and extremely addicting.

We also got some scallion pancakes (pa jeon? I tried googling it).
Somewhat thick, with tons of scallions, and a nice crispy exterior!

This segment, with some Hite beer, was ~$10/person total.
I wanted some more ribs, but we gotta move on to the next one!

Dan Sungsa on Urbanspoon

On to stop #2: The Hite Bar
Hite Kwang-Jang
3839 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90010 (213) 384-7999
In direct contrast to the previous place, this place looks like a little western cafe you might find in Asia, probably selling spaghetti. It might've even been called Bear House. But no, it's actually Hite cafe (supposedly used to be Hite factory) serving up (in addition to some western style dishes) blood sausages, and - what we came there for - chicken wings in sweet & spicy korean sauce.I think this was called "yang nyum chicken" ? Not completely sure ...
This was ... spicy! The sauce was deliciously sweet and sticky but also spicy, spicier than the kal bi from dansungsa. I was having trouble eating this and ended up gobbling tons of the marinated turnips.

Oh, and drinking a lot of Hite.

They had a dark, light, and "special" Hite which is just a mix of the two. Sounded interesting enough, so we went with a pitcher of that.

Not much difference than the regular Hite - still light.



We also got some scallion pancake here, which was served there for free. Thinner and crispier than the previous one, which in a way is better, but I did like the fact that the previous one was more loaded with scallions!
I had to stop here for the night, unfortunately. I had a great time and hopefully will get another chance to hang out with these people! I'll be training to eat spicy food beforehand ...
Young-Dong Hite Rounge on Urbanspoon

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