Greek Fest. Opa!

As you can see from the "upcoming food events" calendar, this month is crazy! This past weekend was both the Long Beach lobster fest and also the LA Greek Festival at the St Sophia Cathedral.
On Saturday I decided to check out the Greek Fest with a friend of mine. Silly me didn't check the time, so I went there at noon and .... they don't open til 1 pm. D'oh!!! What kind of festival opens so late >_< Oh well. We swung by Wien Bakery real quick then came back.

I ran into LA&OC Foodie while waiting in line. Small foodie world :)

Upon entering we were greeted by this fine man in toga who was handing out FREE grapes. Cool guy in toga giving out free food - what more can you ask for?

Inside the festival, there's a looong line to the food court. We waited there for a bit then decided that we really would rather have some gyros instead! So we left the line and went around the corner, where they are slicing up some gyros.
Gyros ($8) in my hand, we went to find a seat. They had a nice seating area near the dance stage - but most of them were taken already. We finally managed to find one way in the back though.
The gyros were great! Delicious and the meat was pretty good quality. I also like the fresh pita that they were wrapped in.

Of course you can't forget to grab a bunch of pastries either to eat there or on the way out! Their selection was not bad. I got some baklava (of course!)
The baklava was delish! Crunchy flaky buttered pastries .. yumm.

I also got some kataifi (I get the ones with nuts in them, do you guys notice?)
The pastries are pretty good and I should've bought more baklava!! Sigh, darn you stingy gourmet pig >_<

Overall I thought the festival was pretty fun and the food was great. It was kind of small though and there was not much to see otherwise. There was a cooking demo at certain times, and also a salsa performance - which I still don't understand the connection to a Greek festival ...

Chabuya: Best of Sawtelle Ramen, Not Best of LA

Ahhh, Ramen. There's hardly anything else that would hit the spot like a nice bowl of ramen would. But what if you can't make it all the way to Daikokuya? Much less Asa or Santouka? What if the best you can do that night is Sawtelle? Well, Chabuya was the obvious option in my mind.

I'm a sucker for miso, so of course I ordered the miso ramen with pork. I also added an egg (+$1).
Pretty good, pretty good. I like the addition of sesame seeds and fried shallots. The soup is not nearly Daikokuya-level. It's not bad and is actually pretty flavorful and rich, but somehow ... rather boring. I agree with rameniac's contention that Chabuya's soup is a "one note samba". Still, I could live with ... at least temporarily. It is actually quite good compared to the other ramen-yas on Sawtelle.

They also have the "Zembu" option which, like the name says, contains ALL the toppings. Although actually it doesn't have all the possible toppings they offer. This bowl below also had tofu that cost $1 extra.
So the $1 for additonal toppings can be pretty expensive. I mean, extra tofu for $1 is fine, $1 egg is okay, but $1 for green onions ... ? You serious?

Anyway Chabuya has its faults, but overall it's still a good bowl of ramen, and at least there' no 30 minute wait out the door. When I can't drive all the way to Daikokuya, Chabuya is still my go-to place.

Chabuya
2002 Sawtelle Blvd

Los Angeles, CA, 90025

(310) 473-9834

Bug Bites!

Somehow the members of my lab got to talking about bugs and eating them a few months ago. Finally we managed to get people to go down to Typhoon in the Santa Monica airport tonight.
Typhoon is a Pan-Asian restaurant just below The Hump (I think owned by the same people also). Definitely has a nice view with the small planes there and all.

There were 10 of us and we ordered family style - bugs and nonbugs.

The first one that came definitely had a shock factor and was probably the grossest of them all. This was the chicken-stuffed waterbugs:First of all, we were shocked (and disappointed) that there were only two bugs on a $10 plate ... and since there were 10 of us it was a bit hard to share ...
So they were salty and crunchy ... with an aftertaste. The chicken? Could barely taste it with all the bug's exoskeleton pieces swirling around in your mouth ... They remind me of fried shrimp skin- salty and crunchy and otherwise doesn't taste like much.

We actually didn't order this but I guess they thought we did anyway ... this was the scorpions on shrimp toast:
Again, there were only two of them - plus the scorpions were tiny. I didn't get to have this one so can't tell you how they were.

Then we had the seaworms, also deep fried and served on lettuce wrap:
I was actually most scared of this one, but it turned out to taste and look pretty harmless. The seaworms to me tasted (and looked) like anchovies. My first bite was incredibly spicy and my mouth was burning. It didn't happen again though, I think it was just a piece of green chili in there.
Next we had the crickets, which rumdood said it was good (if he remembered correctly from years ago).
The crickets were somewhat small, but these were probably our favorite out of the bugs.
The potato strings do mask the flavors though, so you have to try the crickets by themselves.

The last one was the Chambi ants, also served with potato strings. Looks like an ant hill ...
The ants were harder to pick out to see how they taste, since they're so small. Eating them with potato strings mask the possible ant flavors. I think they do give subtle but distinct taste to them, but with the deep fried salty potato strings it's hard to be sure.

All in all, it kind of felt like the bugs were just a gimmick. They don't really taste like much - but then again that is not necessarily the fault of the restaurant. The prices definitely insane though, $10 for two pieces of cockroach-looking waterbugs.

Obviously the bugs - although drained our wallets - didn't really fill us up, so we ordered some "normal' stuff. Among others we got the Mongolian lamb:
This was actually really good. They served it with a bunch of this flaky bread that was delicious. The lamb retains its "lamb taste" which we liked, and the spices were pretty good.

Typhoon
3221 Donald Douglas Loop S.
Santa Monica, CA 90405
(310) 390-6565