Wakasan: One of Westside's Best Deals

Wakasan is one of my favorite recent discoveries. Why? Well, 1) they're open late - 11:30PM M-Th, and 12:30AM F-Sat (they close at 10:30 on Sundays). I don't know if you remember my ordeal on finding late night places on Mondays, but, well, this about fixes it all! 2)It's a great deal. They prefer you to do their prix fixe menu that's $35 - when I did, I ended up getting 12 items and was stuffed - probably too much so for 11pm on a Monday ...

Thanks to Mattatouille for pointing this place out to me!

1. Cold bean sprouts

2. Bean curd - before it's formed into tofu with vegetables, and
3. Ankimo with ponzu sauce, cucumbers and salmon eggs
The tofu curd had a very interesting texture and the dish overall was great.
The ankimo was also good, and I really like the combination with the cucumbers!

4. Sashimi: Tuna, old yellowtail, red snapper

They're not the best quality sashimi, although it wasn't bad. I wondered why the "old yellowtail" - because, yes, it tasted pretty "old". Anyway it wasn't bad and for $35 for this and a lot more I wasn't going to complain.

5. King crab legs
Yum. They're king crab legs, I don't know what else you want me to say O:)

6. Grilled items: Miso salmon and green beans wrapped in wagyu beef
Pretty standard, salmon's a bit overcooked and hence, dry, for my taste, but overall everything was solid, even though not remarkable.

7. Braised Skate wings
This was my first time having skate. It was pretty fishy, but also pretty meaty. The braising has made it tender, so it was quite tasty - although I wasn't able to finish it because I was full and also because it was too fishy for my taste.

8. Shrimp with sweet potato fried rolls
This was served with cocktail sauce, which I wasn't too keen about. Overall this was pretty bland in my opinion, although it did have nice textures.

9. Chawanmushi
With ginkgo, small shrimps, etc, this was one of the best chawan mushi I could remember having.

10. Miso soup

11. Chirashi with tuna, scallops, uni.
Again, the fish quality is not the best, but the uni is not bad. I didn't really like the scallops as they were not fresh, but I thought the other two were decent.

12. Vanilla ice cream
I can't say for sure but this tasted very much like Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream. Which meant it was good :)

Overall we had a great variety of dishes, and some of them very interesting ones I've never had before, and all for $35. Plus they're open late daily. I'll be back here, and I think you know when :P

Wakasan
1929 Westwood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 446-5241

Royal/T for Light Lunch, Art, and Maids - but No Sweets

Royal/T in Culver City is known for its servers' maid uniforms, inspired by maid cafes in Akihabara in Japan, and the use of its space for art exhibits.The maid uniforms themselves are much tamer compared to maid cafes in Akiba with their dark brown and white color scheme. And no, they don't call you "Master" here.
As far as their brunch offerings go, you'll find light fares such as salads, sandwiches, rice bowls and "baked eggs" (more on that in a bit).

The tea selection is fairly interesting featuring "modern brews" on top of classics like sencha and darjeeling. Tea selection was fairly small though. It seems that most of their "modern brews" is supposed to be better iced, so I asked for a yuzu sencha iced. Pretty solid, but not particularly memorable for me. The yuzu flavor was not as strong as I would've liked and the tea itself was slightly overbrewed.

I decided to just have a simple salad: Shrimp with Asparagus, Avocado, and Tomatoes ($10)
Their prices are pretty reasonable, the ingredients used are good. The shrimps were good, and the salad overall is pretty good, although the combination didn't work 100% for me. Regardless it was enjoyable.

My friend also got some sort of egg scramble with tofu, served with salad.

Their baked egg dish was interesting and actually pretty good. It's literally baked.
I only had a bite of this but I think I'll get it next time - with something more than tomatoes though. There were only 2 slices of tomatoes in it, but the baked egg itself was good.

For a supposed "tea" place, Royal/T unfortunately has a very limited selection sweets and pastries - besides croissants at the bar area, they had three items on the dessert menu. Their online menu certainly boasts much more, but they were nowhere to be found that day.
I decided to try the chocolate banana bread.
The bread was good, but not enough to satisfy my cravings for sweets. It was pretty light and not that sweet, and I have no idea what whipped cream was doing next to a bread.
I tried ordering their brownies, but they were out so I had to settle for the lemon tart.
The lemon tart was good- the whipped cream was entirely decorational and superfluous. But again ... not quite enough for my cravings. But that was all that they had as far as desserts go - such a shame!
I headed to Boule and splurged afterwards.

I didn't get the afternoon tea set this time but now I'm not sure if it will even be worth it. No scones? No pastries? What's the point?? I would still go to Royal/T because their simple food is good enough and the space is cool, but until they fix this lack of sweets problem I won't be there too often.


Royal/T
8910 Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232
(310) 559-6300
www.royal-t.org

Quick Soup/Salad Lunch at Clementine's

Clementine is a small neighbourhood place on Ensley, just off of Santa Monica (more or less right across from the Century City mall). They typically feature ingredients from local farmer's market.

Clementine's is simple lunch fare: salads, sandwiches, and soups. Their cold deli case usually features a wide variety of specialty salads and more. This time around we got some edamame with king salmon, caprese, and chicken soba noodles. A plate of 3 items like this is $11.95.
All were fresh - refreshing and quite delicious, even the soba noodles that I was originally skeptical of (I'm skeptical of Soba from a non-Japanese place).

They also have made-to-order salads. Can't remember what I ordered that time (that day's special), but it had shrimps and white beans
The ingredients used were all great, although I'm still not sure about the combination with the beans.

My favorite part of Clementine's is actually all the soups, which you can buy frozen by the pints! You can also eat it there, or get a sandwich/soup combination.
Their egg salad sandwich was delicious. I got a pint of frozen chicken tortilla soup to go - made for a few delicious lunches throughout the week!

Clementine
1751 Ensley Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90024
(310) 552-1080
www.clementineonline.com