Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Takeouts in LA: Wagyu Bento from IMA and Yazawa (Beverly Hills)

I meant to be blogging more when the lockdown happened, but well, it was hard to find motivation! But now I'd like to highlight some of my favorite takeouts that I've had over the past few months. I hope you guys are all getting takeout and supporting local restaurants when you can!

I've been ordering a lot of bento boxes, and two of my favorites came from sister restaurants IMA and Yazawa in Beverly Hills (the restaurants are right next to each other and pickup for takeout is at the same spot). Both of them are wagyu specialists that import their meat straight from Japan. Yazawa focuses on yakiniku while IMA does sukiyaki and shabu shabu. IMA is the only U.S. branch of Imafuku, which has a Michelin star in Japan.
Untitled

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

My Latest Snack Addiction: P.O.P. Candy Co Butter Crunch

It's been a while since I've blogged! How is everyone's quarantine going?
With so much time staying at home, I've been snacking more, of course, and I'm here to tell you about one of the sweet snacks that I've been kind of addicted to lately: the butter crunch from P.O.P. Candy Co in Santa Monica.
Pop candy co
So what is butter crunch anyway?
Butter crunch is kind of like a love child between a toffee and brittle.

According to their website, "Butter crunch is typically toffee that’s got crushed nuts on its chocolate coating." The basic ingredients is basically some sort of nuts, butter, and sugar (and maybe syrup or other special ingredients according to the flavor). The texture is quite different than toffee, though. It's crunchy but softer than regular toffee - not as hard to bite into and or as chewy /sticky, which is usually my issue with toffee. No such problem here. It's a crunchy, nutty sweet treat. Once I started I couldn't stop eating it.

The butter crunch from P.O.P. is handmade in small batches.
They have quite a few flavors with different nuts (no peanuts, though, so don't worry about peanut allergies) and it's hard to pick a favorite. The rosemary almond is interesting as the rosemary adds just a little bit of savoriness. The fire pistachio is pretty spicy thanks to the cayenne pepper! If you've never had any, the best thing to do is to get an assortment box like the one pictured above.
Pop candy co

P.O.P. Candy Co butter crunch is sold at various retail stores in Northern and Southern California, including a number of Whole Foods in the LA area, so give them a try, I think you'd like it!
You can also order online, they're doing free shipping for orders over $50.

Monday, June 1, 2020

Black-owned Food Businesses in the San Fernando Valley

This is the time to show our support for the black community in our country, and to fight for racial justice. There are many ways we can do so, including putting our dollars in support of black-owned businesses. Bucketlisters has a useful list of other ways be an ally and fight for racial justice including organizations to donate to, petitions to sign, etc and you can check out that list here.

As a food blogger living in the San Fernando Valley, I decided to put together a working list of black-owned restaurants in the valley. For restaurants beyond (but also including some in) the SFV, Kat Hong (editorial assistant of The Infatuation in L.A.) put together a great list here.

Jaliz
Ugandan food at Jaliz Cuisine


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