Dessert Truck

I don't like buying food off of trucks; it's pretty gross. In fact I don't ever do it. No roach coaches, halal carts, nada. Except last night. New York has something called the Dessert Truck. It has 4 wheels, an oven, and it's filled with all sorts of delicious treats. For one night I overlooked how gross it probably is inside that truck.

I shared 3 desserts. The first was the vanilla creme brulee. I like creme brulee but i've never eaten it out of a paper cup before. I would say it's slightly above average (the creme brulee, not the act of eating it from a paper cup).

Next was the warm molten dark chocolate cake. Basically lava cake, with an olive oil and chocolate center, roasted pistachios, sea salt and vanilla ice cream. The ice cream melted even though it was cold outside. This dessert is really rich.

Last was apparently their specialty; the chocolate bread pudding. You get a choice of vanilla or bacon custard sauce for it to swim in while you eat it. I went with the bacon custard as that seemed more unique. Bread pudding is crazy delicious; even though I bought it from a truck.

Vanilla Creme Brulee

Chocolate Bread Pudding w/ bacon custard sauce

Molten Dark Chocolate Cake with melted ice cream (I didn't eat it right away)

Angry Whopper

I had to try an angry whopper. I'm a sucker.

Hamburger, bacon, jalapenos, pepper jack cheese, spicy onion rings, and spicy angry sauce. Sounds awesome. Totally sucks. Why do I get fooled by advertising?

If angry = spicy, then this burger was slightly perturbed.

Heartland Brewery

There are like 5 of these places in Manhattan. I'm not sure why.

I ordered the linguini with crab meat and shrimp. My friend ordered the skirt steak and practically pulled a muscle trying to saw it into pieces. The linguini came with baby spinach which might just have been a couple of pieces of spinach chopped up and a tomato cream sauce that tasted more like a watered down tomato juice sauce.

0-for-2 Heartland. At least your beer is pretty good.

1285 6th Ave
New York, NY 10019

Kinchan's

A couple of months back I made the mistake of recommending a ramen place where I admittedly had never eaten the ramen (I always get mabo tofu when I go there) and, ummm, it didn't go well. So to make up for it, I treated the person to a much more preferred ramen place called Kinchan's. Kinchan's is no Ippudo but you can get at least 3 times as much food at Kinchan's for what you pay at Ippudo and that's pretty awesome.

I ordered the ramen with BBQ chicken the first time I was here and on my return visit two days later I ordered some kind of ramen with corn in it. The first go was good, but the second I wouldn't recommend. Their gyoza, ordered both trips, are great. I think gyoza are one of my favorite foods. Also, it was awesome to be able to sit outside and eat as the weather outside right now feels like 7 whopping degrees.

2119 Sawtelle Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025

Naked Sushi

Just down the street from the Whaler is Naked Sushi. A lot of my friends love Naked Sushi. I'm not completely sold on it but i would probably recommend it if you're in the area.

What I do like is their pseudo-sake club offer. Many sushi places have gimmicks to get you to come back. A place in Manhattan Beach offers you your own set of chopsticks and a slight discount on everything you order once you become a member by spending over $200 (something my friend and I did by ourselves). Others adorn the wall with eating accomplishments of patrons. Naked Sushi has a saki-club. For $20 you can purchase a box that comes with one glass of sake. The box is yours to decorate and every time you come back you find your box on the great-box-wall and you get one free glass of sake. It pays for itself very quickly and leads to fun decorations. My sake box is a part of a co-op. I purchased it the weekend before I moved to New York with one of my co-workers who lives nearbye. I didn't want my sake box to be lonely and feeling unwanted while I was away (although i'm pretty sure people just randomly grab sake boxes and use them as if they were their own) so i went halfsies with my co-worker and now my sake box feels loved all the time.

The sushi here is pretty good and the sushi chef is a cool dood with agreeable taste in music. I was here right before my dinner at Manpuku so i didn't order anything except for a roll that isn't on the menu that I can't remember the name of. It had the word toast in it and it has spicy tuna among other things. It was pretty good.

18 Washington Blvd
Marina del Rey, CA 90292

bad picture. it was dark.

sake box woo hoo!

Venice Whaler

I just wanted to watch football and probably even more than that I just wanted to hang out with one of my friends in LA and kill time before dinner at Manpuku. My friend lives less than a block from the beach on Washington blvd. and since the Terrace across the street didn't have anywhere for us to sit and watch the game, we settled into the Whaler.

The Whaler's menu is packed with seafood options but to me the Whaler is a bar first and the idea of ordering seafood from a bar is pretty unappetizing unless it's fried because frying helps hide the poor quality. We steered away from the scallops and other seafood dishes and went for the fried calamari. Pretty mediocre, but i think i set myself up for that. We also ordered chips and salsa with guac and that was just okay. I'm sure i didn't order anything that they do well but I really don't feel committed to the idea of finding out what that is. Just sticking with beer when I'm here is fine with me.

10 Washington Blvd
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292

French Market Cafe

Ratatouille was not only a good movie but it also boosted the sales of ratatouille (the food) itself.

I actually don't know that for sure but I do know that I've eaten more ratatouille in my life after seeing the movie than before and I know for a fact that I ordered the ratatouille omelet at the French Market Cafe because I liked the movie and wanted to see what ratatouille actually was without referencing the internet. Any other conclusions beyond what i've just stated are purely speculative.

I still don't really know what ratatouille is. My omelet was full of vegetables and I didn't really recognize what all of them where. It was tasty after i added some salt and pepper. The omelet came with a side salad and an enormous baked french baguette, sliced in two. Bread is delicious.

Most of the people sitting at the tables around us were French and they were apparently kind to the birds who seemed to have no fear of us at all. One bird spent a good portion of our meal standing on our table which would be quite rude if it were a person, but it was a bird so it was cool.

2321 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291

ratatouille omelet

Hinano's

I really thought that Hinano's had good hamburgers. The sheer novelty of a bar that served grilled burgers that replicated what you might eat in your backyard drew me to them and each time i had one, albeit late at night, i liked them more and more. Then i took a picture of a burger before i ate it. What I remember eating and what I took a picture of with my camera can hardly be the same thing.

The burger in the picture is thin, over-cooked, and hardly appetizing. The congealing cheese and gobs of mayonnaise hanging off it were enough to make me shutter. I don't think i'm going to eat one of these burgers again.

15 Washington Blvd
Venice, CA 90292

Royal/T

Royal/T is both amazing and awkward at the same time. The cafe itself is surrounded by a sea of art installations that in themselves are enough of a reason to visit this spot in Culver City. The food is good but nothing spectacular. It's the combination of the two that makes this place special.

The waitstaff can be seen scurrying around the cafe attending to their customers in a manner that can be described as part shy, part giddy, and part fantastic. Dressed in brown maid outfits, the female servers (who are actually referred to as maids) bow and smile and act like school girls in front of the principal; they appear nice but you can't help thinking that the joke is on you.

We ordered the kobe beef burger and the tuna tartare sandwich. The burger was good and probably would have been better if we had ordered it with cheese. The tuna tartare came on a piece of sourdough with avocado and made for a tasty open-faced sandwich. Neither of the two were fantastic but they were good enough to warrant return visits.

I hope to one day befriend one or more of the 'maids' who work here and spend an evening following them around, smiling and bowing and acting coy; just to see how they like it. It's weird.

8910 Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232

Ruby Red Rooibos tea

Wagyu Kobe Beef Burger

Spicy Tuna Tartare

Mao's Kitchen

No one goes out on New Year's Day. Most people sleep the day off. Others sleep the day off too. I like to eat. I went to Kinchan for lunch and that evening i rounded up some folks and went to Mao's.

This was my first trip to Mao's. I've driven and walked by it plenty of times but until today had never stopped. Chinese food isn't nearly as good on the east coast as it is on the west and Mao's was close by to where i was staying at the time, thus supplying more than enough motivation to eat there.

The restaurant is not very big and we had to sit with other people, which was fine. I had the shrimp and spinach dumplings which were very good and then the chicken and vegetables in black-bean sauce. One of my friends ordered something i can't pronounce, but fortunately can type: qingjiao rousi. This place is A-Ok.

1512 Pacific Ave
Venice, CA 90291