palate

Elena's Greek Armenian Cuisine

This Greek Armenian restaurant is a local restaurant located in Glendale (which is at the cross street of Glendale Blvd and Acacia infront of a school). The restaurant had garnered favorable reviews previously from different publications including the Los Angeles Times.

Posted Rating: A

Food: You can order one of their dinner plate specials along with sandwiches, drinks and dessert. All dinner plate specials are served with either a lentil soup or salad. The menu selection includes entrees like lulu, kebab, lamp chop, shish kebab, chicken and quail. They also have stuffed grape leaves, falafel and gyros. The restaurant gives a good portion of food, in my opinion. I could never finish an entire dinner plate, I always end up bringing half home.

Ambiance: The ambiance is comfortable and friendly. When you first walk in, you can observe people conversing or glancing at the TV, while they are waiting for their food. For the people have been served, you can tell that they are enjoying their food.

Price: The price is reasonably cheap. For the amount of food that you get, it's definitely worth it. The dinner plate special ranges from $6.95 to a $9.95.

Parking: There's really no designated parking. It's not hard to miss this restaurant because it's in the corner of Glendale Blvd and Acacia. Parking can be tricky but there's usually street parking available within the restaurant's vicinity.

Service: Service is always friendly.

Location: 1000 S Glendale Glendale, CA
Phone: 818-241-5730
Hours: Mon-Sat 11am to 930 pm, Closed Sundays
**Food to Go, Free Delivery within 3 miles ($12 minimum)

Zakuro Shabu Shabu

Posted Rating = A

Eating shabu shabu (which means swish swish in Japanese) is one of my favorite. It's healthy and oil free for the most part. What is shabu shabu? Shabu Shabu refers to the swishing motion of your food (vegetable or meat) in a boiling pot of water. Along with the plate of vegetables and the plate of meat, it usually comes with two sauces - one ponzu (citrus) sauce and another goma (sesame) sauce. There are also condiments handy - garlic, green onions (scallions) , grated daikon (radish), soy sauce, pepper, and chili oil.

At Zakuro, they make their sauces in house. When you first walk in the restaurant, you are greeted
"Welcome" by the friendly staff. The front of the restaurant is a half circle filled with people sitting on a high chairs infront of a pot. At the back of the restaurant, there are three tables to the left and a counter to the right where the chefs are preparing the food. Aside from shabu shabu, you can elect to order sukiyaki instead. You can also order ice cream or mochi instead.

What is great about shabu shabu? Not only it is entertaining but you can also be creative. Some people just swish their meat or vegetables in the boiling pot of water. Some get creative and add flavor to their water. Personally, I'd like to add garlic, green onion and a little grated daikon with a hint of soy sauce to my water. So while you're waiting for the vegetables and meat to cook, it enriches the water turning it into a rich broth at the end of the meal.

Price: A regular plate starts from $9.99. They also have lunch specials.

Service: Friendly.

Location: 356 1/2 E. 2nd Street Los Angeles, CA 90012
Phone: (213) 680-0003

Intercrew

This is one of the places we go to when we want to have soju (potato wine). Soju is similar to sake (rice wine).

Isla Buffet & Grill

Isla Buffet & Grill is probably one of the better Filipino restaurants in Los Angeles. I've been to several Filipino restaurants and this is one that I frequent often. Why? It's hard to find a good Filipino restaurant in LA that consistently serves good tasting food and that's reasonably priced.

Posted Rating: A

Food: The food is consistently good. The restaurant does not let the food sit under the lamp for a long period of time. They also do not leave out a large amount of food. Therefore, if a certain food selection is depleted, one of the staff immediately replaces it with the same food or a different item. This is crucial now that I mention it. When a food sits under the lamp untouched for a long period of time, the food looks undesirable to eat. Lastly, the food is not oily. Filipino foods in general is greasy and rich. Some of the fried items they have are not greasy. Even the stewed items does not have oil floating on top.

The barbecue selections are one of the few specialties along with classic Filipino dishes such as lumpia (egg roll), pancit (rice noodle), dinuguan (stewed meat w/ intestines), kare kare (oxtail w/ tripe) and many more. The sitting/waiting area is filled with people when you first walk in the restaurant. You are then greeted by the cashier where you pay for your food and drink. Behind is the kitchen. To the right is a private room for big parties or special events. Upon paying, you are then given your utensils where you can choose a table to your liking. On weekends, you may be seated to the next available table.

The buffet is set up with a glass case containing some cold desserts such as "halo-halo". There is a salad bar with fruits, then the main dish selections, soup, dessert and condiments and sauces. There's also an area where you can get a refill of your tea or help yourself with a glass of water.

Ambiance: The restaurant is decorated in a Filipino/Hawaiian theme. "Isla" means little island in Tagalog so it's only appropriate that the place has an "island" feel to it. The ambiance is good because you can tell that the people are enjoying their food. Management spent a little more money to decorate the place. I can't stress how a good ambiance affects people's taste in food.

Price: Now this is another good part about the restaurant. They have lunch, dinner and weekend specials. On weekends, it is $7.95 per person. For dinner during the weekdays, it is for $6.95. I believe that you get a $1.00 off discount if you have a coupon that you can get from one of the Filipino newspapers. Some Filipino restaurants I've been to are quite expensive.

Service: Friendly.

Parking: There's an adjacent parking next to the restaurant. There's also curb parking infront of the restaurant.

Location: The restaurant is located on Eagle Rock Blvd right after York Blvd.
Address: 4420 Eagle Rock Blvd Los Angeles, CA
Phone: (323) 257-1902

Hop Li

Hop Li is one of the regular restaurants that the hubby and I regularly dine. We like it so much that we had our engagement dinner here. Hop Li has been featured regularly at Downtown News. The restaurant is off at Alpine and Hill, which is away from the main street restaurants located at Broadway in Chinatown. What's great about Hop Li is parking. If you're lucky, you can directly park infront of the restaurant or the meters. Across the street, there's also additional free parking.

When you first walk in the restaurant, you are greeted by a hostess who will seat you to your table. There's also several aquarium tanks infront of the store. The staff is friendly and the design is homey.
The portions are big. So two orders of entrees would definitely be more than enough for two people.
What I personally like about Hop Li is that the quality of the food is consistent over the years we've been coming here.

I highly recommend Hop Li if you're in Chinatown.

Address: 526 Alpine St Los Angeles, CA
Phone: 213-680-3939

They also have additional locations, one in West La (310-441-3708) and the other at Marina Del Rey (310-305-3700)

The French Crepe Co

One of our favorite places to eat for breakfast is the French Crepe Co located inside the Farmers Market in Los Angeles. They have different selections of crepe that you can choose from. If you decide to go on a weekend, I would suggest going early. The line is always long and the tables around gets filled up quickly. The staff is always friendly. There's nothing good but a crepe with French coffee.

The French Crepe Co serves savory crepes and sweet crepes. They also serve fine gourmet sandwiches, French specialties from monsieur marcel, salads and soups and waffles.

Location: Farmers Market, Third and Fairfax
6333 W 3rd Street #318 Los Angeles CA
Phone: 323-934-3113
Hours: Open 7 days a week

Cham Sut Gol LA Korean BBQ

We just came from Korean BBQ tonight at K-town so I decided to write a review. My friend Shannon was gracious to us and she paid for dinner tonight. Thanks, Shanny! She sent an E-vite a few days ago. We've been going to Chamsugol for approximately about 1 year now. We have tried several Korean BBQ restaurants in K-town but we always end up at Chamsugol. It also helps that the place is rated "A".

Food Rating: A

Food: One thing we look for a Korean BBQ restaurant is the quality of the beef. Their Yangneom Galbi is so tender! It just melts in your mouth. The galbi has a "special" sauce that tenderizes the beef. The galbi on some places we've tried were not as tender. They also give you a lot of side dishes (pan chan) and bottled water. The water they give you is the Kirkland water, not tap water, which is great. Drinking tap water is not really favorable to me.

They also have 2 combination specials on the menu. We usually order the combo A. Combo A consist of the Berkshire pork w/ the special sauce, boneless short rib, octopus, tofu soup, and your choice of either 2 beers or 1 soju.

One thing I believe that make a difference in taste is that they use charcoal when cooking. Each table has a grill where you can cook your food. Some places uses gas and it is not as tasty as cooking with charcoal.

Decoding Winespeak

I was reading an article about wine. I don't drink a lot of wine nor alcohol so learning about wine is something of a challenge. Not only do I have to drink the wine but I have to learn a lot of terminology.. so to speak.

Here's some of the basics I've learned every wine lover should know:

Body is the weight of the wine on your palate. The analogy that the author gave to determine the body of a wine is the following: A light bodied wine will feel like a skim milk, a medium-bodied wine will feel more like a regular whole milk and a full-bodied wine is like half and half.
Crisp Wine's crispness comes from acidity, since acids are natural components of grapes. So when we describe wine as refreshing, we are describing the wine's crispness. Some grape varieties are high in acidity (Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, and Pinot Gris) and some are low (Chardonnay and Zinfandel). Climate is critical - the cooler the climate, the higher in acidity and crisper it will be.
Finish The longer a wine's flavor lasts in your mouth, the better the wine. The way to determine this is to take a sip of wine, hold the wine in your mouth, swirl it around and swallow while you mouth is closed. With your mouth still closed, breathe out forcefully through your nose.

Cookbooks

I have collected several cookbooks over the years. I'm trying to decide on whether I would make a list of all of my cookbooks or create some sort of album type listing where there is a thumbnail of each cookbook that I own. Since we moved to a new loft three weeks ago, we are unpacking every single day. This past weekend, I found the large Home Depot box that held all of my cookbooks. I don't think I even have all of them. I could recall my mother borrowing some of them. I've only selected 5 listings to be posted on my typelist. Maybe I'll change the list every week until I can post all of my cookbooks.

There's a cookbook that my mom gave me a couple of years ago, a Filipino cookbook. To tell you honestly, the only Filipino foods that I know how to cook are: the lumpia (egg roll), chicken adobo (chicken marinated and stewed on garlic and vinegar) and the pancit (rice noodle). One of these days, I would have to try and cook the dishes noted. It's important for me to learn how to cook Filipino foods. There's not a lot of good Filipino restaurants in LA. Well, maybe several in Glendale.

The Weekend....

The weekend is too short... I need a 3 day weekend every single week. The hubby and I had Indian food Friday and Vietnamese food today for lunch. I have to do a review on both places. I have to find the business card so that I can write the info.