The SLY Foodie

We frequent Pitfire Pizza for two reasons: good food and location. It is essentially a stone's throw away from our building, and even better, the restaurant offers a "buy-ten-meals-and-the-11th-is-free" program. What's even better that is they gave cards with 9 stamps to all the new building tenants. Its motto, "the crust you can trust" implies that they have great pizza. It also serves up pasta, panini sandwiches, soups and salads. Ironically, however, my favorite dish there is only available in the fall and winter seasons.

That dish is the Short Ribs with Pappardelle. Given my affinity to short ribs, it was an easy pick for me. It's short ribs braised in a red wine sauce, served over fresh pappardelle pasta and topped with grana padano cheese. Simple, yet complex, a perfect marriage of flavor from the beef, wine and cheese. Although the pasta primarily serves as a filler, it is actually quite tasty and cooked to al dente perfection.

Since we've been to Daikokuya and love the ramen there, we decided to test the product at its surrounding competitors. So we visited Orochon Ramen, located between 1st and 2nd streets behind the Kyoto Grand Hotel. OR was featured on an episode of "Man vs. Food," where Adam needed to finish a bowl of Special 2 Ramen within 30 minutes to be memorialized on OR's Wall of Bravery.

To order, first select the type of broth from the three options OR offers: soy sauce (shoyu), miso or salt (shio). Then choose a spiciness level, which ranges from Level 1 (mild or not spicy) to Level 7 (extremely spicy). Beyond Level 7 are two special levels, 1 and 2, which will apparently burn off the taste buds on your tongue. After selecting the spiciness level, choose any extras to include in your custom made ramen order. Options include cha shu pork slices, hard boiled egg, corn, extra scallions, extra noodles, bamboo shoots, garlic and butter.

On this trip, I ordered shio ramen in Level 4, with two pieces of char sui pork and an egg. Level 4 is considered middle of the road, not too spicy, and not too bland. It was a mixture of noodles, vegetables, wood ear mushrooms, bamboo shoots, scallions and small pieces of pork swimming in a big bowl of steaming broth. At first taste, or slurp, I found the broth to be flavorful and just a little spicy, and wondered if I had enough nerve to try a Special 2. I was disappointed with the noodles, or lack thereof. Everything else in the bowl was so-so, except for the char sui pork pieces that I ordered in addition to the ramen. The pork was melt-in-your-mouth tender and flavorful - it better be, at $1.50 each. I definitely prefer the Daikokuya version.

On a recent date with my little boy, we went to our usual spot, also known as California Pizza Kitchen, conveniently located at the Shoppes in Chino Hills. We get to spend some one-on-one time together, plus eat some pretty good food, so I always look forward to these dates.

That night, I found out that CPK now features a "Small Cravings" menu, which are smaller portions of appetizers that won't break the bank. Since I was feeling a little bold, I decided to try the Crispy Artichoke Hearts, something I've never had before. Don't get me wrong, I've had Spinach and Artichoke Dip before, I've just never had a dish where artichokes were the star. These were artichoke hearts breaded using Panko crumbs, fried, and served with a remoulade. Having never had this before, I thought they were pretty good, the breading was crunchy, and the artichokes were tender. I thought that the remoulade somewhat resembled a mustard, which was okay, but nothing spectacular. But what blew me away was the fact that the boy who doesn't eat veggies actually ate a few artichokes with me.

Every once in a while, I'll have a craving for bread pudding, and my all-time favorite recipe is the Barefoot Contessa's Croissant Bread Pudding. It's easy to make, and always comes out perfect. I always omit the raisins because I don't like them.

The only modifications I made to this batch were adding a couple more croissants and used dried cranberries instead of raisins. This batch was also particularly special because my little boy helped me whisk the custard together, and he also sprinkled the craisins into the dish. Below is the result.

A week ago, we braved the California sunshine and went on a short walk to Beard Papa's, located in Little Tokyo. I've heard good things about BP's, a franchise that specializes in cream puffs. That's right, a store whose main product is a cream puff. I had to see and taste for myself.

For my good friend's birthday dinner, she chose Korean BBQ, something I haven't had in a long time. Based on her aunt's recommendation, we went to Chung Ki Wa, located in Koreatown. Let me tell you now that I am remiss in taking photos of the feast, and I am sorry to say that I can only say very little about the food we ate because it has been a couple of months. I can tell you, however, that it was good. I guess it only merits another visit for "research" purposes.

As it is a restaurant that proudly features Angus beef (seen on their logo), we ordered the beef kalbi, which are marinated short ribs. Prior to the server cooking the meat, we were treated to ban chan, which are a lot of small dishes comprised of different ingredients (I know, very specific, huh?). What was most memorable to me was the marinated bean sprouts, only because I like the sesame oil that was included in the marinade. But I digress, back to the kalbi. The beef kalbi was cooked in front of us, along with some onions and mushrooms. It tasted so good, the meat was tender and was perfect with rice. It was also perfect with the rice noodle sheets they provide as a wrapper with some of the ban chan items and the sauces.

One Saturday, we visited Pondahan Restaurant, a Filipino restaurant located across the mall in West Covina. My parents seem to like this place, as they talk about it quite often, and like to take people there to eat from time to time. I was excited to try this place and compare it to its rival, Salo Salo Grill, which I love.

An East LA landmark has found its way into Chino Hills. El Tepeyac, also known as Manuel's to its loyal patrons, opened a new location in Chino Hills very recently. Okay, maybe it isn't exactly a new branch, but it is very similar to the original Manuel's. It turns out that the Chino Hills location is owned by Manuel's godson, but that is the only relationship between the two restaurants.

Upon arrival to El Tepeyac, we were immediately seated and given chips and salsa. The chips seemed to be stale, and the salsa is definitely not for the weak of heart. It was flavorful, but it seemed that its spiciness completely overpowered the flavors.

I ordered the Hollenbeck special, which is a gianormous chile verde burrito with rice, beans, and guacamole. It is topped with more chile verde, and then sprinkled with lots of cheddar cheese, and put under the heat for the cheese to melt. Again, not something for the weak of heart. I love spicy food, so much so that the husband thinks I've burned off all my tastebuds, but I am finding that I'm becoming less tolerant of heat in my old age. Although the chunks of meat were tender and flavorful, the spiciness overpowered all the great flavors of the burrito. One other thing, make sure you're very hungry when you order this, and any of their burrito specials.

To celebrate my 30th birthday many moons ago, we went to Disneyland because a) it was free; b) I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the day with my boys. We planned on hitting Goofy’s Kitchen buffet at the Disneyland Hotel, but alas, it was closed to repair some kind of kitchen malfunction. Rats! Sorry, Mickey.

We settled for Steakhouse 55, which is located next to Goofy’s Kitchen. At the time, there weren’t very many people there, which should have been indication enough. But I was hungry and slightly cranky due to the fact that our reservation to GK had been futile.

So the boys got “special” Mickey pancakes with fruit and a side of yogurt. I personally thought that the pancakes I make them at home taste better and less dry.

To further pursue my desire of being more adventurous this year, I accepted the invitation to El Caserio from a friend for lunch to celebrate another friend's birthday. It serves authentic Ecuadorian food, which was something I have never had the pleasure of sampling.

El Caserio has two locations in Los Angeles; the original restaurant is located at the intersection of Temple and Virgil, and presumably, after finding success, the owners opened a more upscale version on Silver Lake Boulveard. When I walked in the original El Caserio, I found the place to be somewhat charming, and the menu items to be tantalizing.

Sunday night dinner ranges from the usual Chinese take out to sitting down for a meal at a chain restaurant. The other night, the entire family convened at the Claim Jumper in Brea because Buca di Beppo was packed. There are a few reasons why I like CJ:

1) Lots of (good) food.
2) Extremely kid-friendly. They have special placemats for little tykes, as well as a complimentary plate comprised of turkey roll, cheese, applesauce, crackers and oranges. That, in my opinion, is excellent service.
3) Wide selection of appetizers, drinks and entrees.
4) Lots of (good) food, and leftovers for days.

I ordered the Prime Rib Dinner, served with roasted vegetables, a choice of one side (I chose potato pancakes), and bread (I chose the apple cinnamon muffin). The prime rib was cooked the way I liked it, roasted vegetables were seasoned well, and the potato pancakes were nice and crisp. The one thing I didn’t like about the sauce on the potatoes was the bits of raw onion. It would have been so much better without the onion Also, the creamy horseradish that was served with the meat tasted more like sour cream than horseradish, and the au jus was a little on the salty side. It was still good, though. The star of the show, though, was the apple cinnamon muffin, moist and crumbly, and simply divine with butter.

Yesterday, my friend (who loves, loves, loves hot dogs) and I went on a noble quest for Downtown LA’s finest gourmet hot dogs. We had a flyer for Big Ed’s Gourmet Hot Dogs, which was basically a cart located in some alley. Focused on our mission, we prepared to hit the pavement with our heels in search of the proverbial needle in the haystack. Luckily for us, our knight in shining armor, or hybrid car from the motor pool, swept us off our feet and joined us in our merry cause. Long story short, we found the alley and the cart, with many thanks to our “knight.”

It turns out that Big Ed became Tony-n-Pete, an alley cart in the Old Bank District. They serve customized hot dogs and sausages, plus sandwiches, among other things. I ordered the Cahuenga, which is a jumbo beef hot dog with sautéed onions, chili pepper, sauerkraut and brown mustard. Having never had sauerkraut before, that was an adventure in and out of itself for me. The hot dog was pretty tasty and juicy, the sauerkraut the perfect complement. I wish that the onions were cooked longer, because I think that caramelized onions with that hot dog would have been sublime.