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.