Centro Basco specialized in Basque cuisine. Basques is a small region between the border of Spain and France that has their own language and culture. Seems like this place is a gathering place for the community of Basque people in LA. Most of the customers are white hair elders (men with beret hat especially) who speak the Basque language.

Every Sunday they have a special set lunch menu, the day I went was ‘Blood Sausage.” My friends said they’ve had “oxtail” before which was absolutely divine.

The lunch room opens at at 12:30pm. People gathered at the bar area (very crowded) to drink and chat. When the bell rang, everyone lined up and waited to enter the dining hall.

The dining rooms are very spacious. Most are communal tables. Our party had about 24 people, so we occupied the longest table in the house. There’re also lots of charming historic and personal photos and paintings on the wall.

The meal is served family style. Each table are served with:

Homemade bread, wine and Cheese. They have their own winery. It’s practically an all-you-can-drink feast. The bread and bleu cheese was so good!

Delicious salad and vegetable soup (I’m already a little full by this point). They will bring out more on your request.

Lamb: incredible! I heard that Basque cuisine consist mainly of stew meat. The meat is so tender with deep flavors. I can’t stop eating more of this, even knowing the main course is coming up.

Blood Sausage. Wow this is fantastic~ the ones I’ve had before simply can’t compare. There seems to be some tongue meat mixed in so they have very good textures (and not gooey). It is so tasty.

The giant Flan for table to share. It doesn’t look too pretty but it’s actually very good and not too sweet. What a satisfying yummy feast and a very unique experience as well. Didn’t feel like LA at all!

Central Basco Restaurant (909) 628-9014
13432 Central Ave, Chino, CA 91710

Tags: European, Lamb

It’s holiday time so we’re very behind in update.

A&J Noodle is known to have very good Taiwanese Beef Noodle. We tried to come here in the past but it was closed (on a Wednesday).

Appertizers: Pickled Cucumber, Seaweed. The Pull Pancake is hot and fluffy.

Chinese Beef Burger is juicy and quite heavy. I love the Taiwanese style fried pork.

Pig ear. Crispy, crunchy and tasty~

Beef and Tendon Noodle. Very good! The handmade noodle got a light and good texture, the beef are tender and marinated. The soup is dense with flavors. Though there’re a lot more noodle in the bowl than the accompanied soup + meat.

This place is solid! It’s definitely one of my must go for beef noodles!

A&J Restaurant
1269 E Valley Blvd. Alhambra, CA 91801

Tags: Noodle, Taiwanese

One week after Joan went to Animal Restaurant, I gave it a visit too. On the website it saids their menu changes daily, though it seems like my night was pretty much similar Joan’s night, with some slight tweaks.

Love the Animal Lunchbox at the bar! We got there at 6 so the place was still empty. But they said there’ll be a party at 8 so we were seated at the bar.

Burrata, Green olive, Capers, Beets and Organic Raisin $10. This is one of the dishes that varied slightly from Joan’s night. The giant raisins were so sweet that the sweetness almost dominate the plate’s flavor. It’s refreshing and wonderful.

Foie gras, Biscuit, Maple Sausage Gravy $22. I love Foie gras as always. I could do without the biscuit, but it’s a good separator. The maple sausage gravy was very thick and sweet, it almost could be another small plate dish on its own.

Pork ribs, Balsamic, Delicata Squash & Rocket Salad, Pecans $15. This was a huge entree size dish. The ribs were very tender. Despite dripping with heavy sauce, the sauce was not too strong tasting.

Turbot with Sweet Onion and Corn. The fish was slightly overcook but it’s still delicious. The sauce was sweet and buttery, so despite the light flavors it ended up being very heavy and filling.

Since we were sitting at the bar, we kept hearing the staffs raving about this amazing special pumpkin pie of the night, and that there’re only a limited amount of them available. We were so full (from the unexpected huge Pork ribs plate) already but we felt compelled to try. The Pumpkin Pie is DIVINE tasting! It has spoiled me forever…

Agree with Joan, this is my favorite new place in LA.

Animal (323) 782-9225
435 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036

Tags: American, small plate

Kruang Tedd is one of the few Thai town places that try to have “ambiance”. It was dark and romantically lit. After 8pm there was a band playing 70s soft rock and retro Thai music (one of the customer requested a song and sang on stage herself). Perhaps because of the recession, the place was pretty empty.

Left: E-shan Beef steak. Very buttery and flavorful. The beef was a little fatty though. Sukuyaki Noodle: this sukiyaki is the Thai style Stir-fried glass noodle with cabbage, egg, scallion and morning glory. So delicious that the sauce wasn’t really needed.

Tossed Crispy Rice Salad: Toasted Rice, marinated grounded pork, crunchy sliced pork skin tossed with lime juice, dried chili and peanuts. We ate the incredibly crunchy, crispy and spicy dish with the lettuce…unhealthy but so good! Guilty pleasure!

Kruang Tedd
5151 Hollywood Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90027

Tags: Noodle, Thai

Food adventure time! A group of us ventured out to Little Saigon for Vietnamese pub food (Quán Nhau). Dinh Thieng is located at a mall. After 9pm, the lights inside would dim down with disco ball lights spinning and girls performing karaoke on stage. The clientele made up mostly of men, many were smoking inside. Seeing that we’re not Vietnamese, we were handed this generic menu with the regular pho and bun when we sat down. The waitress said their pub menu wasn’t translated to English, but she was nice enough to recommend some dishes for us.

Various type of herbs, seasoned fish sauces and rick crackers to go with the following dish…

Raw Duck Blood. We thought it was the cooked kind (that I love) when the waitress recommended it. We stared at it while mustering courage to try. It’s good actually, the texture is like jelly and has a nice smoky, salty flavor. They mixed in some pig intestine inside so there’s an additional crispy texture. You’d eat it with the rice crackers and herbs. Only the surface layer is that magenta red, the bottom layer is a darker burgundy. But after a few bites, anxiety took over and we stopped eating.

Deer Ribs and Curry Deer. Both are so good: tender and loaded with herbs, lemongrass and very tasty~ Perfect with beer!

Grilled Cockle incredibly flavorful with garlic, chili hot sauce and peanut.

Seafood Hotpot . The sweet and sour broth is heavy flavored with chili, herbs and lots of shallots…it’s one of the most tasty thing ever. They gave us pho noodle as well so we can make ourselves a nice bowl of noodle soup. Afterward we also cooked those raw duck blood with it~

Perhaps every dish is so flavorful with a sour and sweet flavor, we felt like we could eat more. We got the Fried Quail. My goodness this is SO good! Well seasoned and spiced with various herbs and garlic…there goes another glass of beer!

The food is very impressive, though we wish it’s more accessible. I definitely recommend going with locals or someone who can speak Vietnamese.

Dinh Thieng
5126 Westminster Ave. Santa Ana, CA 92703

Tags: Bar, Vietnamese

We went to John O’ Groats for breakfast, a popular local favorite. Their menu is traditional heavy hearty diner food in huge portion.

The Pumpkin Pancake sounded good but I can never eat more than one piece. They let me order just one piece, perfect!

Huevos O’Groats $12.95: menu saids it’s featured in L.A. Magazine’s Top 100 Dishes. Biscuit dough Tortilla with black beans, sauteed onions and peppers with two eggs, cheese, sour cream and salsa. It taste fresh and light flavors surprisingly. Though half way through the dish the ingredients get mashed up and it tasted muddy.

Eggs Benedict with Crab Cakes $14.75 SO GOOD! The crab cakes added a lot of flavors and textures.

The drawings, paintings and artifacts decorated inside gave a friendly neighborhood and historic feelings.

John O’ Groats
10516 Pico Blvd., West Los Angeles, CA

Tags: Breakfast, Diner

We tried another fairly new restaurant on the westside - a Japanese izakaya/sushi bar called BiMi. The Asian Tapas sign and the quoted disclaimer came off a little cheesy for me. The sushi chef was from Matsuhisa, but BiMi is much more affordable. Sushi are generally $6-7 for each order.

We were one of the few who sat at the counter, so we ordered more sushi and sashimi instead of the izakaya (tapas) menu.

Hamachi in two style. The one on the right was dressed with ponzu, onion and daikon. The onion flavor was a little too much, hence I prefer the simple way.

Really good Spanish Mackerel 6.50. The White Fish Carpaccio with lemon citrus, salt, olive oil and tomato caper $12 was a little too sour for me, the sauce overwhelmed the palate. There was too much oil as well…I could barely taste the fish. I’ll stick with the traditional Japanese yuzu sauce next time.

We asked for the ‘good stuff’ and the sushi chef gave us the Ikura (Salmon Roe). It’s incredible light and ‘burst’ the moment they touch the mouth. It’s not salty and full of flavors…no doubt the best ikura I’ve ever had. Wonderful~

Crispy Scallop Filo: With wasabi mayonnaise tonkatsu sauce $7 This is surprisingly good! The well-cooked jumbo scallop is inside that crispy nest. The crispy lettuce compliment the thin crispy strips (which was very light and not greasy). The sauce was used with restrained…it’s perfect.

Sea Urchin Fried Rice $6.50 The sea urchin was mixed with miso so it could get a little salty. The fried rice is was ‘clean’ and not oily, very nice! It’s a great dish to stuff your stomach full at the end.

The dessert menu is surprisingly big and not the typical mochi redbean greentea icecream. Pyramid $8.50 Chocolate mousse with a molten caramel center, dusted with cocoa powder. Very good~

Good sushi + delicious and interesting hot dishes + good price, I’ll definitely come back often.

BiMi Restaurant 310-479-2464
11917 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90049

Tags: Dessert, Izakaya, Japanese, Sushi, Uni