Had a wonderful evening with Yan at Musha, an Izakaya (Japanese pub) place located in Santa Monica. The interior is more fancy and designy than their original branch in Torrance, which has lots of Japanese business men and ojisans there. According to Yan the menus are slightly different (Torrance’s better?). They both are really crowded and noisy, i.e. waiters shouting in Japanese constantly, and offer interesting creative dishes. Drinks: Plum Soju and Grapefruit soju, White wine in the back.
Chesse Tofu with Honey What an interesting dishes! I love the cheese tofu, it taste very delicious with the honey. The spicy red little beads (don’t know what they are) made the taste extraordinary.
Spicy tuna on rice cracker The spicy tuna taste a bit normal, good with the rice cracker though.
Yakiniku The little coal stove is cute! Almost every table order it so the whole place is very smokey.
I don’t know what you call it with the fire gun burning the surface skin of the raw fish into cripsy layer (I’ve only had it when I was in Japan at the welcome party) ^^;; Yummy of course~~
Clam Udon with mushroom in creamy sauce A bit normal, but tasty nonetheless.
Anmitsu and Creme Burlee, normal, but not much other choices anyways. The final bill was about $80 (tips and tax included) for 3 people.
Saw this funny poster at the female restroom!! We almost asked just to see who’s Hideo~~ Notice “inprove” is misspelled 😛
oh you guys went to musha!!! This is one of my favorite place to drink with japanese friends. I am okay with soju, too watered down sometimes, but it’s a hip drink for girls i guess. I also got the chese tofu dish before, taste good and you feel less guity cuz it’s part tofu. their sashimi is. . . okay i guess, but i wouldn’t order it there, yaki stuff is better at izakaya.
btw, finally saw Sideway this weekend. . . and what a wonderful film!! i really enjoy the store, the wine, and the character. did you know the asian girl was the director’s wife? ! anyways, i brought 3 pinot noir after the movie, me and vero is going to have a girls drinking/gossip nite!!
oooh I love Musha! I wanted to try the Torrence one for the different menu. The plum soju is better than all others coz at least it got a plum inside. as soju is so transparent in taste that it’s practically ice-water…^^;;; Yeah we didn’t bother with sashimi coz they can’t be as good in a pub place.
I read that the sells of Pinot went way UP because of the movie. In the movie when the guy gave his friend the pinot bottle (but champagne color) at the beginning in the car, the friend was like, “Pinot noir? Then why is it white?” I was thinking of the same thing. ^^;;; I never knew Pinot can be white. And the friend got mocked by the guy and suggest him to shut up at the wine country…haha~
I didn’t know there is a Musha in Torrence! We should go there together!!! I haven’t being to Torrence for a long, long time, I miss the pasta at Spoon House too. I had soju once or twice before, but feel like I am drinking watered down juice, for Izakaya, I always order sake lor 🙂
errr, I didn’t know Pinot can be white too. I wan t to try the wine tasteing class at Bristol Farm. see if i can learn a thing or two. . .
Wow the food is so nicely presented. I want to try the tofu and cheese too~~~Actually clam udon looks tempting – it is not really a common dish in Japan.
You took pictures of the customers so close-up?? ^^;;;; You should have found out which one is Hideo!!!
Yeah Tina let’s go try the Torrence one! I was at Torrence just this past weekend, selling my old Japanese CDs at Books Off. Got stingy little $30-soemthing back. For the same amount of CD, I can get $150 – 200 back from Amoeba. Too bad I don’t know anyone who would want them (all obscure Japanese rock stuffs), I rather gave them away to people who’ll like these music. Some of them got cooler rock cover so I sell them at Amoeba (and get high price).
nah Hideo…all the male waiters are so short there…the females were all taller than them ^^;;;
Yeah, we should go there together sometimes!!! how about next weekend?! it’s jason and my birthday next week. we can celebrate there!!!
you rather give the cd away?! hey, let me have a look then!!! I still have to return the CDs i borrow from you guys before. maybe we can have a trade off XD
Yeah let’s go to Torrance Musha next weekend for you guys bday then! You guys arrange it and let me know the time.
You can go through my unwanted CDs pile and take whatever you want. I’m narrowing down the size of my music collection since they exceed my room storage capacity. I’ve sold almost 300 CDs away already (of course saved all the the songs I like onto itune), now I have about 600 CDs left, which is a good size for now 😀 Oh yeah I’ve got The Arcade Fire’s “Funeral” from my coworker. It’s a nice album indeed, I love it!
sounds good!!! how about next sat nite?! and I heard from veron that yuli is leaving to Indo soon, so if you guys want to invite more ppl. .. btw, I don’t know where is the musha in torrence, you might have to provide the direction then (i cleaned up my car. . . so no worries about broken glass ^^;;)
WOW, you still have 600 cds left!!! can’t wait to see your newly organized room!! I will be happy to pick out from the pile. Glad you like Arcade Fire, i haven’t brough it yet but listened couple of times on the radio. really like that album. I have no idea how many cds i have, and they are all over the place too. my music taste changed dramaticly over the years. maybe it’s time for me to have a clean up too!!
Ah damn shouldn’t have sold that pile last weekend, there might be stuff there you might like. I think iTune/iPod will revolutionarized music business. Even hardcore person like me who used to insist of buying/owning actual CD get tempted. I still think that without ever paying or owning the album but only mp3s still feel not really appreciating the music, coz I feel like I don’t really own them and ruin my respect for music in general. Like some people I know who “run fire enter demon” who’s addicted to loot/leech/steal/borrow mp3 from everywhere that they have like 10,000+ songs in their iTune (store in their 500G firewire drive). ^^;; They said they’ll never ever buy/pay for music again, and they haven’t even listen to 99% of the stuffs…they’re just mp3 collectors, not about music at all.
Address to Torrence Musha.