December 11, 2008 Off

Kruang Tedd (Thai Town)

//// By in 04: Los Feliz

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.

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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.
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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

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December 4, 2008 16

Dinh Thieng (Little Saigon)

//// By in 18: Greater LA, Favorite Food Entries

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.

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

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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.

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

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

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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~

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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

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December 3, 2008 3

John O’Groats (West LA)

//// By in 11: West LA

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

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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.

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

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

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

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November 26, 2008 4

BiMi Restaurant (Brentwood)

//// By in 11: West LA

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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.
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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.

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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.

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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~

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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.

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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.

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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

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November 26, 2008 6

Animal Restaurant (Fairfax district)

//// By in 09: Weho, Favorite Food Entries

AnimalHeard a lot about this place and my friend who tired it highly recommended it. Located at the very hip part of Fairfax district, this sign-less restaurant has a youthful scenester vibe. The owners are known as “two food dudes” who have a show on the Food network which I haven’t seen (is it good?) and they also released a cookbook. The restaurant is called “Animal” because the concept is meat-centric dishes for meat lovers. As soon as I walked in I saw huge plates with meat on many tables.

The menu sounds very interesting. In fact the small plates/appetizers sound more interesting to me than the heavy meat entrees so Jon and I decided to do it tapas-style instead.

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burrata, beet & green olive caponata $10. This is kind of like a dish that was created for me. 3 of my favorite things (beets, burrata and olives) together and the result is fantastic. I tried to make this at home but it just didn’t turns out half as good.

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Shishito peppers with raisin, feta cheese and bacon pieces. Good! The raisins and bacon pieces definitely enhance the shisito peppers a lot. Some shishito peppers were very spicy while some aren’t, you don’t know what you’ll get.

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House smoked pork belly, lentil, butterbean salad. Very good! The pork belly was lean and fully flavored with barbaque sauce. It’s a very rich dish so I’m glad for its “small plate proportion.”

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Raw Amberjack with Nectarine, cucumber and pomegranate. A refreshing dish to counterbalanced the other heavy meat dishes. The fish was fresh.

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poutine, oxtail gravy, vermont cheddar. We ended with this heavy dish to stuff ourselves full. Poutine is the classic Canadian comfort food, perfect for a cold winter night with beer.

Animal Restaurant is easily one of my favorite new restaurants in LA. Their menu change slightly everyday. Some dishes seem to be on the menu everyday, such as the pork belly. There’s foie gras on the menu too which sounds great. Freda will blogged about it in another entry.

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

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