California: Other Eats


With respect to Los Angeles, food was a determining factor regarding our choice of location. The Miyako isn't the greatest hotel in the world (in fact, our room was downright dumpy) but there are dozens of restaurants, plus a bakery and various dessert places, within a three block restaurant, most of them quite good.

In Little Tokyo, both T.O.T. (Teishokuya of Tokyo) and Sharin (text is Japanese but this link has video) had great sushi. T.O.T. is on 2nd Street between San Pedro and Alameda, Sharin in the same block on 1st Street. Both very small, both very authentic--one reviewer called their offerings "Japanese comfort food." Likewise, we visited Sushi-Gen, in Honda Plaza, corner of 2^nd and Alameda, for an early lunch our last day in Los Angeles. There were already 30 people in line in front of us by the time we showed up at 11 a.m. (the restaurant doesn’t open until 11:30), including three ladies in full kimonos.

In adidtion to sushi, we visited Kappo Ishito, in Weller Plaza (between 1^st and 2^nd between Los Angeles and San Pedro), for kaiseki. I’d never had kaiseki before, which is a multi-course Japanese meal prepared and presented in an almost religious fashion. (The chef was in a kimono with an apron obi and wooden clogs; his THREE assistant chefs basically bowed there heads and worked on repetitive tasks until called into service. Each course came on a different plate, each cup of tea was individually brewed. And for the first half hour we were the ONLY customers in the restaurant!)

No day was complete without a trip to Yamazaki, the Japanese bakery in Little Tokyo Plaza, for pastries (danishes, croissant, fresh doughnuts) and coffee (at least once a day, usually twice!) Likewise, the day we went to Descanso Gardens in La Canada-Flintridge we went by way of Rosemead to check out the noodes at Shinsengumi Hakata Ramen. I think it's quite possible we were the first people from east of the Mississippi River to ever actually visit Rosemead on purpose but the noodles were more than worthwhile even if the shouted greetings and farewells were a bit of a strain on my mental equilibrium.

With the Roswell Park crowd, we ventured up to Glendale's BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse for a truly humongous. Now THAT was entertaining. Huge upscale sports bar, giant flat screen TV’s all over the place, lots of “ooh rah!” every time a favorite team scored a touchdown – and gay disco music blaring on the loudspeakers, which none of the presumably overwhelmingly hetero patrons seemed to notice! Football and Madonna and Abba and, well, golly! The food was rather overwhelming (and not necessarily in a good way.) Tons of pasta, pizza, bread, salad, it never really stopped.

I think all our other dining experiences were covered in the previous post, with the exception of Carrow's, a sort of Southern California version of Denny's, in that it has similar food offerings and draws (for the most part) a similar clientele, i.e., the elderly and/or the morbidly obese. Rather scary, actually, but we were dining with a certain someone who likes to eat BIG!

All in all, we ate quite well, so much so that Naoyuki begged off my suggestion to go have even more sushi at Yukiguni, our favorite sushi place in Niagara Falls, Ontario, on Thanksgiving Day. Instead we will be heading to another fave, the Peller Estates Winery Restaurant in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Yum!

In case you hadn't noticed, we like to eat!

Next: Other Adventures