Review from Japan

Hello Everyone!

Long time no blog, but I think this will be worth seeing. I recently returned from a short trip in Japan and took lots of pictures of their delicious food. I might be slightly biased since Japanese food is my favorite, but I have to say that no matter where you go, the food is consistently good. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.
This is Akashiyaki, which consists of batter and octopus and is meant to be dipped in the accompanying sauce. The sauce was light, as was the overall meal. (Taken at Tokyo Station)


This is Okonomiyaki, which is like a Japanese pizza since you can put whatever you want in it, but it usually consists of the batter, cabbage, red ginger, egg, and sometimes a meat. This one has pork.




There was a curry house called "Jakson Curry" that I went to with friends, and they had a unique flavor to their curry. It was a different kind of spice than Indian or Japanese curry, and the inside of the restaurant was very Westernized (they were playing music by Queen while we ate.) I really enjoyed the flavor. I also added on chicken karaage, which is basically fried chicken (Taken in Takayama)
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This was at a restaurant called Kawafuji, and their specialty was a cheese chicken katsu. It's a common meeting place for many of the college students nearby. (Taken in Tsuru City in Yamanashi Prefecture)



This was taken at Ishii Udon, a very popular noodle shop that attracts the students and locals. Their udon noodles are a little chewier and very, very long. It was a fulfilling meal.



These photos were taken at the famous Tsubame Guriru (The Swallow's Grill) where they serve hamburger steaks and Western style cooking, but with Japanese flavor. A little expensive, but worth it I think.
(Taken in Shinagawa, Tokyo)










The most expensive meal I had was at this place called the Black Hole. It's a Japanese barbeque restaurant where they served a variety of meats that were all well marinated. I've never eaten this type of yakiniku (grilled meat) where the meat was so juicy. But it did turn my wallet into a black hole :(
(Taken in Shinjuku, Tokyo)









This was my last meal in Japan, SOBA! Thinner noodles than udon and it can be eaten in cold or hot soup.(Taken at Narita Airport in Tokyo)



Lastly, this is a cake that I brought home from a little cafe in Shibuya, Tokyo called Shoto Cafe. It was a very homey cafe in the middle of the ceaseless craziness that personifies Shibuya. The people working there were very welcoming and treated me like someone they've known for a very long time. The cake was a bundt, and it was not too sweet and still soft despite being carried around on a plane. Yummmm....





Epi-what? Epi-"derishisu"!!

XIV

XIV by Michael Mina

8117 Sunset Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90046

Michael Mina is a well-received culinary artist, with the accolades to prove it.  He also has several restaurants strewn across the US.  XIV happens to be in Los Angeles, a convenient location for David and I.  It was also conveniently part of dineLA's Restaurant Week and offered a three-course menu for about $44 a person.  So we took advantage (and some friends) to see what XIV was making for dinner...

The atmosphere inside was very lively.  Even on a Thursday night, I was surprised to see how crowded it was.  The design inside spoke of European renaissance in a contemporary style.  There was a bar as well as an outside patio lit up for diners.  One other thing I noticed about the restaurant were the servers.  Not only were they all male, but they all wore suspenders with white shirts (I thought they also were all foreign, but I was disproved quickly).  Someone had obviously put a good amount of thought into the restaurant's setting.

After we ordered, we were served naan with some type of yogurt textured cheese sprinkled with pepper.  Naan is a type of Indian bread, and it is delicious.  This one was light,  not flaky, and was a

perfect choice before our meal. 

This was David's first course: a creamed corn soup with pork belly and a flavored foam.  The dish was served first with only the pork belly, but then the server poured the soup into the bowl.  David commented that it would have been better if he poured the soup in himself.  Somehow, doing things yourself makes food taste better, he said.  I have to agree, but still the taste of the soup was sweet from the corn and the frothy texture was warming nevertheless.

My first course was a wagyu tataki, with assorted vegetables on the side.  The beef was very tender, and slightly sweet.  The vegetables (which included carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, and a type of small red onion) were slightly soured from vinegar and balanced out the sweetness of the meat.

(Sorry for the image, I have no control over some of the things the blog does on it own) This is David's main course, chicken in a very, very flavored broth.  I'll let David explain, though this dish was way too packed with flavor for my liking.

My main course was halibut with veggies.  I really enjoyed this dish because it surprised me.  You know how if you cook fish, many times it tastes a little dry?  This one was juicy through and through.  It wasn't dry in the least.  The veggies on the side were okay, though the spinach oddly seemed bland next to the fish.  Still, good.

David ordered a traditional root beer float with chocolate chip cookies on the side for dessert.  Our friend ordered the same thing and stopped drinking the float because it was too sweet.  The cookies were warm and soft, but they were also a little too sweet. 

My dessert was a nutella creme brulee with a sour flavored foam and vanilla ice cream.  There was also a type of cake or cookie inside the cup.  Individually, the ingrediants didn't taste that great: the foam was too sour, the chocolate was too sweet.  But when I mixed it together, it tasted great, and again gave a sense of balance to the dessert.  Overall though, I think it was still overwhelmingly sweet.  Not bad though.

My impression of XIV is that it's a great place to go for the atmosphere (I'm talking more about the restaurant design and not necessarily the people), and the food was a good accompaniment.  I think I would go back to try other dishes, though it's kinda pricey.  I thought the staff could have been a little friendlier, though being as busy as they were, I can understand why they didn't come off as happy people.

Overall rating (out of 5 stars):

Food 4.2

Service 3.0

Environment 4.5

Price 3.5

Epi-what?  Epi-renaissance chic haha.

Sprinkles Cupcakes

This week I was lucky enough to get some free cupcakes from my friend so I figured I'd post some pictures.  There are cupcake shops popping up all over the place now, and two of the better known ones in the area are Sprinkles and Dots. 


We got a total of 12 cupcakes: banana, black and white, chocolate marshmallow, cinnamon sugar, coconut, dark chocolate, red valvet, straberry, and vanilla. See http://www.sprinkles.com/flavors.html for a list of flavors by day. Sprinkles cupcakes are a bit pricier, $3.25 per cupcake or $36 for a dozen, whereas Dots is $2.75 per cupcake.

Sprinkles cupcakes are a bit on the sweet side, a little too sweet for me. The top is about half an inch thick of frosting/sweetness; the cupcake itself is pretty dense.  I personally prefer Dots cupcakes, their cupcakes are more moist, lighter/fluffier and a bit cheaper.

Epi-what?  Epi-frosted.

LA Restaurant Week!

Hi everyone please checkout the website below: http://discoverlosangeles.com/play/dining/restaurantweek/participating_restaurants.html

This is similar to Orange County restaurant but in Los Angeles County; between October 4th-9th and October 11-16, 2009 there are over 200 restaurants offering you specially priced three-course menus around Los Angeles County. Prices ranges from $16 to $44 dollars. Click on the website to see a list of restaurants and the type of food they serve. Now get out there and have some fun!

-David

Lulu's Creperie Cafe

Lulu's Creperie Cafe

24781 Alicia Pkwy Suite E

Laguna Hills, CA

From the outside it doesn't look like much, but once you walk in...

...It definitely has more of a "cafe" feel to it.  We learned about this place through Orange County's Restaurant Week that took place from Sept. 12th until Sept. 19th.  Restaurant Week is when restaurants from the region put out a special type of menu showcasing their food in a three- (or more) course meal for a discounted price. 

Lulu's Creperie Cafe is a small, French-styled restaurant that serves sandwiches, pastries, and of course, crepes.  On to the food....

They served sliced French baguettes and what tasted like cinnamon-pumpkin muffins as soon as we sat down.  The bread was soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside. YuM! The muffin was also yummie, it was moist and soft on the inside and a tad crispy on the top.

 We ordered two different sets of meals. My first course was Soup de Jour, "Soup of the day", which was some type of squash soup. The texture of the soup was fluffy and creamy, the taste was sweet and hearty, full of flavors. It is a little bit sweet but tasted great when I dipped the French baguettes in.

My first course was a salad.  Typical, nothing special, but it seemed fresh at least.  Although it wasn't anything to die for, I think I preferred it versus the soup.  The soup was a little too hearty and I think just a taste of it was enough.

Since we were in a French style cafe, I figured I'd give the French Dip a try. The bread used in the sandwich was the same baguette that was served to us when we were first seated. The main difference is that there was Au Jus sauce that came with this one.  The hot Au Jus sauce was pretty flavorful.  The meat was rather tender and when you dip the sandwich in the Au Jus ~*it was a match in heaven*~ I let the sandwich soak in the sauce so that both the meat and the bread could absorb the flavor of the sauce.  Even after soaking the bread in the Au Jus, the flaky layer of the baguette still remained crunchy, which I enjoyed quite a bit with the extra Au Jus flavoring.  The french fries were crispy, and tasted great with a mixture of ketchup, tabasco and pepper.

My main dish was the chicken crepe with mushroom cream sauce.  It was also a hearty dish, though I did enjoy eating most of it.  The flavors of the cream sauce mixed with the sun-dried tomatoes and the mushrooms was a good combination, but I would have wanted more tomatoes to really make the flavor tastier.  The texture of the cream sauce and the crepe together made it all taste somewhat mushy, though I could tell the crepe was (at some point) almost like chewy pancake.

For the third course, I had pumpkin ice cream.  The pumpkin ice cream had hints of cinnamon and it was kinda icy, like it had very, very smally ice. The ice cream itself tasted okay, but when combined with the apple tart it was a different story.

My dessert was a petite apple tart, though I'd say it was more a mini apple pie.  The tartness of the apple was just right though the crust was a little too soft for my liking.  At first I thought the whipped cream was ice cream and (to my disappointment) it wasn't.  So I stole some of David's pumpkin ice cream to top it off.  I think I just made their tart 5x better!  I think it should be served warm and with a little ice cream a la carte.  It brings out the spices better too.

The amazing part of this visit was the price of everything! For the 3 course meal it was $10 dollar per person! However this was only because of the restaurant week thing, otherwise it would probably cost $15-20 per person for the things we ordered.

Service was... eh.  At one point the manager actually asked us to move a whole table when we were at the end of our meal.  Having worked at a small restaurant before, I can understand that when people need seats, you gotta make the room, but I'm not sure if it was the right decision in this case.

Overall rating (out of 5 stars):

Food-  3.5

Service- 2.5

Environment- 4

Price- 3.5

Epi-what?  Epi-hearty.

What is Epicurean? (continued)

Plans:

Step 1: Go to school and earn a degree.
Step 2: Find a job, work and make some money.
Step 3: Enjoy life, with the money you make from step 2.
Step 4: Win the lottery and just repeat step 3 and skip step 1 and 2.

Reality and a tad of Introduction:

Since winning the lottery is as likely as getting hit by lightning, I will just stick to the plans and repeat step 2 and 3; and hopefully one day step 4 will happen, haha. Hi my name is David, I finished step 1 and have been in step 2, working and making money, from time to time I am in step 3, where Krysta and I go out and enjoy all the different types of food and drinks the world has to offer. I like to try new and different food when I can; but since resources are limited I am forced to repeat step 2. As Krysta has mentioned in the previous post we have different tastes and our opinions are going to differ, but we hope you will enjoy our blog as we share our adventures of eating at various places ranging from holey little shacks around the corner to fabulous multi-course restaurants.

-David

Epi-what? Epi-fantastic :)

What is Epicurean?

Besides sleeping, food is my favorite daily necessity. Though unlike sleeping, I am aware of what I am experiencing. And trust me, dining can be either worthy of the most savory dreams or the sweat-inducing nightmares.

So what is epicurean? As is written at the top of the page, epicurean means to be fond of luxuries, specifically food. It's a fitting word for what David and I enjoy.

As this blog is the work of one girl (me) and one guy (him), our tastes are going to differ drastically. That said, please disregard anything that he says :) Haha, just kidding.

We do, however, hope to give clear pictures of our "food adventures" (his words, not mine.) Bon Apetite!

-Krysta

Epi-what? Epi-wonderful :)