Earlier in the year, this was published on Eater:

“Fujin’s chef partner Elmer Komagata opened LA modern French restaurants Chabuya in 1987, and Truffles in 1989. He recently returned to LA after successfully operating a ramen restaurant in Cancun for eight years during a 14 year Mexico stint. Prior to opening Fujin in West Covina, the chef consulted on Yamada-ya’s menu and imported premium regional sake.

The Tokyo-born chef previously worked at Paris’ Trois Marches and Le Petit Bedon, both two Michelin star recipients. At Fujin, Komagata applies 30 years of stock making experience to two distinct types of broth: tonkotsu “milky white” and shang tang “crystal clear.” Each bowl of tonkotsu ramen contains the essence of a pound of bones which yields ramen soup so thick it jiggles like Jell-O. The chasu found in the ramen? Steamed, sliced, then bruleed before serving. Corn for the miso butter corn ramen is served on the cob, with a knife, after grilling; the hanjuku tamago, found in both ramen and bowls of pork belly rice over rice, is a “matter of pride” for the chef. Playfulness is even extended to the anime dragon painted on the wall (being ridden by a baby, as inspired by Son Goku).

Three different types of noodles (custom percentage of water, flour type, and cutting blades) are made for Fujin Ramen. The noodles are then paired to three distinct types of ramen: Hokkaido, Nagasaki,and Taiwanese. Yes, here one can find Taiwan’s most famous bowl of noodle soup as interpreted by a French trained Japanese chef.”

Still, none of that says much about the ramen. The tonkotsu is a 6-bone mix (including chicken feet! Yummers!), simmered for 8 hours. Noodles are sourced from Myojyo, just like the other SGV fave, Foo Foo Tei.

The tonkotsu broth is opaque. Frosted, if you will. The chicken stock based “crystal clear broth” shangtang (menu description / transcription, not mine) is available after 5:30pm, and is offered in “Raijin, Shang-Tang, Ma-Bo, and Niu-Lo-Men” forms.

»continue reading Fujin Ramen — Whenever En Route to San Manuel

It is good form to make eye contact while toasting.

» Get Toasted Food Truck (Facebook)

Some of us are really excited for the Eat Real event, so excited we might even brave the 405 closure debacle & cross from East to West side. Heck, some of us who think free labor is like running in public — the horror — might even volunteer.

Here’s the official blurb, interspaced with photos from the “Preview Event”, followed by further thoughts on the festivities inspired by the Eat Real Fest Oakland:

The Eat Real Festival, the urban food extravaganza that showcases food in all its tasty forms, has just announced highlights of the lineup for the jam-packed Los Angeles event taking place at the Helms Bakery District in Culver City, CA on July 16th and 17th, 2011. Offering an extraordinary opportunity for people to celebrate not only the very best of their regional foods, but also the people who grow it and make it. Attendees will get up close and personal with their food through two days of non-stop food skills and hands on DIY demos including a “flying knives” butchery contest, an eclectic array of local food producers in the marketplace and a curated selection of delicious street eats incorporating local and sustainable ingredients all priced at $5 or less. “Eat Real takes the idea of and old-time state fair and turns it on its head,” said Anya Fernald, founder of Eat Real Festival. “For two full days, attendees can dine and sip on delicious items that highlight local, healthy and sustainable ingredients. But eating and drinking is only part of the fun. We’ll also put people in touch with their food by showing how it’s made – from making jam, sauerkraut or bread, raising backyard chickens and bees, to seeing the artistry involved in butchering a steer or pig. We celebrate the very best southern California has to offer and will activate thousands of people to demand good food, all the time.”

There is no cost for entry into the Eat Real Festival. In fact, there is no cost for any of the festival activities that includes music, workshops, demonstrations and events like the canning and butchery contests. The only cost when attending the Eat Real Festival will come from shopping in the marketplace or purchasing food from the food vendors on site. By agreeing to take part in Eat Real, vendors commit to using 1-2 local or sustainable ingredients in their food, hormone free meat and ensure that all prepared food for sale on site will be priced $5 or less. There is also space devoted to local food craft folks (cheese, charcuterie, pickles, jams, and more) and urban homesteading where attendees can learn what it takes to get in touch with your inner backyard farmer.

»continue reading Eat Real Fest LA: For The Anti-Cool July 16 – 17

BoHo v1 had a rather tumultuous ride as Arclight’s neighbor for a year and a half. First, a GM, or 2, was fired. Then the starting free spirited chef left because he couldn’t do whatever it is that he wanted to do. Through it all, BoHo carried on with its gastropubby fare which almost everyone seemed to have enjoyed, to a certain degree. No matter the food, no matter the chef swappage, everyone could always count on BoHo’s 2 dozen rotating craft beers, one of the first (of the second wave in LA) to have such a well-curated list.

No one quite believed BoHo would re-open after the planned October 2010 closure, but it managed to stay remain open, with its bottomless mimosa weekend brunches and all, all the way til Feb of 2011. With an obvious will to survive, it was no surprise BoHo returned to biz at its new digs only after a month of closure.

Except the new location is… wait for it… Hollywood & Highland! Commence collective groan… now. That’s right, BoHo went from being one movie theater’s neighbor to another, except the new one’s in an Egyptian themed mall in the middle of Hollywood. Go ahead, groan again, BoHo’s restauranteur Adolfo Surya doesn’t mind. He brought on a new chef, kept the same excellent beer menu, and hopes tourists (as well as local yokels) will appreciate affordable small batch brewed beer in a cozy environ.

Wesley Pumphrey, the new chef, has worked at Craft and Bazaar, 2 perennial LA faves. Here at BoHo, he’s using Wolfgang Puck designed/built wood-fired pizza to toss out some fantastic pizza/flatbreads. While the menu isn’t exactly the same as OG BoHo, the essence of its fare remains. The fantastic onion soup has disappeared, but a Hawaiian-esque tuna tartare, fully evocative of poke, has subbed in nicely. Moules frites here is solid as well, and offered with both grilled toast along with frites, making the broth all the more dunkable (not a word). Out of the pizzas, there is no doubt the Spaniard, with the sweet roasted piquillo peppers and sweet onion marmalade countering the properly salty manchego and chorizo, will be amongst the greatest hits here. From the mains, the salmon is rather well executed, though it sang the same sweet tune as several other dishes in the mains and apps.

Happy hour of $5 drafts and food bites is already back at BoHo, making it the best craft beer pub, dollar for dollar. On weekends, bottomless mimosas & bloody marys are back as well; now we just need to await the return of the brunch menu.

BoHo 2.0
4th Floor, next to The Grill
6801 Hollywood Blvd #411
Hollywood, CA 90028
(323)465-8500
Validated Parking $2 for 4 hours

The full name of this joint is Ricos Marisco El Rey del Maz. No kidding. How’s a gringo s’pose to remember that?

The crowning of Mexicali Tacos as LATacos.com 2011 champ begs the question: what if you do not like carne asada? What if your parents always took you on vacations in La Paz and all you want is a single fried fish taco, without trekking up to Hollywood-adjacent? What if you’re a fashion blogger in… God forbid… Alhambra? With a hankering for fish tacos?

The answer is clear: Ricos Tacos, in East Los Angeles.

Chances are, it’ll be open. In fact, it’s almost always open. There are no trick hours. This truck doesn’t have a twitter account, it doesn’t have blogger groupies. What it does have, is the underbellies of East LA passing through, collecting your Sangria bottle, your hecho en Mexico Coca Cola, just as you finish.

Is the fish as delicate as those at Best Fish Tacos Enseneda? Probably not. Is it as expertly fried as Ricky’s? Probably not. What you get are 2 fish filets, gently fried to the shade of Fish-O-Filet, for $3. Wrapped in the rather large corn tortilla, the fried filets, topped with rather thin crema and cabbage, present a hand-to-mouth challenge; hence Team Ricos provides forks. And if you’re lucky, you can find the napkin box to complete the eating process. Most locals ask for “con chile”, but the chile hot sauce is (again) rather thin, and presents minimal burn, so don’t go “sin” on it. Other popular choices are the cocteles, and the gigantuan paper plateful of various marisco on tostada.

There’s hardly a place to properly eat these floppy plates of seafood, even if you’re not Mimi Sheraton. Thankfully, the El Super supermarket’s parking lot is merely steps away, as is the equally fabulous Cemitas Tepeaca.

Ricos Tacos (Marisco El Rel del Maz)
(by El Super)
430 N Indiana St
Los Angeles, CA 9006

– SinoSoul.com

WHAT NOW?

The Sandwich Spot
(Nor-Cal sandwich franchise; Santa Monica satellite)
3101 Ocean Park
Santa Monica

WHY VISIT?

I’ve been to this joint more than a few times now, and at this point I will comfortably declare that the sandwiches are worth the slight sticker shock. I’m told the bread is flown down from upstate, on the daily. Further, very few things about the sandwich resemble the plastic mold (and taste) of a certain international chain’s $5 footlong (those are available three short blocks down Ocean Park). Westside lunchers, stop waiting in line for your MSG fix at Bay Cities Deli and get yourselves over to Ocean Park for a Roseanne’s or Sandman with Swiss, with everything. “Crunch bread” advised. If you’re doing it right, the total cost should clock in around the same as your average curbside food truck meal – aka, just under one Hamilton. Note that this is a lunchtime joint more or less, but you might ask about the advertised “comedy night” if that’s your bag. (Personally, I can’t wait to flee this part of town once work lets out.)

WHAT AMBIANCE?

Comedy LPs ranging from Joe Piscopo to Bill Cosby adorn the walls. Clearly somebody’s a fan of the live prepared routine. Drink machine is self-serve. A mysterious black curtain beneath the drink machine will draw your eye; whatever you do, don’t peek behind the curtain. »continue reading Under $10: The Sandwich Spot (Santa Monica)

10. Sweet Potato Waffle Fries at Bru’s Wiffle.
9. Epinards (Sauteed Spinach) at Bouchon.
8. The 8th 1st Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational.
7. Komodo 2.0 Burrito on the Komodo Truck.
6. Butterscotch Crunch Sundae at Sweet Rose Creamery.
5. Chicken Apple Sausage at The Slaw Dogs & Sundried Tomato and Mozzarella Sausage at Wurstkuche (tie).
»continue reading The Unemployed Eater’s 2010 Top 10 Under $10 LA Foodstuffs

If it has not been said before this moment, I shall say to you now: Rosecrans Avenue through Hawthorne is the chili corridor of Los Angeles. Here, consumer chili-cheese confidence at some point over the course of the past few decades did peak at an all-time high, flatline, and remains there still, fluctuating plus-or-minus chili5% per annum. The intersection of Rosecrans and Hawthorne alone manages to sustain not one, but two full-sized Wienerschnitzels, believe it, their perimeter immediately surrounded by Piggies to the west, Cougars to the northwest, Chili King to the north, Fabulous Char-broiled due east and of course not forgetting the locale of, you heard it here, possibly the best burger in Los Angeles, B & R Burgers, even closer, east. But this grouping is merely the tip of the chili-and-cheese-coated iceberg; indeed, the list of atherosclerosis purveyors rivals even that of auto mechanics here in Lenawthorgundowood as it bleeds into Torrance and Gardena.

Consider the chili cheese fry platter as a meal in itself, and the sole the reason for my visit to Chili King Friday last, a nondescript shack in Lennox, both dwarfed by and servicing the needs of the car wash whose lot it shares. The cost of said meal (pictured, top): $3.25.

»continue reading Neither The First Nor The Last Chili Cheese Fries of the Decade: Part Three of a Three-Part Chilogy

Ryan migrates east: fries get fatter, prices fluctuate accordingly

Here at Gardena’s edge do I then temper Thursday’s Tustin Timor et Tremor tussle with a plate of heart-stopping fries and mighty bacon cheeseburger. It is as it should be. Welcome, 2010: Thick fries; $4.69/plate. More than a meal in itself; still, Piggies, a chili fry’s throw away, has nothing to worry about per se. Not a true Googie, this Fabulous, but dig that crazy SoCal façade just the same, Dad: booths built in to the outside wall!

Brief notes:

• Requisite off-duty security guard spotted chowing down. Good sign
• Cheery, cordial staff
• As I eat I chat with a few locals about Jason Patric stinking up the Geronimo movie on the telly. Christ, man. Just how may different Native Americans has Wes Studi played, at this point?
• Novelty machines galore crowd the walls, including one that vends “jokes and tricky toys” (whoopee cushions) and at least two fully-stocked rows of “Cooby Doo Playing Cards” (sic)
• I do believe that I’ve just shat my pants. More soon

HEART STOPPERS
» The Last Chili Cheese Fries of the Decade
» Under $10 And Incredibly Shameful: Carney’s Derailer
» The Last Oki-Dog of 2006
» Black Widow Out-Chili-Cheeses Chestnut By Ounce
» Tommy’s At 60: The Six Sixty-Cent Chili-Cheese Chiliburger Cheeseburger Challenge

Mayhap you saw the tweet by Victor already, live at the scene. If not, let it be known that the Santa Monica Food Truck Lot is, at present, closed, the issue being that the lot’s zoning language does not explicity state “food truck use”. New language will need to be added and approved before the trucks may begin doling out those cute, tasty, cute-and-tasty and occasionally neither-cute-nor-tasty sub-$10 meals to aficionados of the westside gourmet lonchera scene.

Certainly not the first time The Man has clashed with a conglomeration (coalition?) of food trucks in our fair city. Anybody remember 5750 Wilshire Blvd a few months back? Stick around for full details as they trickle in. Meantime, solidarity tweets may be directed here: @SMFoodTruckLot

SETTING
Piggie’s Charbroiled
4601 W Rosecrans Ave
Hawthorne, CA

SOUNDTRACK
Flaming Lips
Oh My Gawd!!!…The Flaming Lips
6 Jan 1987 (Restless)

LOCAL TIME
1pm PST
29 December 2009

Sun streams harshly through the window here in Hawthorne, right onto the table, right onto the plate before me. $4.19 for the “large” because, yeah, I’m feeling In Charge. Take seat next to corner booth inhabited by three of Hawthorne’s Finest: One on duty with talkie dialed low, two off-duty in Sunday civvies. All three grousing about the job and casting the occasional wary eye my way. I’m just eating chili fries, boys; rest assured I bitch about my job just as much as you, end of day. One Decade!!! A full decade in Los Angeles. How in the hell have I pulled it off, exactly? How have I survived!? Why did I stay!? What kept me!? How Have I Changed Los Angeles For The Better, and, How Has She Changed Me? Sunlight streams onto the plate harshly still and I ponder various chili-coated plates that have confronted me over the course of the last decade, here in smog central. This one’s harmless when stacked ‘gainst the past, to be sure; still, no easy lunch, this. I throw down the fork, douse the pepper’s heat with a swig of ice water and hit the sidewalk. Inhaling, it hits me like a flash of lightning: It is good to be here, Los Angeles right now on this 29th of December 2009 Anno Domini. I gulp the air, form fists triumphantly and shout to no-one, “Oh My Gawd!!!”