And here I thought my post from the LA trip in October was big. Goes to show how much I know because this post laughs in the face of the old one. It sh*ts all over the old one, and seriously, can you believe this trip was actually shorter?!
I can’t. But it was.
My luggage put on 6kgs while it was there and so that it didn’t feel bad, I stuffed myself full of SoCal culinary goodness and gained like 6kgs myself. Or something like that. I mean, this post doesn’t even cover it all! There was already that dinner at Market, followed by channelling my inner Homer with a pizza & beer dinner.
And there’s also a fabulous dinner at Izaka-ya by Katsu-ya but that one’s gonna get a post of its own.
This post is for all the adhoc eating that I did. And boy did I do a lot. Buckle up!
{In sort of chronological order}
The Original Farmers Market & The Grove
The Original Farmers Market is located on West 3rd St, pretty much in the heart of the city. I don’t know why ~ why?! ~ we didn’t make it here last time but ohmygod I am so taking Panu back here next time.
A Wholefoods market and numerous food stalls sprawl across the outdoor area with cuisines from Japanese to Brazillian (which were exactly the two that I zeroed in on), sweets to beers and everything in between.
The sushi was ok, but the Brazillian churrasco plate swept me off my feet. Served buffet style, you can have as much “meat off the skewer” as you like on your plate and it is charged by weight.
We had garlic chicken, garlic beef and charred sirloin steak, accompanied by various salads (including okra which I love!) and some gorgeous little cheese bread balls.
Aside from the food market, The Original Farmers Market is also adjacent to The Grove, an outdoor bazaar of shopping, entertainment, cafes and chillaxin’ space. The perfect place to soak up the sun with a scoop of Haagen Dazs
The Original Farmers Market
6333 West 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA, 90036
(323) 993 9211
website
After a half day in LA enjoying this crazy awesome season they call winter, my colleague and I caught the tiniest little propeller plane down to Carlsbad (LA’ers I know, I know, I didn’t realise how close Carlsbad is to LA!) and checked into the Pacific Grand Palisades. We totally could have driven. It would have taken like an hour, LOL!
Anyway, we get to Carlsbad, we’re hungry and all that and thank God there’s a restaurant-slash-bistro thing right next door. Turns out it’s a Karl Strauss restaurant. What’s a Karl Strauss Restaurant you ask? I didn’t know either but it’s a brewery, and this is the restaurant! Fricking genius
Karl Strauss has a bunch of beer inspired interesting things on the menu but um, we didn’t order any. Looking back, I have no idea why because they had beeramisu for God’s sake! Why didn’t I order that?
Instead we had the drunken shrimps which were good, and the buffalo style boneless chicken wings which were not-so-good and I’ll tell you why. They call them wings on the menu. Wings. Pretty clear right? But they were actually pieces of chicken breast meat and I detest breast meat. Fail.
My main was actually a chicken salad thing, which tasted ok but was sort of hideous to look at so no piccies. And the bread pudding, luckily, was fantastic, the dried cranberries adding a great touch to an otherwise sickly sweet dessert.
Note: we had our breakfast buffet at Karl Strauss everyday. Hence my phatness fatness.
Karl Strauss Brewing Company
5801 Armada Drive
Carlsbad, CA, 92008
(760) 431 2739
website
In-N-Out Burger
The famous In-N-Out Burger. What can I say except there’s a reason why London foodbloggers are banding together to petition for this chain to hit up our cold grey shores.
What impressed me most was the simplicity of the menu. You get three choices: a hamburger (no cheese), a cheeseburger (with cheese) or a double cheeseburger (if you’re hungry). And you can have fries, or no fries. That’s it.
But what I did learn though (and it’s great to eat with locals!) is that you can order variations to the limited menu. For example, we had our fries “well done animal style”. Damn right yo, no tourists would ever know them code words!
What are fries “well done animal style”? Simple. They’re overcooked so they turn out extra crispy, and the animal *growl* comes from the topping – a decent serve of cheese, onions and thousand island dressing.
OMeffingGOD yum.
I have to say it lives up to the hype. Simple is as simple does and the soft bun and very plain insides just worked. The big slice of fresh onion was a little bit like a slap in the face but hey, ain’t no kissing anyone that day and better yet, if you were gonna kiss someone, make sure they’ve had an In-N-Out Burger too!
In-N-Out Burger
everywhere
website
Haneda Sushi Bar & Seafood
Plonked in the middle of Korea-town (apparently the largest concentration of Korean folk outside of the motherland), we found this tiny little sushi bar with the most adorable little Japanese chefs.
It was a late night, we’d just come back from Carlsbad and needed something quick and easy. Quick and easy it was, and tasty too!
We shared two sushi platters, some tempura and soft shelled crab. The food was fresh and flavoursome, not profoundly outstanding but definitely not bad. I was happily snapping away when the curious little Japanese chef wandered over and shyly watched me take photos of his beautiful food.
Somehow, I managed to get him to pose and y’know, without any coaching, he does the Japanese tourist pose. I love it
Haneda Sushi Bar & Seafood
3839 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA, 90010
(213) 251 9929
Joan’s on Third
Joan’s! As I type Joan’s on Third has just started following me on twitter! I don’t even know why because um, this post isn’t live yet but hey, one and all are welcome to join in my twribble.
Joan’s on Third is a fantastic little cake shop-cum-coffee shop-cum-deli. Family owned and operated, it serves walk-in customers and also operates as a fully fledged catering business.
After an afternoon of shopping on Robertson Blvd, it’s the perfect place to kick up your feet and dig into a luxurious slice of cake. My friend Sophie and I shared a slice of hazelnut & apricot meringue cake which was honestly ridiculously good ~ rich but not too rich, sweet but not too sweet. Perfecto.
I also took home a selection of packed sweet things including chocolate coated gummi bears and some gummi fruits and sour apples.
The cows out front are cute too. They hang out there with some water bowls and chillax with passing dogs 
ps. only downer at Joan’s is their no photo policy inside. It sucks extra bad because they have the most gorgeous products! Shame.
Joan’s on Third
8350 West 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA, 90048
(323) 655 2285
website
Ruen Pair in Thai-town
Thursday night I hung out with Sophie, who drove all the way from Vegas to see little me (spe-cial). She had a Thai craving so we did Thai, and where do you go for Thai but Thai-town (ok people stop recommending Jitlada, I’ll make it there next time, promise)?
We thought we were hungry, I mean we were hungry but the portion sizes at Ruen Pair completely wiped us out. We ordered three starters and two mains – totally doable by two hungry girls right? Right. WRONG. Not at Ruen Pair.
The starters at Ruen Pair would equate to what I would normally call a large main meal. And the mains are just stupid. We didn’t even make a dent in the dishes, admitted defeat and packed up what would be enough food to feed at least two more people.
Taste-wise the dishes were ok. Some were stunning like the Chinese broccoli with crispy pork but I found the pad thai (my benchmarking dish) a little too bland. The pork jerky was also new to me, you take a piece, wrap it in sticky rice and pop it in your mouth. Not bad!
Some how, even though we actually rolled out of Ruen Pair, we managed to steer across the parking lot to a local Thai sweet shop and stocked up on some delicious gelatinous pandan goodies. I just never learn.
Ruen Pair
5257 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA, 90027
(323) 466 0153
Huckleberry Cafe
Oh Huckleberry, I’d even heard of this place before landing on the sunny west coast of the US of A. I knew it was in Santa Monica, I knew it was a popular breakfast joint, but I didn’t know they served baked eggs. And we all know how much I love baked eggs.
On a Friday morning, Huckleberry is packed, but we managed to score a table outdoors to enjoy the sunshiny breezy Santa Monica climate.
I ordered the baked eggs because, um, did I have an option? And Sophie had the bacon & egg sandwich.
The baked eggs were good, just good. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them except that I’m comparing them to Lantana Cafe here and well, Lantana adds mushrooms and chorizo and spinach to their eggs!
It was great anyway, eating breakfast in the SoCal sunshine. Reminds me of the days when I used to sit streetside at Urban Bites in Newtown, Sydney, and leisurely indulge in breakfast.
ps. BIG grapefruit juice. Cost a mint (like $7?!) but brilliantly refreshing.
Huckleberry Cafe
1014 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA, 90401
(310) 451 1322
website
Marmalade Cafe
Sometime after our leisurely Huckleberry breakfast, Sophie and I cruised down to Malibu, took some photos of the stunning coastline and well, worked up an appetite doing that.
We crashed at Marmalade Cafe and shared some nibblies. And boy am I glad we just ordered nibblies and dessert ~ the size of these things!
We shared a warm spinach & cheese dip with tortilla chips, and followed that up with only the biggest slice of red velvet cake I have ever seen. Really, almost as big as my head.
The food at Marmalade Cafe was pretty good but I’ve gotta say, the service left much to be desired with the waiter forgetting us (asking for menu’s, asking for milk and so forth) a number of times and the food taking its time to make its way out to us.
Marmalade Cafe
3894 Cross Creek Road
Malibu, CA, 90265
(310) 317 4242
website
Milk
So on Friday evening, I had the most awesome evening with my LA gals at Izaka-ya by Katsu-ya. This is yet to be blogged because… well it deserves more than just snippets, but anyhoos, after loading up on food and sake, we hit up Milk to satiate our sweet cravings.
Milk appears to be the new trendy thing to do, crammed full of twenty-somethings just hanging out and looking decidedly cool. Us cougars, we just trudged right in.
We shared a “grasshopper” (choc mint ice cream macaron sandwich), some mini red velvet cupcakes (because they didn’t know I’d just indulged in the mother of all red velvets earlier that day) and the star of the show, and Milk‘s signature cake – the blue velvet cake. Blue. Woah.
I have to say, I rate the blue velvet way more than the red. And this is mainly because it has a flavour, where as the red is just cocoa. Y’all knew that right? That the red velvet cake is just cocoa? Sorry if you didn’t. But anyway, the blue velvet cake is blueberry flavoured and laced through with sweet, juicy, fresh blueberries.
Again a winner in terms of food, and a massive lo-ser in terms of service with the aisle nazi storming up and down ensuring the precious aisles weren’t blocked. What-ever.
Milk
7290 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA, 90036
(323) 939 6455
website
KyoChon Fried Chicken
The new KFC. Mark my words, the new era of goddamn Korean Fried Chicken. In October I had but two tiny pieces of KyoChon’s fried chicken. What a tease and over the months I’ve been harbouring a craving for the crisp double-fried skin of this chicken, coated in garlic soy or chilli sauce.
My craving was realised on Saturday, my last meal – the last supper – before my long trip back home.
10 wings, 10 legs, 50/50 with the marinade and a large serve of chicken fried rice. And a bucket of pickled radish because day-em that chilli sauce is HOT!
KyoChon did not disappoint the second time round (the potential for heartbreak after months of craving is always scary) and there’s really not much to say except that cousins from America, can you please please bring us KyoChon? And In-N-Out?
kthxbai
KyoChon
3833 West 6th St,
Los Angeles, CA, 90020
(213) 739 9292
Pinkberry vs Red Mango
Ok we’re almost there. This post is almost as long as my epic Fat Duck post, and oh I have a story there too*.
Before I left, I had to do a froyo-off. Pinkberry vs Red Mango. Supposedly Red Mango was the original. And then supposedly Pinkberry marketed its ass off and spawned a bunch of new froyo joints. Supposedly.
I can’t comment on the history, just the taste.
Pinkberry is lighter and tart-ier with a distinct yoghurt-y sour-y taste and texture. I thought it was pretty good and the various flavours (original, chocolate, pomegranate, coconut) were actually more intense than in any regular froyo.
Red Mango just plain and simply tastes like ice cream. It’s thicker, richer, creamier and I mean you really could kid yourself into thinking you’re lapping up some ice cream. And so I loved it more. Life’s a bitch, Pinkberry.
So! Them are my eating adventures in LA. I can’t believe I ate my way around LA in October and I ate my way around again in January and I already have a new list of places to check out next time!
I {heart} LA.
* So I met this guy at the company we worked with in Carlsbad and he’s like “oh you’re a foodie, have you heard of The Fat Duck?” … I’m like “have I heard?? I only waited a lifetime on the phone and YES I HAVE HEARD OF THE FAT DUCK.” And he goes “oh, I grew up with Heston. He’s my best friend.” Waaaah, small world.