After a long drive back from Phoenix, I was willing to eat about anything. Luckily in Ontario, we came across El Torito, a Mexican sit-down restaurant that is all over California. I actually saw El Torito in Istanbul, which has kept me from going for a long time because I question their authenticity. Nonetheless, I had put off El Torito for long enough and I was so damn hungry.
LA isn’t the only place in the world to offer a restaurant week. Arizona also flexed their restaurant week muscles last month. At $29 for a three-course meal for every restaurant listed (as opposed to LA, which has three different price levels), it’s important to pick the right place. They also note that the price is $58 per couple. Thank you, but I can do math. I know that 29 x 2 = 58, so if you’re not going to offer me some sort of couples discount, I really don’t see the point of showing me this. Mathematical anger aside, we decided to head to Bloom, a fancy American restaurant.
DineLA extended the LA Food week to make it almost a full month, so I made sure to experience another of the participating restaurants. This time it was One Pico at Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica. It’s kind of tough to find, since very little of the building actually mentions the restaurant name, but once you realize that the restaurant is actually within a hotel, things become a lot more clear.
Making its way into the custom burger scene in Arizona is a place called the BluBurger Grille. Similar to places like the Counter in California, BluBurger gives you a list of burger styles and loads of toppings available for them. BluBurger, however, takes customization to a new level.
Rather than restricting itself to one beef burger option, BluBurger has pulled out the stops by offering Kobe Beef (which I can only assume is actually Kobe-style beef) and Bison. Since I typically love me some buffalo, I ordered that with sharp cheddar and BBQ sauce. Adding anything else would have masked the flavor of the buffalo, so I kept my burger pretty simple.
For lunch one day, I ordered from a little Asian place called Asia House. They claim to be “Fusion Thai Cuisine,” which in my mind means they are mostly Thai, but threw in some other assorted Asian dishes to please people afraid of food named Pad Kra Pao and Kang Mus Mun. On this day, I chose to be one of those people and ordered the Orange Chicken even though it is by no means an actual Thai dish.
They have a lunch special, which comes with soup, a fried wonton and steamed rice, so I made sure to take advantage of that. The delivery came pretty quickly and also brought some surprises. As a thank you for being awesome, Asia House also brought me some egg rolls and a Thai iced tea. These were great additions to the already cheap lunch I had.
I started seeing ads for Taco Bell’s new Black Jack taco last week and I knew I had to test it out. There is just something so intriguing about taco shells in different colors, like when they did the red Volcano Taco. As long as they don’t release some sort of awful green-shelled taco with organic vegetables, I will continue checking out these taco color varieties.
Though it is neither a restaurant nor meat related in any way, the Franklin Cider Mill is certainly blogworthy for its doughnuts and complete lack of vegetables. According to their website, the mill was finished in 1837, making it pretty much older than anything west of the Mississippi. Even more amazing is the incredibly short season that the mill is open, only from Labor Day to Thanksgiving, the peak apple harvesting season in Michigan. Any sort of establishment has to be pretty incredible to sustain itself year-round while only operating for a few months and the Franklin Cider Mill is certainly no exception.
From the outside, Royal/T looks more like a Japanese art gallery than a restaurant. The inside isn’t much different until you realize the women in the anime-style outfits are actually waitresses and the tables set up aren’t simply for a small cafe attached to a gallery. Since I knew ahead of time that Royal/T was a restaurant, I was actually surprised to find how much of the space was dedicated to the art. It gave the restaurant quite a unique atmosphere, which is great, but I was there for the food.
Since it’s restaurant week, I avoided the regular menu and only looked at their set menu. Check it out here. I started with the Crispy Spicy Tuna, got the Hanger Steak Frites for the main course and was planning to finish with the fresh fruits and vanilla custard. Unfortunately they were out of this dessert and I later learned that they ran out of the Kobe Beef sliders. To make up for the lack of dessert, though, they allowed us to order any dessert from their menu, so I chose the cheesecake.
The newest edition of Umami Burger opened up a couple weeks ago in Los Feliz and I got there as soon as I could to see if they could continue producing those same amazing burgers. The last time I went to Umami on La Brea, it was still BYOB and had yet to develop a burger built for unvegans. Even the so-called “Manly Burger” had onions, but they were still nice enough to make burgers for my unvegan specifications. Umami Ni, as I like to call the new Umami Burger (ni meaning two in Japanese), was a grown up version of the original.
Not only does Umami Ni serve beer and wine, they even have a bar called Salaryman (another Japanese homage) where they serve Asian beers for comfortable prices. Arriving at 9:00, I expected to be seated quickly, but the place still had a waiting time, so I headed over to experience Salaryman.
While in Michigan, one restaurant I had to visit was Olga’s Kitchen in West Bloomfield. The local chain has been around forever and has never attempted to veer away from the core factor that makes the restaurant a success. This core factor is Olga Bread and it is no ordinary bread. The closest thing it can be compared to is Greek pita, but to simply call it Greek pita would be an injustice. It is buttery and crispy and multiple levels of delicious. Olga’s uses it to make their sandwiches and as a side for their salads, but by far the best use of Olga Bread is in Olga’s Snackers.