Americanized spins on Asian food scares me. There. I said it. Maybe it makes me seem like a spoiled brat, but I need the real authentic stuff. So, with much trepidation I made my way to Ling & Louie’s in Scottsdale. But, what makes Ling & Louie’s different is that they own up to the fact that they know they are not authentic and fully embrace making food that is more of a fun spin on Asian-inspired than any real attempt of authenticity.

We began with what might have been the best fried calamari I’ve ever had. No, seriously. It was topped with spicy aioli and sweet chili sauce, but perhaps more important than that they were fried in a way that kept them tasting both fresh and crispy. And, again, those sauces were pretty delicious.

For my main course I went with the Big Burger in Little China. The patty was marinated wagyu (which I always think is a waste), topped with candied bacon, cucumber salad (which I ordered without), Chinese BBQ sauce and spicy aioli. It also came with a side of garlic parmesan fries.

The results was a dish that looked more like fries with a side of burger than the other way around, but the burger was still sizable. The flavors were intense, and at times overwhelming, but I enjoyed it all. The patty itself was plenty juicy, but even if it hadn’t been there was enough sauce to make up for it. I probably could have handled a little more salty to balance out the sweet. And also the grind of the burger was kind of funky. In the end, the burger lived up to every expectation of it. Oh, and the fries were really tasty despite not being Asian in any way.

Ling & Louie’s surprised me. I really expected to not enjoy my meal, and, well, it turned out to be pretty good. It’s no substitute for authentic Asian food, but it’s smart enough to not even try.

The Mekong Plaza in Mesa is a great place to get real, authentic Asian food to bring people back to their roots or at least to get them away from crappy Americanized Asian food. And among those more traditional restaurants is something that doesn’t fit the mold at all. It’s called Kingo Bowl, and it has taken the concept of rice bowls with molecular sous vide.

You can pick a pre-made bowl or channel your inner Millennial to customize your own creation. I did the latter, and built mine with steak (essentially beef tataki), brown rice, a hot spring egg, dried cranberries and sunflower seeds. I asked for a sauce recommendation and was pointed to the black pepper sauce, so I went with it.

The bowl was beautiful, kingly even. The beef was incredibly tender, if not quite as rare as I would have liked. The hot spring egg was nothing short of exhilarating. Probably the best thing to come out of a hot spring since me, the last time I was in a hot spring. Of course, it didn’t actually come out of a hot spring, but it was that good.I loved the addition of the cranberries and the sunflower seeds, but there was one aspect of the bowl that just didn’t jive with me: the sauce. Simply put, it was overwhelming. I’ll admit that I am not the biggest black pepper guy in the first place, but I can appreciate it when used properly. In this case it really just covered up flavor without doing much to add to it.

And yet, despite the sauce (and the fact that it was recommended), there was something about Kingo Bowl’s creativity and mildly flawed execution that I truly enjoyed. Perhaps with one of the other sauces I would be proclaiming that the old world cuisine at Mekong Plaza needs to make way for more modernist takes like Kingo Bowl. But alas, that sauce had me a bit soured and looking for more. Yet, I am certain I will find that more with another visit to Kingo Bowl, because I have every intention to return.

In preparation for traveling to Borneo, I wanted to get a taste of Bornean food. This, of course, is not an easy thing to do, but when you live in LA pretty much all food is a possibility. Thus, I found myself with my Bornean traveling companions at Borneo Kalimantan in Alhambra. This place is more focused on the Indonesian side of Borneo, and although we were heading to the Malaysian side it still seemed as close as we were going to get. Plus, it also had Singaporean and Malaysian, so we weren’t completely off.

We kicked things off with some Roti with Curry Sauce. Roti, in this case, was like a flakey pancake-esque bread and the curry sauce was mighty good. It was a solid preview of what was to come.

And what was to come was a plethora of goodness. I probably ordered the least interesting of all dishes, which was the Nasi Campur Kalimantan. It came with a pile of BBQ pork, fried chicken, sliced sausage, a flavored egg and cucumbers piled on some rice. I wasn’t happy about the cucumbers, but I knew I could pass them off to my wife. And fortunately, this was the case. But where I kind of expected some sort of banana leaf-wrapped delight, I was instead presented with some food on a plate. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t good, it just wasn’t what I expected.

But, my wife went ahead and ordered that delight up above. It was the Kie Kecil Hokkian, which is chicken, mushroom, BBQ pork, flavored egg and some veggies. It is also filled with delicious thin noodles with some soup on the side for either dipping or dumping pleasure. But while that was tasty, it didn’t compare to the Laksa Ayam Borneo, which is a curry chicken soup and was pretty much amazing. If I went back, I’d go straight to that curry soup.

And I would go back if I still lived in LA, because Borneo Kalimantan is not just a place for delicious food, but it’s food that is so unique that there are very few places in this hemisphere to eat something similar. In that sense, when you get a hankering for Bornean food, nothing less will do.

Bacon and Avocado Musubi – What Floats UR Boat

This place specializes in literally only 3 musubi options and they are all nothing like what you would expect from “sushi.” If you get all three they come in a boat, but I needed to conserve stomach space and stuck with one filled with chipotle caramelized bacon and avocado. The avocado was insanely creamy and the bacon was insanely perfect. The rice and seaweed added perfect balance to an already great mix of food.

Winner Winner – The Naughty Churro

I love me a good churro, and I love me some fried chicken and waffles. While this sandwich of churro “buns,” fried chicken and maple butter isn’t exactly how you would picture a churro, it is easily the must gluttonously delicious thing I could find at the 626 Night Market and worth every penny/calorie.

Pix*e Halo Halo – Mix*E

I don’t know about you, but I’m not a big fan of sweet red beans. Maybe it’s the gringo in me, but I love me some Halo Halo, a Filipino dessert filled with crushed ice, coconut, jellies, ube ice cream and pudding, plus those sweet beans. Fortunately, Mix*E offers a beanless version that is fantastic.

Balut – Kapamilya Filipino Restaurant

Once upon a time I visited the Philippines. Unfortunately at the time I hadn’t heard of Balut and when I came back and started meat blogging I knew I had to try it out. Sadly it took until now to try it. Basically, it’s a boiled, fertilized duck egg and tastes much better than it looks. There will certainly be a full Strange Eats post to read eventually, but until now enjoy this video:

Few restaurants have been on my to-eat list longer than Jitlada, a Thai spot in the middle of Thai Town (which itself is kind of in the middle of Hollywood). The original plan was just to meet a couple of friends for some authentic eats, but we ended up biting off a lot more than we had planned for. You see, throughout the evening we had sporadic, then more significant conversations with Jazz, the woman (and Iron Chef competitor) behind the whole place.

But it wasn’t always that way. For starters, while Jitlada has been around since the 70s, Jazz purchased the place in 2006 and began to turn it into food that some call more authentic than Thailand. In that time, she’s served a lot of famous people, but seems to be the most proud of her friendship with Ryan Gosling and the time Mila Kunis came in deeply pregnant hoping the spicy food would kick her into labor. Legend has it she gave birth the next day.

We began with Tom Yum soup (which is spicy and sour) with shrimp. Immediately, I could tell this was not made for western palettes. Yet, it was all at once spicy, sour and refreshing, which is certainly a difficult feat to pull off.

Then we had that burger up above, which once required calling in advance for preparation. Now, due to it blowing up on TV as an amazing “off-menu” item, the Jazz Burger is available anytime. This burger, by the way, is not on the menu just to bring parents in with picky children. No, it was originally something Jazz put together for her kids who used to hang out in a Joovy-Zoom-360-Ultralight-Jogging stroller while she sang to feel more comfortable around their friends. One day a patron saw her prepping it and wanted one. The rest is just chili-stuffed, chili-topped and coconut milk-covered history.

We didn’t stop there, though, as we needed to get some Crying Tiger (or Tiger Crying depending on who you ask) Beef because it had also been featured on TV. Having had this dish before, I can say that this was leaps and bounds better. Not only was the beef perfectly tender, it was infused with a salty and sweet flavor that some beef just deserves. Moreover, it was served with a spicy sauce on the side that mingled perfectly with those other flavors (assuming you can handle the spice).

Finally, we had to have some curry. I, for one, thought we should continue getting dishes outside of the normal Thai restaurant zone, but our waitress convinced us that curry was a good idea. So we went with the red, got it with chicken and were immediately glad she had convinced us to do so. We got it at the “spicy for white people” level (my words, not hers) and it was perfect. It’s hard to explain how the flavors and texture of the curry made it different than other Thai spots, but just trust me that it is.

And while the food was incredible, perhaps the best moment of the meal was when my little baby started crying and Jazz offered to hold him and feed him for me. As a food blogger, there is perhaps nothing cooler than eating a famous chef’s food while she simultaneously bottle feeds your four month-old child. Yet, there I was, eating amazing food cooked by someone who loves nothing more than to walk around her restaurant and mingle with random patrons as though they were just stopping by her home for a meal. яндекс

EDIT: Grit & Grace is now a noodle bar, but I’m guessing it is just as delicious as before.

While some parts of the country might have Asian fusion around every corner, Pittsburgh has (most likely for the better) avoided much of this. There is, however, a spot downtown called Grit & Grace that has welcomed that sort of cuisine. It starts with a little something they call American Dim Sum. It’s nothing at all like actual dim sum aside from the fact that it is in small servings, but it is quite delicious. We had some of the Pork Belly Bites (with orange, chili, garlic and ginger) and Kimchi Balls (with rice and cheese). They were both incredible, and the balls surprisingly so because I have a rational hatred of kimchi and these tasted nothing like it.

We also had ourselves two orders of their Short Ribs, which came on cream cheese biscuits topped with aged white cheddar cheese and bearnaise sauce. These were simply incredible. Like far too good for their own good. Each order only came with two, but I wished they would have come with 30 because I could have eaten them forever.

For the main course, I split a couple dishes. The first was their Chicken Meatball Ramen, which came with a one hour egg (whatever that means), confit chicken thigh, more kimchi, schmaltz roasted carrots, coriander noodle and of course the meatballs. I, of course, wanted nothing to do with the carrots and kimchi, but after all I was splitting the dish. It was the best ramen I have had in Pittsburgh, and while I usually prefer my ramen simpler, somehow this complexity made it great. Not to mention, the chicken was so tender it should be illegal.

I also split the Braised Goat, which came with appams, garlic/ginger smashed potatoes, curry, creme fraiche and lime. It was a unique mixture of ingredients, but one that worked well. It was put together in a way that you could basically build your own wrap and mine was quite tasty. I didn’t like it as much as the ramen, but it was still welcome.

Grit & Grace turned out to be far better than I expected. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was still great. Each level of my meal seemed to be well thought-out and unique enough to not leave me wanting something different. Asian fusion isn’t dead, at least not in Pittsburgh.

You know how some restaurants don’t seem to have an identity? You know, like Jack in the Box but in full restaurant form. Well, Sun Penang in Squirrel Hill is one of those restaurants. The only identity it really has is “Asian,” but Asian covers a lot of groups and so does Sun Penang. From Thai to Dim Sum to Malaysian, it is a hard place to choose a meal, but choose I did.

For some reason I was feeling the Thai part of the menu and ordered myself some Curry Chicken with Potato and my wife felt more Chinese and went with Beef and Broccoli. My curry was of the red variety and also came with cilantro, while her dish came with exactly what it said it came with, but she had them add water chestnuts, which I find much more acceptable than broccoli.

The result? Maybe it’s better to stick to one thing and do it well. While the dishes were certainly beautiful, they seriously lacked in flavor. This is not to say that they tasted bad. In fact, there can be nothing negative said about the flavor because it really wasn’t there. Perhaps we were there on an off day, but the name of the game on that day was bland and with so many other options in the area, bland isn’t something worth returning to.

A while back, Sang Yoon opened up a place called Lukshon in Culver City. For some, this was a time to rejoice, as this was the man behind the Father’s Office burger. But for me, it was a time to…well…consider trying out Lukshon. You see, if you know me, you know my disdain for the Father’s Office burger. So it took until dineLA’s Restaurant Week to get me out to Lukshon. I went with a sizable crowd, collectively known as the Suppah Club, and we had ourselves a seat at a massive table on Lukshon’s patio in Culver City.

While we were there initially for the fixed price menu, a group of us decided to go rogue and order a bunch of things from regular menu, including some of those from dineLA. This was great, as it gave me an opportunity to try more than I would have otherwise, beginning with the Spicy Chicken Pops. These things start out as basic Shelton Farms drumettes before being topped with garlic, kecap manis (a sweet soy sauce) and spicy Sichuan salt. And yes, they were as good as they sound. I loved the combination of sweet, salty and spicy flavor and could not get enough of these. They also had a unique texture, being quite crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.

Next came the Lamb Belly Roti Canai, an incredibly unique dish with perhaps a few too many flavors going on. The roti itself is flatbread and the belly was topped with chana dal (a type of lentil), cumin, mint and raita (a South Asian yogurt sauce). There were also pickled cauliflowers on the side, which went right to everyone else. While I was happy with this dish, I felt like I couldn’t really taste the lamb belly itself. Maybe that was the intention, and while I was happy to get protein, I would have liked to taste the meat rather than just the yogurt, cumin and mint.

Then we got down with some Short Rib Rendang, a beef short rib dish cooked with Malay spices and served with a red chile lemongrass rempah (spice paste) mixed with coconut cream. While I didn’t eat much of this, I found it to be quite the opposite of the lamb belly, in that none of the flavors really popped at all. Perhaps my taste buds had taken a vacation after the lamb belly, but I expect some strong Malaysian flavor and was a little disappointed to find none. Nonetheless, the beef itself was cooked perfectly and had a fair amount of its own flavor to offer.

With that taken care of, we moved on to my favorite dish of the night – Heirloom Black Rice. Tossed in with the rice was lap cheong (Chinese sausage), roasted garlic, onion and a Lily’s Farm fried egg. I couldn’t order without the onion, as we were splitting this delicious rice, but if there was any onion in the final product, it went unknown to me. The fried egg was perfectly runny and got sliced, diced and mixed in with the black rice. The result was some spectacular flavor and texture. The black rice is a bit heavier than white and has a tougher feel to it, while the lap cheong is a slightly sweet and chewy sausage that goes well with just about any form of rice. With the perfect balance, the Heirloom Black Rice was the big winner of the night in my heart.

But wait, we weren’t finished yet. There was still Garlic Pork Belly to be eaten. Mixed in with the slivers of pork belly was do ban jian (a spicy paste), tubular rice cakes, cabbage and garlic chives. This made for a dish I needed to pick at. You see, I wasn’t about to be eating cabbage, I do have a reputation to protect. Unfortunately, though, the dish was lacking in pork belly content. When I did find that delicious pre-bacon, it was delicious, but it felt too few and far between. The rice cakes were a nice touch though. They may have been filler, but they were delicious filler with the great flavor of the do ban jian.

Now, Lukshon has a unique policy of offering free dessert at every dinner. Ordinarily I love anything free, but I have to think a restaurant offering free dessert for every diner is offloading the costs onto its patrons anyway. And since I’m not a dessert guy, I would prefer a cheaper regular meal. But that’s beside the point, and it turned out that our desserts were delicious. I couldn’t tell you what they all were, but rest easy that Lukshon comes through on desserts.

I left Lukshon a happy and full unvegan. While not every dish was a hit, I loved the thought behind them all, the emphasis on local sources and the overall variety of Asian influence. Plus, the great dishes were truly awesome. I also want to mention our terrific waiter, who knew the menu like the back of his hand, made some great suggestions and prevented us from over-ordering anything. With all that said, Lukshon was definitely a step up from the Father’s Office burger and Sang Yoon is moving in the right direction.

A month or so ago, Thrillist Rewards made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. For $29, it included one half-pound burger, unlimited wasabi fries, unlimited wings and two flights of delicious beers at a place called Far Bar in Little Tokyo. A few of us capitalized on this deal and finally made our way there to indulge. But finding it wasn’t exactly easy, as it required a walk through a strange alley. In fact, I walked into the restaurant next door by accident, but a guy there walked me over to the actual bar. Upon arrival, my friends who had gotten there first thrust a basket of fries and wings in my face and I knew I was home.

One thing that Thrillist did not mention in their reward was that the bar would feature a free drunk guy. And this guy was plastered beyond belief. It entertained for a while, but ultimately the bar kicked him out. This left us as the next closest thing to loud people in the bar, and most of our loudness was asking for more beer, wings or fries.

I’ll start with the fries, which were a nice component of the meal, but ultimately just filler to keep my stomach from eating more wings. They were topped with garlic and a sort of creamy wasabi sauce to give them a bit of an Asian kick. Fortunately, the wasabi was only lightly drizzled on the fries and each basket came with an extra dish of the sauce so they wouldn’t get soggy.

The wings, though, were pretty awesome. These were neither your average buffalo wings nor your average Asian-style wings. Despite being in Little Tokyo, they actually had a flavor and texture reminiscent Sichuan fried chicken. They were cooked with hot red peppers and weren’t topped with any sort of sauce. While I love me some buffalo sauce, these wings did a great job of capturing the essence of wings, and included an Asian touch that can seldom be found in your typical wing joints.

But let’s not forget about the burger. While everything else was unlimited, but devoid of options, there were a good handful of burgers to choose from. Ultimately, I went with the B.L.A.T Burger. This half pounder was topped with bacon, avocado and ponzu onion marmalade. I was weary of the onions in this marmalade, but figure I would give it a shot and scrape out the bastards if they were ruining my burger. I ordered medium rare, then ate some more wings and drank some more beer as I waited. Upon arrival, my burger was a pretty little thing. There was a thimble-sized bowl of pickled vegetables sharing the plate with my burger, but thankfully none of the juices escaped the thimble. I opened the burger in search of onions and, finding none, went to town.

What I found was perfectly crisp bacon mixed in with perfectly ripened avocado. The ponzu onion marmalade had little-to-no onion remnants or taste and was a very welcome addition to the burger, offering a little tartness and sweetness to an otherwise way savory burger. Oh and the meat was pretty damn good. It was cooked perfectly with a sort of medium grind to let me know it wasn’t just some pre-made patty. And the bun was everything I could have hoped for. It acted as little more than a conduit for the burger, but was both sturdy and pillowy all at once.

Meanwhile, the beers I tried were delicious. I would write about them all here, but that would be both boring and painful. The most important thing to remember about them is that they have a ton of locals on tap, including just about every beer Stone makes. Plus, although they weren’t available for my flights, they have a ton of Japanese beers that I would love to pour down my gullet on my next visit. Oh yeah, I do think there will be a next visit, because they have a happy hour during which they sell their burgers for only 5 bucks a pop. That alone is worth heading to Far Bar for. This little gem in a back alley in Little Tokyo definitely has a new fan.

In the continuing story of trying to find new and interesting food in the Valley, a coworker suggested trying out a place called Summer Canteen. Not knowing what sort of food a place named Summer Canteen would have, I opened up the menu online to find that it served none other than Thai. Wait, Thai? Really? I thought the rule of Thai restaurant naming was that it had to have “Thai” in its name (Thai Boom, Thai Smile, Natalee Thai, etc.) or use words from the Thai language (Jitlada). Summer Canteen broke these two rules, and would go on to break one more.

You see, the other cardinal rule of Thai restaurants is to offer crazy cheap lunch specials. Summer Canteen had lunch specials, alright, but they weren’t crazy cheap. In fact, their Massaman Lamb Lunch Set ran for 12 whole bucks. It was frightening, but I still needed a lunch, so I ordered the Panang Beef. It came with soup or salad, and since both were vegetable-based, I ordered the salad just to try the peanut sauce (which was delicious, if only it had not been on lettuce). Then, given a choice between white and brown rice I chose the brown.

The service was pretty fast, and my food was soon presented to me. Most would have looked at the presentation and seen something beautiful. I, however, could not take my eyes off the giant bok choy sitting on top of all my food. Fortunately, this giant green disaster left no remnants as I moved it to the edge of the plate to eat my real food. First, I ate the spring roll, which was pretty tasty, but nothing mind-blowing. After destroying that in two bites, I moved to the main course. Differing from most beef curry I’ve had before, the beef chunks were stew-sized and pretty much the most tender beef I’ve had in my life. And it wasn’t just tender, it also had great flavor from the panang curry. Mildly spicy, the panang didn’t force me to my glass of water, but still let me know my spice buds were still on my tongue.

The rice was way brown and way thick. But it was also really tasty, especially combined with the panang curry. And this brings me to my only real non-vegetable problem with Summer Canteen: not enough curry. I didn’t need my dish to drown in the stuff, but at 9 bucks for a lunch set, I would have liked enough to spread comfortably between the rice and beef. Sadly, this was not the case.

Yet, despite the problems of salad, bok choy and short curry, my meal at Summer Canteen was pretty awesome. The curry was tasty, the beef even tastier andin the end the $9 lunch set did not feel like a rip off because I was full and my taste buds were happy. It looks like the Valley has one more restaurant to brag about.