Tacos tu Madre was blowing up all over the social media a few months ago with amazing-looking burritos that seemed to represent a new level of delicious fusion. Thus, I had to give the place a try and had my best opportunity when out in West LA. They were out of a couple things, but this didn’t impact what I had in mind. There are a number of options and they are all available as a burrito, a taco or a bowl.

I went with the Fried Chicken Burrito, which was stuffed with buttermilk fried chicken, poblano ranch slaw, fermented chili, cilantro, honey sriracha and Spanish rice. It also came with a sort of spicy aioli for a kick. This was a great decision, as you can’t really go wrong with sticking fried chicken in anything and this burrito was no exception. Yet, while I ordered my burrito without the slaw, Tacos to Madre made the mistake of sneaking it in and for that they may never be forgiven.

I also ordered a Grilled Cheese taco, which is not at all like the traditional grilled cheese sandwich. It features queso panela, which is a cheese that can very literally be grilled. This, Tacos tu Madre did just that and topped it with red pepper aioli and avocado. It was essentially like a fancy pants quesadilla and it was fantastic. Plus, there was no slaw or any other such vegetables to ruin the experience.

Thus, Tacos tu Madre has garnered mixed reviews from yours truly. I want to believe that the slaw mistake was just a one-off, because this is a place that I want to get back to. After all, it’s not everywhere that you can get a fried chicken burrito and I’d like to believe such purity still exists in our world.

As you may recall, once upon a time I paid a visit to Plan Check for a Stussy event. Despite being limited to a strict menu, I left the place wanting more. Finally, with a long bike ride, that moment came and I seized it. Plan Check, by the way, was started by former Umami Burger chef Ernesto Uchimura. As Umami Burger still resonates within my tastebuds as one of my favorite burgers, it is clear that Plan Check has good pedigree.

To start the meal off right, we ordered their basic Fries. These things were fried in beef tallow, which is like the beef cousin of lard. The fries are then lightly seasoned with smoked salt and served with some house-made ketchup. The result is some pretty delicious and perfectly crispy fries. The tallow adds a great flavoring and while the house-made ketchup can never quite compare to Heinz it makes a good effort. The only downside is the price, which at $5 is pretty steep for the amount of fries.

Then came the real meal. I ordered the Chefs Favorite Burger [sic], which was topped with cheese two ways, bacon two ways, ketchup leather, a sunny fried egg and hot sauce. It might sound a bit excessive, but plan check pulled it off with flying colors. First, they use a special “crunch bun,” which is topped with some sort of crispies to add add awesome to the burger. The fried egg was cooked to the perfect runniness that often only occurs in dreams. The bacon was perfectly crispy, while one of the cheeses offered the burger extra crunchy texture and the other melty bliss. And the ketchup leather, by the way is essentially like a leather fruit roll-up that melted into tasty moisture.

And, let’s not forget about the beef. Cooked to the perfect medium-rare, it was nicely ground, flavorful and essentially all that can be asked of a beef patty.

And, while I have eaten a lot of burgers with ridiculous toppings in my day, the Chefs Favorite Burger from Plan Check really took things to a new level by not simply being topped with amazing toppings, but by ensuring that each topping had its rightful place and took nothing away from the others. It was an excessive burger in perfect balance and I can’t wait to have it again.

We all like The Counter, that quintessential custom burger place that has spread its beefy goodness around the nation. And although it isn’t the most inspired of places, it gets things done. Well, the guy who started the place decided it was time for some more inspirational food and cooked up a gastropub-esque (no burgers!) place called Freddy Smalls in West LA.

Like many of the newer restaurants in LA, Freddy Smalls capitalizes on some people’s obsession with small plates. I don’t know who these people are, but I often feel like they are a scam. For example, the “Smalls” section of the menu featured no dishes cheaper than $14. Small dishes, but perhaps not matching small prices.

Nonetheless, we began the night with some Buffalo Deviled Eggs. These were stuffed with Point Reyes Blue Cheese, drizzled with CP’s hot sauce and topped with some sort of celery that I picked out. After all, I was sharing and couldn’t exactly order without. In addition, each had some crispy chicken skin poking out, which was a nice, fatty, salty delight. I recall a time when some people said chicken skin would become the next bacon, and while this didn’t happen, it was still welcome here. In all, the eggs were quite good.

Then came the potatoes. Specifically, the Smoked Fingerling Potatoes & Dip. These were, by far, the best deal and the possibly the best thing on the menu. Topped with green onions, espelette pepper and chives, they were perfectly seasoned and perfectly roasted. I would have hoarded them to myself (and trust me, I tried), but I did have to eventually share them with the rest of the table. The dip was also great, being a bit peppery (perhaps pimento?) and creamy.

We also ate the Flash-Grilled Steak Tartare. And by also ate, I mean I tried a bite, realized it tasted no better than cat food and then proceeded to stop eating. Tartare is simply not my thing, which I know is weird coming from a beef-lover, but it’s true. Sorry. Moving on.

I finished with one of their specials, Oxtail. It came on a bed of mashed potatoes, and was garnished with some crappy vegetables that I passed off to the rest of the table. The oxtail itself was quite tasty, if lacking in meat quantity. I know that’s kind of what comes with the oxtail territory, especially at a small plates joint, but I finished all my food and wanted more.

Seriously, after dinner I was still hungry. I know I often give the impression of having an insatiable appetite, but I really do get full and that is the MAIN reason I eat. Yeah, flavor and texture is all super awesome, but if I’m not full, the restaurant has, well, failed. Freddy Smalls is not a total failure, though. I did like most of what I ate, so they definitely have flavors down, but they are certainly not close to perfect.

Guys, I’ll admit it. I’m a Chinese food snob. But I like to think you would be if you once lived there too. For that reason I’m glad I live in LA, but sad that I live on the west side, about half a light-year from the real Chinese food in San Gabriel. That all changed, however, when ROC Kitchen opened up in the area I like to call Little Little Tokyo, but is fast becoming Little Asia with an influx of other Asian food like ROC Kitchen.

ROC Kitchen is a Chinese dumpling house and despite my recent visit to Din Tai Fung, I couldn’t wait to check it out. I went with a few other people and we ordered family style to try just about everything. First, of course, we got the classic pork xiaolongbao. These steamed soup dumplings hit the spot and while they may not have been the best they were quite delicious.

We then went for another classic, the rice cakes. Unlike typical cake, these are more like thick rice noodles and always make me happy. These were especially good, in somewhat typical, but somewhat unique brown sauce. As a break from pork, we ordered ours with chicken and although they came with spinach, I allowed it because I was sharing. Sharing is the worst.

We weren’t done with dumplings though. We had noticed another table eating something that looked like a sand dollar, which I’m sure is a delicacy somewhere in China, but knew it wasn’t to be eaten here. Nonetheless, we knew it had to be ours and it turned out it was the crispy pork dumplings. These little bundles of joy had no soup, but were fried on some crispy deliciousness and served with that crispiness on top. These were a great way to mix things up and certainly something I had never seen before.

We also got ourselves an order of scallion pancakes. These differed from the usual scallion pancakes in that they were a bit crispier. This wasn’t a bad thing, just a different thing, and perhaps was done so to be a better conduit for the ginger-soy sauce they came with.

All in all, ROC Kitchen may not be the best dumpling house in LA, but they are the undisputed king of the west side. It is awesome to know that they are now just a quick drive away and oh so tasty.

Sometimes it’s hard to decide where to eat. Sure, I have a list of places, but they aren’t always in convenient locations. That’s when I turn to things like Groupon, because if I’m going out to eat somewhere I’m unfamiliar with, I’ll be damned if I pay full price. On this particular eve, I found a discount for an Italian place in West LA called Campagnola Trattoria.

When we arrived, we found Campagnola Trattoria inhabited a nice-sized space and had a nice-sized menu to go along with it. We started things out meaty, with the Bresaola E Pecorino, which translates to slices of cured beef, with olive oil and shaved pecorino cheese. It’s a loose translation, but the combination is something quite delicious, which I found to be very similar to carpaccio, but better. But as good as it was, it can be a bit overwhelming and is definitely for sharing.

For my main course, I opted to design my own pasta. Usually this means I order gnocchi with whatever sauce catches my eye that night, but there was something on the menu that threw me completely off. It was a pasta called Malloreddus and the menu described it as “Semolina Sardinian Gnocchi.” It’s actually closer to the ancient gnocchi and needless to say, I had to try it.

I ordered it with Carbonara sauce and when it arrived, it looked like a bunch of silk worms swimming in old milk. Yes, it looked that good. But in all seriousness, it was really delicious. The carbonara sauce had a great balance of flavors, and the pancetta was especially good. The pasta was great as well. although the malloreddus had very little in common with normal gnocchi, aside from being dumpling-esque, it was a worthy replacement. Well, at least for a night.

In general, I have to say I was impressed by Campagnola Trattoria. Yet, I did feel that the prices were a bit steep. Sure, I had a discount, but without it I might have left with the feeling that I unloaded too much of my wallet on very good food that I could have eaten elsewhere for less.

Near Century City there is a building that only houses restaurants with five letter names that have two of the same letters in a row. It is there that my friends and I dined at Sotto, which finds itself below Picca. ‘Twas a night of the first ever Summer Restaurant Week by DineLA, but these plans had been made without Restaurant Week in mind, so that kind of just turned out to be a bonus…for some people, because I decided to stick to the real menu.

And that real menu brought me to an appetizer of housemade bread with lardo pestato. I had assumed this meant some sort of pork on break, and my waitress assured me similarly that it would be a sort of prosciutto. When it came out, however, there was no solid pig meat to be found. Instead, each piece of bread had literally been schmeared with lard. While I’m sure lard plays a role in many things I eat, it was strange to see it so out in the open and eat it as such an important component of the dish. The result was a unique taste that was kind of like bacon fat, but different. The texture was similar to butter, which was good since the lard was being used basically as a butter.

For my main course, I went for the pastas, and for once opted for something that was not gnocchi. Instead I went with their casarecce, which came with braised lamb ragu, egg and pocorino cheese. This was truly something special. I often judge Italian restaurants by how easy it would be to reproduce their food at home with boxed pasta and jarred sauce – Sotto was not one of those places. The lamb was delicious and tender, with a perfectly flavored ragu sauce. The egg had already come pre-mixed into the sauce, which made me a little sad because I like to stir up some fried egg, but its flavor was definitely there. And of course, the casarecce pasta itself was tasty and had a great texture.

So, in the absence of ordering from the Restaurant Week menu, I think I did pretty good for myself. I won’t be getting the lardo pestato bread again, but it was an interesting dish that I’m glad to have tried.

On a drunken evening in Osaka, I vaguely recall punching buttons on an old school lotto-style machine at a ramen restaurant. The result was some of the most delicious drunk food I have ever eaten. Fast forward to 2012 and Tsujita continues its stranglehold on the ramen scene of Little Little Tokyo in West LA. Yet, it is not alone in ramen. Tatsu sits just down the road and has taken that machine concept I encountered in Osaka into modernity.

When you enter, a couple of tablets shine to the right and are used for ordering. Tatsu only offers two types of ramen (dry and brothy), but each is super customizable. My favorite part was selecting “I don’t agree with green onion” from the options as I selected regular brothy tonkotsu ramen with the custom options in the picture to the right. Fortunately, the fiancee opted for the dry broth so I could get a taste of both.

We took a seat at the bar and watched as the ramen cooks meticulously prepared each order. This certainly was not fast food.

The result was a whole lot better than I expected. My ramen was filled with skinny noodles that could have been a bit harder, but were still quite good. The sauce had great flavor, but I added some extra garlic for good measure. I mean hey, when is there ever really too much garlic? The chashiu pork tasted like typical chashiu pork, but it wasn’t nearly as fatty as some that I’ve encountered. I call that a win. A nice addition was the soft boiled egg, which had a delicious juicy yolky center.

The dry ramen was also pretty good, and a good option in the summer when a hot bowl of soup doesn’t sound too good. The noodles were a bit thicker and I’m pretty sure it could be considered tsukemen ramen, especially because it had a dipping sauce with it.

The end result of the meal was pretty joyful. No, the ramen didn’t blow my mind, but it was cooked just right and the modern ordering system not only reminded me of Japan, but also gave me a good amount of enjoyment.

Have you ever looked upon a meal and thought it was just too pretty to eat? It happens to the best of us, and to be perfectly frank, a pretty-looking meal is often disguising a lack of flavor or creativity. So when my buddy and I decided to head to Tsujita LA in West LA for lunch, I was a little concerned that their claim of “Artisan Noodles” would make for a pretty meal, but little else. But when we showed up and found an obscenely long line of people waiting to get a taste of the noodles, I thought again.

We walked in and got our name on the list, then proceeded to browse the Japanese Outlet store next door and even took a ride to Best Buy. By the time we returned, an hour had elapsed and it was just in time to be seated. The interior of the place had a pretty basic and functional design, with very few tables and a long bar-like row set up that we were seated at. What stood out, though, was the awesome ceiling design, which consisted of uneven wooden dowels that made for a pleasant undulating pattern. It was about as much as they could do to improve the little space, but after a few glances, I was more interested in the food itself.

The lunch menu essentially boiled down to two types of ramen. The first was your traditional tonkotsu ramen, and the other was tsukemen ramen, which differs from the traditional in that the noodles are kept separate from the broth and are dipped in the broth when eaten. It’s a cool concept and although good traditional ramen is hard enough to find, tsukemen is even more of a rarity. I went with the rarer of the two, but my buddy got the regular ramen so that we could get a taste of both. I ordered my tsukemen “chaa-shyo” style which meant it came with pork and a seasoned egg.

I didn’t take too long to arrive (despite warnings of a longer wait time than the regular ramen), and looked simply beautiful. But after an hour wait, I wasted no time destroying the beauty and began dipping the noodles into the broth. The taste was nothing short of delicious. The broth was way strong, but the noodles tempered it perfectly to combine for a perfectly rich flavor. The noodles themselves were thicker than regular ramen and almost had a yakisoba-esque texture to them. Which is great, because yakisoba is awesome.

I was happy to find a good amount of pork accompanying my noodles, but found each little slice to be about half-meat, half-fat. I love fat as much as the next guy, but there’s a difference between having it blended in with meat and simply chewing fat. Fortunately, the meaty halves tasted amazing in the broth and I left the fatty halves in to add even more flavor to the soup.

And finally, there was the egg, which was a really nice touch. As it had spent more time in the broth than anything else, it absorbed a nice bit of flavor that just burst in my mouth with every bite. Then, once the noodles had taken out a fair amount of the broth, I had the option to refill the broth bowl with hot water to make it more like a traditional ramen broth. I took them up on that option, but was so full from the noodles that I managed only a few sips of the soup before calling it quits. Yet, the little bit I tried was delicious and certainly worthy of continual consumption if I had the stomach capacity.

Of note, the ramen my buddy got was equally awesome. The noodles were cooked somewhere between medium and hard and the broth had a nice, even balance to it. By the time we both finished, we concluded that the hour wait was well worth it…at least to try the place. I’m not sure that I would wait in that same line again with Ramen Jinya just down the street, but would happily return in better line circumstances. If you don’t like the ramen at Tsujita LA, you will likely never find a ramen to suit your fancy. It may be too pretty to eat, but it’s too good not to.

It should also be noted that Tsujita LA only serves ramen at lunch, which is likely the reason for the crazy-long wait. So heads up and all that.

Over in West LA, there is a burger place called Hamburger Habit. As I habitually consume burgers, the place sounded just perfect for me. The exterior of the joint loudly displays an award given to it by KABC as the best burger in Southern California. The interior is also full of awards, but unfortunately the most recent date back to the Clinton Administration. Still, I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. Did Hambuger Habit start churning out terrible burgers or did they just get left in the dust by newer LA burgers?

When we walked in, I was shocked to find the place completely empty. Despite being a Sunday at 2:00 pm, I assumed we wouldn’t be the only late lunch stragglers. A quick glance at the menu revealed a ton of menu items containing vegetables, so I decided to go off the menu and order a simple cheeseburger, plain. Then I topped it off with an order of chili cheese fries. The man wrote my order on two plates, handed me the queen of hearts, called me the queen of hearts and then charged me an even ten bucks for the order. He also handed me caramel lollipop, which I took to a table with my queen. My buddy was given the king of clubs, and seemed to instantly become part of the Hamburger Habit family. Too bad he wasn’t the one with the food blog.

A few minutes later, our cards were called and we grabbed our food. I looked disappointingly at the two pickles upon my plate and instantly slid my burger away from them. Fortunately, they hadn’t been violated by pickle juice and I had no intention of risking the burger any further. With the pickle crisis behind me, I got a good look at the burger. Inside was some melty white American cheese and a decently thick fast food-esque frozen patty. On the outside was a similarly fast food-style sesame seed bun that totally engulfed the burger.

I threw on a bit of ketchup and dug in. The result was exactly what I expected from the looks of it. Not a bad burger, but also not an especially good one. This was something I felt I could have easily made at home, but I probably could have done better. The bun was a bit dry, and so was some of the burger. There was nothing really special about the patty and the white American cheese, while a nice twist on that yellow stuff, didn’t add much to the burger.

The chili cheese fries were definitely better than the burger, and maybe the burger could have done better with some chili on top. The chili was pretty meaty and the fries were crisp enough to handle the chili without getting soggified. While good, they didn’t exactly blow me away and comparable chili cheese fries can certainly be found at better burger places.

In general, this was a disappointment and I could totally understand why the place hadn’t won an award in over a decade. Perhaps burgers like this were awesome in the ’90s and certainly the prepubescent version of myself would have loved this burger back then, but tastes and burgers have evolved since then. The retro ’50s diner thing is awesome, but I’d rather be eating a burger for the 2000s.

You know what’s great? Sausage. You know what goes great with sausage? Beer. So what does Steingarten, a recently opened restaurant/bar in West LA, have to offer? That’s right, sausage and beer. But not just any sausage and beer, sure they have your generic bratwurst, buckwurst, Polish and Italian sausages, but similar to Wurstkuche, they like to get exotic. With rabbit, venison, alligator and elk, these are truly some sausages to be reckoned with and not for those with a weak stomach.

But before the sausage, I had to worry about my beer. Not knowing the Dutch on the beer menu, I chose a random Bock beer that came in a 500 ml bottle for 10 bucks. It was called Aecht Schlenferla Rauchbier Urbock and as I waited for it, I decided on my sausage. Really there was no other choice but the Alligator and Pork (in one). The other sausage offerings were intriguing, but just not exotic enough for my first trip to Steingarten. At 7.50 it came with one of four toppings, but since they were all veggie-based, I skipped out on them. For an additional 5 bucks, I added a side of their Parmesan French Fries.

My beer came soon after and I popped it open. In taking my first tip, I could tell that this was no ordinary beer. There was some sort of additional flavor to it that I just couldn’t put my finger on. I passed it to my buddy, he took a sip and immediately knew. BBQ. Yes, my beer tasted like some smokey BBQ. Then I turned the bottle around, read the label and realized the beer’s website was smokebeer.com. It was a unique beer to say the least, and the unvegan in me loved the taste…at first. But after the first glass, the novelty of it wore off. 500 ml of smokey beer was just too much to take (but that didn’t stop me from finishing the bottle). Next time I’ll be sure to have a chat with Steingarten’s wandering beer maven before making a choice.

As for the sausage, when my gator came out, it was long, shiny and just looked delicious. There was a miniature pickle hanging off to the side of the plate, which just looked awful, but I kept it quarantined and luckily there was no pickle juice for my sausage to do battle with. I bit into my gator and liked what I found. It had a slight hint of spice, which I assume is due to the cayenne pepper that runs through all alligator veins (science fact, look it up). In terms of flavor, the sausage was full of it and each bite was surprisingly juicy. Nonetheless, the sausage needed a bit of ketchup to keep it lubricated due to a surprisingly dry bun. In fact, midway through the sausage, the bun split in the middle and made finishing up a bit difficult. Yet, it was not enough to diminish the greatness that was alligator sausage. Could I have distinguished the difference between gator and more normal sausage? Possibly not, but I was certainly glad the gator went down smooth. The profit of the Australian gambling industry is more than twenty billion AUD per year; this figure includes all traditional clubs, online fun and lotteries: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSnISGcfJuN66nMMk38 if you are concerned about the legality of Australian online casinos, please refer to territorial and federal legislation or ask for advice from an authorised body.

As for the fries, they made a great, huge side for my sausage. The parm added some great flavor, but the garlic aioli and curry ketchup made them taste even better.

Steingarten is definitely a place I am ready to go back to. I’d love to try out a few more sausages and beers, (and figure out of the Rabbit and Spirit sausage really involves eating the rabbit’s soul) but next time I’ll do a little more consulting for the beer and hope the bun has a little more durability.