PIZZA MOZZA part II

I was pretty disappointed with my first review of Pizza Mozza because I didn't have pictures to show readers what I ate. I have been itching to go back ever since then. I finally had a chance to go there during spring break and to my delight we were seated at a table and not the bar. I took many pictures and I felt like a food paparazzi. I think I came close to crashing into the waiters when I was trying to get that one good shot! Thank goodness no one got hurt.

Like I said before this place was packed, but somehow we were seated right away (It just shows you how hot looking people get treated.....not me, the two ladies that I was with.) We ordered the brussel sprouts with prosciutto breadcrumbs. It was a little weird at first because of the bitter taste, but the more I ate it, the more I couldn't get enough of it. Never was a brussel spout fan, but this ended up pretty good. There wasn't much prosciutto, but you could taste it's salty flavor. The only sad part to this dish was that it came out a little cold.

I decided to get the egg, asparagus, onion & pramigiano pizza after hearing good things about it from other bloggers. This is supposed to be the only pizza that's not cut at the counter because the egg yolk would run all over the place and ruin your crust, but to my surprise it was already cut! They did not cut through the yolk though, so I had to pop it myself. This was an amazing pizza. The toppings worked wonderfully together; soft sweet onions, perfectly cooked asparagus and a runny yolk equals "the Shit!"

This is the squash blossoms, burrata & tomato pizza. This was damn good too! The burrata made all the difference, it was soft, sweet and refreshing. It went really good with the crust, but then again this crust is amazing, so I guess anything would be good with it.

I take back that comment that I said earlier. Not everything goes good with the crust. An example would be this, the bufala mozzarella, speck & black olive tapenade. This was by far gotta be the worst thing on the menu. The tapenade was terrible. If the olive tapenade wasn't there this pizza might of been pretty good. The tapenade totally overpowered the rest of the toppings.
I ordered this to go for my brother and his wife, but guess where the fennel sausage, panna & red onion pizza go? That's right, it went home with me and eventually settled in my stomach like broccoli between teeth. This was just as good as last time, with big boulders of sausage and extra sweet red onions and creamy panna.

My dessert was the rum raisin gelato and chocolate chip gelato. The rum raisin was strong on rum but was decent. Thought my low tolerance of alcohol was gonna turn my face into the color of a baboon's ass, but thank goodness that it didn't. Unfortunately, I would pass on this the next time I come.

The butterscotch pudding is always a winner. It's a very relaxing dessert.

The the best overall dish of the night would be the lemon gelato pie. Man when I tell you this thing makes your mouth water, I really mean that! In fact this pie might even make your eyes water, it's that damn good! The lemon flavor totally explodes on your tongue. I don't think I will ever get another dessert from this place after eating this one.

So I think I have a crush on Nancy Silverton. There is just something about her that I find intriguing. It might be her desire for perfection, her work ethic, her curly hair. Even when I saw here leaving, they way she dressed was cute! Next time I'm gonna ask her to take a picture with me!

PIZZA MOZZA
641 N. Highland Ave

Los Angeles, CA 90036
http://www.mozza-la.com/

TACO SINALOA #3

This place is where I usually get my after party meal. Open 24 hours, Taco Sinaloa #3 delivers fast tacos and great meals at a great price. You order off the big menu above the counter (both english and spanish) and the food is ready in no time. So fast that sometimes I don't even get a chance to sit down, I put my drink on the table and they call me back up to get my food. I guess it's not a bad thing, but sometimes I would like to get settled in and relax. Another plus is that Taco Sinaloa #3 also serve beer and have alot of parking!

I ordered a carnitas taco (on the left) and a lengua taco (to the right). Both were good especially the lengua. This place serves up some of the softest and most tender lengua in the business. The tortillas came out piping hot, extra greasy and with a little crunch on the edges, it made this taco experience heavenly.

TACO SINALOA #3
1647 W Carson St.

Torrance, CA 90501

EARTHEN RESTAURANT

Earthen Restaurant is one of my cousin's and his wife's favorite places to eat. They decided to take me there even though it was a little further than planned, but apparently it is so good that they were willing to miss Grey's Anatomy for this Taiwanese Chinese restaurant.

Located in a big plaza, this place did not have eye poppin' frontage. It was surrounded by many other Chinese places that included a bakery, tea house, etc. As soon as we stepped out of the car both my cousin and his wife mentioned how Earthen's service was below pair, by American standards it's down right shitty!

They raved about the house chicken and for good reason. This chicken was delicious! It was a baked chicken marinated in a soy and vinegar with thick slices of cucumber. It was served cold and was very refreshing. We were fighting for the cucumbers, that's how good the marinade was.

I ordered the house noodles. It had many different kinds of seafood in it, some Chinese vegetables, thin noodles tossed in a hot sauce. We barely touched it. Not a fan of the house noodles. I don't think I'll make that house noodle mistake again.

Onion pancakes were my favorite dish of the night. Greasy heaven was what I called it. This was amazing, my eyes lit up with happiness and joy when my teeth crunched though the layers of flaky goodness. My lips were like two girls wrestling in baby oil, just shiny and greasy! Oh so satisfying!

The house special vegetable dumplings were good also, but I don't know why they call it a dumpling. It didn't resemble anything like a dumpling but who am I to complain. I guess hey can call it anything they want just as long as it's good. It was more like a calzone that was stuffed with glass noodles, green onions and leeks. The only problem with this was that all the filling fell out as you lifted it towards your mouth.

I was in the mood for dumplings so we got an order of shrimp dumplings. These boiled dumplings were a "nickel bag of funk" meaning that they were delicious, the bizzness, the bombiz. They were over stuffed with shrimp and contained little filler. I wish they had a pan fried version of this, "Oh baby!"

Once again we totally over ordered. But hey, it is what it is. The service was a lot better than what I was expecting. The place was full on this Thursday night, but as I'm told, this place gets sardined on weekends and the staff could careless if you leave unhappy because the food will bring your unhappy ass right back to this bitch! ~ Bootsi

Earthen Restaurant
1639 S Azusa Ave

Hacienda Heights, CA 91745

OTAFUKU

Otafuka in Gardena is a magnificent little Japanese Soba shop. The specialty here are soba noodles. A while back, I was reading the L.A. Times Food Section and it actually talked about this place. They were talking about soba noodles and named this one of the best places for it because the chef here at Otafuku hand makes the soba noodles they sell here. After I read it, the same week I went to try it out. It has been almost a year now and I have since made it to this place numerous times.

I ordered the soba in hot broth with eel tempura. This was good on a cold night, but the best way to have a sublime soba experience is to have it served in a basket with a bowl of cold dipping sauce. Either way the soba is chewy and definitely satisfying.

The side of eel tempura was huge! The meaty eel was longer than my forearm! It was crunchy and juicy and not at all fishy. It also came with a couple of tempura pieces of vegetables. I enjoyed it best when dipped into the broth of my noodles.

My brother ordered the mochi udon noodles. It cames with two good sized pieces of fried mochi squares. This is really good because it gives the dish a chewy texture. It also comes with a poached egg in the broth. The egg was awesome! I don't know how to explain it, but this egg is not your ordinary egg. The taste and texture is totally different from what you have eaten home.


I will be back here again as soon as my soba urge comes back. If you ever come here, expect this place to be small, even with the new expansion. They speak minimal English here so point to what you want on the menu. The front is really minimal and you could easily pass it up a dozen times without even realizing it. ~Bootsi


OTAFUKU
16525 S. Western Ave.
Gardena, CA 90247

YELLOW COW KOREAN BBQ

Let's get this out of the way, their website is amazing, so make sure you check it out (click the link underneath the address). That said let me start working this review.

Hanging out with some long time buddies we were craving Korean food once again. Something about smoke in the air that brings out the fat beast in me. Dinner on a freezing Thursday night, this place was packed! There was no seating list or anything, it was just a trust/trust factor. Not a great system for such a busy place. It was a really really long 40 minute wait because the waiting area is located outside with the parked cars and of coarse, fat folks, like myself, think everyday is summer so we never have a jacket handy. The only thing that kept me going was when someone would walk in or out of the restaurant and the aroma of sizzling meat came out the swinging door. This was the usual unusual sides that come along with the meal. Unusual because I never seen side dishes like these whenever I go and eat Korean food. First (top left going clockwise) was the flat sheets of noodle skins, good by itself but amazing when wrapped around meat. Next was daikon kimchi, not to spicy and had a great crunch. Steamed cabbage was a treat because of the flavorful soybean paste that came along with it. The salad was great, it consisted of cabbage, lettuce and other goodies and a wonderful dressing. Then there was some type of steamed fish over veggies that was also very delightful. Not pictured were the kimchi, soup and steamed egg in stone pot.

Here are some more sides, sauteed tofu with garlic was good and the other one was ...I have no ideal WTF that was. I don't think I even tried it.

We ordered a combo of any two meats. Our choices were Cha Dol Bae Gi (briskets), which is the rolled up meat. This was good and had a nice beefy flavor. Gal Bi (boneless short ribs), they came marinated and had two bones on them. The marinaded crisp the outside of the meat and gave it a nice smokey burnt flavor and when wrapped in the noodle sheets..man, it was oh so good! These meats were great but it wasn't enough for the 5 of us.

So we ended up with two more orders of meat. This one was the Huk Dae Ji Sam Gyup Sal (black pork bacon), which was hands down my favorite of the night. The longer we cooked it on the grill the crispier it got.

The other order was more of the brisket.

Watch out because the brisket can go from rare to well done within seconds. Everyone had to fend for themselves and the weakest link was left out.

More chopstick fight action! All in all, the service was OK, but you can't expect too much during prime hours. Parking can be a hassle also during this time because they share the same lot with Yoshinoya, Sumo Sushi and a tea house. For all the hustle and bustle, coming to Yellow Cow was all well worth it!

YELLOW COW KOREAN BBQ
1835 W. Redondo Beach Blvd

Gardena, CA 90247

http://www.myyellowcow.com/

YOUNG DONG TOFU

It's been a while since I last posted, but school has been a little crazy. I apologize and will try to balance my school, the blog, stuffing my face and Myspace! I actually wandered out the South Bay for this one and left my mark in Arcadia. This area is known for their Chinese food, but this Korean spot, located in a plaza, was full of hungry people. Seating took a couple of minutes and as soon as we sat down a bowl of salad was instantly brought to our table. Soon after, the lady came to take our order. I told the her that I wasn't ready, so instead of coming back in a couple of minutes she decided to start with my other dining companions. All this within 5 minutes of sitting down.

Like every Korean restaurant we were given a lot of little dishes. These were more spicy than what I am used to, but still really good. The best was the cucumber kimchi, I love the crunch when you bite down on it (bottom left). There were more side dishes that came later that I didn't take a picture of, but were just as good.

I love me some Korean rice! This was a little well done though. It didn't have the gloss and softness that I am accustomed to when eating Korean rice. This rice was cooked in a stone pot. I love it when it's made like this because underneath all that fluffy rice, there hides the burnt rice that you can scrape off the bottom, like hidden treasure.

It was another chilly night in Los Angeles, so I ordered the mushroom soon tofu and bbq spicy pork combination for aroung $12. The soup came out boiling hot. Pretty scary stuff. The tofu stew hit the spot. It was filled with enoki mushrooms and super soft tofu. It was spicy and had my nose running. I forgot all about the cold weather that was waiting for us outside.

This was the marinated bbq beef and the spicy pork. This was a lot of damn food! The meat was piled up high and I was already almost full when all this shit came out. Me being the fat ass that I am, still tried my best to demolish it all. Both meats were mushy, like sukiyaki. I belived that it was cooked from a big pot in mass quanity to ease the cooks in the back. It had really good flavor, but lacked the charred burnt taste. The beef was sweet and the pork was really spicy, but I couldn't stop eating it. We left this place feeling stuffed and warm. ~ Bootsi

Young Dong Garden

19 W. Huntington Drive

Arcadia, CA 91007

SHIN SEN GUMI YAKITORI

Shin Sen Gumi is one loud ass place. Soon as you walk in, you are greeted by everyone that works there. I believe the kitchen workers in the back say "Hello," too! This place is always crowded so you must put your name on the list that's outside of the restaurant. The wait can sometimes be long and it can sometimes be short, this time it was long. It took us about 30 minutes to get in there so we had no choice but to enjoy the view of Southbay Toyota's fleet of cars that are across the street..

Soon as we got in there, they put a plate of cabbage on your table for you to munch on. I never liked cabbage, but for some reason I enjoy these because of the light sauce that it is covered in.

All the yakatori is approximately $1.5 to $3.5 per stick depending on what you choose. You are given two menus, one of them are the appetizers, sides and meals and the other is like a sushi menu that you mark yourself and that one contains the list of yakatori choices.

The first one of our choices that came out was the flap meat. Cooked medium rare and season with salt, the meat was soft, juicy and bursting with flavor.

Agedashi was good. This is made of fried tofu that is sitting in tentsuya broth w/ grated daikon and topped with bonito flakes, seaweed and green onions. This is a refreshing dish that got us ready for the rest of our meal.

This was the chicken breast w/ plum paste and shiso leaves. The plum paste gave the chicken a sour tart taste and the shiso leaves tastes of a lite basil. It was a good combination of flavor.

One of my favorites. This is quail eggs wrapped in bacon. This was awesome. The salty flavor of the bacon went wonderful with the mellow flavored yolk of the egg.

Chicken thigh w/ green onions (in house sauce) was great. The chicken was juicy and the sauce was something else. I couldn't get enough of the sauce, in fact, I wanted to dip everything in it and lick up whatever was left over.

One of these are the made of asparagus wrapped in pork belly and the other three are made of enoki mushrooms wrapped in pork belly. I didn't try the asparagus, but the enoki was excellent. The pork belly was like a bacon but not as crisp and not as salty.

Only two of us went for the beef tongue. To bad for them because this was good. It had a chewy texture the I wasn't expecting and was flavored with just a little sprinkle of salt.

This was the potato that we order. Everybody ordered this. At first glance, we thought it was covered in cheese, but it wasn't cheese, it was butter! This was just your typical baked potato with a char taste to it.

This was the killer right here. This is crunchy chicken skin. Not necessarily the most healthiest choice but was easily one of the best ones. This was glazed with the house sauce and was just amazing when you bit into it. It was crisp and when you take a bit all the fat greasy goodness runs right down your throat. So damn bad for you, but so damn good!

The skewers. For four orders of rice (also really good) and tap water to drink, the bill came up to be $80+. This is a fun cool place and the price wasn't bad because we all came out really full.

SHIN SEN GUMI
18617 S. Western

Gardena, CA 90248
http://www.shinsengumiusa.com/

PATISSERIE CHANTILLY

I had a major sweet tooth after work on Friday and I always wanted to try this place out that's right by Costco. It is actually my second attempt because I went there a week earlier and the place was closed, so you know I really wanted to go there now. The suspense was building in my bones because I had the Jones.

The place was small and clean and the workers were very helpful. There is a case full of tiny goodies that you can order to go or eat it there. I chose the cheesecake pyramid, can't remember the actual name. I had a sweet tooth and this was not sweet enough for me. The texture was airy, like frozen Cool Whip. It also had a cookie on the bottom acting as a crust.


This was sesame something. This was not doing it for me either. It wasn't sweet and it had a weird texture to it, it wasn't like jello or pudding.

Maybe because of my sweet tooth I needed something really sweet or is it because I've been Americanized and just want sugared down desserts? I don't know? All I know was that these desserts didn't hit the spot.

Patisserie Chantilly

2383 Lomita Blvd

Lomita, CA 90717

REDONDO DINER

Many restaurants have come and gone in this Gardena location. It shares it's location with Quizinos, Dominoes, Jackson Hewitt and Smart and Final. I drive by the Redondo Diner at least four times a day, but never cared to go. I finally wanted to try it after seeing it featured in the Daily Breeze's RAVE, so I gathered up the family to eat there for lunch. The inside has not changed from when it was a Korean Tofu house. It is really simple with a lot of wood. The first thing I noticed on the menu was that they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. All the meals came with complimentary soup, today was chicken soup. The soup didn't look like much, but it was pretty tasty.

Of course, Moms ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, $3.95 or $4.95 can't remember, for the grilled ham n cheese sandwich. I didn't try it, but how can somebody mess that up right? The fries were OK.


Next up was the BLT that my brother ordered. He has never been impressed by a diner, so to him, a sandwich is just a sandwich. It looked good to me.

I ordered the French dip sandwich with potato salad. I wished they had more meat in it, but I liked it. The bread was really good, especially when it was dipped into the au jus. The potato salad was good too. I believe this was about $6 and it filled me up.

Pops went with the red snapper in garlic butter, which was on the dinner menu. Still under $11. The red snapper was a big piece of fillet that turned out really good. It was moist and cooked perfectly. It came with a choice of potato and a side of veggies.

The place is cool if your looking for a quiet spot to eat, not because everybody is quiet in there, but because there is nobody there. It opens early but also closes early, so definitely check the place out to get the times. The food is decent and the prices are low. It is a cool place to go when your dough is low. ~ BOOTSI

Redondo Diner

1546 Redondo Beach Blvd.

Gardena, CA 90247