Lost Angels Food Heavy

Last weekend we went down to L.A. for JCCS 10.  Here are pics from our trip.

Here's Linda at a place I have been wanting to go back to for a while. It's called Pork Belly Grub Shack. It is not a BBQ place despite its name.

Pork Belly Grub Shack is a place that makes sandwiches and other items out of pork belly, which in my opinion is the best part of the poor little piggy to eat. If you've never had pork belly, the closest way to describe it would be "super bacon".

From Wikipedia: "Pork belly is a boneless cut of fatty meat from the belly of a pig. Pork belly is popular in Asian cuisine, including the Rafute of Okinawan cuisine, and forms a part of many traditional European dishes ..." And it's delicious. This place makes awesome stuff with pork belly, and it all has kind of an Asian zing to it. This is a must stop spot when passing through Sacramento.

After we got to LA, it was time to start getting our much needed fix of Nihon Ryori. In my opinion, outside of Japan, LA is the best place to find authentic Japanese food. Here's my lunch: Takoyaki and a pork and rice bowl (can't remember the name, damnit).

Hissfit.

Linda had Gyoza and a lunch special consisting of fried chicken, tempura, rice and rolls.

When we were in Japan, I drank a bunch of banana milk. I love it, and it is very hard to find Stateside. This is the first time I was able to locate some.

And last time we were in LA, we saw this. I regretted not trying it since. This time, we got the box of bars and we both had a go at them.

This is what they look like. And yes, they taste exactly like frozen sweet corn on the cob. Quite delicious.

Lots of corn niblets on the inside. I cannot believe this not popular everywhere.

Japan Town LA.

Cool looking bar near Mount Analog.

There are very few places in America where you can get good Okonomiyaki. This place is one of them.

As much as I love Osaka, I realize that I really prefer Hiroshima style Okonomiyaki. This usually means the pancake is served on top of a pile of fried noodles, and heavily topped with a mish mash of all sorts of other ingredients, as you can see.

While walked around, we spotted this graffiti. If you go back to our Barcelona posts, you will see the same saluting Ronald McDonald in Spain. I looked this up, and it is apparently the work of a somewhat famous street artist known as 'whisbe'.

After the car show, it was time for sushi. That guy in the middle there, he's the owner, and he's from Japan. And he is a FUCKING MASTER.  I have not had sushi this good in a long, long time. It's places like this that make eating sushi in a place like Reno seem like not such a good idea.

I feel sorry for people that have never really had good sushi. Every bite here was a delicacy.

Albacore.

As a bonus, we were served up some grill dried fish of some sort. Basically, fish chips. And yes, that is exactly what they tasted and smelled like. Your palate better be ready for this kind of thing, cause it was pretty strong.

Seared Tuna. Every time I eat Tuna, I think about all the Tuna in the world that I have eaten.

On Sunday we went to the Queen Mary Champagne Brunch.

I have to admit, I just don't have the stamina for overeating any more.

Plate 1: Seared Tuna, Asian slaw, sweet & sour chicken, a variety of cheese wedges, some maki, and some fried eggs.

Plate 2: More bacon, eggs benedict, more sweet & sour chicken, hash browns, and who can forget a slice of pizza?

Plate 3: Desert. Yup, that's it. I just cannot get my $50 worth no matter how hard I try. I was full ALL DAY.

Linda trying on hats in her favorite store (Daiso)

Yeah.

Another whisbe.

Sunday night we went to the Death Museum in Hollywood, which was surprisingly cool.

They had a Siamese red-eared slider.

Sunday night we ate again, late, at this place in Long Beash. Open 24 hours, which is awesome. Like Arturo's Tacos only way bigger.

I had bacon wrapped camarones, and I realize now that I ate WAY TOO MUCH pork on this trip.

Linda had ceviche tostadas, which were awesome.

The end. For pics from JCCS 10, visit blog.isuzugeek.org