I began my recap of the 2023 version of this post by noting that we had been literally all over the map that year. Well, in 2024 we did not go to Europe at all (unless you count layovers in airports) but we/I spent even more time outside the United States. Our year began with an off-campus program: I took a bunch of students to Bombay for five weeks before we moved to Seoul for another five weeks. As you might imagine, we ate out a lot in both cities and ate a lot of fantastic food in both cities. On the way back to Minnesota from Seoul we stopped in Delhi for two weeks and ate out quite a bit there too. Then in May I was in New York/New Jersey by myself for a few days before the whole family did a trip to Southern and Northern California together in the second half of June. A long break from travel followed after that till I went off by myself again, this time for two weeks and to Delhi. In between we ate out at our usual weekly clip in the Twin Cities metro. And so there’s a lot of geography to draw on for this year’s top 10 list as well. As I did last year, I’ve tried to manage things a bit by separating more expensive/formal restaurants from more casual places into distinct top 10 lists. This year, however, I’m not doing an overall top 5 list that draws from both; instead each list is ranked rather than presented in chronological order. Continue reading
Category Archives: Los Angeles
Mo Ran Gak II (Los Angeles, June ’24)
Here finally is the long-promised/threatened final restaurant report from our trip to California in June. This was the last meal we ate out on the trip, a Korean dinner at a place I’ve reported on before: Mo Ran Gak in Garden Grove. I should explain here something that probably bugs people who know the geography of southern California well: I use the place name “Los Angeles” quite loosely in my meal reports from southern California. Garden Grove is not in Los Angeles. Nor for that matter are the cities in the South Bay (Torrance, Gardena, Long Beach etc.) or in the San Gabriel Valley (Monterey Park, Alhambra, Rosemead etc.) that I’ve previously written meal reports from. Indeed, Garden Grove is not even in LA County; it’s in Orange County (as is Costa Mesa). I just lazily bundle them all together as “Los Angeles” because in my head Greater LA is a larger agglomeration than it is in reality. Please forgive me (I do a similar kind of thing with Delhi, but that’s another story). Continue reading
Mian (Costa Mesa, CA)
Our first meal out on our trip to Southern California in June was at the location of Din Tai Fung in the fancy South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. Our penultimate meal saw us return to almost the exact location for more casual Chinese food. We ate one floor down, literally right below Din Tai Fung, at Mian. A noodle/soup specialist, as you might expect from the name, Mian is a mini-chain spun off by the proprietors of Chengdu Taste several years ago. They now have eight locations in all: five in Southern California, one in Las Vegas, one in Houston and one in Honolulu. At all of them the menu is centered on noodle and noodle soup dishes along with a short list of Sichuan snacks. Portions are generous and prices are reasonable (though maybe they feel more so when eating at the South Coast Plaza). All in all, it makes for a good family meal without having to wait very long to be seated. Continue reading
Henry’s Cuisine (Los Angeles, June 2024)
Okay, let’s get back to California in June. I still have one more report to come from our trip within a trip to the Bay Area (when last seen, we’d eaten excellent dim sum at City View) but I’m going to scoot back down to the greater L.A metro, where we spent a few more days after driving back from the north. Our first meal out after our return was eaten with old friends at Henry’s Cuisine in Alhambra (in the San Gabriel Valley). We had actually been scheduled to eat dinner there with them before we left for the Bay Area but those plans had to be scrapped. I’m very glad we made it in after all for this was an excellent lunch. Here’s a quick look. Continue reading
Chengdu Taste IV (Los Angeles, June 2024)
This post draws to an end the first phase of my meal reports from Los Angeles in June. A couple of days later we embarked on a week-long driving trip up the coast to San Francisco and back again. There was a little more eating out in Los Angeles before we finally returned to Minnesota but those will show up in chronological order in a couple of weeks. Here now is an account of a return to another old favourite that we had somehow not gone back to in a long time: Chengdu Taste in Alhambra. I noted yesterday that our last visit to Ahgassi Gopchang had been in January 2019. Well, my last report on a meal at Chengdu Taste was of a meal eaten in December 2017! Even subtracting three years hit hard by the pandemic, that’s a long time. Part of it, as I’ve said before, is that since we do actually have very good Sichuan food in the Twin Cities, Sichuan meals are not our top priority on our regular trips to Los Angeles—there’s a lot more to eat there that we either don’t get at all or get pale versions of here. It is, however, also true that even the best Sichuan in the Twin Cities metro (at Grand Szechuan) cannot compare to the best in the San Gabriel Valley. This was confirmed at this return to Chengdu Taste. Continue reading
Ahgassi Gopchang II (Los Angeles, June 2024)
One of our favourite places to eat barbecue in Los Angeles is Ahgassi Gopchang in Koreatown. I’ve previously reported on our first meal there in January 2019. If it weren’t for the fact that my mother-in-law moved later that year to Seal Beach, Ahgassi Gopchang would have become our regular barbecue spot. They’re famous for the gopchang (intestines) in their name, yes, but all their meats are very good. But thanks to that move, we can now only get there (or to other Koreatown places) when we’re in the general vicinity for something else. On this trip, for example, we visited a couple of exhibitions at LACMA—including the small but very interesting, “Dining with the Sultan“, on feasting in Islamic society—and Koreatown was an easy pick for lunch after. And so we were back at Ahgassi Gopchang. Continue reading
Sushi Chitose (Redondo Beach, CA, June 2024)
I keep saying that I plan to post my write-up of our dinner at Tenant in Minneapolis at the start of June and also my remaining reports from Seoul in February and March—to say nothing of the last report from New York in May; but here again, instead, is another report from our current trip to California (which will end soon). There’s a whole bunch of these reports as well: after a week in Southern California, we drove north for another week and are now back in Seal Beach for a few days before returning to Minnesota and we’ve been eating out a lot everywhere in the state. I’d rather make a small dent in the pile of reports from these meals before getting back home and finishing up with that older backlog at leisure. Here, therefore, is another report from Los Angeles’ County’s South Bay, and it features sushi. Continue reading
Tomizo Ramen (Gardena, CA, June 2024)
As I’ve said on numerous occasions before, my mother-in-law’s move from Koreatown to Seal Beach a few years ago has been a paradigm-shifting experience for us—one that is still ongoing. My first 10 years in the US were lived in Los Angeles—first by USC, then in West LA, then in Santa Monica, then West LA again, and finally in that stretch of Olympic Blvd. between Robertson and La Cienega that doesn’t really have a name (or at least not one I have ever known). And when the missus—raised in Los Angeles proper—and I returned to LA on our annual visits after we first left in 2003, it was to her mother’s house in Koreatown we came and which was our base. My general experience of Los Angeles County until a few years ago was thus largely contained in the polygon formed by the 10, 405 and 101 freeways (with a major exception made for the San Gabriel Valley). It’s not that I never ventured out of that sprawling zone but that was my Los Angeles, my Southern California, and also to a large extent, the missus’ as well. Continue reading
Din Tai Fung (Costa Mesa, CA, June 2024)
I still have three food reports to come from Seoul in February/March and one more from New York in May. I’ll get those done by the end of the month. But I’m first going to sneak in the first report from our ongoing trip to California. First up is our first meal out, eaten at the start of last week. The boys had asked to eat soup dumplings/xiao long bao on this trip and so we decided to kick off our gorging at the Costa Mesa location of Din Tai Fung. This was the missus and my first visit to Din Tai Fung in more than 11 years and the first time with the boys in tow. That first visit was not to this branch, of course, which is much newer; it was to the Arcadia branch (I’m not sure if it is still extant). I reported on that meal in August 2013. I noted then that while the meal was fine, it was nothing out of the ordinary and not worth the hassle associated with eating at Din Tai Fung. What did we think of it this time around? Read on. Continue reading
Eating at H Mart (Garden Grove, CA, December 2023)
Here now is my last meal report from our trip to Southern California in December. It covers two meals eaten in the food court of the H Mart in Garden Grove: the first, family dinner on Christmas Sunday, and the second, a quick midweek lunch eaten by me and the boys. Fittingly, this report will post on the blog on the Sunday that will be my last full day in Seoul.
Why did we eat Christmas dinner at the H Mart food court? Partly because “why not?” and partly because we didn’t want to deal with the waits at regular Garden Grove Korean restaurants—as we’d have had to do before eating at Mo Ran Gak on Christmas in 2021 if there hadn’t been an outdoor tented area. (Now, of course, the tented seating is seemingly gone from everywhere.) The fact that there was a second meal a few days later should tell you we quite liked the food. Continue reading
Izakaya Hachi (Costa Mesa, Ca, December 2022)
Here is my penultimate restaurant report from our trip to Southern California in December. It was not our penultimate meal—that, unfortunately, was our less-than-great sushi meal at Koi—but it was one of our better meals, even if it took us deeper into Orange County, to Costa Mesa. (I’m still in denial that on our trips to L.A we are now based in Orange County.) Izakaya Hachi does have a Torrance location as well but the Costa Mesa branch is an easier drive from Seal Beach on a week night. It was a rainy week night, as it happens and so we were in the mood for some good izakaya food when we arrived. Luckily, Hachi did not disappoint. Continue reading
Koi (Seal Beach, CA, December 2022)
Only a few more reports to go from our Southern California trip in December. We ate sushi at Nozomi in Torrance the day after we arrived and we ate sushi at Koi in Seal Beach two days before we left. One meal was a little more expensive than the other and one meal was not as good as the other, by some distance. Alas, the more expensive meal was the less good meal and that meal was this dinner at Koi. It was not bad per se—and, again, it was far better than anything available in Minnesota—but we were left wishing we’d just gone back to Nozomi for one more meal. Continue reading
Jiang Nan Spring (Los Angeles, December 2022)
We have pretty good Sichuan food in the Twin Cities metro these days. It’s certainly not as good as that available in the best places in the San Gabriel Valley outside Los Angleles; but it’s good enough that eating Sichuan food has not been at the top of our Chinese food agenda for a while now when visiting Southern California. Not when there are genres available there that are far superior to versions found in Minnesota (dim sum, for example); not to speak of genres and cuisines that are not available here at all (or for that matter in most other parts of the United States). On this list is the cuisine of Shanghai and environs. Over the years I’ve reported on a few such meals: eaten at Mei Long Village, Chang’s Garden, and Shanghai #1 Seafood Village. To that list now add Jiang Nan Spring, where we ate one of our best meals out on this trip. Continue reading
Sushi Nozomi III (Torrance, Ca, December 2022)
Lunch at Sushi Nozomi was supposed to be our first meal in Los Angeles this December, to be eaten on our way from LAX to Seal Beach. But Sun Country screwed us over and we ended up eating dim sum instead at the new Torrance outpost of Lunasia (a meal that was good but not as good as I’d expected it might be). Nozomi is an altogether more reliable prospect though and I am pleased to report that our eventual meal there—lunch the next day—was just as good as we’d hoped it would be. The price, however, was not what we’d hoped/expected it would be—more on this below. But first let’s get to the good stuff. Continue reading
Dim Sum at Lunasia, South Bay (Torrance, CA, December 2022)
Here, finally, is a report on our first meal on our Southern California trip in December. This was originally scheduled to be a sushi meal. We were supposed to arrive right before lunch time and the plan was to stop in Torrance for lunch at Nozomi before heading to Seal Beach. But our flight was delayed by more than three hours, and by the time we got our bags and picked up the rental car there was no way we could have made it to Nozomi before they closed for the afternoon. And so we changed the call to dim sum—after sushi, the other genre of food our family loves that we can only get very inferior versions of in Minnesota. Of course, you wouldn’t think that if your only source of information was the local Minnesota food press. According to them, there is very good dim sum available in Minnesota. Just recently a popular food website gave yet another rave review to Mandarin Kitchen, a restaurant at which we’ve only had farcical experiences (the most recent one reviewed here). As such, we always make it a point to eat dim sum at least once on our Southern California trips. And on this trip it was on the very first day. How did it go? Read on. Continue reading
Josui Ramen (Torrance, CA, December 2022)
Back to Southern California, back to the South Bay, back to ramen. As I’ve noted before, when my mother-in-law moved from Koreatown to Seal Beach, we lost easy access to the best Korean food in the United States but gained easier access to what is probably the most extensive Japanese restaurant scene in the US in Torrance, Gardena and environs. Japanese cuisine is probably our family’s easiest call when eating out all together: whether it’s sushi, ramen, or izakaya food, the boys are always into it and it’s easy to find things that everyone enjoys. Consequently, now that we are 20 minutes from Torrance and Gardena, we eat Japanese food a lot on our visits to Southern California. Indeed, on this trip it was the cuisine we ate out most. This visit to Josui Ramen in Torrance was not the first of those outings but it’s the one I’m reporting on first. Continue reading
Uncle Fung, Borneo Eatery (Long Beach, CA, December 2022)
Just about a month after our trip to southern California in late December began, here finally is my first meal report from that trip. It is not of our first meal (dim sum) or our second meal (sushi), but of our third meal: at Uncle Fung, Borneo Eatery in Long Beach, who specialize in dishes from Indonesia (Borneo specifically), Malaysia and Singapore. They are a relatively recently opened branch of Borneo Kalimantan Cuisine in Alhambra (in the San Gabriel Valley). Since the Long Beach location opened in 2018, they’ve also opened a branch in Buena Park. It was to the Long Beach branch we went, however, as it is located a mere 10 minutes drive from my mother-in-law’s place in Seal Beach. We’ve not found much food of interest in Seal Beach—indeed our worst meal on this trip was eaten towards the end in Seal Beach. And so, the prospect of good Southeast Asian food within easy reach was enticing. I am glad to report that that is exactly what we found. Herewith, a bit of detail. Continue reading
Dim Sum at J. Zhou (Los Angeles, June 2022)
Here, finally, is my last restaurant report from our time in Los Angeles in June. It is of our last meal eaten out, which coincidentally bookended the beginning of our eating out on that trip quite well. As you have doubtless memorized, our first meal was at 101 Dim Sum/Dim Sum 101 in Lomita. And this last also featured dim sum, at J Zhou in Tustin. Dim sum aside, the two restaurants are quite far apart in ambience and style. You could fit several 101 Dim Sums inside J Zhou and where the small restaurant is done up in a hipper, more contemporary style, J Zhou’s decor is in a more maximalist banquet restaurant style (unlike 101 Dim Sum, J Zhou becomes a Cantonese seafood restaurant in the evenings). Their menu too is much larger than 101 Dim Sum’s and contains a lot more than just the greatest hits/standards. But did it all add up to a better meal for us? Read on. Continue reading