Tag Archives: shrimp

“Street” Smarts

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A snazzy LA twist on common street food from around the world.

For yet another birthday celebration (involving food, of course), I went to dinner with two of my oldest friends, Kristy and Katie (actually, the same ones I went to Javier’s with).  After spending some time searching Yelp, I discovered Street.  A Top Chef contestant’s interpretation of various types of street food.  I was intrigued by this idea and of course, had to try it out for myself.

After pushing my reservation back three times (the day got away from me and I was running way behind…thank you, reservationist, for being so accommodating!), we finally made it into Street.  When you first walk in, it’s easy to miss the host stand (which we did…).  It’s tucked away in the corner to your left.  After a few minutes of awkwardly standing in the middle of the restaurant, someone finally directs us back to the hostess.  Whoops!

The restaurant is clean, modern and hip.  Though simple, no detail was left unaddressed.  The chairs even have something on their feet so when you scoot into or away from the table, it slides easily and doesn’t make that horrendous sound.  I was in love with the cover of the menu too:

The first thing they put on your table is a plate of these odd little things:

Bread and butter doesn’t cut it at Street.  Not having any idea what these were, I took a piece from the plate, and found that it was incredibly sticky, and had to pull a piece off.  The first thing I taste…MARSHMALLOW?!  A few more bites, and I continue to taste some sort of rice, some cumin, some sort of spice/chili…and a black licoricey taste…fennel?  When the waitress returned, we found out that these bizarre little sticky treats are called millet puffs.  These are best likened to grown up rice krispy treats…with the idea of an everlasting gobstopper.  They have the obvious sweet of marshmallows, the texture and consistency of rice krispy treats, but every bite you take, there’s a new flavor to discover (the everlasting gobstopper reference).  A quick google search, and I found the recipe.  It turns out there is, in fact, cumin and fennel.  But there’s also black mustard seed, turmeric powder, dried currants and curry leaves.  These little puffs pack in an explosion of flavor.  Seconds Thirds, please?

All of the plates are designed to be shared.  Think small plates/tapas style.  While the menu is on the smaller size, it looks like they’ve put a lot of thought into each dish, only selecting the few that passed many, many taste tests and approvals.

We ordered…

Lamb kaftka meatballs over warm Syrian cheese wrapped in a grape leaf and drizzled with date and carob molasses, served with za’atar spiced flatbread:

I’m not afraid to admit it.  I didn’t come up for air while inhaling this plate.  Unfortunately, that means I was on my way to being stuffed, only one plate in.  I was sold on the lamb and grape leaves.  But the cheese and the perfectly sweet date and carob molasses sauce was absolutely to-die-for.  I love a well-executed sweet/savory combo (hello, cotton candy foie gras at The Bazaar…mmm).  This lamb plate passed with flying colors.  The best way to enjoy this (at least the way I was devouring it) is to get a little piece of the grape leaf, a piece of a meatball and cheese all smushed together on your fork to get it all in one bite.  Seriously.  I’m still having very happy dreams about this plate.

To counterbalance the heaviness and sweet of the lamb meatballs, next up were 2 plates of heirloom tomatoes with a black garlic vinaigrette and thai basil:

The vinaigrette is decent, but overall, this plate was a little mediocre.  With such a simple, basic ingredient, it’s tough to make it mind-blowing.  I wouldn’t order this one again.

Taking our waitress’s suggestion, we ordered about one plate from each section of the menu.  To fulfill the “Land & Sea” portion of the meal, we ordered 2 plates of the wild Columbian river salmon and Hawaiian fried rice made with brown rice, Chinese sausage, tarot root and scallions:

The salmon was extremely plain.  It really tasted like it was just…cooked salmon.  No sauce, no spices, nada.  The redeeming quality of the plate is the Hawaiian fried rice (which is unfortunate, since it’s just the side dish…).  Maybe I was just craving some sweet/savory dishes that night, but the rice was ever so slightly sweet, almost “glazed.”

And finally, some Charleston shrimp, broiled southern style topped with spicy sweet three pepper relish:

The shrimp was good; the pepper relish was mouth-wateringly refreshing.

The skinny on street?  Inventive, with more hits than misses (though there definitely are some misses).  Service on the slower side, but they do know the menu through and through.  I am now a huge fan of Syrian cheese.  I’ll be back soon to try some of the other plates (and maybe sneak some millet puffs into my purse ;) )

These Two Went Up The Hill To Get Some Water

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You know them.  Jack and Jill.  After an awesome screening of Toy Story 3 in 3D at the El Capitan Theater this weekend (check out my equally awesome picture below), some friends and I went to Jack n’ Jill’s Too on 3rd Street for brunch.

This place pretty much is a hodgepodge of all my favorite comfort foods: breakfast served until 5, sweet and savory crepes, sandwiches, wraps and more.

Better than some bread and butter, the first thing brought to your table is a plate of seriously addicting mini blueberry muffins and a dollop of honey butter.  The dangerous part about these little treats is that they’re bite size…and I pretty much inhaled these.

I was torn yet again between ordering breakfast or lunch.  After much deliberation, I finally decided on the Blackened Shrimp wrap with white cheddar, tomato, avocado, bacon, field greens and ranch dressing with a side of some tasty sweet potato fries.  The portion is gigantic.  Not two, but three servings (the third one is hiding underneath the one on the left):

I only got through one of the three, and it doesn’t help that I had a ton of blueberry muffins just minutes before.  Just filling enough, and I love that they don’t go overboard with the dressing.  And hello, there’s avocado and bacon in there.  Y-u-m.

My two friends went with crepes.  Sheffia had a Spinach Greek breakfast crepe (a whole wheat crepe filled with spinach, roma tomatoes, feta cheese and soft tofu), sans tofu.  Perfect if you’re looking for something light.

Alicia ordered a Choudrant savory crepe (chicken, pancetta, garlic, pesto, cheese and sherry cream sauce).  The cream sauce is delicious but reeeally heavy and filling.  If the crepe was any bigger, it would be way too much.  But it was just small enough.  The best way I can describe the sauce is like alfredo but only about 100x better.

A meal isn’t complete until I have some sugar.  Ordering something off the sweet crepe menu was a no brainer.  We were feeling lucky with a Lucky Number Seven crepe: caramelized pear, almonds, hazelnut liquor and chocolate sauce.  The menu recommends it’s best with ice cream, so duh, there’s also a nice scoop of vanilla bean ice cream:

The pears are melt-in-your-mouth delectable.  The crispy caramelized bits are just too good.  You know you’ve got a good dessert on your hands when you find yourself scooping up every last bit of the sauce and spooning it into your mouth.  Can I have more, please?

Missing is a picture of my glass of oh so sweet, satisfying and just plain perfect peach lemonade.  I couldn’t get enough of it (I lost count of my refills).  It would be a perfect summer treat if it was frozen into popsicle form…just throwing out an idea, Jack n’ Jill’s chefs!

I’ll be returning soon.  It’s the perfect place to sit outside and enjoy some people watching, eat some good food, have some good conversation or indulge yourself in a good book.  And eat way too many mini blueberry muffins:)

A Burnt-Out Child Star Living in the Hollywood Hills

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Location, location, location.  Stunning views.  Lush gardens.  But somehow, Yamashiro still left a bad taste in my mouth, and it wasn’t only from the food.

I can’t stress more how much I wish that I could write a rave review about this restaurant.  It had everything going for it: location, views, potential ambience and what could have been an inventive menu.  It’s like the unfortunate “good on paper” guy referenced in Sex and the City (ok, if I can make a Friends reference about an eggplant, I’m going to make a SATC reference here).  Yamashiro had all the credentials of what could be an extraordinary restaurant, but it fell so, so short.

My first tip off should have been the virtually deserted restaurant.  I chalked it up to the fact that our reservations were on the earlier side (7PM), and thought there must be more people coming the later.  By the time we left (around 9:30), the restaurant remained well below capacity.  The people have spoken, and would clearly rather spend their Friday nights (and $$) at other, better places in LA.

The restaurant itself felt like a burnt-out child star.  It might have been the place to be years ago, but its true age still shows through.  The interior was in desperate need of a paint job.  There were were severely worn spots on the walls.  The carpet was so worn down, you could visibly see the areas that had the most foot traffic.  You can’t charge these exorbitant prices and desperately try to be a a “fine” dining restaurant with the interior in the poor shape it’s in.

We were seated on the side of the restaurant with a lovely view of Century City the valet parking lot:

Ok.  I can deal with a mediocre view (the views at the front of the restaurant were much, much more impressive).  But a less-than-stellar appetizer that came highly recommended by the waiter?  No bueno.  Upon asking how the Tropical Albacore Ceviche was, the waiter made a face that talked me out of it before he even said anything.  He recommended we go with the Spicy Tuna Crispy Rice:

The greatest things on this plate were the micro arugula and caviar.  And that’s an issue, when those are the garnishes.  The spicy tuna was like eating paste, and the spices overwhelmed the tuna to the point where I couldn’t even taste tuna.  At all.  The rice was more along the lines of sweet sticky rice, or a slightly dry risotto.  It was reminiscent of thick glue, and the only hint of any “crispy” rice was found on one (yes, just one) piece that had been overcooked one one side.  And it was more hard than crispy.  If this was supposed to be better than the ceviche, I don’t even want to know how awful that is.

We were less than halfway into the meal and I’m already thinking “Please let something come along and salvage this meal.”  I had high hopes for the main dishes.  Those hopes were quickly shattered.

Mom ordered the Shoyu Glazed Black Cod:

Dad ordered standard sushi, which wasn’t great, but wasn’t too bad (and a little on the tiny side):

My brother ordered the Crunchy Roll (which he reviewed as “very crunchy”):

I decided to go with the seared ahi tuna.  The plate came out piping hot.  The potatoes and spinach were equally hot.  The tuna was warm, at best.  How that’s even possible when it’s sitting on a ridiculously hot plate, I’ll never figure out:

I was disappointed to see that the dessert menu wasn’t asian-inspired at all.  I was hoping for something along the lines of tempura ice cream, but was presented with (however tasty sounding) standard American dessert-fare.  We decided to go with the Yama S’mores, mostly because the name was the most catchy thing on the menu.  And it involved chocolate.  And marshmallows.

The dessert, with a scoop of rocky road ice cream, topped with a homemade graham cracker.  The puffy brown mass on the right is a balloon of toasted marshmallow cream atop a thick chocolate bar, on top of a chocolate cake:

See, it really is marshmallow cream inside:

This was good.  Nothing extraordinary, but at least we finally had something more than mediocre to come across our table.  It’s unfortunate that it was the only non-asian-inspired dish:(

Yamashiro gets an overall C- (we aren’t in the D range, only because of the view and the s’mores).  Save your money (or spend it at any one of the much more inspired and quite frankly, better restaurants in LA).  Thankfully, my dad had found a deal on Groupon.com.  IMHO, even with the deal, the dishes were not worth the money.  I’ve had much more phenomenal meals at places that are a fraction of the cost of Yamashiro.

I hate to end this post on a sour note (and I’d like to put it out there how sad I was writing such a bad review on a restaurant I was looking forward to) so I’ll leave you with the only redeeming quality of the restaurant.  The view of the twinkling lights of la la land:

A Tasty Trip to Puerto Rico

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Ok, so I didn’t actually get on a plane and fly to Puerto Rico, but I did get a small taste of what it might be like to enjoy a meal there.  A coworker of mine and a fellow foodie (Cher, a.k.a. the frequent commenter on my blog!) researched the Puerto Rican dish called “mofongo” after seeing it on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.  A successful google search brought us to Mofongo’s in North Hollywood.   The restaurant is one of those out-of-the-way, hole-in-the-wall gems.  The entire restaurant consisted of four tables, one chef and one waitress.  The menu is limited, but sifts through the fluff and gets right down to business, offering up delicious and authentic dishes.

We started with an appetizer plate, De todo un poco, or “a little bit of everything.”  Starting at the top right, working clockwise, we have: Pasteles (a Puerto Rican tamale), Pastelillos (I think one was chicken and one was beef, similar to an empanada), Relleno de Papa (potato balls, similar to the ones at Portos) and Alcapurrias (fried tamales).

Next up was the main dish, and THE reason (and namesake) for visiting Mofongo’s–the mofongo.  We were told the best way to savor the dish is to get the “soup” on the side and only pour it on the mofongo a little bit at a time.  The description (thanks to Wikipedia) sounds bizarre, but it all works wonderfully together: “Mofongo is generally made from friend green plantains…which is mashed together with broth, garlic, olive oil and pork cracklings or bits of bacon.  It is often filled with vegetables, chicken, crab, shrimp or beef and is often served with fried meat and chicken broth soup.”  This particular version also had bits of pork rinds, which added a nice crunch to everything!  I love a healthy amount of garlic, and this dish definitely does not fail to deliver.  You can essentially feel the garlic seeping out of every pore on your face…in a good way of course:)

The exclamation point to this Puerto Rican culinary sentence was the bread pudding.  Not too dense and not too fluffy, not overly sweet.  I would go back just to eat this:

What the restaurant lacks in size definitely makes up for in authenticity, heart and soul.  The service was fantastic (the chef even came out to chat us up), the food was tasty…all in all a meal that was muy delicioso!