Ita-cho Japanese Restaurant Review

(Photo Courtesy Ita-cho Restaurant on Yelp)
Having thoroughly enjoyed our culinary foray into LA's Korean BBQ scene,
a friend and I decided that it was time to tackle Japanese cuisine, with some Yelp help of course. In search of decent sushi and authentic Japanese cooking, we set our sights on a small joint in West Hollywood called Ita-cho Japanese Restaurant.

The restaurant's decor was simple and elegant, though not as swanky as other places that I've driven past. It sorta reminded me of those mom-and-pop places back in Hawaii, with an added bit of Hollywood interior design know-how.

Despite knowing Japanese food pretty well, the menu took us both a little while to decipher. Attempting to capitalize on the Asian fusion movement, a number of the dishes, though based on Japanese staples, have been accented with exotic ingredients and preparations. We settled on a plate of the Wagyu Beef with Ponzu sauce [read: thinly-sliced steak with lemon-infused soy sauce] and Tako Karaage [battered and deep fried octopus legs]. We also had to order rice separate, which I did not appreciate at all.

When the food came, we were underwhelmed. The dishes, unbeknownst to us, were meant to serve as Japanese tapas, and were not enough to serve the two of us. In any case, the dishes were quite good. The Wagyu Beef was cooked medium-rare so that it remained buttery and tender, and was perfectly complemented by the subtle tang of the ponzu dipping sauce. The tako, though battered a tad too liberally, was tasty and not too greasy.

If I'm being perfectly honest, the restaurant was a bit of a disappointment. The food was better than average, but came in portions too tiny to enjoy and at too high a price. The atmosphere was nice, but the service was sub-par. A hit and miss, but great to be out and about sampling Japanese in LA.

5 Songs for Shitty Days

Now I don't like to use this blog as a platform for my whining (that's what xanga was for), but as far as days go, today scrapes dangerously close to the bottom. I sometimes believe that optimism is one of my strong points--don't tell me otherwise, I'll be saddened--but it's hard to keep your head up on a day when all this goes down:

1) Woke up 15 minutes late and had to rush to prep for my commute
2) Realized 30 minutes into the drive that I had forgotten my laptop and made the decision to turn back for it
3) Was burdened the entire day with stomach pains from that lingering virus
4) Took 1 hr 30 min to drive from Beverly Hills to downtown
5) Fought downtown traffic to arrive an hour after Panda Express had closed
6) Found that the Honor Fraser Gallery was closed after planning to see the KAWS exhibition for weeks
7) Arrived at Starbucks needing to use wi-fi just after it closed; Sat outside hoping to get a free signal, but couldn't connect
8) Driving aimlessly around looking for a Coffee Bean only to find one without any parking in a 2 mile radius
9) Having to steal wi-fi from some random apartment I was parked outside of
10) Looking for the Kogi BBQ truck on twitter only to find out it had closed just minutes prior

I tell you this not so that you take pity on me. Trust me, I've given enough of that to myself today. I tell you this because I'm laughing at it. Yeah it sucked and yeah I would like do-overs on basically everything, but to tell you the truth, I don't know if I would gain any more if the day had gone perfectly. Change my perspective and I see a pretty not-bad day at work topped off with a tour of the city with a friend that will not be seeing the city for a while. As for all the stuff I missed, that'll be there for tomorrow's adventure.

In case you might need them, 5 songs for shitty days like this one...
1) Modest Mouse - Float On (The View also works here)


2) Emiliana Torrini - Today Has Been Okay


3) The Shirelles - Mama Said


4) The Weepies - Can't Let Go


5) Phantom Planet - Lonely Day

Must Try Kimchi Quesadillas

Last week, I mentioned my sudden urge for Korean BBQ after overhearing a couple of coworkers discussing Korean food they picked up from a truck outside of the office in Beverly Hills. Today, I see that the impetus for my own Korean food craving has actually made it to The New York Times. Here's something I've gotta try...

The mobile restaurant is called Kogi Korean BBQ-To-Go. The Los Angeles-based lunch truck is really stretching the limits of California fusion cuisine by mixing traditional Korean flavors with Mexican stand-bys. Their menu includes everything from spicy pork tacos to kimchi quesadillas. It may sound strange, but judging from the omg-this-is-so-good histrionics I heard from my coworkers, it's definitely worth the try.

Kogi is also one of the most high tech lunch wagon operations out there apparently. They notify die-hard fans of their location as they move from spot to spot via their twitter account, and maintain a blog chronicling the development of the company. Korean-Mexican fusion via twitter? What a brave new world this is...

KAWS exhibit opens in LA

From the line of fanboys I saw snaking around the corner of the Honor Fraser gallery Friday, KAWS's west coast gallery premiere was a resounding success. I was planning on making it to the opening to see the artist among his work, but the line was way too long even two hours after the doors had opened. Perhaps next week...

Read what The Los Angeles Times had to say about 'The Long Way Home' here.

Korean BBQ @ Beul Dae Po

(Photo courtesy Cathy K. on Yelp)

I met up with a friend last night after work, and after hearing some of my co-workers discussing the Korean BBQ they got from the truck outside our office on Thursday, I had a hankering for some of that greasy stuff. So, I turned to Yelp (a very cool resource I started using this summer when looking for places to get pizza downtown).

The place we chose was Beul Dae Po in Koreatown.

Walking into the place was bit intimidating. The decor in the restaurant I think is supposed to be reminiscent of your run-of-the-mill BBQ stand in Korea. The walls were done in corrugated metal roofing, smoke pretty much filled the entire hall and at each of the tables metal piping fueled gas grills. All the signs were in Korean. The television was set to Korean TV. Everyone around us was chatting in Korean. (Mind you, neither I nor my friend know a word of the language). We were greeted upon entry by a Korean woman who immediately addressed us in Korean; I'm presuming she asked us how many people were dining. I put two fingers up and she sat us.

We ended up ordering (mostly by pointing at the menu in a sorta confused way) one plate of beef brisket and another of pork ribs. And it must've been our lucky day...we got a free plate of marinated pig intestines--apparently a house specialty. Took a little bit for them to get the food to our table, but once it did it was fantastic. We grilled our own food at the table, badly charring some of the beef slices and under-cooking others. With the three dipping sauces (one sweet, one salty and one like spicy gyoza sauce), the meat was great. The intestines, I must say, were a bit difficult to deal with at first because of the thick, gritty goop on the inside, but I guess they grew on me.

And although I still smell like Korean restaurant, I am already thinking about going back. Next time, I think I'll take one of those phrasebooks with me just in case.

California Fires

If it's fall, you can bet there's another series of fires smoldering in Southern California. After living through my first major SoCal fire just around this time last year, I was not very surprised to hear on yesterday's AC360 podcast (you can subscribe to it on iTunes) about the conditions in the San Fernando Valley and, most recently, in San Diego and San Bernardino. As of this morning, the fire had torn through about 18,000 acres in the Valley alone. My sister just emailed me today saying that the Metrolink has been shut down...which once again makes me very thankful that I am still not relying on the Ventura Line to commute anywhere anymore.

Here's hoping that my family and friends that live in the area around Simi and Moorpark come out of this one unscathed.

Bad News

Two pieces of shocking news out of Los Angeles today.

First, the death of David Foster Wallace, the Roy E. Disney Professor of English at Pomona and one of the most influential writers of the past 20 years. Wallace hung himself in his home in Claremont on Friday, and was discovered by his wife. Dean of the College Gary Kates sent out an email yesterday to the student body explaining the situation and asking all of us to respect his family's privacy (especially where questions from national media outlets are concerned.)

Also on Friday, a Metrolink train going from Los Angeles to Simi Valley collided head on with another train, claiming 25 lives and injuring 135 others. The accident was one of the worst Southern California train accidents to occur in over 50 years, and officially makes Metrolink's already spotty safety record among the worst in the nation. It's especially harrowing for me since I took the Ventura Line to work every morning this past summer. It's strange to think about what difference a couple of months has made.

First Stab.

So I set this up to keep everyone posted on the events in my life over the next four months or so. Plus, I'm trying to teach myself HTML (it's a slow and painful process), so this will give me the platform to do that.

I just finished my internship today, after about 11 weeks, at a company in downtown LA called BroadSpire. And tomorrow, I'll spend my last few hours working at the Pomona Office of Communications before calling it quits for the summer. Then, I have exactly 10 days to get my sh!t together before I pack up and ship out to Europe until December. It'll be a hectic next month or so as I make the transition, and I will try to keep as current as possible...but no promises.

The last time I had a blog was in the seventh grade. Xanga anyone? So, yeah, bear with me. Feel free to leave me as many comments as you want. On the content, layout, lameness, etc. And, again, this is a work in progress. I apologize in advance.