Go Organic! Go Green Zone!

That's right. You see the collage above? All those delicious food and drinks are all organic! Yes, even the soda! Green Zone is a tiny, tiny, modern Chinese restaurant located in the Valley Shopping Center at 534 East Valley Blvd. San Gabriel, CA 91776. The owners are really young and are from the same family. Also because it is their family business, they treat everyone really nicely unlike the typical Chinese restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley where you should be thankful you even got seated. This place also has a lot of non-Asian patrons, which is impressive since you have to brave Chinese drivers to get to Green Zone. Basically all the waiters/waitress are the nicest people ever. I never knew people could be nice in the San Gabriel Valley. It's quite strange. This place may be small and look like a version of IKEA, but it's awesome. A def must try! My mom and I like to buy their frozen dumplings to go and keep it in the freezer.

This is their amazing Passionfruit Tea. Free refills so drink all you want! I had 3 refills while I was there. Such a good deal. You should try their organic soda as well though!

Here is their very delicious fried triangle salmon pieces. It comes with their amazing special wasabi sauce, which isn't too spicy. It's mixed so that it just has a hint of wasabi taste. Yum!

This is their grilled tofu in ponzu sauce. I love how Green Zone's has a variety of items that are not Chinese.

They even had my favorite Japanese seasoning.

Last up was their delicious beef soba. Yum! Really good. The mother and I also bought some dumplings to go. This meal was healthy and good. It's not very often that you can find healthy Chinese food where the oil is dripping off the meat.

Another good thing about Green Zone is their location. It's right next to the San Gabriel Superstore, which is a really big Chinese/Vietnamese market. Side note: Be careful inside the market. If you think Asians are bad drivers, you should see them with market carts. They are much worse. No joke. Right next to the market, is Yi Mei at 736 Atlantic Blvd. Monterey Park, CA 91754 where you can buy really good pastries or Chinese donuts. I bought a cup of hot soy milk to go (pictured above). Yum!

Today's meal was delicious and decently priced. It's really a hidden gem in the San Gabriel Valley. You get good service and great food. The best part is that it's organic and healthy for you! Win-win.

Happy Eatings!

No Habla Ingles

The English language is overrated. No Habla Ingles is the general rule of thumb at many Chinese places. This was something the two non-Chinese speaking Chinese girls failed to realize when venturing into Kim Fung, a very ghetto Chiu Chow restaurant. They spent a very long time trying to order their dishes and asked a bunch of questions that they could not understand the answers to since the waiter had really broken English. Lesson to be learned... learn your chinese people. If I have classmates that are Russian, Mexican, and Caucasian that speak perfect Chinese then you should at least be able to order off a menu written in English. Just point dude. No questions. Have an allergic reaction question on whether there are nuts in that dish? Forget about it. Eat first, you'll find out later anyways.

Today's post is on Chiu Chow food from Kim Fung at 128 North Garfield Ave. Monterey Park, CA 91754 and Kim Tar at 964 East Garvey Ave. Monterey Park, CA 91755. Chiu Chow people love using Kim in all their restuarant names since it means gold. So if you see a Kim anything and it's not Korean, you've got an 98% chance of it being Chiu Chow food.

Fried Rice Cakes with Egg, pronounced "Chow Kuay" is the speciality at Kim Fung. There's a premixed vinegar sauce that you dip the rice cakes in. So good!

Just like the Fried Chicken with Rice I mentioned in my Crappy Weather Day post, Kim Fung also has their version but better because it's with tomato red rice! Yum!

This is their "Bok Bia." It's basically a spring roll Chiu Chow style. It's yummy and my mom loves it cause it's similar to Fukienese style rolls.

What's also awesome about Kim Fung is that if you get a dish, you get a drink for only 99 cents. My mom got a red bean drink while I opted for an order of hot lemon coke. It's a Hong Kong thing. The Chiu Chow waiter was confused because the last time someone ordered hot lemon coke was over 8 years ago. Hot lemon coke is really popular at Hong Kongese places. It's good for your throat especially when you are about to catch a cold. Now onto Kim Tar!

This is Kim Tar's "Lap Yu Jok", fish porridge. I'm not sure what that fish is called in English but who cares? It's so good and has so much flavor! Jok is the chinese version of okayu pictured here in under my Shabu Shabu post from Kagaya.

Hope you enjoyed this mini Chiu Chow Chinese food tour. With over 55 different ethnic groups in China alone, not counting Taiwan and other areas it'll take a lifetime to really be able to sample all different types of Chinese food!
Happy Eatings!

More Food For Crappy Weather

So since my last post, L.A. is still flooded in. Good news is that there are no more tornado or hurricane warnings, just completely flooded freeways so that people can't go anywhere. Thank goodness I'm done with school or else I know I'd actually wake up at 5AM to make sure I got to UCLA on time since I wouldn't want to break my Perfect Attendance ever since Preschool record. Yeah, I'm that cool. So since I'm rained in, I've put together another post with some more food for crappy weather in the most unlikely of places.


Place Number 1: Pink Elephant. 2209 Sherman Way. Canoga Park, 91303
Awesome! Why? Because if you go to their restaurant they have a pink elephant sitting on the roof. Also awesome because their food is good and cheap and they deliver within 3 miles if your order is over $15. It's supposed to be Thai-Japanese food... which is one of the most awkward combos ever, but just stick with the Thai and we're good. Of course it can't compare to the food I've had in Thailand but it's not bad. They also don't speak really good English so beware when you ask them to deliver!

Our door bell rang and I ripped open our delivery bag to find a free order of gyoza! I guess that's the Japanese part of the Thai-Japaneseness of Pink Elephant. It even came with a really good sweet and sour sauce. Authentic? No. Good? Sure!

Now for our main dish: Drunken Noodles aka Pad Kee Mao, which is basically similar to the popular Thai dish Pad See Ew, but better in flavor! It's spicier and uses different noodles than Pad See Ew. Delicious! My mom thought it was too spicy though so I got to eat the whole box myself. Score!

Here's my other fav Chicken Larb Salad. Like I said before, way better in Thailand but given the circumstances this wasn't bad.

And next last was their Crab Fried Rice. You can choose if you want regular rice or brown rice. You can also choose how spicy you want your dishes. Their scale is a 3-10. I have no clue why they start at 3. Maybe cause Thai food is spicy in general so that's the minimum amount of spice you have to deal with. Shrugs.

Place Number 2: Pho 999 at 7255 Reseda Blvd. Reseda, 91335. As you can tell, this place is you typical pho joint. I really don't think their pho is amazing, but I do think their beef over red tomato rice is really good.

Yum, we bought this home and it was still super good even though we didn't eat it until 12 hours later. Another dish worth mentioning at this place is their Baked Cat Fish. It feeds a lot of people and they give you a whole fish. It's baked over a layer of onions and other yummy goodness.

Here's a picture of the whole fish staring at you. How delish!

Place Number 3: Neiman Marcus

A department store? Yes, while you are busy shopping for brand names or just window shopping like my mom and I like to do, you can go into Neiman's restaurant. It's usually hidden. I thought I was walking into a dressing room to eat. Their food is really good though.

Ah... the pop-over! This is the real reason why you would even think about going to a department store to eat lunch. This bread is so good! If you order it individually it's at least $8, which is well worth it-but if you order a lunch from them, this mouthwatering bread comes for free! And considering that a lunch is about $12-15, and it includes a pop-over plus a chicken broth and a meal it's a great deal!

Their cup of chicken broth!

This is their Blue Crab Ravioli. It was their special of the day and it was so good!

Here is their Salmon Salad. I'm usually not crazy about salads but this was pretty good!

Here is their Madison Salad with Goat Cheese.

So here are some other tasty choices for you to consider when you are stuck at home and the freeways are flooded. Happy Eatings!

Crappy Weather Day Food

    L.A. freeways may be flooded with rain and car accidents, but even tornado warnings & crappy weather does not equate to crappy food. It does means toning down my usual up to 3 hour awayfood excurisons to something much closer though. Then again I think if it really came down to it, I would still be willing to drive far and long for an awesome mean even if L.A. was about to swooped into a tornado. I live in the San Fernando Valley where there is no good Vietnamese food or Asian food in general, which is why most of my posts are from the San Gabriel Valley over an hour away. Well since today Mother Nature decided to curse us today, the mother and I were forced to decide between the 2 decent Vietnamese restaurants close to us. We ultimately decided to go with BaLe because it was closer than the other place. Although BaLe has really good thai tea boba and Chicken Com Tam (Broken) Rice, I would have much rathered drive an hour and a half away to Orange County for some real Vietnamese food. Viet food is one type of food I can't stand when it's not made right since my parents were born in Vietnam. My taste buds are overly sensitive to unauthentic and just plain bad Vietnamese food. But with the threat of everyone getting sucked into a tornado espcially in the Orange County area, I had to make due with what was close which was at 7233 De Soto Ave. Canoga Park, 91303. They just redid their entire parking lot so it looks a lot better than it did before. And remember before you visit, just like any good Asian place it's cash only-perfect like all those Asian joint owners trying not to pay taxes. Plus, this place is cheap. Awesome. 

    Here is their awesome Thai Tea Boba I was talking about. Their boba is so yummy, helps to distract from the fact that the world outside looks like it's about to end. 2012 what? And the tea is a really good mix too. The trick is asking them to crush your ice instead of giving you those blocks. They usually are hesitant to say yes to you, but when you got a pout like mine how could they say no right? No, really though get the shaved ice with it or else your boba is gonna stick to those huge chucks of ice they put in. 

    Here's my other favorite at BaLe. Everyone orders it since it's their speciality. Chicken over Broken Rice. It's like Costco chicken but WAY better especially when it comes out fresh and the skin is super crunchy. 

    We also ordered Bun. Shrimp and Charbroiled pork bun. It's basically dry noodles with no soup. It's not bad but my fav is still the rice if I each time I come here.

    Goi Cuon. You can't really go wrong with spring rolls so it's always a safe bet. 

    Cha Gio/Vietnamese Egg Rolls. Ah, now here comes the problem. These are not proper Vietnamese egg rolls. The skin is completely wrong. This is Panda Express Chinesey (yes that is a word, deal with it) egg roll skin. Real Cha Gio skin is really thin and melts in your mouth. It's a real bummer though cause Cha Gio is one of those appetizers you always order. 

    Anyhow, just because your house is on the verge of being blown away in a tornado doesn't mean you have to subject yourself to eating crappy food. Just do yourself a favor and lay off the egg rolls unless they are legit. 

Happy Eatings!

Chinese Hooters

Polaroid of the waitresses at Indian on their wall. Definitely a sight you need to see for yourself!

   Have you ever wondered what Hooters would be if they decided to take off the requirement that you needed big hooters to work at Hooters? Well, here's your chance to see for yourself. Behold, Indian. Hooters for Asians. Instead of white girls strutting around in skimpy orange booty shorts, enjoy little itty bitty Chinese girls strutting around in little Pocahantas outfits. Intrigued yet? Yes, I meant Indian as in Native American. The whole restaurant has a Native American theme inside. My guy friends love coming to this place to check out the girls in slutty outfits and to enjoy a drink. I, on the other hand being the life of the party that I am (aka Best Designated Driver) like to come to Indian for the food. It's the most unlikely of places where you would find good food. Plus, the owner Uncle Yu, looks like an Asian version of the scientist guy in Back To The Future. 

    Ah! Stinky tofu... the specialty of Indian. It even comes with a side of funky Taiwanese kimchi-which tastes nothing close to the awesomeness of Korean kimchi. I've written about Stinky Tofu before while I was in Hong Kong so click here to read my full description of it. Indian's stinky tofu wasn't bad, but it definitely didn't have the odor power that the kind in HK had. We were here with a non-asian friend of ours and just its smell caused him to gag a bit. Definitely not something for the unadventurous to try. 

    Here's our delicious order of fried chicken skin. Yum!  This, unlike stinky tofu is something everyone in your party will enjoy. Just imagine if you took Costco's chicken and ripped off the skin and put it on skews. Awesome huh? 

    Here's our sizzling pot of caramelized pork. It was perfect- something the Asians and the Non-Asians at our table could enjoy since stinky tofu was definitely not one of those friendly dishes. 

    Next up was an order of Kung Pow Shrimp. Definitely wouldn't be something I would order since I consider Kung Pow anything to be something that would be on the Panda Express menu, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it. Plus, I had to  make everyone at the table happy before they would let me order my stinky tofu.

    Next up for our table of manly men was Egg White Shrimp Fried Rice. 

    And the guys were still not full yet so we finished off with beef pan fried noodles. Bleh... wasn't great, wasn't bad but whatevers. I wasn't the one drinking and needed food. I was all good once we ordered the stinky tofu.

    The best part of Indian aside from the girls with Indian outfits, is their Chinese dice games. Once you sit down, you can ask the waitresses to bring as many cans of dice you need for your party. It's a drinking game but since I don't drink, when I end up losing my friends make me eat instead. They think I'm anorexic and look like a malnutrition African baby. Not like I care... every time I lose I get a piece of stinky tofu.... It's great to lose. Plus, since you're at a Chinese place you automatically don't have to tip as much since they all know we are all stingy. So, next time you are thinking of going to Hooter's, try out the Chinese copycat version instead! Their address is 633 South San Gabriel Blvd. San Gabriel, CA 91776. Bless the Chinese and their copying abilities. Awesome!

Happy Eatings!

I leave you with a picture of Indian's sign and their menu of owner Uncle Yu with 2 thumbs up! Yes, Uncle Yu really looks like that!

Brrr!! It's Cold... Time for Some Hot Pot Shabu Shabu

Jazz Cat's sparkly sign

I hate cold weather, which is why I live in L.A. I expect 70 degree Sunny weather everyday because that's how weather should be. When the weather drops below 70, I consider it cold, which is why I love Shabu Shabu/ Hot Pot. Shabu Shabu- means swishy swishy in Japanese.

It's the motion of you cooking your meat in a swishy motion that gives it its name. How appropriate right? Awesome. Today's post I will introduce 3 different types of hot pot for your dining pleasure! Stop 1: Jazz Cat, a Taiwanese Shabu Shabu Place in the San Gabriel Valley. Address: 121 East Valley Blvd. San Gabriel, CA 91776

Jazz Cat serves Taiwanese hot pot. For about $12-15 per person you get your own mini hot pot. You choose between 2/3 pages of different types of broths and then choose what type of meat you would like with it. Angus Beef, Beef, Chicken, Lamb, Pork, etc. Then each pot comes with rice, an raw egg, your meat, veggies, noodles, mushrooms, fish paste, fish balls, tofu, etc. Box 1 is a picture of the Japanese Spicy Soup and the right is a picture of the Jazz Cat House Speciality Soup. You are also given sesame sauce to dip your meats in when they are done. The Japanese Spicy Miso soup is very authentic. This is probably because Japan occupied Taiwan back in the day so it's always a safe bet that Taiwanese joints have awesome Japanese food. The Jazz Cat Special had a sweet tasty broth and wasn't spicy. This was definitely enough food and a pretty good price considering you can drink all the soup too when you are done with your meats. The best part is that this place is open until 12:30 in the morning-perfect for all you insomniacs.

Here's the order of salt and pepper calamari we picked up too.

My biggest complaint about Jazz Cat is that ever since their new shop opened they got rid of their 2 page long drinks menu. They used to have the best passionfruit green tea and baked milk tea. This place has since replaced all their amazing drinks with alcoholic beverages. Stupid! Who the hell wants to drink alcohol with their shabu shabu anyways? Well the people I went with did apparently. But still- If anyone from Jazz Cat is reading this, change it back please! Jazz Cat also has great Kimchi Hot pots too that are really good. Definitely worth coming here. Okay, next stop!

This is Happy Sheep Hot Pot in San Gabriel. Address: 227 West Valley Blvd. San Gabriel, CA 91776. One word-ghettofabulous. So this place was the typical Little Fat Sheep Hot Pot place but was bought out by people who decided to call themselves Happy Sheep. The people changed their name to Happy Lamb but that's about it. The signs and their uniforms still have their other name. They were too lazy to do anything about it. What's the point of changing your name when you're not gonna do anything else about it? Weird... So this is Mongolian Hot Pot. Mongolia is super cold so they eat hot pot all the time. Unlike Jazz Cat, you have a communal shared hot pot that can be split in the middle so that you can choose from at maximum 2 different broths. What's different about Mongolian style hot pot is that their broth has a very distinctive taste. They are all made with lots of traditional herbs so the broth is definitely an acquired taste. The left broth is spicy and the right is not. Both are delicious though!

Unlike Jazz Cat's plate of food, Happy Sheep's has much more traditonal foods in it. I got the lamb, whereas my mom got beef. You have Dou Miu (chinese veggies), mushrooms, tofu skin, seaweed, dumplings, meat balls, fish balls, etc. The trick to eating here is actually to go before 3 PM and ask for their lunch special. These plates are their lunch specials which have a bit of everything. I know someone that went at night and they ended up paying $75 for 3 people because they charge differently when it's not lunch. You pay individually for the soup and then per plate. Wow. Mom and I ended up paying $7 each. Gotta love the mother and her deals!

You also have a choice of 4 different sauces for your hot pot here. My favorite was their sesame sauce. Yum and all for $7! Okay next stop!

This is hot pot from Little Fat Sheep, which was the other Mongolian place I was talking about above. This is when my mother and I went past lunch time so we had to pay a lot more than $7. This place was good as well but same goes for here as well as at Happy Sheep- only go during lunch if you don't want a hefty bill! Address: 120 South Atlantic Blvd. Monterey Park, CA 91754. Okay next stop... Japanese Shabu Shabu!

Kagaya is located in a little strip mall in Little Tokyo is amazing and also expensive! The dinner comes with 3 pre-selected appetizers, the shabu shabu, noodles or porridge made with the soup you cooked your meat in, and dessert. Expect to spend $100 per person if you decide to order the expensive stuff. Address if you are interested: 418 East 2nd St. Los Angeles, CA 90012.

Box 1 was tuna in ponzu sauce and Box 2 was duck in miso soup. Kagaya hand makes their wasabi and miso soup. So so good. I had this meal back in August and I'm still drooling just looking at these pictures.

Here comes the pricing variation. The beef in the back of the picture is $40 prime rib. It melts in your mouth. Keep in mind, the $40 beef comes with dessert, and 3 appetizers as well as odon noodles or porridge. The pinkish beef in front is the $128 plate of premium Wagyu beef. Yes $128! I thought that $40 beef melted in my mouth.... the $128 dissolved onto your tongue and left me smiling. Whatever meat you choose, you get your own individual hot pot just like Jazz Cat, however the brother is only made up of water.

Here's a picture of how everything looks like.

Just when you thought you couldn't get any more full, the chef asks you whether you would like your soup broth turned into odon or porridge aka okayu. Left is the odon and right is the okayu.

And there's still dessert! Each day there are about 5 desserts that they chefs hand make. We were so full by then we almost didn't want to get dessert. Thank goodness I knew better and ordered dessert even though I was so full I was feeling sick. Box 1 is a Green Tea Cheesecake Topped with Red Bean. Amazing! I would pay $40 just for that dessert. Box 2 was the also very delicious Creme Brulee topped with Vanilla Ice cream. Wow! What a great meal that was! Kagaya was definitely an expensive trip, but honestly it's not so bad if you think about it. If you get the most basic $40 beef meal, it includes 5 dishes! If $40 for 5 dishes is still over your budget and you like Japanese style Shabu Shabu, I would suggest Shabu Shabu House located across the street from Kagaya in the Japanese Village Plaza. It's about $15 for Shabu Shabu and they give you rice. It's delicious and won't put a dent in your wallet.

So this post covered 3 different types of Hot Pot Places. We had Taiwanese with Jazz Cat, Mongolian with Happy Sheep and Little Fat Sheep, and Japanese with Kagaya. All of them were delicious in their own ways. You really can't go wrong! So I guess it means you'll just have to try them all! I leave you with a picture of another type of hot pot: Chinese hot pot.

For the price, the Chinese hot pot meal I had above was the best bang for my buck. My mom's friend owns a Hong Kongese restaurant in Monterey Park and she decided to throw a hot pot dinner party using her restaurant. She went out and bought the freshest ingredients and even handmade shrimp and fish balls at her restaurant. You can see the beef, sausages, fish balls, beef balls, squid, veges, fish, chicken, pork, etc. It was so good and she only charged us for how much she paid for the ingredients, which was less than $15. So that brings our total to 4 different types of shabu shabu in this post! Have fun and be sure to try all 4 of them before you can rightfully say you've tasted hot pot before because they all taste very different!

Happy Shabu Shabu[ing] Swishy Swishy[ing]!