Tokyo Fried Chicken Co. Soft Opening

Tokyo Fried Chicken Company is the successor to The Open Door. The restaurant still has the same owner and staff, but they decided to do a complete 180 on their previous food and theme. The restaurant is currently still in its soft opening stage.

 The chicken is similar to chicken karaage. It is marinated in soy sauce, ginger and garlic and fried in rice bran oil. Diners each receive a plastic glove for the chicken so that your hands don’t get dirty.

The fried chicken dinner set for two which comes with two legs, two wings, two thighs, steamed chicken rice,  pickled cabbage, and your choice of two sides. They offer regular sides and “premium” sides for an additional charge.

For my sides, I ordered curried creamed corn and mac and cheese. The mac and cheese was pretty tasty. There are also other unique items such as collard greens, truffle tater tots, truffle-butter edamame, and shisito peppers. 

 Each table has several different sauces to complement the chicken. There is the standard  ponzu and  spicy ponzu as well as the sauces they are testing out before their grand opening. I was given a yuzu sauce and a sweet and sour sauce. 

Although the chicken was succulent, I didn’t think it lived up to the hype. For me, the chicken had to be dipped in massive amounts of sauce to have flavor. The chicken alone was bland. Sauces should complement the chicken, not require them.  

For a two person set, it is approximately $25 without alcohol before tax and tip. Overall my impression of the restaurant was so-so. I was such a big fan of The Open Door, that maybe I would give them another chance. Plus, they have fried chicken skin, which sounds amazing. Also, TFC has imported popsicles from Japan. 

Happy Eatings!

R.I.P. The Open Door

122 S Atlantic Blvd
Monterey Park, CA 91754

Japanese Fusion Food

Bust out your wallet because this post is a little on the pricer side!

The Open Door is a small Izakaya-style (tapas/small plates) Japanese restaurant in Diamond Plaza. It can get pretty pricy, but if you love Honda-Ya or Furaibo, then TOD will absolutely blow you away. Seating is limited and TOD has some awkward hours. So beware! FYI, they’re only open for dinner. They're also closed Monday and Tuesday. Since Open Door likes to switch up their menu frequently, I like to pop in periodically to try out new dishes. Here are just some of the dishes I've tried. 

 Whitefish with Yuzu sauce 

 Oil seared scallop with chives, cherry tomatoes, and garlic. 

 Edamame Vichyssoise with uni and quail egg.

 Beef tongue carpa with chimichurri & crostini.

 Beef Tataki 

Tuna on crispy rice sushi. 

Two sashimis in one! Uni on scallop sashimi. 

 Salmon sashimi.

Clams.

 Fried soft-shelled shrimp.

Japanese shishito peppers. 

 Bone Marrow.

 Pork belly – which came with a little fried pork skin on top.  It comes with a poached egg which you need to mix and pour over each piece.

Beef Stonepot Rice.

Yes, The Open Door seems a little out of place in Monterey Park perhaps, even to the point of being a tad pretentious for the San Gabriel Valley. They also have Happy Hour for cheaper prices!

If you like watching the game, then this may be perfect for you. They have a good happy hour, decent parking, and allow  you to store your unfinished bottles of alcohol. I loved how they had typical tapas dishes for the people in my party that didn’t like to try anything out of the ordinary and more of the unique dishes for the more outrageous eaters like me.

122 S Atlantic Blvd

Monterey Park, CA 91754

D'ange Bakery in San Gabriel

D’ange Bakery on Las Tunas Drive may just be my new favorite bakery. It is a sandwich shop, drink station, and bakery all wrapped up in one. 

On the bakery side you’ll see typical traditional Chinese baked goods but with a modern twist. You won’t see the yellow bo lo bun here. For example, there’s a chocolate bo lo pineapple bun and also a taro variation of it as well. The center also oozes chocolate or taro depending on which one you pick. Much snazzier than the normal pineapple bun!

 Pineapple buns are out! Here are the new and improved flavors!

 Mixed Fruit Tea

There are other Asian inspired pastries as well as more Western style brioches and cookies.  The sandwich menu consists of mostly western sandwiches.They have pulled pork and Italian sandwiches as well as more interesting eye brow-raising ones like curry seafood sandwich which has shrimp, imitation crab and egg.

The pastries prices at D’ange are comparable to that from JJ’s Bakery in Arcadia. I like D’ange much more though. They also have a $4 after noon tea special, which includes coffee/tea and a slice of cake. It’s a good way for new patrons to sample their cakes. Personally, I’ve had my eyes on the pistachio coffee mousse cake.

D’ange also has a decent smoothie and tea variety. I had a mixed fruit tea that was pretty good. If you are looking for delicious and different varieties of bread, drinks, or desserts, D’ange may be worth checking out.

800 W. Las Tunas Dr. in San Gabriel.

Happy Eatings!

No Meat? No Problem!

My family eats vegetarian food fairly often since there's 2 days a month that Buddhists go vegetarian for the entire day so I'm always looking out for good vegetarian places. The best vegetarian restaurants are the ones that I wouldn't mind visiting even when I don't need to be eating vegetarian. Vegelink in North Point is one of those 'private kitchens' in Hong Kong. They make you sign a "membership" card when you eat there. It's free, they just give you a little club card. I presume it's because they registered their restaurant with the government as a private kitchen and not a restaurant so by having membership cards it justifies their cheaper rent. 

 Appetizers are egg rolls and fake pork jerky. 

 So hot that the picture came out blurry! Just the way I like it! 

Here's the mushroom dumpling we ordered. It was very good. The best part was that they had some great spicy sauces and pre-mixed vinegar to dip it in. 

 Tofu skin roll. Inside was an array of mushrooms and carrots that were steamed. 

 Veggie flour roll. 

Emperor's dumpling. This was another tasty veggie dumpling that was really good.

The total came out to $180 HK for the vegetarian dimsum. Vegetarian Taiwanese fusion food. The address is: Shop 108, 1/F, Foo Yet Kall Building, 56 Java Road, North Point

北角渣華道56號胡日皆大廈1樓108室

Happy Eatings! 

Thai Western Food

"Thai Western food? Uh, okay I guess." That was my reaction when my Aunt wanted to know if I wanted to go try Greyhound in the IFC in Central, Hong Kong. It's a hard life for someone who has 5 aunts who feel like they have to take them to delicious, new places each time I'm back in Hong Kong. Who am I kidding... no it's not. I love my life. But what I do not love is [insert Asian food here] and Western food. I mean Asian food is Asian and Western is Western. Unless... it's fusion then I can understand but this place was just Thai and Western. Shrugs I decided to go for it. Who am I turn down a potential delicious meal? Plus, Greyhound is apparently the same place she likes to eat when she vacations in Thailand. 

 Isn't that the PUMA logo with the name of the bus? Not judging...

 Pad Thai! Yum! I usually do not like Pad Thai. Given the choice, I'd choose Pad Se Ew over it. I just think the concept of having sweet noodles is weird. Aunt insisted on getting it and I'm glad she did. SOOOOOOOO good! Even better than the Pad Thais I've had in Thailand!!! We ordered two of these. That's how amazing it was. Did I mention the line for this place was insane? They had two rounds of dinner times and every guest that walked in had a Hermes  Birkin bag. #richpeopleproblems. 

 These were the highlight of my night! Mini fried wings! So good! The skin was delicious!!! Yes, yes, yes! *Cue Herbal Essence commercial here! It might be hard to tell how tiny there are in this picture since I zoomed in but trust me, they were tiny! 

 Yummy spicy rice! So good! It even came with some soup filled with MSG. Love MSG soup usually but this wasn't so special. It's okay I forgive your not up to par MSG soup. 

 This was another spicy beef rice dish we ordered. It was bleh.... 

So by this time I was stuffed. Did I mention I had this dinner with plans to eat dessert with a friend and also right before having a huge lunch with another aunt of mine? I eat a lot, yeah I know. I ordered the mango sticky rice which was okay. At this point I was too full. Apparently this place makes the best chocolate brownies. What the heck right? Next time! I love brownies!

By the way, the best, best, best part of this was the shirts the staff were wearing. They had fun T-shirts with awesome sayings like: 


"Life is short. Can I get you more dessert?"
"I can't speak Thai, but i sure can recommend some delicious Thai dishes!" 


I have a soft spot for funny shirts, especially funny shirts that have to do with food. You should see my collection of Got Pho and random Chinese shirts.




Happy Eatings!

SML

SML-stands for small, medium, or large and that's exactly the choice you have to make when you order a dish here. It's located in Times Square on the 6th floor. Extraordinary food? Eh, it's not bad, but it's also not the most amazing food I've ever had. It is, however a nice place to meet up with friends that gives you a wide array of Western/fusion dishes to choose from. 

pasta 

steak pieces with tartar sauce and fries

fried toast with truffles

Unfortunately, I get off work at 10pm and the last order for the kitchen is 10:30. I didn't make the cutoff so I had my dishes ordered for me before I even got there. Not bad though!

Worth trying out though!

Happy Eatings!

I'll off to Yunnan, China tomorrow so more food to come. 

How to do a Bachelorette Party Right!

Usually I'm all for the best of the best but this was definitely a worthwhile experience. Tokyo Delves! Ah!!! I've heard so much about this place for so many years and I finally got a chance to go for my lovely Dani's bachelorette party the other day. How to summarize? You have hispanic sushi makers that are singing and dancing to Oldies and 90's music while making your sushi and having the entire 200-300 person restaurant do sake bombs at the same time. Tokyo Delves is basically a 2 hour show experience. You don't go for the food, you go for the standing and dancing a top of chairs. You're just required to eat at least $12 worth of food while you are there.

The Girls 

Our hummer limo. Lines are humungous at Tokyo Delves, but if you take a limo you get to bypass that.

You can't really see the extent of the lines but trust me it was long!

Word. The theme was St. Patty's Day if you can't tell. 

People dancing on chairs to Journey and music from the 90's. 

The mini kegs that come out. 

Sake bomb position. Now, I personally am a party popper but I still did one in honor of D's bachelorette party. Sometimes I wonder how I have friends with how boring I am. 

Ah... the famous food of Tokyo Delves... You know what? It wasn't that bad! I think because we set our expectations so slow that there was no where to go but up!

Chicken teriyaki plate. 

The "sushi".

More of it!

Our table standing on chairs. The bachelorette made it in the dance off to the final round! 

It was definitely a lot of fun. This is a great place for birthdays, etc. Some people who get too excited definitely might end the night being dragged out by security trashed though. 

Happy Eatings!

Tokyo Delves is at 5239 Lankershim Blvd. North Hollywood, CA 91601. Make sure to make a reservation if you plan on going the shows!