I Want Hawaiian Shaved Iced & No One Is Gonna Stop Me

So what do you like to do for fun? Oh, well apparently I like to risk my life to chase down food trucks in the middle of L.A.! So there's been a big buzz about this amazing shaved ice that serves melt in your mouth shaved ice from a truck in the Los Angeles/San Fernando Valley area. Even though I've heard raving reviews from word of mouth as well as online, I have to admit I was very skeptical. Why? Because real amazing shaved ice is supposed to look like this...

Left is shaved ice from Hong Kong and right is from Singapore. It has been really hard trying to find shaved ice in the U.S. aside from at a few Taiwanese places that have even been able to come remotely close to the quality of shaved ice found in Asia. But being the foodie that I am, I had to go try it. I mean, what is Hawaiian Shaved Ice anyways? Okay so my friends were off school for Spring Break so it was perfect timing to have an adventure chasing down a truck. They change locations everyday so you have to check on their website to see what their destinations for the day are. You can visit them at: www.getshavedice.com

So I checked their schedule and got my friends ready to chase them down. The website said there would be in Eagle Rock that day for the first 3 hours. Eagle Rock? Where the hell is that? It has a cool name so whatever right? So having the most awesome friends that will let me drag them into doing whatever I want food related, the Wehebs, bf & I crew went waiting for the truck to stop at Eagle Rock.

Are you seeing double? Don't worry your eyes are fine. Those are indeed 2 different times I chased after a shaved ice truck 1 day apart from each other. So obviously you can tell the shaved ice was really good! First picture is me with the Wehebs & 2nd is my cousins posing in front of the truck when it came to Chatsworth a day closer. On a side note, while we were in Eagle Rock we literally saw 8 or more cop cars light up. After Rna & Weheb got home to tell the story to Papa Weheb, apparently we shouldn't have been in Eagle Rock. Can you say Compton what what? But I'm happy to report we're all alive and will continue to follow the truck-just at other locations and not at Eagle Rock for safety reasons. No wonder why there were so many cop cars....So onto the ice!

Here are the most popular flavors at Get Shaved. I'd recommend trying these if you are gonna try them. Left is strawberry & Banana Shave Ice over Vanilla Ice Cream topped with Sweetened Condensed Milk. It's called Monkey Brains. It was delicious! Melted in your mouth! I really liked how they used condensed milk because a lot of non-asian desserts don't use it. Right is another delicious favorite. It's a Root Beer Float also topped with sweetened condensed milk. They have 4 different sizes and even the biggest size is under $4! What a steal. And it's even a show just watching the guy pack all the ice into the little cup. Trust me-you are getting a lot of ice in that thing! So as you can tell, I took my cousins back to Get Shaved a day later and we decided to try some other flavors. At first one of my cousins said she wouldn't eat any because she had just gotten her wisdom teeth taken out that morning and she still had cotton balls in her mouth. But one she took a bite of Get Shaved, she managed to eat it! It's a miracle!

Left is the Monkey Brains again, Center is the Island Breeze & Right is the Passion Nut. The Island Breeze is Mango flavored with Coconut & Guava Shaved Ice over Vanilla Ice Cream and the Passion Nut is Passion Fruit, Coconut and Melona over Vanilla Ice Cream. There's a bunch of other combination choices and if you can't find something you like, you can create it! My favorite is still the Monkey Brains though and Root Bear float. I think the condensed milk just does it for me. You can also add red beans and ling he mu powder to it! And here's the trick. Check their website and get to the location before they are supposed to be there. Or else, you'll be stuck in an hour long line!

And while we were getting shaved ice, my cousin mentioned she never had anything from the Kogi Taco Truck. So... of course we waited in line for food and left the swollen cousin in the car. We got Korean Tacos and Korean Sliders. I still think Kogi is overrated and they seriously need to do something about their lines. To see what I ate from them last time & an even better taco truck with no lines click here.

And then for the first day of truck chasing, we decided to celebrate our shaved ice victory by doing okonomiyaki at Gaja. Though my BFF Weheb looks pro here, we failed. We ended up ordering an monjayaki--essentially a liquid version of okonomiyaki and that was way too difficult to cook on our own. Click here to see my last visit here when we didn't fail. The pancake on the right looks so good because the kitchen made it for us.

I am so lucky to live in LA because there are a bunch of really popular food trucks. I have a list of 3 so far that I need to try so I'm hoping to be able to try those soon. As for now, I'm content in trying to chase down Get Shaved at least once a week. My advice is to skip the Kogi truck. There's a bunch of resturants that do the whole Korean taco thing so go to one of those instead-but GET SHAVED! Happy Eatings!

Okonomiyaki! Time for Japanese Pancake!

The front of Gaja located at 2383 Lomita Blvd. Lomita, CA 90717. They can get pretty packed. Luckily they have a flat screen TV with Japanese entertainment for all those waiting out in the parking out.

So a few days ago, our friend and Japanese lover extraordinaire Berto who runs his own Asian American pop culture blog that covers food, games electronics, anime, etc. informed us that he had finally found a "real" okonomiyaki place that we just had to try. In fact it was so good that despite having been there the night before, he was willing to take one for the team go again the very next day with us. What a trooper! Behold, the greatness known as Gaja Japanese Restaurant! Because Berto waited over an hour and 45 minutes the night before, we ended up waiting and getting there at 11 at night, which was a good idea. It wasn't packed. It's open until 12! Great for us late night food lovers. On a side note, the pictures from this post will be a combination of mine and Berto's from his blog at TofuProd because he had an really good camera with him!

Here's a waiter cleaning the grill! Amazing! It's like Korean BBQ, but better! So here's an introduction... Okonomiyaki is basically a Japanese pancake that has a bunch of different ingredients inside. Toppings and batters vary depending on what region the okonomiyaki is from. This place had fun written all over it since we got to cook and decorate everything ourselves.

What was most impressive about this place (almost more than the food) was their menu. It was seriously as thick as an encyclopedia! The pages never ended and they were neatly organized with colored tabs & dividers. It was like a flashback to my high school days! I loved it! I love food. You don't understand. I like to take picture menus home and fantasize about meals when I can't eat them. Yes, that's what got me through college when I had to eat dorm food. I happened to come to Gaja's with 4 guys so it's obvious what the first thing they wanted to order was...

I was really entertained by the cups being iced... but apparently that's how it's supposed to be. Whatever... it was 11Pm at night. Hot tea sounded way better for me.

Ah and here's where the fun begins! Your bowl of ingredients is brought out and it's time for cooking. They actually have a direction guide on how to make the okonmiyaki in case you are confused. So as you can tell from the photo, cook the meat separately and then proceed to make the pancake. Make one layer for the top and then place the meat inside and make the other side. Then you continue to flip it until everything is cooked and crunchy! Yum! Playing with your food is rewarding.

It should look like this once you are done making the sides and stuffing the meat inside.

After that comes even more fun! Box 1 is us covering our pancakes with mayo. Then the next 2 boxes are us adding extra seasoning. Pay attention to Box 3. Those are delicious Okaka Fish Flakes. Those are the things they put atop of Americanized Sushi rolls like BSCR or the Dynamite rolls where you see them moving because of the heat generate from the sushi below it. The waiters are Gaja had to refill the containers of Okaka for our table twice mainly because I ate all of it. I can eat fish flakes plain because they are so good. Yum! It was actually kind of embarrassing because of how much of the flakes I ate. I'm this itty bitty girl and I down 3 whole containers of fish flakes. Yeah...

As you can see, the designs got better and more creative as we kept eating. Left pancake is an elephant and the right is a happy face. We had 5 people in our group. We ordered 3 pancakes all in different flavors. All of them were delicious in their own ways. I have to say that the curry one stood out though.

Here's our order of Takoyaki aka fried octopus balls. Yummy!

We were so full but then it came time for dessert. Box 1 is my manly order of green tea shaved ice with sweet bean. It came out in a huge measuring cup! Look how big it is compared to me (Box 2). Box 3 is the boyfriend smiling from the amazing flavor of the Melon Parfait. He described the taste as "the taste of mother's sweet love" and also didn't offer to share any of his dessert. I had to grab a bite of the melon popsicles on my own. He didn't share anything else. Box 4 is a candid shot of Ken finding out his Calpico falvored parfait comes with heart shaped Calpico ices.

Here's a close up of Ken's Parfait. If you look between the two sticks you can see the double hearts. Inside basically was like a fruit cocktail with ice & a sprinkle of cornflakes. The cornflakes give the ice some nice texture. Oh by the way, Calpico is a really good Asian drink you can find at many Asian markets! Ken's parfait didn't come with the melon popsicles that Jeff's did but it was also really good. I can't decide what dessert to get next time I go. I like to plan food trips in my head.

Gaja was seriously an amazing meal. You can check out their website here. Just look at their awesome online menu if you are bored. That's my favorite hobby! Also, mucho gracis to Berto for the recommendation and for letting me use some of his pictures. I loved it. I would definitely take my friends & family back here. It's a fun time to play with your food and have it taste good too. Only con for me is that it's all the way in Torrance. I would recommend going later at night so that you don't hit traffic and also so that you don't have to wait to get seated.

Happy cooking, playing, and eatings!

I hope you will have as good of a time as we did here at Gaja! Definitely go check it out.