Min "Mintykins" T.'s Profile

Just by looking at the menu, I knew this was going to be one of those "angel wings, pad thai and curry" joints. Not that these are bad things and are in fact what we ordered. Let's just see if they can do them well. We started with the aforementioned angel wings. These were on the skimpy side. I've had more stuffed ones in Culver City (that just sounds dirty). It was way weird to me they served it with ketchup which I ignored it in favor of the fresh pickled peppers and hot sauce condiments on the table.

The restaurant was nice enough to increase the soup size  since there were 5 of us. It was a light soup and not very spicy despite its glowing red color.

After thinking about the meal, the chicken green curry turned out to be my favorite. The curry was spicy enough for some to give up after a couple of bites but just enough for me (when did I turn into the bigger spice queen of my family?). I liked all the veggies in it and the eggplant was a great sponge of flavor.

I have a friend who is a great connoisseur of pad thai. I bet he would give this a B-, weighted for effort. It wasn't bad per se but it didn't even come with lime wedges. This is when my cousins started talking about a local Thai restaurant chain that I don't think much of. Could it be that restaurant is better? No, I don't think so. I just had a sneaking suspicion we shouldn't have ordered "angel wings, pad thai and curry." Well, maybe just the curry.

We wanted a vegetable dish and the only veggie dish we found without some sort of protein was a mixed veggies plate. I cannot recall the last time I had such a thing. It was basically vegetables in some sort of soy sauce mixture. It was like a plate of garnish.

We had hoped the best dish would be the deep fried soft shell crab but alas it was way too oily.

Next time,  I'll stick with Thai restaurants in Thai Town.

Quite a few people have told me they love Itacho. I couldn't imagine it really being that good. Maybe because I'm used to restaurants of a certain ethnic stripe being clustered in one area. If one Japanese restaurant stands alone in a relatively small patch of restaurants on Beverly, what competition will drive it to be "the best?"

I had to try it just to be sure of my theory.

We ordered a slew of stuff. All our food started arriving at once. Itacho serves both sushi and small plates. I found the fish for the sushi to be fresh but didn't like their rice. It was rather cold and hard. When I asked for a bowl of rice to go with the ground pork and green garlic dish, the rice was only marginally better.

I actually thought the shishito peppers was a bit of a rip. Normally it comes with shaved bonito flakes and these plain ones tasted burnt. I'm surprised this dish wasn't garnished in some sort of way considering the abundance of sesame seeds on the miso eggplant.

The fried tofu was fine.

As mentioned, the sushi was the best part. The negi toro rolls were simple and good. The hamachi was very overpriced but I liked the fresh tang of yuzu and bite of jalepeno. The crispy sushi is something I don't usually order but secretly enjoy now and then. The trio was fine. And finally we got Spanish mackerel, blue fin tuna, salmon and uni. I didn't have the uni but the other three were good (minus the rice).

I'd probably return to sit at the sushi bar only. I'll save the homey, cooked Japanese food I love so much for trips to Sawtelle or Little Tokyo or the South Bay.

I'm used to ordering a veggie and meat combo but Addis doesn't offer a meat combo plate. So we ordered the veggie combo and several meat dishes. It ended up being too much food but incredibly affordable. We spent about $16 a person and still had leftovers.

The veggie combo arrived on the traditional family-style platter. It included:

Misir - Split red lentils cooked in a spicy chili sauce
Kik Alicha - Split peas prepared with mild sauce
Gomen - Collard greens cooked in authentic Ethiopian spices
Mixed At-kilt - Boiled potatoes, carrots, and cabbage
Azifa - Boiled lentils, jalapenos, and onions
Tematim Selata - Diced tomatoes, onions, jalapenos in lemon juice (salad)

Our server was skeptical that we really wanted to order the raw beef. I did! I do! I love kitfo (steak tartare) and was intrigued about this version being served with cottage cheese. As it turned out the cottage cheese smelled and tasted a bit like Indian rice pudding. It was also much denser than your average supermarket cottage cheese. We (I) happily ate this with a pile of injera.

We loved the lamb and beef stew (kiay wot). I ended up spooning some over the rice that came with the whole fried fish (assa). This dish also reminded me a bit of Indian food but less heat. The fish well was well-fried but I think I would order a different dish next time, perhaps a stew.

We also ordered the spicy beef (awaze tibbs). This dish was a bit dry so I ended up dipping some pieces into that amazing stew.

The sweet owner and chef came out with dessert for us. She had baked a cake at home and gave us some to try. We were the only table that night and I hope business picks up for this newish Ethiopian restaurant.

3.5

Speranza is one of those places I never really hear about because it's such a neighborhood place. LA seems to be the sort of town to drive for the "best" of something. Well, if you want Italian in Los Feliz or Silver Lake or even Echo Park, I'd go here.

They have some nice apertifs. I like my Lillet cocktail. A lot of the wines were only $6 a glass.

We started with the pear and fennel salad served with a horseradish dressing. The slight spiciness intermingled with the pear quite well. We also had a beef carpaccio that was very nice.

I asked for the veal ossobuco and our poor flustered server wasn't sure they had veal but then suggested another veal dish to me. Bless his heart.

We also shared the pasta alla borga. The fish roe in this was almost overpowering. It's a good thing I like fishy (in a good way) pastas.

Our server brought us cookie "crumbs" but stumbled along his explaination he would have given us whole cookies but due (mumble) "somethingsomething something," he said we could have nothing or the crumbs. We took the crumbs. Bless his heart.

We sat on the patio. I loved the flowers everywhere, the blankets on the chairs in case you got cold and even our sweet bumbling server (bless his heart).

2.5

After reading a favorable review, I wanted to try Shanghai Bamboo House. However, I didn't take note of what was recommended. I should have.

We ordered the Shanghai duck (after we were told another duck dish we wanted was "no more"), the squash with crab (after we were told the crab dish we wanted was "no more"), Shanghai rice cakes, pork noodles (after we were told the spicy pork noodles were "no more") and soup dumplings.

We weren't into the cold duck which was served with a gloopy sweet sauce. And the squash we were ordered was fine but missing the crab. Instead, they gave us shrimp that was hacked into such tiny pieces, I almost wondered if it was really shrimp. The Shanghai rice cakes were fine. The pork noodles soup was pretty bad. We thought the noodles were too mushy. I was happy to see the two big pieces of pork belly but they were covered with so much sauce.

I decided to order the XLBs, the soup dumplings because the pile of dirty sticky barely-eaten plates in front of us were too much to bear. These XLBs were okay. I was really not into the extra soup spooned on top or is it because they exploded, leaking their lovely soup? I couldn't really tell but either way, the presentation was off. At least these XLBs did taste better than other places.

Overall, I feel there are better Shanghainese places to be found.

Good yuppie/hipster tacos.

Why's it's yuppie- well, look at where it is. Also, tiny sides.

Why's it's hipster- well, the food has pedigrees.

It's not "authentic" (although, it's pretty damn spicy at times) and I guess I prefer tacos from tables and trucks unsure of their meat suppliers. I'm just not that hipster.

Is it good? Sure. Have I gone back? No, I'm an Eastside girl.

Best for people who enjoy eating clean, expensive Mexican food. That's right...yuppies.

2.5

Didn't care for it.

I like mac and cheese and I like the concept but putting in extra ingredients doesn't mean it's suddenly better mac & cheese. The noodles didn't absorb any of the added ingredients' flavors.

This is also a tiny storefront. It's mainly take-out. Good luck trying to eat there.

Long wait- no bueno
"famous" bacon doughnut- dry
homemade poptarts- WINNER!
Smac & cheese- pretty good, but greasy

Sometimes I wish for more diners in DTLA.

After walking into the very mod 60s space with astroturf floors, we were immediately given hummus and two salads; tabouli and a warm eggplant. My initial assessment of the menu had me wanting the single patty burger topped with pastrami and a fried egg but I wanted to try more of their specialities so I went with the shwarma plate and my friend had the falafel plate.

My friend has had falafel all over town and he proclaimed Bar B Kosher to have the most moist and tender falafel. They gave him 1000 Island dressing to dip with it. Apparently this is the customers' favorite way of dipping. He got fries, spicy potato salad and cucumber salad as his sides.

I got a side salad (that came with a nice minty dressing), pickled beets and baba ganoush as my sides. There was probably way too much food. The first picture shows how much of a dent we made.

We had initially been given whole wheat pita and our second round was regular pita. We made little sandwiches with our crazy amount of side salads and actual salad.

Bar B Kosher also serves breakfast which looked intriguing enough to get up earlier to check it out but most likely, I'll be back for more lunches. There are also entress that could make this an option before Artwalk or some other event in the neighborhood. Actually, Bar B Kosher feels more like a neighborhood restaurant rather than a  DTLA business lunch spot.

We'll be back!

When we walked in, it was 10 minutes to 7 p.m. which meant happy hour was ending very shortly. We hustled to a table and had a 3-second conversation. We probably over-ordered but it was like a military campaign, get in and get out fast. This also led me to my a bad decision. The blackberry cosmo.

Oh why, oh why did I order such a thing. A cosmo? I think I was concentrating on the blackberry part. It was $5 and for $2 more, I could make it a double. Of course I made it a double.

If I was a giggling barely 21-year-old baby (um, young woman), then maybe I would have liked this drink. But I'm a whiskey babe and I like my bourbon. This drink was too sweet for me. However, the menu promised other cocktails worth trying. If only I had the time.

As for the food, we ordered the Glendon pizza (mozzarella, gorgonzola, crimini mushrooms, bacon), both the beef and chicken sliders, garlic fries (not shown) and mac & cheese with bacon. The pizza was a bit floppy, the chicken was dry though the beef was juicy. We liked the garlic fries although I was still feeling garlic-y the next day (must have been real garlic). I loved that the sliders came with a side salad. I ate both as my friend doesn't eat vegetables (don't ask). My favorite thing of the night was the creamy mac and cheese. I could have ordered this with crab but I was afraid of what sort of crab it'd be. Instead, we opted for bacon.

Service was really friendly and they came to check on us frequently. We didn't have time for dessert since we were running off to our show (and besides, there were Diddy Riese cookies to be had later).