Derek L.'s Profile

Japanese Restaurant. Korean Owned. Speaks Mandarin. Haha.

It's nestled in a plaza of sorts, hidden away in the corner. So I guess it could be a little elusive to discover.

But once you get down to the ordering, omg wow, they do serve generous slabs of sashimi. Their TTK Boat had just various rolls and sashimi, with tempura to boot (which was perfectly fine, seeing as how other Japanese restaurants fill up their "boats" w/ various teriyaki chickens and beefs.) Refillable appetizers, and you get miso soup and edamame. The servers seemed to be a tad overwhelmed today, but otherwise, this is a fantastic little join.

One fantastic scoop of green tea ice cream to finish off the meal. Delish.

Pudding milk tea. The pudding isn't like most places.. Its soft nd crumbly.. Yet it sorts tastes like flan. Up to u if u like that.. The milk tea is alright.. Nothing special though.. Cost $3.75 for a large. Lots of seating here and free wifi w/ terribly slow speeds. It's a pretty fobby joint.

As the rating says, "Meh. I've experienced better."

Cash Only.

Came here for a celebratory dindin w/ the fambam. I knew coming in this was a tappas joint, meaning that you're not here to stuff your face full, but rather to taste and enjoy the exquisite flavors that a fusion locale has to offer. And boy, was I not disappointed.

A list of all the items we ordered: Yuzu Pepper Whitefish, Salmon Sashimi w/ Garlic Citrus Soy, Truffle Butter Edamame, Iidako (marinated baby octopus), Ribeye beef w/ garlic rice, stone pot fried rice w/ poached egg, deep fried soft shell crab, crispy rice albacore, (and from the chalk board): fresh oysters on a half shell (kumamoto) and sauteed asari clams w/ chorizo.

Some standouts. The Yuzu Pepper Whitefish. Truffle Butter Edamame. Fresh Oysters on a half shell.

Delicious. Exquisite. Unique. Wonderful. Flavors.

P.S. It's a small joint, so you could be in for a little wait.

Very hyped up joint. As someone visiting up from LA, I was very excited to get my chops on this. We came here around 1pm on a Saturday. As such, I was expecting a crowd or something. To my surprise, there wasn't a soul in line. So we literally parked, walked all the way in, and had a register available for all four of us.

I got a plate of ribs and boneless chicken, w/ sides of cole slaw and fries. Which were pretty generous portions (along w/ the meat) for the $13 or so I paid. The ribs, as everyone else has stated a million times over, were freaking amazinggggg. I wasn't wowed by the chicken. And the cole slaw and fries were great sides.

The only problem I could see with this place is, that when it gets back, I assume it'd be hard to find seats, seeing as you seat yourself to whatever booth/table's open. And like I said, there was no line, but as we were sitting and enjoying our moment of gluttony, the line started to form and rear its ugly face. Thankfully, we were already inside, bahahhaha.

Coming up north from the SGV, where there are a ton of Asian joints, I'm used to a certain level of quality from my Chinese foods And with a restaurant that shares the same name as the other various locales back home, there was definitely a standard to which I was holding the name up to.

Needless to say (as evidenced by my review), this was not a happy experience. Me and my friends were seated at a table that was pretty disgusting, and after a friend pointed it out to one of the servers (in Canto), the lady got all offended, saying the busboys failed at their job. After she cleans up, we turn around and see that she's the one cleaning tables. Ehhz.

The food. Was pretty plain. For an Asian joint. Beef Chow Fun lacked flavor. And that's a default popular dish no matter where you go. Friend got a BBQ Pork Fried rice that was terribly bland and included very dry Cha Siu. Hot and Sour Soup had a terrible balance of the two flavors. The only thing they didn't mess up was a Black Bean Clam, thankfully.

I see that this place has a decent rating, so I guess it must be one of the better joints in the area. I wasn't impressed.

Party of 3. Had a pretty longass waiting time during Saturday night dinner. As others have mentioned, your best bet is to come as a party of 2; 5 or so other pairs were seated before we were; even though some of them arrived as much as 20minutes later. Go figure.

Shared a Daikokuya Ramen and Pork Cutlet Rice with a friend. The Daikokuya Ramen was pretty banging. Not so much love for the Pork Cutlet Rice. Soggy outside and tasteless inside.

Besides the wait time though, I guess I had a decent experience here. One of the better ramen joints that I've tried in a while.

Tiny lil location; definitely would not have noticed it (nor go into the northern ridges of Pasadena) for this joint, but for a friend's suggestion to go. Plenty of parking, but not so much dining space on the inside (however, there was another outside patio area for overflow). We got a Philly Cheese Steak, Avocado Fries, and a Large Vanilla Coke. The Philly Cheese Steak was pretty awesome. The Avocado Fries were absolutely bombastic. And Vanilla Coke isn't something that's pretty commonplace anymore, so that was definitely a plus (not to mention free refills. For a large drink. What!?) The whole meal was just about $12, which I guess is slightly on the pricier side of things, but split between two people, it wasn't too bad. I'm definitely a fan of this place, but am just sad at how far I had to drive up to get here.

Was driven to come down here after the Arcadia/Monrovia one closed up sometime ago. This is one of my favorite Italian food restaurants, so I was definitely aching for some good food to drive all the way down here.

There was lots of parking for a Saturday night dinner, and it didn't take long for our party of four to get seated. Our waitress was very attentive to us the whole entire night, with better service than I was used to at other Macaroni Grill locations. They continue to uphold the "writing their name in crayon, upside down" dealio that I hadn't seen in the previous place too. The food was served to us in a timely manner, and tasted spectacular as well.

Definitely would not mind returning here, with it's only drawback being its location from me.

My friend raved about this joint, so we gave it a go.

Big thumbs up about parking and location, seeing as it was right next to the place, with more than enough parking, which was free as well. That's a plus.

But about the place. Service was pretty bad. We waited like 5 minutes outside before someone finally tried to greet and seat us. After we sat down, we had to wait another 5 minutes before menus were given to us. You're telling me you can't do that all at once, in a minute's time? Humz.

I order an Umami burger. Warning to the guys and big eaters; these things are tiny. As others have stated before me. I finished the thing pretty quickly and was left wondering.. where did my burger go and.. where was the flavor? There were no distinctive tastes in my burger and at the end of the meal, I was definitely left wanting. However, I will give them props for their thin fries. Those were good. Doesn't balance out the disappointing burger though.

One interesting thing though; their water cups are made out of plastic and have a little spot for your thumbs! Novel idea, but that doesn't wow my tastebuds. Nice try though.

TL;DR: I've had better.

First a lil anecdote. Friend had wanted to try out a French restaurant, but had to postpone to today d/t her busy schedule. That worked out perfectly fine because there ended up being a GROUPON for Fraiche (20for40), so that was pretty sweet.

Anyways. Free 2 hr parking in the nearby parking structure is awesome. Once we got inside, we were seated immediately. And ended up ordering the Lobster Taglierini and the Half Roasted Chicken. Our waiter suggested the swordfish appetizer, to which I must admit was my favorite item of the night. I also enjoyed the Half Roasted Chicken over the Lobster Taglierini. But the waiter talked up the Taglierini more than the Chicken, so.. I don't know.

The restaurant was about half full, but the place was still pretty dang noisy (as others have mentioned). The food was alright, but the service was amazing.