LA’s Best Secret Menu Foods: Jitlada’s Green Beans

We hope Chef Jazz doesn’t get mad at us for telling her secret, but we can’t help but want to bring more people into the Jitlada family. That is, after all, exactly what it feels like after you’ve been there a few times. When you’re sweating bullets while eating her southern curry (nowhere near the hottest on their menu) and Chef Jazz comes over to fill up your water, there’s nothing more endearing than the look on her face. Half of it is a sort of admiration, based in the fact that you’re going for it, halfway through the bowl without complaining, and half of it is a grin, knowing that it is a “2” out of 10 on her spice-meter.

Mar202018

Holy Roly: LA Restaurant Review

Up next on our Must-Visit LA Restaurants of 2018 is actually a dessert spot! Surely, if you’re reading this review, you’ve checked Holy Roly out on Yelp. If you haven’t, we’ll summarize the criticism on Yelp in two words: overpriced and parking. Nearly all of the complaints come from a lack of familiarity of the LA food scene, especially Koreatown. So, to debunk those myths… any dessert under $10 is normal and never think you’ll find parking in K-town.

Maybe we have an unfair advantage, having lived a few blocks away. We knew where to park and when to go. As a result, we didn’t spend thirty minutes parking and wait in any line here, so we weren’t in a bad mood before we started eating. We found out about Holy Roly from Maneet Chauhan, since it didn’t actually exist yet when we lived here. We actually discovered our love for rolled ice cream, in all places, at a Thai-owned and operated location in Montgomery, Alabama.

Mar102018

Gwen: LA Restaurant Review

Not everything goes according to plan, and when you go to restaurants “on your list” for dinner one night and lunch the next day, it can really throw you for a loop… and this did! I was planning on a romantic (and expensive) dinner at Gwen, but what we never expected was to discover that Gwen is one of LA’s hidden LUNCH gems! Some of the highest quality meats in the city at reasonable prices?! Yea, actually.

Even though the restaurant’s tall ceilings, accented by incredible design and elaborate chandeliers, are still present, this is actually a very casual lunch spot. You order at the counter, take a number (I’m not sure if we actually took one) and the wait staff brings your food to the table when it’s ready. It wasn’t immediate, since they clearly cook from scratch, but it was relatively empty in there and didn’t take long at all.

Mar082018

Why I Train and How I Train

This is going to be a very bloggy blog… if that makes any sense. Sorry for the few days off; it has been a crazier-than-normal past week or so.

As you can see from the picture below, last week, I was “forced” into action when we were taking Noke for her morning walk. A genius couple decided to “tie” their 120+ lb Great Pyrenees to a ~15lb garden table that wasn’t anchored to anything, while they went inside together to get their morning coffee. The dog must’ve planned on greeting Noke, even though we tried to avoid her, and everything went downhill quickly from there. When the table hit the ground, Daisy (the huge white cloud of fur) ran and, thinking that the table was chasing her, wouldn’t stop. The male owner ran outside the coffee shop, freaked out and started chasing her.

Please consider that this is happening on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood (Los Angeles, California) so the chance that Daisy ran into the street and got hit (by a car) was extremely high. They had a 3-5 second head start before Fit gave me that look and told me I had to help. With my torn calf and handful of other injuries (I’ve only been doing PT and rehab exercises the past three months) I chased after Daisy and the table she was pulling down the sidewalk. It took about two seconds to pass her owner and caught up to her a few seconds after she turned onto a side street that leads up to the Hollywood Hills… phew! Unfortunately, the table provided a barrier between us and when I reached to grab her, I fell THROUGH THE TABLE and onto the concrete.

Mar012018

Casablanca: LA Restaurant Review

Disclaimer: This was NOT on our original list, but it should’ve been! Why? When I first arrived in LA to visit Fit’s family, on the way home from the airport, I remember her mum pointing this place out and saying, “they have the best tortillas ever.” I’ve heard that dozens of times over the years and we finally had the chance to try them out! (Fit went here from time to time while growing up.)

Next up in our Must-Visit LA Restaurants of 2018 project is Casablanca! So, a little more background before we talk food at Casablanca… our friends were in town and were nice enough to let us know! When we asked where they wanted to eat, one said that her brother recommended this spot since they were staying in Venice. I was thrilled to finally have the chance to test out Casablanca’s tortillas and I was NOT disappointed.

Even though we strolled in right around the start of peak dinner hours, they were already nearly full, but we were seated immediately. It is a very interesting spot: imagine a Hollywood-inspired building from a past century that transported you to Morocco and served you Mexican food. While it probably belongs closer to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, it fits in Venice very well. It’s been around forever. Warmth builds in the tight dining room with what feels like a low ceiling, especially when you notice the tortillas being made a few feet away and realize that the piano is behind played behind your back. This place has a lot of character.

Feb222018

The Ponte: LA Restaurant Review

When we started this project (Must-Visit Restaurants in LA), we knew there would be challenges depending on our schedules, but we vowed to keep the wheels on the wagon and here we are for our third installment. While we didn’t order our top 40 list, The Ponte definitely would’ve fallen into the top 10. With Food Network celebrity chef Scott Conant behind this high-end Italian restaurant and considering his reputation for pasta mastery, our expectations were high.

But then, we were thrown a curveball. When researching The Ponte, it seemed as if they had a slew of entrees in the $28-32 dollar range, which is in our $$$ range. However, I didn’t consider that my Valentine’s Day reservations might have come with a third wheel on our date: a fixed, four-course meal. Still, as we valeted our car and walked through their enchanting entrance at the back of the restaurant, we decided that our entire focus would be on enjoying this experience.

And. we. did.

Feb072018

Connie & Ted’s: LA Restaurant Review

Second stop on our 2018 “Must Visit Before We Move Out of LA” Food Tour (last stop was Sqirl and next week is… well, we’re not sure yet, but we’re going to have a nice, romantic meal at The Ponte on Valentine’s Day) is Connie & Ted’s. Connie & Ted’s is a restaurant based on a New England love story featuring, well, Connie & Ted who are this restaurant owner’s grandparents. When you think New England, you perhaps think lobster or clam chowder or some kind of seafood–and that’s what Connie & Ted’s is all about! The restaurant is huge with plenty of staff and it is everything seafood. Obviously, expectations are high based on their reputation, perennial presence on Mr. Gold’s 101 Best List, etc.

Jan302018

Sqirl: LA Restaurant Review

Recently, we launched one of our most exciting projects of the year: LA’s Must-Visit Restaurants of 2018. What does this mean exactly and why is it so exciting? Well…it means instead of ordering Indian for the fifth week in a row, we are going to try new places! Each week, from this list that you’ll find in the post linked above, we are going to try a highly-rated (from someone or another) restaurant in Los Angeles and then tell you, our beloved readers, about it! Our first stop in this epic adventure was Sqirl, a “contemporary breakfast and lunch” as they word it.

It was rather a chance occasion that we did this; my brother’s girlfriend’s cousin (I know, it’s a mouthful) was in town and they were all going to breakfast at Sqirl. We got an invite and said, why not! Sqirl is just on the border of Silver Lake and East Hollywood and boy do you notice. No parking and plenty of hipsters abound! We parked a few blocks away and hiked down one of Silver Lake’s many mountain-like hills to a little cafe. The cafe is “hip” with plenty of hipsters both in line and cooking, serving, and/or cashiering. If you don’t know the exact address, you’ll find Sqirl by the at-least 15-person wait line (and that’s if you’re lucky and/or smart and go at 8:30am) outside. The format of food-getting is wait in a line to get to the counter, order your food, and hope for a table. Like I said, it’s a little place, so there aren’t many of them. The smartest thing to do is split your party into table-grabbers and food-orderers.

Jan282018

LA’s Must-Visit Restaurants of 2018

As we wrap up the last weekend of the first month in the year, we consider what else does 2018 have in store for us? Well, how about you switch roles, sit in the driver’s seat and ask yourself, what do we have in store for 2018? You’ve followed us on our move from New York City to Boulder, Colorado. (That road-trip, with a long stop in Mason City, Iowa, is when we started this blog!) After two years of eating all the delicious food in Boulder, we packed the animals in the car and headed to Los Angeles.

While we’ve been in LA for about three and a half years, we realized that there are so many top-notch restaurants that we haven’t been to yet! With a move coming up at the end of the year, we decided to show some restraint, avoid going back to our favorite eateries for the 10th time and make an epic list of LA’s must-visit restaurants of 2018! Every week of 2018, we’re going to try one new restaurant on the list, try to take some amazing photos for you (if the lighting is right) and review our experience there!

Jan262018

The SEVEN Secrets about Thai Food!

Full Disclosure: we’re not Thai. Our 21&Me/Ancestry.com DNA tests and family trees show zero traces of any Asian heritage, but we do love their food! We love it so much, that we were willing to shell out top dollar to go on a “secret” food-tour of LA’s (Hollywood’s) Thai Town led by one of the world’s leading ambassadors for Thai cuisine, Jet Tila.

If you watch Food Network, you know who Jet is. If you love cooking Asian food at home, you might be aware that he had one of the top-selling cookbooks of the year. (We have our signed copy of 101 Asian Dishes You Need to Cook Before You Die on our coffee table.) What you might not know about Jet is the fact that he is the United States’ Official Food Ambassador to Thailand, and a member of the Thai family that opened the first Thai restaurants in the US. So, Jet is legit.