Price per entree: <$6
Parking: Street
Good For: Lunch or Quick Dinner
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Located in old town Torrance, Bamboo Garden is a japanese noodle shop. This little hole in the wall is a gem that I’m excited to share with everyone. The shop is an excellent choice for lunch or quick dinner and it’s probably well known among the Japanese community by the long line of Japanese customers in a restaurant already full of seated Japanese customers. All the waitstaff speaks fluent Japanese and broken English, the menu on the wall are in Japanese, and the only reason I can order food in Bamboo Garden is because of their special picture menu with Engrish.

When you go into the shop, you wait in line to order and pay your food similar to in fast food restaurant. Then you serve yourself water or tea and find a table. Within 10 minutes or so, the waitress will bring the orders to you.

I ordered Cold Soba with Sushi Set. The Soba come with dipping sauce. The soba is cook to al dente and taste heavenly after dipping the soba quickly in the dipping sauce. I have a lot of fun eating it. The Sushi set consists of 3 nigiris: Mackeryl, Shrimp, and Unagi. The rice seem sticky and sweeter than usual. Very flavorful, I like it very much.

BEST frozen yogurt in the world! The yogurt is sweet but not too sweet, with hint of sourness. So yummy!!! This store alone makes me want to move to west Hollywood so I can have Pinkberry everyday. You have to go try it for yourself so you know how good it is.

Gelato Paradiso
6922 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood
(cross street are Highland and Orange, directly across from Chinese Mann’s Theater)

BEST GELATO IN US!!! I been disappointed with the crappy gelato in US ever since my summer in Europe. Thus, Gelato Pradiso totally surprised my tasting buds when I first visited it last year. I had the delicious Pineapple gelato, it took me back to Italy *Mmmm…* This gelato can make any hot summer day bearable!

Basix Cafe
8333 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069

The food are delicious, the waitstaff are delicious friendly, and the customers (mostly men) are hot. Yummy all around!

Fabiolus Cafe 
6270 Sunset blvd, Hollywood, CA

The food is excellent (for its very reasonable [cheap] price) and the portion is generous. Ask to be seated in the back patio because it’s beautiful and it would make your experience at Fabiolus fabulous!

Things that I discover today and love about Venice Beach:

• Art Galleries
• Cool recreational facilities along the beach (roller skating rink, walls for graffities, paddle tennis courts, hand ball courts, muscle beach/outdoor gym, skate boarding area)
• Lots to see (art, performance, people watch, games, tournaments, galleries)
• Very diverse crowd

Venice beach is such unique beach, everyone should visit at least once. I plan to go back to this beach again.

And here’s a review I wrote for last year (2005)’s concert:

From the Hollywood Bowl site for this Sunday night (9/18) performance:

“The traditional season-ending spectacular with John Mauceri and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra takes you on a tour of the brilliantly colorful sights and sounds of Russia. Still under the direction of the legendary 99-year-old Igor Moiseyev, the Moiseyev Dance Company brings the authentic spirit and exuberance of Russian folk dance in their Bowl debut. The only thing to compare to the aerial feats of the Moiseyev will be the spectacular grand finale fireworks. ”

I went a few years ago just for the concert, it gets a bit boring. However, I always wanted to attend one of their firework concert. That was a very smart decision. We come prepare; brought good food, wine, and a warm blanket.  The show tonight was AWESOME!

Highland: 

1)fireworks with music

2) Russian dancers doing the russian dance (a lot of kicking). All of them must have strong legs

3) Russian dancer in costume doing a little skit of 2 kids fighting

Lowlights:

hm….the show is awesome. After drink the wine, I crave for hot noodle soup but there’s no hot noodle soup to be found. heheh..can’t really count as low light for the show though.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. DEFINITELY WILL DO THIS AGAIN.

We met at the Will Call at 12:30PM and spent the next 4.5 hours eating through downtown Gaslamp. Most of the restaurant listed are medium priced ($15-$30 per entree) so the dishes are pretty descent and decor are very nice. Gawd, my stomach was ready to burst by 3PM. We end up sampled only half of the restaurants listed.

Of the restaurants we sampled, these are my favorites:

Sevilla (#16) – Their Espresso Cream Brulee was delicious. We went there toward the end of event so I was full and only ate one. But man, I wanted more (like TEN MORE). Furthermore, this restaurant provide dinner show (Flamenco, Tango, and Gypsy dance shows). After 9:30pm, it turned into a night club, Salsa dancing during week nights and regular/DJ club during weekend nights. I would love to go here again.

Stingaree(#19) -First restaurant we visited. The food was average but the decor and ambient of the place was very nice. On the roof top, there are little tents with plasma TV and bars. Inside the restaurant, there's a 32 feet water fountain wall in the middle. Very cool. I can totally see this place turn into a very trendy lounge during the night. I would love to bring a group of friends here and just hang out at the roof top.

Dussini Mediterranean Bistro (#22) – The sample Dussini provided was Penne Pasta with Saute Mushroom in Creamy Sauce. I dislike most US restaurants' creamy dishes because the sauce usually are too rich and greasy. However, the dish at Dussini was excellent. Now I want to go back to try their other cream sauce dishes.

Dakota Grill & Spirits (#11) – The sample was steak with veggies. The medium – rare steak was excellent. The restaurant has an old classy feeling to it, it would be a good place for business dinner. The pianist playing the piano for the diners was pretty good too.

Rama Thai (#26) – The sample was Thai curry (pork with bamboo shoot and bell peppers) with rice. I totally thought it would be just another average Thai dish but the dish turned out to be really good. Now I want to try more of their dishes.

Fleming's Steak House & Wine Bar (#27) – I wanted to go to Fleming's because there's a Fleming in Manhattan Beach that was suppose to be really good but I never been, and this is part of that chain. The sample was a cube of cooled fillet Mignon drizzle with rosemary and truffle oil sauce over grill zucchini. I prefer my entree hot, however, this dish was delicious. The meat just melted in my mouth. YUM!

Masala, Spices of India (#24) – I don't like Indian food because after 10+ tries, I still don't like most of the dishes (maybe I been order the wrong things but so far, I only found two dishes that I likes – the sweet milk ball thing and the grill chicken). The sampled Masala provided was (red) chicken curry with garbanzo bean and basmati rice. I actually like it and probably wouldn't mind too much if all Indian food taste that good. Everyone in the group love it and many plans to go back; a few proclaimed this is their favorite restaurant among all that we tried.

Additional Notes:

We did not went inside of Osetra (ran out of time) since a couple been there before. There is a TALL (3 stories high) wine bar in the middle of the restaurant. Supposedly, if you order a bottle of wine, the waitress would strap herself into a harness to retrieve the wine, a la cirque soleil style. I would go to there for dinner just to see that.

THIN is a lounge/club. The decor is very neat but the drink sample was horrible!!! Get drunk before you hit this club.

Belo Restaurant + Nightlife is in the basement, so it would be very hard to spot from the street. The decor is very warm (lots of bright orange, I like) and the shrimp sample was pretty good too.

Visions Restaurants + Lounge has Tuesday movie night where they show the latest movie release. The tables are separated by blinds and each table has its own plasma TV. The decor is very trendy, almost pretentious. (I did not try their sushi sample, was too full at this point). This would be a very cool place for a laid-back outing.

Conclusion:

"Taste of Gaslamp" is awesome. You get to try out THIRTY restaurants for only $25. It's a steal! If I have the chance, I would buy the two day pass ($40) because it is just too much food to digest in one day. There is also a similar event call "Taste of Hillcrest" and the guy who went highly recommended it.  If you live in San Diego or plan to visit SD, you should look into trying both of these events. 

145 Palmetto Drive, Pasadena, CA

(626) 794 – 6674

I been wanting to check out Mijares since Julie recommend it. Now I regret for not going sooner because it has THE BEST MEXICAN FOOD!!! Even better than mexican food in the tourisy mexico cities! I ordered Pork Tamale and Chile Renello. The pork in mexican food are usually too dry for my liking, but at Mijares, the pork was tender and moist. Delicious! Chile Renello is just a green chile pepper fill with cheese. I usually avoid this dish because it usually taste too rich (greasy) and then make me feel fat afterward. I was amazed at the chile renello at Mijares. The cheese are like those I had in Europe, cheesy but light. I ate the whole thing and did think it was too greasy nor did I felt fat afterward. I went with a few friends and tried bites of their dishes, all of them are yummy. The lady sitting at the table next to us ordered soup. The portion looks huge, with lots of ingredients. I should try that next time I go.

PRO: Best mexican food you'll ever taste.

CON: It's in the middle of residential/industrial buildings. You wouldn't know about it if no one told you about it. 

Mijares is now my favorite mexican restaurant. I highly recommend it.

I want to get to know my hometown. This would be a chronicle of the places and events in LA (plus some out of town trips). Besides, I'm getting tire of people dissing LA. Despite the smog and traffic jam, I think LA is a great city. If there's a t-shirt that says "I love LA," I would wear it!