I took an unexpected one-month break from blogging. It’s not because something bad happened or anything—I just got a bit busy with work, got pretty involved with helping one of my friends with one of her business projects, and also ended up spending more time with friends than I usually do.
The funny part, though, is the timing of my one-month blogging break. I disappeared immediately after posting my April Fool’s blog post where I did a review of McDonald’s in the same format of my other fine dining reviews. It was probably very obviously a joke for people who read it on the 1st of April, but people who saw it at the top of my website at the end of April and didn’t see the April 1 timestamp were probably a bit confused and thought I just really like McDonald’s.
I don’t have too many photos from April that I’m able to share publicly, but I do have a bunch of food pictures.
Here is a meat pie, chocolate cake, mango smoothie, and steak sandwich from Porto’s Bakery & Café.
Here is a cup of clam chowder being lovingly embraced by hand model Billie-Rae.
On an auspicious night when I was visiting my friend Doug Wreden in Los Angeles County, he asked me whether I would be willing to join him on an adventure to get Dave’s Hot Chicken. I agreed, and we set off on our journey.
We showed up to the address listed on Google Maps and found out that apparently the restaurant was a ghost kitchen, and the entrance to the building was nowhere in sight, so we couldn’t just go up and order. We called the restaurant a few times, and each time, the phone just kept ringing, and we basically just waited on the line for several minutes for no reason. There was an option to order online, but that wasn’t really helpful for us because we literally could not find the entrance anyway to pick up the food. In frustration, we ate at a different chicken spot.
A few days later, I ordered delivery from Dave’s Hot Chicken out of the sheer curiosity of whether or not my delivery driver would be able to find the pick-up location. Apparently he did, because these two spicy chicken sandwiches arrived at my doorstep half an hour later.
The food was passable at best.
In mid-April, I joined a friend to try out Intercrew.
For her drink, she got a Pink Lemonade, which wasn’t actually pink lemonade, but rather, a mixture of Tito’s vodka, pamplemousse, pineapple, and cranberry. I did not try any of it, but apparently the drink was extremely strong.
Our first appetizer was naan with ssamjang butter. The naan was very soft with a delicate texture, and the ssamjang butter had a great balance of butteriness and spice.
Next was hamachi crudo with blood oranges, amaranth puff, caper, kizami wasabi, cilantro, and yuzu ponzu. The garnish was a little intense and overwhelmed the flavor of the yellowtail a bit, but it was still good.
For my main entrée, I got an uni garlic rice with sea urchin and salmon roe. This was my favorite dish of the restaurant. I am a big fan of all the ingredients—uni is my favorite type of sushi, I like caviar and other fish eggs, and garlic is one of my favorite vegetables—so it was reasonable that I liked a dish that had all of it combined.
We also got a pasta dish which, if I remember correctly, was a special that wasn’t regularly available on the menu. It was insanely spicy for some reason; I ended up taking the rest of this with me in a to-go box, and when I went to eat the leftovers, I lightly rinsed the pasta in water before reheating it to try and get rid of the intensity.
My friend decided we need more protein for the meal, so we also got Creekstone beef tartare with singha pears, pine nuts, fresh horseradish, garlic, sesame, and sea beans, topped with raw egg and with a side of crispy rice paper. This was very typical of high-quality beef tartare, and I enjoyed it.
Near the end of the month, I joined some friends at the Jade Court Café. We had some chicken lettuce cups made with sesame soy-marinated ground chicken and with a side of water chestnuts, crispy rice noodles, shaved cabbage, butter lettuce, shredded carrots, and spiced peanuts. We also got two bowls of red bean sesame balls.