Katsuya!

Our theater in L.A. was located across the street from the famous restaurant Katsuya, where celebrities are often seen dining (or not; more on that later) in their sleek dining room.

Jamie and I were determined to eat here, but since we would have had to take out a loan to make dinner happen, we decided to get their lunch bento boxes and supplement it with some of their signature items.  Boy am I glad we did.

The ambiance of the restaurant was great; kind of like a night club that yearned to be a restaurant with slightly creepy pictures on the walls.  They must do great business on Halloween.

We started with baked crab handrolls.  While in LA I saw a friend who used to work at Katsuya.  She said that the employees called these “crack rolls” and I understand why.  They were insanely addictive.  The crab was mixed with what with a light creamy sauce, wrapped in rice paper and finished with a sprinkle of sesame seeds.  This was the real deal crab, imitation need not apply.  I can only assume one of the main ingredients was in fact crack; I could have inhaled a dozen of these.

Crack-Filled Crab Rolls

We also tried the BSC roll (as suggested by my friend) which I realized stands for Baked Scallop California roll.  It was your traditional California roll topped with scallops in a thick cream sauce and then broiled until golden brown on top.  I’m glad I was splitting this with Jamie because it was borderline too rich, but the combination of scallops and the silky, savory sauce wouldn’t allow my self-control to say no.

Scallops. On top of Susi. Hail yeah.

The miso soup/salad were fairly run of the mill.  While there, I commented how there was a slightly richer depth of flavor than your average Japanese place in the soup and the dressing, but in retrospect it may have been me trying to find something more gastronomically substantial in a high profile restaurant.

Meh.

My beef teriyaki was an actual fillet of beef and not your traditional minced up cow sometimes found in one’s bento box.  It sat atop some bangin’ potato puree; creamy and light, but with a hearty quality to it.  I was not a fan of the sauce that came on it, however.  It had a canned taste to it.  That being said, of course I finished the whole thing.

Where's the beef?! ...No one? Just Me?

On that note, we noticed the table of two next to us ordered a TON of food and hardly touched it.  They left platter upon platter of untouched sushi, crab rolls and other appetizers without eating a piece and didn’t take any of it with them?!  Are doggie bags only an east coast thing?  It boggled my mind.

Back to the food.  Jamie ordered the miso marinated black cod which was beautifully presented and fantastic.  The fish was cooked perfectly and the miso glaze offered a sweetness that complemented the fresh fish wonderfully.

Cod-tastic.

We added sides of tempura and spicy tuna roll, and like the salad and soup, they were run of the mill.

It's like Jenga, but with fried vegetables.

Lotta rice, little tuna

Overall, would I be back?  For the house specialties (and with someone else’s credit card), sure!  I’ve also heard their cocktails are fantastic, but we didn’t want to get crunked on a show day.  Next time!

LA LA LA LA LA LA!!!!

The entire tour I was excited to go to/eat at/see friends in/see the sights of/perform in Los Angeles, California, and I was not disappointed one bit.

Rather than do one post on all of L.A. (I ate a lot), I’m adopting a new practice of posting one EXPERIENCE at a time rather than one city at a time.  Enjoy!

Umami Burger

Went with a group of people to the infamous Umami Burger.  The restaurant (and this burger in particular) have been featured in numerous publications and television shows (including one of my favorites, The Best Thing I Ever Ate on the Food Network).   I was very excited that we had the time to check it out.

Started the meal splitting a beet and truffled ricotta salad with Travis.  Is it weird that this was one of my favorite parts of the meal at a burger place?  It was light yet earthy because of the beets (red AND golden beats), and had the right amount of crunch due to the almonds on it to contrast the creaminess of the ricotta.   And truffled anything is insanely delicious.

If ya can't BEET 'em, join 'em....Nobody?

I had to try their signature burger with a side of…truffle cheese fries (you only live once.  Eat truffles.) again split with Travis.  They were ooey gooey truffle deliciousness.  I could eat a bucket of them; it’s a good thing we were splitting them.  Less guilt.

The burger was certainly tasty, but didn’t really mesh as well as I was anticipating.  It features roasted tomatoes, caramelized onions, a parmesan crisp, sautéed shitake mushrooms and house made ketchup.  It was trying to capture the fifth taste (aside from sweet, salty, bitter and sour); umami, which is a pungent earthiness commonly described in Asian cooking. I thought there was too much going on, and it wasn’t harmonious enough for me.  I think I may need to try it and eat more slowly (a practice I need to adopt all the time).

What the restaurant is NAAAAMED FOR!

I tasted the truffle burger, which had house made truffle cheese and a truffle glaze.  Yes, yes and more yes.  The truffles seem to capture umami for me better than the namesake burger.

Trufflepalooza.

We got to sample all of the sauces: Housemade ketchup (delicious and a richer flavor than your every day bottled ketchup), Dijon mustard (I’m a mustard fan and it did not disappoint!), house spread (glorified thousand Island), roasted garlic aioili (duh. Awesome), and jalapeno ranch (an interesting kick to a common dressing).  I love me some condiments!

Saucetastic.

Finished the meal with ice cream sandwiches from Milk, which is a dessert place that I ran out of time to go to itself.  I was excited to try some their products in a different location!

The salted caramel tasted like roasted coffee, and as someone who doesn’t like coffee, I was not a fan.  I’m a huge proponent for the rise in popularity of salted caramel, and this was not a good representation.  It lacked that fantastic balance between salty and sweet.

Salted Caramel ice cream sandwich. Eh.

The red velvet ice cream sandwich was amazing;  the outside of the ice cream was coated with white chocolate, and the cookie was a red velvet with a fantastic vanilla filling.  I could have eaten one the size of my face (if only they sold it).

I wanted to dress in THIS red velvet. See what I did there? 'Cause velvet is a fabric.

Would I be back to Umami buger?  Without a doubt.  Open some up on the east coast please!

Arizona, or; I thought this place was supposed to be warm PART UNO!

While New York was pummeled with snow, we escaped to the West Coast and the warmth…or so I thought.   But more on the frigidity in the next post.

After our food filled Oregon travels, we went to Tempe Arizona, where I had the pleasure of meeting up with a few friends who showed me some great eats.

I had the great pleasure of going to Israel this Summer with a group of incredible people to see some life-changing sights and learn a few life lessons along the way.  I got to meet up with a great friend of mine from the trip in Tempe.

She works at the Phoenecian—one of the nicest resorts I have ever seen, and she took me to Relish, their upscale burger bar.  And boy did I eat.

A noun and a verb.

We started with a spinach salad with pears and bleu cheese.  It was your typical refreshing salad; I got it so that I had something green.

Blurrtastic salad.

It was followed by a half pound kobe burger with thick sliced bacon, barbecue sauce, and an onion ring.

Kobe-tastic.

There isn’t much I can say about kobe beef that hasn’t been said; it was cooked beautifully medium rare, juicy and had a depth of flavor that your typical steak is undeniably missing.

And it came with tater tots!  They were crispy and delicious; it’s pretty hard to mess up tater tots, and theirs were served in a mini fryer basket.  I wanted to steal it, but it was slightly bulky and I’d be a little too obvious.

Unsurprisingly, they provided three relishes; traditional, spicy, and prickly pear (they have a thing for prickly pears in Arizona).  The traditional was what I expected, the spicy had a nice kick, and the prickly pear had a nice contrast between sweet and tart.

Ended the movie with a chocolate chip cookie sundae.  I was full before it.  Then I died.  Decadently delicious, warm and gooey.  Need I say more?

Cookie. In a skillet.

They brought out a sample trio of their shakes–a peanut butter chocolate, oreo and chocolate.  I wish they sold all shakes like this–so much less guilt.

These milkshakes brought this boy to the yard.

The next day I got to meet up with the lovely Elyse Ault who I went to school with and resides in Scottsdale, a hop, skip and jump from Tempe.

We went to cafe Boa near the theater/ASU campus. Started out with white sangria.  Sangria+sitting outside+the month of January?!  Priceless.

Sangria for me-a. No? Just me?

We went to café boa and started with a cheese plate; a luxury I hardly afford myself but need to do more often.  From what I remember,we got an aged gouda, a  burrrata and a spreadable soft goats milk cheese.  In my world, accompianments are everything, and these were great; currants, quince paste and arugula with buttery grilled bread.

A cheesey way to start a meal.

Aged gouda is my jam, and I find it difficult to go wrong with goat cheese, but burrata is quickly gaining momentum on my list.  It’s a very mildly flavored stringy cheese (similar to fresh mozzerella) and full of ooey gooey goodness.  Definitely ordering it the next time I see it on a menu.

I got “toasted gnocchi” as an entrée in a fennel onion cream sauce.  One of the richest dishes I have had in a while but that didn’t stop me from eating the delicious pillows of dough, pan fried to a delicious golden brown.  The cream sauce has just the right balance of licorice-y fennel to savory onion flavor.

Gnocchi-tastic.

Elyse got an elk ravioli; despite trying and retrying elk, I just find it too gamey.  The pasta was cooked to a wonderful al dente and the rich brown sauce it came in was a perfect mach for the gamey meat.

Elkioli.

Also–I hiked a mountain with Courtney, Travis and Emily!  Who knew I had the ability to do physical activity?  I even got up early to do it.

 

I don’t know who I am anymore.  The view was SO worth it!

 

Flying across a winter wonderland.

We laugh in the face of snow—ha!

Two feet of snow can’t keep the cast of Spring Awakening down!

We were supposed to travel from Beaver Creek to Denver, and then fly from Denver to Spokane.

Then the snow happened (*for redundancy, see first post).

As did the sleep deprivation.  We had to be on the bus at 6 to try to bypass the un-bypassable snow.

All the roads were closed from Beaver Creek to Denver, so we drove two hours to Aspen, took a plane from Aspen to Denver, and then a flight from Denver to Spokane.  A travel day of maybe 6 hours turned into a travel day of about 14.  I was turning that kind of sleep-deprived-this-day-has-been-thiry-six-hours-long-giggle-filled-crazy-person.  I was so attractive.

Now onto the lovely Spokane!

I love me some Food Network.  Love isn’t the word—I depend on the Food Network.  I have faith in the Food Network.  My spirit gains nourishment from suckling on the teat of the Food Networks swollen bosom of knowledge and culinary pioneer-dom.

That being said, sometimes they get it wrong.

Every chance I get, I try to check out a restaurant featured on “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” (in which the TV chefs discuss their favorite places to eat/food) and it ain’t hardly some of the best things I ever ate (only sometimes.  I mean you can’t bat one thousand all the time (whatever that means)).

“Diners Drive Ins and Dives” is a show in which Guy Fieri, a bleached haired, sunglass wearing spitfire travels the country searching out places that portray the show’s namesake.  These places are EXTREMELY hit or miss, and in Spokane Washington, we hit a home run at Hills Restaurant and Lounge in Spokane, Washington.

Went with George, Jeff, Jamie and Kai (she kind of broke the alliteration theme I was going for, but she’s a foodie too).  Went at around three so we had the place to ourselves.

To start, George ordered a dish comprising of mushrooms in a savory cream sauce in a phyllo basket—the name of which escapes me, but boy did it make me hungry for more (I also could have eaten a baby alligator at this point—I was starving).  It was light despite the cream sauce and the contrast of the crispy phyllo with the meaty mushrooms was fantastic.

Jeff got a scotch egg, which is an egg covered with sausage and breaded.  Served with a sweet spicy mustard, it was something i could easily eat a dozen of.  Or a baker’s dozen even.

Mmmmm. Egg. Fried.

We all ordered different dishes and pretty much ate them family style.

I got the reuben, but it was only afterwards I realized it was missing cheese and sauerkraut.  They just gave me a corned beef sandwich.  It was okay.  The least exciting thing ordered.  Not usually how I roll.  Maybe I was still buckwild tired.

George got the pulled pork.  I always forget how versatile and flavorful pulled pork can be.  It had the perfect amount of sauce so it wasn’t drippy and had a complex smoky flavor.  I’d bathe in it if I could.  Though then I’d have to shower it off—it’d probably clog the drain.  OY then I’d have to get a plumber.  Okay.  I’d rather eat it.

Jamie got their homemade pasta in a pancetta cream sauce (featured on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives)—rich and delicious.  Also came with enormous chunks of homemade focaccia.

It may not look like a lot, but it was rich-tastic. And delicioso.

Jeff got an elk burger—also featured on the show—elk is still a little gamey for me, but they cooked it beautifully and made a homemade mustard sauce that was outta dis’ world.

Gamey Elkiness.

Also, who doesn’t love SAUCE?!  They have a section of their menu full of sauces.  George got some kind of gorgonzola sauce with his homemade chips.  I could’ve eaten that silky rich goodness as an entrée.  And then passed out from gorgonzola consumption.

Hills Restaurant and Lounge
401 West Main Avenue
Spokane, WA 99201-0213

Spokane is also freakin’ beautiful.  We were situated along the Spokane river, which had bridges that ran across it which provided the most beautiful scenic views.  The town was wonderful with little restaurants and shops.  I wish we were there longer than a day!

I see a riiiiiiverrrrrrr!

So much food to eat, so little time.