A little side note

As I watched the movie The Last Emporer, there's a scene that portrayed a sample of the difference between the Western culture and the Eastern culture. (All this is not to say which is better. It is just a simple observation, which I think is still applicable to today's world):

The scene involved the young emporer and the Western tutor. The tutor was invited to ride on a carriage carried by servants. One of those servant asked for a tip which the tutor gave. So the emporer ordered that servant to be punished. And another servant apologized to the tutor while giving back his money. Now here's the point: the tutor said he was not offended, but the servant said "It was the emporer who has been offended."

Still on Japanese restaurant

I mentioned URASAWA as the best Japanese restaurant in LA. Now I would like to recommend the second best Japanese restaurant: Kiriko Sushi. An essential criteria that I use to judge a sushi restaurant is the quality of their Toro (best part in Tuna). Urasawa had HAMA TORO which is the very best kind of Toro. (it melts in your mouth!) With this criteria, I think Kiriko is worthy to be the second best. They also serve great Toro that completely melts in your mouth. You dont even have to use your teeth to chew it. They also have other great stuff such as Seared Toro made to perfection with outside seared and inside raw. Their meat is superb also. Absolute must try.

It's located in the plaza on the cross street Sawtelle and Olympic. It's a small place with a sushi counter and a few tables and one Japanese style table with TATAMI floor. The food is needless to say, superb. And it wont cost as much as Urasawa too. I think, for a full stomach, you would need about 100 to 150 dollars without Sake. Here is their website: http://www.kirikosushi.com/

Arrogant Sushi Chef

Have you ever been to sushi places that the chef is just so fool of himself ? I've been to a few sushi restaurants where the chef is so arrogant despite the fact that the food is only mediocre or even bad. I would have guess that some of the arrogance derived from the nobility of being a sushi chef, and from observing the ignorance and idiotic behavior of a few customers. These customers, as I have witnessed, would express disgust to some of the food that might have been unfamiliar to them, and sometimes they would struggle to eat their food. For example, I have seen a few customers, at different times, struggle to eat sushi by hand and dropped all the rice into the soy sauce. Then they tried to eat the rice with their fingers and palms. It wasnt a pretty sight for my appetite. Being arrogant toward those inexperienced are fine but from my observations, most of the customers are civilized and smart enough to properly eat sushi. Whatever the reasons are, regarding the arrogance of some sushi chefs, I can deal with the ones that actually makes good sushi. I believe that they have a right to be arrogant, only if they are good enough to be. The ones that doesnt have the skills but still are egotistic should be called Cocky instead.

An example: Sushi Nozawa is a small sushi restaurant near The Universal Studio. The place is poorly decorated and the food is very mediocre. Yet, there are cocky signs all over the place saying something like "Trust us." Despite of what I think, the place is still full pacted every night and the Zagat Survey still ranked them number 1. I could never understand why......

Zagat Survey

A while ago, one of my friends recommended a Zagat Survey pocket book to me after she found out that I like to explore the restaurants and good food in LA. In general, it gave me an idea of the restaurants through its ratings, but I found after a while of using it that it isnt entirely reliable, at least to my tastes. In the case of Japanese restaurants, Zagat rated Sushi Nozawa as the best in LA which I think is absolutely unacceptable. Urasawa, as I posted before, is the best, but Zagat dont even have ratings for it. The second best that I have had is a small place on Sawtelle in Santa Monica. These places, including a lot more, are not rated in the booklet. Another example of food that Zagat misrepresents is Thai food (I would know about this since I was born and raised in Thailand). The booklet ranked the commercialized Thai restaurants that dont even serve authentic Thai food as their top Thai restaurants while the authentic and good ones in Thai town are being ignored and left out of the list.

Although Zagat gives you a general guide of what a restaurant might be like and helped me discover many good restaurants, I found that I cant rely on it entirely to find good places to eat. Even though it is pretty inaccurate in its rankings on Asian food, their tastes on Western food are still reliable to a certain extent.

Best Japanese !!!

The best Japanese restaurant and my most favorite of all restaurants in LA is URASAWA. It is an exclusive VIP restaurant where you have to make a reservation at least a day prior to your visit. The restaurant will not take their customers in a walk-in basis. It is a small artistic place holding no more than 15-20 people a night (I believe they open for lunch now too). There is only one head chef, Hiro Urasawa, one assistant, and one or more waiter/waitress depending on the number of customers each night. Hiro is an artist. He created his dishes thoughtfully from a combination of traditional Japanese and fusion Japanese. Anyone who watches him while he create his dishes will agree that he really cares about his food. He once said to me that he doesnt smoke or drink because he's afraid that it will desensitized his tongue and he wont be able to taste his food accurately. In this restaurant, you wont be given a menu; the chef will prepare a set of food for you, but you can certainly make requests. The food is, needless to say, absolutely divine!!! He will start will a few small appetizers such as cold steamed egg with salmon roe on top. Then he will continue on to serve larger portions of food such as toro for you to grill on hot stone and shabu shabu with foie gras, lobsters, and kobe beef. After that, he will start with his sushi made to perfection by extremely fresh fish from the fisherman's market in the morning, skillfully prepared sushi rice, and wasabi freshly scraped from its plant (not the fake ass ones from the tubes in supermarkets). Finally, he will serve great Japanese deserts with traditional green tea and oolong tea to help digest the food. The price would range from 250 minimum to 300 per person. By the way Sake here are top class too.

Pardon me for the length of this post but I must describe this restaurant and the food in deatil since it is the best restaurant I've been to so far in Los Angeles.

I dont think the restaurant has its own website but you can search further in Google. Here's one website I found: http://www.gayot.com/restaurants/features/urasawa.html

Food Fanatic

I have always been a food fanatic. I enjoy eating delicious food and, although I have my dislikes, I like trying out new tastes. I will eat anything that is eatable and is eaten by people. This includes anything from insects (by the way, taste great with beer) and oxes' genitals to anything as ordinary as steaks and sandwiches. Three years ago I moved from Thailand to Los Angeles and that was when I started exploring the city for good food. In the course of these years, I would say I have been considerably sucessful. In this blog, I'm looking to share my discoveries with you all and would greatly appreciate your discoveries as well.

Ps. I just started posting blogs so please bear with me as I learn how to use it