Gen Korean BBQ and Yakitori Bar, Tustin, CA

 

 

All-you-can-eat Korean BBQ? Why the heck not? 😀

I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about Gen Korean BBQ from different friends, how they serve fresh and good quality meat for a decent price: $20/person for all-you-can-eat. However, I’ve also been warned about a long wait.

They weren’t exaggerating. First of all, my friends had reserved a table for a big group; but even then we were told it would take a little over an hour for the table to be ready. What the…? But whatever, I’m sure the food would be worth the wait.

For $20 a person, they certainly have a large menu of items to choose from. You’ll get all your favorite meats: brisket, bulgogi, pork belly, beef belly, galbi, prime steak, roast beef, pork steak, spicy pork, garlic chicken, short rib, ribeye, etc. And I have to say, Gen puts Moo Dae Po and Cham Sut Gol to shame with the high quality and freshness of the meats they serve. Everything was delicious. I wish I could eat more!

The restaurant is very…blue. Feels like you’re stepping inside a night club, but instead of loud thumping music it’s the sizzling sounds of yummy meats being grilled. It seems there’s plenty of seating but it’s still not big enough to speed up the wait? Ugh. BUT I think the food will definitely be worth it.

Gen Korean BBQ and Yakitori Bar
13741 Newport Avenue
Tustin, CA 92780
(714) 505-1800

 

Homemade Banh Xeo, Vietnamese Crepe

 

 

Feels like I’ve been taking a short break from eating out at restaurants and opting for homemade food, which is probably the better way to go, anyway. 🙂 After making me delicious bun thang, my aunt then made me another one of my favorite Vietnamese dishes: banh xeo, or as you might like to call Vietnamese crepe or taco. I like the sound of “crepe” better, thank you.

Banh xeo is a type of crispy crepe made of rice flour, water, stuffed with pieces of fatty pork, shrimp, green onions, and bean sprouts. It is then served with large leafy veggies so you can wrap it inside, dipped in sweet spicy fish sauce.

I had banh xeo a few weeks ago at Song Linh Restaurant, but that one does not compare to my aunt’s banh xeo. As I mentioned in my last post, Song Linh did not stir fry the pork and shrimp till golden like they should’ve done, and the meat and shrimp did not stick to the inside of the crepe. But my aunt did. Not only was her banh xeo crispy on the outside and especially around the edges, she stir fried the fatty pork and shrimp till golden and they stuck to the crepe wall so that every piece of banh xeo you break off to eat would have a piece of pork and shrimp stuck to it. Then you can dip it with spicy sweet fish sauce by itself or roll it inside lettuce and minty leaves like a spring roll. Whichever way you “roll” is all good. 😀

Her banh xeo was so good I ate three big ones. Didn’t know I had it in me to eat that much food in one sitting. Again, thank you, Auntie! 🙂

 

Homemade Bun Thang, Vermicelli Noodle Soup From Northern Vietnam

 

 

I know I eat out a lot and it’s great and all, but homemade food is always still the best. You know exactly how it’s made, what it’s made with, and you don’t have to worry about sanitation issues. And most importantly, it’s made with a whole lotta love, to be enjoyed in your own cozy little home. 😉

Over the weekend, my aunt made us bun thang, a type of vermicelli noodle soup originated from Northern Vietnam. It looks really simple but takes a lot of time to make because everything is shredded into thin strings – chicken, pork paste and fried egg – topped with green onions, fried shallots, bean sprouts and various other minty veggies. I guess that’s how people eat stuff in the North. It’s not a bad idea shredding your food, is it? 🙂 This homemade bun thang was super delicious! I finished the whole thing. 😀 Thanks Auntie!

 

7 Leaves Cafe, Garden Grove, CA

 

 

I think I’ve found an alternative coffee choice to Starbucks and Coffee Bean. The quality of 7 Leaves coffee might even be better than those two combined for half the price! You can get good quality coffee and tea for less than $3 bucks!

Apparently, 7 Leaves is known for Sea Cream Jasmine Tea, just as everyone is raving about. But I was in dire need for my coffee fix of the day so I went for the 7 Leaves Coffee which has a delicious sea salt taste topped with salted cream. I loved it. It’s lightly sweet and not too strong or bitter. One sip and I’m in heaven. Though I wish they didn’t throw in so much ice because it only took me a few sips through the big straw and it was done. Whaaa? Thank goodness for the punch card. 9 punches and the 10th one is free. Woohoo! LOL.

I’m pretty sure this place used to be something else before – maybe a Vietnamese restaurant. You can tell by the completely remodeled look and feel – very new, clean, and modern – that completely stands out from the rest of the other shops in this tiny and compacted strip mall. The cafe itself is also small with only one table and a few chairs, so it feels crammed and congested when it gets crowded.

Two things that aren’t so great about this place. Parking and “Cash Only”. It’s in a tiny plaza with very limited parking space so you would probably have to park alongside the street or across the street at the medial offices on busy days. And they only take cash, something I hate.

7 Leaves Cafe
9786 Westminster Ave
Garden Grove, CA 92844
(714) 590-2790

 

Susina Bakery & Cafe, Los Angeles, CA

 

 

One of the reasons I like going to bakeries is how colorful everything is, from decorative cakes to pastries to interior design, like Jean Philippe Patisserie in Las Vegas and Paris Baguette Bakery Cafe in Cerritos. It just gives you this uplifting euphoria that makes you want to dance around on your tiptoe like a ballerina. 😉

Susina Bakery & Cafe is sort of that place. Upon stepping inside you are greeted with a display case full of colorful sweet treats. I was tempted to try one of each but I know that’s not possible because I’d be put in a sugar coma. And even in the coma I’d be dreaming of colorful sweet treats until my soul is put in another spiritual coma. Yup.

The treats go by $20 per pound. I’m not sure if that’s considered expensive or not; I suppose it all depends on how much stuff you get. I had some control and ended up with a cinnamon sticky bun, apple danish, cinnamon twist, and an apple fantes. They’re all very delicious and not overly sweet.

White chocolate mocha is one of my favorite coffee drinks so I could not resist but order one for the road. It wasn’t bad at all. Ahhh…nothing beats sipping on a nice cold coffee and munching on pastries driving around LA on a hot day.

Susina Bakery & Cafe
7122 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Neighborhood: Mid-City West
(323) 934-7900

 

Stone Age Cafe, Rowland Heights, CA

 

 

I had to stare at this while nomming on my vegetarian ramen bowl, which was the blandest thing I’ve ever tasted. But more on that later. This is what happens when I let my friends pick a restaurant for dinner on days that I have to stay off meat. 😀 This day was just the day. She got a super yummy – well, at least it looks yummy to me – individual hot pot with beef. I like the fact that you get your own pot here. I mean, you could share, but it’s not made to be a communal thing.

I was hoping maybe this place would have something that doesn’t have meat or isn’t cooked in meat based broth. But lo and behold, everything had meat in it (as it should, just not today. LOL!) So I opted for this “fried noodle with beef” bowl but told them to make it without the beef. And I got this. A bowl with what looks like ramen they pulled out of a Top Ramen package, and then sprinkled a little garlic powder and tossed some veggies on it. I could make this better at home. C’mon, now. Even without the meat, I expected a little more flavor. But, nope.

The sweet potato fries were OK. Could’ve been crispier. The mango ice tea was also decent, nothing crazy.

I do like the decor. It looks like they’re trying to go for the trendy look but still keep it homely. The cushioned seats are comfortable and in my favorite color: purple! 🙂

Overall, I wouldn’t come back here, not even when I can eat meat, and probably not for hot pot when I have The Red Pot in Garden Grove.

Oh, and I should also mention that this place takes cash only! Typical Asian restaurant policy. I find this annoying. Nobody carries cash these days! We didn’t know this until the bill came. We were searching our purses to find any cash we had on us. There was no ATM around but fortunately, we found just enough to pay for the meal but didn’t have any extra for tip. LOL! Oh well, it’s not our fault since there was no “Cash Only” sign anywhere. More reason NOT to come back here.

Stone Age Cafe
18481 E Colima Rd
Rowland Heights, CA 91748
(626) 839-6666

 

Bistango, Irvine, CA

 

My girlfriend and I have been planing our dinner at Bistango for over a month now. She’s been wanting to try this place and, a million texts later, we finally got together to enjoy a fine dining girls night. 🙂

This is a fancy fine dining American restaurant so upon walking in, you’d feel like someone should offer to take off your coat and walk you to your table. The restaurant is tucked away inside a corporate building so you can imagine this is probably the place where rich folks working there would come down here for expensive lunches.

I love restaurants that give you bread, and this place has excellent bread – hot and crunchy served with butter. I’m the type that tears off the crunchy edge and throws away the soft part. All my friends would know this. 🙂

Anyway, on to the food…

I was deciding between a filet mignon or something fish, but I was more leaning towards the Chilean seabass since I haven’t had that in forever. And I was not disappointed. It was cooked just right, with the meat firm and stringy, rather than soft and mushy which would totally ruin it for me. The taste is sweet and lightly salted, and goes well with the sweet brown sauce. After the last piece I didn’t feel stuffed as I would’ve had I had a steak.

My friend tried the mahi mahi and it was decadent. Her dish came with mushrooms, garlic, and some decorative veggies. We shared some pieces of our fish to try out and we were both very pleased.

I love garlic fries and I guess $6 is not such a bad price for a place like this. As you can see from the receipt, our meal was quite hefty. It could be worse, though. Other fancy places I’ve eaten, the dishes could be well up to $50 each. This isn’t the kind of meal you’d be able to enjoy regularly. But it was a fun night for us regardless. 🙂

 

Class 302, Irvine, CA

 

 

Three people mentioned Class 302 to me in one day, raving how their shaved ice is really good. I love desserts and all but shaved ice isn’t really high on my list. BUT I got talked into going and as it turns out, it wasn’t half as bad. I don’t know how they do it, but the bowl came out with thin layers of mango-flavored ice on top of each other, like frosting on a cake. The ice is really flaky and soft that it’s almost as if you’re eating yogurt. You can choose up to 5 other dessert items to add on your shaved ice for free, so we opted for grass jelly, sweet mango pieces, longan fruit, and condensed milk.

There’s also a ton of snacky food if you need something salty to offset all that shaved ice sweetness. We tried a bunch of different dishes: fried chicken, Chinese sausages, meat wrapped in tofu skin, pork stew with rice noodles, pork rice and veggies. They’re all very decent.

But my most favorite dish of all is stinky tofu. It’s basically deep fried fermented tofu drizzled with BBQ sauce. Very popular in the East and Southeast Asia, stinky tofu is something you’d find in an outdoors night market or call “street food.”

 

Sushi Gallery, Cerritos, CA

 

Yup, sushi again! I’m a sushi lover in case you haven’t noticed. 🙂 People always ask me how I find these restaurants. I tell them it’s the same reason why anyone finds anything: either online or word of mouth. It makes it less “scary” when someone tells you “Oh come here for good sushi” versus just finding it randomly on Google.

Sushi Gallery is a small but nice and quiet hole-in-a-wall sushi joint. Upon sitting down, we were told by our nice waiter that we made it just in time for Happy Hour, right before 8pm – half price sushi. Yay! But appetizers are regular price. Boo.

The fish is pretty fresh and being so cheap, I wanted to order everything! But no, I have my limits so my friend and I narrowed down to these rolls and sashimi – salmon, yellowtail, tuna, soft shell crab, spicy scallop:

Soft shell crab hand roll. The crab was super crunchy and delicious!

Salmon and spicy tuna cut rolls. Pretty fresh and yum I must say.

Spicy scallop, salmon, yellowtail, sashimi style.

Albacore cut roll. Not bad either.

Our check came out to be around $50. Cost more than our previous all-you-can-eat (AYCE) sushi meal at Jun Sushi. I think I should just stick with AYCE for the same price.

 

Song Linh Restaurant, Garden Grove, CA

 

 

I hear that Song Linh Restaurant makes pretty good banh xeo – translated into various terms: Vietnamese pancakes, crepes, or as you might like to call it, “Vietnamese tacos.” 😛 Banh xeo is a type of crispy crepe made of rice flour, water, stuffed with pieces of fatty pork, shrimp, green onions, and bean sprouts. It is then served with large leafy veggies so you can wrap it inside, dipped in sweet spicy fish sauce. They serve banh xeo as an appetizer – one portion comes with 2 decent sized pieces that will certainly fill you up.

If you love banh xeo as much as I do, you want it cooked the best way. It’s only good when the pork and shrimp are stir fried till golden before getting stuffed inside the crepe to give it a smoky flavor. And the pork and shrimp should be stuck to the inside of the crepe; that’s how you know everything is being cooked together to share the same great flavor. But it seemed this place only boiled the pork and shrimp individually, and then tossed inside the crepe so when you eat it, they fall all over the place. However, I do like that the crepe itself is pretty golden and crispy. So overall, it did not fail me 100%. 🙂

I also tried their hoanh thanh soup, or wonton soup, which is also an appetizer so it’s a small bowl with maybe 7 or 8 wontons inside. It was good and I like that the meatball wrapped inside the wonton skin is a decent size.