Firebird Chicken

I've had my first ever Nashville style Hot Chicken and boy do I have a death wish. There are 3 levels of heat to their chicken:

Wildfire - EXTRA HOT
Bonfire - HOT
Fire Extinguisher - NO HEAT

I went all in and ordered the Wildfire. I ate 4 tums afterward and was still feeling it. BUt boy was it tasty. Amazingly crunchy and did not sog up against the drench. It was vibrant and a scary devils red waiting to be devoured. And devoured I did. Ate this quick with trails of sweat dripping down my neck. This is one of those addictive sandwiches that will get spicier as you eat into it.

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This is the fire extinguisher plate. No heat on these. Just crunchy goodness with a creamy bbq like dipping sauce.

Sandwiches come prepared with chicken, coleslaw, and pickles.

 Plates come prepared with 2 chicken strips, 2 dinner rolls, coleslaw, and 1 side of your choice

Sides:
Coleslaw
Macaroni & Cheese
Cold Potato Salad
Dinner Roll

Here's how you order: email or text your order at 562-546-3516 / firebirdchickenlb@gmail.com

Stay tuned as they are working to get into a Farmers Market in Los Angeles!

Rinjani - Glendale

New Indonesian Restaurant opened in Glendale not too long ago. Serving up classic Indonesian satay in a modern contemporary space. 

Here are a few things I tried:

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Iced Coffee and Thai Tea

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Satay Sampler 

Comes with 4 different satays:

• tofu
• tempeh
• ayam/chicken
• domba/lamb

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Fried AYAM (chicken) - Served with vegetables, tofu, tempeh, sambal/spicy sauce. You can have this grilled instead of fried. I just can't pass up fried chicken. This was my favorite.

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Rendang

Braised short ribs with coconut milk and lemongrass.

Located on 107 E Broadway at Brand Blvd Glendale, CA 91205. Parking is available at the Exchange structure on Maryland and Broadway with 90 minutes free!

Big Catch - Universe

Uni is something that you hate or love. I've never met someone that's an in between. Even if you were, it's a lie and the most likely truth is that you hate it.

When I heard that Big Catch Seafood House is offering a special Uni-verse 8 dish course it's a no brainer that my heart just melted. Not even thinking that this would be the best place to take a date for valentines day, but a date that I can take myself. 

The uni is from Maruhide. Most of you know it as the Maruhide Uni Club. These red sea urchins are caught along the Channel Island off the Santa Barbara in California, also called Aka-Uni in Japanese. It has a sweet, creamy texture with a beautiful deep orange/red color. For a limited time, Big Catch is collaborating with Maruhide to create unique course such as this. It brings the Uni Club closer to you so you don't have to trek out to long beach. 

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This is the full grand slam of the meal. The glass of champagne is additional and pairs really nicely. If you're not a fan of champaign they also have a full bar for your liking.

The 8 course consists of:

• Uni Onsen Tamago - Hot Spring egg / Salmon roe/ dried seaweed/ pickled wasabi/ dashi soy
• Uni Blue Fin Tororo - Blue fin tuna/ Mountain Yam/ pickled cucumber/ ohba leaf/ uni soy
• Uni Oyster with Ikura - Kumiai oyster/ Salmon roe/ scallion/ ponzu
• Uni Toro - Fatty tuna (belly)/ flying fish roe/ ohba leaf/ kombu soy
• Seared Uni Scallop - Seared Scallop/ Mango/ Sea Salt/ Olive Oil/ Ohba Leaf
• Uni Garlic Flan - Garlic Flan/ Salmon Roe/ Micro Rainbow/ Chives
• Uni Toast - Dried Seaweed/ Chives/ triple creme cheese/ toast
• Mini Uni Pasta - Uni Sauce/ Flying fish roe/ dried seaweed/ chives

You can get everything I mentioned for a promotional $88. Will eventually hit up to $108 so I would recommend giving it a taste. This course is limited to 5 orders per day. If you plan on making a reservation ahead of time, make sure to mention you would want to order this.

Below is a closer look at this amazing feast:

Let me know your thoughts after you've given this a try.

Big Catch Seafood

2 S Garfield Ave Ste 100 Alhambra, CA 91801

(626) 282-8590

Breakfast - Tokyo

Found a random restaurant to eat at while surfing around Tokyo Station. This place is huge if you've ever been. Not sure the name of this restaurant, but it's close to the North Gate of Tokyo Station. It's on the main level, not downstairs where the restaurant rows are.

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I eat soba here like no other. It's so common to find like any other noodle dish. It's just so comfortable to dip the noodles in tsuyu mixed with wasabi and green onions. This is one of those dishes that disappears. It's common during a meal that people don't really talk. Since everyone is in a hurry, all you hear is slurping. This goes down quick. Before you know it, your plate is empty.

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Chicken Katsu with curry udon. Perfectly fried katsu in a rich luscious curry broth. Udon noodles were perfectly al dente. Slivers of onions are topped to cut the richness.

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Combinations come with sushi. Here you have bonito, aji, and tamago. Flavors are very traditional. If you've had bonito, you can imagine the flavor to be very rich in fishiness with a meatlike aftertaste. The aji itself has a slight brine with the typical grated ginger to mellow it out. I eat the tamago at the end for sweetness.

I ate this kind of stuff a lot. I do wish we had more restaurants like this, within reach, which caters a lot to the "Salaryman". What a treat this was.

Explore your way. As zimmern would say "If it looks good, eat it".

Sarabeth's - Japan

Sarabeth's first opened their doors in 1981 in New York. It makes perfect sense that they are now in Japan if you understand how the restaurant culture is now. There are 5 locations now: Tokyo, Lumine Shinjuku, Nagoya, Shinagawa, and Osaka. People love cafes in Japan. There are so many French and German inspired ones more so now than I remembered 5 years ago when I visited Tokyo. Maybe 10 years ago, we can agree that Japanese food is better in Japan. Even though I'm sure in some cases, that is still true, we can certainly agree to those that have explored Southern California enough to confidently say our Japanese cuisines (sushi, izakaya, yakiniku, etc) is comparable. 

This time around, I wanted to check out more cafes and unique spots. Honestly, it's inspiring to be at these restaurants than to hit up all the sushi joints. That's not what Tokyo is about. You will soon realize that your journey begins once you start exploring without the restriction of places you should be eating at. To me, that defeats the purpose of finding little gems that gets outshined by word of mouth publicity. I'm not about that. 

And even though Sarabeth's is a chain, my experience was by accident. This restaurant was stumbled upon as we were headed to Tokyo Station. This experience however, is still my first.

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We were probably the 3rd group to arrive at around 10. By 11, the cafe was pretty much 75% full. 

Cappuccino 

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Lemon pancakes. Slightly dense, but the lemon flavor was nice. It's one of my favorite flavored pancakes so I wanted to see how this was done.

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Classic eggs benedict. I would say this is one of the best if not the best, eggs benedict I've ever had. Simple, but the execution is always important. The hollandaise sauce was rich and lusciously wrapped over the shall I say, perfectly poached egg. They used British muffins instead of English which changed my whole view on making these. So much better as the egg yolk seeps in. Yeah try and picture that. The ham is slightly charred to bring out a slight smokiness from the ham. 

1-8-2 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo TEKKO BUILDING. 2,3F