I’d been to Versailles a few times before, but maybe it was before I had been to any other Cuban restaurants. First of all, my wife and I ordered mojitos before we realized they didn’t have a full liquor license, so they were somehow made out of wine. Not only that, but the mint was grounded like it was for seasoning, and it had lemons instead of limes. Terrible. My ropas viejas wasn’t bad, definitely not amazing, and the wife’s calamari steak was very rubbery. Service was mediocre at best. I don’t plan on dining here again.

[yelp reviews of versailles restaurant in manhattan beach]

last night me, eric and ben ate at hakata ramen in gardena (just a few blocks away from all the other places we’ve been eating at). with all the good japanese restaurants around, we’ve started to migrate our weekly in-n-out lunches to bi-weekly japanese dinners, which is healthier and has beer, so our arguments about how the brain reacts in a threatening moment and self awareness are all the more entertaining.

we’d been excited to go to hakata ramen, because it got some of the highest reviews on yelp.com, and both my dad and taka recommended it. but now with a bit of ramen expertise under our belts, or above our belts, i wasn’t terribly impressed. the ramen was good, and i liked how i could choose the thickness of the broth, the firmness of the noodles and add options, but it wasn’t amazing. it’s probably my fault for building it up so high. the noodles seemed too thin, the edamame was overcooked and the gyoza was pretty small and unspectacular. we did order these bacon ball croquettes which were really good, but the artery-clogging imagery i got when i ate them prevented me from enjoying them fully.

taka wants to go there, so i’m going to give it another shot and try ordering another type of ramen with different options. the place was packed, and there were only a couple of individual tables, we and most everyone else were sitting either at the bar or around a large community table. i must be missing something. b-

thanks for the pic ben!

hakata ramen shinsengumi
2015 Redondo Beach Blvd
Gardena Ca. 90247

on friday ben and i grabbed dinner at kotohira, a 4 star yelp-rated restaurant, on redondo beach blvd. we both ordered the udon and oyakodon (chicken katsu with an egg and grilled onions). the udon was delicious and the oyakodon (which i hadn’t had since the last time i was in japan) was very good. kotohira was also one of the most reasonably priced japanese restaurants i’ve been to in gardena. the meal and one large sapporo each, was about $17 with tax and tip. b+

pic shot by ben’s iphone

on monday eric, ben and i are gonna try hakata ramen shinsengumi, the highest yelp-rated ramen shop in the area. if anyone else wants to come up/down, let me know!

sanuki, not tanuki :)

last night taka and i ate at sanuki no sato, a japanese restaurant famous for their udon and tonkatsu. eric and i ate there last weekend, and i ordered the same dish i did last time, but with pork tonkatsu instead of chicken. i liked the chicken more than the pork, but both are pretty delicious, they’re both lightly battered, so it doesn’t taste as heavy as most deep fried foods. the tonkatsu dinner also comes with salad, a small bowl of udon, this egg custard thing that i hate, and little dishes of random things like pickles and octopus. taka ordered a spicy udon which came in a very thick, very spicy broth. she’s even stronger than me when it comes to spicy food. the tonkatsu dinner plate is $21, and i think taka’s udon was about $12. it’s the beers that keep making these meals expensive.

i figure that the healthiness of the japanese food counter balances the unhealthiness of all the beer i drink at these places. anyway, sanuki no sato is one of the best restaurants i’ve been to so far over here, and taka said she felt like she was in japan. the waitresses all wear kimonos and barely speak or understand any english. it’s an authentic experience. kentomatic rating: a.

http://www.sanukinosato.com/
18206 S Western Ave.
Gardena, Ca. 90248

last night eric and ben came to gardena after work and we checked out tampopo ramen restaurant. it’s actually right next door to the kiraku ramen restaurant that eric and i ate at on saturday.

i thought the food was delicious. we all ordered the “tampopo” ramen, which i guess was the house specialty. the ramen was in a very light chicken broth, and had pork slices and bean sprouts. eric thought that the noodles were a bit too soft, but i thought they were just right.

they served a few different appetizers including some tofu dish and different pickled goodies. along with the ramen we ordered gyoza (perfect crispiness), spicy california rainbow rolls (pretty good), kimchi which no one else would eat, and a few beers.

since i’ve been at a few different restaurants around here now, i’m going to start giving ratings: i give this joint a solid b.

it’s difficult to photograph food and make it look appetizing. i’m going to start bringing my camera to all these places. maybe they’ll think i’m from a famous publication and give me special treatment.

the best thing about living in the south bay is being so close to work. my drive is now 4.9 miles, and i can seriously sleep an extra hour every day. life’s also a lot easier on taka, since for a while her schedule was really fucked up and she was driving long beach> torrance> long beach> el segundo> long beach for a while. now she’s only about 5 miles from both of her jobs, and while that’s still a lot, it’s much more manageable.

the other great thing about gardena is the food! within a 2 mile radius of my place, there are at least 50 restaurants that i want to eat at. my goal is to eat at them all. thank goodness i’m on a get-big cycle :)

on my first night there, my dad took me to kanpachi sushi, owned by one of his buddies. i’ve actually been there quite a few times before, and when my parents and taka’s parents met for the first time we had this huge feast in their private room. kanpachi seriously has some of the best sushi i’ve ever had. it’s a bit pricey though and luckily my dad usually picks up the tab when we go there.

later in the week i had dinner at daruma which is half restaurant/half karaoke club. my dad’s a big karaoke fan and is there twice a week. i ordered their assortment dinner which came with teriyaki chicken, sushi, tempura, miso, salad and other goodies. delicious! the assortment dinner was $16, and beers during happy hour (until 9pm) are only $2.

when i was kid, my dad used to always take me and my sister to furaibo, which is a tebasaki chicken restaurant. tebasaki chicken is essentially buffalo wings, but baked with a spicy honey glaze instead of messy buffalo sauce. on thursday, taka and i went there and it was the exact same place it was 18 years ago. we ordered 3 plates of the extra spicy chicken, their fancy potato fries, and a bowl of kimchee fish soup (way tastier than it sounds). not too pricey either, $35 for the two of us and that was with 2 large beers.

this saturday after some very failed fishing eric and i had lunch at kiraku. i had a bowl of chashu ramen, and eric had some crazy fusion mabudofu ramen. both were really good and reasonably priced. both bowls of ramen and an order of gyoza was $21.

later that same evening, eric and i met up for dinner at sanuki no sato to get tonkatsu. the tonkatsu was fantastic and the place was super og japanese. eric and i might as well’ve been in japan trying to figure out what we were ordering. it turned out well though and i’m definitely going to be back there later this week. dinner was about $30 each, but that was with beers.

ok, so i think i’m all caught up with restaurants i’ve been eating at in the area. i think tonight, ben, eric and i are going to try out this tampopo restaurant that we saw on saturday. but yeh, if any of you cats want some good japanese food, i’ll soon be the gardena restaurant expert :)

i had dinner with sss, shantelle’s friend sean and mike scully at california beach sushi on friday night. i’d never been there before, and since it was sanam’s idea i imagined there’d be a long persian-style line outside, but it turned out to be a pretty kick back place. they had all-you-can-eat appetizers (izakaya style), and sushi for $22, which we all got (except for miss picky). the food was really good, much better than most all-you-can-eat sushi joints, and they had this gimmick, where every hour:37, they’d play that phil collins song: in the air tonight and all of the sushi chefs and waitresses and patrons would do the drum solo with these wooden blocks that they passed out. it was pretty ridiculous, but it kept us there for quite a while. i’ll prolly go back soon with the wife.

taka and i had dinner at kitayama in newport beach. it’s a fantastic japanese restaurant, with excellent sushi. i’ve got nothing bad to say about the place, except that there was a fucking recommendation for the amount i should tip on the receipt! i’m assuming it’s mainly for the japanese peeps that might not know that tipping is customary, and if so how much.

while it was convenient to not have to do the math in my head or on my phone, i would have preferred the effort over the unlcassiness.

haha, and i just noticed in looking over this post and that picture, that i filled out the “customer copy” and didn’t sign it anywhere. do they just go ahead and charge it anyway?

seriously though. 100% more means twice as much, right? i bought a spicy chicken burrito at lunch, and it felt pretty thin, so i opened it up, and there were 5 small pieces of chicken in there! i felt like going back to complain, but realized the futility of it, and was pretty hungry so i just ate it. why go through such a huge campaign about 100% more chicken when there’s obviously not? grr.