Things I've never tried before 2

Korean olive leaf tea (made from olive leaves harvested in Australia).

I found this in the pantry at work, where people leave stuff that they no longer want. It hurts my heart to see tea abandoned like this, so I took the orphan home to give it a try. This is loose-leaf tea, so there's no way to prepare it at work anyway. And lo and behold - I like it! It's a little on the bitter side so I can understand why most people won't enjoy it, but I for one don't like sweet or sweetened teas, so this is perfect. Plus it's supposed to have a bunch of health benefits, natural antibiotic properties etc - a total keeper!

Siam Chan

Siam Chan is the little hole-in-the-wall Thai place across the street from the Royal Theater on Santa Monica Blvd. We hadn't been there in ages, and were mighty surprised to find that they have changed their menu to include a whole bunch of Chinese dishes, such as this super-sized egg flower soup.

pad thai

oily eggplant

today's special: the crispy trout with apple salad. Thai apple salad is a fabulous idea - it's basically green papaya salad with apples instead, and it works great. Very tasty. Not so sure about that overbreaded trout, but it was worth a try. Coming to think of it, I haven't really been lucky ordering trout as far back as I can remember. Why do I keep trying?

I guess there is no word in Thai for trout?

only in LA: a bilingual fortune cookie...

Things I've never tried before...

apricot kernels ("the poor man's almonds") and dried pomelo - yum!

Alternative title for this post:
Things I'll miss about LA: Trader Joe's

Banana Cream Pie

Ritesh was watching the Food Network the other day (when we still had the TV connected due to the inauguration - it has meanwhile been unplugged), and on one show people were talking about some of the best things they had eaten in their lives, ever, anywhere. And one guy mentioned as the best thing he'd ever eaten in his entire life the banana cream pie at a place called Bandera right here on Wilshire, three blocks from our house.

Now you have to understand that Ritesh loves loves LOVES banana cream pie, and that he has been cursed with a wife who'll bake him any variety of Germanoid chocolate-cherry cake including a full-blown Black Forest Cherry Cake from scratch, and who's made him banana bread and even banana oatmeal, but who's been singularly sheepish about the prospect of making a banana cream pie (I'll have to learn, I know, I promise I will). All this to say, the prospect of the world's best banana cream pie just around the corner triggered Ritesh's decade-long deprivation as well as my guilt over it and propelled us over to Bandera right the next day.

And here is is, the famed banana cream pie. Ho hum. Not bad. Really, it was perfectly respectable, apart from the fact that the custard wasn't banana flavored, which is the way Ritesh likes it. It was just a plain vanilla custard, and the only thing that made it a banana cream pie were the banana slices on top. My original peeve was that I thought they used whipped cream out of a spray can, which just doesn't taste as good as freshly whipped cream, but I have meanwhile had a couple of comments from someone who works at Bandera and insists it is indeed fresh whipped cream and not from a can. So take note that my impression may have been wrong.

We were a little disappointed at not being blown away, but that was a function of overblown expectations - it was really a very decent pie. What we couldn't get over, though, was that this was the best thing this food network guy had eaten in his entire life... I mean, come on! Not just the best banana cream pie but the best thing out of all foods, ever? What does this guy live on? Just goes to show, TV is full of crap.

an ok mojito, at Bandera.

Things I'll miss about LA...

Korean Taco Trucks - (Ritesh took this picture)

Countdown to Mumbai

4 weeks today!

Recession Lunching 2

An itsy-bitsy bite-size cupcake (chocolate-beet!) from BreadBar, for $1. Hey, Sprinkles cupcakes are $3.95 per piece, so this is great. Who can handle them giant cupcakes anyway...

Lucifer's & Scoop's

Last Sunday, we trekked over to Los Feliz for lunch at a notorious new pizza place, w/ Greg and Phinney. Notorious, if you must know, for their spicy sauce that goes by the ill-boding name of "ringburner". Ahem.

simple tossed salad w/ wild arugula to start

the peperoni ultimo w/ pineapple and arugula. So far so good. Really not that spicy.

the pumpkin pizza w/ spinach. Nice flavor, not spicy at all.

and the crowning glory of the menu: the stellar rosemary-lamb pizza w/ olives and feta - spicy in a flavorful kind of way, not outrageous or painful or anything. Made us fantasize about regular BYOT (bring your own topping) pizza nights. Should really follow through on that...

and dessert at Scoop's, which was conveniently located on the way home. Flavors today included chocolate guinness, coconut thai tea, pistachio cardamon, salty caramel, vanilla malt, the classic brown bread, and avocado pale ale sorbet, which we just sampled but didn't actually get because it was a little too beery

Recession Lunching

This salad is from the salad bar at the Courtyard Cafe in the Century City mall, and it costs exactly half of what I would spend on a salad from Mrs. Winston's. I've eaten there about five or six times already this year, so that's $30 saved - not bad. It's tasty, too, but the selection is pretty limited, so I'm basically getting the same thing every time. Plus most their salads are pre-mixed, with the dressings that must be major fat-bombs (Chinese chicken salad, Caesar salad, broccoli salad w/ bacon...). And it's not organic either. But hey, you can't argue with a $4.99 per pound salad bar...

Moles La Tia

There's this great place out in East LA that specializes in moles, not the burrowing mammal, but the thick and spicy Mexican sauce that is originally from Oaxaca. Moles can be made with any number of ingredients, chili probably being the only constant, but the most famous one must be the mole negro that is made with chocolate, which you can find at most decent (and not so decent) Mexican places around here. However, to get any variety of different moles, you have to trek out east.

Ritesh's best ever fresh horchata w/ jamaica and pumpkin seeds, and my cucumber-lime agua fresca

some pretty limes (Ritesh is forever asking for extras at any restaurant we go to, if it's not limes or roasted chilies, then it's onions or pepper or what have you. He always gets what he asks for, too. Hmm...there's a lesson in there somewhere. I never ask for anything, and guess what that gets me...)and here's the piece de resistance - the mole sampler platter: top left is a pistachio mole that goes with the salmon in the middle, top right is a passion fruit-sesame mole that goes with the veal, bottom right is the notorious mancha manteles (=tablecoth staining) mole poblano, the spiciest one on the menu, to be eaten with the pork, and bottom left my favorite, the velo de novia (=bridal veil), a white mole made w/ white chocolate, white wine and pine nuts, to be eaten with the halibut. Oh My God. This was amazing. Although it has to be said that it totally knocked us out and we had to take a long digestive nap afterwards...