Sushi Sake and Shibucho

Sashimi at Shibucho in Orange County is an amazing ride. Take a look at the quality. First off it's far. Costa Mesa from LA isn't a laughing matter to eat dinner. The spot isn't in the most remarkable place. It's next to a cell phone shop that's open late, and a liquor store. But what they serve is top notch. I'm not going to say, this place is better than that, but this one ranks high. The difference regardless? It's cheaper.

The red in the upper left corner is Sujiko. It's Ikura (fish egg still in the membrane sac) and soaked in soy sauce.

Nikogori is fish jelly! Totally good and a tiny snack.

Shiokara is a salty squid.

Uni Kasu Zuke

Kazunoko Kombu! The few things listed above, are what you may get when you have a good relationship with the chefs. They start bringing out their home brew. It helps to drink a ton, because if you're drinking a soda, they won't bring this stuff out. It's reserved for sake drinkers since these small snacks exists to taste with sake.

Ayako F. samples a sake.

Abalone

Geso sushi. How often do you even see this?

Shibucho is no nonsense. If you look confused, the main chef will say, "No California Roll, no spicy tuna roll. This is sushi." It may seem condescending and plenty of people write bad reviews on the place, and it's not because of the quality, it's because there's no "Avocado covered rainbow, mixed with shrimp tempura upside down with Sushi paper roll". It's serious and how you might find sushi in Japan.

Tamago sushi - notice the rice, barely under this brick of egg?

Goh Nakamura and The Invisible Cities at gr/eats - The Unofficial 2009 JetBlue Music Tour

Our first show at gr/eats featured Goh Nakamura and The Invisible Cities. We closed up at 9:15, then rearranged tables and chairs and lo and behold, a nice intimate space emerged. Of course having a nice rented monitors helped. Everything sounded great. About 20 or so people filled the room nicely. The tour is called Follow Your Whim, as seen at followyourwhim.com There's video, live feeds, tweets, and more. Our space isn't the biggest, but for an event like this, I couldn't be happier. Maybe we'll do something again soon. Here's more of his tour stops at his site, gohnakamura.com.

Sadie Contini, Han Wang, Gary Chou, and Goh Nakamura

Food time Otafuku and gr/eats

It's still tough to beat soba at otafuku. I can hear about places that shuffle you in and out quickly with their handmade soba, but why is it never as good as this place? The rest of their food is great too. It's izakaya style, and might be one of the better in SoCal. Otafuku. The soba above is seiro with plum. Of course okra is quite great with soba.

The box of uni is always great here. Uni isn't uni.

I threw in the tilapia pesto from gr/eats. It's good too.

gr/eats in Rachael Ray

It's been a little since gr/eats got some press, and here's one for the ages. Everyday with Rachael Ray!

Here's a link to a blow up of the article. Visit gr/eats if you get a chance.

I grew up eating tofu burgers thanks to mom and these meatballs are an incarnation of that! Years later, it graces the pages of Rachael Ray.

gr/eats paella

The paella at gr/eats... I haven't had it in a while, and it's a sure winner. Flavors busting out all over, the seafood is almost too much, with a squeeze of lemon, it brings out everything you need. Pretty good commercial... meanwhile, the below is the specials menu. Tons of things to get.

Peaches

Peaches, donuts, and there you have it, peach donuts. It's back in season. The Donutman himself said that it's a tougher season since each peach has to be peeled by hand. So get on it. From my area it's only 45 miles. donutman!

Hiyashi Chuka, Cold Noodles.

That's the hiyashi chuka at gr/eats. Yes, it's good. It's there as a special nearly every day. Luckily, I had it when it was warm out, but it's cooled down just a bit in SoCal, but it's still good in the summer.


That's Mr Romanelli with his 1920 Friendship Quilt Cap. Part of his new clandestine line. Check out the hiyashi chuka at gr/eats while you can.

Sushi in the OC Ushi no hi

Shibucho Sushi might be one of the best places around. Of course a large percentage of you think sushi is all about the fried rolls, or combinations of fish to make one gigantic roll. It is those things now, in a hybrid USA, but there's also the simple and I'd say, more pure. Sushi Shibucho is one of those places. It's not too pricey compared to others who load you up with sushi pieces with a variety of sauces and styles, this one gives you sushi that's clean and simple, and therefore, super rare. Above is a few orders, from Spanish Mackerel, squid, octopus, red snapper, and abalone. Each piece was nothing short of amazing. Shibucho on Yelp.


This is battera. It's Osaka style boxed sushi. It's mackerel with a pickled gourd on top. I think this is the best I've ever had.


Ushi no hi. Read up on it. That was the actual point of this post. In old times, and with old school folks you actually don't eat the eel. It's an animal that you worship in a way. Eels have whiskers and some think it's a reincarnate of some sort. Here's a better article.

Truck time

Truck Mayhem. There's maybe 20 new food trucks in LA, maybe more. Kogibbq, other Korean tacos, Japanese, ice-cream, shave-ice (it should have no D in it), and more... They cruise around together making food and serving it to people who are willing to wait over an hour. Lunch breaks gotta be extended if you want to eat at a truck. I'm still not willing to wait it out. Martin got a shave-ice. It was good. I've also heard recent news that Baja Fresh is making Kogi Tacos. Read about it on laist. Kogi supposedly means "meat" in Korean, so I guess although there might be confusion, the name is pretty pedestrian. I think a problem happens with confusion, so who knows, maybe there's a case. If BF used Kogibbq Tacos, that would be a big time bust... but for now, this is what I think.

Kogibbq still has lines.

gr/eats

Tilapia Pesto - available everyday. This tasted great. I'd get it again and again, and maybe it's a bit too much food! Get this one if you're hungry.

Tentoji Donburi. Shrimp Tempura and egg on rice. This was the special yesterday. Simple, old school, and fine.

gr-eats.com

Happy Sheep

Some days, I feel like a Mongol. Throat singing, riding horses in the plains, capturing rival tribe members, traveling with the weather, herding horses, wrestling, and wearing dope hats. I have to eat too, so I hop down to Happy Sheep, where I can get the half not spicy, and half spicy hot pot. I get the lamb of course, the meat of choice when I need energy to do battle. I used to be strong and could handle the spice, but the ring of fire has struck me down and kept me from battle one too many times. I go with the mild. Happy Sheep.

Check out these villagers that I shall pillage. Each one has a wallet.

I need green sometimes to help the digestion. Shrimp balls help too.

Food Show Pile up

I've been stockpiling some food photos, so I'm going to let a few loose. This is home made "nabe". It's been hot in Socal, so I'm not sure if this is the right call... but it tastes great. It's fairly easy and goes a long way. The key is to get the right ingredients. The chicken meat ball (tsukune) is the key. If you don't have something like that, you're doomed. This is the standard type, there's no curry, kimchee, or anything like that. Below you can see that I use magazines as the cushion and splash guard.

Flame on!

Tokyo 7-7 in Culver City. Simple breakfast that's so good.

This was a weird call. Kay and Dave's in Brentwood. These are lamb tacos.

Inside Donutman's shop

Jim Nakano is the Donutman. I drove up at 8:30am on a saturday, and he sees me and I get a heroes welcome. "Come on in back," he says waving his arm, leading me to the right side of the building where I enter. Jim in back and all smiles like an uncle who you haven't seen in a year. He's busy since they're actually closing early since it's a day before Easter. A few people are lined up to buy his special brand of donuts, perhaps as a special holiday treat. I telephone ordered a fat 20 strawberry donuts, and they're just about complete when I get there. It gives us a chance to talk a bit, and he's a food guy, and drives all over to eat a meal. An older couple say hello from the outside front window, while I stand and talk. He waves them in, around the side and through the door, which signals that it's my turn to leave. It's a short visit, but I'm happy to say, I achieved the "pass" to be part of the inner circle (no donut pun intended).

Donutman



That's artist Ana Serrano. As you can see, strawberry donuts made it to the Scion space early in the day. The artists and friends from all over enjoyed the sweet treat.

Ozumo San Francisco

Ozumo in San Francisco. It's a restaurant in the Embarcadero area. Running around with the GRSF manager, Luke, this is a spot that he knows about. This was fish with a thin bacon covering. I forgot what kind of fish, but perhaps a halibut. The flavoring was strong from the bacon. The mushrooms buttery. Ozumo.com

This was a medley. There's crab on the left, but on top nearly covered is a tiny squid that's quite rare. They removed the eyeballs, but other than that, it tasted quite nice. I could have eaten a lot more of them. They suchi is crap and scallop. The "thing" with the red dot" in the middle. I had it before, but I forgot what it's called. I almost think it's a fish egg cluster, but I'm not sure now.

Two kinds of snappers. Red on the bottom, the top is black snapper. Both are more tart and refreshing. These after came after the below pieces.

Guess what the top piece is? It's Kobe beef in sushi form. It was quite great. Super rich. It goes well with the toro, which is also quite rich. I started with the toro of course, before hitting the Kobe beef. Definitely the right way to go.

I didn't hear the description of this one, but it's pretty for sure. It was something like a California Roll with some Unagi on top. The mint actually serves a perfect purpose of adding a little bit of something to the sauce which had some spice to it. It was their most hybrid sushi dish that we had.

Ribs. From the kitchen, this is over the top. The slaw was good too. Glad they didn't put peanuts in it. It seems like something that would have too many peanuts ruining it.

This is Luke, yes, we down ramen too earlier in the day. You must think all I do is eat, but that's not the case. I remarked that Luke looks like Mario. Imagine the overalls with a different color hat. Yes, Mario.