food panda

Wolvesmouth @ Beer Belly After trying Chef Craig Thornton's (aka Wolvesmouth) cooking on two previous occasions, I jumped at the chance when I heard there was going to be a special one night pop-up dinner at Beer Belly , a newly opened Beer House in the Koreatown district of Los Angeles. Although getting a reservation was tough, I managed to snag two seats at the 9pm seating that night. Since beer was available during dinner, I bypassed the wine option and went with various selection of beer offered at Beer Belly. Top: Bread from Bread Lounge. Bottom: Barley Malt Butter I thought the bread at bread lounge was pretty standard fare, but the barley malt butter made it shine. I really loved the flavors of this butter, but I limited myself to the 2 pieces of bread given. I had to make sure I had room for the rest of the meal. Corn Soup - crab, corn fritter, jalapeno, cilantro, buttermilk, lime I've had a corn soup made by Craig before and loved it, so I eagerly awaited for this co...

Breadbar I'll be the first to say, since my recent trip to NYC, I haven't been interested with the food scene in Los Angeles. The recent restaurant openings of Sotto, Son of a Gun, and Lukshon has not interested me one bit, and probably never will. However, when I was invited by Darin to a benefit dinner at the Breadbar in the Century City mall headlined by Hiro Urasawa of the famed Urasawa, I knew I had to try it. Ever since my previous dinner at Urasawa, I've been meaning to try his cooking again. Menu Along with Hiro Urasawa ( Urasawa ), we had Noriyuki Sugie (Breadbar), Michael Cimarusti ( Providence ), Walter Manzke (Formerly Church and State ), David Myers (Comme Ça), and Ramon Perez (Sona) collaborating on this 6 course tasting menu. Priced at $110 sans tax and gratuity, all of the proceeds from this dinner (along with another dinner at Comme Ça) goes directly to the Japan Earthquake relief aid. A great cause, and hopefully for us, a great meal ahead. Bread Basket ...

Chikalicious For most people, the thing to do after a heavy lunch would be a nice walk to digest the food they've ingested (In my case, it was lunch at Jean Georges and then a Chicken and Rice at the Halal Cart) so they would be hungry by dinner time. In the case of the fat ass Panda here, I went for a dessert tasting. Hey, I walked to the dessert tasting, give me SOME credit there (so I tell myself that). Given this was my last day in New York (trip from 2010), I figured I had to try ChikaLicious before I depart the Big Apple. Chika at Work Since ChikaLicious was comprised of mainly bar seating, I happily took a seat from my "court side" view to the open kitchen. The menu at ChikaLicious is quite simple: For $14, you get an amuse, a choice of dessert, and petits fours. There's also an optional $8 wine pairing for your dessert choice. Apple Sorbet in Caramel Soup We were all given the same amuse, which as shown above was a apple sorbet in a caramel soup. The refreshi...

Les Délices de l'Erable It's our last day in Montreal, and the last meal that awaited my buddies and I would be the main reason I had suggested Canadian trip in the first place, Au Pied de Cochon. Since we had to finish the smoked meat plate from Schwartz from the night before for breakfast, none of us were hungry and would rather save our appetite for the foie gras feast that awaited, thus we stopped by this rather lovely gelato and maple syrup shop while we were strolling around the streets of Montreal. Inside Les Délices de l'Erable This was a very clean and neat shop. You were able to not only purchase the various flavors of gelato available, but also maple syrup to take home. I would have to say though, an French speaking Asian girl was pretty hot! Various Flavors of Gelato While it may not be the best gelato I've ever had, it was definitely very good. One of the flavor I chose was maple syrup and I love the flavors in the gelato. Even though the temperature in Mon...