Ah, Friday night. A crappy day at work. Just crap. How do you deal with clients who insist that everything they did wrong was your fault? “You told me to do this, you did, you did.” Urgh. Nothing worse than having to balance your hatred for the idiot woman who can’t follow directions on one clenched fist hand with the niceties you must have for the firm she so poorly represents in the other. Anyway, sorry, I digressed …
Friday night we decided to try to make me feel better and do Japanese. Luckily, we happened to be right near Terried Sake House. Remembering LAist’s great review, we decided to give it a go.
I expected it to be super crowded. It’s Friday night, it’s dinner time … right? Wrong. All the tables were full, but we only had to wait about 5 minutes for two seats to open up at the bar in front. What, was everyone home watching the debates? Fine, people, your thirst for ringside seats to Obama v. McCain means I get ringside seats to some serious izakaya.
This is the menu, long piecies of paper laminated onto the back of cardboard seemingly cut from an old Sony tv box. And apologies now for the crap picture-taking; I forgot my camera and had to rely on my surprisingly decent cameraphone:
I know others have complained about the service here (i.e., not attentive, too slow, etc), but we had no problems whatsoever. The waiter asked us for our drinks a minute after we sat down, he checked our ID (sigh, they say this is a good problem to have, but it is a little annoying) (especially during the times you go out to happy hour with your firm and you are the only one who gets her ID checked), and our beers were served very promptly – so much so that we had barely decided what to order. We also did not order everything at once; we’d eat one or two plates and decide we wanted something else too. This was no problem. We just flagged someone down, they wrote it on a scrap of paper, threw it on the bar for the chefs, and there it was. I have absolutely no idea how they were keeping count of all this for billing purposes, but they did, without mistake.
Back to the food. Terried Sake House is tapas, Japanese style. Hence, the many things on this long menu. Many things. All sorts of thing to float your (sushi) boat – hand rolls, yakitori (Japanese skewers), tempura, hot food, cold food, meats, chicken parts, veggies, sake, beer. We ended up with: (1) Tofu Steak with Egg, (2) tempura avocado handcut roll, (3) two broiled rice balls (one plain with soy sauce and the other with a spicy smelt egg in the middle), (4) baby squid steak, and (5) three types of yakitori. Let’s review each of these in turn, shall we? If you want the short version of this review: all delicious, satisfying, and cheap.
Filed under: Food | Tags: Huell Howser, LA Mill, Visiting with Huell Howser
Last night I caught the tail end of “Visiting … with Huell Howser.” I understand that he IS California’s Gold, but there is something about his sense of bewilderment at everything that really just annoys me. It’s like the opposite of Rick Steve’s quiet awe of everything not American, but with the same annoying effect.
Except for last night.
Last night he went to LA Mill, and his shock at the coffees and the “art” of coffeemaking was just hilarious. Hilarious because the thoughts that you can read in his eyes are totally right: They take this way, way, way too seriously. Hilarious because he seemed genuinely surprised that these people wait 10-15 minutes for a brew. Hilarious because he sincerely did like every cup of uber fancy coffee they made for him. Hilarious because the way he jerked his microphone away from one woman to her table companion after he mentioned that he was used to Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and her response was, “You can’t even mention Duckin’ Donuts here. You could get kicked out” properly conveyed, “Jack. Ass.”
The best I could do was post PBS’s commercial for this episode. Sorry, I guess you’ll have to make a pledge to Rick Steves to get this stuff online.
Filed under: Food | Tags: Brentwood, Coral Tree, Coral Tree Cafe, San Vicente, waffles
The only time I have been to Brentwood was to walk my dog. The grass in the median of San Vicente is so nice, so soft, so clean. And there are all these cool trees with cool uprooted roots that she can have a blast sniffing and climbing. This is a huge difference from my neighborhood, where I have to watch my pup to make sure she doesn’t find something really interesting like a half-empty beer can (yes, half-empty, feeling a bit pessimistic at the moment) or a used condom (true story, totally gross).
I had a tough week, in the way that, no matter how many online crossword puzzles, Facebook/Scramble challenges, and re-orderings of your Netflix queue, boredom still eats away at you. That makes it a tough week. And conducive to pessimism.
So what to do? This morning I thought I’d get out of my own head for a little bit and try breakfast at the Coral Tree Cafe, in Brentwood, a breakfast spot recommended several times on Chowhound.
I had grand plans to get up super early and thus get there super early, giving myself plenty of time to contemplate the state of my life over breakfast and coffee before the weekend crowds came in. This, of course, did not happen; I didn’t leave until 9:30. Driving over, I was super worried I would find myself in the clusterfuck that are breakfast spots on the weekends, give up, and come back home to toast and jam, without the jam, because I don’t have any.
Last night after catching the Airborne Toxic Event at the Wiltern (great show! great band!) (didn’t stay for the Fratellis, who actually were headlining the event, so I don’t know how they were), we walked a few blocks to 6th street to one of the four Southern California locations of the Korean fried chicken phenom, Kyochon chicken. Oh, Jonathan Gold, I sometimes hate your pompous “I am the king of cheap and expensive eats” reviews … but I do have to thank you for this one.
We got there at 9:30 pm or so. The place is white, minimalist, clean tables, eager attendees – an upscale KFC without the tortured chickens in the back (as far as I know). Also a button to call an attendant (like on an airplane), but we were a little too scared to use it. Anyway, there were only two groups of people when we walked in (both waiting for their food), so we had no problem getting service. (Oddly, there also was a table marked “Reserved” even though there were tons of tables open. These people came in about 20 minutes after we sat down; their food came out almost immediately. Note to self to try doing this next time.)
We self-seated and menus were brought. There are two versions of the Kyochon chicken: “original” garlic soy sauce and sweet “spicy.” In terms of selection, you can get a whole chicken (most popular), some pieces of wings or drumsticks, or other combo meals with fried rice and french fries (I know, what?). With the wings and drumstick selections, there were options for “+1 flavor” or “+2 flavor”, which, after much, much confusion, poor language translations from both parties, and back and forth between my girlfriend (Chinese), myself (Vietnamese), and the server (Korean), we realized that +1 meant all original or all spicy and that +2 meant half original and half spicy. We wanted to have a whole chicken, half original (for me) and half spicy (for the girlfriend) (not on the menu). They happily accommodated our request.
Filed under: Clicker training, Miscellaneous dog tales | Tags: Clicker training, shiba
There she is. $2400 later, she has plates and screws in her left foreleg and a bandaged right foreleg from the IV.
One of the first lessons in clicker training is attention. You want the dog to look to you when it is confused, needs further guidance, or otherwise wants something. Don’t know why, but one of the first things I did when I brought her home was give her a nice salmon strip treat – but not before I showed it to her and then held it back. She immediately looked at me instead of the treat. Amazing! Even her physical condition didn’t impede the attention conditioning we’ve been working on over the last few weeks. At least something works.
Filed under: Food, Uncategorized | Tags: Bay Cities, Santa Monica Food, shiba, Under $10
Oh, puppies. I was supposed to be telling all of you about the joys, frustrations, and joys again of training a puppy. I was training her via the clicker method – do what I taught you, I click a button, pup gets a treat. The click ends the behavior, so she’s then free to move about the cabin.
Alas, puppies do things like break their foreleg when jumping off of something — which is what our little puppy did at doggie daycare. I know, the first thing everyone asks is: Who was responsible! How could this have happened! They were negligent! (The last exclamation isn’t a question, but it seems to be the last thing anyone says before they stop to let me answer.) Doggie day care attendants tell me that she just jumped off of something and landed badly/horrifically. She’s in the small dog group, and I’ve seen all the equipment that they play on, so I don’t know if the height of the equpiment is to blame. My puppy, the little shiba inu that she is, loves to climb up and jump off of everything, so really, this may or may not have been bound to happen. In any case, I’m going to review the videotape – they have videotapes of their day care rooms! – and we’ll see what happened.
To fix the broken bones and make sure they heal and set proper, she needs a plate screwed on the fracture. So, yesterday I dropped her off at an animal hospital. The pup is out of commission for the next 6 weeks! The good news is, I get to sign her cast. Exciting! The bad news is, her leg cost me my arm and leg.
There goes the pony I always wanted.
So what does a depressed first-time dog mother do after a healthy round of negotiations with the “Client Liasion” to reduce the price of puppy’s surgery and then kissing pup goodnight for now?
Ah, yes: the dog mother goes on a date with the godmother living in Bay Cities, Santa Monica.
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