Sushi Izakaya Gaku, Honolulu

Spicy tuna tartar with quail egg

Brad and I got married in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago, and my first meal of our wedding week just blew me away. I went to Sushi Izakaya Gaku with my friend Erin (Brad had a headache and couldn't come) and now it is my favorite restaurant in Hawaii! In addition to everything pictured, I also got a natto handroll, a spicy tuna handroll, and an additional tamagoyaki for Brad takeout, and the whole tab was around $55! I couldn't believe how affordable everything was, and how delicious it was too. The only downsides are that the parking lot is small and street parking in the area is scarce. Make reservations!

Sushi Izakaya Gaku

fresh tofu with dashi soy gelee on top

Tamagoyaki

Salmon toro sushi

Okinawan Sweet Potato croquettes

Soy milk dessert

Thanksgiving at Paradise Cove, Malibu

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

In keeping with tradition, for the third straight year Brad and I went to Paradise Cove in Malibu for Thanksgiving. We slacked in getting reservations, so the only time available to us was at 10:30 am. We dragged ourselves away from bed ("Wake up, we have to go eat!"), did the beautiful coastal drive up PCH, and stayed for a lazy two hour brunch. The feast started off with a trip to the salad bar and a Bloody Mary, followed by a rich clam chowder, a herculean plate of Kobe beef ribs (their specialty), an overflowing plate of turkey with all the fixings, and coffee with a pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. We took home two of the largest take home containers I have ever seen at a restaurant, and I believe we have enough leftovers for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow!

On our drive back, we were listening to Good Food on KCRW. Evan Kleinman was talking about a stuffed pumpkin dish and a brussel sprouts dish that made our full bellies hungry again. We're going to make these two dishes next week, so stay tuned!

Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good

Brussel Sprouts with Lardons, Cranberries and Hazelnuts

Clam Chowder

Salad Bar

Turkey with everything

Kobe beef ribs

Pumpkin cheesecake

Pier outside the restaurant

Brad was full after three bites

Bloody Mary

Beautiful day by the beach!

Foodie Readings

You know you're a foodie when _______________.

My obsession with food is embarrassingly obvious when you see the latest books I have devoured...

Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw

Host of the famous and infamous food and travel show No Reservations, Bourdain is a food author whom Brad and I love. Brad got me Medium Raw for our trip to Hawaii, and it had me cracking up the whole time. Meanwhile, he was reading Adam Carolla's new book, In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks.

Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires, Tender at the Bone, and Comfort Me With Apples

I especially love Garlic and Sapphires, the first book I read of hers. It's about her secret life as a food critic for the New York Times. All of Ruth's books have recipes scattered in them. I made her "sort of pad thai" noodles, and true to name, they were "sort of like pad thai", but even better. All three books are autobiographies.

Service Included by Phoebe Damrosch

This is a wonderful autobiography that details Phoebe's life as a waitress at Thomas Keller's Per Se. It really makes me want to eat there or at the French Laundry! I can now see why our service at Bouchon was so great.

Test Kitchen: Marcel Vigneron

I just blogged about my recent experience at Test Kitchen on my other blog 365losangeles, but I'll be a little more critical in this post for all the foodies who might be interested...

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Test Kitchen is a unique restaurant. Chefs take over the restaurant for two or three days and come up with a prix fixed menu that features innovative dishes that they might not normally be able to create in another restaurant. The cuisine is frequently bold and daring. Sometimes you will get a few duds, but it's all in the name of experimentation.

This past weekend, Top Chef alumni Marcel offered a six course menu for $55 per person.

The price doesn't include drinks or tax or tip. Test Kitchen adds on an 18% tip on all tabs, which I found to be a little presumptuous. The service was not consistent. A couple of waiters were great and described the dishes perfectly to us. Others just gave us a couple of scanty details and left it at that. Our waitress forgot our drink order and we ended up not getting it. There are long wait periods between dishes and it took 2 hours to finish our meal (I actually like slow meals because it gives me more time to talk and relax, but this is just a warning to those of you who might get antsy sitting for that long).

Kombu Cured Hamachi: Crispy Rice, Pineapple, Avocado

This was one of my favorite dishes. The pineapple is the yellow rectangle underneath the hamachi. It is thinly sliced and topped with seaweed, toasted rice, jalapeno, avocado dollops and a foam. I tasted each ingredient individually before wrapping it up into a hamachi "taco".

Scallobut: Flavors of puttanesca, artichoke

This dish was very clean and simple. A scallop and a halibut cheek sit next to a deconstructed puttanesca with anchovy, olive powder, roasted cipollini onion, tomato and toast. Parsley and garlic dollops frame the composition. The scallop was barely raw in the center--a beautiful thing.

Wagyu Beef Tongue & Fried Egg: radish, beet, arugala, beans

Break open the fried egg and you'll find a perfectly runny yolk dripping out. Three types of beets, arugula, radish and beans adorn the Wagyu tongue. The tongue melted like butter in my mouth. My only criticism is that the dish came out luke warm, like it was sitting out for a while.

Vadouvan Lamb Chop: Cauliflower, Amaranth, Mint

This was my other favorite dish of the evening. In the background is a cauliflower puree that is saturated with butter. The lamb sits on top of an almond, pomegranate, mint and feta "cous cous". It is topped with more foam.

Ricotta Fritter: Baby peach panna cotta, agave

The green thing on top of the panna cotta is a Japanese baby peach. It was just about the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. The panna cotta was brilliant. The fritter tasted like salty old oil, sadly. It was fine when eaten with the panna cotta because it hid that "off" taste, but by itself I found it unpleasant.

Macadamia "Sponge Cake": textures of strawberry

The sponge cake was made all in the microwave, our waitress bragged. What a strange thing to be proud of, I thought. This was such an interesting dish. The cloud of strawberry foam was topped with this carbonated filled strawberry jelly. It popped in my mouth just like the "olives" at the Bazaar. The whole thing was lightly sprinkled with pepper and topped with celery leaves. It all worked, strangely enough!

Keep your eyes on the Test Kitchen calendar. On October 7 and 8, three Top Chef alumni will be in the kitchen! Check it out here.

Rustic Canyon, Santa Monica

Crispy White Polenta photo by Carol L. on Yelp

Rustic Canyon is right across from its sister daytime restaurant Huckleberry. Rustic is only open for dinner, and it offers Farmers'-Market-fresh ingredients and an ever changing menu that is dictated by the produce offerings at the markets. I didn't get to take pictures of our meal, but I'll give you a play by play...

We had reservations at 6:15 pm on Saturday and were seated right away. I was struck by how much smaller the restaurant looked on the inside than the outside. It is a wide space, but shallow. Our friendly waiter brought out some delicious olives to start.

We ordered:

Figs with roasted fennel, burrata, honey, black pepper ($14): This was a great starter... All the flavors worked very well with each other, and the burrata melted in our mouths.

Crispy white polenta with farm fresh egg, wild mushrooms and parmesan ($16?): Brad wanted this all to himself. The egg on top was sunny side up, so we broke the orange yolk and let it spill all over the polenta. The polenta was cooked perfectly--crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside--and the wild mushrooms brought a rugged earthiness to the dish.

Butternut Squash Mezzaluna with pumpkin seeds, sage and brown butter ($15?): Half moon pastas stuffed with butternut squash. The pasta was made in house and was both al dente and silky. Topped off with crispy roasted pumpkin seeds.

Whole trout with greens, currants and capers ($24): The trout came out split in half. It was crispy and brown on the edges and just so delicate in my mouth. The only problem I had was that I got a mouthful of tiny bones near the head. I guessed they missed a spot. But other than that, it was divine.

The prices are from my memory, so they might be give or take a few dollars. The total was $90 including tax and tip. Not a cheap night out, but certainly date-night worthy.

We didn't order any wine, but I heard that they have an excellent selection. I will be back to try their doughnuts and hot chocolate (they didn't have it when we went) and other seasonal offerings.

Rustic Canyon

Oaxaca Living Food

Brad and I were at the Mar Vista Farmer's Market on a Sunday. Our empty bellies were nagging at us, so we found ourselves in the hot food area... The smells of made to order crepes, burritos and ribs beckoned us and Brad darted off to get a giant apple sausage quesadilla.

A raw foods booth that specialized in Oaxacan cuisine caught my attention. I couldn't believe my eyes... I mean, how L.A. is that? Not just raw food, but Oaxacan raw food? Wow. I felt sorry for them because they weren't as crowded as the rest of the booths, so I got a sample of the raw zucchini pasta. I've had a lot of raw zucchini pastas before (Leaf, Juliano's, Rawvolution), and this one was on par with the rest of them. They even came with little "meatballs" made of nuts. I bought one (I think it was $9). It was just the light lunch I was looking for. They also sell whole young coconuts that you can drink the water from and then eat the flesh.

I love this farmer's market more than the Santa Monica ones because it's less crowded, there's still a live jazz band, and there are even picnic tables. It is open Sundays 8:30-2 pm.

LA Mill Coffee Boutique, Silver Lake

We met up with our friends Ron and Fran (and Vincent!) for brunch at LA Mill Coffee in Silver Lake this past weekend. I am in love with this place!

We started with house-made brioche doughnut holes (6 for $3.50). The doughnut holes were so light, it was like eating sugar dusted clouds. They came with an airy vanilla whipped cream (additional .50). We were in heaven.

Brad ordered the Steak and Eggs ($11). Soft scrambled eggs were accompanied by flank steak, chives and a house-made steak sauce.

I got the Arctic Char Tartare ($15) with creme fraiche, capers, hard boiled egg and toasted house made brioche. The arctic char melted on my tongue, its flavor punctuated by salty capers and sweet sour pickled onions. Egg yolk was presented crumbled on the side, and egg whites were chopped up, providing an interesting texture.

We'll definitely be back to LA Mill soon. If you go, don't forget to get the coffee--they're famous for it!

A Confetti Corn Salad Bento

I made Brad this corn salad bento out of these leftover ingredients we had in the fridge:

raw sweet corn kernels cut off the cob

cucumber

tomato

jalapeno yogurt cheese from Trader Joes

ham deli slices

apple cider vinegar

salt and pepper

I love raw sweet corn! The apple cider vinegar balanced out the sweetness, and the jalapeno cheese added a nice spicy kick.

Kogi Truck

Spicy Pork and Short Rib Tacos

I know, I'm a little late blogging about Kogi! I finally tried the godfather of the gourmet food trucks after seeing that they were going to be outside Chego on a weekday afternoon. They were actually an hour late due to "truck troubles", but that's ok. After waiting in line for a few minutes, I ordered a short rib and pork tacos ($2 each) and a short rib burrito ($5).

I enjoyed the tacos more than the burrito. I found it kind of weird to have bulgogi beef and cheese together in the burrito. The burritos also had quite a few tough bits of beef tendon that I had to discard. The tacos didn't have cheese in them, and they had a great sweet-salty flavor. I would definitely get the tacos again, just as long as I don't have to wait in line for too long!

The inside of a short rib burrito