Doggy-Style Hot Dogs

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Doggy-Style Hot Dogs is the Bay Area's answer to Japadog in Vancouver.  I've never been to Japadog so I can't weigh in on how these Asian style hot dogs measured up to the ever so famous Japadog.  The East Bay seem to have San Francisco in the hot dog category.  Doggy-Style definitely beats out the dogs at Pig & Pie (see post HERE), but I guess you can always default to Roseamunde (see post HERE).

  There were so many delectable options here that I'll probably have to make another trip just to satisfy my curiosity.  Funniest moment of the day was when someone came in and asked if they just have regular plain old hot dogs.     

There are 8 specialty hot dogs on the regular menu with a couple as well as a couple special dogs posted around the shop.  If you aren't in a fancy mood, they have your standard hot dogs and a choice of sausages:  polish, hot link, calabrese, bratwurst, linguica, and chicken apple. 

 

The kimchi dog is a Korean twist on a hot dog.  A hot link grilled to perfection with an awesome snap to it is topped with kimchi, and spicy red mayo.  Cucumber spears are tucked in with the hot link for added crunchiness.  The buns here are better than I've had in a while.  Each bun is toasted and holds up to the last bite, which is surprising considering how many ingredients are stuff into each bun.

The Kare dog is one of the added special dogs in the shop.  It was my favorite of the three I had.  How can I resist Japanese curry and some of my favorite type of pickles - takuwan (yellow) and fujinzuke (red) ? You know how sometimes you eat curry and you just need some bread to sop it up.  Well, no need here, its the perfect package.  The curry is ladled with love over an all beef hot dog.  The crunch from the pickles along with the soft potatoes provide a perfect mix of taste and textures.  The curry does make the bun a little soggy, but it still holds up.

The Doggyzilla is literally a hot dog with all the fixings!  Bratwurst, an asian slaw, wasabi mayo, teriyaki sauce, and shredded nori (seaweed) all stuffed into one nicely toasted bun.  This is the dog that was splashed over Sunset Magazine and other publications, but I still preferred the others better.  High five for a solid tasting wasabi mayo.

Address:               Doggy-Style Hot Dogs
                              1234 Park St.
                              Alameda, CA 
 

Type:                     hot dogs/Asian/Japanese

Popular chomps:   kimchi dog
                               kare dog
                               banh mi dog
                               doggyzilla

Chomp worthy:      kimchi dog
                               kare dog          

Market & Rye

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I've pretty much missed out on Top Chef Alum Ryan Scott's 3-Sum Eats truck (he's discontinuing them), so I hoped to try his next best thing - his newly opened Market & Rye sandwich shop.  He just recently opened a second location in Potrero Hill in addition to the original West Portal location.  However, the Potrero Hill location is only open Monday through Fridays. 

The sandwich shop is small and quaint.  The plentiful sunlight gives a nice environment when devouring the fresh tasting food.

Market & Rye serves up some seasonal already made salads.  You can pick one for $3.5, two for $7, or three for $10.  I chose the brussel sprout salad and a scoop of the grilled peach salad.  Grilled brussel sprouts were mixed with spicy chilis, and Parmesan dressing.  The grilled peach salad had huge slices of nicely charred peaches, charred onions, bacon, and arugula mixed with roasted shallot-buttermilk dressing.  The brussel sprout salad was my favorite of the two with crunchy brussel sprouts.  I only wished the chilis were cut a little smaller.  The slices from the peach salad were a little too big and the dressing was a little too creamy for my taste.

 

Originally, I came here in hopes of getting the famous fried chicken sandwich, but unfortunately its only at the Potrero Hill location.  Only till after I visited the West Portal location did I realize the menu at the Portrero location has different and more interesting items.

   One of the interesting items at the West Portal location was the chicken salad with Doritos Ranch chips.  A layer of avocado spread on your choice of bread (rye, sourdough, foccacia or whole wheat)- this one is sourdough- along with a thin layer of chicken salad, a slice of pepperjack cheese, iceburg lettuce, and Doritos Cool Ranch chips.  I really wanted to like this sandwich, but there wasn't much chicken salad in the sandwich and there was way too much mayo for me.  Also, the pepperjack didn't seem like it was even pepperjack.  It was more mild in flavor and I thought it was provolone.  The layer of Cool Ranch Doritos was a nice touch, but the crispiness of that plus the thick layers of iceburg lettuce made the sandwich too crunchy. 

 

The reuben chicken meatball had 1000 Island dressing, sauerkraut, red cabbage slaw, and swiss cheese.  The sandwich needed some extra oomph and seemed a bit too mild.  Again, the mayo seems to be a little heavy handed at this place. 

       

Address:                 Market & Rye
                                68 W. Portal Ave.
                                San Francisco, CA
 

Type:                       American/sandwich

Popular chomps:     reuben meatball sandwich
                                brussel sprout salad
                                truffled egg salad sandwich
                                rootbeer float twinkies
                                BLT
                                cornflake crusted chicken sandwich
                                chicken salad sandwich with Doritos ranch chips      

Chomp worthy:       brussel sprout salad        

Brodard Restaurant

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It seems to be the general consensus among many that the nem nuong cuon (pork spring rolls) are to die for here.  That amongst a couple other dishes seem to draw a huge crowd.  This place has a ridiculous wait.  Just to give you a better picture - this is how many people showed up at 9:30a and even more people were waiting when I was leaving! 

The spring rolls here are so popular they have a nonstop assembly line wrapping them and even with that I still had to wait 20 minutes for mine!

I've seen macarons sold at other Vietnamese shops before, but I've often ignore it.  I read somewhere that Brodard's macarons were superior to that of Laduree in Paris, where they actually wowed me, so I figured I had to pick some up and do a taste test.

For $1.25 each, they offer 12 flavors of macarons here (not in order): coconut, salted caramel, pistachio, durian, taro, hazelnut, chocolate, raspberry, coffee, lemon, orange, mango-passionfruit.  They are pretty good, definitely one of the better ones that I've had, but not even close to the league of Laduree's.  The outside is chewy and the creme is very flavorful with a true showcase of each of the flavors.  Laduree's has a light crisp crust when you bite into it then it has a soft chewiness.  

My favorite flavor of the bunch was salted caramel ( I should have bought more!) and the worst is durian, not that the durian one was bad tasting, more like it actually tasted like durian, which I dislike.

 

The chao tom cuon (shrimp spring rolls) is rolled with a dense shrimp cake, cucumbers, lettuce, carrot, daikon, mint, and cilantro.  I preferred this one over their original nem nuong cuon.  The shrimp was flavorful and had a nice springy texture and the sweetness of their house sauce complimented well with the sweetness from the shrimp.

 

Nem chua cuon is cured beef wrapped with cucumbers, cilantro, carrot, and mint.  The cured beef gives this roll a very sour and somewhat pungent taste.  Nem chua isn't one of my favorite Vietnamese meats, but the meat was pretty flavorful with a solid sour kick.

 

The infamous nem nuong cuon (pork rolls).  Although these are professionally wrapped and not sloppily made by yours truly, I still prefer the ones at Nem Nuong Ninh Hoa (see post HERE).  I prefer mine to have a more standout crispy bit and more crunchy texture, usually from the pickled vegetables I add myself at Nem Nuong Ninh Hoa.  Also, the meat doesn't seem as flavorful as Nem Nuong Ninh Hoa's.  Still it is good if you haven't had Nem Nuong Ninh Hoa's.

 

I was kind of surprised they gave nuoc mam (fish sauce) with all the rolls in addition to their famous house sauce.  The nuoc mam here is more on the very sweet side and even though it has some chili flakes, it doesn't have much heat.

The nem nuong sauce at Brodards by far superior to that of Nem Nuong Ninh Hoa (sorry, sis).  Nem Nuong Ninh Hoa's is a little flat tasting, while Brodard's secret sauce has more depth of flavors.  I liked how they put a lot of chunks of garlic in the sauce.  

       

Address:                  Brodard Restaurant
                                 9892 Westminister Ave.
                                 Garden Grove, CA 
 

Type:                       Vietnamese

Popular chomps:      nem nuong cuon
                                 bun bo hue
                                 bo luc lac (shaken beef)
                                 macarons
                                  

Chomp worthy:        macarons
                                 nem nuong cuon

Restaurant Komasa

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Japanese food, especially sushi, is a must when I visit LA.  Even the most average sushi restaurant in LA is 10x better than sushi in the Bay Area plus its cheaper.  Sushi Komasa is one of the more popular sushi restaurants in LA's Japantown.  Not the level of Urasawa or even Sushi-Gen, but its still pretty awesome.  The line here starts right when the restaurant opens so you have to get here early if you don't want to wait over an hour.

Inside the restaurant, it looks like an average sushi restaurant with seats at the bar and a couple of tables.

Each piece of the fish in the chirashi is super fresh and worth the meager $12.  Something like this in SF would cost $18 at least.  I don't usually eat maguro (tuna) because I find that its usually flavorless and uncomparable to what I've eaten in Japan, but the maguro at Komasa hailed a "not bad" from me.  I enjoyed the uni here.  It was custardy and sweet.

One thing to note here is the fish in the sushi does come room temperature, which is uncommon in the US, but pretty standard in Japan.  Even though the coloring of the salmon was a pasty pink color, the flavor was rich and buttery.

The hirame (halibut) was lightly brushed with soy sauce and topped with ume (plum).  The sushi had a contrasting taste of sweetness from the fish, salty from the soy sauce, and sourness from the plum.

It took me a couple minutes to realize that this was the scallop sushi that I ordered.  I was expecting the hotate to come sliced on a bed of rice, but instead it was chopped up and mixed with mayo and roe.  I'm not a fan of mayo mixed sushi because I feel like its hiding unfresh fish.

 

The tamago (egg) was fluffy and had a nice custard texture.  

 

The salmon skin roll was mixed with pickled vegetables, but the skin didn't have the crackly crisp that I expected.

For the nonsushi eaters, Komasa offers a range of cooked combination items.  The tonkatsu was a little dry and too lean for my taste.  The tempura had every vegetable, except for my favorite eggplant piece.  The potato salad side dish had a mix of mashed potatoes and chunky potatoes for delicious contrasting textures.

      

Address:                      Restaurant Komasa
                                     351 E. 2nd St.
                                     Los Angeles, CA 
 

Type:                            Japanese/sushi

Popular chomps:          spicy tuna roll
                                      sweet shrimp
                                      uni

Chomp worthy:             uni
                                      chirashi  

Mitsuru Cafe

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There's a lot of little snacking places in Little Tokyo.  One thats hard to ignore is Mitsuru Cafe, especially when it seems like everyone is popping in here to pick up their imagawayaki.  

I'm not a red bean fan at all, but even I was a little curious to see how they tasted here.  These little cakes remind me of my summers in Hawaii.  As a child, these cakes filled with the vanilla custard were one of my favorite snacks there.  Unfortunately, after many searches I've been unsuccessful in locating the vanilla custard filled ones.  The only remnants of one of my favorite snacks seem to be only the red bean filled ones.  Even in Hawaii, it seems that the vanilla custard ones are no longer made.

The takoyaki (octopus balls) were one of the many other street snacks sold here.  I liked that they put them on a stick for a quick food on the go option.  The takoyaki balls were ok here.  I've had better.  These were a little too mushy and the sauce was all soaked in already.

 

Just walking up to the window you can see that the imagawayaki are made fresh.  When you order them, you can feel the warmth of it in your hands.  The pancake like outside is filled with the soft, sweet azuki bean.  Since the turnover here is pretty high, the cake is dense, but chewy with a subtle sweet taste.  Even though, I tend to turn up my nose at red bean, these were pretty delicious.

Address:                    Mitsuru Cafe
                                   117 Japanese Village Plz Mall
                                   Los Angeles, CA 
 

Type:                          Japanese/bakery

Popular chomps:        imagawayaki       

Chomp worthy:           imagawayaki

Best Fish Taco in Ensenada (BFTIE)

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Still with the taste of delicious fish tacos on my lips and on my mind, I proceeded down the street to check out Ricky's competitor -Best Fish Taco In Ensenada.  Somewhat of a cocky name, this place had an even simpler menu than Ricky's.  They only serve three things here - fish taco, shrimp taco, and drinks.

The tacos are fried to order, but even so they didn't look so appetizing from this side of the counter. 

The fish tacos here come as plain as you can get.  Just a fried piece of fish (or shrimp) on top of a tortilla.  You dress it up yourself along with adding your own shredded cabbage.  A multiple number of salsa selections are laid out, but it didn't look too fresh.

I got both tacos: fish and shrimp.  The tacos are made with a limp tortilla and the batter is seasoned almost to the point where you can't taste anything else. 

The fish tacos are flaky and fresh, but it lacks any type of flavor explosion that Ricky's tacos had.  Even with the salsa and the creme fresca added to it, this taco still paled in comparison to Ricky's, especially when the memory was so fresh on my tastebuds.

Same thing goes with the shrimp tacos here - It's not even worth the less than 5 minute walk from Ricky's to even try it.  The batter is too salty and the shell of the batter just flakes off while eating.  If anything, these tacos makes you want to run back to Ricky's and get more tacos.

Address:                  Best Fish Taco In Ensenada
                                 1650 Hillhurst Ave.
                                 Los Angeles, CA 
 

Type:                        Mexican/seafood

Popular chomps:      fish taco
                                 shrimp taco                      

Chomp worthy:        nothing        

Ricky's Fish Tacos

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My first food stop on this LA trip was finding this fish taco spot.  I can't really say that before this I've had a life changing fish taco.  In the Bay Area my #1 fish taco spot is The Taco Shop at Underdog's (see post HERE), which is beyond amazing, but the fish tacos at Ricky's far exceeds it.  It's been a couple days and I'm still thinking about their fish taco!
  Pitched under a couple of tents, they fry up some might fine fish, lobster, and shrimp here.  Its set up almost in the middle of a driveway so it can be easily missed from the street.  Parking is somewhat of a horror and surprisingly its one of the few spots in LA that there is no valet, yet.  I suggest going when they first open, which is around noon.  I arrived a little after and still had to endure a decent wait time.            

At almost 30+ minute wait for your order, the 90 degree heat definitely tested my bay area born and bred I-can-only-surive-between-65-and-80-degrees self. 

Ricky's only serves three things here:  fish taco, lobster taco, and shrimp taco.  I almost prefer food spots this way, where they focus on a couple of things and make them well.  At first glance, I was a little uneasy that the batter on the fish was really thick, but braced myself that I had to get something for sustaining through this LA heat.

Usually I'm not one for sauces on my tacos.  A squirt of lime and I'm good to go, but they don't offer limes here.  Instead, they give you the option of four types of sauces.  From right;clockwise: creme fresca (which is more like a mayo + sour cream), spicy, medium, and mild.  I actually individually tasted all of them before I put any on my tacos.  All of them were so delicious that I added all of them to my tacos, which is unheard of for me.  The sauces here were super flavorful with a good peppery kick.  Even better than La Vic's orange sauce.  I would almost say that the sauces might even be better than the tacos itself, but the tacos were fantastic as well.  The sauces just heightened the already phenomenal tacos.

 

After being dressed with cabbage, diced tomatoes, jalapenos, and onions, both the lobster and fish taco look almost the same, but the taste is completely different.  The fish taco is made of a flaky white fish that has a mild, but fresh taste.  The batter was seasoned well, but not too overpowering that it covered the fresh taste of the fish.  Even though the lobster taco was delicious, I think the fish taco was my favorite of the two.

In hindsight I should have gotten the shrimp taco too, but I was saving room for other eats I had planned for the day.  The lobster was sweet and succulent, but I think I preferred my lobster without batter and not deep fried, especially at $8 for one, I need the taste to last a little longer.

Address:               Ricky's Fish Tacos
                              1400 N. Virgil Ave.
                              Los Angeles, CA
 

Type:                     Mexican/seafood

Popular chomps:   fish taco
                               lobster taco
                               shrimp taco

Chomp worthy:      fish taco
                               lobster taco          

Roam Artisan Burgers

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This Lower Pac Heights (Fillmore) location marks the second outpost of Roam Artisan Burger.  Roam offers the same artisan burger concept as Super Duper Burger (see post HERE) with a couple more signature options.

 

The burgers are a little on the small side here (in both thickness and actual size) compared to the other burger competitors in the city (Super Duper, Umami, etc).  The veggies layered on the burgers are quite fresh albeit the lettuce leaf was ginormous.    

The sunny side burger was probably the most interesting to me.  Although it was a toss up between this and the tejano (pepperjack cheese, jalapeno relish, avocado, tomato, white corn strips, and herb ranch), but naturally the runny egg just calls to me.  Unfortunately, by the time I was able to get my hands on my burger, half the yolk already dripped out of the burger!  What sadness!  Besides the organic free range egg, the sunny side burger had aged white cheddar, caramelized onions, greens, tomatoes, and a sweet chili sauce.  I found the burger to be a little too sweet for my liking, probably from the caramelized onions and sweet chili sauce.  The biggest gripe from Roam burgers are the patty is so thin.   All the flavors from the ingredients as well as their textures overpower the puny patty.  Possibly best to order a double patty here.

Same deal with their classic burger - the overgrown lettuce, which is larger than the actual burger!  The classic comes with butter lettuce, tomato, onion, house made pickles, and house sauce.  The burger was overall ok, but still prefer Umami or Super Duper's burgers to this.  Roam's house made pickles are superb though.  Much better than Super Duper's.  They have the perfect crunch and tart and tangy combination.

 

There are three types of "fries" served up at Roam: russet fries, sweet potato, and zucchini onion haystack.  If you are indecisive like me, they offer the fry fecta, which is a combination of all three.  The russet fries were decent, but nothing special.  A light crisp outside with a smooshy potato inside.  The sweet potato fries were a little on the limp side and lacked any crispy pieces.  The zucchini onion haystack was probably the best of the three.  It offered a fried stringy munchable option.  Also on these fries are a choice of custom seasonings:  truffle parmesan, fresh herb, and chipotle maple.  They were a little over the top for me to order.

Address:                Roam Artisan Burgers
                               1923 Fillmore St.
                               San Francisco, CA 
 

Type:                      burgers

Popular chomps:    bison
                               classic
                               sunnyside
                               tejano
                               fry-fecta 

Chomp worthy:      nothing