Hey! Do you like club music? Yeah?
How about classical music, the kind that you go to concert halls with dates to?
Well, how about combining the two?
50 Cent Vitamin Water Commercial
Posted Jun 02, 2007
So what’s so bad about a food court?
Maybe I should elaborate. Food Courts in American malls are generally bad. I mean, if a restaurant is in the local mall’s food court, chances are that the food is, ahem, pedestrian. Food meant for the masses and designed to appeal to people from Sioux City to Santa Clarita. And the less said about “ethnic” food chains that almost exclusively exist in food courts, the better. Think Panda Express or Sbarro’s or even Wolfgang Puck Express for a better idea of what I’m trying to get across here.
You can find good food in here (besides the groceries)
Food Courts in ethnic (read: not Safeway, Vons, Whole Foods or the like) grocery stores however, can be really good. Hell, even my beloved hawker centres in Singapore can be considered “food courts” minus the air-con. If you’ve got air-con, you then become an indoor food court.
Here in Costa Mesa, you have an udon place, a donburi place and a ramen place and a couple of other places tucked away inside this Mitsuwa Marketplace. Sometimes they are even part of a (gasp!) chain.
There’s good eats in this food court. Really.
Santouka Ramen in the food court
In Santouka’s case, they ARE part of a chain of ramen restaurants. From Tokyo. Does that still make them an evil chain? Probably not. Does their ramen deserve the hype? Well, that’s what I’m here to find out, 10 minutes away from John Wayne Airport (SNA), having a late lunch.
What to eat? How about that one on the left bottom corner?
According to ramenramenramen.net and rameniac, they’re part of a Tokyo based chain that is expanding in Southern California. Now I’m normally a Kyushu-men (Tonkotsu broth & stewed pork) kinda guy and this will be the first time I’ve had Ashikawa ramen (pork bone & seafood stock), which hails from Hokkaido. I ordered the #7, the shio ramen combo with the noodles and broth in a bowl and the pork and other condiments on the side (Sally would appreciate that), leaving the springy ramen noodles swimming in the surprisingly light shio broth with sesame seeds by itself. It was great! Although you can’t really tell the greatness by that simple statement because it’s not in ALL CAPS and in 60 point strong text, because that would be tacky. When you assemble your #7, drop the chasiu into the broth and then bury it under some noodles for a minute to warm it up. Then chew slowly, letting the buttery, meaty goodness coat your tongue before you let it slowly slide down your gullet. So there’s something good in THIS food court. Eat here!
The number seven comes with noodles & broth separate from the sides…
…so you can make your own bowl of shio ramen!
If this is what “chain restaurants” can be like, let’s have MORE Japanese food chains in supermarkets!! Santouka’s also in West LA too.
Santouka Ramen (inside the Mitsuwa Supermarket)
665 Paularino Avenue
Costa Mesa CA 92676
714-434-1101
Boring Stuff, Nothing of note to Report
…so not a lot of update-worthy stuff happening.
Unlike my fren DSD, who took the plunge and moved to London on a UK working holiday visa (Why we dun get those here, I’ll never understand. Must be a union thing), I’ve been up to ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that’s worth recording in photo or in words.
Over the next few weeks, here’s what’s up with me (as of 1 June):
Fix my black car’s headliner Done!
Fix the washing machine (stupid electrical stuff) Done!
Begin replacing windows in one of the buildings Signed Paperwork to authorise work
Begin backyard renovation (a lot of weeds to pull)
Begin hunting for new used couch & chair
Begin cleaning out the garage
Explore bathroom remodel
Explore repainting the house
You will notice that NONE of these things involve travel, EQM or flirting with SQ girls. How boring! I did take a brief roadtrip to the Napa Valley and paid a return visit to the Silver Oak Winery. You will recall, last time I made the trip up there was for the February winter release party that was to be the last one there because they’re tearing down the old, fire damaged building. I found out on my recent visit that Silver Oak will continue to have release parties in Oakville. But the question is, how?
It has a purty parking lot though. Wonder how they’re going to pull it off?
A brief visit to the SFMOMA
There was a long line. Some of it was because of the early Picasso exhibit, but mostly it was because the SFMOMA is open late on Thursday night (to 2030!) and it’s half price starting at 1800.
Unlike many of the other museums I’ve been to (Tate Modern, Louvre, MOMA, Musee d’Orsay), the SFMOMA forbids photography in the main galleries. WTF? I guess they REALLY want you to buy an overpriced exhibition catalogue. As a result, there won’t be a lot of pix in this post.
As with the other “modern art” museums I’ve visited in the past, much thought was put into the design of the building. SFMOMA is no exception to that. When you first enter the museum, your senses are assaulted by both a bright airy space and a very shiny patterened floor. It works.
It’s a nice building, the permanent exhibits are interesting and it’s half a block down from the W San Francisco and its XYZ bar. What more do you need?
11K!
11,000 miles! Time for a beer!
LAN Restaurant, Beijing
I arrived at my fren’s place after midnight and slept hard. The first real meal in Beijing was to be the following day’s dinner at the LAN Restaurant, the latest eatery designed by Phillipe Starck in the Chaoyang District.
LAN is part of the South Beauty (Qiao Jiang Nan) chain based out of Beijing that is spreading all over the country and going international very soon. On my last visit to Beijing, I dined at South Beauty for the first time and found the food and atmosphere very swish. I like!
Anyhoo, I didn’t take too many pix here because A: I was really hungry and B: Apparently restaurants here are paranoid of people taking pix inside just in case competition wants to copy them. WTF? The pix are going to be the same as the website which is accessible to anyone, even the competition. So what’s the harm? There ARE some people who actually got to take pix. See here.
Quite possibly the best chicken I’ve ever had in a Chinese restaurant...
Liquid tofu that turns solid after you stir it up. My fren’s attempt at getting me to eat healthy!
Mmmm. Strawberry tart-like dessert. Yum!
One place at LAN that i’ve NOT seen posted on the net so far is their widely acclaimed bathrooms. So here, gentle reader, is how the can looks like at LAN. The LAN can.
The LAN can, AKA the throne. It’s square with lots of disco mirrors. Why is there a comfy seat for a co-pilot?
This is where you wash your hands. Duh.
A fun place to eat and the bar was nice too. Gotta come back here in October!
For Culture Vultures in the US
This is for all of us that live in the US and have BofA/MBNA credit cards.
Go here and choose a museum. If you have a BofA/MBNA credit card, you and a guest get to go in for FREE!
Free culture lah! That’s a deal! “Culture” here tends to be on the expen$ive side, like visiting the New York Museum of Modern Art (US$20!) or even the SF MOMA (US$12!). But in the month of May with the right credit card, it’s FREEE!
So go get cultured next month!
Been Busy
No updates usually means I’ve been busy with other non-travel stuff (boooo!).
Been working on a couple of projects, one fundraiser and one awareness/educational event. Takes a lot of time and ALWAYS comes down to the wire. After it’s all done, I could sure use a quick trip down to LA for some food. Or even better, a longer trip to Hong Kong for some good won ton mein. *drooling*
Got some more Beijing pix of a verrry interesting bathroom coming up. Soon!
Credit/Debit Cards and Forex
I’m not a big fan of carrying lots of cash when I travel (except in Japan) unless it’s absolutely necessary. Usually I’ll locate my bank’s ATMs at my destination so I can withdraw cash as needed. Sometimes though, I’ll be making a big purchase that requires a credit card (usually air tickets or hotels/hostels). Unfortunately, most US credit card issuers luuurve to double dip, charging “fees” (I mean “profit”) for using your credit card overseas.
Here’s a link to banks in the US and the foreign surcharges they levy. Good to know when you’re going through the junk mail pile full of credit card offers.
UPDATE: Waaah! You can use your Discover Card on mainland China. No surcharge!
Great Quote
This is a quote that I thought up while talking on the phone.
Rear view mirror says “Objects Closer than they Appear”. SO DRIVE FASTER!“
Also been watching a lot of Giada De Laurentiis. She has a cooking show in these parts.
Cooking means eating! Yum!
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