Andy Gavin's Blog, page 144
February 21, 2014
Cholesterol Check
Restaurant: Plan Check Kitchen
Location: 1800 Sawtelle Blvd. Los Angeles, Ca 90025. 310-288-6500
Date: Febuary 11, 2014
Cuisine: Gastropub
Rating: the crullers and chicken were worth the heart attack
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Hidden between the Korean BBQ and Japanese noodle joints on Sawtelle the relatively new gastropub style American eatery, Plan Check Kitchen.
The lunch menu.
Chorizo sausage, green garlic. I don’t really see the garlic, but this is fine fresh chorizo (if said dish can ever be called fresh).
Cucumber, kom...
February 19, 2014
Banqueting at Shanghai #1
Restaurant:Shanghai #1 Seafood Village[1, 2, 3]
Location:250 W Valley Blvd.San Gabriel, CA 91776.(626) 282-1777
Date: February 16, 2013
Cuisine: Chinese
Rating: Very authentic Shanghai style
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The San Gabriel Valley is averitabletreasure trove of Asian dining, particularly regional Chinese.Shanghai #1 Seafood Village is the LA branch of a high end Shanghai chain specializing in banquet dining.
The decor is Stark meets Chinatown. Interestingly, as cheesy as it is, it’s fairly authentic.
As this is a H...
February 17, 2014
Valentines at the Peninsula
Restaurant: The Belvedere
Location: 9882 South Santa Monica Blvd. Beverly Hills, Ca, 90212. 310-551-2888
Date: February 14, 2014
Cuisine: California French
Rating: Good food, turbo service
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Every year, my wife and I try somewhere different for Valentines. Not only is this one of the best grossing nights of the year, but it’s also one of the least diner friendly. Restaurants tend toward overpriced fixed menus and aggressively tight seatings. This year, we went for the fancy dining room in the Penin...
February 13, 2014
Feasting Lunasia
Restaurant: Lunasia
Location:500 West Main Street Suite A, Alhambra,CA91801.(626) 308-3222
Date: Febuary 9, 2014
Cuisine: Cantonese Chinese
Rating: Fine Banquet Cantonese
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Another week, another Hedonist Chinese extravaganza in the SGV. Up this time, Lunasia, usually known for its all day dimsum. But tonight we’re here for Cantonese banquet.
In a lovely private room. Lunasia is definitely much better looking than many of the local places.
2011 Hatzidakis Winery Assyrtiko. 89 points.Fantastic minerali...
February 11, 2014
Game of Thrones Season 4 Preview
HBO has released this 15 minute preview/behind-the-scenes forGame of Thronesseason 4.
Despite having passed the seminal Red Wedding, I have to say Season 4 looks pretty damn awesome. They look to be making the most of the second half of A Storm of Swords (and perhaps some of A Feast of Crows). Increases in technology and budget (perhaps due to the success) make it look the scope is even grander. Joff’s wedding, some of Dany’s city shots, and the battle for the wall all ought to be epic. From t...
February 10, 2014
Dream a Little Dream
The e-book versions of The Darkening Dream will be on sale for only 99 cents this week through at leastFriday February 14th! Take the plunge, it’s certainly a great deal. And if anything celebrates Valentines right, it’s a little succubus on psychopath action (villains, of course).
Buy it on Amazon!
Tweet, share, like, follow, blog and grab a copy of my book.
Plus, if you don’t like to read and only want to listen, there is always the new audiobook version.
Listen to a free sample if you like:
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February 7, 2014
Golden Oldie – The Legend of Zelda
The original cover
In this case it’s literally a golden oldie, as the cartridge was gold (at least the earliest ones). And I still have that yellowing piece of plastic in my “cart box” but I didn’t actually need it this time (I sold my NES years ago anyway). This time, I booted the classic up on OpenEmu, an awesome new mac 8 and 16 bit emulator with masterly emulations of all the great 80s and early 90s systems (Gameboy, NES, SNES, Genesis, etc). Hey, and it’s fair use, because I did keep that...
February 3, 2014
Old School Cool
Restaurant: The Dal Rae
Location:9023 E Washington Blvd, Pico Rivera, CA 90660.(562) 949-2444
Date: February 1, 2014
Cuisine: American
Rating: Excellent and extremely old school
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With the success of our High End Burgundy and High End Bordeaux themed dinners, weHedonists are experimenting with more ideas. Tonight all the wines are requried to be 99 and 100 point (in some major publication). The setting is The Dal Rae, which is a massively old school mid century classic out in the middle of outer Mo...
January 31, 2014
XLB – Soup Dumplings!
Restaurant: Roc
Location:2049 Sawtelle Blvd.Los Angeles, CA 90025.(310) 235-2089
Date: January 24, 2014
Cuisine: Taiwanese Chinese
Rating: Awesome XLB
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Among lovers of Chinese food the Xia Long Bao, or XLB for short, is a particular favorite. These little thin skinned dumplings stuffed with (usually) pork and a hot broth are quite delicious. So when a friend told me than one of the managers from Din Tai Fung (an SGV Taiwanese XLB palace) had opened a place on the Westside I waited all of about 24...
January 29, 2014
Serious Szechuan
Location:920 E Garvey Ave.Monterey Park, CA 91755. 626-288-2218
Date: January 26, 2013
Cuisine: SzechuanChinese
Rating: Awesome!
ANY CHARACTER HERE
Chinese food is incredible regional, and we are blessed in SoCal with a lot of very specific restaurants (mostly in the San Gabriel Valley). My Hedonist grouphas returned to this little known spicy Szechuan in the corner of an undiscovered Monterey Park strip mall. We loveSzechuan for its spicy/smoky flavors. This is a cuisine th...
