Andy Gavin's Blog, page 20
June 8, 2024
Lunch Quest – Bang Bang
Restaurant: Bang Bang Noodles
Location: 9355 Culver Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232.
Date: July 21, 2023
Cuisine: Western Chinese Noodles
Rating: Prefer the SGV
_One of my last AFFs before I got too busy with work.
Bang Bang has an outpost in this Culver City food court.
I’ve wanted to try Bang Bang for a while — being the spicy Chinese noodle lover that I am — and it was decent. Certainly the cucumbers, dumplings and dry garlic noodles were solid. But I wasn’t blown away. Sigh.
Knife cut noodle...
June 6, 2024
Majordomo 2023
Restaurant: Majordomo [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
Location: 1725 Naud St, Los Angeles, CA 90012 (323) 545-4880
Date: July 17, 2023
Cuisine: Korean Fusion
Rating: Big dishes amazing
_It’s with gigantic expectation that NY restaurateur David Chang opened his first LA outpost last year and since then it’s become a regular foodie and wine destination among my friends. Tonight is my sixth visit, and my third time with the Hedonists. It’s pretty much a summer tradition now.
Looking on the map, I was pretty s...
June 3, 2024
Staycation – Tang Dynasty
Restaurant: Tang Dynasty
Location: 227 W Valley Blvd Floor 3 Ste 348, San Gabriel, CA 91778. (626) 213-2888
Date: July 15, 2023
Cuisine: Vaguely Hunan + skewers?
Rating: Tasty, almost Chinese “bar food”?
_Part 2 of the 2023 “Staycation” brings us to Tang Dynasty on the 3rd floor of the Hilton Shopping Plaza.
Top floor of this mall I’ve been too lots of times.
The frontage.
This location used to be Chang’an — not the one in Tustin but a different Chang’an I never visited — but now it’s chang...
June 1, 2024
Bludsos BBQ Santa Monica
Restaurant: Bludsos BBQ
Location: 1329 Santa Monica Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90404. (310) 310-2775
Date: July 13, 2023 and September 2023
Cuisine: BBQ
Rating: Fine, but a bit dry
_
They’ve moved in at 14th and Santa Monica.
Typical interior with a long bar.
The menu. You can actually get 1/4 lb of different meats which really helps. Otherwise it would be odd.
Hotlinks on the left (pretty good). Pulled pork in the back (good but a touch dry). Rib tips at the bottom (delciious, maybe a bit sweet...
May 30, 2024
Republique Latour
Restaurant: Republique [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]
Location: 624 S La Brea Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90036. (310) 362-6115
Date: July 12, 2023
Cuisine: Modern Bistro French
Rating: Nice (loud) space, tasty hip food, great service
_I haven’t been back to Republique in a while, but this special Latour dinner was a great excuse!
Still doing great even years later.
We are, of course, in the private room. Way better than downstairs at this very loud but very good restaurant.
The menu....
May 28, 2024
Brothers Shunji
Restaurant: The Brothers Sushi Santa Monica — but not — Shunji Hashiba
Location: 1008 Montana Ave #1, Santa Monica, CA 90403. (424) 330-0270
Date: July 8, 2023
Cuisine: Toyko Sushi
Rating: Awesome — maybe the best sushi I’ve had in the states
_Our Foodie Gang has been going to the incredible “The Brothers Sushi” in the valley for some time now, and it was with much glee that we welcomed in the brand new (and somewhat delayed) Montana Santa Monica location. Now it’s become a bit of a staple spot...
May 26, 2024
Eating Dutch – The Seafood Bar
Restaurant: The Seafood Bar
Location: Amsterdam
Date: July 4, 2023
Cuisine: Seafood
Rating: Pretty similar to a San Francisco style seafooder
_Our final meal of the trip (not including bad plane food).
It’s always hard to find somewhere that will please our entire large group and so we tried pretty hard to get into this small chain Amsterdam seafooder — which would.
The menu.
This lovely Sancerre that birthday girl Emma chose.
Fried calamari rings with mayo — nice.
Bitterballen. The class...
May 24, 2024
Eating Amsterdam – Dignita
Restaurant: Dignita
Location: Amsterdam
Date: July 4, 2023
Cuisine: Cafe
Rating: Solid
_On our final day in the Netherlands we shuffled west to Amsterdam.
We stopped at this hipster spot in central Amsterdam for a quick lunch.
Attractive outdoor space. For a country with far worse weather than LA, they sure have a lot more nice outside dining — boo on you LA regulators!
Salmon Benny — aka benedict but over hash browns. Cute!
Dutch pancake.
Avo Toast or similar.
Cilbir. Turkish eggs and yo...
May 22, 2024
Eating Grubbenvorst – Clevers
Restaurant: Clevers
Location: Lottumseweg 1, 5971 BT Grubbenvorst, Netherlands. +31 77 366 1459
Date: July 2, 2023
Cuisine: Ice Cream Parlor
Rating: Over-the-top sundaes with awesome Ice-Cream
_Clevers (pronounced Cleavers) is a local institution in this land of excellent dairy.
For a town of just a few hundred it’s huge!
They have a book-like menu, but here was just a relevant page. They serve a vast array of sundaes.
Mixed berry.
Strawberries and Cream.
Mango Sorbetto.
Pineapple (serve...
May 20, 2024
Eating Maastricht – Spice of India
Restaurant: Spice of India
Location: Achter Het Vleeshuis 27, 6211 GR Maastricht, Netherlands. +31 43 321 6375
Date: July 1, 2023
Cuisine: Indian
Rating: Slow, and too much sugar
_I was excited to get some Indian as I’ve had pretty much nothing but Turkish for 3 weeks. This place in Maastricht is a favorite of my friend Gus’.
The town of Maastricht is super cute and lively — it’s been a bustling trade city since Roman times.
Cute interior.
We had as huge table.
Perfectly pleasant petite cha...
